discernment

“The Spirit of God is a sacred presence in every person who is born into the world. It was Fox’s belief that if we would sit in stillness and “wait patiently for the Lord” eventually God’s spirit within us would stir and we would feel the Spirit quaking within us.”

The God of Intimacy and Action: Reconnecting Ancient Spiritual Practices, Evangelism, and Justice – Tony Campolo and Mary Darling


The pace of life can drown out our ability to discern God’s leading. I can be so busy doing good things that I can miss what is most important – to sense God’s spirit within.

This past weekend I went away with two friends. The three of us are moving towards developing a non-profit organization. This is our second ‘discernment’ weekend. We have a rhythm to these weekends. We rest, we spend time alone in silence, we pray, we listen, we plan. We want God to lead us, to be as big a part of our process as is our logic and our gifts. Our desire is that we would sense God’s leading in every part of the process. To do that, we feel we need to create space and make time to listen. The listening is as important as the strategy.

And we know that where we began this journey and how we move through it will be what emanates out to those we wish to serve.

It may not be the most expedient way to design and develop a non-profit but it seems right to us. The Spirit is quaking!

May you take the time today to sit….sit and be still. May you sense the Spirit stir.

And to my partners - I appreciate your presence in my life and your willingness to be uncompromised when it comes to your desire to wait and listen to hear God's voice in this work.

Grace and peace,
Deb

space

O God, I am seeking
for ways to be,
less encumbered
ways to
simplify my life:
ways to build
s p a c e s and silences
into a full life
of busyness
and noise.

Teach me to find that
quiet center of self
that you have
hidden within me,
a resting in
your presence.

~Jamie Watkins

Recently, I had conversations with two different women. Each of them spoke of having a recent intimate experience with Jesus. They each had a very different experience, suited to who they were and how God speaks in their lives. They both had tears in their eyes when they reflected on their experiences.

Each of these women has spent time over the last year creating space in their lives for God. They have practiced ‘being’ with him and nurturing their ability to listen to him in silence. Out of this fertile place comes a deeper, richer relationship with Jesus and the increased ability to discern his voice and movements in their lives.

Learning to be silent before God is not easy but it leads us in to a deeper place with Him.

Grace and Peace,
Deb

yielding

“…Think of your sufferings as a weaning from that old sinful habit of always expecting to get your own way. Then you'll be able to live out your days free to pursue what God wants instead of being tyrannized by what you want.”


I Peter 4:1&2


Recently, I read this verse and it caused me to stop and think. I still expect to get my own way. And, when I don’t…..well, let’s say it this way….I may be ‘sitting on the outside but I’m standing on the inside’. In other words, I may be able to semi-hide my frustration to others but I’m feeling it inside. As I continued to think about this, it is a sign of my immaturity.

When you have a child, you know that it’s not good for them to always get their own way. That’s the best way to create a little human being who thinks the world revolves around them and they should always get their way.

Think a moment about Helen Keller. What a small world she lived in until Annie Sullivan came along. Annie did not look so much at her disability as at her behaviors – acting wild, taking food off other’s plates, having tantrums. Annie put a stop to it. Helen went through immense suffering during those first few days as her world was turned upside down. The immediate pain was deep and confusing for both she and her family, but Annie had a plan “to prosper her and not to harm”.

The immediate suffering gave birth to a new world for Helen. She opened up to the world of words, symbols and language. She was finally able to give and receive love from her parents…and also Annie. She went on to graduate from college and become a well-known author. That would never have happened without the suffering of letting go of the old self-centered behaviors.

I don’t want to continue to live with the tyranny of being focused on ‘what I want’. I want to be willing to let go of ‘getting my way’ and allow God to mold me, through the disappointments, into someone who is more attuned to what God wants than what she wants.

Is this a struggle for you? Do you ever fall victim to the tyranny of needing to get your own way? If so, I invite you to offer that struggle to God and allow the Holy Spirit to begin that work in you.

Grace and peace,
Deb

presence

I Simply Come to be with You

God of earthquake, wind and fire,
and of the still small voice
and of the silence,
I bring my presence
to your presence
as a gift to you ~
the only gift that I in fact can give~
for all the other gifts
are gifts you have given
which I can but return to you.

I do not come to speak or hear,
I do not come to think or do,
But Lord of Lords, and very God,
I simply come to be with you.

~Anne Shotwell

Why is one of the simplest things God wants from me so hard to do? Give me a task, a job to do and I know how to do that. I know how to start it and I know when it’s done. I can measure it. But just ‘being’ with God…how do I measure that? How do I know if it’s been long enough or been of sufficient quality?

