God Talks

I believe that God wants and does talk to us today.  Weird, huh?  I believe it though, because I have had full conversations with Him that I can’t write off as self-talk.

I’ve had moments of quick interjections into my mind that, in hindsight, were obviously God.  My wife walked away from a 12-year, six-figure job because she prayed, unbeknownst to me, that God would give us direction through me and God interrupted a perfectly normal day with direction to have her apply for a separation package the company was offering.  That was a shocking occurrence and one that dramatically changed the trajectory of our lives.  Not quite a “billboard on the side of the road” moment, but clear direction nonetheless.  That’s just weird enough.

But what I am talking about is a 10-minute, back-and-forth discussion with the Lord of the Universe.  It happened.  I remember it clearly and to this day it is still one of the most profound, perspective changing days of my life, not only because the conversation took place, but because of the message He gave me.

When I try to explain this to people, I get blank stares.  Partly, I think, because I do not go to a charismatic church, I am pitifully conservative in nature, and I am a balding, out-of-shape, boring sort of person, so to try to convince people that God would talk to ME seems a little incongruent. But I know what I know.

What did Jesus talk to me about that day?  He taught me that I am scared.  I agreed.  I discovered how irrationally scared I was.  He gave me a glimpse into the core of who I was.  He then proceeded to tell me that He wanted me to serve and love other people.  I said I was scared.  He agreed.  But then He helped me understand something that has completely changed my understanding of the people around me — they are scared, too.  Deeply.  Fear runs rampant in the lives of every person.

Now, when I encounter people and I struggle with their personality, or their ideas, or just plain want to judge them for their actions, that lesson comes back to me from both angles — that I am scared, and so are they.  And when I realize that we’re both acting out of that fear, it changes my heart somehow.  It settles it and allows me to love them and myself a little more like Christ does.

I am convinced that Christ continues to talk to me (or at least desire the conversation) when I make myself available to Him, which admittedly (and surprisingly) is very little given the experiences I’ve had.  But I’m attempting to change that.  It is a journey, but I am beginning to desire those conversations more and more, not so much as to get more teaching (they can be painful lessons, after all), but because I appreciate that the God of the Universe is delightful to spend time with, and that He desires to be my friend as well.  I wish more people would believe that God is not just sitting back watching our lives roll past, but that He is truly whispering to our hearts, He does have something profound to say, and that He will literally walk alongside us on the path if we can just move outside our disbelief.  It is, afterall, a little weird.

 

Questions rattling in my brain today

Does God want to speak to me?  What does He want me to hear?

What behaviors or decisions do I act out of today because of emotional wounds from my past?

Do I feel loved?  What should being loved feel and look like?

What do I need to let go of in my life in order to grasp the bigger promises from God?

Is my son ready to learn the “birds and the bees?”  How much am I prepared to freak him out?

Am I going to be ready to tackle another 14′er in Colorado by mid-September?

Am I going to be okay if I completely bomb as a coach?

What does Godly “intimacy” look like in my various relationships?  What does it look like to love others “extravagantly?”

What questions are bouncing around in your head today?

Eric

 

Missing in Action

If a blogger disappears and no one is at the blog to notice, has he really made a noise?

Which all goes back to the point of blogging — is it for the reader’s sake or the writer’s?  I love this quote:

“Reading makes a full man, conversation a ready man, and writing an exact man.”  – Francis Bacon

It has been a busy summer, with the highlight to this point of my first true missions trip.  Myself and 5 others from Shoal Creek CC traveled to Croc, Mexico (outside Monterrey) to help start a new home for a young family.  We also helped lead student Bible classes, English language classes, run a thrift store, and do small service jobs in the community.  It was fascinating to discover a town in poverty (by US standards) but really middle-class (by Mexican standards).  More fascinating to me was meeting people and discovering that they had many of the same concerns about the world, about parenting, and about community as I do back in my affluent lifestyle.

Here are some great links if you want to learn more:

• YouthFront: http://www.youthfrontzone.com/index.cfm?PAGE_ID=466
• Jake is a staff member there and his blog is at: http://jakeincroc.wordpress.com/
• John & Christy lead the staff at Croc and have a blog at: http://loshansen.blogspot.com/

And a little picture of our group…what has been the highlight of your summer thus far?

 

The Dwelling Place of God’s Presence

3-4 Give me your lantern and compass,
      give me a map,
   So I can find my way to the sacred mountain,
      to the place of your presence,
   To enter the place of worship,
      meet my exuberant God,
   Sing my thanks with a harp,
      magnificent God, my God. 

God lures me into the Wilderness so that I can travel to the Place of His Presence, but He gives me a lantern and compass and a map.  The Question becomes — am I willing to leave my Comfort in order to take the trip?  Do I really believe in His Magnificence?

 

I Am Convinced

I am convinced that God loves me.  I am convinced that God wants to spend time with me.  I am convinced that God pursues me even when I am more concerned about my little life than I am about Him.  I am convinced that God wishes for me to be where He is at…He wishes that I be in His Presence.  I am convinced that it is possible to be in the Presence of God on this Earth.  I am convinced that I have been there.  I want to be there again.  I am convinced that I have no power to make that happen on my own.

I am convinced that the only way to get to the Dwelling Place of God’s Presence is to travel through the Wilderness.  I am convinced that the Wilderness is painful, frustrating, and difficult.  I am convinced that God attempts to lure me into the Wilderness so that I may get to His Presence on the other side.  Sometimes I come willingly; sometimes I resist.

I am convinced that Comfort is the Enemy of Movement towards the Dwelling Place of God’s Presence.  Comfort is safe.  Comfort is known.  Comfort is self-centered. 

I am convinced that God loves me so much that He pursues me and lures me out of Comfort so that I may enter the Wilderness.  Comfort is Death.  God’s Presence is Life.  The Wilderness is the process of experiencing Death in myself in order to gain Life in Him. 

I am convinced that what is Presence today will become the new Comfort of tomorrow.  Into the Wilderness I will go again to experience a deeper, higher, wider Presence of God than experienced before…and it too will become too comfortable.  The Journey from who I am to who I will become is life long.

I am convinced that God will never stop luring me.  I am convinced that He loves me forever.  I am His Beloved.

Are you? Have you experienced the Presence of God in your life?