Quote of the Day

"He's gonna get you where He wants, when He wants, and how He wants and if your not there it's probably because He doesn't want you there."  Banning Liebscher

I heard this today... and totally "whoed in the spirit!"

seeing

Last weekend I had an amazing experience.  I was at a conference in Dubai held by the church that I attend.  There were a lot of manifestations of the Spirit and in all different forms.  It never fails, but when I am in this type of atmosphere I always (every single time) am the one who has some very big person fall on me.  This time was no different.  It happened again!  I usually try to find a very safe corner w/as little people as possible and soak.  I tried to do this but you tend to loose sight of people with your eyes closed.  BAMB!  It happened again! Another person fell on me! There are only two places that I feel safe, in corners or on stage. So I set up shop and put chairs around me in the corner, this worked for a short period and then it began to calm down a little bit.  For some reason, I was not feeling any sort of physical manifestations but my heart was just SCREAMING worship! worship! worship!  As Holy Spirit's scene began to calm down a bit, I sat down in front of the stage and was just soaking w/my eyes closed.  It then happened! No, no one fell on me but I saw something that can not be seen!  At first with my eyes closed, I saw these clear waves coming from the piano!  I was like "no way! what is that?"  I then opened my eyes and saw the clear waves in the present!  They were coming from the piano and coming towards me!  The ringlets came past my head and went on.  Then I began to see another set, and then another, and then another!  I was seeing sound! How cool is that?!!!

Terebinth Tree

The other night I had a dream.  In the dream I heard a voice, in which I think was the Holy Spirit.  He said "the Lord is just like a Terebinth Tree."  Immediately I awoke and began searching anything I could on Terebinth Trees.  The past few days I have been learning just how beautiful these trees are and just how Strong they are.  Here's a little something that I created this morning, while meditating on the characteristics of a Terebinth Tree. :-)

Caught up

Today I am just so caught up in the love of God.  I was reading in Deuteronomy this morning...

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength."   

Deuteronomy 6:5

This is no new scripture to me, but is very familiar.  I tend to quote this scripture to my spirit quite often but today this scripture spoke to me in a different way.  What does it really mean to love the Lord my God with all my heart, with all my soul, and with all my strength?  Is this actually something that I can possibly obtain on my own strength?  This morning when I prayed this scripture, I just began to say "Lord who am I? Who am I that You would love me with all Your heart, with all Your soul, with all Your strength?  Who am I that You would love me this way? But You do. You do love me in this way.  You love me with all that You ever had."

It's quite amazing how strong and vast God's love truly is.  I look at just who I am now, who I used to be, and who God is making me into and I just can't help to say... God loves me so much!  I don't deserve this extravagant love but I have been given it.  This is the truest, deepest love that I have and will ever experience.  I am truly grateful for God's love.  I look at were I used to be, who I used to be, and how dark my heart used to be and then I look at who I am now, where God has brought me, and how much lighter my heart is.   I just have to say that I am so in love with a Beautiful Man who has loved me in my darkness and my past, and who now loves me in my very present.  I am so in love with a Beautiful Man who will continue to bring me into His completion.  I just have to ask again "Who am I God that You, the God who created the Universe, who made the depth of the seas, and put the stars in the sky, who died on that tree to bring life to me, who am I that You chose me?"  

As I prayed this scripture this morning I was just in awe of the Presence of God in my very own living room as I spoke to Him.  His Love is simply the most beautiful thing I have ever experienced.  How I want to know Him more intimately than anything in the so called existence of life-as the world calls it.  I want to know Him more than anything in all of eternity that is and will always be.  I just couldn't help but pray "Father, help me know You.  Help me love You with all my heart. Help me love You with all my soul.  Help me love You with all my strength.  I just want to have the knowledge of You God.  I want to have a life devoted to knowing who You truly are."

I can't help to question (without wanting to truly know)...
"What would I have become if He wouldn't have given His Son?
What would I have become if He wouldn't have shed His blood on that cross?"

He sent His Son, He gave it all, He loved me with all His Heart.  He loved me with all His Soul, He loved me with all His Strength."

