God, Where Are You?

Have you ever felt like God was nowhere to be found?  You look and look and yet it feels like you can't find him.  You look inside (in your heart), you look outside.  You know the Bible says "And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:20).  But yet it seems like He has moved to the next galaxy?  Why does God seem to run away from us?  Is He lying when he says He will never leave us?

Lately I have been having a few of these experiences that it feels like God is nowhere to be found.  It feels lonely.  It feels like I am abandoned.  Today was another of those days.  I could tell God was there, my physical senses could feel Him, but my heart, spirit, and mind could not seem to find Him.  It seemed He had decided to take up residence in another place.  But today I got bold.  I asked God where he was and why I couldn't seem to sense His presence.  Immediately I get a response back that nearly dropped me to my knees and brought tears to my eyes.  I heard God clearly say "I am here, you can't sense my presence or feel me because I am so close to you that you cannot see Me."  He was there, hiding in plain sight; hiding in me, and around me.  It was a comfort to know.  From that moment on it seemed God became clear again.  I so much needed to know He was there.  I so needed to hear His still small voice. 

But what these experiences have done for me was to give me a greater passion to pursue Him even when I can't 'feel' Him.  My heart burns to know him more, and those moments (or days) when it feels He isn't to be found drives me to pursue Him even harder.  My heart desires to know Him even more.  I know it may sound strange, but the more I seek Him the more real He is when I find Him. 

We so often think that God is only there if we can sense Him with our senses.  As a Pentecostal, it is easy to know when God comes near.  There is a tangible feeling.  Sometimes that feeling gives way to a physical reaction.  It may bring tears, it may force me to my knees, or cause me to shake, or even fall under the weight of His presence. There can be a danger in allowing the physical way we respond to God dictate to our soul and spirit where God is a is not.  We need to learn that God also comes to us in quiet ways, sometimes even invisible ways.  So do not get caught up in the physical responses or reactions.  Just because our physical senses do not seem to feel God does not mean He is not there.  It may be that He wants you to pursue Him.  Just like in a romantic relationship, to make it work and be worth it, both man and woman must pursue each other.  Sometimes it is done together, and sometimes the man pursues the woman and she tries to get away, and sometimes it's the woman pursuing the man.  In either of these situations it requires a pursuing.  God made us and desires to be in relationship with us and sometimes He is the pursuer and other times He 'hides' to see how serious we are about our relationship with Him so that we either forget Him or seek Him.  God wants to be pursued by us just as much as we want God to pursue us.  So when you feel that moment or day or week or year when God seems distant, seek after Him.  He is never far away and is often hiding in plain sight.  He loves us so passionately that He will never leave us alone, never turn His back on us.  You can never do anything that will stop Him from loving you.  Over and over the scriptures say He desires to gather us to Himself, but we have to be willing.  So I say to you be willing.  Let Him draw you to Him. The way He may do that is to 'withdraw' from you to fuel your passion and desire for Him.

Father, for those people reading this that cannot seem to find you and they feel like you have abandoned them, I ask that you do not stop calling to them.  I ask that you would show your face to them as they pursue You, as they go after You with all that they have.  As they pursue You Father, I ask that You would open their eyes to see that You are also pursuing them and You have not let them go.  When they ask where You are, I ask that that cry in their heart would serve to propel them to seek after you like never before, that they would have a burning desire in their spirit to seek You and to find You wherever You may be found.  Do not stop pursuing us oh God.  Pull us ever closer to your heart.

The Idolatry and Adultry Connection

Have you ever stopped to think about the difference between idolatry and adultery?  You may think they are not even in the same ball park.  You might think one is worshipping something other than God and the other cheating on your spouse.  They seem at first look to be very different.  But if you take a closer look they are very similar.  Psalm 106:34-40 says "Israel failed to destroy the nations in the land, as the LORD had told them to. Instead, they mingled among the pagans and adopted their evil customs. They worshiped their idols, and this led to their downfall. They even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons. They shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters. By sacrificing them to the idols of Canaan, they polluted the land with murder.  They defiled themselves by their evil deeds, and their love of idols was adultery in the LORD's sight.  That is why the LORD's anger burned against his people, and he abhorred his own special possession."

