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Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Come Tickle Me!

"Grandpa, come tickle me!" John Sebastian would yell up to John from the downstairs family room, prompting Grandpa to charge down the steps and chase our two year old grandson around (after first pretending he could not see him hiding in plain sight) only to fall upon him and tickle away.

Great happy peals of laughter could be heard throughout the house. Grandpa would run back upstairs, Johnny would hide and it would start all over again. So it went until they were both exhausted and delighted with each other.

I could not help thinking if there is truth to, "Be it done on earth as it is in Heaven," then the Godhead knows how to laugh. Maybe that is how some of the more amusing elements in Creation came into being, God got tickled with Himself. I just know laughter is healing and I also know that the good stuff comes down from above. Yep, God laughs.

How irreverent might it be to think that there are times He is out to tickle us? To chase us around and engage us in an uninhibited free for all of joy and amusement? I am so there! I am so there! "God, come tickle me! I'm waiting!

He chases me and when He catches me apathy, sadness, loneliness, boredom and sickness are run out of the room as He turns me upside down with delight. Now I chase Him and He runs slower. I grab His robe and the scent of myrrh, aloes and cassia fill my senses. I catch Him full around the waist. We are a hysterical ball of laughter.

Hell just shut its windows and turned up the radio so it can't hear the Glory. YES!

"He is the joy of all the earth."

This last week I had an email from a friend with a story in it of how God was God for her in the most wonderful and creatively generous way. I could not stop laughing when I read about how God chased her down and delighted her. I woke up this morning still laughing over it. Really, out loud, hold your sides, this-is-so-good-it-hurts, laughter. Heaven was laughing right along with me.

"He is the joy of all the earth."

Tell the Lord to come and get you and then you embrace Him right back.

"He is the joy of all the earth."

If He made us in His image then God is ticklish and laughs easily.

"He is the joy of all the earth."

If "There is a time to Laugh," it could be now.

"He is the joy of all the earth."

YES!

Dedicated with delight to the Lioness of God who received the blessing of His favor and made us all joyful with the telling of it.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

The Frozen Sea





In the city where I was born there was a wonderful park. It ran throughout the city itself. It had a mill with waterfalls and there were ducks and swans gracing a wide pond in summer. It was the kind of pond just made for winter skaters who came by the hundreds in the cold weather.

When the winter temperatures dropped to a certain level the park police would test the ice. They would drive heavy trucks right out onto the ice and drill. If it was thick enough it was time to lace up. That hardened, thick layer of frozen protection, separating skater from freezing water below, kept things fun.

Sometimes separation can be a good thing. We find ourselves putting distance between ourselves and bad companions or bad habits for example. To be alone with God and gain wisdom for another.

Sometimes we separate ourselves for self protective reasons and what starts out being a little distance becomes a space we find ourselves unable to cross as time passes.

Sometimes we have made a sinful choice and feel the sting that separation brings. We fear discovery and so withdraw from insightful companions and probing friends. We can withdraw from Divine fellowship lest God "see" us.

All the time the temperature is dropping and a thin crust is forming.

There can be any number of reasons for the numbness we feel but mostly when it happens to me it is a drop in the temperature of my spiritual life. You know the symptoms. First disinterest in reading the Word, then no time to pray. (We might have to do some self examination if we brush shoulders with the Holy Spirit so maybe later.)

Time to interact with friends is diminished and their attempts to learn our emotional whereabouts are met with often elaborate plans of avoidance if not anger. All the time the sea within us is freezing. If it goes on long enough we may find the devil doing triple salkos on our pond.

I am reading the most wonderful book these days. I find myself hugging it to me and whispering to God, "I love this book." It had a title with horses in it so you know it captured my attention. It is Run with the Horses by Eugene Peterson the updated 2009 edition. It is a book about love in the midst of judgement as demonstrated by the book of Jeremiah.

Peterson (who translated The Message) talks about breaking up the frozen sea within us. How God is committed to just such a break up, however that sea was formed. Life is possible when brake-up comes. Sometimes this is accomplished by raising the thermostat, at other times it takes an ice ax. In God's hands the method and the motive will always be love. The outcome recovery and restoration.

In Alaska we keep warm by putting on more layers. Resist that method in spiritual matters. Let God kindle a warmth in your center. His love and His word bring life and connectedness. His goal is always for us to show His heart to a cold world. The Church is the hot brick in the cold bed of this age. How can we accomplish that if our own fire goes out?

