Category: Purpose

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A Time To Speak

Lord, how can I know when to speak and when to keep silent, when these words are meant only for me, and when they are meant for others, too? There are times I have shared in the past and then thought, I should have just kept my mouth shut.

You mean, should you have just kept My Mouth shut?

Here is a hard truth you know intellectually and biblically, but you are going to have to learn to live with it emotionally: not everyone receives. Not everyone hears. Not everyone wants glad tidings. Some much prefer judgment. Some much prefer hiding in their own darkness. And some—like feral cats—will hiss and even bite before they let themselves be loved.

You have to decide this work is worth rejection, that you are not in this to become popular, but to be a beacon of light in stormy times.

Lord, why wouldn’t everyone want the light to shine in a storm?

Almost everyone—unless someone is mentally ill—wants the light to shine in specific ways and specific places. My Light shines everywhere, on everyone. And that is a hard concept for some, who live by rank-ordering and who cannot conceive of a love, or favor, that is not based on merits. It seems unfair somehow to them.

Lord, like the parable of the workers hired late in the day?

Exactly.

 

 

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Advent

Lord, it’s a busy time, before Christmas. What would You say here, now, to my heart?

Look for My Coming. The Shepherds had to look—they had to go and see. The Wise Men had to look, to seek, in order to find. And what they found was totally unexpected.

So…?

So I want you to look for Me—and for your life’s purpose, your right-now-today, in-this-chapter, in-the-moment purpose. I want you to find the settledness and assurance and confidence that comes from the “I know”, as in, “I know God is leading me.” I sent angels to the shepherds, a guiding star to the wise men. They didn’t stumble around in the night. I don’t want you to stumble around in the night of wondering, wondering if you are on track, on the right path. I want you to walk confidently in knowing, in the wonder of assurance. So look for Signs of My coming—to you. Through you and your life. That is the Advent I want you to seek. Then I want you to receive gifts, the gifts of My Presence with you, the same gifts given to Me:

Gold—Business and financial prosperity. And yes, stellar recognition for your own work.

Frankincense—The sweet anointing of My Presence and Spirit on all you do.

Myrrh—My comfort for any sorrow.

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Rain Within

Lord, I want kindness to prevail over cruelty and mercy to overtake”justice” if justice is just shorthand for revenge, for punishment. Please, please, what would You say?

Little One, you are seeing the world—My world—as it is, while simultaneously holding the vision I have of the world—My world—as it could be. As it should be. As it will be. Heaven is the church you seek, where all truly Love One Another. You are doing your part to build My Kingdom where it really counts, which is out in the middle of My messy world.

You want to find a gathering space of folks whose tenets are inclusive, welcoming, peace-centered, and when it comes to Me and My Presence, relational and experiential. You want My Presence manifest like you want air, like you want water. You are dry and thirsty without it. You are like a land in drought, spending your precious tears crying for rain when Rain is within you. You have My Spirit within you. Be church. Continue to minister. Continue to stand in love. Make your gratitude lists—and share them.

 

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Incubation

Dear God, before I jump into “do”—what would You say?

There is much within you, waiting to come forth. Some lies at great depth and some is just below the surface, awaiting only your attention to emerge. Incubation is all about waiting, but purposeful waiting. Waiting in the foreknowledge and assurance that powerful and wonderful changes are already underway and will soon be manifest, be visible. You are incubating now.

Incubation is not passive. A diligent mother turns her eggs, makes sure they are warm and sheltered. A diligent mother feeds herself so that when the babies hatch, she has the energy she needs to take care of both them and her. A diligent mother keeps knowledgeable about her own food sources. You are afraid that paying attention to the stirrings within will somehow harm them. This is a lie. You must heed the stirrings within in order to birth them, and in order to nurture them to their full potential.

