Service tonight was really great. Pastor was talking about recognizing what God has placed in us. It was powerful. It was about having a third day faith. I liked that because sometimes I still feel new to the church. New and old all wrapped up together in Lisa packaging. It was about preparing for revival. It was about taking on mantles. About not taking out the things God has placed in us. It just lined up. I love that it just lined up.
During the service I was thinking about building. I was thinking in terms of towers, and the one of Babel came to mind. It started being built because people wanted to show what God can do. The higher it got, the less it was about God. It was about mankind's knowledge and power; as if there really is such a thing. These people had a foundation in God, but then they started placing the pieces. They used man-made brick and tar, instead of stone and mortar. Their way was 'better'. It was convenient. It was disobedient. It was sinful. It wasn't in line with God's will. Like in the Jenga post, the higher they built in the dust pieces, the less they heard from God. The more they assumed. God stepped in. He showed them their place, their true natures, our true natures. He took them back down. He stayed right where He was. We have so many reminders of this awesome God move. With every communication problem we have, with every language barrier, with every misheard word, with every assumption we make, with all of the lies we speak and hear, we can remember the tower of Babel. We can remember the choices that were made and purposefully work against doing the same. We can let Him build our foundations, even those with the people around us. He can work in every area of our lives, He's just waiting for us to let Him in. To let Him lead.
If we've been building on ourselves, we need to stop. God will align us, but we should be mature enough to step in and fix our mistakes before He has to. At least on the third or fourth try - we need continual growth. He lets us know when we make mistakes. He lets us know how to fix them too. We repent. We change. We grow. He forgives. Then He asks us to do the hardest thing, He asks us to let things go.
Moving right along... destroy your pieces. Not yourself, but your dust pieces. There was this impatience tonight, an unrest really. I know I just blogged about being patient, but not in this. Be patient with people, but not with sin. Never with sin. Shake the pieces down. Knock them over like a two year old who can't wait for the tower to get bigger! Be firm in God.
Genesis 11:1-9
"Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words. It came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. They said to one another, 'Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.' And they used brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar. They said, 'Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.' The Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. The Lord said, 'Behold, they are one people, and they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them. Come, let Us go down there and confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another's speech.' So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth."
--> I like this story. I like the push for more. More of Him, more in Him. Less to none of ourselves. We can choose to build in Him. This story shows how building anything not for and from God fails. It's all about obedience. We all need it. The 'come, let us...' parts of the story remind me of the biblical 'come let us reason together'. Philosophical thinkers pulled on that as if it was their own, as if that's attributed to a man and not quite clearly to God. That's a distortion of His truth kind of lie! Even the fact that that happens shows the trick of reasoning with men. Attributing this verse to man's knowledge is just what this story warns against! Come, fellow Christians, let us work at putting ourselves aside and learn and act with the reasoning He gives us. With God. Pastor was right, it's still all about working towards Proverbs 2. It's about working towards the Bible and Him as a whole.
Isaiah 1:18
"'Come now, and let us reason together,' Says the Lord, 'Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They will be like wool."
--> He's all about promises. We're all about not trusting them. If we did, we wouldn't try to build in our own ways. We'd be built up to work in His purposes. Once again, I'm working on it.
I'm going incommunicado for the next week or so. Still, this 3 week old blog contains 6 months of writing, so you can just read backwards instead of forwards! Later my friendly (non-biting and generally non-threatening) reading alligators!
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