Box Broken

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, and he will make your paths straight." Prov. 3:5-6

My move is to trust with all of my heart. Then He makes my path straight. Three components: Trust God alone. All of my heart. He straightens. I don't straighten my path, ever. He does. I trust, He straightens. Oh, how I live days upon days trying instead of trusting.

Last week I received this text from a frustrated friend: "I wish that he would just share life and not try to be someone in a non-reality existence that he's created in his head." Exchanging his greatest desire for relationship for the fantasy of perfection that never exists. He lives isolated, but safe.

I can relate. I struggle with trying to construct how I am supposed to live my life, especially in relationships, and I miss the more simple bliss of just sharing life.

In an answered prayer to the Spirit's cry, God moved the conversation from my head to my heart. My Love leaned over and said to me, "Baby, why are you constantly trying to create perfection in your mind and control in your life, knowing that it'll all fail? Just share life with Me; that's all I really want." From there, I can truly share life with others.

One of my continual struggles is with the Pharisee within. As Beth Moore notes, "My head already knows all that...tell it to my heart." My deepest desire is to BE Mary of Bethany - sometimes quietly at His feet soaking in His Word. Sometimes to smash my alabaster box of life so my sweet dreams can touch Him. Just to really share the constant, beautiful and dirty details of life. The tears, the laughter, the raw honesty of words and worship.

I do not study His Word to try and better my life or even to live a life that pleases Him. I study His Word to know Him intimately; to know how to share all that I am with all that He is. Even after all this time, it remains a daily struggle of control...and He will keep me in that struggle until I let go of everything that holds me from holding Him. Constantly. Someone wrote, "When the illusion of control disappears we become men and women of prayer." Illusion vanish into intimacy. John Maxwell said, "The best thing is to be totally lost, only then can you be totally found." Who will lose one's life, will find it in Him (Matthew 16:25). Lost and found am I.

"Without faith, it is impossible (never going to happen) to please God." Hebrews 11:6. Day in and day out, I try to please God by leaning on my own my own understanding. There is no faith. There is no truth. There is no trust. There is no love. There is no heart. There is no peace, no joy, no passion, no relationship. I create in my mind that there is all of these things and I look to live up to them. Please understand that all of these already exist to the fullest measure in my heart, but not in my life because I allow my "head" to cloud my heart and all that is within.

Pharisee. Perfection. Delusion. Waste. I am filled with the union of the Creator and Christ of all that is, yet missing true Holiness that infiltrates every detail of my human life. Pea-brain intellect against Infinite Wisdom. All over my own stubborn control craving. The loss is mine alone. The choice is mine.

Love. Passion. Joy. Grace. Purity. Satisfaction. Completion. All that I am given breath and heartbeat to know moment by moment. Everything I've always wanted is here now.

I have so much to learn face down on the floor. As I find love, I share life. Natural a breathing. "One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple." Psalm 27:4

Enjoy Him, Michelle
mlpack1@yahoo.com

Call Waiting

“Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know” Jeremiah 33:3

I received a new phone yesterday. It’s a HUGE improvement over the duct taped “dinosaur” I've been destroying lately. I had just about succeeded in the dinosaur's demise when the new one came in. Perfect timing.

The same day I received my new mode of communication, I received a moment of revelation. What dinosaur of discipline has carried my communication with God lately? Oh, how I’ve tried to destroy it with distractions and tried to hold it together with righteous rags. What am I holding on to, especially when a better deal is free? Perfect.

Part of my prayer is my confession of time wasted in selfishness, static, and silence when it comes to my conversations with Christ. Those are all legalistic symptoms of lacking passion. I look at the prayer phone and see some great stuff: applications that I read about in the manual and I have loaded into my life; but I they aren't fully integrated into my heart drive. I excuse them before I use them. Apps like Prayer over Desperate Needs, Studying His Word, Reading Writings of Saints, Giving of Treasures, Serving of Time, etc. Though freely available, they come with a personal cost of time and attention. They are wonderful apps that enhance my life, so what’s so hard about pressing them into my heart and letting them transform my life as I really desire?

Ah, text. Writing - how much time do I spend writing others and waiting on their responses? How much do I write to Jesus and wait on His response? It's not a comparison, but a conviction of passion and priority.

Above all, there’s the “call” feature. “Call” is the most accessible and least accessed. Something from within me, not the background noise, is creating static and silence in my call.

Over and over I review my need to use the amazing power within my little prayer phone. I spend more time talking about my missed calls, rather than just making the calls. The line is open. Call now. Praise, petition, post a status of heart and mind. Just call.

Today I consistently minimize all that is blocking my call. Today I call to Him before I apply to me. Today I hear His Voice in perfect clarity. Wisdom. Love. Joy. Hope. All.

Enjoy Him, Michelle
mlpack1@yahoo.com