So what is the similarity you may ask?  They both are taking the love and devotion meant for one, and given to another.  Idolatry is taking the love and adoration that is God's and God's alone and given to something else such as a piece of wood, metal, or stone, or to another object such as an animal, money, job, car, etc.  God and God alone should be the only place we direct our worship.  When we direct it to something else, it is idolatry.  Adultery is taking the love and affection meant for one's spouse and given to another person.  If you are giving that love and affection through an affair, you are not properly giving it to your spouse.  You may think you can, but you are not.  When God calls the love for idols adultery, then they are the same root cause. 

We were made to worship God and God alone.  And when once we are married, we are to love, honor, and cherish our spouse alone.  When we give it to another, God becomes angry with us (see verse above) just as a spouse burns with anger and jealousy when their partner commits adultery. 

Paul tells us that we are to love our spouse as Christ loves the Church (Ephesians 5).  That is a tall order, but if God didn't think we could do it, then He wouldn't have asked.  God asked us to worship Him and Him alone (Exodus 20:4-5). 

The roots of both are the same, a wandering heart.  I can just hear your argument "But I can't help it."  Yes you can.  When your heart truly belongs to God, and to your spouse, it will not wander.  If you keep any part for yourself, it will wander and take the rest with it.  How can you keep your way pure?  How can you keep this root from developing in your life?  The answer can be found in Psalm 119:9: "How can a young person stay pure? By obeying your word and following its rules."  And if you don't know how to do this James1:5 tells us: "If you need wisdom -- if you want to know what God wants you to do -- ask him, and he will gladly tell you. He will not resent your asking."

So what's the bottom line? Keep your heart and mind pure and keep your affections and worship in check, that way you will not be guilty of giving away your worship or adoration to any other than the one it was meant to go to, that being God and your spouse only. 

Psalm 51:5-13 would an excellent example of a prayer to model your prayer life after "For I was born a sinner -- yes, from the moment my mother conceived me. But you desire honesty from the heart, so you can teach me to be wise in my inmost being.  Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Oh, give me back my joy again; you have broken me -- now let me rejoice. Don't keep looking at my sins. Remove the stain of my guilt. Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me. Do not banish me from your presence, and don't take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me again the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you.  Then I will teach your ways to sinners, and they will return to you."

Trying to Hide the Trash

I recently saw a house with a nice neat and tidy yard. The occupants were not wealthy but they kept their yard looking nice.  The yard was surrounded by a rock wall, but if you looked over the wall in the back of the property, you would see mountains of garbage.  It was left there to rot and for someone else to pick up.  It was stinky and looked very bad.

Many people try to do the same thing in their own life.  You meet them, they look great on the outside and the parts of them that you see and get to know seem very well kept and free from clutter.  But inside they have put up a wall over which they have thrown the trash that they wish no one to see.  This trash might consist of past hurts, past abuse, a secret sin, a bad attitude, etc.  The problem is that eventually this trash will begin to stink or pile up so much that it flows over into the neat and tidy areas.  Some of these people are just trying to hide the junk, and expect others to clean it up for them.  They hope that no one ever sees it or looks over that wall.  But you can only pile up so much trash before it is visible to everyone and can no longer be hidden.

The good news is that there is someone that can clean it up or help us clean it up.  No matter how neat and tidy we try and make ourselves look, this person can see through that wall to the trash behind it.  Jesus is that person. He wants to clean us up.  He doesn't ask us to take out the garbage before He comes to us, He says that He will accept us as we are and help us clean out the trash.  He has a giant trash bin waiting to fill up with our trash.  1 John 1:9 tells us: "But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong."  He will take our trash away from us.  But firs we have to let Him and be willing to let him see behind the wall. 