I pray today, "Help me Father love you this way."

Quote of the Day

"You cannot have any higher price than God giving Himself for love."  This is the greatest picture of what true love is all about. 

Not like man. Not like me.

I heard this chorus this morning...
"All man's empty promises lie broken at Your feet... but You have never broken one."
I just raised my hands and declared this (with my hair straightener in hand :-D).
 I began to sing and dance this morning ...
"When all my empty promises lie broken at Your feet...  You have never broken one."

It just reminded me that God is not like us.
He's not like man.
He's faithful. He's good. He's forever unlike anything in this World.
God is not like man. He's not like me.
He gives us beauty for ashes.
He gives us garments of praise.
He gives us infinite mercy for those who fear Him.
He opens up His Heart to us time after time after time,
He opens up His Heart even through our brokenness or broken promises.
He's not like man, He's not like me.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.


Here's the link to the video that I was playing...
http://mediasuite.multicastmedia.com/player.php?v=n656q1nf

Awaken to the Good and Give Thanks

The Hebrew word for gratitude is hikarat hatov, which translates as "recognizing the good."  How many times a day do we recognize the good that is in front of us, around us, or in our circumstances?  I asked this question not only to you (the reader) but to myself.  It's so easy for us to come to terms and focus on things that we lack.  We all too many times overlook what gifts we have been given, especially when facing difficulties.  The truth is that even when facing difficulties, you still have something good that has been given to you.  I read a good quote this morning... "Practicing gratitude means recognizing the good that is already yours."  How true is this? (question not meant to be answered but realized)
 Here are a few examples:

1. If your car just broke down but your legs work properly to walk, than you shave something to be grateful for. 
2. If your homesick and miss your friends and family but you have made new friends in your current location, than you have something to be grateful for.
3. If you lost your job but still have your family and health, than you have something to be grateful for.
4. If you broke a string on your guitar but you still have 4 strings left, than you have something to be grateful for.
5. If your flight was delayed 8 hours but you made 2 new friends from different countries, than you have something to be grateful for.

Selah

(reader pause and think)

This week I have been focusing on this character trait. GRATITUDE.  When we focus on noticing things that we can be grateful for we discover how much good there really is in our lives (even in the midst of difficulties).

Challenge:  

Say thank you to every person who does even the slightest thing that is helpful or beneficial to you.

Say thank you to God for every beautiful thing that He puts in your path.

Awaken to the good and give thanks.

Conversation with God

I was driving the other day in my home state and I had all these random thoughts come to my mind.  These thoughts were spoken verbally... although no-one else was in the car with me.  I sometimes speak to myself... via God. :-)

Random thoughts:

1. It's so beautiful in America! The temperature is absolutely perfect with a cool fall breeze that blows across my skin.
2. The dessert is not beautiful... thats for sure.  It's sandy, very hot, with a hot breeze that causes sand burns across your skin!
3. Yes, I almost forgot how much I love clouds! Big white puffy clouds!
4. There are never clouds in the U.A.E.  It's always sunny and hot as a sauna!
5. Oh and grass too! I absolutely love grass!
6. No grass in the U.A.E.  It's just full of rolling sand dunes and sky scraper gallore!
7. How easy it is to get around here! There are parking spaces, no traffic, and people who follow the road rules!
8. I def. don't miss the traffic, crazy drivers who cut you off, and the killer-accidents that happen on the highway.  Not to mention all the HONKING!!!
9. God... I miss home and the simplicity of life.

Immediately when I said #5 out loud... God answered me.

