GPS Revs

Who knew you could get so much revelation about the Lord from a GPS? Good times 8) . I wanted to share something that someone at IHOP-EG shared at Firestarters this past Saturday. I think we were talking about the Lord’s leadership in our lives and how we don’t know all the details of how things are going to work out, even though we really really want to. She was explaining how she recently took a trip with her GPS and she was getting pretty frustrated that it was only telling her the turn by turn directions through the streets of New York and not just getting her to a main highway where she could figure the rest out herself. The GPS was in her lap and finally at one point she looked down and saw how the GPS was guiding her. She compared that to how the Lord leads us in our lives. He does it all turn by turn and we need to look from His perspective, just as she did with the GPS. Whenever you go somewhere you’ve never been with a GPS there is that little bit of nervousness because you’re going somewhere that’s probably really unfamiliar. You have to trust this little piece of technology to get you there, no matter how unfamiliar and foreign the journey is along the way. And ya know what, it works . That is soooooo the Lord !He knows the destination and leads us step by step and turn by turn with His voice. Just like how the GPS “talks” to us, the Lord wants to dialogue with us on the journey, He wants to commune with us along the way. And what’s amazing too is that even if we do make a wrong turn, He can re-route us no matter where we are and get us where He desires to. He doesn’t ask us to figure it out. He only asks that we lean and trust. I know for me there’s times where that’s still really hard to do, like now for example. I feel the place in my heart where I’m being stretched to trust Him in ways I haven’t before. Just when I think that I got the trust thing down something pops up that checks my heart and brings me back to that place of, “Help!” What’s awesome though is that He longs to bring this forth in our hearts. He’s more jealous than me to get rid of the accusation against Him in my heart that He’s not that good and that is so comforting.

Ironically, I actually just bought my own GPS yesterday . What’s cool is that you can program in the GPS where your home is and no matter where you are somewhere, you just press that and it’ll take you there. As I was just testing it out yesterday I got this revelation about that and started to sing something like, “Program my heart to where home is.” With the GPS you have to actually program where you’re home is. I just picture this place in my heart where I want the Lord to really press the reality that this world is not my home. I really am living for another age.  No matter where I’m physically at in this life I want my heart to always be connected with that truth, to have it always programmed towards home if you will. And my home is Him.

Sweeter Than…

Psalm 119 is one of the best places to camp yourself for a while. It’s an awesome Psalm to prayer-read about growing in love for the word. Over and over the psalmist says in a bunch of different ways how much he treasures the word. You can almost feel the intimacy this man had with the Lord, the exchange that went on within his heart as he conversed with Him. One of my favorite verses here is verse 103:

How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

This might sound kind of funny but whenever I read that, I’ll pray the whole sweeter than honey thing, but add my own little twist to it. There have been many times where I’ve told the Lord, “I want to know You as sweeter than chocolate.” Yup lol. To me, chocolate is the ultimate sweet. If you know me, you know I love chocolate.

You see, the guy who penned this had to have some sort of experience with God where he felt the sweetness of his word that he just busts out with this phrase. This was experiential knowledge. The psalms weren’t just written to sound poetic. These were realities that the psalmists actually experienced. Think about it, David actually experienced that there was fullness of joy in His presence. He felt the pleasures of God, He drank from that river. He couldn’t testify of it if he didn’t actually experience it.

So why not ask God to know Him as sweeter than chocolate? How awesome would it be to have our senses over run by who He is? It’s totally available. It has to be. If it wasn’t, this verse would not have been written.  We were made to experience God in all of His beautiful sweetness .

Sweeter than chocolate Lord, for reals

A Bummed Artist

There are these four drawings that I did last year, 3 of which are my top favorites, that have completely disappeared. I’m pretty sure they were in my portfolio back in December but for the past couple months I can’t find them anywhere. I was thinking of them again tonight and decided to check my portfolio again. Isn’t it funny how we’ll go back and check the same place even though we know they’re not gonna be there? Needless to say I checked my portfolio another two times tonight only to have a double wammy of disappointment.

