The Doorway
A lot happened yesterday. God moved me forward.
I am a big fan of Oswald Chambers and daily read his devotional My Utmost for His Highest. Back in April, something that he wrote in his April 16th entry caused me to scribble a note and attach it to the space above my study area. It says: never allow a feeling that was awakened on the mountaintop to evaporate. While yesterday's feelings weren't from the mountaintop, I think valley/wilderness feelings are equally worth holding on to as those are the character forming lessons that build us into what God wants us to be.
I woke yesterday and didn't even want to get out of bed. Lately, I am continually in financial crisis (from which He continually delivers me) and physical affliction (7 weeks of varying minor problems that have FORCED me to be still). I made myself sit up and as I swung my legs over the side of the bed, I thought (and even spoke out loud to myself) that maybe it was time for a new morning prayer.
For months I have prayed each morning .... Thank You for this day. Help me to cause no harm. Thank You for the blood and the cross. I pondered for a moment and decided the new thing I wanted to say was this .... Thank You for this day. I surrender it all to You. Thank You for the blood and the cross. And so I said it and smiled.
This new prayer goes along with the work He is doing in me to TRUST and OBEY. My trust in Him to provide and sustain has been a difficult lesson. It is not my nature to sit back and let someone else take care of things for me. I am terribly independent, self-sufficient and stubborn. Thus it has been a challenge to fully embrace trusting Him to provide. Even so, the past few weeks have brought me to a near indestructible trust as I have seen Him rescue me from what could only have been financial disgrace. The lesson of trust and obey has been a year long focus, at least.
I drank my tea and read my Bible Hub devotionals for the day and was not feeling very well so I decided to lay down on the couch. This is very out of character for me, especially given my physical affirmatives were all much improved and all but gone and there were plenty of things I wanted to do and needed to do. I reasoned that the days are long and I had plenty of time and it was just as well that I lay down if I felt so tired, that forcing myself to do things wasn't going to be helpful to anyone, including myself. So I stretched out.
As I lay there, my mind started thinking of my bank account balance and all the things rapidly approaching that needed taken care of. I felt despair in my spirit as I didn't know how it would work itself out. I spoke to God and told him that once again, I give him my burdens like He asks us to do. I admitted (AGAIN) I am unable to take care of these things on my own accord.
Then my thoughts turned to my son traveling from CA to TN via a road trip with no money. I know it is his own fault he is in this predicament but I was burdened that I didn't have the means to lighten his burden at least by a little.
Then my mind reverted to my oldest daughter who spent four years without a vehicle, living in squalor, with three kids under the age of six, with days of limited or no food and supplies, who alone had to figure out the answers to every problem as she did not have a supportive partner but rather a man baby, and all the while detoxing herself from an opioid addiction. Her own fault, but still terribly oppressive things to deal with daily.
Then I thought of my baby girl who suffers from terrible headaches, whose husband was an addict when her 18 month apart children were babies, who paid all the bills, who did everything around the house every day, who held down a stressful job working for her parents at their restaurant, who drove nearly an hour both back and forth to finish her college degree, who was both mother and father to her kids. Again, no one's fault but her own, but what terrible burdens she endured.
My heart cried out in empathy for my children and how now, though some things are much, much better, there are still great struggles. I thought of how weary it can be to wake up every single day and feel the oppression of not having what you need. I then thought of the great number of people that live that scenario day in and day out and how so many of them have NO hope because they don't know Jesus. They don't know there is someone that will provide and will alleviate the stress and the hopelessness! Even though the world says all this suffering is their own fault, I believe Jesus when he said, "FEED MY SHEEP". He didn't add any addendums to that edict.
Tears filled my eyes as I realized God just showed me an amazing thing. He fully opened my heart to the struggle faced by so many people and showed me that the plan He has for me with The Shepard's Table is to offer people in this type of situation a reprieve. To give them a refuge where they can taste and see God's goodness. A place to give people hope in a dark and crumbling world.
I was so happy because also, I realized God helped further me closer to him over something I have been praying over for a good while. It is this: the narrow way takes a much slower focus of each step taken - the more narrow, the more focus needed. You will be no help to Him until you learn how to enter into His judgement and see things like He does.
Just about the time I am realizing all this, I hear the cha ching on my Venmo app notify me there was money received. Puzzled, I opened the app and saw that my renter paid his rent a full week early and once again, God graced me with the provision I needed to avert ruin.
It was funny that almost immediately, the oppression my own spirit was feeling evaporated and I was able to rise up and get about my day. The first thing I did was tear out some journal pages from a journal I started in 1981, just around the time I met the man who would become my husband. I had begun to write an account of all the things throughout my marriage that proved I had been emotionally abused. I had been asking God if writing about all that was good for my healing or not as I had my doubts. He soon showed me I didn't need to write of that in order to heal. He gave me this insight as I was watching a show from the 80's called Highway to Heaven, with Michael Landon. Landon plays an angel on assignments on Earth. This particular episode was about a woman writing a tell all book about her mother. The way the story paralleled with my own writing made me see that I was in error to write such.
Earlier this year, on my birthday, my pastor gave a message about Yesterday's Gone. He used the story of Elijah selecting Elisha to apprentice under him and that the first thing Elisha did was break up the yokes of his oxen and burn them (among other things) so that he could not return to what was old. Pastor emphasized that there are things in the past we may have to burn in order to go forward. I don't know if he meant literally to burn stuff, but I felt that message speak to my spirit and knew I needed to burn those pages. I also know there are more things that will be burned as this process continues.
All of these things - and so much I have neglected to document - are moving me towards the new thing God has for my life. I have been being formed on the potter's wheel for a long time and now, because the Word is true, what I have sought for, I am finding.
Every night, one of the last things I do before bed, is to read my Oswald Chambers devotional. As is common with things of the Lord, the entry (based on Matthew 5:3) fully illustrated what I found out that morning and upon seeing that to be the case, I fell into a time of worship, marveling at His goodness. There is simply no one like HIM.
The proof that showed me I am on the right path is excerpted here from that reading. It states: I must know Jesus Christ as my Savior before His teaching has any meaning for me other than that of a lofty ideal which only leads to despair. But when I am born again by the Spirit of God, I know that Jesus Christ did not come only to teach - He came to make me what He teaches I should be.
"Blessed are the poor in spirit ..." This is the first principle in the kingdom of God. The underlying foundation of Jesus Christ's kingdom is poverty, no possessions; not making decisions for Jesus, but having such a sense of absolute futility that we finally admit, "Lord, I cannot even begin to do it." Then Jesus says, "Blessed are you... (Matt 5:11). This is the doorway to the kingdom, and yet it takes us so long to believe that we are actually poor! The knowledge of our own poverty is what brings us to the proper place where Jesus Christ accomplishes His work.
Yesterday a lot happened. I stood in a doorway - the doorway.
To have come to this place is a highlight of my life. I wasn't raised to be charitable and emphatic. I was taught to get it on your own or don't get it at all and that weakness in any form is detestable. While this same training gave me excellent work ethics and strong personal responsibilities, it left a very large void in my heart and soul that should have been filled with love and compassion.
As I walk through this newly revealed doorway, another prayer is being answered. "Lord, make my heart full of love. Let them see You when they look at me. Let Your living water pour out of me to all who come thirsty. Let me be a living sacrifice for You. Let me be poured out wine and broken bread for Your glory".
What a delight to cross this threshold.