Again I say, I did not give you this life to strip it from you How would you live each day differently if I told you that your nesting place would weather any storm and that you are destined for both wondrous migratory journeys and a stable home-base? That your calling is to combine word with image and bring hope and encouragement and healing to the broken-hearted, and encouraging vision to the newly emerging, and a sense of purpose to those seeking direction or lost in confusion? What if I said, beauty is your Bible? That your lens—your view of My world—is the Yes and Amen that I, the True Word, intend and need to speak through you?

Your eggs are hatching asynchronously: word gifts, visual gifts, and music gifts. And you have had earlier seasons of hatching, which you’ve assumed were to be your only times of bringing-forth. No, you have many seasons yet, many incubations to come. For now, pay attention to this season. Quit apologizing for what stirs within you, for those inner longings you keep trying to silence. They are trying to emerge—encourage them! They will soon have wings. Pay attention to every dream, every longing. If it is stirring within you, it is from Me. We are birthing together. Don’t let these become stillborn. Turn your eggs, feed yourself and incubate in joy.

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Ripple Effects

God, I still get so impatient. I’m so sorry. Can you help me be better?

Not if by better you mean that you devalue everything you’re doing or thinking. This is an awkward, in-between stage for you, where you are transitioning from discounting everything “you” – your likes, your wants, your dreams, your plans, your work. It seems as if you are over-emphasizing those because for years you gave them zero place, no importance, so any attention now feels selfish, self-centered. I Am asking you to be self-centered for a while. Pull your focus back, away from everyone else, and let yourself relish what you think, what you want, what you love. Dream Big Dreams and Make Big Plans. I Am a Big God. In the words of TreeBeard, let’s do some Big Things together. And for that, you have to focus on you, on your life. Center there and we shall ripple outward with great and wonderful impacts on the world.

 

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Nurture your inner life

God, do You—You always do—have anything to say to me today?

Breathe. Being frantic or fretting won’t help you. It won’t help your body or your mind, and it won’t help you get more done. Consider the lilies. Consider the thought that I love you just as you are right now, even while drawing you on to greater growth. Every winter, underground, lilies multiply. The “more blooms” that appear above ground come from more bulbs underground. Nurture your inner life, your underground life.

How do you do that? Worship is one way, because you are focused on Me and all I Am in your life and in the universe. Not sermons, not fellowship—as good as they may be, they don’t multiply your bulbs. Random acts of kindness, compassion and thoughtfulness help multiply your outward fruit and influence. Intercession as long as it is not a disguised worry is a bulb-grower.

Notice the metaphors: bulb for flowers and growth; bulb for light; bulb for inspiration, for creative ideas, for epiphanies. Anticipate surprises. Live expectant as you used to, and let your expectation be filled with My Presence, for in My Presence, nothing is impossible, nothing is too hard. The only defeat in My Presence is defeat itself. Defeat is defeated, overcome by victory. Overtaken by Love. Begin to anticipate a healthy body, a healthy lifestyle, a healthy business season. Begin again to visualize thriving. Trust that in this winter, which you are seeing as time lost, trust that underground, within, beneath the surface, is tremendous growth, is a field of multiplied bulbs, all ready, all waiting for the signal to burst forth into glorious flower. “A crop so great you cannot contain it all” – that is My Promise to you, renewed. So much fruit you can easily share, easily Give-Away. Is any of this too hard for God? Am I not God for you? Focus on that.

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Grace

What is Your watchword for today?  

 

We haven’t talked much lately about Grace, but it is the perfect word for you right now. Grace is My answer when humanity—when you—hang your head and say, I don’t deserve…or, I’m not worthy…or, not enough, not good enough. Grace proclaims you worthy. Grace proclaims you as Mine, and that is all that matters.

You can be an heir in three ways—you can be born into, you can be adopted into, and you can marry into. All three are true in some ways with humanity and Me, the Creator-God. I made you, I chose you, I love you. A maker can put goods out as “seconds” or “as is” and that implies a rejection, as less-than. So I Am Maker, and I Am also Proclaimer and I Am also the One Who Loves You. You can make something and still not love it. But I love and choose that which I have made. And I choose for good and plentiful purposes.