I really am bummed and sad. As I was sitting on my bed wondering where they could have gone I was reminded of what Jesus said in the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin. It’s like I’m getting a little taste of what He feels. He’s the ultimate artist right? Which makes us His creation, His masterpiece, His unique work of art. As minute as this might seem, I really am identifying with a side of His heart. As an artist, I really am sad that I don’t have my drawings right now. I have pictures of them and can still look at them but it’s not the same. There’s something about an artist having the original copy.

He really feels emotion when we’re not with Him. Before we are reconciled to Him through Jesus, He really was sad and bummed that His kids couldn’t be with Him. The only difference here is that while I don’t know where my pieces are, He always knew where I was before I came to Him. I was the one who strayed away from Him. It’d be like I just made these drawings and as soon as I was done they grew little legs and up and left me. Silly, but the reality of what we do before we receive salvation.

I still really hope my drawings turn up though. Cool revelations yes, but I’m still bummed.

I Have An Active Father!

Lately I’ve been kinda feeling like a lot of areas in my life are gonna start to get interesting from this point on. One of those areas being my finances. Most people who looked at my situation would probably be anxious for me. Circumstances don’t look ideal to everyone else but praise the Lord I just have so much peace about it. What’s so cool to me too is that a big reason that I have peace is because I’m beginning to practice this whole giving extravagantly reality. I feel like I would be more worried if I wasn’t going to be giving extravagantly. It’s hilarious to me, the ways of the kingdom and all. Today while I was in my car and talking to the Lord about all this, I remembered how I was going to be giving and it gave me such security and peace in my heart. What would seem “normal” is if I had thought, “It’s going to be okay because I have X amount of money saved up.” But how it really went down was, “Oh yeah! I’m going to be giving though so I’ll be okay!” Haha I love it.

As I continued to talk to the Lord I just started to confess His goodness over my life. When I said, “You’re a good Father, You’re a good Father” the Lord began to touch my heart, tears came a-flowin’, all that jazz and then this phrase comes out of my mouth, “You’re an active Father.” And I just started to laugh with joy. Nothing crazy but it just made me so happy. And I just got this revelation that He’s doesn’t just feel like a Father, He acts like one!

There are certain emotions that are entailed in a father’s heart. Most of us all are aware of that. The fact that God is our loving Father means that He’s compassionate, tender, and the list goes on for eternity. But, there are also certain actions that are specificialy related to fathers. Fathers are usually the ones that take care of us, give us things, bless us, etc. They “bring home the bacon” so to speak. Point being, they provide. As I kept confessing that He is an active Father it released such contentment and peace in my heart, just knowing that my Father is one who acts on my behalf. He’s not just sitting on His throne loving me, He actually MOVES and does things for me =D! He makes stuff happen. This get’s me excited about what’s going to happen the next couple months now. What is He going to do? How’s He gonna make it happen? I remember when I was praying for the provision to do FITN I would tell Him all the time, “You gotta do Your thing, go ahead and show off .”

He’s an active Father. He moves when we ask Him. Man, there’s so much that I have floating around in me related to this now but I think if I try and spill it all out it’ll just be all over the place. Hopefully I can blog about this some more then. I really want this revelation to encourage whoever might be reading this. I mean, even as I write this I feel so much peace in my spirit knowing that I have a Dad who’s going to take care of me, that I don’t have to father myself. He’s my Dad, that’s His job

Psalm 77: 13- “Who is so great a God as our God? You are the God who does wonders…”

God Likes My Haircuts?

Last night I had the IHOP-U Awakening on and this girl Vanessa was giving this testimony about how she encountered the love of the Father. The whole thing is awesome but there was this one part in particular that just really did something to me. She was explaining how one of her friends who was praying for her started to prophesy over her and speak from the heart of the Father. One of the things He said was something like, “I was there all those years and was excited to see the woman that you would become, I was even excited for every haircut you had.” Now, her whole testimony my heart’s getting touched but when I heard that I was like, “Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat????” He was excited even about every haircut she got. For real?!

