Be still and know that He is God!  Is that not in the Bible?  Do you have any idea how difficult being still really is?   I am reminded no matter how much the Lord wants to do through me He desires greatly to do a lot in me!  The past few days I have watched my head wanting to move foreword and trying to carve out the future.  I find myself asking God for answers and trying to push ahead to gain specific direction.  This too is a stronghold of mine that God wants to set me free of.

God reminds me that He is still refining me, refocusing me and above all becoming the greatest love of my life.   One glorious day with my bride by my side and the perfect environment of Coronado Island surrounding me God spoke!  For me, God usually speaks through His Word and this time was consistent yet dramatically different.  Consistent in that God used His Word Psalms 141:2.  Dramatically different in that I knew this was something for me that would take time to come to fruition.  God asked me to believe Him for two things.  That Luke 10:27 would be real in my life.  “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself”.  All of Luke 10:27 would be real in my life!  Loving God, others and myself!  Let me be honest, this is no small undertaking.  Loving God and total abandonment to Him was a new reality to a familiar prayer.  I had prayed this often.  Now, I am living it.  Loving others, is this even safe?  God, do you know where I have been?  Love my self?  If I have learned anything through this journey it is I have major issues with me!

The second thing God asked me to believe Him for was to gain intense passion for the ministry that lied ahead.  I hate to admit it but I have had days where I served God because that is what you do.   Was I not saved to serve?  Somewhere through life I learned to put my nose to the grindstone to seek and serve God and do the honorable and right thing.  He has reminded me that He has put His joy in me so that my joy may be made full.  (John 15:11)  The second evidence of being filled with the Spirit is Joy.  I now also know that in His presence is fullness of Joy!  (Psalms 16:11) For the ministry that lies ahead I want to stay awake at night thinking of how to see thousands coming to Christ not stressed over the details of the next day.  I have known in my life days where my engines revved and passion roared.  God, I want it back, I said and He promised to do it.  He asked me to claim Psalms 141:2; “Let my prayer be set before You as incense, The lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.”  I set this prayer of Luke 10:27 and passion for His work like incense before the Father.  I have laid this prayer before the Lord that it might linger for days and weeks and months.  If necessary that prayer can linger for years but dear God make it true and real in my life. 

So for these days I am learning to slow down be still and let God do His good acceptable and perfect will in my life.  I don’t know what the future holds but do I ever know who holds my future.  I am told God is good all the time and now I know all the time God is good.  He is in control of this world and my life and by the way yours too.  I know that when God is preparing a vessel to be used greatly He always breaks that vessel deeply.  The breaking has happened and now the restoration for His glory.  “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the Lord upholds him with His hand”.  I will be still and experience Him as my God.