Questions Along the Way

The following are questions I have asked the Lord, along with my sense of His response. Be it known, however, that hearing these responses, does not mean that the struggles are settled and gone forever. As a matter of fact, I note that there are recurring themes that are threaded throughout my journals for years and are continuing to this very day. The work of salvation and empowering the Lord does is a continuing work, growing deeper and more complete by the year. What “fully complete” is we will not know until we stand before Him. Until then I am concerned with hearing and responding, continuing to follow and grow in Him, and in this section on the website I am sharing pieces of that process. Some of the recurring themes are:

You can probably identify with these and maybe add some of your own. In any case, may the Lord bless you as you read!    ## indicates the end of an entry.

From 1987

So here I am with an office of Pastoral Care Services (the original name of the corporation)— an interesting name for a corporation I work under. It’s not one I would have chosen, I’m sure, and I have to admit, Lord, that I don’t have a whole lot of clarity about what I am doing with, or in it. I begin with nothing actually—no one knows about it; I have no capital to fund it for its getting established stage, which I’m told is essential for a new “business.” Of course, this is not a business; it is what, Lord?

That means that You oversee and make provision for it, and that means that You use it for Your purposes! I agree with that, Lord.

##

[A few months after starting this ministry, I began to feel pressed by the Lord to take His prophetic gifting more seriously. I agreed, but I initially experienced a certain amount of anxiety and confusion.] I said: “Lord, I don’t really know what I am agreeing to, or what it is supposed to look like. What am I to prophesy about?

##

“Where am I this morning, Lord?”

##

I have a feeling of longing this morning, Lord. I have had it before—maybe it is old emptiness because it feels like I would like to have a way to hug You or be hugged by You. It’s a desire to be one with You, I suppose. Is that old attachment stuff, or is it part of what goes with seeking You? It doesn’t seem I can get close enough. How do I become one with You, Lord? That’s what Your prayer for us says. How do I do it?

##

How am I going to get out of this stuck place, Lord?

##

Wrestling with the Lord over disappointment with leaders in the church. What do I need to do, Lord, to move forward on this one?

[Some questions you almost wish you hadn’t asked—except for the freedom that conviction brings!]

##

Everything I have been looking at then has missed the point. It is not the size of the program, or it being well-known, or me being well-known that has any relevance at all—only what happens between you and Your kids during it. It’s true, Lord, that I have not been focusing on that. The only thing that has saved me at all is that I have been asking You what to teach, what to say, how You want it put together, and doing what I hear. But my own motive has not been within a hundred miles of pure. Why would You bless it as much as You have, Lord, with my attitude and personal motivation?

##

It’s been a strange day. I am hearing a lot of things, but feeling somehow distant, though from what I am not sure. I can’t figure out what is going on here today. I don’t remember ever having a time quite like this, Lord. Can You tell me what it is? What is going on with me?

How can dying be so passionless, Lord?

I don’t really relate to the dying either, do I?

[I took the liberty of changing this from KJV, which I was reading then, to NKJV, which I read now.]

I looked up “crucified.” It is stauroo—to impale on a cross; Fig. to extinguish (subdue) passion or selfishness. The figurative meaning for crucified is amazing to me, and it certainly describes what has been happening to me. Amazing, Lord!

##

Monday morning, 3-28-05

Where are we this morning, Holy Spirit? You have the Father’s agenda. I absolutely love the priorities on which it proceeds: compassion, patience, kindness, yet truth and discipline, testing and proving, honing and refining. They are all held in such balance, and all have a consistent goal: restoration and oneness.

Here I am, Lord. I have so much to learn about You living in and through me. It feels like a vast, awesome territory. I started to say "uncharted," but that is not EVEN true, as Your Book describes it continually. It is, however, quite foreign to my/our experience in life and virtually everything we are taught in the world. I need to learn to live there with You, Lord.

You have a Father who has planned for you from before the foundation of the world, setting the time and place for your life here and ordering your destiny.

You have a Lord and Savior who has bought your way home to your Father, and purchased back your WHOLE estate in Him.

You have their Spirit dwelling within to fulfill every word written and spoken to you.

You live in the midst of these realities and see them more clearly by the day. As you do, the arguments of darkness lose power and influence. Soon there will be no threads of guilt or shame to pull—all cut and cleansed from you by the thorough work of Jesus on your behalf. I am here to reveal Him to you and through you.

You know exactly what I have and haven’t seen. Where does that revelation stand this morning?

We are just beginning, child. One day you will be among those who have been receiving for several thousand years, and feel like they have just begun. That is how vast and inexhaustible is your God.

Therefore, settle into a life of constant revelation that stretches into eternity. That is where we are going. That is how you learn to live with Me, knowing there will be constant revealing of My Kingdom to you, which will go on eternally. You do not know the pieces that are next, but there is always more. The gifts and grace of God are inexhaustible. Give up all thought of getting to a place of understanding. Exchange that for being a clear and cleansed vessel into which Your Lord will ever pour the good things of God.

That is how the Kingdom works; you don’t have to know yourself; you receive all things that pertain to life and godliness. You receive from an inexhaustible source.

How hugely we miss it in acquiring knowledge in the hope of arriving, when we are designed to draw on You eternally!

In these days I am getting the faintest glimpse of how I am to live and work. I begin to see how I am designed to work. What an amazing thing, Lord! It could cause me to settle down into a profound simplicity and the power of a humble vessel in the hands of God.

I need to read again what Paul was saying in Galatians. With this revelation, I can perhaps relate to that passage more clearly.

Read it with Me and that will surely be the case.

I did it again! I automatically resort to my own understanding, instead of drawing on Yours. Wow, Lord, how rampant it is!

-

-

I read through Galatians 2 and heard verse 20 in a resounding way: "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.".

I am reminded of the Lord breathing into us in the first place (Genesis 2:7). It was His life breathed into us that brought us to life. Then in John 20:21-23

So Jesus said to them again, "Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you." And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit." If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."

In this passage it is Him breathing His Spirit into us again and this time it wants to result in sharing His forgiving heart. Wow, Lord! It really is Your life in us that gives us life, and we relate to it as our own? It is amazing how much it takes to get us to see that and let You return us to how we are designed to work. I also thought of the Scripture, repeated a couple of times in Corinthians. Don’t you know that you are the temple of the Holy Spirit?

1 Corinthians 6:19,20 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s

2 Corinthians 6:16 And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said:

"I will dwell in them
And walk among them.
I will be their God,
And they shall be My people."
##
Copyright 2005
Connecting Hearts to God