Two months ago, on September 17,
2015
In the
morning, when I had finished the blog, I lifted it up to Jesus and He said to
me firmly, It’s perfect. Don’t touch it.
And I heard,
over my shoulder, another voice that must have been an angel say with bubbling
joy, the package is ready for delivery!
I've never heard an angel before, but I knew it must be one, because it wasn’t any of the Trinity, and yet it was pure, full
of merry, joyful love, echoing what Jesus had said. I was glad to hear the angel say this, because I
recognized that I would need lots of reinforcement to not go back and obsess
over everything and become anxious about everything, which I would have done,
if I had thought I had any opportunity of reviewing it and agonizing over it.
“Don’t touch it?” I asked Jesus.
Don’t touch it, He repeated. Tomorrow morning, you will get up and you will go down stairs and hit the publish button and that is all.
“Don’t touch it?” I asked Jesus.
Don’t touch it, He repeated. Tomorrow morning, you will get up and you will go down stairs and hit the publish button and that is all.
Jesus was
that clear and that practical. So I closed the screen and got up and as I was
walking, I was remembering, with shy delight, the laughing phrase, the package
is ready for delivery!
And the next
morning, I got up, went downstairs, started the computer, opened up blogger,
and looked at it, and the first line I read was this:
Everything I have given you, I have given
you to give to others, so they might receive it, and so you must give it away, Jesus said.
That line leaped off the page with vivid authority. I must give it away.
For years I have been reluctant to share my relationship with Jesus because
of my fear that others will be jealous and feel badly, but this statement of
Jesus counteracted that fear directly. I had to give it away not to make others
feel badly, but so that they too could have it. It was a completely different view.
When I posted
it, I heard, the package has been
delivered! by that same angelic voice, in a deeper tone of joy and in fact,
I did feel lighter. I was walking away from the computer and it seemed as if I
rose up a foot or two, the way a car will lift up when a heavy load is lifted
up off the frame.
Anyway. Sometimes the insistent fear comes up, but now I have all these
different ways of leaning into Jesus through it, the central and most important
one to rest my entire self on His absolute authority- both over myself and over
every other name that can be spoken, and to rest in His perfect faithfulness.
Last night
I could feel the fear and I kept hearing thumping sounds and wondering what
they were and resting my faith in Jesus regardless and lightly again, the Holy
Spirit lit up one piece of my understanding regarding what was actually making
those sounds- it was the bass tube from downstairs.
I did not
make the connection myself; the Holy Spirit pointed that out to me. He lit it
up with great compassion and light, and I laughed, as much at my silly self
as in relief. Then my confidence went right up and I was filled with an almost
triumphant rejoicing and then I pulled myself back from that, hesitant to place
my confidence in the wrong place, and as I was thinking this, Jesus reminded me
that I can rejoice and be triumphantly confident in Him, which is exactly what
I was wanting to do. Realizing this was like a huge window in my spirit,
and it was as though I threw the window wide open in rejoicing triumph in
Jesus.
That is, I
threw the arms of my spirit up and out, right through the fear and I declared
with breathless joy that felt like daring, “I delight in Jesus! I will boast in
the Lord my God! Jesus is my Good and Faithful Shepherd and I rejoice in His
salvation, in His protection, in His authority over me! I exalt in my God! I
will confidently boast in Jesus, my faithful Lord and Savior!”
Jesus was right behind me, holding me in His arms and bending His head down to mine with such delight and joy and I was swooning, leaning all my weight on His arm, laughing and glancing up at Him with bright eyes, because it was delightful to know myself to be weak, tender- a lamb held close, and to know Jesus to be all powerful and with all authority and to be in His arms and to delight in Him.
And again, this realization swept over me- that Jesus had passed all the tests fully and completely, and because He had won, I win in Him, and I need not even fight. I rest in His complete victory. In submission overflowing with joy, I picked up His scarred hand and kissed it with reverent adoration, and I seemed to flow down or to collapse with joy at His feet and I worshiped Him.