I have been blessed with friends and family who are so on fire for God they could melt sand into glass. I treasure them even when that sand rubs the hide of my hard places. Experience has taught me to run in the direction of the fire not away from it.

Need a do-over? Need an ice breaker? Lay that frozen sea at the feet of Jesus and call it His. See what happens. Jeremiah 31 sends these words of promise to our core,"...I never quit loving you and never will. Expect love, love and more love. Now I'll start over and build you up again..."

Soft hearts for hard hearts. Warm hearts for cold love. Approachable hearts instead of frozen walls. Hearts like His.

I was always more of a swimmer than a skater anyway. You?


And the streams are all swollen with winter,
Winter unfrozen and free...
Rich Mullins in The Color Green

May you be as winter unfrozen and free!


Monday, September 20, 2010

Whatever You Ask In My Name

I would like to share something that has given me new insight and added a special dimension to my prayer life. It comes from a devotional I have been using in 2010. Funny, but it came to me from the clearance table and has proven priceless. I will quote from it in its entirety for the August 9th date as follows:

And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask for anything in my name , and I will do it. (John 14:13-14)

"That the Father may be glorified in the Son." It is to this end that Jesus on His throne in glory will do everything we ask in His Name. Every answer to prayer He gives will have this as its objective. Where there is no prospect of this objective being obtained, He will not answer.

It follows as a matter of course that with us, as with Jesus, this must be the essential element in our petitions. The glory of the Father must be the aim-and very soul and life-of our prayers.

(Andrew Murray quoted in A Daybook of Prayer, Copyright Thomas Nelson 2006)

I love what Murray offers us. I have prayed for so many noble reasons. I have prayed out of obedience, out of personal need, to ask God to intervene in the lives of family and friends (and enemies.) We won't bother about less than noble motives. But the idea that the glory of the Father is the be all and end all for Heaven's motivation in surrendering an answer to my prayer is a revelation.

Many arguments went through my head when I read this and I quoted many verses. In the end I had to agree that Christ is single minded about this point, that the Father be glorified in His Son. If this condition is met in prayer all our secondary reasons are carried aloft on the same wind.

Christ fed many hungry souls, healed many diseases, raised the dead. The neediness of people cried out to Him and begged His power. It was, however, the Glory of the Father revealed in the Son that turned that power on.

I have asked the Holy Spirit to direct my prayerful thoughts to line up with the motivation that was Christ's, that God the Father be glorified in the Son, that I may ask whatsoever in His Name.

And my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Now to our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen. (Phil 4:18-20)

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Stolen Water


"Then three of the thirty chief men ...came to David at the cave of Adullum...and David said with a longing, oh, that someone would give me a drink from the water which is from the well of Bethlehem which is by the gate." (2 Sam. 23:13-17).

On the run and away from home, David wishes for a comforting drink from a well of memory, a spring from childhood, a refreshing from a better time.

That wish falls upon devoted ears. There are three very special and single minded friends who love David's soul. Love him to the bone. Love him more than their own bones or their own skins.

You can read the story for yourselves if you do not know it. It ends well (no pun intended.) The three mighty men steal into the enemy camp and under threat of death, provide curb service to refresh their King.

They bring back the stolen water only to see David pour it out as an offering to his own God and King. David was ever one to lavish praise upon God. This night he gave Him something so dear, so precious, something whose genesis was unselfish love.

As a friend of mine would say, "That is the part with such WONDERFULNESS!"

Such love causes a chain reaction of love and devotion. First a need, then a journey, next the water, then the offering. God, David and the mighty friends all in loving agreement that each should have the best the others can provide.

Some friends and I were looking at this story and I shared with one much loved friend that I would steal water for her even if it was from a place guarded by orks, trolls and the devils of hell. She replied that she would speak my name and pour it out as a praise offering at the feet of Jesus.

Is there someone you need to steal water for? Someone with a thirst? A heart needing such a drink, such love? Whatever encouragement you lavish on that soul drenches the altar of God and runs down into the furrows of your own field.

It is God-love at its finest and...at its quietest. He will show you what will creatively bless best but with no lavish display, no banner headline. No self promotion allowed. No glory on this side of life, but God, whose memory is eternal, will not forget.

There is a voice coming from the cave. "Water. Water."

Will love answer?

Sunday, September 12, 2010

We Also Believe And Therefore Speak

Some time ago a number of us who are in an email group were stirring one another up to believe God for His promises. Promises made to us in His mighty word as well as promises made by personal revelation.

