When You Need To Make Room

{LENT} Day 4-7

If you want to get filled, you got to make room.

That is, if you want to get filled with the things of God. With the thoughts of God.
The ways of God.
Something has to go. A life only has so much room...

I awoke to this God-thought. It was what I needed to thrust back the covers and stand up in my still-dark bedroom. He knows what I need to motivate me to keep my appointment with Him these days.

How often do we say, I need more of You, God!  These desperate prayers can seem pious to us, devoted and spiritual. But just picture Him coming, and pouring over you.... but wait!
 It seems the vessel is already filled.. filled with other things...

When the Spirit came pouring out at Pentecost, filling, filling, OVERFLOWING, it came after days of self being poured out in prayer. And is there any other way? We, too,  must make room.

Prayer-  true watchfulness and wakefullness in the Spirit is not the easy thing. Not for the flesh.  Even the disciples couldn't manage it. Wake up! Why are you sleeping? Watch and pray...so you will not fall.

God always has a way to keep us. He always has a plan. He always has the provision and the desire to give us what we really need. It's our desires that must be changed. The inner dial of our hearts that must be recalibrated to mirror His.

When we want what He wants, He sees that we get it.  The Christ in us attracts the resource of Heaven.

Like Mary who emptied the bottle of ointment on His feet, we must empty these vessels. Like the Chirst-followers who prayed, hard, in that upper room. Pouring out, pouring out...

 And then -

The Filling Came.






Linking with these...

{LENT} She Did What She Could

Day 2 {LENT}

One thing I keep hearing... Surrender.

I love how God will dovetail various happenings in our life to say the same thing, making sure we get it.
In my women's study this week, as we go through the book of John, chapter by chapter, we finished up this Tuesday with the first portion of Chapter 12. My study book summed up the section by highlighting the the 'surrender' of Mary.

Her act of anointing His feet and unbinding her hair to wipe them... such a symbol of a

                                                          Surrendering Love

I've been asking 'What' to surrender to Him for Lent? 'What' to sacrifice?

  For a sacrifice is not just doing or giving something that is inconvenient,  but rather it requires a depraving of oneself  in order to honor and serve God (like Mary, taking the glory of her hair and using it for such a humble tool to wipe the oil and grit from His toes). Sacrifice..... stretches. It costs.

 And isn't that what the season of Lent is to be about? Being stretched out within to make room for Him?  Less of us, more of Him.  So, I've been asking, 'What' am I to deprive myself of to honor and make room for Him in these coming weeks?

Today He reminded me, it's less about the 'What' and more about the "Why".  The motive.

To give up something,  simply as a religious practice or an observance exercised, if done outside of the motivation of Love, "profits me nothing".  So this at least I know. Perhaps the 'what' is not yet decided, but the 'why'?

The 'why' is Love.

Though at times my love for Him reveals itself to be shallow, more concerned with gaining than giving, like Mary  I long to move from being one who sits and receives from Him, to one who rises in sacrificial love for Him,    and must pour out a gift right onto His feet.

He who loves...does.

Profession is easy, 

but the depth of our sincerity

is measured by our actions.

Also, still taking beauty and insight from the passage in 2 Chronicles 29-30:

"My sons, do not now be negligent, for the Lord has chosen you to stand in his presence, to minister to him and to be his ministers and make offerings to Him." (2 Chronicles 29:11)

After the king recites all the ways they, as a people,  have been negligent up until then, he challenges them to turn from this checkered past, and seize the 'now' before them.

I am so thankful that with the King there is always the call to the 'now'.
 
    "Forget the former things..."
    "Forgetting what is behind..." 

He calls us to live in the now, where He proclaims over each of us a grace that is sufficient.

Have you a checkered past, too? Is it filled, like my own journey, with starts and stops and shadowed with sin and shortcoming? (Remember we must, all our sin and shame only serve to highlight the depths to which his love and grace will reach to hold us)

He is calling us to lay aside the past and step into the Now with both feet. To practice a love for Him that both says and does, and even in our weakness, to 'make offerings to him."

May his words about me be what they were about the woman long ago, the one who sacrificed a love offering at His feet,  She did what she could.

(This is the second post in a series of forty as I journey through the days of Lent. Would you join me each day? Even start at Day one and read through,  as together we learn from Him.)
                                 

Linking up with:

{LENT} In The Beginning...

I am not a Lent practicer. (and practicer is not a word, so says my spell check...)

But I am a Christ-lover.

Last year, around this time, several blogs I enjoy were full of the writer's Lent experiences.  I thought then, 12 months ago,  I would like to try this Lent thing. This letting go, this laying down. This focus for forty days.

My mental note did not serve me well.. I forgot.  Thankfully though, this was not an Angie-idea, but a God-idea, and He does not forget.

Here is where I must confess to a bad habit I am needing to change - I often browse through Facebook on my phone upon first opening my eyes in the morning. Days that once began with, Good Morning, Lord, lately have begun with reading a play-by-play of a friends long night or an suggestion of another to 'Enjoy my morning beverage'.   Though again this morning, I did the same, a post on Facebook referring to Lent caught my attention.

Sitting down awhile later with my cup of coffee and Bible, I was led to the story of Hezekiah in 2 Chronicles 29-32.

