Receiving Answers from the Presence

This morning, I sat down to seek the Lord this morning about the same thing. Again. For some reason, I just hadn’t received the direction needed. Why, I wasn’t quite sure. He, the Living Word tells us in the book of James that we are to ask for wisdom in faith, without any doubting and He’ll liberally give us His wisdom. 1 Corinthians 1:30 says that Jesus IS our wisdom from God. And, here I was again.

This time, however, I could tell that I was about to hear the answer. There was that “pregnant pause”, that alertness and awareness in the spirit that I was about to receive a download. And I did.

So, what was the difference this time when I hadn’t gotten the answer previously? I’ve come to realize that the Lord doesn’t want to just give us commands, “Do this”, or “Do that”, “Go there”, but He delights in His children understanding His ways. We learn, not only from what He tells us to do, but the process by which He communicates with us.

I’ve also come to realize that our hearts have to be properly prepared to hear the Lord. Too often we still wait for His orders as obedient servants waiting to carry them out. What’s wrong with that? Plenty, once you realize that we are to serve the Lord as heirs and ambassadors, not merely purchased slaves. We’re family, not staff. To carry these responsibilities properly, we’re being “renewed to a true knowledge” in the very core of our being, learning in experience the very heart and nature of our Father.

So, when we seek the Lord’s will, despite our admirable intentions to please the Lord, there is often still much self-reliance lurking within us, with self-condemnation waiting in the wings to point out any imperfection in our efforts. Self-reliance is a breach within our being, an undesirable disconnect from God’s presence and power. In this disposition of heart, any answer received from him, quickly becomes a command that we run off with, trying to please the Lord by becoming successful in the new endeavour.

Seeking the Lord for direction is to be with the awareness of what we need from Him, but not in neediness. Neediness, that sense of anxious clamoring within us, produces begging, pleading in our seeking, and is usually full of confusion. Neediness is evidence that some performance-based fear still lurks within: surely God has some high expectations that we had better meet if we are to receive the “Well done”. What a misunderstanding of His character! Seeking the Lord is to be done with complete trust in His being everything we need and His grace that gives it all to us.

The answers and direction we seek from the Lord are closer than our breath or a million miles away, depending on our just being able to peacefully, expectantly receive from Him. Wisdom is in the presence of the one who has understanding, but the eyes of a fool are on the ends of the earth. (Prov. 17:24)  Again, self-reliance creates distance between ourselves and the Lord, dragging the weight of a sin-consciousness that should no longer exist.

What I have experienced from the Lord is the suspension of the answers I seek until my heart is properly prepared to hear Him. The arena He communicates in is the clear communion of faith, devoid of condemnation and performance-orientation. He does not scold or upbraid for our not being all that we think we should have been thus far. In any direction He gives us, He wants us to embark on His plans together.  Him working through us.  Adventures in God. Enjoying life in the perfect law of liberty.

That answer I was looking to the Lord for? He pointed to one of the items in my hand, the “staff of Moses” if you will. It was so simple, but I wouldn’t have known which stick to choose without His direction. As usual, the answer was there all the time, waiting to be accessed by simple faith.

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Delaine Allen is a passionate preacher of God’s Word, stirring the hearers to press on to know Him, who is the Living Word. Knowing that God, “in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things”, Delaine sees all the blessings of the eternal Kingdom as available through living in the fulness of Christ.

Read more from Delaine at www.lifestreammin.org

Running With The Wind, or Against It?

Hi everyone, it’s Bob today.

I hope you all enjoyed the podcast with Bruce McNicol, co-author of Bo’s Cafe last week.  If you didn’t have a chance to listen to this broadcast, I’d urge you to listen online here on the website, or download and listen to it on iTunes.  Without question, it was one of the most impactful interviews we’ve done. We touched on a number of topics, but the central theme was grace, and what that looks like lived out.  Bruce, Matt, and I all spoke about personal experiences where we’ve successfully, and unsuccessfully tried to live out grace in our lives as business owners.

I hope you’ve been impacted in some way by the things we’ve been sharing with you all lately.  Sometime around the holidays, Matt and I just felt moved to stop trying to teach and preach, and just simply start sharing our lives with you and allow you to read and listen about real-life experiences – the good and the bad – and the journey that God has invited us into.  As always, we welcome your comments here on the blog, or on our Christian Business Daily Facebook Fan Page, whether you agree or disagree, or simply just want to share your own experiences.