There was a thought Jan Collins contributed that was sage advice and I share it now. May it cause you to stand and believe for all The Father has planned for you.

Jan wrote:

"The Lord just spoke to me about our declarations. He loves it that we are declaring and speaking aloud because our words carry unbelievable power...be sure you search out the scriptures that go with what you are declaring. His Word carries the anointing that we need to give us the momentum to push these things through to fruition.

We are who God says we are.
We can possess what God says we can have.
We can do what God says we can do.

What does the Word say about your situation?
Find out and then begin to speak it out.
Quote the scriptures you are standing on aloud.
Make them personal and insert your name.
What has God spoken to you?

Believe what God says and start to speak it out along with the scripture. God wants to take us into new territory. He wants us to go places where we have never been and see things in the Spirit we have never seen. He wants us to move heavily in the anointing with miracles, signs and wonders following. He wants us to change nations and people's destinies. He wants us to be the devil's worst nightmare.

2 Cor 4:13 We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak." (Jan Collins)

*********************************************

I discovered in nursing school that the more of your senses you involve in the learning process the more indelible the information is imprinted. When you read the scriptures aloud, when you openly declare God's faithfulness and His promises to you, you are seeing, speaking and hearing. When you journal it you are up to four senses. There is a part of your brain that listens to the unfiltered word and files it away uncontested. There is also a part that will review and weigh it but that unfiltered bit is in there for good. ( Consider this as one of the reasons the scriptures warns us to set no unclean thing before our eyes.)

There are promises God has made to me, hopes I have had that I speak, sing (yes, I know singing is so not my gift but God has not turned down the volume on me) and even dance out before Him. Sometimes I draw out those promises, paint them, make cards out of them and mail them to friends as a witness. We were meant to live the Word and the Word was meant to live in us to the full. That Word will seek out our giftednedness as a means of expression.

What would you stand and declare today?
How would that look like as a dance of faith?
What work of grace in your life might that jump start?


Habakkuk 2
1 I will stand at my watch
and station myself on the ramparts;
I will look to see what he will say to me,
and what answer I am to give to this complaint.

The LORD's Answer
2 Then the LORD replied:
"Write down the revelation
and make it plain on tablets
so that a herald may run with it.
3 For the revelation awaits an appointed time;
it speaks of the end
and will not prove false.
Though it linger, wait for it;
it will certainly come and will not delay.

LORD,

You told me time and accomplishment are in your hand and surely you will not withhold what you have promised and fore-sworn to each of us in your word. I stand upon the wall and recount within your hearing that these people have loved you more than another, "more than the gods of this present world," more than any hope of gain. They have loved you for yourself. Have loved your heart.

Now therefore, Lord, answer their declarations according to the revelation you have given to each, in harmony with your scriptures, according to their great names which you have kept hidden but which when spoken by you cause our souls to hear and believe. You who are the confidence of all the earth have put within our grasp the keys to liberate and to make fast. We release belief and blessing and generosity. We bind unbelief and insecurity and competition.

We are in agreement that the King of Glory will come in and be known of us.

We are in agreement that the Holy Spirit will bring gifts worthy of a Warrior or Warrior-Bride.

We are in agreement that our children will inherit to 1000 generations.

We are in agreement that the enemy of our souls has been defeated by the cross and his cause is without appeal or advocate.

We are in agreement that we have died to this present world and are raised with Christ who sits at the right and power hand of the Father.

We are agreed that all honor, glory and power has been given to Jesus and that He has given us His Name.

We have confidence in the inspiration we have received from you, our God, and in your promises revealed in your word, even for those things that seem impossible and hopelessly lost or lingering.

We wait for it more than the watchman waits for the morning, for it will surely come and will not delay!

For we have seen and have read of the power in a people who agree with each other in your Spirit. We have read of the surety of a thing when the Lord himself makes a Declaration.

Lord, your Declarations birthed the Heavens and filled the oceans. May you birth in us that which begins and does not end and which fills this present day with your Glory!

Amen.

Then Haggai, the LORD's messenger, gave this message of the LORD to the people:
"I am with you," declares the LORD...So the LORD stirred up the spirit...of the whole remnant of the people. They came and began to work on the house of the LORD Almighty, their God.

......."WE ALSO BELIEVE AND THEREFORE SPEAK!"