Jesus was right behind me, holding me in His arms and bending His head down to mine with such delight and joy and I was swooning, leaning all my weight on His arm, laughing and glancing up at Him with bright eyes, because it was delightful to know myself to be weak, tender- a lamb held close, and to know Jesus to be all powerful and with all authority and to be in His arms and to delight in Him.
And again, this realization swept over me- that Jesus had passed all the tests fully and completely, and because He had won, I win in Him, and I need not even fight. I rest in His complete victory. In submission overflowing with joy, I picked up His scarred hand and kissed it with reverent adoration, and I seemed to flow down or to collapse with joy at His feet and I worshiped Him.
September 21,
2015
I am enlarging the steps under your feet, Jesus had said, and this time around,
confirmations and encouragements on what to post next are coming in thick and
strong.
See? Don’t you feel more secure? He asked me, yesterday.
Yes, indeed I
do.
Last night,
as I have often been doing lately, by faith, I bowed myself down before Jesus in submission and surrendered my whole spirit, soul and self to Him and for His review as
though it were at the last Day, so as to keep the line straight and taut
between now and then, which makes me think of that verse about longing for the
day of Christ, which purifies us even as He is pure, in I John.
But I felt
the strain of worry that I will fall short, and I fell into His arms and let
all the strain fall away and simply rested in His strength and love and
breathed in His goodness. “I just want to be home,” I whispered. “I want
everything to be perfectly settled in me.”
Jesus
reminded me that He will perfect all that concerns me, and I agreed that was
true.
So there’s no reason to be anxious and
you may walk in that assurance now, by having complete faith in Me and My
ability to bring you to perfection,
Jesus said.
I never
thought about that before. But obediently, by faith, I let go of my deep
concerns that I won’t do all or be all that He wills for me, and instead,
rested entirely and completely on Jesus’ ability and faithfulness to fulfill His own call on my life, to hallow and to keep me and to bring me to
perfection, for the glory of His name, because He is like that, because He can
be trusted. I rested in His finished work, even without naturally seeing it.
You please me so much, Jesus said softly.
September 24,
2015
A few days
ago, I was with Jesus, either in the evening or quite late at night- Keith has
been away and so I wake in the night tempted to fear, and instead end up
focusing on Jesus. I think it was during one of those times, and I was standing
with Him and Jesus said to me, what do
you want?
He does
sometimes ask me this, and I know He is being serious and so I thought about it
seriously, and I said, “I want always to be with You, no matter what, all the
time, now and in Heaven. In Heaven, hide me away in You so that I don’t get in the
way. Also, I want always to do Your will and to please You and to finish all
the work You’ve given me to do and bring honor to Your name and thereby make it
home to You a good and faithful servant. That’s all that I want.”
Is that all you want? Jesus persisted.
So I thought
again and realized that I wanted more. “No, it’s not all. I want You to bring
repentance and salvation to those caught up in ISIS and Boko Haram and also, I
want You to bring love, comfort and light to the refugees fleeing them, and to
show Yourself to them, and to bring provision to them through Your servants so
they are received by love and not by fear and so Your name will be glorified.
So, actually, I want quite a lot,” I confessed humbly, realizing it, and Jesus laughed
in His freely delighted and confident way.
Feeling
unusually discouraged and pressed down for several hours today, unable to finish
working on my blog, and wondering what is the point. Felt Jesus bend down to me and
I reached up to Him and He breathed on me and I physically took in a long, deep breath and
felt Him lift me up out of the cloying depths of my thoughts and then I
remembered I should be reading His words, so I logged onto Biblegateway.com and
this was the verse, in this translation:
“So do not
lose (throw away) the courage you had in the past (or your confident trust in
God; or your boldness), which has a great reward. You must hold on (persevere,
endure) so you can do what God wants (the will of God) and receive what he has
promised. Hebrews 10:35-36, AMP
I was sitting
upstairs while Merissa was playing later in the evening and feeling this swirl
of oppression, taunting, depression and horrible ideas about what I had to post
and it amazed me. The atmosphere was thick with these swirling ideas. But I’ve
trusted Jesus so many times through such similar circumstances that I just did
the same thing again. I had to trust Him alone because I was blind. It was blind
trust.
