Whispers and Workings

Some seasons, all you can do is go through the motions. During this last dry spell, that's been my drill. Read my Bible because that's what I do while I eat breakfast. Pray because that's what I do after breakfast. Ask God to move. Do my day. Some days, like pretty much every one while I was in Scotland, the Bible-reading gets skipped a lot and the "serious" (as in, focused with my journal) praying gets all but abandoned. I know that my works avail me nothing, because I am saved by grace and grace alone (Ephesians 2:8-9). Yet I also know that I want to do what I know to do to position myself to hear God the best that I can. I've also learned, though, that God does what He wants in the time He chooses.

 As I have been waiting to hear from Him, I have also been diligently picking a verse to pretend to memorize for Beth Moore's 2013 memory verse challenge. The verses are chosen on the first and fifteenth of the month. When I went to the Living Proof Ministries Blog on July 16 (oops), I read the whole entry, which I don't always do. Here is part of what Beth posted that day (for the full entry, go here):

You may feel powerless right now, Sister, but, if you are in Christ, make no mistake: you are not. Get some backbone back in your prayer life if your spiritual spine has deteriorated. With reverence for His holiness and with the boldness He said we could bring to the Throne of Grace, read to God from His Word where He promised His people victory as they looked to Him alone…
…and where He promised to clothe us in power
…and where He said He’d make Himself conspicuous through our spiritual gifts and through supernatural works in His Name.
If you don’t know where those places are, go hunt them down. (But you could start in Romans 8, Luke 24, Acts 1, Acts 2, 1 Corinthians 12 and Hebrews 4.)
Tell Him you’re going to ask for it and ask for it and ask for it in His great Name and for His glory until He gives it to you and frees you from whatever this present powerlessness is. And then DO IT. Ask and ask and ask and tell Him you will do whatever it takes to cooperate and mean it! Throw your hands out to receive. And, then, when He gives it – and He will – don’t take credit for it. Appreciate it. Thank Him and thank Him for it. Know that it’s grace. Use it audaciously to bring Him attention.

Sister, you cannot fulfill your foreordained purpose without power. Go back after it but, whatever you do, don’t try to get it without Jesus coming with it. Power for power’s sake will blow you up. God-given unction isn’t meant to just come and go with periodic personal revival. We were meant to live powerful lives. Let’s get to them. If you’ve got an area of carnality that is quenching it, I promise you it’s not worth it. Believe me, I’ve been there. Repent, turn from it and get on with it. You’ve got a calling. And it takes divine power. (Beth Moore, LPM blog entry, July 15, 2013)

I actually didn't read it all that carefully then, but did print it out and put it out by my journal. Several days later, I sat down, read it, got out my Bible and read through those passages. I started to hear the whisper of the Holy Spirit revealing some things that called for repentance.

A day later, I suddenly become motivated in my church search. Planning to go to three churches over the weekend, I thought about going to one church on Saturday night but, oops, they were starting a series on marriage. Nix that. Picked a totally different one. Went. Heard a message about a passage of scripture that I have heard talks on before, about Saul, specifically regarding, yes, patience. In 1 Samuel 13: 8-14, we read about how Saul was commanded to wait for Samuel, the prophet, to come and make the sacrifice to the Lord so that the army could fight (and beat) the Philistines. As soon as Saul starts the sacrifice, Samuel shows up. It seems that Samuel has forgotten, is late, or won't be coming. Saul takes matters into his own hands (knowing it's forbidden for him to make the sacrifice) and as a result, God takes away Saul's kingdom.

I've been single a long time. I know the promises of God, just as Saul knew who should make the sacrifice. I know that I need to wait for God to bring me the husband he has for me, or bring me the peace to be single. But sometimes it seems that God has forgotten, is late, or isn't coming. Sometimes I want, like Saul, to take matters into my own hands and hurry up and pursue a relationship too quickly because. . . I'm TIRED OF WAITING.  I was reminded that the consequences for impatience (though now covered by Jesus' forgiveness and redemption) can be steep.

I went to two other churches today. Each one had messages that spoke directly to me. From hearing nothing for months, I am suddenly seeing God and truth everywhere. I've had Ann Voskamp's book One Thousand Gifts sitting in my bedroom for probably two years. Saturday I picked it up and read three chapters without stopping. God again, as I cried through the pages.

Did I do something that magically made God move? Nope. Do I deserve for Him to speak to me ever? Nope. Am I encouraged and reminded that, even when we see nothing, God is working in us, "both to will and to work for his good pleasure"(Phil 2:13)? YES.

Be a Tree

Happy New Year! I figured a new year deserved a new blog post. In case you hadn't noticed, I HATE TO WAIT. I am not by nature very patient. My goal-driven personality likes to know the system, work the system, and get the reward. This approach works very well in certain areas, like saving money, losing weight (WHEN I work the system), or getting good grades. You put the coins in the vending machine and out pops the goody.

The biggest frustration of my spiritual life is that the Lord doesn't work that way. As I read through the Bible, I see over and over that God doesn't have a system, and seems to enjoy breaking the rules. Look at how many second sons receive the inheritance. At the messed people He chooses to use: David, Samson, Gideon--murderer, playboy, coward.  At the amazing and confounding fact that He chose to save wicked people by the sacrifice of His beloved Son. In my perfect (albeit pharisaical) system, it works like this: I read my Bible, pray, try really hard to love people and follow what the Bible says, and then God speaks to me and grows me and makes me more like Him. Ta-da!

Um, yeah, well. . . doesn't work that way. Lately I have been struggling with feeling far away from the Lord, and like I'm not doing anything effective for Him, and not connecting with Him, and just not living this great Christian life that I envision. But the blessing of liking to follow the rules is that I keep plugging away with reading Scripture (halfheartedly sometimes, quickly sometimes, without expectation usually) and praying. Why? Because I do, deep down, believe that eventually, something will happen. The Spirit will soften my heart and open my eyes and I will catch a glimpse of what the Lord wants me to see.

And today the Holy Spirit did! It's back the the beginning as I try to read through the Bible in a year, so Psalm 1 was on the docket this morning. Verses 1-3 say:

Blessed is the man
    who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
    nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
 but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and on his law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree
    planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
    and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.

The phrase that I keep returning to is "that yields its fruit in its season".  I have heard lots of messages about fruit and seasons, but in the unexplainable and wonderful ways of God, it somehow doesn't really mean anything until His Spirit nudges my heart.

Trees bear fruit when and only when they are mature enough to do so and when the season is right. A baby tree can't have fruit. According to the experts of Google, most trees cannot bear fruit for a least a few years, and some lots and lots of years. Fruit trees do not have fruit in the winter. You can guess where I'm going with this. . .

If I were a tree the past six months, I would be pretty ridiculous, because I would look like an apple tree in the winter who keeps moaning about how there is no fruit, and worrying about why there are no apples, and trying to figure out how to get apples, dangit, because apple trees are supposed to have apples. NOW. Except. . . they really aren't.

There are a thousand theological tangents that I could follow about sin that interferes with fruit, or with what is God's job and what is mine, but what I feel like God was trying to remind me was that I just need to be patient. For whatever reason, it is not my season to feel fruitful or to see fruit. He wants me to see that, just like when we look at a tree in winter, or a sapling, just because I can't see anything happening doesn't mean that nothing is. If there is something that is impeding my growth, God is the one Who WILL show that to me, but not until He deems it the right time.

I need to relax, keep seeking the Lord, and just be a tree!