Susan – Page 4 – Windmills in Moonlight

It’s Up to Him

Post author:Susan
Post category:Letting Go Trust
Post comments:5 Comments

I am here in New Mexico and that is enough. The rest remains in the hands of the One who generates real emotion and passion. I expect more from Him than what I know cannot come from me. I won’t limit my expectations in an effort to avoid disappointment. I shift my focus and cast off restraint when it comes to looking to God to do abundantly above and beyond all I could ask or think. It”s not up to me to make this “move” meaningful.

We moved on a desire and trust it to make room for a new revelation of Christ. Desire carves out space for Him to rush into. The act of desiring is the act of preparing and emptying out a new spot for Him to fill. Through desire I see my greater need. Desire seems to arise out of a need with the sole purpose of being able to receive Him as the true supply. A new desire becomes the next new place in me that He intends to flood.

A desire seems to call Him into my awareness. To recognize a desire and to see its fulfillment is to see a new manifestation of my union with Christ. Every true desire of my heart is Christ longing to be Himself in me. To sit with the desire (allowing it to blossom) is to make room for His expression in me, as me.

To take hold of the new means I must let go of the familiar. For every perceived loss there is an equal or greater gain. Fruit is born out of death; God makes a statement by taking loss and turning it to gain. He reveals Himself in the earth of my life through a seedling of desire and His image is reflected in the fruit that is born. He is my surrender…all the way to the point of true reflection. He supplies the energy and drive. I remain still in the midst of His motion.

Humility is taking Christ as identity and receiving all of heaven thereby. Desire is born of God; I know I cannot transform myself. At best, I can rearrange life and pretend its real change when it is not. I can alter external environment but only Christ can alter spiritual scenery. He opens my eyes to see the green and the lush as it springs forth.

Flowers are growing and lining the pathways of my life. I am like a cracked pot who drips water; I feel flawed – but I will see that every drop of water is creating a bright spot in the earth around me. Bearing fruit is not my strain or struggle. It is a natural occurrence for one who abides in the Vine. I see the fruit that is already born. The already ripened fruit is being shaken off and the “greater harvest” is up to Him…

Waiting on Supplies

Post author:Susan
Post category:Trust
Post comments:1 Comment

Timing is everything…and often questioned. “What are you going to do” is usually linked to “when are you going to do it”. Waiting on the Lord can seem vague to onlookers. Now that “where” is clear (it seems I’m moving to New Mexico) the next concern is… when?! Well, I’m not sure! How frustrating for those who simply want to know what’s up! Why don’t you know? When will you know? What are you waiting on? I am waiting on the Lord – but that sounds undefined to most people. What am I waiting for? What’s the Lord going to do that will turn the red light to green?

Consider an analogy of military troops who are holed up or hunkered down behind a bunker. They’re still at war but they’re not advancing the front line. They’re not actively engaged in the battle – in fact, they are laying low on purpose. What are they waiting for? Why aren’t they marching on? If you were to radio in to find out why they are not moving forward you’d most likely learn that they are waiting on supplies. They’ve run out of ammunition and are waiting for more artillery.

Waiting on the Lord is not that different. Sometimes, we have to wait for supplies. Supply comes in many forms. It could be funding (escrow to close, etc) but the supplies we need may also be less tangible. We may be waiting for courage, compassion, humility, or confidence. We may be waiting for faith, grace, insight, or a paradigm shift in perception. We may be waiting for a change of heart or clarity of mind. Regardless, we are waiting on the Lord – we are waiting for “supplies” and when they arrive we can take up the arms and move on.

Lord, you are the support of all who are crushed, the lifter of all who are bent down. The eyes of all men are waiting for you; and you give them supply right on time. By the opening of your hand, every living thing has its desire in full measure. Psalms 145:14-16

Identified by Love

Post author:Susan
Post category:Union
Post comments:0 Comments

Union with others is established as my own heart and mind align. Aloofness and emotional withdrawal occur in relationships when I feel separated from my own true being. When I take care of the root, the branches bear good fruit. If I focus on a branch instead, then every relational offshoot is weakened. The key to restoration is underground. Winds blow and branches sway; but a strong root system empowers any relationship to weather storms.

