Journey to the never-dried-up well #3

Welcome. Our basic format is:

The Word

I will be writing the reflections based on Scripture. You will need to read the scripture and let it sink it over the few days. This is a great way to know the Word better, deeper.

Truth

As you look over the reflections and let the Holy Spirit of truth lead you, God will take your hand to look at your life through his eyes. It will be 40 days of coming to know yourself better – through God’s eyes of love, compassion and freedom-bringing truth.

Your truth

Consider how Jesus is drawing you to the Well to drink...and take steps...

More with God's people

We are all encouraged by fellow travelers; so may I urge you to write short notes in the comment. Sometimes a comment by a fellow Christian can really lift us up. This way you will also realize that there are others on this journey too. 

Now, for these next few days ~

The Word

We were last at a real well, retold to us in John 4, where Jesus offered living water. The next few days let us hang out with Jesus as he walks the shoreline of lake Galilee and teach in her towns. 

Jesus' heart is heavy for the hard-heartedness of the people. Yet as quickly as he identifies and lament their true spiritual condition, his heart swells up with compassion and he raises his voice to say,

Are you tired? Worn out?

Come to me, 

all you who are struggling hard and carrying heavy loads,

and I will give you rest

for I am gentle and humble in heart,

and you will find rest for your souls.

~ matthew 11v28-29

Truth

I am guessing you blew out a tired breath, and readily agreed, 'yes, I am tired Lord!'. 

Really, I have not met a soul who would say 'no'. 

We live in a soul-weary world. 

All the great beauty, lofty ideas and grand vistas fade away soon enough. Our soul needs a constant feast, and no one has time or resource for that.

All the happiness and ecstasy we may taste fade away soon enough too. Our soul needs a constant spring of intimacy and hope.

Into such a stark and dry landscape, Jesus stands up and offers us rest, rest for our souls.

Your truth
But sometimes, soul-weariness is already wired in us. We have gotten so used to it. 
Our minds are choked with sound bytes and idea-bits and datelines.
Our emotions are whirling with the temperature and the temptations.
Our wills are tussling with what we want and what we ought and more.

Rest sounds like a distant, unfamiliar thing, an impossibility even.

What then? 

Jesus simply says, 'come'.

Today, and in the next few days, can you schedule an appointment to go to Him? To show up - and then see...what happens...

it may be the dark quiet of the wee hours
it may be a lunch break
it may be stopping the car or getting off the ride and just sitting somewhere for ten minutes
it may be going to bed earlier, except you are not there to sleep


and if music helps to get you going, perhaps Jeremy Riddle's Full Attention --

a song to arrest your heart for Jesus

What does your soul need more of? 
What can it do less with? 

Jesus speaks of a yoke that is easy and a burden that is light -- for His strength in us. 
Strength we must soak up from Him. 
Strength that doesn't get sapped by our heavy-laden souls. Lighten your soul. Wrap it around the Saviour who alone can make us sing, 'it is well with my soul'.

more - with God's people
O share, share what you are willing to. Cracking open your heart can bring life to others. [write in the comments below or send me an email if you prefer doing that, bless you].

Journey to the never-dried-up well #2

Our journey coincides with a season known as Lent. It is a forty-day period when we look inwards for signs of new life and symptoms of anti-life. Yes, we are a work in progress, and often the trajectory is anything but straight! 

We will sight Grace and Hope and the fruit of the Spirit. We will also see traces of dark, and shadows. Our normal human tendency is to avoid the latter. But Christ's finished work on the Cross means we no longer fear the dark side. Our goal however is not to clean ourselves up to be good enough or dwell on our sins. 

Our focus in on the new life - the hope of Resurrection which we will celebrate at the end - on Easter. Yet, the defining lines of Grace upon our lives takes on bold relief when it is contrasted with the dark. This seeing leads us to dig deeper into gratitude and greater dependence upon God who alone saves.

When this idea gently landed upon my heart late 2013, it was clear that our focus this season had to be Jesus. He who came to offer us life; and lived on earth so we can see how life ought to be lived.


Let us begin.

The Word {read and listen with your heart}

"If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give me a drink', you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water....whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst..."

~ Jesus at a well, John 4 [NASB}

If you know, you would ask, he would give.

Doesn't this mean that -

We do not have because we do not ask.

And that, we do not ask, because we do not know.

What is it that we fail to know? 

Truth {...wait for it}

I am thirsty. I am guessing you are too. That's pretty normal. The conditions are dry. The world promises to slake out thirst and feed our appetites but we have found that what we drink dehydrates and what we eat are actually appetite suppressants. After all, Truth, grace and love; faith, hope and joy aren't the things that get celebrated this side of heaven.

Just so far in 2014, what wind has whipped your sails? What words spoken, and left unsaid, has left you tired and feeling forgotten?

Perhaps you have even tried a few wells; dug one or two yourself.

How can we connect what we need to KNOW and what we ASK then?  What blocks us from knowing, and so, from asking?

Your truth {own your life and offer it back to God}

Sometimes it can get hard to ask God. We needed the solutions yesterday. Our bosses and children are not going to wait forever. 

I have found very often that I totally skipped the asking. So I miss the drink -the water that refreshes, hydrates, enlivens us. We try to do life half-dead really. 

Drag that bag of drying bones over to the Well, now. {i speak to myself, and yes, to you dear friend!}

Jesus stands before you and me, and asks, "hey, look up, look at me. You forgot to ask me. For if you knew God's gift you would ask and you would receive..."

Look up. Look at God's gift right now standing before you. Look at him looking back at you. Look.
Then, 
Ask. Go on, ask for a drink. 

{and i won't be surprised if you linger around, he will throw in a friendly chat that may surprise you further!}

Connect with God’s people

leave a note of encouragement, a Q, an insight in the comment below.

