My Confession

Today I make a public confession. I want to be authentic in my weakness so that His strength shines through to you, can I do that?

A few days ago, the Lion of Judah walked into my room. He walked in – a majestic lion – perfect in form, a beautiful golden-brown, so noble in His bearing.

Without words He said to my heart, “Come away with Me for awhile.” He asked me to walk with Him because He wanted to show me something important, as He often does whenever He appears to me as the Lion.

He stood there watching me, patient, waiting. And without skipping a beat this headstrong wilful “godly woman” (hah!) said, “No. I’m too busy right now.”

He stood there looking at me for a long while, His expression so gentle yet sad and grave. Then He silently turned and walked away.

I felt His sadness – it was weighty but unimposing. He was gentle and wouldn’t force me where I didn’t want to go. It seemed so easy to turn away from Him.

I was so caught up in my busyness that I only realized my wrong when Alex, upon hearing about my day, asked with the most incredulous look on his face, “You said NO to the Lion of Judah?! GOD appeared to you, gave you a PERSONAL INVITATION, and you said NO?!!”

Whump whump. If ever there was a right moment to use OMG, that would’ve been it.

I had rejected His heart, yet He didn’t devour me. He had chosen to share His secret with me, and I had said “no thank you” with the petulance of a self-absorbed child.

I’d taken what other warriors had fought so hard to win, and tossed it aside with the flippant indifference of a child.

And I am so sorry.

I had been taking Him for granted for a really long time and thought it was spiritual piety.

I had been living like these ones Jesus spoke about — “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” (Matthew 15:8)

I’d just launched the abide + thrive collection, but obviously had so much more to learn about abiding + thriving.

I am humbled once more.

I woke up yesterday to His clear, gentle, powerful voice: “Don’t be so busy doing things for Me your whole life, only to wake up one morning to find that we’ve become strangers. Don’t let what was started in the Spirit to end in the flesh (Galatians 3).”

And I think? We need to speak about this a little more.

We the Bride of Christ have gotten so accustomed to doing that we forget the being. We are program/process-driven, and not enough presence/purpose-driven.

A.W.Tozer puts it this way — “If the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the church today, 95 percent of what we do would go on and no one would know the difference. If the Holy spirit had been withdrawn from the New Testament church, 95 percent of what they did would stop, and everybody would know the difference.”

I don’t have the answers + solutions to this age-old struggle between the flesh and the spirit. There’s fasting, praying, reading the Bible. But I think we need Holy Spirit to breathe Life into all these things for them to bear fruit.

So today, I just want to say a prayer. Feel free to join me in it.

“Forgive me Lord. I don’t want to work my whole life for You, only to wake up one morning to find that we’ve become strangers. I don’t want what was started in the Spirit to end in the flesh. I’m so sorry Lord. Help my heart to shake off its shackles and draw closer to You. Help me abide in Your presence even as I run after Your vision. Show me how Jesus did it. Amen.”

Do you struggle with making time for God in the midst of ministry + life? How do you make room for Him? Share your words in the comments so we can pray along + encourage each other!

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Idream of Eden. We were made for the Garden and the full pleasure of paradise. We got separated at Eden and we spend our whole lives searching for a way back into that secret paradise. All of life's pursuit + pain + questioning can be traced back to man's search for home. Our deepest instincts tell us that we are not home outside of this reality, and our souls will never stop searching until we return. Only there will we find rest and our true being. There, we begin to dream again the dreams that have laid asleep in our hearts all along.

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