He Allows Me To Hunger

The Jordon River

Reflecting on these past several weeks of being in "a dry and weary land where there is no water" I came to my little Amy Carmichael book You Are My Hiding Place, and happened upon this. Can I say it any better? I think not. Can I thank and praise my Lord for bringing me to this place? Most definitely yes!

He Allows Me To Hunger

Amy Carmichael

O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water… My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you (Psalm 63:1,5).


The son found himself in a barren place.


His Father said, “In this place I will give you the peace you are longing for. Here I will give you spiritual food that will nourish you. You are always with Me — no matter what the circumstances — and all that I have is yours.”


Then the Father, with great gentleness, drew the son to himself. Quietly, He said, I am the one who allowed you to come into these humbling circumstances, and allowed you to hunger. I did this so that I might feed you with manna — my bread from Heaven!


“Only in this way could I help you to know that you cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from My mouth.”


The son said, “Give me this bread always!”


And when he grew thirsty he learned to cry —, “The light of your face is my life!”


… Later still, the son wondered why one like himself, who is so richly fed and cared for at times, should at other times feel so poor and needy and thirsty.


His Father replied by asking four questions:


“Can someone who has never thirsted know how precious is My living water?


“Can someone who has never discovered rivers of these living waters flowing on barren heights — can he ever lead his thirsty friend to those rivers?


“Can someone who has never walked the deep valleys of the spirit help a friend who is fainting — or lead this friend to the well-springs that will save the life of his soul?


“Can someone who has never seen burning sands in the wilderness turn into a refreshing pool — can he speak in praise of My marvels, or My power?

My Father, I’ve been struggling within, because of some of the places life has led me … and struggling with you, too. …

I come to you today, Father, and ask you to begin refreshing and nourishing my soul again

Hide in Him!

I have a good friend who owns a large and very beautiful house on the 18th hole of a golf course. This friend has offered me the use of her house when she and her husband are out of town, if I just need a place to get away from it all. I have found myself in a pretty difficult place emotionally for the past several weeks and I found that their travel plans coincided with my desperate need to get out of my own environment and spend time alone with the Lord. There were things I needed to sort out; very big things, things which I couldn’t get my mind to wrap around, especially with all the distractions at my own house. It sounds strange to say that just driving a few miles away to another house would give me the opportunity to clear my mind, but that is exactly what was needed. Once there, it took a few hours for me even to get to a place where I wanted to think about it. My emotions have been absolutely battered by these recent family upheavals and I had to hear from Jesus—I had to hear truth, not the many lies the enemy was shouting at me. I had to hear truth from the great Shepherd of my soul, not the voice of the butcher of the sheep, even as he spoke through other people, sounding like truth. In my friend’s house, I turned on the TV, another futile attempt to drown out the pain I was feeling, and in the dimly lit downstairs TV room, shutting off the TV, I simply cried out to Jesus "Please sort out these things for me because I can’t!" And, I heard Him speak to me, "You can let this all go. You really can let go of it and give it into My hands." It sounds so simple doesn’t it? Let it all go? But it is not simple and anyone who tries to tell you these things are just as simple as speaking the words have never been in deep emotional turmoil where everything is shifting under your feet. In fact, I had spoken the words, over and over, but my heart was clinging tightly to the thing and I wanted only for the pain of it to go away.



For some reason, this time, it was the voice of the Shepherd, speaking directly to my heart, giving me full permission, relieving me of all of the feelings of failure and inadequacy and fear, and replacing it with His peace. Peace flooded my soul. One by one, I started giving Him all of the things that were hurting my soul—something which I thought I had already done—but this time, it was different. This time it was a revelation from Him that everything that I had been wrestling with since last summer were now fully out of my control and He was holding me through it all and He had plans much bigger than my finite mind could reach.


About that time I heard a loud howling sound, very close outside and went upstairs to go out on the deck to see, and as I stepped onto the deck, I saw a coyote romping off towards the pines on the other side of the green and its dinner, left behind by my intrusion, one lone leg of a rabbit! It was right there next to the little gurgling brook, and as I looked out at the pines, I suddenly heard that little brook and smelled the pines and the sun was shining brightly onto the deck and it was very warm and brilliantly light. I was just filled with amazement again at God and His creation and the simple ways He answers and shows Himself. I have been so engulfed in the events taking place in the members of my family, that I had not been able to see Jesus through it.


