Night Dreams:The Lost

I had a dream a couple months ago that I keep being reminded about again and again. I dreamt that I went to a patient’s home who was on oxygen. I got into the house and saw the patient lying on the floor unable to breathe. I noticed that she didn’t have her oxygen on and was basically suffocating. Her face was turning blue. I got down on the floor and looked at her and she said, “They told me I couldn’t have the oxygen.” I got up and looked around and saw these people standing there holding her oxygen. I started yelling at them that they couldn’t withhold the oxygen from her when they knew it was what she needed to live. They were arguing with me that it didn’t matter because she was dying anyway. They were very apathetic about it. Finally, I grabbed the oxygen, ripped it from their hands and ran over to the patient and put it on her. Immediately, her color returned and she was able to breathe. Life flooded her features and she smiled at me. 

I can hardly even type this dream without feeling like weeping. As soon as I woke up that morning after having the dream, I knew God was showing me a picture of the lost. From my experience as a nurse, watching someone with chronic lung disease struggle to breathe is one of the worst things. Oftentimes there is not much to do in order to ease their struggle. It would be a horrible way to die, to struggle and fight for every breath. And yet it’s as if God was showing me that there are people all around me every day doing just that. The worst thing is the Church is like those people standing there with the answer in their hands but totally apathetic. May it not be so! I am as guilty as anyone else but we have to change! We cannot be apathetic when people are dying all around us. We cannot hold the answer in our hands and refuse to give it away. People are dying a spiritual death. They are fighting and struggling against eternal darkness. They have never known the life-giving breath of God. They are suffocating with stale air and the time is counting down. Will you be one to run to them and give them what they need!? They are desperate for the answer.

Musings on mothers and fathers

Why do we need mothers and fathers in the Church? How many children are abused every day by their parents? How many children are raised by one parent? How many girls are sexually abused by their fathers or relatives or family friends? How many people don’t even know how to identify with a good father or mother? What good is it to get lost people saved if there is no one to come along side of them and disciple them afterwards? I think of the lack of affection in the Church. There is minimal relating to people on the soul level. Do we really know what is going on with the person that sits across from us in church? Our hearts should be knit together. We barely have time to genuinely give to others. We don’t show that we truly care. We don’t give someone a hug that might really need it. We are a detached and independent society.

The world and America is becoming more and more sexualized. Everything is sexualized. Anybody trying to sell anything uses sex, whether it be lingerie or hamburgers, doesn’t matter. And so it is like any sort of affection or love amongst people of the opposite sex within the church has also become sexualized. Why have we followed the world?

Paul said we should greet each other with a holy kiss (not saying we should resume this practice), but the point is that we have come far from where we once were in regards to affection amongst ourselves. What about a girl that was sexually abused by her father? What if all the spiritual father figures around her avoid her because they know what happened to her. They act awkward around her because they don’t know how to handle the situation. They think that she might interpret any type of love or affection as something sexual. Instead of helping the situation they are only feeding the mindset that she already has. There is no true affection. Everything is sexual and without feeling. No man, father or otherwise, could ever really love or truly care about her.

Wow! How awful! Instead we need fathers that will love daughters; we need mothers that will love sons. Gender splitting is not effective. If a woman who was sexually abused is only ministered to by women this could actually cause more damage. She needs a spiritual father to help restore her perception of men. It strikes me as so ridiculous that we think a spiritual family would be complete with giving a daughter just a mother or a son just a father. There is a lack there. Both “parents” are so desperately needed. The roles are different but neither is more or less important.

I don’t understand how we can expect people from broken homes and broken relationships to actually identify with the Father God if they don’t even understand the love of a parent. Who will demonstrate that to them if not us? Where are the mothers and fathers? Where are the people who will pass on a spiritual inheritance? Where are those that will love like Jesus? We need to quit trying to get people to say a sinner’s prayer, give them their helmet of salvation and send them out on the battlefield with nothing else. Someone must show them how to put on the full armor. And trust me it’s not going to happen from one preacher in a pulpit giving them instructions. It’s going to come when someone gets down beside them and shows them how they put it on.

