Articles

God

by Shannon Byous

"Oh you weak, beautiful people who give up with such grace. What you need is someone to take hold of you -- gently, with love, and hand your life back to you."
Tennessee Williams


OTHER PEOPLE'S STORIES

Time after time many of us hear other people's stories: Bible stories, missionary's stories, stories about friends of friends. Or we have our own stories... about what happened way back when; what happened years ago. We even hope in stories for the future and call them dreams and vision... but what about now?

I think it's high time for us to stop having a distant acquaintance with God. Enough of living vicariously through other people's stories and encounters with Him. I think it's time for us to have our own deeply personal true stories for ourselves here and now, born out of a life being spent in the presence of God. I think it's time for you to have your own true story for yourself here and now, born out of your life being
spent on God... to have your life sustained by the presence of God. Is He or is He not a consuming fire?


He is.

How about it?

WHAT DOES IT TAKE?

Obedience. Love. Every breath in your body. Every discipline you have. Actions that may end up seeming absurd to others. Choosing to turn frustration into prayer... prayer that racks your body or your spirit or your mind - or all three - with God's intensity and the pain that comes to the surface from deep inside your hidden heart.

It takes courage.

It takes hope, when hope seems like a cruel thing.

It takes you saying yes to God, whom you may or may not understand.

A poet named Aime Cesaire said, "Reason, I sacrifice you to the evening breeze."

Yes.

You will begin to hear the voice of Jesus for yourself.

You will make mistakes.

You will begin to see things differently - those things you once spent time, money, worries or pride on... they will begin to seem absurdly irrelevant, or if not altogether irrelevant, certainly secondary to this journey that is costing you everything, yet with every sunrise, fills you with more supernatural strength and a hunger that sends you panting after your God.

You will know what it means to live in the freedom that Jesus died to give you.

You will begin to fall in love with Jesus again - or maybe for the first time... your sense of duty may be replaced with a sense of freedom which enables you to
show yourself to God in His presence without fear of rejection, without need to avoid His eyes, without the ability to do it yourself any longer (what a strange kind of freedom!). Ready to throw away your reliance on yourself? You cannot sustain reliance on God and reliance on yourself at the same time - it will rip you in two, or it will deceive you into thinking you've got some things under control that you don't
need to bring before God. God will help you let go of yourself. It's not something we can do ourselves...but we can say yes to God when He says that He wants us all the way - even when we don't entirely understand what He means by that.


You may even begin to realize that Jesus means so many things a lot more literally than your doctrine or theology or denomination or mind ever considered.

Don't kid yourself - It doesn't matter where you are in life, doesn't matter how old or young you are in your faith, doesn't matter how many people look up to you or look down on you. God wants to do more in you than you can possibly ask or imagine. These words are for you.

DIE

At some point, you will realize that God wasn't kidding when He said you had to lose your life in order to follow Him. You might even think to yourself, "so this is what it feels like to do what I've always had in words but not inside." I think you'll also realize that this is a good way to live, running after the Holy Spirit as He guides you and leads you into the presence of the One who dances around in heaven because of the fact that you live and breathe. Slowly (or maybe quickly) God will become
the only thing, the only one who satisfies you.

When you hear the lies whispered in your head that all of this can't possibly be for you, take your thoughts captive and lay down and crawl into Jesus. He can and
will save you from the lies that torment you. Do not give up.


We pray, "Your kingdom come, Lord. Not our will, but yours be done" and this is how He answers that prayer... through your life being poured out to Him like water.

Do what He tells you to do. Choose to trust Him. The broken will be restored, the lost will be found, the lonely will be placed in families. His sometimes brutal ways will heal your grief, your torment, your lonliness, your sadness, your self-protection, your
denial, your coldness, your boredom.

You may be confused and you may beg to know the answers that you think you need and truly long to hear... and during every second of your distress, in every call that you cry, in every prayer that you pray, He will listen and love you from the closest places inside of you.

Be confident in the fact that Christ is leading you, Christ is your authority, and that Christ is your covering. Be wise. Look for Him in the night and in the day, in the Word, through His Spirit, in the Body. When you move forward awkwardly and without a clue, cut yourself some slack, receive His absolute grace, and keep being obedient. Cultivate your friendship with God. Obey what He says in the Bible when it
comes to living with, loving and communicating with your brothers and sisters in Christ. Become someone who is strong and mature.

You will start wanting to want to care about other people. Lift up that longing to Jesus and ask Him to grow it. Somewhere inside, love will begin to blaze.  Give in to it. Every time.

God will begin demanding more things of you than you can possibly give to Him without His presence giving you the strength to lay down and give all.

Forgive.

PREPARE YOURSELF

Be prepared for ALL that you thought you knew to be challenged... about God, about church, about yourself, about others, about the world. You may be right on in some of these areas but He will make sure you know the truth about all you've ever learned and lived under because the truth sets you free, and where the Spirit of God is, there is freedom.

Pray. Never stop praying. Never stop seeking Him. Keep your eyes glued to Jesus. Share yourself with others. Get prayer. Meet up with other people who love God. Don't carry your burdens alone. Cast them onto Him. Cry. Sit still. Move around. Do whatever it is that most easily helps you bow down in front of God in your heart.

Don't dodge what you've learned to so easily ignore over the years.

Listen and hear and do.

Be healed.

Don't worry if you can't bring yourself to do any of this. God understands. He knows how horrible it feels sometimes, He knows how hard it is to give your life as a living sacrifice. Just keep saying "Yes Jesus" and say it until you mean it. Let God unlock
your heart with His love.

Yes.

Everything in His time (but He never says that means to shut up and not ask for what we are desiring or aching for).


God says it over and over again in the Bible: Do not fear. He is with you.

His love will sustain you. He has not forgotten you.  He is here.

Taste and see that He really is good.

Give in to what you've always ached for, but rarely could make sense of. Here He is standing in front of you, wanting to be loved. You steal His heart with one glance of your eyes. You cannot undo His love for you.

Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.

How about it?

How about no more faraway stories of how God is moving here or there, no more wanting what you only hear about year after year, conversation after conversation, Sunday after Sunday.

Remember...

You need not cry too loud, He is nearer than you think.

****

"When I think of the wisdom and scope of God's plan, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit. And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love. And
may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope. May he be given glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever through endless ages. Amen."

Ephesians 3:14-21

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Author Bio:

I am originally from California and currently a missionary in Bournemouth, England.  Website: http://www.10lamps.blogspot.com/