Waiting Prayer is the only way I know to stay at rest in the midst of anything.

Learning how to wait in God’s presence daily in prayer is slowly producing some significant results in my life. I’ve so often had expectations in ministry that crushed as God had very different plans.

I would venture to say many of you also have battled unmet expectations in your relationships, finances, ministry callings… Many people get mad at God during these times. However, as we surrender and grow, we find God doing something so much more wonderful than we would have imagined.

Surrender in Prayer

It takes daily surrender to simply sit in God’s presence and love Him for Him alone, not needing a single thing from Him. There’s a time for petition and intercession. But we also need times to simply sit and love Him. Even if He isn’t answering our prayers as we think He should. Even if the prayer seems dry sometimes.

Ps.131:1,2 — Lord, my heart is not haughty, Nor my eyes lofty. Neither do I concern myself with great matters, Nor with things too profound for me.  Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul, Like a weaned child with his mother; Like a weaned child is my soul within me.

Many of us would like to make a decent income, have a nice home, maybe even be honored in our profession. But what if God calls us to something very different than that?

Paul grew deeply in surrender to God’s plan. He was warned about going to Jerusalem and went anyway! Submitting to prison. There was nothing in this world he needed to be happy. God alone had become his contentment.

Growth

Life so often goes in ways we did not expect. When we practice a life of surrender to God’s presence, taking up our cross daily, we can handle these interruptions and watch God do amazing things with us as we launch out in these new and unexpected directions.

“The man who has God for his treasure has all things in One. Many ordinary treasures may be denied him, or if he is allowed to have them, the enjoyment of them will be so tempered that they will never be necessary to his happiness.” — A.W. Tozer

Brother Lawrence, (The Practice of the Presence of God) embraced being a lowly dishwasher, yet we know his name to this day.

Will you choose a life of surrender and allow God to direct you in unexpected and wonderful ways?

Abiding

Revelations 3:12 — Him that overcomes will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out…

I love this verse. It speaks of such a love for God and of allowing Him to deal with every uncrucified area of our hearts until we reach this place of “going no more out.”

Is this place achievable and if so how?

Reading the classic book, The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence, he talks of reaching a place of continually staying in God’s presence. Many other Christian saints have also written of this experience of maturity and its benefits.

There is a place:

• Where true change occurs.
• Where God is ever gaining more ascendancy in the heart.
• Of no fear regardless of circumstances.

Paul speaks of this place in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 — pray without ceasing.

How Can You Reach the Place of Continual Abiding?

You build it step-by-step like you build a house. With this structure you can become a “living sanctuary tried and true” as the old song goes.

So how to you do this?

I believe it is with simplicity. Every time you think of God you speak some words of love to Him, ask for grace for your day, acknowledge your need of Him, focus on a sense of His presence. Have daily prayer times of reading some scriptures and then quietly sitting in a sense of His presence.

As this develops you will notice there are things in your heart that are in conflict with the presence of God, things you may not even have been aware of. As you embrace the cross by continuing in His presence, He will accomplish His sanctifying work and you will go deeper. This may lead to forgiveness, repentance, or other purifying motions gently guided by His inhabitance.

Do What You Can

As you focus on what you can do to grow in God’s presence and not worry about what you can’t, you begin to continually abide more and more.

How to Know God Through Prayer. There’s a type of prayer that brings our independence to the cross and brings us into a deep knowing of God.

Our devotional prayer times develop a depth to know God through prayer when we approach them selflessly.

Continual Abiding

Reese Howells and Smith Wigglesworth both had testimonies of simply walking near someone and people sensing a holy presence of God and even being convicted of sin around them. What did they find in God?

I believe a place of ever deeper abiding is the path God calls all of us to. It is about a place of ever deeper surrender to the greatest love and fulfillment we were created to live in. In this hour of ever increasing world turmoil the depths of God will be ever more available and it will not just be a select few finding this place.