Every time you choose joy, you are choosing My will for you. Every time you choose abundance for yourself and for others, you are choosing My will for you. Every time you choose health, wealth, opportunity, creativity, meaningful and joyous work, meaningful and joyous relationships, you are choosing My will for you.

The model of slavery in Egypt, tied to taskmasters and brutal mind-numbing labor is not My will for any of My children. I have designed each one of you with innate loves and gifts so everything runs smoothly. There are born teachers and born truck-drivers. There are born engineers and scientists, and born bakers and accountants.

There is always more to discover—even within you. For today, your watchword is Grace.

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Longing

Lord, recently I had this aha moment. I was thinking how I always come back to art journaling or vision journaling about travel. And I realized I have been beating myself up about that. The aha came when I thought, what if I always come back to travel because I am meant to travel. What if it is calling me and literally is part of Your calling on my life? What if this longing I have is from You to begin with?

 So, Lord, I have this want. But…I shall not want.

Stop right there. You are reading the Psalm incorrectly. You are applying the wrong English definition of want.

You are thinking, the Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not long for…anything. You have made longing for sinful. No, no, no!

The meaning is, the Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not lack for any good thing.

What is a good thing for you? Of course body nourishment, sustenance. A safe place to live and work. Meaningful work that brings you and others joy. And yes, travel. I didn’t create this beautiful, diverse world and then sentence you to spend your days behind some small fenced-in area.

You cannot let the fear of what might happen, which you carry every single day anyway, stop you—stop you from living your own life in the now. You keep hitting Pause, and then getting up and leaving the movie of your own life. You keep stopping the action to live in the commercial.

Write down, right now, quickly, all the places you can think of that you want to travel to.

Lord, I want so much…

I am I AM; I Am your Shepherd, you shall have all you want, all you long for. For it is I Who planted these seeds of longing within you. And after you have begun to fulfill your longings for beauty and connection here, I shall unroll the map of the world, place by place. You shall be My Creation’s ambassador. You shall go and see and experience, and teach, and come back and share and write and create and go again, all with camera in hand. Your blessing will bless and enrich many others. You are an explorer of light; you shall not lack for any good thing.

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Steadfast Purpose and Power

 

Lord, is it wrong to want things to get easier?

No, not at all. But easier really isn’t the issue–neither is harder. The issue is, approaching your whole life, which is to say, your life moment by moment, in joy.

How do I do that?

By remembering the why–the why behind the what and the how.

The why?

Yes, the why, which is another way of saying the reason or the purpose. What is your purpose? Not the general purpose that might list work or marriage or family. Those are components of your life, and how you approach each of these components is determined largely by your why. Your purpose. So let Me ask you again–what is your purpose?

Lord, we worked this out before. Like a personal mission statement, one for life. And my life’s purpose is to connect deeply with You–with You and the natural world–and to share those connections, in words and images, with others. 

Your connection is like the electrical current that runs all through your house and it powers everything, from the essential-to-you appliances to lights and heat to communication devices to entertainment. You know how dark and quiet it gets when the power goes out in a storm. Don’t let your power go out. Stay connected and flip your switches on. This means recharging here with Me and outside, where you take your deepest cleansing breaths. Your friends who told you to get some time outside were speaking My words to you. I made you to connect in both ways to Me, here at the page and in My creation. So take some minutes in this storm and make sure your power and the lights don’t go out.

Now, when the power is working efficiently, you can almost take it for granted. Some malign that phrase but I want you to think a minute about exactly what it says. My Power is granted–to you and to everyone who plugs in–as a gift, for you to receive, to take. I WANT you taking My power, as granted, as gift. I WANT you living My joy in all your circumstances, in all your relationships. Power all your relationships just as the electricity in your house powers all your rooms. Power with purpose, in Joy.

Even in the storms?

Especially in the storms. That is when you need the light and warmth the most.