A Strength that Does Not Move

Yesterday I felt God speak over me two very thought changing phrases:

"The biggest adventures of your life are the accomplishments you make that no one else sees."

"Your Greatest Strength is not in what you can move, but it is in what you can hold still."

When I think of the life of Jesus, while I love studying his miracles and wonders, I often wonder about the quiet seasons of His life.  I can't help but wonder what the years were like in the quiet, in the stillness, out on the mountain when He was simply waiting.  I wonder what He felt, what battles He faced, and how he found His strength when God simply told him to wait.

We see the miracles--the walking on water, the turning water to wine, the healing of the sick, the feeding of the multitudes.  We know of his great power, strength and boldness all throughout scriptures and now in trying to be Christlike we focus on being strong, being bold, having power through the Spirit.  How many times though do you hear people saying--my deepest desire and goal is to be still, to be set-apart, and to have long seasons of quietness and waiting?  We only know of a few years of Jesus' life, the rest is not mentioned.  The majority of His life was in quietness and in waiting, it was in being set-apart and in seeking relationship with His father.

We see seasons of quiet and stillness as punishment so often--wondering what we did wrong to not be out in front or to not be as successful as those around us.  Just because those decades of Jesus' life were not recorded does not mean that they were not important--it was those years that defined Jesus, it was those years that Jesus developed all that He needed in order to do the great wonders and miracles that we do read about.   In life we have it backwards, we think that we should all just go out boldly and with great power and change the world.  We don't want to be still, we don't want to wait because in our minds we equate stillness with weakness and waiting with punishment.

If we truly long to be Christlike--we must be willing to be still, we must be willing to wait, we must be willing to meet with God and say--You are enough.    I truly believe that Jesus' greatest power was in His ability to wait and be still.  He was the Son of God, He held a depth of wisdom that no man could fathom, He had abilities that no man had ever seen and yet it wasn't about Him.

Lets be a body of Christ that is willing to be still and to wait, to be led by God, to put our own selfish ambitions aside and listen for when God says..."it is time."

Your Greatest Strength is not always in what you can move, but it is in what you can make unmovable.

Strip Everything Away

A phrase keeps coming to mind these past few weeks, "Strip Everything Away."  At first I wasn't quite sure what God was trying to tell me, until this morning.  This morning, I sat at my desk, and I felt like God asked me to write out all the lies that filled my head and my heart.  I took out my notebook and before I knew it I had half a page of lies and fears that I was battling day-to-day.

We all have those lies that creep into our head, they start with:
"you will never..."
"you are not..."
"you are this..."
"this will never..."
and they end with whatever lie you are battling that day.

I'm sure you have already thought through about 5 or 6 lies of your own.  The lies creep into our head and somehow make their way to our hearts and before we know it, we have built our days, our weeks, our years, and sometimes our lives surrounded by the constant lies of fear, defeat, believing we are not worthy.  We have formed our identities and based our futures on the lies we have chosen to believe, whether we realize it or not.

We are God's masterpieces, created with purpose, created with passion. The very things that the lies attack--our identities, our talents, our dreams, our future are the truths that God created you with.
Those deep longings, desires, passions, and interests that are deep in your heart were placed inside of you by the Creator Himself.  God formed you in the womb, before you were even born, He had a purpose and a path for you.  Somewhere along that path a lie was spoken over you, and you believed it--You held onto that lie, and you started shaping your identity around the lie instead of the truth.

God created you with truth, Satan longs to destroy you with a lie.  
God's truth inspires, Satan's lie defeats.

Are you living a life that is inspired or that is defeated?
Its time to re-evaluate what shapes your decisions, your self-worth, your purpose.
It's time to strip EVERYTHING away.
God's truth will never fade--He carries it out until completion.
Its time to strip away the lies, you've been held back long enough.

You have purpose.  You were created with purpose. 
You are the enemies greatest threat. 
It's time to make him nervous with all you can do when you stop believing the lies.

Good is not Always God

I find myself consumed with busyness--I make a list in order to simplify and yet everything on that list is good, nothing stands out as, "Ah-Ha--this is it!" I keep thinking if I just write everything out that somewhere down the list I will see the big bold thing that is causing all the stress and exhaustion in my life; instead, I see a list full of good things.
It goes against our nature to stop or to take a break from what is good; usually if it is what the world deems good, we then set out to consume ourselves even more with it.  Have you ever stopped to think though that maybe all the sickness, stress, worry, fear, exhaustion, and burn out is not caused by something bad in our lives but perhaps by something "good" in our life?

It is time to reevaluate, reconsider, and reprogram our brains to not go by a standard of good but of God.

What has God called you to?  What has God filled you with?  What does God want for your life?
There are plenty of good people in the world but that does not mean that they are saved by God. Why do we then assume that just because something is good or beneficial that it means it is from God or what God wants for our lives. Its time to take out that list, pray over all that fills the page, and ask God to separate what is good from what is of God.

I don't want to be filled by weariness. I want to be consumed by wonder.

Good is not always God.