This does not just apply to unbelievers; it applies equally to believers as well.  Many believers try and hide their trash and often do a great job of it.  But eventually, if we want to move forward in God and grow past the stage we are at, we have to confess that sin to Jesus and allow Him to take the trash out from behind the wall.  It makes no difference what the outside looks like if we are filled with trash on the inside.  God's desire is that we be filled with Him, with His Holy Spirit, not with the trash from our past or the sins that we want to hang on to.  God calls us to be Holy.  1 Peter 1:14-17 tells us: "Obey God because you are his children. Don't slip back into your old ways of doing evil; you didn't know any better then. But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God -- who chose you to be his children -- is holy.  For he himself has said, "You must be holy because I am holy."  And remember that the heavenly Father to whom you pray has no favorites when he judges. He will judge or reward you according to what you do. So you must live in reverent fear of him during your time as foreigners here on earth."  The good news is that He is the one the helps us to clean out the garbage and He is the one that makes us holy. (Leviticus 22:32, as well as many other places).

I challenge you to look behind that wall you have erected and look and see if you have trash hidden there while trying to make every other area of your life look nice and neat.  It doesn't matter what is there.  God promises to make us holy and to make us holy.  He promises to forgive us.  Then just like the woman caught in adultery, He will say to you "'Where are your accusers? Didn't even one of them condemn you?'  'No, Lord,' she said. And Jesus said, 'Neither do I. Go and sin no more.'  Jesus said to the people, "I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won't be stumbling through the darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life."  (John 8:10-12).

Jesus I ask that the one reading this will have the courage to look behind their wall and allow You to remove the garbage and make them holy.  Shine your light into their heart so that they can live a life worthy of Your calling and a life that reflects You and not their own efforts."

Stepping off the Cliff


Faith is something we often do not quite


understand or wish we had more of.  My wife and I teach at a Christian school but recently we have felt that God has been asking us to leave the security of that job to step off the cliff and watch what God would do.  No job prospects, a baby on the way, and more and more people at our house needing a safe place to live.  To the natural mind leaving the security of a paid job to a place of not knowing seems crazy.  Believe me it feels crazy.  But at the same time, not following God's leading seems even crazier.  We have had many confirmations that lead us to believe that we truly are hearing God's voice in the matter.  I would venture a guess that most people would not do this.  Yesterday we talked to our principal about the reasons we were not coming back in the fall.  She has been wondering when we would break this news and how she would react because she has seen it coming as well.  Today we told the school administrator of our intentions of not coming back and why and what was next.  He was in total agreement though sad with our decision.



The pipe of blessing as seen on my walk today.

Right after that I went for my morning prayer walk along an irrigation canal.  It has always been dry with no hint of water.  Today as I walked, I saw a trickle of water coming down the canal towards me and I wondered where it was coming from.  As I rounded a corner, I came to a gate that was supposed to stop the water but it was allowing a small trickle through to the other side.  Still further around the corner I suddenly heard the sound of rushing water.  I saw a water pipe approximately 12 inches in diameter gushing water into the ditch from a well a long side the canal.  Suddenly God spoke clearly.  "Now that you have stepped off the cliff, this represents the flow of provision that I have for you.  This flow of provision is not just financial and job related but also many other things.  Not only that, the trickle coming from the other side represented the overflow to others.  Because you have been obedient, you will be taken care of from My well and be able to bless others from the trickle, which will be in a different direction from where I have called you to."

My first thought was one of awe and wonder.  Had I gone down the canal earlier I would have missed this picture.  But the fact that I saw this right after stepping off the cliff has huge spiritual meaning.  Now I can't say that I am any less anxious, but I know I can say with confidence that God will provide.  It may not be in my time, but in His time.  People will call us crazy for leaving the security of a job that supports us, but when God speaks we MUST follow.  It might not always look like the sane thing to do but it is even more insane to tell God no. 

You may be wondering why I have just told you this.  My point is that when God says go, do not hesitate.  Follow His leading and do what he says when he says it.  In this way you will receive a blessing that far outweighs the fear of stepping off that cliff.  Be brave.  Be strong. "For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a hope and a future." (Jeremiah 29:11).  Take that step off the cliff if that is what God is asking you to do.  Just do it, and see what God will do. 

Priorities

Recently I heard a young person say this: "My Priorities are Jesus, Dorito Tacos, and homework."  As soon as this was said I knew it wasn't true.  How?  I know this person well enough to know by how they live.  This person said this in the middle of a group of leaders at youth group at church.  My first thought was "Hmmmm, well how you live your life sure doesn't show that.  You do all sorts of things that counteract that statement.  It might be your deep desire, but your desires and your actions do not match."