It begins by telling the story of this righteous king, who wanted to purify the temple. He commands the priests to consecrate it. Throw out the trash. It begins by the King himself, opening the doors of the house of the Lord, and repairing them.

Again, my thoughts turned to Lent.. was it not to be a time for the Christ-follower to come face-to-face with the unclean within? The need for a Savior?

A few Googles later, I realized that today of all days was the beginning of the forty days of Lent, Ash Wednesday.  What I did not remember on my own, His sweet Spirit brought to my attention.

And so, friends, the next forty days I will chronicle my own journey of Lent. Perhaps you wish to join me? Consider slipping your email into the box above and recieving the journey updates to your email. My prayer for you - that you may grow in grace.

My prayer for me as I begin the journey,

Just as Hezekiah opened wide those temple doors

I, too, open wide the doors of my heart today,

The doors of this, your holy temple.

Wide I open them to You,

No longer closing the door

That I might hide the unclean and impure

that lurks within it's walls.

I'm open to You,

I'm opening wide the doors,

That You may repair

Every broken place.

Until tomorrow...



Linking with these today:

What I'm Not

What defines you? Here are some things that do NOT define me:

I am not defined by....
        what kind of car I drive
         how much money is in my bank account
         or what people who don't really know me think about me

I am not defined by....
         how big or well decorated my home is
         how amazing of birthday parties I throw my children
         or what stores I shop at

I am not defined by....
         being the team mom for my kid's sport
         the size and shape of my body
         or what brand my jeans are, or purse is


No, these things do not define me.


(And sometimes I have to say it just like that. Big and Bold.  If only to myself. Regularly.)

And I try and remember then,  what DOES define me, according to God's measuring stick...

          How well I love others (John 13:35)
          How well I care for the widow and the orphan (James 1:27)
          How well I serve the least of my brethren (Matt 25:40)

Some people think that they are defined by how much knowledge that they have acquired, spiritual or otherwise.

 But it seems it really all comes down to how well you love.

Jesus commended those who loved with abandon. The woman who poured out the ointment on his feet, all of her best lavished on him with love.

Or the one whom they called sinner, who washed his feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair, of whom Jesus said, "Her many sins have been forgiven - as her great love has shown."

Paul knew how easy it would be for the Christ-follower to get sidetracked, majoring on the minors,  forsaking the one command Jesus gave us:   Love. And love well.
He wrote in his letter to the church at Corinth:

"If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing." 1 Corinthians 13

Can we say, like good ole' Forrest,  "I'm not a smart man. But I know what love is."

If we were to strive for this one thing only, to know what love is and do it well, we will have lived a very worthy life indeed.

Defined by love. His love for us. Our love for Him. Our love for others. Period.


Linking today with:

      "


              "

When You Are Suffering...

Tired of this burden.
Not sure where to set it down, though.
Or how.
Or even if I'm supposed to...

I need a Savior today. Funny how salvation isn't really a one-time thing like some suppose. A one-time prayer that covers all the hard days. I need a Savior everyday.

I need a Rescuer. A Redeemer.

     Jesus saves me. Jesus saves me now.

Or so I'm told to pray.
But my hands feel to limp to fold. Tears come more readily than words.
And what to say anyway?

               I'm tired?   I'm weary with the waiting?

We always think bad things happen because of sin.

     "Why was this man born blind? Did his parents sin - or did he sin?" 

'Cause certainly somebody sinned.     Right?

I'm looking around, too. Wondering who's the culprit...  Me again?


             Am I the cause of this mess, Lord?

It's a heavy burden sometimes - my own blindness.

But what was it the Master said?
                          "This happened..."    
       This tragedy. This sorrow. This trial. This ache in my chest.
                                                "...that the Glory of God might be revealed."

What kind of plan is this?
     You're  hurting SO THAT I can heal you?


Does that even fit with my theology?


So many of the most beautiful miracles come through pain.
Even the (super)natural miracle of childbirth comes to us, riding in on waves of pain.
   It never comes with softness only. With quiet calm.
And then this little life is there, it too, letting out a cry after it breaths in it's first breath of air.

The pain leading up seems so.... unbearable.

You just want it DONE.  OVER.   You'd give anything.

But sometimes the only way up and out is through.
Like the children's book:

                   "We can't go over it.
                    We can't go under it.
                    Oh-no! We have to go
                          through it."


So glad there's a promise on the other side. Some day (the Lord knows when) I'll be done going through it.
And I'll be holding my promise in my arms.
 With joy.
With amazement. With laughter.  Feeling the moment all the deeper for having waited so long. Just to get through to that precious gift.
And it will have been WORTH it.

And isn't that the Way of the Cross?
And in my suffering I must remember - I have yet to suffer as He did.  Unto death.

I can see Him now - up ahead.
I do not travel alone on this road of suffering.

We share both in His victory and His suffering. Sometimes at the same time!
Kingdom ways are a paradox.
  Down is Up.
  Death is Life.
  and sometimes the greatest gifts are given, the greatest victories won, on the path of suffering.

He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed to sow
shall come home with shouts of joy - carrying his sheaves with him." Psalm 126:6
                 

Linking up today with:

The Rising

I say my greatest desire is to live for him.


But do my days show this? Do my words, my touch, my thoughts reflect this burning in me?