Wednesday’s Word

Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power...

Thanks so much for joining me today for Wednesday’s Word and a little break from the business of life, especially during this season. Grab whatever you’re having for our Coffee Hour and come inside. Oh, and don’t forget your Strand of Faith. I’m confident there will be a couple of knots to tie today! Meet me in my hotel room in Texas, just minutes after finally getting three hours of sleep after a five-hour panic attack!

The clock said 9:06 a.m. My first thought was that God had heard my cry for sleep. That thought opened up the door of my mind and returned to my last thoughts before falling asleep, the thought of having to have this sinus surgery. I pushed that thought back into the closet of my mind and sat up rather abruptly. Why do I feel so rested after having only three hours of sleep? My mind tried to reason but His Spirit within me whispered to my soul the answer: God had heard my cry, knew my limits and granted me rest, divine rest.  Heck, knowing that He had intervened gave me energy!

I got dressed to go downstairs and get us a few cups of their brown water …oops, I meant coffee! :-) The elevator door closed on this thought: It was time to start changing my thinking about this surgery and allow God to turn my fear into fearlessness!

I came back up and George and I sat down to have our coffee together and I opened up my Battlefield of the mind book. I had left off in Chapter 8, reading about a “normal” or abnormal mind and I began to read aloud and highlight fast and furiously, as if my mind and heart were starving and couldn’t take these truths in fast enough. The timing of this was profound, especially considering the night I had gone through.

See, as Joyce explains and I wholeheartedly agree, especially because I’ve experienced this truth, the mind and the Spirit are meant to work together, not to fight one another…however, the sad truth is our mind does fight against the promptings of the Spirit, especially if the prompting is an unknown direction! See, His Spirit is gentle, convicting but not condemning, believable and not bullying. He doesn’t shove us toward something; He nudges…ever so gently.

See, His Spirit within us has a very specific job: to reveal to us God’s wisdom and revelation for the Holy Spirit knows the things of God and my spirit knows only my own thoughts. How does that work, you ask? Well, His Spirit speaks to our spirit which then enlightens the eyes of our heart, aka, our mind! It’s a very subtle process and it cannot happen in the midst of chaos and confusion! 1^st Kings 19:11-12 confirms this through Elijah, a prophet whom God revealed many things to. I’m going to sort of paraphrase these verses and put you and me in them to bring this truth home to our hearts:

So God told Elijah to go out and stand on the mountain before Him. (He was going to demonstrate this principle of speaking quietly but always present to Elijah) So the Lord passed by and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord…but – yes, but – the LORD WAS NOT in the wind. See, just because we meet with Him doesn’t mean we won’t have storms and that the winds of life’s forces won’t be felt. It’s what we are able to know, hear in our hearts with our spirits that keep us standing. He’s always there, but oftentimes because of our fear, we can’t hear Him. He never leaves us or forsakes us; He’s always ready to speak to us! He was with me in my panic attack; I just couldn’t hear Him!

This portion goes on to explain that after the wind, there was an earthquake, but the Lord was NOT in the earthquake. What is shaking your world today? Has it knocked you down…and perhaps moved you a bit away from Him? Trust me when I say that a panic attack can really rock your world…and your faith but His Word rights what was threatening to fall down and crumble.

After the earthquake there was a fire! But the Lord was NOT in the fire. In other words, life can really heat up! Whether it is ignited through circumstances of failing health, finances or failing relationships, the fire is there to refine us. How do we know that? Verse 12 says “and after the fire, a still, small voice.”

See, that was a still, small voice I heard at the end of my panic attack, one that spoke life into my faith, quieting my fears. Friend, God is a gentleman, a gentle man in the form of Spirit…in each one of us! He is not loud and forceful, argumentative, bullying in any way. So for those of us who say we can’t hear Him, could it be that we are not sitting still long enough to soak in His presence and hear that quiet, still voice?

Take time to sit in His presence and soak in His Word because it NEVER fails to splash perspective on any given situation we may be going through or know of. It never fails to quiet the fears and feed the faith!

Listening for His voice

Evinda