After pondering this awhile, I wondered how many of us are like this.  We say one thing, but our actions do not line up.  They did in the Old Testament.  Many times the Israelites said that they would give up everything to follow God and do exactly what he says.  But then you look at the very next chapter and sometimes the next verse and you see something different.  They turned their backs on God and did evil, worshipped other gods, offered their children as sacrifices to these gods.

This makes me wonder why we are like that.  What makes us say one thing and do another?  Why don't our actions and words match up?  To be honest, there is  no easy answer.  We can see God at work in our lives, see miracles and healings and still go out and turn our backs against God and His perfect way.  Our hearts want both the power of God and the things this world offers.  Jesus himself tells us "No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other..." (Matthew 6:26).  We can tell this by looking at the example of Israel.  They tried to serve God and Idols and themselves, but in the end they served only themselves offering only lip service to God and the idols.

So what is the solution?  WE MUST STORE OUR TREASURE UP IN GOD, IN JESUS!  If we don't, we will end up serving our own fleshly desires.  We must allow the Holy Spirit to change our desires to match God's.  This is not easy and does not lead to an easy life.  It is very difficult and sometimes lonely.  But we if we want to serve God and God alone, and allow Jesus to the center of our lives, me must allow Him to change our hearts to resemble His.  We must also recognize that God will not make us want to love Him, that would make us robots and free will is lost.  We must freely choose to offer our lives, our words, our actions to Him and allow Him to transform us no matter the cost. 

Yes there is a cost involved.  It might cost us what we want.  It might cost us friends, money, fame, power, and even family, and could quite possibly be a lonely life.  But the rewards of following wholly after Jesus are well worth it.  We trade in a few years of ease and comfort for an eternity in His presence and the opportunity to speak with Him face to face one day.  Some say their priorities are Jesus, then other things, but what do their life choices show?  Look at your own life.  Do your choices reflect a desire to follow after Jesus 100%?  Or do they reflect a desire to follow your own desires?  It is a struggle we all have to face.  Count the cost.  What are you willing to pay to truly rearrange your priorities to put Jesus as #1?  Are you willing to lay down your life and desires and plans for the perfect plan that comes from God?  I pray that you choose Jesus, but will also respect your choice not to if the cost is too high.  I just ask that you are not like the individual at the opening of this piece that says Jesus is their number one priority when in fact it is obvious from how your life that it is not. 

Jesus help us all to follow you by laying down our rights and our freedom to pick up Your plan.  Help us to lay down our fear, our selfishness, selfish ambitions and blindness to truly take up our cross and follow you.  I pray that you will not have to say to any of us when we see you face to face to go away because You never knew us."

The God of Me?