Nothing changed in the circumstances, but something changed in me.


I heard Him telling me that my "life is hid with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3) and I heard Him telling me that even though I knew I couldn’t fix the things that were going on, and wasn’t even trying to fix it, I had continued to protest to God reminding Him that the thing was just hurting me so much—what do I do with the pain it was causing me? God seemed to be uprooting so many of my family relationships over the last year and my heart hasn’t caught up to it just yet. On Friday afternoon, when He dragged me out to the deck I was finally able to even let go of the pain and then crawl up into His arms and be loved and comforted by Him. It is difficult to attach mere words to my experience out on that deck, but one thing I know—there was a healing that took place in my heart that day.


God is up to something big here, not with me only, but with so many others I talk to. I see Him working to set us free from long years of emotional bondage to old family stuff. Once those "spiritual ties" are cut, not only we, but those we have been emotionally tied to, will be free from it. I have had to go through this process now with others in my little tight circle, and though the process is like a sort of amputation of the emotions, at the end there is only Jesus, and so, it is worth it.


He is worth it.

Spiritual Dejection

“But we trusted…and beside all this, today is the third day. . .” (Luke 24:21).




Dejection springs from one of two sources—I must have it at once. Spiritual lust makes me demand an answer from God, instead of seeking God who gives the answer. What have I been trusting God would do? And today—the immediate present—is the third day, and He has not done it; therefore I imagine I am justified in being dejected and blaming God. Whenever the insistence is on the point that God answers prayer, we are off the track. The meaning of prayer is that we get hold of God, not the answer. (Oswald Chambers)

This Thing is from Me

My world got upended this past three weeks. A windstorm of assaults from in front and from behind, and from every side it seems, hit me full on one after another.


Everything I thought I had learned about Abiding in Christ, fixing my mind on Him and walking in His perfect peace, seemed to have no meaning whatsoever in the face of this thing. It hurt my heart; it hurt my soul.


I learned (or so I thought) so well from the Abiding Life messages that I can’t “fix” things, much less people, but I resorted to my old self-life of trying to fix, failing of course. The thing so consumed me that I couldn’t pray. I didn’t know how. My prayer life log jammed and all the old baggage got strewn about like dirty laundry lying all over my soul—hopelessness, despair, fear, panic, anger, unbelief and the old feeling that God had abandoned me, at least for a period of time. The enemy had a field day. How he loves to bypass all of our past experiences with God and throw us under a train.


The very first words God spoke to me were these: “But the word of the LORD came to Shemaiah (which means “Yah has heard” in Hebrew), the man of God, saying …You shall not go up or fight against your relatives; return every man to his house, for this thing is from Me” (2 Chronicles 11:2-4). That seemed clear enough “Yah has heard” and “this thing is from Me.” In other words, “hands off Kathy, I have heard and I am doing this.”


But I made the choice to believe the lies of the enemy and for about five days, I went there. I got beat up. I got shamed. I got condemned. I shut down. I tried to run somewhere, escape if I could, but then the next wave hit like a freight train from another direction and I was forced to stay and see it through.


The next word I heard was again from 2 Chronicles, in 32:7 “Be strong and courageous, there is greater power with us than with him—with him is only the arm of flesh but with us is the LORD our God to help us and to fight our battles.” This lesson came from the Beth Moore Breaking Free study we are doing and she goes on to say, “God hears the cry of the oppressed. God even hears the cries of those who have been oppressed as a result of sin and rebellion. We must never cease believing that God cares about those in physical, emotional, mental or spiritual prisons. It is part of God’s consistent character to woo the captive to freedom.”


Another word came at some point during the windstorm which was “Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts…” (1 Corinthians 4:5); and “I have made you hear new things from this time, and you did not know them. They are created now and not from the beginning; and before this day you have not heard them, lest you should say, ‘Of course I knew them’” (Isaiah 48:6-7).


And further words from Beth Moore’s study:


“If you have been feeling like a failure, you are in bondage.”


