Select Page
Lost Correspondence: A Glorious Invitation

Lost Correspondence: A Glorious Invitation

by | Intimacy

God sent me a Grand Invitation. It was to a banquet in my honor. To a table He set with beauty from His pure heart of love, thinking of me.
He was excited as He sent out the invitation. Excited that I would come and we could sit feasting together talking of everything and anything. He yearning to tell me stories I’d never heard. Hoping I would tell Him the dreams I’d never shared before. So He sent me this beautiful invitation covered with His hope and longing and love.

It came to me on a day that was dark. In the middle of a noisy storm. And I, busy closing windows and shutters. Busy listening to the news on how to prepare for what was coming. I, busy crying out in prayer for God to save us from the storm, didn’t even look at the invitation and then forgot all about it.

Until one day I looked up and caught a glimpse of a beautiful corner sticking out from underneath a stack of problems. Curious, I pulled on it. And in wonder at its loveliness, I opened it. The scent of heaven’s flowers came rolling out as I tugged the invitation out from the envelope. I felt the longing of Jesus’ love for me surround me. I felt His sincere desire that I come to the feast He laid for me. He was waiting every morning for me to arrive. Morning after morning had gone by while He faithfully waited.

The day I finally showed up began a joyous conversation with the creator and designer of everything. The One who knows me most yet still loves me best. The food He offered tasted like nothing I’d ever had before. I savored it and pondered looking into Jesus’ face, into His laughing eyes as He waited to hear what I would say.

We talked about so many things. I would ask a question then He would begin a conversation about something completely different. His words filled me inside. In places I didn’t know were empty. I had a glorious morning with Jesus. He didn’t even mention the current storm. He didn’t even seem to notice that it was there. Being with Him was so absorbing I didn’t notice it either. And as I turned to go back to my day, I heard Him speak with such longing in His voice. He said two things that didn’t seem to fit together, yet I knew they were both true. And they’ve changed my life.

He said, “Take me with you as you go—I never leave you.” And then He spoke the invitation, “I’ll be waiting for you right here. Come back in the morning and we’ll feast again.”

And now in the midst of the turmoil, I don’t really see a storm. It appears as a blip in time and space where the cosmos goes on forever. Where the majesty of God is so compelling I cannot look away to bother seeing what noisy thing is behind me.

His love for me, for each one of us is complete and all we need. He has come issuing a grand, glorious invitation to come close, closer than we’ve ever been. He is longing for our presence. He is waiting.

 

Psalms 27:8
My heart has heard you say, “Come and talk with me.”
And my heart responds, “Lord, I am coming.”

 First Love Kari Jobe

Gifts and Invitations

Gifts and Invitations

by | Intimacy

I have come to believe that all the supernatural experiences I have had are simply invitations from God. Invitations to come closer. To seek further into who He is and how He thinks. To understand how He loves.

I had a dream a few years ago where I was traveling from church to church, looking through their teachings and books, seeking truth. Finally, after I had been at this awhile, Jesus showed up. He stood in front of me as if to ask me what I was doing. His face was so bright. He did not speak out loud, but into my heart, saying, “I am who you seek. I am the message. Seek me.” I, lover of books, was invited to seek Jesus, the true message of the book.

In other dreams I have been given things I don’t understand. Scepters, robes, oranges….Recently, Jesus showed me a story. I was a little girl playing in a forest. There was a small, lovely garden that I knew was mine. I was enjoying some project with flowers, twigs and stones. A rock showed up in my hand and I began to look around for something to do with it. I pounded it on the side of a tree. I drug it through the dirt, making a ditch. I played catch with it. About the time I was reaching my arm back to give it a good throw at something, I felt Jesus behind me. He gently took the rock and broke it open just like you crack open an egg. Inside were the most lovely crystals, purple and shiny. He set it in my garden, moving it with precision to a specific place at the foot of a flower, then turned and smiled at me, holding out His hand.

What I learned from that story is that God gives me gifts that I have no idea what to do with. He gives me gifts as an invitation to seek Him more. To ask Him what to do with the gift. How to make it work. Like a father gives a child some kind of kit at Christmas, his intent is to teach and play with that young son or daughter. To spend time with them. To love and be loved in a time of play and learning. Heavenly Father loves us so deeply, yet we may not recognize the invitation to come close in the gifts. Sometimes it seems we are wired to head off to the library or the church when we are given a heavenly gift. Conferring with others, first. Seeking understanding for the usefulness of the gift.

Perhaps the gift is simply an invitation to come visit the One who adores you. Perhaps it is only for beautifying the garden not building roads or defeating foes. Perhaps it is Jesus’ way of tossing rocks at our windows and inviting us out to play. He is the best friend you will ever know. He is inviting you today. Accept the invitation. It will be wondrous!

Bethel Worship  | God I look to You

Graham Cooke Soaking | Everything in Life is an Invitation from God

Abba, I Belong to You

Abba, I Belong to You

by | Intimacy, Like a Child

For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!”  Romans 8:15

I have been a follower of Jesus since I was a child, but not really. Not like one of the apostles or disciples, it was more like a game of hide and seek where I did most of the hiding. From the early days of ‘accepting Jesus as my savior,’ through years of teen angst and finally to a prodigal’s reception of the Father’s love, Jesus actually followed me and would not let me go.

As I age, I seek for a simpler life. It is no longer important that I charge the mountains of achievement or ford a great river to prove my worth and strength. I long for peace, faith, hope and love. In recent years, my relationship with God has shifted. He speaks louder or maybe I just listen harder. He comes closer or perhaps I simply stopped running. I don’t know exactly what ignited this precious gift of His presence but I am changed by it. I am being made childlike with a fresh trust in His goodness.

Do you remember the gifts of childhood? Gifts like curiosity and wonder? The gift of living where time has no meaning and is not even a concept? There was the ‘now’ and something nebulous about a ‘yesterday,’ unless it was shadowed with memories of pain. And back then, ‘tomorrow’ was just a word not yet instilled with hope or fear of what may come in a time beyond ‘now’.

To be like a child is to be given a gift of faith and curiosity and wonder. A gift of understanding that God does not only speak in metaphors. He has literal plans and purposes in the stories He tells. In the pictures and dreams He gives, there is a glimmering reality. He is famous for making something from nothing. It is what He does best. He touches us with His God-ness, His goodness and creates beauty from ashes, humans from dust, birds and fish with His voice. He planned and created a system in nature that profoundly touches the curious from the beginning of time. The wonders of river systems and watersheds, rain and clouds, oceans and weather cycles.

The Way of a child of God is the way of wonder, curiosity, seeking and finding. The way into the Kingdom, the way of receiving the Kingdom, is coming to Jesus curious and open to wonder. Like a child approaches an Iris for the first time—touching, smelling, eyeing every little flower thing closely. No fear, just wonder and curiosity. What if we approach Jesus and His kingdom that way? What would we discover? That is the journey I am on today and the rest of my days because I have seen the King and He is wonderful.

This is what the Lord says, he who made the earth, the Lord who formed it and established it—the Lord is his name: ‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’ Jeremiah 33:2-3

He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” Mark 10:14b-15