This weekend we've had visiting Pastors John and Caroline Wilkinson at our Church. It was neat to see how God's plans just line up - this morning's service was about what we've been receiving and seeking. It was about the tombstones we put up in our lives - how we create monuments to pain and how that holds us back from the freedom God wants us to walk in. That's what's been hitting hard at Third Day for quite awhile - moving past that pain. It's also what Katie Souza teaches on - soul wounds and just pains. We've been taught to bring them to God and to soak them in His Light. In that way - we've been turning them over to God. That was what was so awesome about this morning - Pastor Wilkinson was talking about focusing on God landmarks instead of painful tombstones. Same approach - looking at God's work in our lives, instead of dwelling on the works (or pains) found in the world. Healing. I really liked his analogy - one about people being so willing to bring flowers to the tombstones in our lives - about dwelling in pain, instead of honoring His works and the times we've given to Him. It's such a choice - and it's so easy to stay in pain - to be trapped by it and get used to it. But for God. I love hearing people's testimonies - to hear about how them came to God and what He brought them out of - to see the change in them - the God gap between then and now. I love listening to people being themselves - being exactly who God has made them to be. I know that God's love and power is demonstrated in the words we tell of Him... they change everything. Telling the truth of God and sharing how the Bible has come alive in our hearts and in our lives is living our faith. Share pain, but share that you've moved past in through Him. Can you even describe how God glorious it is to share a landmark moment from a place where a tombstone used to be? Isn't that every salvation story ever? The pain of a life without Him rooted out and filled instead by His love encounter! Now we just have to be on guard and root out the weeds and tombstones that are revealed by the Holy Spirit in us. Proverbs 4:23. Root things out and protect what He puts in. Then what are we? Healed. Whole. I don't want to be walled away from Him... to have a hardened heart that won't repent or change. I want those landmark places of Him everywhere. They are an encouragement - they push for evergrowth - which is the Christian life we're called to live.
Tonight's service was great also. I had a vision during praise and worship. It was of a bomb inside of me - not a bad one, but a deposit of promises and just of God's works in me. Then it exploded. I can't really describe it - it wasn't violent, but it was full of fire and of ice. Light went everywhere and I fell to pieces - like in a fairytale - puzzle pieces everywhere. Then the light put the pieces back together. Almost instantaneously. It took like a millisecond for the whole thing to occur. Then, the put back together me looked down - there were so many pieces left - ones I didn't need and ones I wasn't supposed to have. It was like a restoration of promises and gifts - ones that I could move forward in - free from the trappings and snares that stopped me in the past. There were two words in the vision: activate and explode. Pastor Francis and Pastor Wilkinson mentioned them both within the 10 minute period following. I almost fell down... and was crying like a baby.
It felt so painful - I think because its timing wasn't now. The past two visions I've had are for a time that is coming and that's just not here... yet. I'm believing. I've been praying about it -making sure that I'm not holding back from God. I have a tendency to pause longer than I should, being just as disobedient as those who jump ahead of God's plans. I was distraught - I don't want to hold back that way. As we got further in the service though I was able to release that - felt it physically lifting off of me. I always forget that God knows me; He has often prepared me for the changes in my life. He knows I freeze up or shut down - but when He lets me know the little bits, I move in Him and for Him quicker. It means a big hit is coming. Soon. A necessary one - a season changing one. I'm excited and terrified. Equally. That now command from earlier and the bomb hit from tonight will happen and I'll know why... because it has to for the sake of change in Him. Growing in Him is tough - but knowing that I'm growing in Him helps... knowing that I'm going to be released into a future that He has created me for more than helps... knowing that He purposefully created me and knows me and still loves me saves me - daily. I'm just excited to be pushed further into who I'm meant to be in God.
The rest of the service was a push. They prayed for everybody in both of today's services - that's so much effort - - so much of a God push - one that I've so often seen in our own Pastors. Prayer time: Pushing for changes in ourselves by pulling on and giving to God. Pushing for others. Pushing for the Pastors and the leaders that are pushing for us. Pushing for the nation. Pushing for the lost. Working in God. Church. Th-th-that's it, folks ;)
No comments:
Post a Comment