As usual, I remembered that account in the Gospels of Him leading the blind man out of the town before opening his eyes. This comforts me and so I took firm hold of Jesus' hand and by faith, trusted that Jesus would lead me outside of the town- which I think of as this world and right into perfect sight- that Jesus would lead me safely for His own name’s sake, because His name is the Lord our Righteousness.
As usual, I remembered that account in the Gospels of Him leading the blind man out of the town before opening his eyes. This comforts me and so I took firm hold of Jesus' hand and by faith, trusted that Jesus would lead me outside of the town- which I think of as this world and right into perfect sight- that Jesus would lead me safely for His own name’s sake, because His name is the Lord our Righteousness.
The intensity
of the resistance alone showed me how there must be something important in my
blog, though I couldn’t for the life of me see what it was. It seemed to me the
usual thing, except that I felt certain that it would offend pretty much
everybody.
After Merissa
was in bed, I came downstairs and sat down to work on it and then I saw a
glimpse of what Jesus was saying through it and began to understand. He put in
the conclusion as He had said He would, including the song that I had known
would be put in it, which had me in tears. When I finished and rose from the
desk, all the dark oppressive atmosphere had lifted and I warmed all through, comforted and held by love of Jesus.
In the night, I held tight to Jesus by sheer determined faith. Sometimes this faith cleared into a glimpse of truth and I knew myself resting as close as a small child in Jesus’ arms, listening to His breathing, my face against His neck, and all my fears would lift away and I would simply breathe with Him and then the glimpse would close, and I would return to faith to combat all the fears, which seemed to have leaped back to gargantuan life- all the worst fears- the fear that I was being deceived, that I was actually going against the will of God, that Jesus wasn’t close to me and that I was an embarrassment to Him. Those fears were looming hugely over my soul.
In the night, I held tight to Jesus by sheer determined faith. Sometimes this faith cleared into a glimpse of truth and I knew myself resting as close as a small child in Jesus’ arms, listening to His breathing, my face against His neck, and all my fears would lift away and I would simply breathe with Him and then the glimpse would close, and I would return to faith to combat all the fears, which seemed to have leaped back to gargantuan life- all the worst fears- the fear that I was being deceived, that I was actually going against the will of God, that Jesus wasn’t close to me and that I was an embarrassment to Him. Those fears were looming hugely over my soul.
Each time I
would put no faith in myself, I didn’t even bother. I have no faith in myself.
But I have absolute faith in Jesus. Jesus is faithful and true. He is holy and true. He would never, ever allow me to be led astray in His own name. I
put my whole faith in Jesus' ability and faithfulness to communicate Himself to
me in truth, when all that I want is to do His will and to reach the end of
this life having done all He wants me to do.
In the
morning, I woke up in this place of calm between two forces, like the calm
between the storm, and I was afraid of going into the second storm.
Trust Me, I’ll take you through it, Jesus said, several times. I was
ashamed of the extent of my fear, but Jesus told me to have compassion on
myself and that He is stretching my faith out, which always is painful, but in
the end, well worth it.
October 11,
2015
At the word of confirmation, I stood at
the counter and wept and thanked Jesus. It was a profound moment in my life, after passing through a refining fire more intense than any I have ever known. Every shred of doubt, pride, arrogance, presumption, soulish entitlement and many layers of disbelief that I hadn't even know were in me were revealed by the intensity of this holy and close burning fire, and each time I had humbled myself further, confessing the sin and repenting and falling before Jesus. Whenever I was tempted to try and validate myself or defend myself or to desire that, I confessed this, gave it up, and stepped aside and said to Jesus, "Thy will be done. Yours is the Kingdom. You are at the center. Your will be done."
At the beginning of the end of this process, I don’t think I have ever been so humbled, or so grateful or so relieved. I felt
emptied out and light as air and my desire to love Jesus and exult Him and to
please Him alone increased and so I continued to pray that Jesus forgive and
heal others, and for His will to be done for His Church and His Body. I was crying with
my face in my hands and I felt acutely shy, but I saw Jesus reach out and
envelope me with the fold of His coat so that I was hidden from sight.
