The Problem With…

Dear TEAMS,

The problem with someone’s God being their intellect is that brain cells die.

The problem with someone’s God being their emotions is that they change from hour to hour.  Or, at least they should.

The problem with someone’s God being the Universe is that it has no love.

The problem with someone’s God being entertainment is that the best things in life come from labor and effort.

The problem with someone’s God being food is that it turns into crap and pee.

The problem with someone’s God being their morals is that they shift from culture to culture.

The problem with someone’s God being their friends is that people change.  Or, at least they should.

The problem with someone’s God being their “self” is that it is WAY too small.

The problem with someone’s God being their spouse or kids is that they die and leave.

Our God is not made of earthly stuff that passes away.  He exists apart from feelings.  He is not dependent on our emotions and feelings.  He existed before us, during us, and will exist after us.  And He is crazily, fully, completely and unashamedly consumed with love for us all the time…even when we don’t like Him or think of Him or are busy with our other gods.  He created us and will love us no matter what we do back.  

Someday, you will take the first look at your new son or daughter and be filled with a love that is so intense that you are certain in that moment you are existing in the dimension where God sits.  It will be brief and fleeting, but in that moment you will know that you will never love anyone as much as you do that child, and that you would gladly do anything to protect, grow, and preserve that human.  I know, because it is what I experienced the first nanosecond of taking you in, breathing in your skin, rubbing your soft hair on my cheek, and looking at your unknowing eyes.

My Loves, that is how your God sees you all the time.  If you are not intimate with Him today, I pray you will humbly come before Him and renew that relationship.  If you are intimate with Him today, I pray in this moment of reading this, you will be blessed with an even greater intensity of grateful love towards your Creator, Father, Lord, King, Friend.

Love, 

 

If I’m Ever Afraid of Dying

Dear TEAMS,

I was talking with a family friend this week who has been through a trauma that has her afraid of dying.  It is all very logical—the trauma she experienced was terrible, and so I validated that it is a reasonable fear.  She doesn’t want to have the fear anymore, so she has received counseling concerning ways to help her not be afraid.  Thankfully, she was going to a Counselor who understands that we battle unseen forces more than even what is seen, so she is really coming against those powers of darkness.

But I wanted more for her.  I suggested she take a two-pronged approach, standing firm and fighting the fears but also getting a real picture of what Heaven is like and how desirable and wonderful it is to go there…that all the time we are in a win-win.  We are all the time in this wonderful life because we are redeemed and have the capacity to face the earth’s trials with God’s peace through trusting Him:  win.  If something happens that we die, though--no matter if it is sudden or lingering, brutal or peaceful—we go to Heaven:  win.  In other words, we have all this and Heaven, too.

Every so often, I have that brief moment of clarity which shows me the reality of Heaven.  It is so clear to me that for just a moment I see the eternal nature of Heaven, and the joy that is there—true joy, with pain not being part of the equation of life.  For just a glimpse, I see purpose and pure, abundant life…the life God intended from the start, the life that was there in Eden before the Lie, and the life we are destined to because we believe Jesus is Who He said He is.  

The lightness in my Inner Man for that moment is hard to describe.  It is the absence of fear; it is the absence of everything that keeps me grounded here.  And every time I get these peeks, it hits me again with a new revelation that where God is…well, that’s Reality.  Not the things we are so sure of here that we see, hear, taste, and feel.  It will be so good to be there.  I have been married to God for 30 years or so through Jesus’ sacrificial death and victory over the chains that held Mankind, and I have yet to see His face.  This God Who loved me so much that He saw my predilection to wander away from Him, even though we are not whole until we are reunited with Him, that He paid a price for me even before I was born.  This God Who is endless Comfort, endless Counselor, endless Creator, who saves my tears in a bottle and sings over me, Who sees when I go to bed or when I get up, Who is taken with me all the time and fawns over me out of the purest Love imaginable…I have never gotten to touch His face, or bow down before Him in a way that I could see Him when I arose.  I yearn to be with Him, and I yearn to see people I love again.

And it is so good to be here.  I must wait awhile until God calls me Home, and do the work He has purposed me to do here.  I love living with you and I love living with your father.  More than being blessed, I am aware of my blessings and what my position really is before God.  I am thankful.  I exist to do the King’s work, and I willingly do so, even when it costs me dearly.  The beautiful thing is, every time I feel I am losing a part of myself in service to Him through being a homemaker, I realize that what is replaced is true satisfaction of the real me.  

Yes, all this and Heaven, too.

Love,