Tuesday, February 28, 2006

tender kiss

Jesus, your tender kiss
- has ravished me
- has captured my heart
- has changed everything

Fantasy and reality have become One!

ravish: to fill with delight
capture: to attract and hold
change: to make different

"May he kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!" (Song of Solomon 1:2)

Live free! Live in Father's love!

Monday, February 27, 2006

exhilarated

"Exhilarated: feeling God’s affection brings pleasure and exhilaration to our hearts. The inheritance of every believer in Christ, includes being exhilarated by feeling God’s affection and pleasure for us and in feeling it back for Him. We were created to delight in the feeling of being loved by God. Our spirit craves this. God desires to release this to us. We are too often content with a Christianity that is devoid of feeling, or a Christianity that is mostly an intellectual exercise and not a heart experience. He wants our hearts ravished because His heart is ravished. He feels such intense feelings towards us and desires that we have intense feelings for Him. We do not base our experience on feeling, but they do enhance our experience of Jesus. God is glorified in us when we are exhilarated with Him (His emotions, wisdom and power)."

- Mike Bickle, "Beholding God's Beauty - Encountering God's Personality"

Live free! Live in Father's love!

Monday, February 13, 2006

immeasurable

Excerpts from an email I sent to a friend today -

This thought keeps coming to me - "I don't even begin to grasp the full grandeur of who He is." I have a very dim glimpse. When He pulls back the veil of our human frailty and gives us the smallest little peek into who He is, we'll be blown away. He's just so enormous and expansive in who He is that He completely swallows up everything. We can't even begin to imagine because we have no reference point with which to adequately compare Him or measure Him.

And yet, this infinite, immeasurable God is my Father - the one who loves me intimately and delights in every part of me. I, Lindsay, am His constant joy and delight, and He is mine! This is simply too good to be true - it's the fantasy of all fantasies, the epic of all epics. Such knowledge is truly too great for me! And yet He continually confirms the reality of it all by the sweetness of His presence within.

Live free! Live in Father's love!

Saturday, February 04, 2006

his hands

Excerpts from an email I sent to a friend today -

Your words really cause me to pause, reflect and look at my heart. The first thought that popped into my head was "Wow, this doesn't even feel like 'discipline' anymore!" As I think about that thought, I have to believe that the Holy Spirit has dropped "a gift of faith" into my heart that gives me the grace to see all of this from the Father's perspective. There are two overriding convictions that have continued to light my way over the past several weeks - 1. the Father is going to be glorified in a truly awesome way, 2. the path I am on is the result of the Father's intense love and delight in me.

I can't even begin to describe the joy and exhilaration I'm experiencing. Sometimes I almost begin to feel guilty about how good I feel inside, and then the Father gently encourages me not to underestimate the power of His love and comfort. Yes, there is still sadness when I think about the reality of a failed marriage and its potential impact on my children, but then the Father comes in and gently asks me to continue to trust Him and release it all into His loving hands.

Whatever "theology" I had before this all happened has been completely blown away by the events of the past seven months. It's almost as if I never really "knew" the Father as He truly is. Of course our knowledge of Him is unfolding and progressive, but I believe there are watershed events in our lives that take our understanding of Him to a completely different level. I don't know that there's anything we can "do" to make it happen. It's all about His timing and purpose.

I ultimately see the events of the past seven months (and my whole life, as well) as the result of His indescribable, unfailing love for me. I am not a victim of anyone or anything. The Father has a very specific and unique destiny for me, and each moment He is gently guiding me into its fulfillment. Nothing comes into my life that He doesn't work out in accordance with the dream and destiny He has for me. To "fight back" against anyone or anything would be to hinder His purpose.

"Staying under the knife" sounds kind of scary, but painful though it may be, the knife is ultimately an instrument of love in the hands of an incredibly skilled and gentle Physician. Pain has become my friend in the sense that it serves to open up my heart to receive a greater revelation of the Father's love, comfort, tenderness, and mercy.

As I look to the future, I am filled with tremendous hope and excitement. In some ways, I feel like I am just beginning to live. This moment-by-moment heart knowledge of the Father's love and delight in me simply changes everything. Life for me has become an incredible journey into the unfathomable depths of the Father's heart, filled with adventure at every turn! Knowing that He holds me gently in His hands releases me to run into His purpose with unbridled joy and wild abandon.

Live free! Live in Father's love!