When I start to ask questions like this, I know that I am totally missing the point. Once again, I fall back on how I measure His love for me, His approval of me. I forget, all too quickly, that He loves me…period. And that to have me just sit in His presence, no matter how long, no matter how it may feel to me, is in itself, pleasing to Him. To go to Him and not ask for anything must be very refreshing to Him.
It reminds me of when my children were little. So many times they would come to me to ask me something…”Mom, can I have this…?” "Mom, can I do that…?.” I also remember very sweet times when they would come and sit next to me on the couch. I would get ready for the next question….and there wasn’t one. They just wanted to be next to me. I think that’s what it may be like for God when I just want to get close to him, sit near Him and be in His company….a very sweet time.

If you have never tried just ‘being’ with Him, crawl up in His lap today and just sit with Him. Create a sweet time.

Grace and peace,
Deb

being

I would ask that you sit with the words and allow God to speak to you in the way He wants.


Peace,
Deb

O my God,
whom I adore,
help me to become
wholly forgetful of self,
that I may be immovably rooted in you
and calm as though I was already in eternity.

May nothing disturb my peace
or draw me forth from you,
O my unchanging Holy One,
but may I at every moment penetrate more deeply
into the depths of your mystery.

~Elizabeth of the Trinity

unlikely source

“When will you ever see yourself clearly?”

Edward to Bella – Breaking Dawn

Ok…I admit it. I read Twilight…and all the sequels. My daughter kept telling me how much she had enjoyed them. I asked her what they were about and promptly told her I really didn’t want to read a novel about vampires. I have nothing against vampires. Ok…before everyone starts sending in the comments, I know that historically, the belief is that vampires are damned and embody some form of evil. But I have always been drawn to them. I was so excited when I actually got to visit Dracula’s castle in Transylvania a few years ago. (This may be the same part of me that enjoys MMA, but that is for another post).

Anyway, she wore me down and I finally agreed to read the first book. I could not put it down. Now, I’ve read better written literature but it really was a page turner for me. It was a guilty pleasure. I would stay up late to read, wake up early to read…you get the point. I finished the first, then the second, the third and finally was working on the fourth. Near the end of the book, Edward was having a conversation with Bella and he said “When will you ever see yourself clearly?” Now, I am not sure what exactly happened in that moment but it as if God spoke those words directly to my heart. I put the book down and cried. Then I journaled. I realized that He wanted me to hear those words. For what I was going through at that time, those words were like a balm to my soul.

And I was amazed that God would use a book about vampires to speak to my heart. How cool is that? What that said to me is that I limit how and where I think God may speak.

Today, may you open your eyes, your ears, and your heart to see, hear and receive what God has for you in the way He wants to bring it. Don’t limit Him. You may be very surprised at the places or the ways He shows Himself to you.
Grace and peace,
Deb

An Altar in the World

“Jesus walked a lot, and not only during the last week of his life. The four gospels are peppered with accounts of him walking into the countryside, walking by the sea of Galilee, walking in the temple, and even walking on the water. If Jesus had driven a car instead, it is difficult to imagine how that might have changed his impact. Surely someone could have loaned him a fast horse. Instead, he walked everywhere he went, except for short stints on a donkey at the end. This gave him time to see things, like the milky eyes of the beggar sitting by the side of the road, or the round black eyes of the sparrows sitting in their cages at the market.
If he had been moving more quickly – even to reach more people – these things might have become a blur to him. Because he was moving slowly, they came into focus for him, just as he came into focus for them.”

Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World

As I ponder the work and life of Jesus, he was in no hurry. He moved slowly and deliberately in his work and in his relationships. He certainly wasn’t uncaring or apathetic. No one had the passion he possessed. And – it isn’t because he didn’t know what is meaningful to people. He certainly knows – he helped create the species.

When we look at his life, he was focused. For three years, he built into the lives of a handful of people, some chosen men and women, who expressed a desire to live in close community with him and learn from him. I think he sensed the desire in them and discerned that this was the group that he would pour his life into. Somehow he knew that if he took the time to teach, love, and commune with these individuals, they would in turn do that with others.

I wouldn’t say that numbers were unimportant to him – it was his desire that none perish – but it seems he knew that the way to do the work was one by one, slowly, intentionally, creating space for the Spirit to work, creating depth.
Are you walking or running through life? Do you notice those around you or do you need to get on to more important things? Have you allowed the work to be more important than the people? Have you put ‘results’ above relationships? Do you understand and honor the slow work of God, of transformation?

God has called me into a ministry of being intentional with the people He brings into my path. I can lose sight of this, looking for the ‘next thing’ or feeling I am not meeting the expectations of others.

Lord – help keep me – keep us – walking slowly so we don’t miss what You have for us to see. May we walk slowly like You.

Grace and peace,
Deb