Sin, Independence, and Surrender

Rom.3:19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

What is sin and law? I believe at its core it is independence, the self-life. Adam and Eve ate from the wrong tree to know good and evil so they could be as gods and judge for themselves what is right and wrong. They wanted to be in control (independence) and to live their own lives.

Romans 4:14 For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect.

The Jews thought they could be righteous by keeping law, being circumcised, keeping the Sabbath holy, not touching the leper, etc. It was an outward expression of what all of us actually do in one way or another. We try to somehow “attain” rather than surrender to “let in” God’s love. I think of the analogy of the drowning person struggling so hard but only making his predicament worse. The life guard comes and knows that to help to quickly will get him pulled under as well. So he waits a moment until the person surrenders to being helped. This is a good picture of how prayer works.

When I am in independence, living my own life, in control, I am, in effect, trying to attain my own righteousness under law.

Prayer Rather Than Will Power

It is not just a one-time surrender at salvation; it is a daily yielding. We can start with prayer. Not praying is a sign that I think I can handle my life all by myself (independence, will power). So keeping a prayer time is an act of faith.

“God I believe you care for me and that left to myself I’ll struggle. So I come to You in prayer, to wait on You, submitting my time to you, believing that You hear me and that I am in Your presence. I come to express my love and rejoice in Your will in whatever it is You have for me.”

If my prayer time consists of God pouring out revelation, I rejoice. If it is a dry time and I feel nothing at all, I show my faithfulness and also rejoice. Knowing that God gives me what is best for me at any given time. I acknowledge that dry times are perfect for cleansing my heart to better seek God’s face and not just His hand. In this way you will come to know God through prayer.

These attitudes in prayer can then begin to carry over into my day. In that slow line at the grocery store or in traffic, “God I accept Your will and rejoice and give thanks in all things. You order my steps and work all things for good. I surrender what I want”. When I get frustrated, display irritation, get pushy, I have taken back control, no longer believing God will take care of me. This is the path of learning to follow the Lamb whithersoever He goes. Even to submit when God asks me to bear the burdens of that difficult person I work with and win them through covering love or even surrender to go to the mission field!

Rm.4:3 Abraham believed God and it was imputed to him as righteousness.

This is at the crux of everything. I am either believing God or in my own strength, independence, eating from the wrong tree. The deeper life is really quite simple, so simple we can easily miss it!

The Christian life really is based in this idea that I can know God through prayer.

What is the evidence that someone has “been” with Jesus and is really experiencing the depths of Jesus Christ?

Reality

We live in a world of hyperbole today from politicians promising to fix everything, to business opportunities that make you rich overnight, to ministers that have irresistible charisma. Yet many of us struggle to find something real, something truly fulfilling. We search for it in activities and addictions and even religion. Yet, many of us have spent years as a follower of Christ and are still not necessarily experiencing the depths of Jesus Christ.

How can we know if we are truly moving deeper in relationship with God?

A Faith Lifestyle

Many Christians make lifestyle choices based on their faith. A Christian athlete, for example, that publicly gives God the glory for his successes. One who lives morally and raises his family in church. We would agree that this is important and at some level is a fruit of faith. But is it a true indicator a person really knows God in an intimate way? Is it enough to live a moral life? Let’s consider the next level.

Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ

There is a place of experiencing the depths of Jesus Christ where His love constrains us. (1 Cor.5:14) For example, I’m nice to someone in traffic, not out of duty or morality or fear of God’s holy justice. I’m nice because God’s love has so gripped my heart it changes me. Can you imagine a Body of Christ where:

• People pray to simply give God their love and not out of duty or to get something?
• Ministry is a natural outflow of something so real currently happening on the inside of a person and not just based on a past testimony of an experience they had or head knowledge from something they’ve learned?
• Families love each other through God’s presence within them and a real compassion flows between them?

As we wait in God’s presence daily something happens inside of us. As Brother Lawrence shared in the classic, Practicing the Presence of God, consciousness of God’s presence can grow daily — not just as a reality, but as the reality we carry into all of our life.

