My little boy today said the most brilliant thing…..

Alec: “Mommy?”
Me: “Yes, honey?”
Alec: “We should listen to God!” “Right?” as if to make sure I agreed with his thought…
Me: “Yes, we should… He’s talking to us all the time…” I’m lovin’ Alec’s observation and his heart to remember this all… when he breaks in with the most brilliant reminder…
Alec: “Yep, He is… but sometimes we interrupt Him.”

so so true…
so so true…

++God… thank you for still speaking to me even though I interrupt you constantly with my own insignificant questions, ideas, and complaints. Please grow me into an adult who can stay tuned into your Voice and your whispers into my life… I’m desperate to grow out of this phase of seemingly short attention spans to what you’re trying to teach me, and where you might be trying to lead me deeper. Thank you Father… thank you… again and again.++

How do you see? How is your vision? 20/20? Less? More?? And hindsight? How about that? Even in retrospect our vision can be measured can’t it? I’m sitting with something kneading in my heart…

Do I see micro? Or do I see macro? Or do I fluctuate in between the vast range between the two? Many times I can see what others see… some view too macro… too large and grand, and they miss the little details right at the tip of their nose. While others, see things too closely and miss all that is in the larger picture before the lens finder. What puzzles me, is that I can see [read: make a perception] of what I think others can see… either micro or macro… yet I can’t quite tell how I see.

Of course I’d like to say that I miss nothing… but we all know the fallacy in that. You don’t know what you’ve missed in the micro view or macro until you reflect on it with your hindsight. And even then, is your hindsight 20/20? Or is it still dependant on your lens? Do we take in every detail from the moving picture before us? Is it even possible?

++I wish Lord to let you be the lens and filter through which I see others and the world. I pray for the vision, clarity, and scope through which You’re eyes are trained to. I want to see in each problem and each occasion, with eyes of discernment and crispness. Sharpen my depth of perception, sharpen my ability to see the composition that You place in each frame. Draw my eyes in every given moment… take my vision and make it like Your own. Enable the shutter of my eyes to respond to aperture in which you set. Allow my focus to not be blurred, or Lord, blurred in only the ways in which serve You. Lend me Your vision Lord… show me where Jesus is living all around me… in others, through others, and for others. Sharpen my senses and my perceptions, surround me and engulf me with all that You are…++

Maybe part of my fear or inability to pray boldly, loudly, and to feel free to dream with God, are founded in unbelief or disbelief of what God IS capable of. Not out of rebellion mind you, but just the immaturity of my heart in places. hmmm….

I’m in several books right now, picking up whichever is closest when I have a few minutes… some get left on my bedside at night, and during the day my daughter naps in my bed, so I can’t easily go and pick up where I left off the night before. So today, I had “Intercessory Prayer” by Dutch Sheets, closest to me which I’ve been wanting to get into, but so far this was my first opportunity.

In my current season, I’m feeling called repeatedly to prayer, yet at the same time, I sometimes feel so unequipped to answer the call because I don’t have a vocabulary to express what I truly want. Or actually, now that I stop to think about it, maybe I am just afraid of asking in boldness, or asking for things in my right mind I dare not even imagine. I limit myself, and worse yet, I limit God by not trusting Him enough to pray loud and hard. I think my prayers are affected by my small mind struggeling to grasp the reaches of prayer. How much should I ask? How far should I let my imagination go with the lead of the Holy Spirit to be swept away with a prayer that is alive with desire and love? Not only do the reaches of prayer confuse me, but so does the persistancy. What does it mean to be persistant in prayer? I’m sure that I have never been truly persistant… but I’m so willing to learn. In this book, Sheets says “A lack of endurance is one of the greatest causes of defeat, especially in prayer. We don’t wait well. We’re into microwaving; God on the other hand, is usually into marinating.” I am quite sure that if I was truly persistant and prevailed in prayer, I’d be a witness to a remarkable work by God. I want to learn to have endurance in prayer, and I want to learn to challange God with my prayers! Can I overwhelm the Father with my love for those He has placed in my path? Perseverance in prayer is a commitment to all the causes the Spirit leads my heart to, but am I ready for that? Am I capable of that?

In my struggle to understand persisting in prayer, I spoke with my close friend who encouraged me. She said that every new day presents new opportunities to breathe new prayers to God, and that He is always delighted to hear a new call to Him. Even with the “same” prayer from the day before, it’s our freshly inclined heart to His that He recognizes and honors, so our prayers are never the same to His ears, they always hold fresh intentions on our part to bring in supplication to Him our concerns for all things in His Kingdom.

I’m learning a lot… and I see that some of it, I’m learning over, even though I think I may have just thought I’d learned it a little while ago. But it’s like it’s all new, or maybe it’s not new, just a new angle that I had no idea existed. : D So many facets, so little time eh?

+++Lord, I’m in a place where I’m not sure where I’m going, but I know that I want to follow Your plans for me. Although I don’t know what they are, I know they are infinetly superior than my own. I heard Your Spirit tell me today blatently that when I need truth and grace all I need to do is look to You, and that the very heart of You, You have placed within me… and Your heart will NEVER die. You have given me something that no one else has, a complete and undying love when I do little do deserve it. Father, I treasure in a way that I can’t put words to, Your love, and Your living Spirit within me. Please move my mind and my heart in the direction You desire, I’m sorry for getting distracted by insecurity and fear… I know that I have nothing to fear in You and with You by my side. You’ve told me and promised me that You will never leave me and never forsake me… I’m sorry that I question Your word, Your promises. I’m sorry that I have looked through the glasses of fear or self protection from my life experiences, instead of seeing You and what You’ve already given me in Christ. Search my heart Lord for my deepest prayers and desires and take them and deposit within me Your will and desires and dreams. Please know Lord how sincere I am in seeking Your perfect will and living it joyfully. Please dismantle my defenses against the fullness of Your love. Let me live in Your fullness Lord, I’m facedown for You.++

After writing a book to a cyber friend last night, it got me thinking to my own life. The Spirit filled me to say so much to my friend, and then after I sent the email, I began unraveling my continued thoughts on “How do I smell?” “Am I putting on my colonge of His essance?” I awake to praise Him, and give my day to Him for His direction and I desire to carry the aroma of His life within me, so that it can drift on the breeze of wherever I go, so that people can see Him and be witness to what His love is doing within my heart.