For me, I’m still stumbling my way through what my wife and I are calling our “new normal“.  12 months ago, things were changing, but they were certainly different than they were today – financially, spiritually, physically.  I had a growing business, growing staff, growing status, growing confidence, and unlimited opportunity.  On the surface, you could say I was doing pretty well.

Fast forward to the present, and our new normal is a struggling business, shrinking staff, shrinking status, shrinking confidence, and seemingly limited opportunity.  A little over 5 months ago, I was in the hospital, completely burnt out, suffering from physical and emotional manifestations of stress and anxiety.

Looking back, it was certainly a low point, but more of a turning point.  That started my road to caring more for myself. Physically, I started to exercise again,  eat right, and get enough sleep.  Emotionally, I started to deal with issues of confidence, pride, and happiness.  Spiritually, I’ve been led away from a performance-based lifestyle – at home, at church, at work – basically all aspects of my life.  God has been slowly and painfully chiseling away a lot of rough edges, and I’m honestly telling you it’s longer than I want, and more painful at times than I care to admit.

I figured September 28 was the lowest day I’d have to experience, but I was in for more.  Many more very low days since then, and a very significant low day on January 28 of this year when I had to make the most dramatic and painful business decision of my life that dramatically affected many people that I dearly love.

Fortunately, Papa had a release for me, and that was a 5 day trip to Florida to visit my dad.  It was both the worst time and best time for a trip.  But I was sure that the trip was all part of a plan, and timed perfectly to take me out of the fire for a few days.

The trip was amazing in so many ways, both on a personal and spiritual level.  A few weeks ago I shared an experience here on the blog where God showed me a picture of what spending time with him looked like.  It was so cool. (If you didn’t read it, I invite you to – here’s the link).

There was also a very powerful experience I did not share with you yet, and I felt led to do that today.  It was an experience for me that struck at many levels, and like many powerful experiences, it hit me physically, spiritually, and personally.  It was an experience that spoke to me about my personal life, my relationships, my business, and my “walk with God”.

Let me set the scene. It was a crisp, 50 degree, sunny Florida Gulf day in early February.  Warm by my standards, freezing by local standards.  The “breeze” that day was stiff, and better characterized by terms like “wind” or “gusts”.  There was a constant breeze of at least 10 MPH, with frequent gusts into the 30 MPH range.  I’m on the beach stretching, ready for a run.  The surf is crashing the beach and the waves are topped with white caps.  The pelicans who are flying into the wind appear to be hovering, not getting anywhere until they turn and head the other direction.  Since I’m running the beach, I’ve got a choice to run “up the beach” or run “down the beach” to start, and then will have to reverse my direction on my way back.

Because I’m just starting to run again after MANY years, I choose the wise path to run “up the beach” against the wind to start, and then have the wind with me as I head home down the beach.

Starting out, I begin to understand what the pelican was going through.  As I attempted to run, I felt like that wind was not only sanding me up, but actually pushing me back and I wasn’t making much progress.  I might as well have been running up a steep hill because it didn’t take more than 500 yards for my legs and my lungs to burn like fire.  I slowed my pace from a jog to a fast walk, and decided to just face the winds at a walking pace for a couple miles.  It was just no use fighting the wind, it was going to wear me out too soon.

So I trucked up the beach with the wind at my face for a good 2 miles, if not more.  My mind wasn’t really too occupied at the moment.  I think I was even listening to a podcast of Darin Hufford or Wayne Jacobsen at the time.  But as I reached a point near the end of the beach, I sat down and just stared out into the ocean for 10 minutes.  (Hey, I was quite winded even though it was a walking pace!) I don’t recall the details of what I was thinking or doing, to be honest.

Once I got my own wind back, I set to start running back down the beach.  Boy, did I feel like Forrest Gump – “I was RUNNING!“.  My pace was swift, and my stride was solid.  I felt good.  But because I am still working my way back into shape, and because I already walked about 2 miles, I started to get fatigued and winded.  I had run about a 1/2 a mile at this point, and I figured that I might just walk a couple hundred yards and then start jogging again.  As I was about to stop, a gust of wind came up from behind me and felt like it picked me up off my feet.  As I was feeling light on my feet, I kept running.  About a 1/2 mile later, I was starting to get really tired again, I figured I deserved to slow down and catch my breath.

Again, a swift “breeze” hit my back and pushed me again – so I kept running.  Over that last mile, every couple hundred yards I’d think about stopping, yet each time would be swept up by the wind and carried further.  Sooner than I imagined, I had reached the condo, and I had run the whole 2+ miles back without stopping.  As I hunched over with my hands on my knees, watching the sweat bead off into the sand, I said to myself, “God, thank you for that wind.  It really pushed me.”.