Special thanks to Jan for her wisdom and friendship. kl

Thursday, September 9, 2010

"Bust My Buffers"

He took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them. Mark 10:16

It is not a very well kept secret that Jesus loves children. I appreciate this scripture in Mark for the glimpse it gives us of the day to day Jesus. The Jesus who got tired but not too tired to scoop up the kids. "He put His hands on them and blessed them." There He is again that God who wants to touch us.

He won't abbreviate His affection for us. No texted shorthand. No, He wrote it out longhand. He held nothing, holds nothing back. He put it all out there in the hope that we would feel safe enough to do the same.

Francis Frangipane wrote that the canopy of Christ's love is the perfect place of safety where we, sheltered by His feelings for us and washed by His sacrifice, can look at our faults and failures without being swept away by guilt and shame, then let them go. Where we can drop our defenses in complete confidence that He will not expose us to ridicule. His is unfiltered love and acceptance.

I have a friend who writes late at night when the 'two suns in her love sky' are safely tucked into bed. Those writings have been midnight meals for me. She sent me an email with her thoughts about Christ, "Busting Our Buffers," when she read my last blog. I never had Thomas the Tank Engine to read to John David so I was not aware of such buffer busting capabilities.

She makes the point that if David was someone who closed the distance between Himself and the God of his heart on the OTHER side of Calvary how much more so should we be unguarded with Him on the grace side of the Cross.

How we should be able to love God, worship Him, declare Him in complete freedom. No buffers between God and us. No buffers between you and I. None between us and the rest of humanity for Christ has "broken down every wall."

She writes:

"I've been thinking of King David. How many times do we read a Davidic Psalm declaring boldly that God will rescue him, God will crush his enemy - his impossibly huge and terrifying enemy? How many times does David brag that God will lift him up, avenge him, protect him, surround him, go before him, bless him, draw near to him, show him favor... All the things that we struggle to believe that God will do for us - we who live on THIS side of the cross!
I mean...really!

David lived in the days when you might fall down dead for reaching out to steady the Ark. We live in the days when the death of Jesus to pay for all our despicableness (I know it's not a real word) is preached on the street corners, on the TV, on the radio, on billboards...

David's despicableness was undeniable. He often blew it for all to see and when it was hidden, a prophet would come along to make the announcement. I'm amazed at the confidence he displayed living on that other side of the cross. He had a prophetic confidence, faith, in understanding the grace that seems to elude those of us born into it...where He (God) has busted our buffers." (Kim)

If I want to hang on to those buffers I will have to look away from Calvary to do it. Look away from the Jesus with a lap full of children, the Jesus who asks "Where are your accusers? Gone? Then neither do I condemn you. Sin no more." The Jesus who says He is the Vine and we are the branches. The Jesus who is my Shalom. My Resurrection. The Jesus who wants to give us "open faces."

Let me close with the lyrics from an album that has a great expression of faith as the title. "Everything Sad is Coming Untrue" by Jason Gray

It's Like Falling In Love

Give me rules
I will break them
Give me lines
I will cross them
I need more than a truth to believe
I need a truth that lives, moves, and breathes
To sweep me off my feet
It ought to be

(CHORUS)
More like falling in love
Than something to believe in
More like losing my heart
Than giving my allegiance
Caught up, called out
Come take a look at me now
It's like I'm falling, oh
It's like I'm falling in love

Give me words
I'll misuse them
Obligations
I'll misplace them
'Cause all religion ever made of me
Was just a sinner with a stone tied to my feet
It never set me free
It's gotta be

More like falling in love
Than something to believe in
More like losing my heart
Than giving my allegiance
Caught up, called out
Come take a look at me now
It's like I'm falling, oh
It's like I'm falling in love

It's like I'm falling in love, love, love
Deeper and deeper
It was love that made
Me a believer
In more than a name, a faith, a creed
Falling in love with Jesus brought the change in me
It's gotta be

More like falling in love
Than something to believe in
More like losing my heart
Than giving my allegiance
Caught up, called out
Come take a look at me now
It's like I'm falling, oh
It's like I'm falling in love

Let yourself fall right into His arms. After all, that is where your child heart belongs.

Special thanks to Kim Lorentzen whose words were used entirely without her permission and without buffers. Your spirit blesses my life. Thank you for a catchy title and a great thought.

To our Jewish friends a blessed and happy New Year. La Shana Tova!

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Where Does It Hurt?

