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| My latest fun painting, I really enjoyed painting this, the butterflies are stickers :) It's sitting in my kitchen right now and it makes me so happy! |
"ummm...no, yeah, I'll go do that now."
"I want you to go ahead and have some worship with Joel and help him practice worshiping and listening to God too."
They were excited but they wanted the door closed to the kitchen because they didn't want me to be "spying on them."
Fifteen minutes later, Ian came in all excited flashing an adorable Ian grin, and said he wanted to share about what he had seen. He told me he saw Neptune on a lion in the sky. I didn't even know who neptune was, but Ian did of course (he loves facts!). So I asked him what he thought it meant, and he wasn't sure. I encouraged him to go and ask God what it meant. He ran off with Joel on his tail. Again he returned and said he saw a random person looking something up on wikipedia (I love how specificially God speaks to children)! I told him that sometimes when I feel like Jesus is showing me something, I look up some of the things on wikipedia to let the natural speak of the invisible. He ran off all excited to see what he might find. He returned a little disappointed, "There's so much about Neptune in the Roman mythology."
Well honey, how I do it is, I just read until something interesting stands out to me.
He ran off.
He came back all smiles, "Well the thing that stood out to me, was "the marriage of Heaven and earth."
I told him he should definitely write down what the Lord shows him so that he remembers how much God talks to him. He agreed.
Now I was even more excited!
So as I have been pondering this cool vision that Ian got, I have thought a lot about how for so many years I had a tendency to separate the natural things from the spiritual things, only in the last couple years I have started seeing it from God's perspective. I had this wrong picture of being a Christian which separated me from the world in a more critical sense. Also things like separating "boring life things" from "exciting Spiritual things." I really didn't know that it was all related if I was a Christian. I sort of passed up scriptures like:
1 Cor. 10:31 "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it ALL for the glory of God."
Romans 1:20
"For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. "
I knew that I was supposed to have quiet times with the Lord and I wanted to have quiet times, I did enjoy them. But I started to notice that I would feel guilty if I didn't get a chance to have a "quiet time" and then I would feel like I was failing as a Christian and wasn't putting God first etc...the more I thought about it the more I realized somehow I was separating my life from God. By compartmentalizing Him, He was at Church, in my quiet times, in my prayer time with the kids, in my intercession time...you get the point.
Now many years later, getting set free from a religious spirit (testimony to come someday :)). I have really seen that tendency in many lives of others as well, and I want to help people see that it doesn't have to be that way. I was extremely blessed by a teaching "Precious Vs. Important" that Jason Hague recently shared at our Church, Christ's Center. He is very eloquent at presenting concepts and revelations in such a clear concise way. I was so excited to to hear God bringing this revelation to others as well.
I have been trying to be more intentional in focusing in and fully being where I am, when I am doing what I am doing, whether it's laundry, dishes, prayer, reading, computer time, worship or whatever. I intentionally take a moment to thank the Holy Spirit for being with me, for making anything I do become so much more life giving and enjoyable. I so quickly feel His sweet presence as I take a moment in whatever I am doing to fully embrace His presence. I also find that I recognize a lot more ways that God speaks to me, and I am not so afraid of reading into symbolism, or embracing the simple ways He truly can reveal things to me, it's super exciting. I feel so much more free in my relationship to God and see so much clearer, as He has been teaching me to embrace my present, and not always be thinking about the future, or my "destiny," or feeling like I failed in the past. I am living my destiny and I am enjoying knowing that I am not missing out on "more important things." God knew a huge season of my life would be raising my children and being a wife, and He also knows all the things He put inside of me that might come after my season of "Mama," but it doesn't mean I have to wait to let out all this passion burning inside of me, I do it at home all the time with my kids, with my husband, with my neighbors, in the grocery store, at the movies, EVERYWHERE!
I was so tickled when one of my dreams came true in 2008 and we would be moving to Redding, Ca, to attend Bethel church! I was super excited to be involved in such an incredible move of God and I imagined I would want to be at every meeting and trying out everything they offered. My husband even had to make sure that I understood I still had to be a Mom and his wife, I couldn't just disappear into "spirit land." I agreed. Well the funny thing was I found myself recognizing in those two and half years, how much God was the same God at my house as he was at Bethel Church. I began having major encounters with the living God on my living room floor. I also had the joy of joining a prophetic prayer group of MOMS and wives, who would get together and just love on God, and experience His manifest presence in their home! One of the biggest things I learned was how much God was real in my home and in my family and in my marriage. We got to take a lot of great things from Bethel as well, but this was the biggest one for me, we fully took God into our home and our family, no more leaving Him at Church or in the room, or in the prayer group.
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