Tuesday, January 11, 2011

January 11th 2011

So we got a lot of snow last night and I happen to be the lucky recipient of a snow day.... at least for the morning. We are listening to worship of the Friday 2 P.M. session of the One Thing conference at IHOP. I can't help but be teary eyed as God breathes life in to my heart. I watch as my wife and children dance around the living room singing with the worship leader "I got the Joy". I know that every fiber of my being is blessed and that God has his hands on us. I feel like I have spent the last two years wandering through the desert waiting to find the promise land. Waiting knowing that God is there somewhere yet feeling so far off I can't imagine that He still exist. Yet in the darkness stumbling around with the occasional stubbing of the toe I hear His voice. It's not a loud scream or booming Thunder Voice, but rather a soft whisper like the whisper I imagine Elijah heard in the cave. It is not a moment that strikes fear into one's being , but rather a calming invasion of peace on my heart that has felt so much turmoil and strife. Looking back I know that I have been bitter and lashing out at the church. Not a specific church as much as the church in general. I blamed the church for what I was experiencing and for the desert that I was in, but God was refining me and gently leading me away from my dependence on an organization to fulfill what He has designed in me to do. In my stumbling through this fog, this haze of sorts, I lead my family from one church to another. Each church one after another had it's purpose in our lives, but ultimately none of these became home. It was in a moment when we were ready to leave this house and put the city of Bellevue in our rear view mirror that God opened His hands of grace and kept us from making a wrong turn. Now Deirdre and I had prayed about this move and clear as day I know I heard God say MOVE NOW. This was not the gentle soothing voice that brings healing and wholeness, but rather an authoritative boom that commands obedience. We put our house on the market and told God o.k. we are moving. I did not understand why God had said this so loud and clearly. I feared that a tornado would hit or some awful plague was coming. What I realize now is that God was saying I am moving on this city and I want you to move with me. I was so sold in to the idea that God was in Bellevue, but I did not need to be. That somehow when we stepped down from our employed position at Bellevue Christian Center that we had passed the calling and vision God gave us for this city, to someone else for them to accomplish. Yet here was God commanding us to move.

His command was for us to pursue the vision He laid on our hearts.

I have been half way sold on this leadership center thing. Only halfway believing that God was going to do something here. Enough to say look Lord I talked about it, but not enough to say I sold everything I had to purchase the field with a treasure in it.

I look back on what God has spoken to me.

In this one moment I will confess I believe that He has been speaking this to me over the last few years. It was HIS voice I heard not some day dream or indigestion from some cheese cake (that sounds good right now doesn't it) that I had eaten the night before.

We are back at BCC. Even over all of this time and frustration it is still home. We don't always enjoy the service (in fact Life Church has had my favorite services), but it is home. God spoke to me at this church and God has a plan for this church, THIS body of Christ. At moments it doesn't feel like it- in fact it feels like things will always be the same, but God told me that BCC will be a central part for what He is doing in Bellevue.

I don't understand any of what God is doing really. I still feel like I am walking in the dark stumbling around trying to find my way through this cluttered mess we call life. What I do understand is that God is our provider, our redeemer, our deliverer, and His Holy Spirit our Guide. I only see because He sees, I only feel because He feels, I only breathe because He breathes. In all of this I am completely dead and He is completely alive and it is through this understanding that I can operate and not fear the darkness that seems to be life at times.

It is time to sell all we have and purchase the field with the treasure in it.

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