As a young nurse I worked for a short time in a facility where most patients did not have an expectation of recovery. The staff had the same low expectation and so supplies were not well inventoried or returned to their proper place.

One evening, in the middle of dinner, a lovely woman about the age I am now had a respiratory arrest half way through the pork chops, mashed potatoes, stewed tomatoes and corn... but not before she threw it up all over herself. I came running with the crash cart only to discover there was no plastic airway and no bag you can put over a person's mouth to pump air into their lungs without having to do mouth to mouth.

I heard protests of, "No way, Not me, Not on your life," bravely coming from the other staff as we all realized help was only to be had if one of us could see past the vomit to the woman.

I drained two quarts of peroxide just rinsing my mouth after it was all over and she was on her way to a larger facility. To this day I cannot eat stewed tomatoes with corn.

That story may be too much information for some. I share it because it illustrates that sometimes the buffers have to go. John David has war stories that would drive that point home. The quicker and closer you are willing to get to the injured the better their survival rate.

Christ blew all the buffers away. There wasn't a stewed tomato on the planet that was going to stop Him. He had come for those who loved Him and amazingly for those who did not. Strangers and enemies had a call on His purpose and affection. A text message was insufficient to the task so God came to our door.

He was not a Savior who lived a Sabbath Day's Journey away from you or spoke through a veil or separated clean from unclean. This Savior put His hands in your mouth and told you to talk; spit and opened your eyes with it. He laid hold of lepers and bodies wasting away from unknown diseases. He ate food made by unwashed hands and treasured the tears of moral ruins. He poked and asked, "Where does it hurt?" (Though He knew the answer)

Even His death was up close and personal with not so much as a thin cloth to separate His nakedness from us. Jesus was a "Hands-On" God so we who needed saving could get our hands ON GOD. He is a God whose purpose is not to withdraw or stand apart from us. This God wants to be touched and you don't need to wash your hands first.

Touch Him they did, in hope, in desperation, in friendship; with tender touches and finally with ungentle hands. To the doubting He even offered His own wounds for exploration.

"That which was from the beginning (Jesus) we have heard and have seen with our eyes, have looked upon, and our hands have handled..."(1 John 1) A God who wants to be "handled." Amazing!

In countless ways over many days, God has put His arms around me. Christ is no long distance Redeemer. He is a skin on skin communicator who laid His hands on my soul, on all that I am about, on all that I care for, on everything dear to me... including my buffers.

Terry Tempest Williams offers that, "Faith is the centerpiece of a connected life."

The scripture promises us that He gives us the very thing needed for that connectedness, faith. He isn't waiting for us to figure out how it all works. It matters not if you have known Him long or are contemplating an introduction, maybe a re-acquaintance. Remember the out cast woman who couldn't stop bleeding? Remember that hem?

"If I could just lay hold of His hem..."

Do it!

He wants us to reach.

His hand is extended.

The question is on His lips,

"Where does it hurt?"

Monday, September 6, 2010

Fastened Onto the Fire

Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind Him and touched the hem of His cloak. She said to herself, ‘If I only touch His cloak, I will be healed.’ Jesus turned and saw her, ‘Take heart, daughter,’ He said, ‘your faith has healed you.’ And the woman was healed from that moment. MAT 9:20-22

I am so attracted to this story which is remembered in multiple gospels. There have been many sermons and studies pointing out different features of this encounter between entrenched illness and the Son of God. There are different examples elaborated on in other encounters between faith from a distance and faith telescoped down to skin on skin.

A Greek scholar I am not but I wanted to see what was to be said about that idea of touch. The term for "touched" used in the story of the woman who pressed into the crowd is used often in reference to Christ's interventional touching of the needy. The leper healed when Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, the healing of the blind man, the man who was deaf and mute, the son who was dead and Jesus touched his coffin.

The term for "touched" is not a casual whisper of a touch, a butterfly-kisses tickling of the skin. It means to attach oneself to, fasten on to, lay hold of. The root of the touch word comes from the idea to kindle as in to light a fire.

We have heard about Jesus. We have seen His miracles so now when we need it to, a tiny flicker of faith comes to life hunting fuel to grow into a blaze. We reach out to lay hold of the Savior, to attach ourselves to whatever part of Him we are able to reach and just then...He reaches back...He touches us, lays hold of us and unbelief is being incinerated. "I will this," He says, 'Rise, walk, see, speak, live, rejoin the human race!"

