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The last few weeks I’ve had the need to just write but didn’t know what to write about. I’d been spending so much time reading news about things going on in the world and about the church and not spending enough time with God. My heart became so heavy thinking about how we must be breaking the heart of the Father. So I’ve kinda drawn back and examined my outlook. It was pretty grim. God started bringing me out of the fog this morning and has reminded me of some things. This entry is about just that….a look into my heart and hopefully the heart of God.
A friend came to visit me last week. She’s been struggling in a relationship so she and I went to Charlotte and shopped all day. It was fun, but the entire time I was there I was longing for home and my family. My life is not exciting by any stretch but it’s fulfilling. I was only away for the day but when I got back home that night my kids ran to me and started their jabbering about what they’d done all day. My husband greeted me with a kiss. Rudy (our dog) greeted me with a wagging nub. I was so glad to be home with my family and this house is my safe haven. Yes we fuss and fight and there isn’t always peace but this is where I hang my heart and where God speaks to me the most clearly.
My friends struggles broke my heart because I don’t have the answers. Spending time with her and talking with her about God and where He could be leading her during this time in her life made me so thankful for what I have. I don’t have the nicest things and I do want nice things. It discourages me sometimes, but I have my family. I have a wonderful husband that I trust and am more inlove with now than I was when we married 20 years ago. I have two amazing children who challenge me and bring me so much joy. Can’t forget about my dog. He’s my “caffeine on legs”.
My point is that while the news does get discouraging , the world breaks my heart and the church seems to be struggling , God is without a doubt, still on the throne. None of these things go unnoticed.
Some (including myself) ask how these things can go on. Why does God allow all the tragedy to take place in the world and in the church? Why do my friends and people in general have to hurt or why don’t they “get it”? I don’t have a defininte answer to that. As I was praying from a heart broken and truthfully, disgusted by the church (and other things) I realized something. God is in the process of separating the wheat from the chaff. It wasn’t until the last few years that I’ve come to realize that alot of the chaff is in the church. There is, however and without a doubt an authentic Body of Christ. It just doesn’t seem that the churches that are solidly Biblically based are in the “spotlight”. There is a valid reason for that though. We live in a fallen, sinful world and the churches that have conformed to that are the ones that we hear and read about most often. The truth and the true church is there but God is most often in the still small voice. He wants us to be listening for Him and then to Him. God doesn’t need the spotlight because He is the spotlight.
I thank God that His Truth is in me and I pray that I abide in that Truth every moment of every day. He blesses me all the time though I don’t deserve any of it. He brings me to my knees in gratitude and in repentence. He moves me when nothing and nobody else can cut through the muck and mire that I allow into my life at times. My prayer for myself at this moment is that I will lift Him up so that others will be drawn to Him. How blessed I am indeed!
Does God speak to anyone else in strange ways? He communicates with me in the strangest and most beautiful ways. This is just one thing that I thought I’d share with you.
I needed to wash my hands a few minutes ago and went to pump the liquid soap from the dispenser. Usually the soap will pool up in the palm of my hand but this time it ran right out of my hand onto the counter. I pumped again (forever wanting to give another chance), thinking that maybe some air had gotten into the pump. What I discovered was that it wasn’t air that was the culprit. The dispenser was down to the last dregs of soap and instead of reaching under the cabinet and getting the large container of soap, someone had chosen to add water to the dispenser. This made it look like it was full of soap and there was soap still there but it was so watered down that the soap was pretty much useless.
Many churches of today are the same. From the outside it looks authentic. The color is there, there was useful soap there at one time. The problem is that when you add water to the soap you get more water than soap, you get pretty but useless bubbles and you don’t get clean.
It’s nice to have a nice church building. The colors may be there making for great “curb appeal”. Hopefully authentic, convicting, discipling teaching was there at one time. Any church that is any less than the house of God, it’s just any other attractive building. I don’t want air filled bubbles and fluff when I go to church. I don’t want a watered down, more palatable version of the Gospel. I want Truth from Almighty God. I want Truth that will step on my toes and transform my life. Anything else will serve only to pump my ego, putting my attention on myself and not the cross. Useless.
My Holy Lord, I don’t want to be a whitewashed tomb. I want You Lord. Look inside my heart and show me anything that is unclean that could separate me from You Lord. I want to be transformed by Your Truth Lord. My desire is that when I speak or write or whatever You call me to do that You would shine through me. Thank You Father that You created me to be in Your likeness and Your image and I ask that You would make me worthy of bearing Your image and Your Name.
Thank You Father that You loved me too much to give me anything other than Yourself. You love me so much Lord that You sacrificed Your only Son to die a wretched, cruel death to save me. Thank You for the blood that covers my sin so that I may come boldly before Your throne and fall at Your feet. Fill me today with everything that You have for me today. Send me where You would have me to go so that I can show You to others. I pray Father, that someone else would see You in me and would come to settle for nothing other than You. In the Precious Name of Jesus. AMEN.
