The Significance of Insignificance

Most of us are aware of times when we try to be noticed, valued and a part of what is happening. I even know of some people who sit and silently listen to others so that they will be noticed as someone who listen to others. I’m not like that. I like to be known right up front. My personal struggle with self-love vibrates from nano-seconds of giving and taking, humility and seeking popularity, the fear of God and the desire to please man.

Lately the Lord has been leading me to the place where it does not matter. Often this is both a physical and spiritual place. It is not a place of care-lessness. It is rather the place of surrender to “things” and joy in being. If the Lord takes you to this place you will find out how little joy you have in being (existing) and how much happiness you have because of stuff, things. It is not bad to be happy because of things, this world and everything in it was made for us to enjoy. We all should be happy people. Yet when the things are the main source of our happiness, we are no longer attached to God as the source. Stuff is out source of joy. So that means our personal joy and happieness is directly tied to things.

What I am trying to point out is that living in such a way that things are insignificant takes you to the Significant One. God stays enthroned upon out hearts and we find that we have a source of joy and peace that transcends doing and having. Now comes the hard part.

At first in our self-love form of Christianity we do not want God, but rather His things, His power, His giftings, His favor, His unlimited grace. These in themselves are so great that we could spend out whole lives enjoying them. Many people do just that. They live in the place of significant things and even will argue that there is no other place. But to the person who has moved beyond significant into that other place, the argument is not just wrong, but deceptive. Do we really what the love of things to keep us from the Love of God? Not the “knowing about” the love of God but the “entering into” the love of God. The hard part is that you have to transition from the “good” to the “best” by faith.

When we voluntary give up the good things in the hope of entering in the love of God, we have taken a risk, or we have exercised our faith. At these moments we must deal with a God who is Lord and deal with our personal selves full of expectations, desires and even judgments as to what God is like. Many people never enjoy the “God who is there” because they labor to know the “God of their personal desires.” The way that God reveals this deception to us or tries to open our hearts toward Him is to offend us. The pathway to entering into the love of God is through the gate of offence and upon the pathway of insignificance of things.

Lost and still lost

If someone finds a XPS computer with hundreds of prayer files and a vast list of intercessors, would you let me know. I had mine st olden from me a couple of weeks ago. I set up the room I was going to minister in at 8 a.m. and returned at 10 and find that my computer was accidental stolen.

I should have eaten breakfast at Hardees and not went home to eat that oatmeal. Doing the right thing always cost doesn't it. Well now I am busy pretending that I actually did back up my data. I especially feel the lose of "Delight yourself in the Lord, a cartoon prayer manual". If you find someone publishing a cartoon prayer manual - let me know.

Dear Lord:
Thanks for helping me not get attached to earthly things.
Thanks for help in learning to love and forgive.
Thanks for the data entry practice.
Thanks for helping me not to even think about it,
whatever it was.

You best friend,
in need of a computer
Rod

Why does God give us what he gives us?

Family, children, friends are given to to love. We need not make a demand upon them that they love us - but we should see each person in our circle of life as someone to love.
By loving each one we ought, we partner with God in allowing His divine love (Holy Spirit) to flow through us. The very spirit of revival is the Spirit of the Holy Spirit flowing through humanity to humanity. It is God having fellowship with others through us.
So why did God give "this one" or "that one" to you to love? Why has God withheld someone from you? Trusting God fully that "no good thing will He withhold from those who love Him" brings us not to the point of disappointment, but highest fulfillment. The lack of mates, children and friends is not a curse, but a stage in the journey to Christlikeness. When we grow in love, we also grow in family, friends and children. Christ guaranteed this in the gospels.
God also gives us unique people to love. When we find ourselves among "difficult to love" people we should ask, "What aspect or need of love does this person have that God has chosen me to supply for Him?" This is easy if we need only love for a moment. It is much more "loving" to be called to love these people for years and decades. :) We will find that most of those we are called to love for God, we are called to all the days of our lives. God has chosen us to live among them as He would.
Usually at the point of frustration in loving others is the point at which we are weak in Christlineness ourselves. The more we are transformed the "easier" it is to love. So our calling to love others is also a blessed tool of transformation!!! Do not be denied your transformation by pride, sloth, insecurity, greed or envy. Do not let the Devil himself to cheat you out of your transformation. Do not be hindered by envy, jealously, anger or foolishness.
When you are overwhelmed with all the need and demand of others for your love - rejoice. It is not "your love" they need or seek. It is God's love dispensed through you. These demands become your blessing as the need for bread for your neighbor leads you often to the dwelling of the Lord. Most always He requires us to "dine" with Him before we run off and do His will. Eph. 3:14-19

Un-American God

Isa 57:15 For thus says the high and exalted One Who lives forever, whose name is Holy, "I dwell on a high and holy place, And also with the contrite and lowly of spirit In order to revive the spirit of the lowly And to revive the heart of the contrite.

God appears in this passage to be very un-american. He is the living holy one who dwells (lives, abides and stays) with broken down ones. He is not the God who visits the nursing home, who walks through the depressed neighborhoods, who calls the totally whacked to see how they are doing. He goes and lives with them so that they can be revived or come to life.