An Invitation to Intimacy

I woke up in the middle of the night last night with the distinct feeling of the presence of God in my room. I had the thought that I should look at my clock because the time would be significant. I looked over and it was 3:33 AM. Immediately, I thought of Jeremiah 33:3 and then I instantly went back to sleep. This morning when I woke up the first thing I did was read Jeremiah 33:3 (AMP), “Call to me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things, fenced in and hidden, which you do not know (do not distinguish and recognize, have knowledge of and understand).” I knew that this was God speaking to me simply by the fact that I was actually having lucid thoughts during the few moments I was awake at 3:33 AM. When I was thinking about it this morning, I was overwhelmed by the invitation to intimacy that God had given me in the night. I was undone by the realization of how much He wants us to seek after Him and find Him.

One thing I have struggled with a lot in my life is time. I always wish I had more time to spend with God. Life is so busy and a lot of times I have felt like the busyness of it comes and steals away my peace and my joy. However, I have realized that if we truly are desperate for more time with God we have to first give Him the time that we do have. When we do this He will multiply that time, often in unique ways.

When I was at Onething 2011 this past December at International House of Prayer in Kansas City Sarah Sun Kim, who is part of the leadership there, told us her testimony. She was going to a prestigious university in the United States. However, God got a hold of her and she felt like He was asking her to give a significant portion of her day to Him. She thought she didn’t have time with school and her studies which were really pressing at this point in her education. However, she set this time aside and began to notice that even though she wasn’t spending as much time on her studies she was actually doing better than she had been before. Also, as she spent this time with God she became desperate for more. The story goes on to how she gave up many opportunities for success in the secular world to go where God was leading, which was IHOP. She got her desire of spending more time with God by being an intercessory missionary there.

Another story I think of is from the book, Dream Language by James and Michele Goll. Michele tells about how she was a young mother with four little children and James was gone a lot of the time due to traveling and speaking. He would come home and tell her about the amazing things God was doing at these meetings. However, she was sick of hearing about all these things because she was desperate to encounter God herself. Basically, God heard her and gave her a supernatural encounter in the night and after that she began to have dreams every night for a season through which God spoke to her in amazing ways.

The point is, whether you are a college student that feels like the homework and projects are coming out of your ears and you don’t possibly have time to give to God or you’re a mother with a bunch of little children, if you call out to God He will answer you! If He has to speak to you in the night because your days are so full then He will. Too often we limit God because we don’t expect that He will speak to us in creative ways. He is inviting us to intimacy. The question is: are we listening?

Sometimes God truly is silent. He seems far away and distant. These are often the most difficult seasons because we feel like God doesn’t want to communicate with us. We regard the silence as reproach. This is the farthest thing from the truth! God’s silence is often His greatest invitation to intimacy. Hosea 2:14 reads, “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, I will bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.” In the dry and desert wilderness, God longs to allure us, to speak tenderly to us. In those times of silence we need to seek Him even more than when He is obviously speaking. It’s like a child playing hide and seek with her father. When she finishes counting and opens her eyes she doesn’t expect him to be standing right there. What would be the fun it that?! She wants to seek him out and find him. That is God’s invitation to us in the silence. It may seem like he is hiding but trust me, He wants to be found by you!

Bring it to Jesus

Oh to have the heart that Jesus had.

This morning I was reading in Matthew chapter 14 the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 with just a few loaves and fish; a story I have read many times. But today what struck me was Jesus’ response in this story. After the disciples tell Jesus to send the people away so that they can go and buy food for themselves, Jesus says in verse 16, “They do not need to go away; you give them something to eat.” That one sentence pierced my heart as I read it. The disciples saw a need in the people and their solution was to send them away so they could provide for themselves. Jesus saw a need in the people and said, “You provide for them.” What a contrast.

