Writing Your History

One morning while in my quiet time, I was reflecting on a meeting I had attended with a handful of interns the day before. What was stirring in me was what I had heard the speaker say in that small meeting. He was talking about a scripture in 2 Corinthians 3 about a veil being over our hearts and when we turn to the Lord, the veil is taken away. What he said was this, ‘to the degree the veil has been pulled back, is the degree of hunger we have for God’. While I was reflecting on this, I saw a picture of sheer curtains being drawn back and a heart-shaped book was revealed. It was open and there was a hand holding a pen, writing on the book. I was thinking, “oh, that’s cool, God is writing my history”. Then I heard a quiet voice say, “no, I’m not writing your history, you are”!

I have heard countless times in the last five years or so that our time spent with God is a time of building our history with God. Those intimate quiet times are the times that the groundwork for our future and our destiny is formed. We begin to build with God by valuing the moments in life that we put aside to spend with Him. In those moments, the hours or even days of time spent with Him are very valuable and precious. They are opportunities we create, to spend time with the Father, the Creator of the universe, and the Lover of our souls.

I often ask myself, ‘what value do I have in spending time with God’? I have no desire to make the time I spend with him a ‘religious ritual’ but one that captivates all my attention and affection for the creator of my life, the one who is the very breath that I breathe. It’s easy to feel like we have to read the Bible every single day or pray for an hour every morning in order to maintain and cultivate a close relationship with God. For some people, having a daily schedule of reading and praying is just a religious act or ritual. For me, it has to be a desire born out of hunger that pulls me and beckons me with anticipation for what He might show me or say to me in those moments that I have created a place for Him to unveil His love for me. For a person that grew up in a correct-action-produces-acceptance-lifestyle, this endeavor is for the purpose of love, not to experience acceptance because my behavior has pleased someone; it is in this experience, that I fall in love with the One who gave everything for me. This is not about accomplishing ritual, this, is about surrender to love.

What does spending time with God do? It begins to transform the way we think, the way we see, the way we talk and the way we walk out the Kingdom in our lives. The more time spent in love with Him, the more we are transformed and the more the Kingdom is revealed. The more time spent with Him, the more our hunger is cultivated and the more we can’t live without Him. The more I give Him my all that I am, the deeper my well gets and the more the pen writes on the page of my heart the history that I am building, the story of my life through the eyes of love and not acceptance produced by my own effort of ritual.

Yes, we are building a history with God, but at the same time we are also digging a well. We determine our capacity for His presence and His glory in our lives by how deep our well is. The closer I become with Him, and the deeper my well gets then the greater my life story gets. The depth of my well tells Him what I can hold and what I can contain, and sustain. I don’t know about you, but I want a very deep well to contain and sustain all that He is, to me. When I have the opportunity to minister then it’s not about me trying to prepare a good message, but the message would come from the depths of my well, from the history that I’ve created with God; my message is what I have become.

Hunger for More

Hunger drives us to pursue. When you are naturally hungry, you go get something to eat right? My family and I were walking down the Santa Cruz Boardwalk recently having just eaten dinner at a great restaurant. We had our leftovers in a couple of small containers and as were walking a young man sitting on a bench asked us if we could part with our leftovers. Of course! I mentioned to my husband, ‘wow, that is really bold for someone to just ask for your leftovers’. Now, where we live there are a lot of homeless, so I’m used to seeing them, and being asked for money or food. I can’t remember ever having anyone ask my for the container I had in my hand. My husband said, ‘hunger will make you do bold things’. Wow…how true is that. Hunger within says, I won’t be satisfied until I have what feeds me, what will sustain me and what will expand me to want even more; He has created me this way.

Life is full of activity, responsibility and commitments that take up the majority of our daily time. Our natural tendency, especially those of us with a correct-action-produces-acceptance-lifestyle, is to get under the weight of all that life demands. This steals our joy, robs us of our hope and causes us to feel overwhelmed, even becoming depressed at the lack of time to complete all that needs to be done. It ultimately steals the most precious thing of all…time with the most incredible Father.

Matt. 5: 6 says, ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they SHALL BE satisfied’. 

So I share what is becoming me, what is becoming His message that draws me to consider, to ponder, to meditate upon, that would encourage me to search my heart.

Lets engage the risk that says we are willing to give all that we are to Him, and not to build our lives on how correct we should be. Are we willing to take risk and go after more of love, in place of my rightness? How much hunger do we have for love? How thirsty are we to be satisfied? How deep is the well? How far have we pulled back the veil of our hearts? I know that when I have my heart wide open to where I am fully exposed and vulnerable, God pours into me everything I desire and need to walk out life on a daily basis with His heart. Every moment spent with Him the veil is removed more and more (2 Co. 3:13-16).

God will not violate our space, but desires unlimited access to our heart, life and soul. He fulfills every longing, every desire, every dream that you have if you open wide your heart to Him. God is not waiting for you to prove how serious you are, He is just waiting for you to bring your heart to the table. Again I say, God is not looking for your spirituality, He is looking for your surrender.

The only expectation is that I am fully yielded to Him!