“Strongholds always lead us to isolation. We will only have relationships with people who we can practice our stronghold with. People who will shelter us in our strongholds will end up oppressing us.”


“Jotham grew powerful because he walked steadfastly before the Lord His God” (2 Chron. 26-9);


“But what did Jotham fail to do? He failed to remove the ‘High Places.’ The high places are every thought, pattern, affection, and attachment to the world that exalts itself above the knowledge of God.”


“We know that God’s help will actually set us free from our sin and our idols, but we love our sin and our idols” (James 4:4).


“The great paradox is that healing can flow from a wounding. God may be wounding you in order to heal you. Repentance is not our punishment; repentance is a gift.”


“A Christian is held captive by anything that hinders the abundant and effective Spirit-filled life God planned for us.”


“Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor o what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare” (Isa. 55:2);


Psalm 51:6 says God desires truth in the inner parts. A combination of two vehicles—God’s truth and our truthfulness—will drive us to our desired destination. Honesty with God is an absolute requirement to keep moving on this journey.…there is a huge difference between salvation from sin and satisfaction of the soul. Salvation secures our lives for all eternity. Soul satisfaction ensures abundant life on earth.”


“God’s presence is absolutely unchanging, but the evidence of His presence is not. On some occasions God may purposely alter the evidences of His presence to bring the most benefit from our experience.”


And finally, just this morning, a dear friend sent me yesterday’s Streams in the Desert devotional. This is an old devotional written by Mrs. Henry Cowin, a mentor of Oswald Chambers. And what do you think the scripture verse was for this day?


“This thing is from Me!”


Amen then, I will rest in that since You, Lord have taken such pains to reveal it to me again.

Jesus calling

We have had several days of snow now. It comes from a severe storm off the Pacific which has drowned Southern California in rain, 93 mph wind, tornadoes, water spouts and mudslides. It continues today for the fourth straight day. Today is supposed to be the last day and tomorrow my little weather widget on my computer has a bright sunshiny icon, which makes me smile. I am a true Arizona girl. I love the sun, I even love the dry heat, so I say "Come on sun, four days is too long to be without those warm rays blasting through my windows."

I woke up at 4:30 this morning and gave in to it. I got out of bed instead of returning to the warmth of the down comforter and pillow for a couple more hours of sleep. There are so many things going on in the world, in my country, in my State, in my family and in me personally that threaten to rob me of peace. I found these things crowding into my early morning with Jesus, "Good morning Lord, what a blessing and honor it is to come into Your presence this morning...[where is my list of things to do that I wrote out yesterday, I must have left it in my purse, got to remember to get that out and add such and such to it]...oh yes, and Lord, this morning can I talk to you about this thing that is troubling me concerning my son's finances, it is hurting my heart and I so want to fix it...[I could go to Bed, Bath and Beyond and find that comforter I have been looking for, oh yes, here it is in my clippings from the latest Cottage Living magazine--Oooh, I love the way this looks, it would look perfect in my...] Oh Jesus, listen to me! I am just so double minded this morning, I can't keep my eyes fixed on You at all!"

This morning in a little devotional booklet I picked up over Christmas called "Jesus Calling", I read His response to me: "It's all right to be human. When your mind wanders while you are praying, don't be surprised or upset. Simply return your attention to Me. Share a secret smile with Me, knowing that I understand."

Wow! Was that You Lord, did You just respond to me like that?

How do we return our attention to Him? I don't try to pretend that I am superspiritual wonder woman, but this morning I did what I have done so often, I simply said "Jesus, You know my heart and how my mind wanders all over the place. I can't control these things, but You abide in me and Your mind is not wandering all over the place; it is steadfast, fixed, at peace and not at all overwhelmed by the things that are overwhelming me. I choose to walk into Your peace and undisturbed composure right now. Jesus, come and be my peace. Come and be my security. Come and be my fearlessness. Come and order my thoughts for this day. Remind me that even if my children undergo trials and tribulations, it is for their refining and for their good and for Your glory and I don't have to fix everything. So, right now my Beloved Lord, go ahead and pray for them through me, with Your groanings too deep for words, groanings that I myself experience, but do not know how to voice. Pray Your own will for them; Your own plan for their sanctification and growth."

