A Small Prayer

I contemplated how I would write this for a little while now.  You see, I had this experience yesterday that was so… I cannot even think of the right word to express it.  Let’s just say I was moved to tears.  To be honest I was trying to avoid it happening. Go figure.  Things like this I am supposed to make happen on a regular basis.  I won’t deny it. I also won’t deny I am more comfortable pecking out things to say behind a keyboard than actually saying them.  But what did Jesus do? He TALKED TO PEOPLE!

So here is the deal.  There is a person with whom I work on a per diem basis that has been in bondage to smoking cigarettes for many years now.  He has been wanting to quit but really enjoys smoking.  I told him I would pray for him and how I believed the Lord would get rid of that habit for him.  I even shared my testimony of how the Lord broke my smoking habit cold turkey some years ago.  He said that if he quit smoking he would believe in whatever God I believe in.  So I would remind God of what my co-worker said–  a lot at first, but less so over a period of time. 

From time to time he would tell me how much he truly enjoyed smoking.  One day I saw his pack of cigarettes in a drawer and I prayed against the hold they had over him.  Whenever we worked together he would still take his smoking breaks.  Understanding the stress of the job he performs and the great responsibility he has I still never doubted that the Lord would break his smoking habit. 

You can easily say smoking cigarettes has become a both a reward system and a stress reliever for him every bit as much as a habit.  He is close to his wedding date now and his fiancé would like for him to quit smoking.  Over the year or so since we first started talking about quitting smoking he would still bring up how much he enjoyed smoking.  I still prayed for him whenever Holy Spirit led me to do so.  Anyway as much as he would say he enjoyed smoking he began talk more of his desire to quit also.  Yesterday he said he was getting closer.

In a conversation with a friend of mine I brought up his story. Her response, something that never even crossed my mind was, “Maybe you just need to lay hands on him.” Duh! Why didn’t I think of that? Perhaps it was the fact that he was a co-worker?  That shouldn’t have mattered but I suppose it did.  I thought about it and the Lord showed a vison of me doing just that– laying hands on his chest and praying for him.  Ok, Lord, that won’t be awkward at all.  Did I mention it was per diem? Yes, well, whenever I went in I was covering him so for a while I didn’t get a chance to see him until yesterday. 

Everything was cool until Holy Spirit started pressing me about laying hands on him.  Even more so after dude said he was getting closer to quitting smoking.  As the day went on and time started running out I checked the calendar to see if, on the next day I worked, he would be there.  The answer was yes and I began to prepare in my mind that it would happen then.  Never mind the fact that I had been rehearsing in my head the things I would cover when I did pray for him for most of the day.  I wanted to at least sound like I pray on a regular basis and not like a babbling idiot because of nervousness.  Anyway time was running out.  I had a patient on the way and he was about to head out the door.  Opportunity blown I at least had the following week.  Still I had this dread, though, that I wouldn’t get another chance.  He went out the door and was going home. 

Feeling defeated I went on to focus on the task at hand; work.  Just a few short minutes later he came back into the room saying he forgot something.  He grabbed his wallet and was about to head out the door for a second time.  OK, I got You, Holy Spirit.  I quickly went out behind him to catch him and asked if later we could talk some time when he was available.  (Hello next Friday, right?)  Wrong! He asked if I wanted to talk “now.”  Here goes… I said "Sure, but what I really wanted to do is pray for you" and asked if it was ok.  I’m sure it caught him off guard but he allowed me to pray for him.  I started off by telling him that there was a scripture that says he who finds a wife finds a good thing and declared a blessing for his marriage and peace during the time leading up to the date.  None of the things I was saying or how I was even saying it was like I rehearsed it in my mind.  I then asked him if I could put my hand on his chest, which he gave me permission to do, and I prayed for him.  I don’t know who changed more me or him but since I could see his face I saw something just lift off him.  It wasn't a long or grandiose prayer.  I just let Holy Spirit have his way.  My co-worker was so appreciative and thanked me when I finished. 