God:  "I came so you could have life and have it more abundantly." (John 10:10)


Immediately I was struck by surprise! I did not expect to hear God speak back to me.  These past few years I have come to realize that God has a different calling for every person.  My life may look very different than someone else's, although our lives are of equal importance to God.  As I listened to what God said to me on this day, I came to understand an important point that He was trying to share with me.  For me...  the simplicity of what my life could be here in the states is not what God has called me to live.     Simplicity is not always abundance.  At this point in my life God has not called me to live a simple life back home but the exact opposite. God's view of me living abundantly is not what I may think living abundantly is... simplicity.  I have to say that this past year living in the M-East has been the hardest year of my life.  I have gone through many trials dealing with culture, people, and finding my place in a very foreign land alone.  I have been questioning going though all this again another year.  It has been a difficult year and I have been asking God if I had actually heard Him right the first time (of course I had). I was refreshed this summer by an amazing summer in HIS LAND!  This refreshed me from the hardships of the U.A.E.  Ending the summer back home in Indiana has been quite refreshing too.  Voicing (to the Lord) the simplicity of life back home in Indiana took me to a random "God encounter."

I just have to end with... "God's ways of living life abundantly are not always man's ways."
Thank you God that Your Ways are not my ways.   Important lesson learned today. :-) :-) :-)

Thoughts from the day

I fell in love with a different kind of desert today.
Wading knee high in a fresh spring in the hot desert sun.
Glistening in the heat and happy to be free.
Arab children giggling as they ran up the stream making their way to the fresh water pool.
Big almond eyes looking back as they leave saying...
Goodbye! Goodbye! Goodbye!
One of the twin girls spoke in her broken english while holding her mother's hand.
The mother smiled at her daughter's openness.
So warm and open she was to use her english skills.
I pray this is an open door to Kingdom building!
Saw my first Accacia tree today.
Remembering the instructions of the building of the tabernacle,
"you shall make it out of Accacia wood."
This just might be the kind of bush that caught Moses attention.
This is Holy ground! Take off your shoes!
The leaves sparkled above with the sun peering through.
What beauty can be found in the desert.
What beauty can be found in a spring hidden across the sea.
A sea full of crystalized salt.
Beauty it appears but no life.
How can something be so beautiful but be so dead?
On the road again.
All packed in the station wagon like sardines. :-)
Thank you's go out to the two beautiful saints who lent us the wheels!
Happy to see a different kind of desert for a change.
So many rocks compared to the soft sand that I have grown so accustomed to.
A new meaning of the saying... " if you keep silent, the rocks would cry out."
Literally how all of creation does cry out in worship.
He deserves all our praise! He deserves all our praise!
Moved on to the place where it all began.
Our great father-Abraham was a man of obedience.
A man of faith and the Lord counted it to him as righteousness.
A shepherd's field full of camels.
Saw a modern day shepherd today.
As David would have been on foot...
times have changed.
An upgrade to a Quad... this is the 20th century.
Gotta love the modern day bedouin shepherd!
Drove down 60... next stop "Crater."
Brought out the guitar and percussion.
Almost blown away... what a powerful wind for this frame.
Let our prayers and worship arise!
Magnificent sunset upon the cliff.
"Let everything that has breath praise the Lord."
On the road again.
Finished the day with some chocolate cake... I just might have had 2 pieces. :-D
Great fellowship from houses from N all down S of 60.
Highway to Holiness.
On the road again.
Pitch black night.
Stars twinkling in the sky.
How long it has been since I have seen the stars like this...
"Oh wait... I never have!"
Freeze me in this moment please!
Awesome testimonies from the day shared...
Song of Solomon coming into mind.
Doesn't it always?
What a beautiful day in the desert today...
Let's praise Him for the Beauty of His Faithfulness!

Writing on the Wall

what have we begun,

when we pray like this?

What have we done?

Can we ever know--

what seeds we sow

what lights we show

what dreams we throw?

here playing like kids

in danger places

atomic seeds

hidden graces

radiation

kingdom come, what have we begun?

here we see angels,

burning like the sun.

here we juggle destinies

what is this thing we've done?

what army gets commissioned

kneeling in this way?

What passion finds expression

when wounded soldiers pray?

are nameless heroes rising?

tomorrow's chosen ones

carriers of Jesus

What plague have we begun?

What dreamer writes upon the wall?

What wonders hem me in?

When we lit that three-way candle

What fires did we begin?

Anonymous, found on prayer room wall, Chichester, U.K.