  After watching a video regarding "Wrong Worship"  I have a few thoughts.  The YouTube video entitled "Wrong Worship" which was a pre-sermon illustration, while funny, hits the nail squarely on the head.  It is a commentary on many of us during worship.   After watching it several times, it seems that the attitudes the skit was portraying was one that is common to all of us.  It is focused on "ME."  If we were able to get into the thoughts of people as they worship on Sunday morning, night, or whenever we worship, the thoughts that would be heard would often times have a self-centeredness about them. Such as, thinking about lunch, or the horrid voice behind us, or the way the new clothes  or haircut we are wearing and wondering if others are noticing us.  Now before you get to critical of this, we have all done it.  Yes, even I have.  I catch myself all the time thinking about me, how am I sounding?  Is someone noticing that I am raising my hands or seem to know the songs well?   Oops I hope no one heard that terrible note I just sang.  Does that person in front of me think I sound great? 
     Where does this come from? Why is it all too common?  If we look at history, even Adam and Eve where guilty of this.  Eve, when tempted with the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, was thinking about herself, and what she could get out of it if she ate the fruit and what would the snake think if she didn't?  Adam thought of himself and blamed Eve for thinking of himself.  Now I know the Bible does not say this specifically, but isn't that what all of us would do?  Then we read a little further in Genesis and we find Cain and Abel offering their sacrifices.  Cain was angry at God and his brother because he did not do what was asked of God.  (Genesis 4 implies that God had given them specific instructions for bringing offerings to Him).  God even warned Cain but his thoughts remained on himself and so he killed his brother out of anger.  When God pronounced punishment on him, he said "It is too much for ME to bear."  King David looked at Bathsheba and wanted her for himself, not thinking of his other wives or of Uriah, Bathsheba's husband.  Peter was thinking about himself when he denied Jesus.  I can imagine him thinking "What would these people think if I say I know Jesus and say I am his follower?"  What is it that made Lucifer fall from heaven?  It was thinking about himself and trying to get ahead by becoming like God or trying to surpass Him.
     Don't we all fall in that trap now and then?  Look around you.  That car just cut you off at the light or who sped around you not caring.  Someone grabbed that last package off the shelf from behind you as you were reaching for it.  You watch as someone at the restaurant complains that their food is not just perfect for them.  You over hear someone say they earned it so why not?
     Jesus asked us to die to ourselves.  Luke 9:23 says “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me."  This means that we cannot put ourselves in front.  We must think about what God wants from of and how we can serve and honor Him.  That is what we are made for.  But it is that free will, given to us by God that does not make it easy to do so.
     So back to worship.  God wants our worship and even craves our worship.  But when we sing a song that is worshipful and our hearts are not in it, we are not truly worshipping, but just singing a song.  As Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well, "Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” (John 4:23-24).  This verse is a not so subtle reminder that only true worship is that which is not about me.  Easy to do?  From my own personal experience, not always, and most of the time, not at all.  Hebrews 13:15 says" Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name."  It is through Jesus that I can truly offer praise and our worship to God. And it is truly a sacrifice on my part most of the time.  When I do offer that sacrifice of praise, I get more than I expect and God comes near.  It is when God comes near that I am truly blessed and fulfilled, and it had nothing to do with me at all.  It has been and always will be all about the God of the universe who made me.

Louie Giglio - Nature Singing to God

This video is so amazing I had to share it here.  After I finished watching, I started wondering what rocks sound like.  You will understand after watching.

The Phoenix Part 2

Almost every legend that speaks of the Phoenix describes the Phoenix with a gold head.  Gold represents holiness, tried in the fire, praise, and blessing.  It is interesting that this all in the head. 

If you think about it, holiness has to start in our head, or our thought life.  All action seems to flow from that.  If our thoughts are holy, then our actions will follow suit.  At the same time all our temptations and all of our trials (unless it is an illness) originate in our head.  And also when we praise others or pronounce a blessing over anyone or something, it comes from our mind, our head. 

Our thoughts must remain holy.  Our words must be full of praise and blessing, not because it makes us look good, but because God asks us to be.  Leviticus 20:26 says "You must be holy because I, the LORD, am holy. I have set you apart from all other people to be my very own." 

What does it mean to be holy?  It is defined as spiritually whole or sound; of unimpaired innocence and virtue; free from sinful affections; pure in heart; godly; pious; irreproachable; guiltless; acceptable to God.  That is a tall order when you put your mind to it.  It is not an easy thing to be pure in heart, or even spiritually whole for that matter.  If you notice the definition also says that to be holy is to be free from sinful affections.  In other words free from the want to sin, or the desire to sin,  a very tall order for anyone.  Since Adam we all are born into sin and even have the desire to sin.   It is not natural for us to be pure and guiltless, but yet something deep inside us wish and long for that kind of life.

In thinking of a pure or holy thought life, a few thoughts came to mind.  First if we are careful what our eyes see, for they can feed us a wrong, impure, unholy thought.  For example, we can hardly go anywhere without our eyes falling on something that feeds our mind for the impure.  I am particularly thinking about a particular store I was at recently.  Since it is spring and summer is fast approaching, this store prominently displays summer swimwear in high traffic areas.  You cannot go to any place in the store that you need to go to without passing by this display.  This store also places undergarments for both men and women in high traffic places.  They not only place it there but they make sure that the ones that are most eye appealing and most lustfully appealing to us.  What God showed me about this part of the store, unholy spirits hang out there and tempt people to think about impure things.  While they look appealing to our eyes, if we could see the spirits that hangout there, we would see a different scenario.  These spirits are not beautiful and would repel us if we could see them, but they are masters at seducing people into thinking unholy thoughts that remain in our minds long after we leave that section and even leave the store.  What I saw was the seductive finger that we often see in Hollywood movies except that finger was bony, gray, and very ugly.  There was also a cackling laugh associated with it, much like what we think of when we think of wicked witches in fairy tales.  We must be on guard as followers of Jesus to keep our minds free from those seductive spirits that attempt to make us be unholy. 