Focus

For 2016 Cyndi and I are committing to practice God’s presence. We are seeking to spend time daily in God’s presence and would like to invite you into the journey with us.

Along with Brother Lawrence’s book another helpful resource is, Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ by Madam Guyon. As you might have guessed, this is where I got the title of today’s post.

Would you take some time this week and determine – what do you want to see happen in your relationship with God in 2016?

How to Survive the End Times is Connected to Healing Your Past

Christians so often seem fearful of the end-times. The dark certainly seems to be getting darker right before our eyes. Yet, we know that God wins. So why all the fear?

As you discover how to heal the past, it shows you how to go forward in the future. This is true even if the future may hold some painful events. This is key for how to survive the end times.

Let’s consider how this applies to the past and then the future.

Past Wounding Resolved

When there has been a painful event in the past, healing and freedom come by making peace with it.

We know the events of a past experience cannot be changed. What happened is what happened. So that means only our response to the event can be changed. The truth of the matter is that the pain of the event is not actually from what happened, even though we often feel that way. The pain comes from a belief resulting from the event that you are somehow flawed, dirty, abandoned, unprotected, or alone.

It is clear that God does not see us as flawed or unworthy of His love, but rather fearfully and wonderfully made. (Ps. 139:14) Further, God never leaves us or forsakes us. (Heb. 13:5) He has loved us with an everlasting (eternal) love. (Jer.31:3) This means there has never been a time you have not been loved.

As we learn to honestly look at a painful event and come to understand that “hurt people hurt people,” and that what happened to us is not about our identity in Christ, His love for us, or His presence with us, we make peace and find freedom to move forward. (I realize this can be a process, yet it is important to see an overview of how this works.)

There are two key ways this freedom occurs.

One, we move forward not just with freedom but also with understanding and empathy for the one who hurt us. We come to see the pain they were in that caused them to act that way.

Two, we move forward with new core values birthed from our pain and its resolution. For example, from the absence of fathering in my life, God has not only healed me but put it in my heart to help others in this area.

Consider how the apostle Paul worked this out.

He persecuted the church. Yet, God clearly still loved him and was present to draw him with cords of love. We know this because Paul received Jesus.

However, he still had to make peace with the horrible things he had done. Scripture clearly points out that Paul did this. 1 Cor.15:9, 10 says Paul worked all the more in God’s grace because of his past. In Gal.1:13-15 Paul says he tried to destroy the church but God, who separated him from his mother’s womb… Paul came to understand God’s love and forgiveness had washed away his guilt. That his sin didn’t not make him so flawed and dirty as to be outside the reach of God’s love.

How to Survive the End Times

Why do we fear the future? I believe we live in fear because we’re worried that God will find us not measuring up in some way and not be with us. That in His wrath he will find fault with us and judge us, then smite us down with some terrible disease or calamity for punishment.

The answer?

Perfect love casts out fear. (1 John 4:18) Knowing that God always loves us, even when He corrects us, and that He never leaves us, mark the path of intimacy with God in the face of anything.

1 Jn.4:17 – Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness

in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.

 Is the dark going to continue getting darker? Probably. But we can face the future in faith and not fear because even as God has shown us that we are worthy of his love in the past and He has never left us, the same is true of the future.

Did you make any New Year’s resolutions? Self compassion for New Years Resolutions.

This is often the missing key you need to reach your goals.

Having self-compassion will empower you. Let’s consider what this self-compassion looks like and how to do it.

Parental Empathy – A Picture of Breakdown

A mother screams at her daughter, “You never clean the dishes well; there are always spots left on them! What the heck is wrong with you? You can’t do anything right!”

As I ministered to the person recounting this event she said, “I honestly was doing my best. I really didn’t know how to do the dishes any better than I was and mom never showed me. She always just yelled.”

This person had forgiven her mother for this event; but what still hurt was how her mother never “saw” her heart. She did not feel compassion from her.

You Were Made to Need Compassion

We all want to feel “felt.” God has this incredible compassion toward us, however sometimes we have trouble receiving it.