Perhaps a song: Be not afraid

Journey to the never-dried up well #1

Forty days is a short time in a life-time. Yet much can happen - when we make regular time to be apart, away, alone - with God.

Welcome to our forty-day journey to the never-dried-up well !

taken from The Plough

"..for it is God who works to will and to do... " ~ Phil 2v13  

As we begin, it may be our reflex to begin dwelling on our 'desired outcomes', how we wish our hearts will be at peace, or how our circumstances would be turned around. We may come looking for some confirmation that our hunches are right; and hope to find swift wisdom in practical steps to quench our thirst.

But 

it.is.God who..

So let us begin the journey right - by abandoning ourselves to God as much as we know how. Maybe just to cry out, "Lord Jesus, here I am!"

An old song goes,

Jesus take me as I am

I can come no other way

Take me deeper into You

Let my flesh life melt away

Make me like a precious stone

Crystal clear, and finely honed

Life of Jesus shining through

Giving glory back to you.

You can use these words as a prayer as we begin.

Over the next flew days, repeat it. According to God's Word, He will work. He will work something in us that will cause us to lean, to seek, to desire, to will...and then, to do that will.

This verse is sandwiched between the words that call us to 'work out our salvation' and to 'shine as stars'. We know full well that we have an active part to play in our growth and maturity. We know too that we were meant to fill up with Light and shine. In each instance, our tendency is to work at it ourselves. The words, "it is God" is the pivot. There will not be any deepening or shine without God. 

The entire verse reads,

"for it is God who works in you to will and to do according to his good purpose"

What a wondrous reminder from our God. He has a good purpose in all this. He has a good purpose for you this forty days.

It. is. God.

In a way, this is the secret to -

Joyful discovery of God's will

Restful trust as we go about our seemingly nothing-has-changed-much days 

Knowing what to do when we don't know what to do 

Facing fear and standing still in the rushing waters

-- which, yes, are the practical manifestations of whether a soul is well-watered. 

{and do I want them to mark my life!}

Welcome. Bring a friend.

a little more of the Will-ing

Today. Yesterday. Tomorrow.
It's always been the same. All about the Will-ing.
See that little '-ing'?  My hazy memory of grammar reminds me it is an on-going thing.

Today, i needed to come to a place of Will-ing - again.

Based on my distant Yesterdays' experiences of Will-ing-ness, it meant long days of traveling inside my head and heart. Indeed, I had for the many days running up to Today still struggled with what my mind and heart couldn't wrap around. What happened? How did things turn out this way? Where did I go wrong? What next?

But of late, these questions no longer led to answers that deeply matter.

To will after all, is the exercise of all our powers after some object. Will-ing-ness becomes powerful when the object we will after is great enough for me to be stupefied into silent submission.

So I have let the questions, the tears, the pains heave and groan, spill out in words, tears and silence. They are not the object. Soon, their energy dissipates and the object of my heart's deepest desire begins to take on an increasing clear outline: it looks a lot like Jesus.

Prayer bit by prayer bit, I confess, Lord, lead me, I want to be willing.

I feel a strange something entering my being. It feels foreign and familiar all at once. I feel knitted together - like the cosmos of my swirling emotions, hormones, thoughts and more being drawn to a centre. I shake less. I whimper less. I find a break in time-space into eternity it feels. I find my next step. The best outcome will depend on many people and their will-ing. That i need to leave to Him. But me, I stand here, and Jesus asks, "are you willing?".

Journey to the never-dried-up well: a personal invitation

A personal invitation

Dear friend,

As a pastor-writer, my desire is to use words to build you up. Even as the dry spell persists around us, it reminds me of how much we need water, Living Water. Many of us long for a deeper refreshing, one that will affect us permanently. We want to experience the promise Jesus gave the woman at the well, that springs of water will well up and flow forth from us (John 4v13).

If this is your longing, I want to invite you to join me on a 40-day journey to reach that never-ever-dried up well.

Every five days, there will be a short reading and a reflection that I will post on my blog. You can bookmark and remind yourself to look it up or even easier, simply submit your email and it will be sent right to your inbox!  Other ways are available at the bottom of each post.
For those who prefer print, I suggest that you print it out so that you can refer to it.

It is a journey that I pray will lead us to more of the following –

more of the Word

I will be writing the reflections based on Scripture. You will need to read the scripture and let it sink it over the few days. This is a great way to know the Word better, deeper.

more of the truth

As you look over the reflections and let the Holy Spirit of truth lead you, God will take your hand to look at your life through his eyes. It will be 40 days of coming to know yourself better – through God’s eyes of love, compassion and freedom-bringing truth.

more of God's people

We are all encouraged by fellow travelers; so may I urge you to write short notes in the comment. Sometimes a comment by a fellow Christian can really lift us up. This way you will also realize that there are others on this journey too.

This journey will begin on March 10^th, part of the season of Lent – a 40 day period when Christians everywhere seek to be more sensitive to God and yield their lives to Him afresh. The Scripture reading and reflection will plow the soil of our hearts so that we can experience the meaning and power of Easter – the cornerstone of our faith – in a marvelous new way.

As an expression of this desire, a fast is often included in the journey. Fasting is not deprivation; rather, it is a proclamation of what we truly need to live. So if we fast from TV or desserts, we do so to so that these are not needful for our lives. Instead, we turn our hunger to Him, who alone feeds us in the truest and deepest sense.

Well, dear friend, I hope to see you on this journey!

and now, a song .. ..for music stirs our souls..

For more on fasting and Lent, consider Julia’s simple write-up :

http://www.christianitytoday.com/amyjuliabecker/2014/february/in-defense-of-lent.html