Daily I go through countless inward transformations and smaller seasons within the larger season of my life as a whole, but I am challenging myself to live more outwardly for Him. He deserves that of me. He more than deserves that!!! I hold armfulls of enthusiam for Him and His love to spread to the cold hearts who inwardly question if He is really there. I want to spread His love, and I desire for God to show me how, when, and whom to declare His full heart of love to. I have been more passive than I’d like, mainly because I don’t know fully how to share the scope of Him… either in the way of His heart for others, or in the way that He is giantly filling my heart.

I want to be a white-hot light like Jesus, and for Jesus, shining out of the darkness so that others can see Him, and the direction He fills me with. I am entering into a place to embrace more than the desire to just pray for others, because now I feel turned on to express Him, to witness, even though I don’t really “know how.” I just feel so full of something that I just have to give away or I’ll burst if I don’t let Him out. Although I want to unleash Him to unbelievers, like my dh, I still sense that I have to keep the reigns tight and be in cooperation with God in His timing of how He’s growing and softening Mike’s heart over time. So, unexplicably, I feel this huge energy to unleash, but I can’t just yet…… what do I do with it all? Especially since I don’t really have a definition for what it all is, I just know my heart is leaping within me for Him. I don’t even know how to express and witness effectively, and I am afraid in some ways of bumbeling and then being misunderstood, or worse, having someone misunderstand God. I believe though, and know actually, that God would cover me, if I was just wanting to share His heart, so He would take it and transform whatever I say into just what they needed to hear, or He would make their ears tune out what they had not the space for understanding yet.

The Holy Spirit is tumbeling so much within me, I’m encountering His presense, and I want to shower His love.

……….

+Listening to Jars of Clay – song: Jealous Kind… AWESOME SONG!+ He’s always so after our hearts… that’s His delight, is having our heart beating loudly for His… nothing gives Him more joy than us being head over heels for Him and His intentions… and even when we put things before Him and are unfaithful, He is still ready to die for us, with a full out rage for us to know He loves us, again and again He shows us, so that we firmly write it on our hearts that we belong to only Him.

+++Father…. thank you for being the torch to the kindling in my heart, so that I can be on fire to eminate Your glory. Help me to see and live the scope of radiance that You’ve placed as a gift within my heart. You’ve created us all so uniquely, and I treasure the enthusiam You placed within me and others, to worship you OUT LOUD! Show us how to live abundantly, intentionally, and learn to dream with You, to see Your dreams, because I know I want them to be mine as well… Your creativity is fathomless to me, and I look to today and the future with a desperate hunger to find the atmosphere to share You.+++

Today’s Slice of Infinity was titled “Things To Do” by Jill Carattini. I’m always jaw dropped to read when someone spells out in such a way what my heart loves to hear, as well as what it sadly needs to be reminded of. She writes:
“In prayer, as in conversation with friends, we unearth with words things about ourselves and the One to whom we speak. Each trouble on our heart, each person on our mind is known and remembered by God. Before Him, along with each task or dream on our lists, we are laid bare. To approach God in prayer with the knowledge that He hears is a gift continually ours.”

I love how prayer moves as I do… my conversations with God flow through layers of thoughts, motives, feelings, fears, insights, etc…. and through the changing seasons of my individual days. What I love most, is that when I awake in the middle of the night, for seemingly no appearant reason, the first thing I do is immediatly run to my Father in prayer, seeking His presense in the moment, just to say hi or to tell Him thank you… some nights I am kept awake with longer conversations with Him… but I always feel like it’s either me or it’s Him, waking me up to just talk more to Him.

I haven’t the time, but I have lots of scattered things to blog. I’ll get around to that when time avails itself. He’s growing me in so many directions, and it seems right now that none of them are complete (and may never be : ) but He is weaving it all deep within my heart.

++ Dearest Father, I beg for some solitude with just You in focus, so that I can piece the internal directions together, so that I can understand where You have taken me, and where You want me to go. Thank You for stirring me, to live in this activity You’ve provided, I’m filled with joy to walk alongside You daily.++

A friend wants me to camp on this for a while…John 17:13-26

“I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.

Jesus Prays for All Believers:
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

When Jesus prays, he does not ask amiss, and the Father is faithful to answer. He prayed ahead of time for all the believers who would come to Him through the Word. So, the believers who have accepted Jesus, have the love that the Father had for Him, within us! He wants us to know that and live inside that everyday, and share it to others to draw them unto Him.

Monday’s “Slice of Infinity” was beautiful.Betsy Childs with RZIM wrote “Canyons of the Spirit” and I’m excerping a bit because it was so delicious. Note to self… reread this Monica… let it live in you.

There is more than one way for a canyon to be formed. They can be carved quickly by the rapid erosion of a rushing river or a melting glacier. Or, they can take years to form, hewn by the steady trickle of a stream running through limestone.

No one can encounter power of Living Water and come away unscathed. Sometimes, the most dramatic canyons take a lifetime to carve.

++please continue to remap me Lord with Your Living Water. clear away the obstructions that hinder the rushing of Your life over my spirit. flow and flood the landscape of my heart. saturate me.++