It’s kind of funny too because lately I’ve been thinking about how I need to get my hair cut and what I’d want to do and for some reason I didn’t think God really cared about that. I almost like, felt bad that I wanted to get a haircut a little. I thought that ya know, because that wasn’t something that had some sort of “eternal purpose” that my Father was just kind of indifferent towards it. I didn’t think that He thought it was wrong but I just pictured Him I guess with this kind of, “whatever, that doesn’t really matter and isn’t really important” expression on His face. But when she said that I realized that there was a side of the Father that I really didn’t know yet. The delight that He has even in the little things in my life. He actually cares.

I started to think about how earthly parents get super excited about little stuff like that too. I mean, I know that when my daughter gets her hair cut or picks out certain clothes she likes or whatever, I’m definitely going to be excited about it because it’s like celebrating her beautiful uniqueness. And if earthly parents feel that way, how much more does our perfect Father?

Hearing that testimony has made me wonder what other seeming seemingly small things my Father treasure about me. I’m still kind of like, “Really though? You really were excited about every haircut?” It’s the fact that He cares about that stuff that unlocks something in me. I just need revelation of my Father who treasures.

Vanessa’s testimony:

A Gift from the Treasury of the King

Job 38:22

“Have you entered the treasury of snow, or have you seen the treasury of hail…”

I so love this verse from those last epic chapters of the book of Job. A couple weeks ago when there was an earlier snowfall, this verse came to mind as I was looking outside. I was just like, “Man…this snow came from You. It was made through You and it’s right in front of me.” And I was thinking about how everything we see in creation was made through Jesus like it says in John 1. His fingerprints are all around us!

I kind of liken it to this: Ya know when someone gives you a gift and they’re not physically around you anymore? And how just by having that gift it almost feels like they’re still with you? Kind of like why people bring pictures of their loved ones when they’re going to be away from them for a while. It feels like they’re right there with you just by looking at the pictures because it connects with something in the heart in some mysterious and beautiful way. Well, when I look at creation, when I look outside at the snow, am eating an apple, or whatever really, that’s what it feels like with Jesus. I know He lives in me and all that stuff but when I look and partake of all that was made through Him it’s like a whole bunch of little gifts from Him and it feels like He’s right there. This happened again as I was eating an apple recently too like I mentioned. It may sound silly but I was just like, “Jesus…you made this apple, it was made through You, and You knew that I was going to be eating it! It’s something from You.”

I think this is what creation is supposed to do. It’s supposed to cause our hearts to fall more in love with the Creator. After all, all this is for us. All of this is the greatest Romantic ever romancing the human race, pleading through it all for love to be returned. If only our hearts could be even more awakened to see how He really is wooing us every second of every day. Through His word, through His creation, and probably endless other means He’s forever wooing us

So I may not be a huge fan of the snow and winter but hey, it’s from the treasury in my Father’s house so I can deal

Random Pearl

I was looking through all my old facebook posts today from back in the summer and what not and came across this one status I put that made me so happy! CJ, one of the leaders, was sharing this pearl one night and I just have to pass it along because it’s AWEESOOMEE =D! This is what my status said:

Coolest thing ever that one of the leaders shared! Okay so it says in Isaiah that God inhabits eternity right? He inhabits it, that alone should blow your mind off. But get this, He’s placed eternity in the hearts of men too. Soooo He put eternity in our hearts BECAUSE He inhabits it and longs to abide in man! He did it so He could live in us! Craaaazzzyyyyyyyy!

Oh, the Word…

I love coming across verses that seem almost “too good to be true.” Ever just read a verse in the bible that makes you go, “Man! That’s actually in here?! That’s amazing!” I’ve come across that several times, usually all having to do with the way God relates to us. It just blows my mind how different He is than we grew up thinking…but that’s a whoooooooole nother post for another day. For now, this was the verse I just read that made my heart say this again. It’s like fresh water to my souuul 8)

Deuteronomy 4:7 – “What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the LORD our God is near us whenever we pray to him?”

Thank You Lord that You are really like this. So awesome.