Breakthrough Monday

Sunday was, in a word . . . 

Well. 

There's too much to fit it into one word. 

Every so often, and sometimes in batches, I have a Sunday where I learn so many things. So many keys to open doors I've been standing outside of, sometimes knocking, sometimes praying, sometimes singing or weeping. I get instruction from heaven, an extra-awesome bear hug from Jesus, an infilling and refreshing that propels me into the waiting week with joy. Last Sunday was one of those.

But Monday morning. Oh, heavens. Expecting to leap out of bed with joy and energy, it was as if the enemy of my soul had rolled up his sleeves and threw himself into testing my new light and joy. With a vengeance. 

Depression and heaviness. Hands stiff with swelling. Aches and very little energy. I limped along as best I could with a tremendous amount of help from my amazing children. I got them to their grandmother's house to play with their visiting cousin, visited with my mom for a while, and then headed off with my youngest for an appointment. 

For weeks now, if not months, God has been entreating me, so sweetly, to spend time with Him, reminding me with this standing invitation of the sweetness and refreshing that fills my soul when I rest in Him. I had also been moved upon earlier that morning to compile a playlist of certain songs, completed in small moments here and there. And as I drove, listening to that playlist, a song came on that spoke directly into the state of my body, mind and heart, into the hunger I felt for the presence of God within me, and finally opened wide the doorway into the standing invitation of resting in Him.

From that moment, every ailment, all heaviness, fled. And I learned how to find the place God had been beckoning me into . . . a place of safety, comfort and strength that I had only known in the context of corporate worship. I now have a new pearl of great price tucked deep into my soul; a new upwelling of the fountain of Living Water to drink from, to let shower down over me and soak me through and through.

I don't know if I can do justice to this experience . . . but my purpose isn't to give you the completeness of it. My purpose is to shout from the rooftops that our God can be taken at His word, that He can--and will--be found. And you will find Him, over and over, around every corner of your heart.

So talk to Him. Find the quiet space within you where you can shut the door on the mental chatter and simply BE. Then let the Living God, the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, come. Let Him sit with you. Soak in His love. And find rest for your soul.

The Prophetic: Taking Note

Drive-by blogging, today, with a post I made on Facebook:

It's so interesting, when that feeling of the prophetic settles over me and I look around and take note of what God is saying about what I'm seeing, where I am, or who I'm with. Then it's like waiting for Christmas, looking for the fulfilling, the completing, of the knowledge God has spoken into my heart. 😊

(https://www.facebook.com/eastley/posts/10207927049196054)

He Teaches Gently

Today, before church at Hidden Valley, I chatted with a friend. He mentioned that his lower back was bothering him, and almost immediately I felt the increasingly familiar urging from the Holy Spirit rising within my heart to put my hand on his shoulder and tell him to be healed. And I didn't do it. The flow of conversation was such that his acceptance of his pain offered me a convenient out . . . and I'm not proud to say that I took it.

I thought about that all through the service, along with a word of knowledge I was given that another friend's back would be totally healed, to the point that the rod placed along her spine would be removed supernaturally. That God would speak, and it would disappear. I didn't tell her that when I first heard it (a few minutes before I felt nudged to heal), and I meditated on that through the length of the service as well. As I kept those things in mind, I felt distinctly that my opportunity to heal that lower back had passed, but that I would get a chance to share that word of knowledge.

At the end of the service the pastor did an altar call, calling up anyone who had a bulging disc. My friend with the lower back pain raised his hand with a grin, and went up front. He had hands laid upon him, and his back was healed.

As I think over those events, and the distinct messages I received about healing today, I can see that with my friend's lower back, I was hearing in the spirit the same thing that the pastor heard at the end of the service: that God was going to heal him. Even though I didn't rise to the occasion and do it, he was still healed. And I had a tremendous learning experience about the validity of God's word, and the fact that my own weaknesses will not frustrate His work within the body of Christ . . . but that I will have plenty of chances to learn in the spirit, to practice, without major calamity.

After the service, I found the second friend, and delivered the word about her back that God had given me. And I can't wait to see it fulfilled . . .

God With Us

Today I'm thinking about the meaning of the name Emanuel. Our God is called Emanuel. God with us. It's not just that He came and lived here as mortal and died for us. That's not the whole purpose behind this name.

The entirety of the name/title Emmanuel is that our God is WITH us. 

Now. 

This very moment. 

Everything He did was for the purpose of claiming the right to be with us wherever we are. To walk with us through our lives. Even if we ignore Him, even if we discount everything He said. 

He is with us! Every one of us. All. the. time.

His victory gives Him the right to come to us in our sinful and fallen state and BE with us. The Great I AM. With us, always. What more beautiful thing can you imagine? God came and chose to be with us, so imperfect and so flawed, and yet so beloved. No wonder it is His love that perfects us, that redeems us. His perfect love motivated everything He did, and I will forever stand in awe of the miracle that is Jesus Christ.

Come Unto Jesus

I want to plead with every one of you for a minute. Yesterday, I had a beautiful and power encounter in the spirit during worship at church where I received a commission from Jesus Christ to walk in greater humility and submission to Him, and an anointing of the Holy Spirit to carry that out. 

I can't put into words the importance of entering into worship, of the vocal and demonstrative prayer that is singing before your God, and the incredible blessing, breakthrough, visions and empowerment I've received through worship. It's deeply personal, precious time with my Jesus--in which I have fully accepted Him as MINE, and have learned freedom and deep trust in Him. He has taught me, shown me things, comforted and blessed me in ways I want to give to everyone, friend or stranger. I want you all to know Jesus Christ . . . know Him in the full vulnerability of love that reveals Him to your heart, that makes Him a real and present part of your every moment, that provides power and strength in faith like nothing else.

I recognize that many of you who might read this have a relationship with Him already. That you know Him, that He blesses and loves and communicates with you. If you don't have experience in worshipping, I long to be able to share about this type of communion with Him, this way of meeting with Jesus that is absolutely outside of Mormon experience, and yet is so deeply founded in God's history with His people.

And if you don't yet know Jesus for yourself, or if you believe and yet He seems silent, I invite you to ask Him to reveal Himself to you, that the Living God would make Himself manifest in your heart and your life so you can taste His unbounded love and come to know Him for who He is.

So, please. I'm pleading with every one of you in the name of Jesus . . . press into prayer and ask God to help you understand worship better, to have chances to worship Him, and to become familiar with your own Holy of Holies where you can meet with Him and commune with Him.

Our God is so, so GOOD. He loves us so much. He gave up everything He had in heaven--existence in an overflow of love and power and glory--to constrain Himself within fallen flesh. He walked out His life in this world in total submission to His Father, becoming the Way for us to tread. He descended below all things, and because He did He was raised up to be seated at the right hand of His Father. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, and wholly righteous . . . and yet He offers His righteousness as a covering for our mortal weakness, His strength to empower us, His Truth to teach us, so we can be freed from death and hell and once again walk with Him as Adam and Eve did in the garden--as if mankind never left. And His only desire--the whole motivation for all He did--is to share the closest, most intimate of fellowship with us so we can exist in that same overflow of love and peace and glory that He now does.

Come unto Him. Oh, please. In Jesus' name.