I went back to my work station and another co-worker who, I guess overheard, asked what we were talking about but it was a private moment I wasn’t yet ready to speak about.  There was this warmth coursing through me, and not a typical hot flash.  All I could think of was in that moment I was actually experiencing a physical manifestation of being on fire for Christ.  Although I wasn’t openly weeping I couldn’t hold back the tears.  For at least ten minutes they kept welling up.  It was such a humbling experience.  I mean, I know that there are those who go about laying hands on people on a regular basis.  For me it was out of the ordinary and genuinely extraordinary.  I thought I was having challenges in my life and was, perhaps, out of order with the church I attend and God still used me to reach out to someone.  If you could have seen the look on his face, though.  That look someone has when they are genuinely touched by a gesture of thoughtfulness.  And me knowing in my spirit that a seed was planted.  How does one adequately describe that?

My God is so great I’m just awestruck by Him.  Oh, those tears again! I’m just so amazed by God.  I know for sure there is nothing He can’t do and no willing vessel He can’t use.  He… He’s simply wonderful and so considerate of people.  Really I am just overwhelmed by His mercy.  I know my co-worker’s smoking habit will be broken but not only that. He will speak of the God I believe in, the one true living God that healed him.  To see God glorified in this what better testimony is there than that?

 

 

Letters

In some ways, many ways actually, Holy Spirit and I have an odd working relationship.  Odd as in the way it works; odd that He is longsuffering towards me for it to be so.  Let’s say He is a patient teacher as far as I’m concerned.  Around the time when I was really beginning to discover who I am in Christ, a scribe, He gave me the revelation that the apostles were primarily writing the experiences they had with Christ.  Though they were with Him together they each told their own story.  Of course I wondered, then, if they knew years later people would be quoting their words like the kingdom equivalent of incantations but that’s another story.  He clearly and simply told me to write my story.  To a degree I have done that– this blog for instance, but as I continue to walk further with the Lord my story gets deeper, more personal.

I mentioned our odd working relationship.  Generally, before I write, He will give me a word, a phrase, or even a scripture to start with.  Other times I will get an unction to do something out of the ordinary.  This time I’ve been wanting to find a pen pal.  You know, handwritten correspondence, perhaps using cursive or whatever that thing is I do with letters that is really a combination of cursive and printing, so the parties involved can find encouragement in their mailboxes.  Yes, that correspondence stuff.  I grandly envisioned enough people on board to turn around the fate of the United States Postal Service. Do people other than bill collectors send letters anymore?

Anyway, while looking through boxes of papers I came across a letter I had written to my husband back in 1993.  The gist of it was a heartfelt let’s try this marriage thing again even after the infidelities, verbal and physical abuse. Yes, my sad little life as a folded two page letter beginning to yellow and still holding the jagged edges on top from the spiral notebook I ripped them out from.  I also found two letters that I had written in 1997 to people I had met at a business conference.  Those were quite entertaining.  I must have thought it better not to send those to avoid the appearance of being silly.  In retrospect joy never hurt anyone and joy was leaping off of the pages! We must have had a great time.  I found letters that I had written to pastors of a church…  Don’t get me started with the multiple drafts I have saved on email.  The point is because I never sent the letters I will never know if my career would have gone in a new direction and given a new life. I don’t know if that letter to my husband would have been the necessary breakthrough my marriage needed. (Man, when God out that curse on Eve He wasn’t kidding! Genesis 3:16) I don’t know how much further along my spiritual journey would be had I sent the letters to those pastors.  Those I withheld because I had written too many letters with no response.  That’s the drawback of being a scribe– having more words than people have time to read.  Sounds much like the Bible doesn’t it? It, too, has more words than people take time to read.  Oh, but the beautiful letters it contains. In case you are wondering I am sighing right now.

So what was Holy Spirit showing me with this exercise, a lesson in regrets? No.  But clearly He and I have some matters to address.  I hope privately, though. Let’s talk about the apostle Paul instead.  What if the letters he wrote to the Galatians, Colossians, Philippians, etcetera, were never delivered?  How would those churches of old have fared without his explicit written guidance to look upon?  How would today’s church have fared without them?  What if none of the apostles documented their experiences with Christ?  As I write I realize I have more questions than answers.  If you know me by now that’s no big surprise.  Jesus is the AUTHOR and finisher of our faith.  I had the author part down and I’ve got a track record of lacking in the finisher department.  Not to worry. If Holy Spirit reveals a thing you’d best believe He is also working on that thing He has revealed.  So tell me, what letters are you writing? They may be the very ones to change your world and the world.

