The Desert

"therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will sing as in the day so her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt." Hosea 2:14-15

The desert always precedes restoration. As I read through Hosea today I was struck by the significance of the desert experience. So often in the midst of desert times of life, punishment, persecution, crisis, rebuke, conviction, pain, we become so focused on the immediate discomfort of the situation that we miss the oasis that awaits us. For in the desert God promises restoration and healing. What an amazing thing God promised in Hosea. He would bring His lost people, the very same people who betrayed Him, who disobeyed Him at every turn, back to Himself. The place of His choosing? The desert. Why? I believe the desert provides focus, it brings us to our knees, a place where there is only one thing left for us to see. Today a great reminder for me, God uses those times of hardship to cleanse my soul and bring me to a new place where it's only Him and me. Ah the desert, where His living water is better than anything we could ever imagine, where His voice is the only thing we can hear, where the intensity of His presence is ever present in our lives. God help me to see beyond what my human mind sees in the deserts of life to what you have intended them to be.

The Presence of God

"When Jesus tells us to become like little children, He is inviting us to forget what lies behind. Whatever we have done in the past, be it good or evil, great or small, is irrelevant to our stance before God today. It is only NOW that we are in the presence of God."
Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel.

It is only now that I'm in the presence of God. Being in the presence of God is so central to the health of our connection with Him. How many times do we trail off on our own path of what we think is important, many times in the name of God. All the time missing what is most important and where true purpose is found, in the midst of His presence.

God has really been reminding me and teaching me over and over today about what it means to be in His presence. That being in His presence is the central purpose of my relationship with Him. To know God, how do I come to know him more. I struggle with this knowing, so often in my own human mind I connect my closeness to God with my own understanding of what knowing Him is. To know Him means to do stuff for Him, to know Him means to have physical knowledge of God, who He is and how He works, to know Him means to help people, to serve and love like I believe He would want me to. I know all of these things are not necessarily wrong but for me today they represent my misinterpretation of what it is to really know God.

"The culmination of knowledge is not conceptual but experiential" Philosopher Jacques Maritain quoted in the book "The Ragamuffin Gospel".

Psalm 46:10 "Be still and know that I am God"

To know is to experience God, experience His love, his wonder, his power, his grace, this is where knowing God begins. And I think when I can more fully understand and begin to really and truly know God, to be still and experience Him, I will see the wonders of His power begin to unfold in my life more than I ever have before. So here, right now, I continue on this journey, to truly know my Savior, my Jesus. In stillness the ecstasy of his presence awaits...

The First Moment

Well this is an exciting time, a first, a dawning in my life! My first deep thought on my first blog. What a wonderful thing to do something for the first time. Can you remember back, to all those firsts in your life. My first captivating glance at my wife Heather, my first look at my girls Morgan and Marlee, the first diaper I changed, my first experience with the power of God in my life! Firsts have a way of embedding themselves in our souls don't they, infusing their experience, emotion, joy, pain, and wisdom into the fabric of who are and who we will be.

Habakkuk's Prayer

1 A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet. On shigionoth .
2 LORD, I have heard of your fame;
I stand in awe of your deeds, O LORD.
Renew them in our day,
in our time make them known;
in wrath remember mercy.
3 God came from Teman,
the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah
His glory covered the heavens
and his praise filled the earth.

Do you remember your first with God, that awe inspiring moment when you first felt the warmth of His love, the incomprehensible feel of his grace in your life. Maybe the secret to living in a deeper connection with Him is reconnecting with our first?
What about today? I wonder what other firsts I will experience today? What about you?