Too often we act just like the disciples. We see needs around us but we don’t think there is anything we can do about them. We wait for someone else to rise up and take the initiative. We see people dying and starving around the world and think that it isn’t our problem. We see people hopeless and in despair and walk silently by them. Jesus saw a need and answered it, knowing that He had the solution. What is so amazing is that in this story Jesus is teaching the disciples that they have the solution for the peoples’ need, that there is no need to send them elsewhere.

The disciples’ response is then one of doubt, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” They were focused on their lack and their outward circumstances. And then the response of Jesus is so simple, “Bring them here to Me.” Oh, that just tears my heart apart. How many times have I looked at the lack surrounding me; how many times have I been focused on what seems impossible. And all the time Jesus is crying out, “Bring it to Me. Bring Me your lack. Bring me your weakness.” In Him, our lack is multiplied to the point of even much being left over. In Him, our weakness is covered by His strength.

After Jesus gave thanks and blessed the food, He handed it to the disciples to give to the people. Even in their doubt He still used them. He wanted them to see and experience that in Him there is no lack but an endless supply. And so He does the same with us. Even in our doubt He takes the little bit that we give Him and gives it back to us to give away. As we take that little bit and give it away we see His supernatural provision in our lives and the lives of those around us.

Jesus, grant me Your heart of love and compassion.

Overflow of His Presence

The light of Your face is warm like the sun.
I bask in Your favor and delight in me.
In the light of Your face, I am free;
Free to dance with unashamed abandon.

The touch of Your hand stills me,
While peace floods my soul.
Your touch warms even the coldest places of my heart,
And joy envelopes me like a curtain.

Your voice cascades over me like music,
Piercing every corner of my being.
Songs of love and hope bear me up,
Above the feelings and circumstances that surround me.

Your fragrance is like sweet smelling perfume,
Causing my spirit to burn within me.
My desire for You grows stronger with every breath;
I cry out for I am lovesick.

Your beauty is beyond compare;
Much fairer than the sons of men.
And when You turn Your burning eyes upon me,
I fall on my face, undone.

Meditation

Have you ever been doing something and felt like you found your niche – like this was what you were meant to do? Have you ever been in a place and felt that overwhelming feeling of being home? Have you ever felt the pull on your heart to step into the fulfillment of your destiny?

I have had at least glimpses of all of these. Moments where I felt just right; like I was meant to be doing that very thing. Moments where I felt my heart breaking for a place I barely knew. Moments where I could hear the soft whispers of the Holy Spirit, calling me to step into the unknown.

These moments and the dreams they represent are hard for me to describe. Sometimes I fear articulating them because I may be misunderstood by even those closest to me. I can see the raised brows and the questioning glances. And so I keep these dreams deep in my heart where only God can see.

People tell me that I am meant for greatness. They don’t know that I have known this long before they told me. Not because of arrogance in myself, but I know because ever since I can remember there has been something on the inside of me longing to explode out. It is not something of my own making, but a stirring by the hand of God Himself.

I struggle against the weakness of my flesh. I struggle against fears. Sometimes I feel like I am a bird longing to soar to higher heights only to find that I am tethered to the ground. I long to break free. I long to fly forward with reckless abandon.

God, be the One who cuts the tethers that hold me down; be the wind beneath my wings that will carry me to new heights. Holy Spirit, saturate me with Your presence; embolden me. Jesus, be my Strength in my weakness.

Eyes of Fire

His eyes that burn like fire see all and yet they still burn with desire for me. Who is this Man who would give it all for me? What value do I have that He would lay down His life? I feel His gaze upon me; His eyes consume me. I cower in fear but the judgment I expect does not come. Instead, I feel the warmth of His tenderness as He memorizes me. I cannot understand why He would love me and yet I believe it.

He has permanently written me on the palm of His hands. I am undone. Such love - can it be real? The knowing in my heart confirms it. My soul sings. His is a love that never varies but remains constant. That He could know me so well and never waver in His love causes me to tremble. Who is this One; this One that is love? I whisper His name and His love overwhelms me. I want to dwell in this place forever; I want to behold His face.

The flickering flame of the candle draws my gaze. I close my eyes. I can see His eyes that burn for me. They pierce my heart and set me ablaze.