1 Thessalonians 5:27

More on Words

Yesterday morning I, thank God, awoke but with the words on my heart “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” I was given also other bits of scriptures: give us this day our daily bread, take no thought, and my thoughts are not your thoughts.  Admittedly those are some heavy words to be awakened with.  Even now, on this day I am still meditating on “live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”

So, how am I living?  The question begs to be asked simply because Holy Spirit gave it to me to consider.  The honest answer is not by every word that proceeds out the mouth of God.  How can I when, truth be told, I do not know every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.  I thought, perhaps, that this would be a lesson on how I should study the Bible going forward.  I mean, I have no set pattern of how I approach the word of God.  I just jump in.  The word is the word, right? All of it is profitable.  Clearly God is giving me direction and the way to find Him.  As much as I’d like to think I am seeking Him, I am, without a doubt, sure that He seeks me more. 

My initial thought was that I should endeavor to read through the Bible making it a point to focus on those things from the mouth of God.  Let there be light.  I was reminded, then, of a teaching by one of the local pastors who teaches that God said, “Light be” and not let as the word let takes away from God’s authority as if He were asking permission of some being to allow light.  My argument was God was declaring where light should be as opposed to asking for it to be. In my mind God was establishing a place where light should exist.  I later drew the conclusion that God wasn’t much concerned with our semantics.  Isn’t it, after all, foolishness to Him?

Funny how, as I considered the words that proceed from the mouth of God, the word popery kept coming to mind.  Why? I thought- at first. I do have on my Google Books account things written from days long passed about those fighting the influence of the Catholic Church.  Where was the popery, then, in my life?  Pastors.  I am a student of the words that proceed out of the mouths of men.  I trusted them as being the mouths of God and in so doing I knew more of the revelation God gave unto them more than the revelation God gives to me.  Many times theirs supplanted my own and even, on occasion, caused me to question my own revelation. Well, let me say this instead, I was obedient to their revelation and kept mine.  This is not to say that pastors are not vital. Nor is it to say that they don’t speak the word of God.  What I am saying is that Holy Spirit is letting me know that now is the time that I work out my own salvation with fear and trembling and understand that it is God which is working in me both to will and to do his good pleasure (Philippians 2:12-13) and I needed to know his will and good pleasure so I can live– in him and He in me. 

I asked again. How am I living? Not the abundance of God.  If there is any abundance to speak of it has been sadness.  As I began to seek the Lord, and after recent events in my life, I began to count the cost.  My immediate family is in shambles- my son cannot/will not speak to me.  The rest think I am crazy for my seeking or at the very least not understanding of it.  I was fired from my full time job and the temporary job I have cut my pay and still pays me inconsistently- not to mention getting paid at all is a challenge.  Most areas of my life are as if weights and I don’t understand why I am tied to them.  They compassed me about; yea, they compassed me about: but in the name of the LORD I will destroy them. (Psalm 118:11) The weights, that is, will be destroyed.  Still, I was counting the costs and decided my pursuit of ministry was the cause of the weights and I began to look at areas where I could shed weights.  I thought, yes, I thought, the cost of ministry was too great and I was going to leave it behind.  How could I, though, leave God behind? The answer is I wouldn’t leave God behind; just men.  As far as ministry was concerned, I would return to my first love, to write.

What I didn’t realize was through bearing the weight of others I set aside my connection to God, my writing.  My first love in the natural is connected to my first love in the spirit, Jesus Christ. He is seeking me and telling me to live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.  In my season of darkness He gave me direction and said, “Let there (in me, an established place) be light.” For the sake of argument He said, “Light be” and “God saw the light, (in me) that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. (Genesis 1:4) God declared that light should be in me.  God declared that light should be in me. God declared that Light should be in ME! Light BE.  He in me and I in Him; He separated me from the darkness.  From the mouth of God came MY revelation!

