my God is moving

i feel like i have to write something...here it is

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in the last month, i have seen this twice.  the first time was in a book called Guard your Heart, the second was a sermon a couple weeks back at Calvary.  the dots represent significant events in our lives.  birth, graduation, marriage, birth of children, and death.  the line is eternity.

"what does it mean?" you ask.

for me, it is a simple yet profound reminder of several things

1 - that God sees so much
2 - that I often focus on the dot in front of me

"why is this important?"

for me, it is important because when i only look at the dot i start to ask, where is God in this.  i so often want to see God working on the dot that I want him to be working on.

Here is the beauty of this reminder.  It tells me, just like the promises in scripture, that God is always working...and because he sees so much more than I do, he has the absolute best in mind.

THE ABSOLUTE BEST

Yes there is sin, yes it can be ugly and create brokenness...but even there, and perhaps even more, in that brokenness, God is waiting for us...

As we journey into our deepest most vulnerable places, regardless the situations, God will heal us, restore us.

We have to be willing to go there though.  Eden is there.

What God said in Gobles

Last weekend I got away from Muskegon. I didn't travel too far, but it was not here.

The intention was to face my life as it is today and to hear from God about what the future holds.

Even then, I had to ease myself into it, it wasn't until Saturday night where I really started to remove the bandages from my wounds and begin to let God heal me.

And as I waited and cried, God spoke to me.

The wounds God spoke to were wounds I have not sincerely acknowledged since a young teenage boy. Felt a couple times but never dealt with. Wounds that shaped a whole bunch of me.

When God spoke to me in Gobles he told me several things:

1- I will give to you so you can give to others.
2- that my prayers for chains to be broken and strongholds to be torn down have been heard and that he is not done working.
3- that my role as a father will shape who these boys are despite my past failures and that my boys will become men.
4- that there is a wholeness and a fullness that only comes through the valley.
5- that God defines a man as, "one who loves me and listens to me."
6- that I am a man and that my heavenly father thinks, "I have what it takes".

Looking back, God was not speaking to me about what events surround my life but he was just loving me and telling me who I really am.

Those things are exactly what I needed to hear.

Psalm 123:3

Be gracious to us, O LORD, be gracious to us,
For we are greatly filled with contempt. (Psalm 123:3 NASB)

The death of self is the most difficult struggle I face. Am I willing to give up my dreams, my hopes, my everyday wants. An I willing to give up security, my kids, my neighbors, the better school for my boys.

There are many that understand this better than I, many that have a greater trust in God's provision and protection than I do but today I am faced with the idea that my plans, hopes and dreams are not just often found to be foolish, but also found to be contemptuous.

Contemptuous is a hard word for me to swallow. It leaves me questioning who I really am at the heart level and what I really am about.

Those questions are not fun questions because the answers are not easy answers, they take real evaluation and if I am to break free from my contemptuous lifestyle they will take me laying down my desires, even my deepest desires.

Tonight I am laying outside starring into the sky, waiting for something. I don't know what I am waiting for specifically. A sign, a miracle, Gods audible voice.

There is so much I can't wrap my head around right now.

God please be gracious to me. Please show me a better way. Please show me your way.