If you read my post on protecting the anointing, this is along those same lines.  We have to protect our minds from the influence of these images.  Once they lodge in our mind, they are difficult to erase.  Just like I have heard many times, you can't keep a bird from flying over your head, but you can keep it from building a nest in your hair.  We must protect our mind.  If we desire to be holy, even if the thoughts go through our mind, or our eyes see something that is impure or causes impure thoughts, we MUST purge it out of our mind through prayer and by turning from those things that can cause those impurities to flood. us.  It may feel like we are being tried in the fire when we purge our minds from such things, it is necessary in order to be holy and pure before God.

Also, as part of the gold, praise and blessings must become a natural part of our speech which also comes from our head, our mind.  While it is natural for harsh words to come from us, it should not happen.  James 3 speaks of the tongue and the damage or the good it does.  He tells us in verses 9 and 10: "Sometimes it praises our Lord and Father, and sometimes it breaks out into curses against those who have been made in the image of God. And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth. Surely, my brothers and sisters, this is not right!" So as part of being holy, we must also watch our tongues, being careful of what we say and how we say it. 

In order for the church to rise up like the Phoenix, we must have a gold head, protecting what goes in and goes out.  Father, I ask that all who read this will be spurred on to holiness that starts in the head and mind.  Convict where conviction needs to come, and encourage where encouragement is needed.  I also ask that You would make us holy.  You yourself even said in 22:32 "It is I, the LORD, who makes you holy." and again in 2 Thessalonians 2:13 "a salvation that came through the Spirit who makes you holy and by your belief in the truth."  I thank you Father that You desire holiness from us, and from that holiness flows true freedom to live as we ought, and not as we want.

The Phoenix

      

Over the past few weeks and months, I have heard a lot about the mythical Phoenix, both in prophetic words spoken to me and in my own time with Jesus.  I figured there must be something to this (sometimes I am not always the brightest) so I decided to study the Phoenix and see what I might find and how it might relate to us as Christians.  What follows is the results of that study and a prophetic word for the Church.


The Phoenix was said to be a solitary creature that harmed no one or anything.  It was said to be extremely gentle.   Many Middle and Far Eastern, Mediterranean, and European cultures have a Phoenix legend.  Its colors where of varying colors, depending on the culture the legend came from.  One legend says it was a scarlet color with iridescent wings and purple feet and blue eyes.  Another says it was plum colored with scarlet back and wings had a golden head and a tail of rose and ocean blue.  Yet another describes it as royal purple with a gold head and neck.  Another name for the Phoenix is Fire Bird. 


It is said that there is only one Phoenix at any given time.  It lives anywhere from 100 to 1000 years, again depending on the culture.  At the end of its life, it builds a nest of myrrh, laudanum, cassia, and nard (all very fragrant substances) and sings a beautiful song as it burns to ashes.  Then after three days (some legends say 9) a new Phoenix is born out of the ashes of the old one.  After a few days of growth and gaining strength in its wings, the Phoenix flyies away and the cycle of growth starts all over again.


Looking first at the colors of the Phoenix, we have red/scarlet which represents the Blood of Jesus, anointing, power , prayer, and the Spirit of the Lord.  Purple represents authority, and blue represents God's Glory, purity, and the River of God.  Gold represents Holiness, tried in the fire, praise, and blessing. 