But know that the LORD hath set apart (divided the light from the darkness) him that is godly (created in His image) for himself: the LORD will hear when I call unto him. (Psalm 4:3) Indeed He has and always will. For that I can reconcile how blessed and highly favored I truly am.  He not only gave my living direction, every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, but also my first love– write every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.  Ministry as doing what I see my Father do, saying what my Father says and writing it down to bring about repentance, reconciliation of man to God through Jesus and preach the kingdom of God. In the name of Jesus. Living by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God to set aside the weights; not the gospel.  Every word that proceeded from the mouth of God, from the mouth of Jesus gave life.  How can I, being godly, not do the same?

Words

Proverbs 18:8 The words of a talebearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly.

I once thought that words spoken to me, hurtful ones, were those that I should easily get over as an issue of mind over matter.  I found myself tied to vicious words, some of which were spoken many years ago, some of them more recently, because of the vicious cycle they represent.  The words were tied to various seasons in my life and like natural seasons that come and go and return again the words did the same thing.

I thought if I simply got my mind right, have the mind of Christ, I could deal with those hurtful words.  I have learned that “getting my mind right” had been to no avail because those words were down in my belly where my spirit man resides.  I was not aware that I was dealing with a wounded spirit. 

Who is the talebearer, the gossiper?  Any person who carries the tales of the devil with or without the intent to cause a wound in the tale’s hearer.  By without intent I mean to say words from those who, out of the goodness of their heart, tell you something they think you should know to help you but the “help”, instead, causes a wound.  Either way the devil’s work is done.   It’s the person who tells you ungodly things (even about yourself) that do not align with the word of God subsequently wounding your spirit.  Truly if you are to love your neighbor as yourself then what is spoken against your neighbor, gossip, tales, or lies is likewise injurious to you.  Anyone that tells you a thing that is not uplifting, encouraging or meant for your overall good is a talebearer and any person can be a talebearer.  If the LORD can open the mouth of a donkey to speak then surely the devil can open the mouth of someone, generally someone close to you, and use that person as a talebearer. 

Knowing where those hurtful words are planted, down in the innermost parts of the belly, one can go about rooting them up by allowing Holy Spirit access to the protected area of your being.  These are the walls no one but Holy Spirit can penetrate.  He will do it but only through the action of your yielding.  You must be willing to have the word wounds healed.  Remember, words that hurt are a belly issue and not necessarily a mind issue.  They wound the belly but play out in the mind.  The mind rehearses the hurtful words as they are regurgitated from the belly.  Hurtful words are bondage in one of its purest forms. 

There are, according to Brad Scott of wildbranch.org, two Hebrew words that translate as the womb in scripture.  One is beten, and “is used commonly to express the area of the belly.”  The other, rechem, refers to the home of an unborn child.  Psalm 139:13 NIV For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. The KJV states this: For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.  Now let’s consider for a moment the Benson Commentary on Psalm 139:13 it says, “ The most inward and hidden part of my body, supposed also to be the seat of men’s lusts and passions:  thou dwellest in them, thou art the owner and governor of them, and therefore must needs know them.  My most secret thoughts and intentions, and innermost recesses of my soul, are subject to thy control.¹” That’s where and why the talebearer strikes.  That’s why only the Lord can heal the wounds.  Who but the Creator, the One who knit and covered the creation, the One who knows the creation so intimately repair it?

Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect, and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. (Psalm 139:16) All members fashioned in continuance including mind, body, and spirit.  Words as wounds down in the innermost parts of the belly, and the members being in continuance, all come under attack.  Can you imagine how much sickness and disease originated from wounding words?  Father, God. Lord, Jesus, heal us from within the innermost parts to the outermost.  Touch us deep within the belly where only you know the secrets of our being- the parts that only You know and can restore back to your original design.  You knit us, Father, God.  You can excise any thread that is not of your making and renew us with your love.  Let the healing begin, Lord, Jesus. Through and through in continuance in all of our members which are written in your book. In the name of Jesus, amen.  David said; I am afflicted very much: quicken me, O LORD, according to THY word. He says in Psalm 139: 23-24 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts. And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.  Lord, see if there be any wicked way, work of a talebearer, and lead me in the way everlasting and not to destruction. Lord, SEARCH me and know my heart- the one You know because You possess my reins.  Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain to it! (Psalm 139:6)  Bless You, Father, and thank You. In the name of Jesus, amen, amen!