If God dwells on high and in holy places, yet he lives with the contrite and lowly, does that mean that they(the broken and depressed) are on height with Him? Are the broken down with God in the elevated dwelling place? Are they dwelling in Him and possessing the Holy Mountain?

What type of God hangs out with and lives with the broken people of the world? Are we not all taught in the American church to be "something special" so that we are blessed, rewarded and valued? Do we not all sing songs of triumph which have us winning the battle, overcoming the enemy and defeating the foe through our faith? Are we only partly educated and equipped?

"Revive" here means to "live". God is a God of life. If you already have a life, if your daily existence is full of stuff, activity, recreation, family, friends, lunches, dinners, sporting events, concerts, theater, biking, eating, singing; then you have no room for God, no room for life. But if you find yourself on the edge of emptiness, if you feel a lack in your heart, a desire for something more, then there is hope.

According to Isaiah 57:15 here is what you do to pull yourself out of the situation and brokenness you are in. First of all you "be". Second you look for the God who said He would be there as you "be". Thirdly you spiritually allow God to descend into your brokenness and lift you to His height and holy places. You can say "no" to both the indwelling presence of God and the revival of your life. Your pain will try to make you say no. Fear and hopelessness will not always yield easily, but God is long suffering and persistent.

Here is my "Crashed, smashed and broken prayer".

HERE I AM, COME AND GET ME!!!!

Even if you are suffering pain, it is actually quite hard to be down cast if you are truly interacting with the presence of God. You can be in so much pain that your mind is numb to everything else. That is another situation with another method of revival. But for those trapped in brokenness there is an method of elevation, and it comes in the form of the dwelling of God.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day is a very unique day. It is holy.

For whatever reason, a women choose to carry us and nurture us. We have life because another person took care of us. When I consider all the things I have enjoyed, all the love I have experienced, all the wonders I have seen; then realize it all depended on my Mother providing for me.

The months of being unborn, what is it like to carry the burden of life? What a mystery it is to own you life to your Mom. Oh, sure I know it takes two, but one bore me. That time in the womb is very spiritual. It is Godlike in the sense that I was helpless, yet alive. I was a being and yet I could not exist without care, nurture and protection. Now that I am an old man, God still "mothers" me. The wonder of God is the wonder of connection and common life.

I owe a debt to my Mom that I can not repay or even express. It is the debt of life. God in His wisdom choose to gift mothers with this great power, privilege and responsibility.

Thank you God for Mothers! Thank you for my Mom. Thank you for life.

The Lord is our Shepherd

Because God is very good we should not waist our past, especially our past failures. The things that we face this today, and tomorrow, are placed into our lives so that we live beyond and above them. To do this God has lead us through our past to our present, so that we might live as Kingdom people.

Make a list of all the miraculous things that have happened in your life. This list comes at the crossroads of desperation and conflict. The things that occurred in these moments are some of our most critical training. But we tend to blow it off and relegate it to "bad experiences" or "miraculous events". They are more. They are a big part of the training of God.

If you have been healed, as I have, then you have been trained in God's power to intervene in our bodies. If you have been given gifts of provision, as I have, you have been trained in God's school of supply. If you have been liberated in your mind, as I have, from negative condemning controlling thoughts then you have been trained by God in the renewing of the mind and the reforming of inner life.

So it is not a matter of just getting through a season of life or of having God get us out of a pickle. We are being trained in the ways of the Lord so that we can deal with the storms and issues of life. Let's not go to school for years and then live as though we have no education, no training.

Take your list and open your heart and mind to the equipping of the Lord. He lead you through these things so that you would not just "know about" the possibility of God's ways but so that you would "experience them". You are a living testimony of God and His ways. Now don't waist them. Boldly live daily life in such a way as to allow the training you have received from God to touch the lives of others. Sure no all people will be touch in the same way God touch you. Sure you can not guarantee the outcome. But you can be just like Jesus and make intercession for others to encounter God in His miracle working manner.

Having Hope

Having hope is so vital to daily life.

One day of being encouraged can make a tremendous difference in how we see things, how we feel about things and how we encounter ourselves. I find that most of my hope is related to my personal happiness and feeling that the things I desire will happen. But with so many people and so many desires, isn't someone bound to be disappointed?

The only way to avoid the big "NO GO" is to be connected with God. When my hope is in Him, I win. I win not because I get what I want more, but because when He is my desire I can always have Him. This may seem basic, and it is. But the more we live with our hope in Him the more we set others free from our con trolls, ruling spirit and expectations.


Here is a recent application

Speeding down I 65
Close behind, close beside
Talking on cell phone at high speed
Feeding my face
Seeing no need
To Slow down

Loving Dad and child
Setting in rear
Seeing the car
Fearing the fear
Wondering if driver, while feeding their face
Sees any danger
Would slower the pace.

Yet God in the heart
Reaches the soul
Helping the Dad
Release his control
Fearing not death or dismemberment
Eats his own fries
And now is content.

"Out on life's Highway, living with God"