Message for the Church in America:  The Church has risen to glory and Holiness in the past but in recent years has been very ineffectual in our society and our world in general.  I see the Church resurrecting from its own ashes into a new and more powerful body that effects change on the world in a tremendous way.  The picture of the Phoenix as the Fire Bird tells me that the Church will be once again ablaze for Jesus with signs and wonders following and bringing signs and wonders and miracles that will shake the world to its core.  It will be gentle, but yet fierce in its power.  The authority it will soon have will far and above be greater than what we see right now.  It will rise with Healing in its wings (the red/scarlet of the Phoenix) and with Holiness that has not been seen in quite a while.  Wisdom will also pour forth from the Church like never before.  It will rise in power that the gates of Hell cannot stop.  At the same time, many outside the church will either be drawn to the church or repelled.  It will look wonderfully attractive to some and to others look fierce and something to stay away from.  As more and more are caught on fire, more and more signs and wonders will be noticed and great miracles will come.  This reawakening is not man's doing but God's doing.  The Phoenix (the Church) is about to rise again from its own ashes into greater state of being than any time in History.

Thoughts on Prayer

I know it may sound strange to see a post on prayer, but it is burning in me, so here we go.  Yesterday I was on a field trip with a bunch of kids on a school bus to a destination that was 4 hours by school bus and we had to be there at 9:00 in the morning, which meant we had to leave by 5:00, which also meant we had to be up earlier than that.  I had gotten to bed late the night before and up early.  Not a good combination. Now you might be thinking “What does this have to do with prayer?”  Bear with me.

The bus was loud as you can imagine kids would be when excited about where they are going and being on the bus.  I was exhausted to say the least and I could see I would need the rest to make it but did not see it coming anytime soon.  I placed my pillow next to the window, put my head on it and I remember saying a short prayer “Jesus, can I sleep?”  That was it.  Nothing spectacular, no thee’s and thou’s, and I wasn’t even sure how consciously I thought of it, it was just the cry of my being.  The next thing I knew, we were pulling into a rest area about half way to our destination.  The sun was up and I had just woke up from a very sound sleep and felt fully rested. It was not until later that I remembered that prayer.  When I did remember, I was excited.  God heard me.  He granted my request and did it quickly.

A couple days ago I was having drama practice after school and one of my students little sisters came to me at a break and told me she had a sore throat and a cough that was annoying her.  I think she was just telling me because that is what she does, not to ask me for anything.  As she was telling me, I heard a still small voice tell me to pray for her.  I almost dismissed it, but decided to do it (all in a matter of half a second).  I prayed for her and although she didn’t say anything, I did not hear her cough the rest of practice.

So why is prayer burning in my heart?  I will tell you.  We often think of prayer as asking God to forgive our sins or telling Him about our bad day.  Our requests are usually things we consider big:  cancer or other major sickness, finances, relationships gone sour, natural disasters, and the list goes on.  The two stories above were both considered small things.  We often think that the small things are too small or insignificant to even ask God to do anything about.  I am not sure why we do that, but we do.  Do we think God is too busy with the ‘big things’?  Do we think God only cares about the big things?  I am sure we come up with all kinds of reasons why we don’t. 

God tells us to “Pray at all times and on every occasion in the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Ephesians 6:18).  Also we are told “Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. If you do this, you will experience God's peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand” (Philippians 4:6, 7).  No were in these passages does it say to pray only about the big things.  They tell us to pray about everything, the big and the small.  Don’t let the size of your request embarrass or intimidate you not to pray.  Just do it.  Just pray.  Our God cares enough about you to care about the small things too.  He wants; He longs to answer our cry no matter the size.  Let your prayers ascend to His throne.

When you think about you and your size in comparison to our world, and then compare our world to the size of our solar system, then to our galaxy, we look very small.  Minuscule or microscopic might be better words, but our God made us.  He cares so much for us.  Even though he holds the entire universe in the palm of his hand like we might hold a small dish, He cares for you.  So in comparison to all that, even those things we consider big things to pray about, they are still small in comparison.  Is our need for sleep any smaller than a broken heart or a major illness?  No, they are not.  Is someone’s sore throat and cough any more of a challenge than needing food or money to pay a major debt.  Again the answer is no.  God asks us to pray about everything and on every occasion.  He even asks us to pray continually (1 Thessalonians 5:17).  Don’t let the size of your request (whether big or small) intimidate you from praying.   Just do it.  You just might be surprised at what God will do for you today.