• There are many of us who are conditioned to authoritarianism and legalism – that harshness, judgmentalism, and lack of tenderness.

• Because of this, we need to “unlearn” that it’s not okay to make mistakes and that we shouldn’t receive compassion at such times.

When we start accepting our mistakes, this opens the way for us to treat ourselves with more compassion and kindness. And, bottom line, we can only learn to love others as we learn to love ourselves.

New Year’s Resolutions – Weight Loss Example

Now let’s consider how this might apply to losing weight.

Say you decided to embrace healthier eating in the new year. Clearly there will be times when temptation will feel overwhelming. So often we try “white-knuckle” Christianity in these moments – sheer willpower. Here’s another approach.

A Tool

When you are hungry or tempted to make unhealthy choices, grab a piece of paper and write down what you need. Seriously. Begin free writing and you will start to address your emotions. Why are you feeling this need and what can you do to remedy this need without eating “just because.”

And know that this works even if we have failed. I have realized that learning to eat healthy is not simply a willpower choice, it is also a skill I need to learn. As with any learning, I don’t do it perfectly at first. The key is learning to forgive myself and work with my heart.

If you feel you need help in these ways, give us a call.

Christian devotions opens relationship with God for personal change.

Relational interaction with God not only is a deeper path to change, it is the deeper more fulfilling walk with God we desire.

Openness

John Sanford says anything we have to defend is an idol. This refers to motives rather than the merit of a given doctrine. So the question becomes, “Am I trusting in doctrine to save me?” Think about it — am I locked into casting down bad thoughts as the only means to realize growth? Even concepts like the Father’s love can become my new standard I think makes me acceptable, and I may then even use that to judge others: “Look at how ‘brother-talks-a-lot’ is acting; he needs the Father’s love.”

So the question becomes, “Am I willing to examine my mindsets in regards to change and healing?” Do I have the openness to objectively look at and consider my thoughts toward the important subject of change in the Christian life?

Objectivity in Christian Devotions a healthy mindset for experiencing growth.

A healthy mindset towards change leads to healthy growth in your relationships with God, yourself, and others. We all desire to know God more, be kind to ourselves in our habits, and have greater intimacy with our families.

It is worthwhile to take time and consider what your mindsets may be.

Change

Most Christians would agree that Christianity is about more than simply being in right standing with God and escaping hell. The doctrine of sanctification describes the process of becoming holy, where we’re to be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom.12:2). Also, we are disciples (students) of Jesus. When it comes to being mentored by a father, most of us can relate to Daniel-son and Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid, or even Luke Skywalker and Yoda in Star Wars. Something in us longs for that loving, yet firm, empowering mentor. God wants to be that and more in your life. But what does this mentoring look like with Jesus? How comprehensive is it?

How Far Can it Go?

Can anyone with any condition be changed? Can marriages be saved? Can authoritarian parenting methods be softened by grace? Is daily walking in the fruit of the Spirit attainable for all believers? I believe the answer is “yes” to all of these.

Let’s take it even deeper. Can people with deep rejection issues find healing in Christianity? What about depression? Most every prison inmate will tell you of their troubled childhood. Are these types of issues redeemable? I have to believe the cross is sufficient to heal all of these.

What Tools Do We Have?

When I consider the core Christian teachings I’ve heard through the years on how to change they are:

• Abide in the Vine.

• Cast down wrong thoughts.

• Read the word, pray, and worship.

I would consider these core change principles very important and yet largely willpower based. This is good as far as it goes. Yet, if we have a mindset that these are the only tools, these means of change may end up blocking deeper growth in truly becoming like Jesus. Lifelong struggles such as addictions or patterns of rejection require more than simple willpower. Statistics easily bear this out as we consider divorce rates and addiction rates among Christians, or even how many children raised in church are leaving the faith in early adulthood.

Maybe it is time to re-examine our mindsets when it comes to the change we should experience in the Christian life. Continue this thought by reading the post The Relationship-based Model of Change.