Moments of Quiet Truth

     I grew up in the church. I'm a pastor/missionary's kid. I've been exposed to times of worship since before I was born. I graduated from a Christian university, have attended multiple doctrinally solid churches, but one thing none of that experience trained me for was worship in the Spirit. Oh, it was something we were expected to do to please God but no one ever told us how! Like so many phrases in the Bible that we were expected to understand and incorporate without explanation or definition or with a definition that fell short of the reality, to 'worship in Spirit and in truth,' was another in a long string of vague, nebulous phrases.      The Lord began to teach me several years ago about the Spirit and what life looks like in relationship to the Spirit. He gave me the gifts of praying in tongues, prophetic dreams and visions, and began to teach me how to commune with Him. He then took me across the ocean to a small surfing town on the coast of Fr...

     I've been reading Thessalonians for a new Bible study group that I have begun to attend. Faith and the Holy Spirit are two themes that have caught me as I have worked my way through. (I'll address the latter and we'll see if I get to the former in this particular post.)      One of my, not exactly pet peeves, but frustrations is when I read or hear talk of the fruits of the Spirit as though they are things that we are working on, that we produce, that we need to do.   This is foolish, misleading, arrogant, and not Biblically accurate. There is a reason we get frustrated when we try to work them out in our own lives.. We are very aware of our lack but I wonder how well we are aware of His sufficiency? This reality - that they are His fruits  - is not one often discussed or, if it is, it is done in language that is so dry and academic that one despairs of their reality. Love (agape), Joy (chara), Peace (Shalom), and the others - they are no...

     "Then Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea, and they went into the wilderness of Shur. They went three days in the wilderness and found no water. When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter; therefore it was named Marah. And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, 'What shall we drink?' And he cried to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a log, and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet.      There the LORD made for them a statute and a rule, and there he tested them, saying, 'If you will diligently listen to the voice of the LORD your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD your healer.'       Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they encamped by the water." ...

     A bide, remain, make yourself at home with God. These concepts have seemed so vague, so nebulous, so far out of reach or the realm of possibility that I, like so many, have passed over them, in despair that they will never be my reality. And, yet, there is this insatiable hunger, this insatiable hope that these things could be my reality. I feel like I was handed most, but not all of the puzzle pieces in my training of what a 'relationship' with God needs to look like for this to indeed be a reality for me.       The invitation of Jesus to abide, as it is found in John 15, was set in the context, in the sermons I heard growing up, of obedience. If I obey, then I can prove my love to Jesus. If I obey, then I have earned a spot at the Table. If I obey, then I have earned the privilege of abiding. I think I had it grossly backwards. We don't abide because we've obeyed. We obey because we are abiding.       This truth wasn't em...

   I've been reading my way through Genesis and will be starting Exodus today. This is the result of the realization that I must have a daily time in the Word with my God in order to live rightly. Being married has brought my need for daily relationship with the Lord into sharp relief. Many things need to be done throughout the days, but this one thing must take precedent, priority, come first. I'm realizing this in a new way, seeing it through new lenses. "I could not do without Thee, O Savior of the lost" (song - "I Could Not Do Without Thee).      I asked the Lord to open my heart this morning to His word and His word to my heart. He brought into the forefront of my reading comprehension the reality of the gift of words of prophecy. When God speaks, powerful things happen. To stand in His presence and to hear His thoughts invokes a sense of awe.       In Genesis 48-49, Israel is very quickly coming to the end of his time on earth and God u...