Freedom

I am starting this post with absolutely no idea where it's headed.  I don't know what I am going to write about, all I know is that God's love is exuding out of me and I have to find an outlet somewhere.

So, this has to be the Holy Spirit.

I don't know how I got here and I don't know if I ever want it to stop. Those moments in life when you have nothing in your brain except for thoughts of eternity and heavenly places and it seems so ironic because you don't even know what you are thinking about because you have never been there.  I mean, I have never been to heaven.  So what exactly am I thinking about?

I do believe that our God meant what He said about life on earth as it is in heaven.  So why do we not live that way?  Why do we not live like our God is alive?  I ask myself these questions.

Easter looms around the corner but honestly it has never left.  Each day is a new resurrection and if you live your life thinking that God is far and that these fleeting thoughts you have about Him are just a phase or just in vain or whatever else you think, think again.

And again and again.  I told someone the other day that I am a firm believer in meditating on things.  Which is a really weird sentence to even utter and I'm not even sure how it even came out of my mouth.  I don't even know how my lips formed that statement.  Sometimes I will have a conversation with someone and just sit there for silent awkward minutes at a time until the other person has to say, "What are you thinking about?"

And then it gets even weirder when I have to say I don't know.  I mean, it is so far beyond my comprehension and still I know it is about Him.  It gives me this swaying feeling, like wind blowing the lightest object in the wind to where it flutters and moves back and forth with grace.  I don't have much grace.  But Jesus does.

So we have these thoughts about whether or not God loves us or whether or not He is even real or whether or not we can give this up or that up or whether this sin or that sin is holding us back or whether or not God wants this for us or that or whether or not we are "called" to this thing or that place and then we get rid of them.  We banish these thoughts and then we say, "I just don't feel God."  But are we letting Him in?  Are we even giving Him a chance?  We get scared of hard things and this radical life God has called us to and we pray with loud voices because we want to override the whispers that we know He wants to speak to use because we know they are scary.

He wants to do impossible things with us.

If we aren't living differently then we aren't doing something right.

What do we expect?  Really, what do we expect?  We expect good worship that makes us feel good and we expect truth to be spoken through other means and through someone else and we expect God to show up when we are pretty and we think God is only there when it's a beautiful day outside or when it's raining really hard and He's like the umbrella or something.  He is the rain.

Let Him rain.

He's the clouds and the stream and the sun and the moon and the cars and the trees and the industries and the smoke and the air and the furnace and the completely normal day where nothing extraordinary happens and yet everything but normality is fluttering about us in our very midst but what do we expect?

Do we really have to have special circumstances to see our God?  Do we really have to have a ministry or a worship night or a summer trip or a crazy conversation or a pretty sunset or a devout blessing?  What about in the corners of our rooms sitting on the floor by ourselves?  Can we talk to God then?

Where did all these lines come from?  These lines of our hearts that God just wants to erase, demolish really and I'm not talking about these lines that say, "I never want You anywhere, God."  I'm talking about these lines that say "God you can be here at this time and here at this time but only a little bit here and only if we sing this song here and only if someone is with me here and only if it doesn't hurt anyone's feeling here and only if you call me here." We tell Him He can't make us look too weird or He can't make us offend anyone or He can't tell us this because it would completely change the way we live and that is just too much to handle right now but maybe later when things calm down.  Maybe later.  We tell Him we will sacrifice this or that on the surface because it's easier than saying "God change my heart."  We tell Him we will abide by the rules because that's all we need to do and it's easier than bringing up these insecurities and these bad memories and these ghosts of our pasts or these fears of our futures.  We tell Him we'd rather Him not interrupt out lives because they are going good and we're feeling good and we are reading really good verses and singing really good songs and having really good conversations with our brothers and sisters.  We tell Him that once we get alone we don't really know how to talk to Him so we just don't.

We just don't.

We think about these things and just let them go in a minute and we don't even stop to think that that one hint of doubt we have in our hearts needs to go to God.  It was just a fleeting thought, right?  No big deal.  We don't even let Him speak to us because we don't give Him a chance.

God is relentless.  God is louder than our voices could ever be.

These lines and these categories and segments and definitions.  These time constraints and these pretty plans and these ministries and these rules and boundaries.  What are we doing?!  We live in this freedom, the freedom of the One True God that nothing could ever hinder.  We live in the wind, the mighty rushing wind that  doesn't just come in the hurricanes or the breeze of the beach.  God's presence is not stimulated by a guitar or a conference or a few tears.  It is stimulated by anything.  It stimulates everything.

Just tell Him to come.  Tell Him you will let Him come.

Come about us, Father.

This freedom.  Ah.  Let us not make our ministries our lives but our lives our ministries.  Let us not follow the rules of time and space but let us follow the flow of the Spirit that never leaves.  Let us not get caught up with life and God just be there, but let us get caught up in God and life just be there.  Let us not worry about stepping on people's toes anymore, but let us be concerned with speaking truth into people's hearts.  It's not about toes anymore, it's about hearts.

Jesus stepped on people's toes.  Jesus captured people's hearts.

Church, in order for revival to take place, God is rising up His body.  He is telling us to wake up, to be the vessel for His Spirit to run freely, flow freely into each passing body, each passing glance, even.  Those cutting eyes that see us ordinary people and know that we have been with Jesus.  Those double takes.  Erase the lines, church.  Stop stifling His Spirit because it feels weird or it looks strange or it offends people.  He has sent us here to pave the way for His Spirit to move.  That road right in front of us.  Are our structured Christian lives displaying the freedom that that Christ has given us?  Or are they actually just the road blocks?

Are we entertaining the very things that crucified Christ on the cross?

Reject passivity.

You could lock me in a dark and empty room and sit me in a corner and tell me to think about the resurrection and I think I'd be just fine.

I preach this to myself, brothers and sisters.