And Peace returns.

It always does.

Shachah (Fall Face Down)

In Hebrew, Worship is the word "Shachah" which means to "fall face down."


This morning, early, face down in worship, I surrendered another of those things to Him and His presence enveloped me. Words fail when attempting to describe those moments, and so I will resist the urge to even try.


It started on Saturday. I was faced with a temptation. Jesus has been ministering His plans for my life and my decisions for awhile now, beginning with the financial trials during John's illness. He beckoned me "Will you trust Me? Even with this?" "This" was my "no water" situation at the time. No income, not for six months. I resisted the urge to fix it myself, because He told me that this was from His own hand and it was for a training of His faithfulness into my life. I trusted and for six months, He provided, above and beyond what I needed. I ended up with $500 when it was all over and I received our first disability check. In myriad ways, He has brought me to this place again and again since then and I am in awe of His provision and especially the ways He seems to delight in surprising me with it. Still, I trust the "Provider" and love Him, more than the provision.


Now, as my "husband" He is training me in this trust. It has to do with money and possessions; it has always been this way. I tithe and pay my bills, but what is left over is mine to spend as I like, right? Then why, when he has provided over and above what I need to be comfortable, do I end up with more month than paycheck?


This weekend, I was given the opportunity to have this training put to the test. I have been coveting a little white Honda CRV. I had a CRV and loved it, but sold it along with John's car when Jesus told me to sell both cars and have only one. This was so that John, who had to give up driving and was refusing, would not have as many opportunities to drive, and it worked; much as he hated it, he had to give up driving and he accepted that the selling of his car was ok. Shortly thereafter, he began having the seizures and was "ordered" to give up driving. It was a huge thing, for John loved to drive, and I loved driving with him.


So the car I had purchased was a nice, 2006 Altima, but in the way back recesses of my heart, I longed for another CRV. And now, there it was, priced way too affordable. My son wanted to buy my car at fair market value, and he did all the wheeling and dealing for the CRV. In the end, I would only have to come up with $4,000 "out the door" to have it.


But I had no peace.


I sought the Lord, but there are times, you know, when you hear from him, but choose to believe that it was your imagination. He has been training money decisions into me, and I have been learning so much about what I "want" and what I "need" in the process. He has not deprived me of anything, not even the silly things I want, but this time He seemed to be saying something and it was my choice whether I listened to Him or to my "wants."


You see, as a widow, I now must make all these decisions through my "Husband" Jesus. I have to ask myself, if John were alive, would I be making this decision independent of him? Well, I did that, or at least I knew how to manipulate the situation so that he thought it was his idea and he would go along when I wanted something that we couldn't really afford. I was quite good at that.


But this was Jesus. Would I attempt to manipulate Him so that I could get what I wanted? That was the big question before me this weekend.


He has been telling me to pay off everything (which compared to people deep in debt, isn't much), and He has made a way for me to do that. Pay off the little debts before you add more to it. The question then shot through my mind, Do I need another car? Is the car I now have serving the purpose? Is it in need of repair? Does it require repairs? The answer of course is a resounding "NO"! Did God provide it? Yes He did.


So, this morning, I woke very early--4:30. I wanted to snuggle down into my big warm comforter and go back to sleep but felt compelled to get up. In fact, I nearly bounded out of bed--rare to have that much energy so early in the morning.


With my steaming cup of dark roast coffee, sitting in my favorite rocker in my little office, I turned on my ipod to worship music before I opened my Bible. There is a tremendous storm brewing outside, the wind is howling and it is cold, but in my little coccoon where I go to meet alone with Jesus every morning, it is a warm glow of golden light, and He is very near. I always know when He wakes me early and rouses me out of a warm bed, that He has something important to discuss with me, or to pray through me. This morning was no different and as I listened to Paul Wilber singing "Dance with me Lord" and reading 2 Chronicles 7:3, as Solomon dedicates the new Temple, the people all "fell to the ground" and worshipped. Shachah--fall face down.


I did.