In Psalm 91 it says that “because we are bound to Him in love He will deliver us.” The Hebrew for this implies that we cling to Him. Our hearts are fixed. We are holding on to the one who said, "LIGHT, BE!" This same One is willing our wholeness and holding on to us as the fire grows within us. All the fuel we will ever need to believe is supplied in our connectedness to Him.

"Daughter your faith has healed you."

Hang on! Sometimes our faith starts small, just a hem. That is all it takes if it is His hem.



Song of Ascent

I first remember making up a song when I was five. It was a forgettable number about Lincoln's birthday which I sang before the class and was booed. It was probably as much my lack of voice as the content itself that caused me to lose the stage. I didn't stop trying.

The scriptures encourage us to "Sing unto the Lord." They urge us to sing to the Lord about the Lord. That almost sounds funny but I remember when my son was an infant that I sang to him about how beautiful he was and how much I loved him and how he was a baby giant and how funny he looked with peas in his hair and how amazingly full his diapers were. I sang. He laughed. He is probably singing his own made up songs to his own son. Happy songs. Hopeful songs. Planting song seeds in his own boy.

The Psalms have many different songs and I am no student of music but I do love the Songs of Ascent. The Come Up songs, the Pilgrim Songs, the Going Up to Jerusalem songs. Songs with a "hook." A key word, a memorable phrase.

As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the LORD surrounds his people both now and forevermore. Psalm 125

What a word picture. Here is someone making the journey up to Jerusalem and on three sides the mountains rise around him. He is going up to worship in a Temple fortress and as he walks he sings of the journey and who he will find there. He sings to God of God and his own heart hears and rejoices. "The Lord surrounds His people...the Lord surrounds us...He surrounds me...surrounds all that is mine...the Lord is mine..."

Our soul longs to sing God songs. To make a journey to Him. God knows where and when and what you need to pack. For Eternity, yes, but not just that, for today. A day hike up to the mountains with the mountain maker. A climb with the Lover of Your Soul. And God sings. He sing songs about you so you can learn to sing about Him.

He probably does not sing about peas in your hair but He sings of His love for you, His plans for you, the gifts that are yours, He sings about God stories. (The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing. Zephaniah 3:17)

In the movie Australia there is a small boy who is learning the Aboriginal way of singing songs in the oral tradition. He sings to the fish and they come. One day he sees a kind woman and he decides to sing her to him. God sang us to Him when He made a Covenant with Abraham and fulfilled it on Calvary. I feel Him "singing me to Him" every day through His word and His thoughts and His revelation. Through the kindness of friends, the touch of strangers, the needy, in nature.

Can today be the day that we rejoice over HIM with singing? What has He done? How is He saving you now? What is lovable about Him? The world may boo you off the stage but the Great God of the Universe, your Father, is listening. So come up singing! He will see. He will hear and rejoice. "Father, I wrote a song about you!" Heaven will hush and listen. Just try it as you go about your day.

God is all ears.

"The Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore" (Psalm 121:8)

This post is dedicated to Robert Wald, MD, my friend, who for almost as many years a God has, he has been listening to people's problems and soothing their hurts. Blessings, Bob, on the occasion of your retirement. Your many footprints praise you.
Shalom.kl

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Every Hair of Your Head

Every breath you release captures Christ's attention as much as a gale force wind of hurricane strength;

Every hair shed as a mighty oak crashing in the forest;

Every single beat of your heart, throbs in His pulse, as strong and fluent as African drums calling to one another across the savanna;

Every tear wets His own cheek.

He is the God of stars and planets, deepest ocean caves, the seen and unseen worlds; of ancient and future days, The King of Angel Armies and schools of fish, The Lord of war horses and sweet kitties, the Prince of honeycombs and spider silk. He is the High and Lifted Up One. The depth of Him is undiscovered.

He is Holy, Holy, Holy and He is wholeheartedly yours!

Yours today. Yours tomorrow. Yours forever. Yours!

None is His equal. None His like. He is the One with all the choices and the power to make them. He has made His choice...YOU!

He has made a place for you.

Come up. Come in. Be His. Smell the cinnamon and aloes as His robe overspreads you.

Be His. Live. Really live, now and every minute after.

He knows what your choice of Him will cost you because His choice to love and save you held nothing back.

On the way to the Cross He counted the hairs of your head a thousand times but kept no reckoning of your sins.

All that will happen to you today has been overspread by His great, fragrant robe of affection and fellowship.

Such is the God who is yours. The God who is ours.

Selah.