Feelings that trigger emotional outbursts are like storm systems, temporal in nature. I feel what I feel, but the feelings do not form my beliefs. Today’s rain is tomorrow’s sunshine. Truth and love are above the storm in a place undisturbed by gravitational pulls and shifting patterns of hot and cold. I allow, accept, and even affirm my own feelings but then I run them through the sieve of Christ in me. Who I am is higher than how I feel; who I am will temper feelings before they cause harm to those around me.

Trusting the inner work of God in each other is pivotal. God has never asked me to fix any relationship. He reminds me of the inseparableness of my union with Him and that awareness enhances other relationships. Schisms heal through the union I find within myself. My soul returns to Him and all else aligns accordingly. When I am my own true self then I relate well with others and possess the necessary grace to look past their frailty. Unconditional love proceeds from who I am; it is not contingent upon another’s conduct. I live with the promise that love conquers all.

Unconditional love may be different than imagined. Unconditional love doesn’t mean there are no consequence for actions or repercussions for remaining blind. It simply means staying true to who I am even if another forgets who they are. I remain true to myself even when someone else is temporarily locked in their lower, intolerant, selfish nature. My love will not be withheld and my interaction or connection may or may not change. Any change will be in response to the love I know myself to be rather than a reaction of impatience, anger, or annoyance. Unconditional love takes care of the beam in its own eye and trusts the speck in your eye to work itself out.

These days I strive to conserve emotional energy by looking past attitudes in others that formerly triggered negative reactions in me. I used to spend a lot of time trying to convey how their actions made me feel unloved, unappreciated, or undervalued. Now I’ve found a passageway that takes me past the maze of “rights and wrongs” that previously kept me looking at relationships from the outside in. I’ve let go of the indignant need for others to see themselves and have found simplicity in my own self view.

I’m at peace knowing that the well-intended self-help industry cannot teach me how to love and be loved, to establish boundaries, create intimacy, or to become a woman who can make someone else happy. Much of the things I tried to learn to fix broken relationships possessed one major flaw – they came at me from the outside in. They were based on behavior modification rather than heart transformation. Only God can transform a heart. There are no tips, tricks, secrets, laws, principles, or practices that can turn a selfish heart into a self-less heart. Repentance is the key to change and even that is a gift from God. In marriage, as in Christ, I have no rights. I am bound by love…the true nature of my being. Good relationships are born in the revelation of who I really am.

Love [the true nature of my being] never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. Love doesn’t strut, doesn’t have a swelled head, doesn’t force itself on others, isn’t always “me first,” doesn’t fly off the handle, doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, doesn’t revel when others grovel, takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, puts up with anything, trusts God always, always looks for the best, never looks back, but keeps going to the end.
1 Corinthians13:4-7 MSG [parenthesis mine]

It Seems Like…

Post author:Susan
Post category:Obedience Trust
Post comments:2 Comments

Well, it seems the house has finally sold. No matter how long it remained on the market or how many reductions were made to the asking price, in light of this economy it is still a miracle that it sold! What now? People ask and I instinctively feel compelled to produce an answer. At various junctures of this journey I’ve felt vague, even evasive. Truthfully, the intent has merely been to let go of the notion that I “know” what tomorrow holds and to acknowledge the Lord’s revealing of each next step. Even if it felt “last minute,” I wanted to nestle into His reasons and His outcomes.

The pressure to “know the future” comes from every angle – within and without. Friends and family naturally ask what I will do after this or that occurs. If questions are answered with uncertainty then some eyebrows raise – to intimate that I am either misguided or lack direction in life altogether. Has knowing the future somehow become a gauge of spiritual discernment? The suggestion that I should know where I’m going and what I’ll be doing seems to be the societal norm – but I are not omniscient. I am not “like God,” and letting go of the “need to know” that fosters the feeling of control is a liberating feeling for me, albeit frightening!