At that moment, as I was hunched over and enjoying the moment, a voice welled up from my heart and said, “Son, you’ve been running into the wind far too long. Wouldn’t you like to run with the wind at your back from now on?”

Whoa.

Boy did I know what Papa meant by that.  It was a flood of emotion, and I just stood there stunned.  In that moment, I was reminded of the struggles of the past 5 months, the disappointments, the unmet expectations over the years, the feelings of 1 step forward, 2 steps back – all of it.  Right then and there, I just said, “Yes, I’m really tired of running against the wind.  I want you to show me how to run with your wind at my back“.

It’s only been about a month, and I’m going to confess – I haven’t figured it out yet.  I find myself falling back into old habits, old mindsets, and old routines.  And I have to tell you it’s as if I was running smack into the wind.  Yet, there have been a few surprises personally in our family that could only have been God, and didn’t have a single thing to do with me.  It was all him – running with the wind at my back.

So as I reach the end of this post, I’d like to have a silver lining, a proverb, or a happy ending for you to tie it all together.  But I don’t.  I’m adjusting to a new routine within our family, opening up fresh revelations in regards to God, fighting constant struggles and trials with my business, and fighting with a loss of confidence and security I enjoyed for 39+ years.

Just yesterday, God spoke to me about my focus and my depth.  I’m just trying to sort that out, because that’s a painful word that’s going to involve a lot more change, I think.

Peter writes in his letter, “In this life, you will have troubles”.  Amen, Hell Yeah, and No Kidding.  He was writing from experience folks, and I (and probably you too) can testify to that.

So as I work out what “running with the wind at my back” looks like for me, I’d love to hear from you: What does it mean to you to have the wind at your back?  I want to hear your personal experiences and so would our readers.  What has that looked like in your life?  What about running against the wind? Ever done that?

I’d love for you to comment on the blog, Facebook, or via email.

Peace.

Will Grace Win?

A few weeks ago, Bob handed me a book while I was visiting in Chicago. He’s always handing me books to read as do I to him.I’ll tell you that title in a little bit. But some background first.

For the past 9 months or so, we’ve both been on similar but separate journeys in our walk with God. Bob’s has been more about the turn from legalism and a performance based God to a God who doesn’t care about how much we serve on committees at church.

For me, it’s been a bit harder to explain to the average Joe. I was raised Irish Catholic in Chicago. That in and of it’s self is has it’s own set of issues.

In grade school I had nuns who were 4 foot 1 weighed 88 pounds, carried a 35 pound cross around their neck and could beat up Mike Tyson, when Tyson was good.  I didn’t fear God, I feared the nuns. God was a pushover compared to Sister Mary Catherine Elephant and her 35 pound cross.

Where God has revealed himself to me is in the land of performance for the world. For as long as I can remember, making money has never been an issue for me. In fact, for much of the past 8 years, if I needed money, I was able to create it on demand.

It was really cool.

When we moved to Charlotte, not only was I able to move into a substantially bigger house in a nicer neighborhood, I did it so my mortgage payments were the same as they were in Louisiana.

When I tired of my Ford Taurus, I sold stuff on line to buy my Acura Tl (which has since been sold to provide groceries, leaving me carless and home bound most of the day.) It took me about three days to sell $40,000 worth of stuff. Not bad!

Then one day it stopped. No longer could I create money on demand. My ability to be my own God ended and the real God showed up. This is where God has dealt with me the most. The unending question of who knows best. God or me.

For the record, he’s winning on most days. Some days I still think I know best, but in the end he shows me I don’t know crap.

Which leads me to the issue of books between Bob and I.

A few weeks ago he handed me Bo’s Cafe. It is published by the same dudes who did The Shack and have a weekly podcast called The God Journey.

It took me about 3 days to read a simple story of a successful business man who has an anger issue and is driven to be the best in work. Thank God it’s not another story about some missionary or pastor. But a real guy that I can relate to on so many levels.

Plus, it’s about a group of people who really do walk through life together, outside of a normal or traditional church setting. No Bible study’s, no speaking in tongues, just weekly meals on a seaside cafe.

This book touched me in ways that I am still grappling with and working to unravel. And over the next few weeks or months or as God allows, I’ll share more of that journey.

Part of that process will happen today. As Bob and I will interview one of the authors on our radio show/podcast. If you can join us at 10:30 AM Eastern today, you’ll be able to listen in live or chat with us. Just go to our page on BlogTalkRadio.com to listen live or catch the replay.

Thanks for reading and listening.

Matt

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