Saturday, August 24, 2013

Cleaning Day

Before I began my house cleaning today I opened the windows to let the fresh air and morning light in. As I started I became overwhelmed to see how much dirt was lurking in my house! Oh I knew it was there but not until seeing it I didn't realize how bad it was. It then occurred to me that without the fresh sunlight shining in through the windows I never wanted to really do anything about it. Out of sight out of mind have you but nonetheless still there.

My house is naturally dark, there are a lot of windows but there is also a lot of shade so not a lot of light shines through except in the mornings and I am rarely up as early on the weekends as I was today.

Later on as I was mopping I was reminded that in my own life I have a lot of dirt hiding in corners of my heart as well as in my thinking and my actions. I know these things are there but without Christ's light I do not see them enough to want to do anything about them. Deep strongholds have created so much dust and dirt over the years I am in need of cleansing so that I may be a better representative of Christ's love. I am so grateful to have the light shine in my darkness so that I may see and ask for the Lord's helping hand in cleansing my heart.

Did you know that the word heart is mentioned over 800 times in the Bible? It is a pretty important part of our lives that don't you think we should keep them cleaned? I know for me it is pretty important.

Psalm 51:10 KJV
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

Friday, August 16, 2013

Come to Me

I can still hear Him say,

"Come to Me."

Even though it was 3 years ago, I can still remember where I was, what I was thinking (which occurred to me later that I wasn't thinking, but was praying) and how His voice echoed in my heart as it still does to this day when he spoke those three words to me. So I asked Him, "How?"

I did not get my answer right away but from time to time I would ask Jesus, "I know you say to 'Come to Me', but how? How do I come to you?" And the thought of prayer occurred to me and I didn't do much other than acknowledge to myself that yes, prayer was how. After all, what else was there? And I left it at that and didn't seem to continue to pursue it any longer until I had struggles of course.

You see my whole prayer life has been only when I struggled, I didn't know how to pray at any other time other than when I was at my wit's end. So naturally this is why His timing seems so slow. It is because I have been slow in understanding His encompassing love and how to relate and converse with him in all things.

After this when praying I heard him speak, "I will show you," and "I will teach you." These words would burn deep in my heart and echo back to me when I had struggles, but yet I didn't even ask "How? How will you teach me and how will you show me?" any longer. I simply knew He would knowing all the answers were there in the Bible and seemed to be content with leaving it at that.

Then one night I was dreaming a vision of me in the front room of our house, and there sitting was a Bible wide open and the only words I could see plain as day in all capital letters were, "YOU WILL SEE" - and at the moment I read these words it was His voice speaking to me just as loud as if I were awake. No sooner than I read this, I quickly woke up and new God was confirming to me. But being in the flesh I thought, "Okay, someday I guess," and then the next day didn't think much of it since I didn't see any results and didn't take it too seriously.

Again another "my timing not His" and now hindsight is 20/20. God has His way of leading us to places we don't understand about until later....at least not for me. Is it just me that always seems to "get it" after the fact? So that brings me to where I am now in my walk...

We have been attending a new church for the last year and prayer and praying in the Spirit are something God wanted to show me through a Spirit filled church. I had no idea prayer could be so fulfilling on a daily basis. Most of all my other prayers in my life I didn't know how to tune in spiritually so as to hear and be comforted so quickly by the Spirit - let alone finding that others' prayers hit spot on without my telling them of things I needed prayer about. The true work of the Spirit is stronger than I ever have known and while it is something I am not used to, I am however very excited about growing it!

My prayer language has never really been developed. Its only been since January since I've been baptized by the Holy Spirit and even since then time spent with God praying in the Spirit is one that I knew was important but I didn't really make time for - I was listening to so many lies that praying was selfish.

I always knew the way to "come to Him" was through prayer but I never seemed to understand much more than that. Now I am learning in a much deeper way how to walk with Him by being able to "come to Him" -  and now I must continue to learn so that I may follow him as he says to me today, "Come to Me before you do anything."

He promised he would show me, and to teach to me, and while it isn't in the time I'd like it to be, it is something precious to know that He always keeps His word. I have not arrived at perfection by any means, but I can come to Him in a much deeper relationship than I had before - through Spirit, Son, and Father.