Seeing the ingrained need for control has been revelatory. Assuming I knew what tomorrow would hold was like a security blanket. Working the traditional job, owning a home, a car, and maintaining the pace of normal life kept the illusion well-fixed. When compelled to leave it all behind, I had no idea what the journey would look like. I thought the courage to follow a dream would produce a living similar to the one I was accustomed to. Instead, pretentious boasting about the future and conclusions about God’s objectives were systematically exposed.

The past year was opposite of expectations. Instead of allowing external events to nurture self-sufficiency, God authored external events to trigger internal events that would demolish self-sufficiency. The distress encountered was humbling, but He kept me close so that I was never too exhausted or too wearied by fear. I trusted God (if by a thread) in spite of circumstance. Even though on the outside it often looked like things were falling apart, on the inside, new understanding was taking shape. Not a day has gone by without His unfolding grace. There’s always more than meets the eye. The things I thought I wanted would have had temporary results; but the things I could not yet see or even think to hope for were the things that last forever.

I still don’t know what tomorrow holds. Ask me today what I will be doing tomorrow and I will say that it seems like I will be moving to New Mexico for a season. Mom and Dad owned a “little piece of heaven” in the Land of Enchantment before their passing and it may be a good place to nest for awhile. It seems right to me…but who knows, tomorrow a new plan could unfold. I will do what I know to do today, and remain open to the ever blowing winds of change. Living life in this manner feels vulnerable, defenseless. The flesh stresses but the spirit rejoices at the hope of even greater abandonment in Him.

Come now, you who say, today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a city and spend a year there and carry on our business and make money. Yet you do not know [the least thing] about what may happen tomorrow. What is the nature of your life? You are but a wisp of vapor (a puff of smoke, a mist) that is visible for a little while and then disappears [into thin air]. You ought instead to say, If the Lord is willing, we shall live and we shall do this or that [thing]. But as it is, you boast [falsely] in your presumption and your self-conceit. All such boasting is evil. James 4:13-16 AMP

Higher Trust

Post author:Susan
Post category:Trust
Post comments:6 Comments

Agitating thoughts knock on the door to disturb my peace. If I leave my heart’s ease to answer their call then trust is abandoned for nervous reasoning over actions and outcomes. Fear cannot survive in the presence of God. When thoughts are plagued with worry and anxiety it is time to remember God.

God is developing in me an absence of anxiety over the acquisition or loss of things. If I am grappling to get it makes it impossible for me to respond to what God is trying to give. The world worries about taking care of itself but in trusting God, I enter a higher way. The higher revelation of trust is inextricably linked to my understanding of union with Christ. I am practicing trusting God by trusting who He is in me.

Different Paths

Post author:Susan
Post category:Being Ourselves
Post comments:0 Comments

When I find myself saying what I should or shouldn’t do it usually has more to do with other people’s values or beliefs than it does with my own. I’m hearing the voice of those around me or society at large. It is actually quite arrogant to presume to know what another person should do or how they should do it. I am not that person and they are not me. Succumbing to the pressure of doing what “should” be done contaminates peace and joy. Unrest reveals the inappropriateness of the step – presenting the opportunity to return to trust in the sovereignty and individuality of Christ in me.

People in the same environment often take steps contrary to those of another; and the differing actions will render the same outcomes in each. A common goal will be reached having arrived from opposite directions. As one goes left and another goes right, they arrive at the same place at the same time. One navigates an arduous uphill climb while the other travels through dank and darkened valleys. Either way, it is the correct path for each. The destination, after all, is not a location; the destination is the emergence of character. How can we possibly think we know what will effect change in another – or even presume to know what change is needed?

