Audience of one ...

It’s been a very busy summer, as all three kiddos jumped into baseball season even before school was out. Most weeks, we literally had just one night a week we didn’t either have practice or a game. Very thankful for family, as we could not have done it without the Grandparents! We WERE able to get away for a week at the beach with family at the end of June, but came right back to another crazy week of baseball tourneys, followed by a couple more busy work weeks for my business. What do they say about being B.U.S.Y. ... Being Under Satan’s Yoke ...

While it has it been a full summer, it has been a lot fun as we have had MANY opportunities to be together with family and friends ... which is why it does not make sense to me that I’ve really been struggling with loneliness this summer.  I don’t think I really even realized that was the emotion until just recently ... it’s really crazy ... with all the chaos ... all the family ... we rarely have a weekend to ourselves, so it kind of took me by surprise when God started to place His finger on that unhealed part of my heart.  It’s not raw like some wounds He can leave after one of His surgical procedures, but more like a severe burn that can’t stand to be out in the open.  When He first revealed it to me, I actually knocked His hand away, afraid and protective of the wound ... almost embarrassed by it.  Slowly, He has been pulling back the crappy little bandaids I had used in attempt to aid the healing ... or hide it ... the kids’ schedules ... my work ... busyness of errands and tasks ... distractions of home projects ... one by one, He’s showing me how He alone is the Healer of our hurts.

In the Spring, I had really reached a great spot ... if you remember, I had pulled up residency from this crazy world and moved into the Opposite World with my King (I’ve actually been doing a self-study this summer on the ‘currency of God’, which I hope to share with you soon!)  It was truly a wonderful place to be as I experienced a freedom in my soul like I’ve never had. But somewhere in the chaos of this world, I was drawn back to deal with schedules and errands and projects and then I guess I just lost my way back Home.  I found myself in an awkward place as I no longer had a place to live in this world because I had chosen to give it up and frankly just don't have the energy for it any longer, but I couldn’t remember how to get back to my new home with Him and that’s kind of where I’ve been all summer ... lonely and lost.  I think what trapped me here is that I started caring again ... in what others thought ... in what our future holds ... in what God’s plan is ... in what He would have me do next. Caring and not surrendering, there is a difference ... Soon, I was receiving the rejection from others who are still very much residing in this world and finding myself judging God all over again ... judging His plan by what appeared to be the lack of progress in moving forward ... the lack of fruit in what I thought I was doing for Him ... and all of the sudden I looked up from the distractions and found myself in the wilderness ... AGAIN ... discouraged and tired, I just laid down and went to sleep and that’s where I’ve been most of the summer ... lost, lonely, cold, hungry, discouraged and tired.

[Normally at this point in my journaling, I would start to wonder if I still had anyone with me. All of this symbolic writing, all of which I'm sure seems like ‘code’ ... but as I just read back through to see if any of it makes any sense, I just heard Him say ‘let those who have ears, hear’ :) ... and so I continue ... ]
 
When I first started to write for Him during David’s illness, it was for the purposes of communicating and encouraging truth ... but somewhere in the chaos of the past year, I started writing for hopes of seeing His fruit ... of seeing Him use me to change lives ... afterall, that would help to make sense of it all, right?  Many would say that’s not a bad reason to write, but what has happened is that when my hope is in the fruit, it’s not in Him ... so when there is no sign of fruit ... everything from negative feedback to no feedback to the ever growing number of blank stares I’m starting to get ... when there is no fruit, then I question whether His plan is real and that's just one step away from questioning the overall directive.  But God never said to me ‘write so that there will be fruit’.  He has just placed in me a NEED to write/share of Him and what He’s doing in me ... I believe it’s the ‘breathing’ in His Opposite World ... I inhale what He has to say through His Word and teachings and then exhale through my writing and teaching to others ... He wants me to write/share not because of the fruit it produces, but because my writing/sharing keeps me alive in Him ... and that pleases Him.

And there’s that pesky question, again ... is He enough?

The Book of Acts is the Biblical account of what happened AFTER Jesus’ time on earth ... after he lived and died and rose again ... how did the Apostles react to their encounter with Jesus? Did they visit three or four different synagogues to decide which one best fit their families to serve? Did they write a book and wait for the speaking engagements to come in? No! They couldn’t keep it to themselves!  They HAD to tell everyone what they saw and heard ... out of their shear NEED TO, they continued in the steps of Jesus, in His name. In Acts 4, Peter & John were brought before the leaders of the church (the Pharisees) to make an account for their behavior and to answer ‘In whose name are you doing these things?’ When they said they were doing it in the name of Jesus, they were told to stop it! And their response in Acts 4:19-20 is my hearts cry ... 'Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.'

I’ve had so many opportunities to share all that I’ve seen and heard these past couple of years and prior to the summer, I was doing it fearlessly. I just couldn’t help it! You don’t think I know how cuckoo it sounds when I say ‘Jesus is coming soon!’ or ‘there is more!’ ... but that doesn’t change the fact that HE IS COMING (and soon, by the way!) and that there is more!  You don’t think that I know how people are hesitant to ask me to pray for healing, when David was not healed? How some question what I say I ‘hear’, when I ‘thought’ I had heard that David would be fully restored on this Earth? That doesn’t mean that God doesn’t heal and that doesn’t mean I wasn’t hearing ... HE DOES HEAL! And although I’m still reconciling what I heard with what I see, I do not doubt that He speaks.  I just believe there is still more to come to fulfill all that He has said. Crazy? Maybe. But I would rather be crazy with Jesus, than lost and lonely in the wilderness! Been there, done that, don’t want the t-shirt!

Up until the summer, I could not help but speak about what I had seen and heard ... just like Peter & John ... and I believe I was rewarded with residency in the ‘Opposite World’ for a short time, where I was able to escape this crazy world of nonbelief and distractions, which is where I believe the Apostles lived too, throughout their faithfulness.  But when I started caring what people thought about the cuckoo-ness ... when I started to receive the blank stares and negative feedback as signs of ‘no fruit’ in what I thought God wanted me to be doing, I got distracted (AGAIN!) and I was no longer able to speak about what I had seen and heard ... I started trying to figure out what God wanted me to say in order to produce fruit. The difference ... my audience was you, not Him.  I believe He does ask some to say specific things and He does give words to those whom He wants to speak for Him ... but I believe for the majority of us, He just wants us to be a witness for Him ... to not be able to help ourselves from telling others all that He has done for us ... in us, through us. For many around us, that’s more than enough for them to want to know Him more.

Until we get to the point where we are living only for our Audience of One, we are not living. We are just being deceived and distracted.

He is all that matters and He is all that we have ... He is our Hope ... my companion and my King.  Please don’t be offended when I say that my hope is no longer in you :) It’s no longer in this world or any fruit that my writing/sharing produces, either ... My hope is in Him alone and what I know He is able to do because He’s done it in me, for me and through me.

Funny thing I just realized ... I’ve not been one bit lonely the whole time I’ve been writing ... 

I guess He IS enough.




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