And I had my answer from Him. No, I would not buy the much coveted little shiny white CRV. I would offer it back to him as an act of worship. For that is what worship is, an offering of everything we are, have and desire. We think it is standing in Church listening to beautiful music singing with hands raised, and that is certainly a part of worship. But Abraham, as he was taking that long painful walk towards Mt. Moriah with his only beloved son, to offer him to the Lord, told his servants that he and the lad would go on alone and worship. His offering of this most beloved and precious thing in his entire life, his long-awaited son, was worship.


I would not manipulate my Husband and cajole Him into letting me have this thing. Not this time.


I learned some years ago while reading Daniel 1 that Daniel and his friends refused to eat of the King's delicacies in obedience to the Lord, and a few verses later it says that the Lord added to them wisdom. I heard Him say to me, "You see, the reward for obedience is not things or possessions or even that you will become great and have great favor. The reward for obedience is wisdom. When you choose to obey Me, I will add to you My wisdom."


It was a powerful lesson and has stayed with me.


And just to make sure that I got this lesson this morning, reading a little devotional booklet written by Max Lucado, it said:


"If you believe, you will get anything you ask for in prayer" (Matthew 21:22).


"Don't reduce this grand statement to the category of new cars and paychecks. Don't limit the promise of this passage to the selfish pool of perks and favors. The fruit God offers is far greater than earthly wealth. His dreams are much greater than promotion and proposals.


"God wants you to fly. He wants you to fly free of yesterday's guilt. He wants you to fly free of today's fears. He wants you to fly free of tomorrow's grave. Sin, fear, death. These are the mountains He has moved. These are the prayers He will answer."


"New cars and paychecks..." sometimes, in very serious matters of the heart, He also makes me laugh!


Shachah.

What Does This Look Like?

I asked that question a little over a year ago. I was thinking about all of the changes in our world, in our country, in our Churches. It sometimes feels that we have been placed into a blender and everything once familiar is now unfamiliar, changed, foreign. We live in what they call the "Post-Modern" generation. I'm not sure I can define that exactly, but someone can I'm sure. I taught the subject of Bible prophecy many times in various Bible studies, and it was always taught as a sort of "here is what is coming--be prepared--be informed!" Suddenly, it began to actually look more real--the reality was here and now my focus changed to "What are we, the body of Christ, supposed to look like to the world as the world begins to turn upside down?" Are we supposed to take up arms and fight? Are we supposed to join in the movements with Christian activists and "take back our country?" I stay up to date with world news, but I grew weary of the many angry commentators getting into arguments on the news talk shows, finding myself becoming angry and frustrated and even fearful every time I heard the latest "change" facing us and the latest "rights" being removed from us.


So, what does Jesus want me, His follower and disciple, to look like in the face of the coming darkness? Reading Jeremiah I heard Him instructing me. As in the days of Jeremiah, we find ourselves facing a spiraling down of everything familair in our nation and as with Israel, there was a time to fight, to take back our country, to do everything in our power to maintain the status quo. But God told Jeremiah to tell the leaders not to fight this time. He told them to relinquish their own beloved Jerusalem and go willingly into captivity. The time for God's refining of the children of Israel, and the purification of the Land had come and they were to submit to His refining. They had gotten off track, lost their focus, forgotten what was important to their God and developed their own religious system. The leaders cried out "NO! This cannot be. This is the Land God gave to us; the Temple is here!" But Jeremiah continued to stand his post, the post God assigned to him and warned the religious leaders to submit and to go into captivity--into Babylon. God would protect them there, but he would not protect them if they refused to submit.


How does this look in my life today? What should I look like to the world that is careening headlong into darkness? I am to have Hope--the "Blessed Hope" that is Jesus. In a hopeless world, what will the people want more than anything? They will want Hope. We have hope. We have the only Hope there is; the only Hope that is real--Jesus Christ.


So often in the past several years, when despair met me at the door when I entered into my house, I walked through my house speaking out loud to the enemy who wanted to rob me of joy, quoting from John 17 that Jesus prayed for me. He prayed that I would be in Him and He would be in me and we would be one in the Father and that His joy would be in me and my joy would be full! Therefore! No one can have my joy because it isn't mine--it is His and His prayers are always answered.


Today I choose to walk in His joy no matter what is going on around me. Amen