Work out (cultivate, carry out to the goal, and fully complete) your own salvation with reverence and awe and trembling (self-distrust, with serious caution, tenderness of conscience, watchfulness against temptation, timidly shrinking from whatever might offend God and discredit the name of Christ.) [Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good satisfaction, and delight. Philippians 2:12-13 (AMP)

Umbrella

Post author:Susan
Post category:Letting Go
Post comments:2 Comments

A million negative thoughts and feelings can come to beat me down but as I “go silent” they pass on by. I don’t have to go where thoughts want to lead me and I don’t have to feel what they want me to feel. Dismissing thoughts is like standing under a see-through umbrella; the negative thoughts rain down like bird droppings; they hit and splatter, but they’re not actually landing on me. I may still flinch when I see one coming, but as long as I stay under the umbrella I’m safe and unsullied.

If I abandon the umbrella and connect with a negative thought then I run the risk of becoming obsessed by it. Thoughts need my focus in order to disturb my peace or drive me toward negative reactions. I’ll end up saying what I shouldn’t say and doing what I shouldn’t do – all because I put a single thought under a microscope and magnified it until it was all I could see. To detach from negative thoughts is to go back under the umbrella. I may always see them and hear them splatter, but I don”t have to be adversely affected by them. In this way I am in the world but not of it.

His Winnowing Fork

Post author:Susan
Post category:Letting Go
Post comments:0 Comments

I baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: whose winnowing fork [fan] is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Matthew 3:11-12 (KJV)

FAN: A two-fold instrument used for winnowing grain. One fan is like a fork used to throw the grain to the wind so the chaff may be blown away: the other fan is used to produce wind when the air is too calm (so the fork can be used again).

It seems like a strange verse to speak into my life and it hardly seems comforting; yet I find it very comforting for it reminds me that He is in control. His winnowing fork is in His hand. Like grain, my life is tossed into the wind so the chaff can be blown from the wheat. And when the air is too calm, His fan stirs the wind so He can throw the grain once again. He is thoroughly purging His threshing floor and making the ground useful – smoothing it off and beating it down. I am the wheat He’s gathering into His barn; a pure and abundant harvest. This verse speaks of the chaos but reminds me that He’s good, He knows what He”s doing, I’m in His process, and all is well. I will come out clean. He is removing the chaff in me, making a pure and holy habitation. I trust Him to do this work. I cannot control happenstance, strengthen weakness, or open my eyes; only God can baptize me with the Holy Ghost and fire. I consciously step aside – once again – to watch Him do what only He can do. I am loved, I can rest.

Rest

Post author:Susan
Post category:Union
Post comments:0 Comments

With a hunger to find God, I found the whole of who I am. He is the principle I long to recognize, the character I long to possess, and the freedom I need to just be me. He establishes my foundation and builds the walls that fortify my city. He is my soundness of mind, my balance, my ability to partner, to parent, to originate, to cultivate, to create, to establish, and to secure. The anguish of certain actions in life have merely been consequences leading to new patterns of living. Over time I have learned that life is learned over time. Life is filled with vital lessons in acceptance and joy. He’s leading me to the high places of surrender so I can experience the depths of spiritual freedom. There is nothing for me to fear, least of all my self. I humbly concede the words He has spoken. Established in His bosom, I know myself in Him. I trust Him with my life; His word concerning me is in motion and will not return to Him void.

Balance

Post author:Susan
Post category:Letting Go Trust
Post comments:1 Comment

Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them— obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Romans 8:5-6 (TMB)

When I start thinking it’s up to me to make something happen I get obsessed with measuring my own moral muscle. I am now repeatedly instructed to trust His action within me. Without a doubt, obsession with self in these matters has proven to be a dead end. I am learning to rest by letting go of the fixation of trying to figure out what’s going on and the compulsion to try to keep things in “balance.” Christ is balancing the scales of my life as I watch without judgment. There is an ease of movement found within grace and it is thereby that I am led into the wide open spaces of free living. I wait and expect his movement in me to be fully recognizable. I see Him even as He moves through others. Am I frustrated? Yes. Do I feel destroyed? Yes. Does it hurt? Yes. But do I trust Him? YES! Yes, I do.