The verse for
that day was: “Unless the Lord builds a house, the work of the builders is
useless… for God gives rest to His loved ones.” Psalm 127:1-2
In the
evening, as I was getting ready for bed, I was again praying and as usual, at
that time I was able to rest more deeply in His presence and to hear His voice more
clearly as I let go of all the activities of the day.
Jesus was
with me in the strong, present way that He has been through this, and I turned and
buried myself in His arms and opened my heart to Him in complete trust and Jesus
whispered, you have set My heart ablaze.
I relished this and let it sink in deeply and I leaned in toward Jesus again and I said, “Thank You for this test, thank You so much for the opportunity of laying my life down and choosing Your will for love of You. I chose You and Your will above all else. I want You above all else. Your will be done. I want to glorify You through the test.”
I relished this and let it sink in deeply and I leaned in toward Jesus again and I said, “Thank You for this test, thank You so much for the opportunity of laying my life down and choosing Your will for love of You. I chose You and Your will above all else. I want You above all else. Your will be done. I want to glorify You through the test.”
You passed the test with flying colors, He whispered. His love came tumbling
down through me, and then Jesus said quietly, See, I
have led you faithfully along.
The
terrible doubt assailed me as I paused and considered His words. I realized
that I could choose to let the doubt continue to unsettle me, but that this
would be a terrible testimony to the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. Or I could
release the doubt and put my entire and whole trust in Him
alone and believe what Jesus had said, not because I am perfect or justified in myself
or because I have knowledge or power or righteousness on my own, but simply
because Jesus Christ is true to His word.
So I made the
choice to put my whole trust on Him and I leaned back against His arms to speak, because I was
choosing to make a spiritually public declaration as to the nature of Jesus
Christ my Lord and Savior, and so leaning back and yet looking right at Him, I said to Jesus,
“Yes, You have. I declare that You have led me faithfully along, because You
are faithful and true. You are called faithful and true. That is Your name, and
You are true to Your name.”
When I said this, I saw Jesus look up toward Heaven, His whole face and eyes shining with a luminous joy- we seemed to be standing in the middle of pale blue clouds and when Jesus looked up toward Heaven, I knew Abba must be there, though He was out of my sight, but that Jesus was looking toward His Father in delight.
When I said this, I saw Jesus look up toward Heaven, His whole face and eyes shining with a luminous joy- we seemed to be standing in the middle of pale blue clouds and when Jesus looked up toward Heaven, I knew Abba must be there, though He was out of my sight, but that Jesus was looking toward His Father in delight.
“But I am far
from perfect and will never be perfect,” I said, half to myself and half to
Him, after I settled down from seeing that, and was seeing again only what was physically in the room.
Immediately,
a verse was thrust into my mind and insisted upon and there was this breathless
hush, the verse was:
“And I am
convinced and sure of this very thing, that He Who began a good work in you
will continue until the day of Jesus Christ [right up to the time of His
return], developing [that good work] and perfecting and bringing it to full
completion in you.”
-Philippians
1:6, AMCP
I knew it was
the Holy Spirit that had taken me by a strong hand, as it were and that both
the Holy Spirit and Jesus were waiting right then and there for my response- to
agree to it by faith or not. (The way I was seeing this was as if the verse were written on a recipe card and that the card was being held by Jesus and the Holy Spirit and the card was thrust in front of me and I had to acknowledge it. This is probably because I write verses down on unused recipe cards and prop them up on the fruit bowl in the kitchen where I can see them. The current one is I Corinthians 1:30-31, AMP)
I couldn’t
let Jesus down, as He was waiting, it seemed, right on the edge of something,
and I knew that if I didn’t agree by faith, it would reflect on Himself- that
is, I could give Him glory by saying that Jesus was capable of doing that, or I
could deny Him that glory by turning Him down and turning away. I couldn’t do
that.
“Yes, You
will perfect all that concerns me and I will be found perfect in You,” I
whispered, my disbelief broken by my love of Him. “This will be all to Your glory, so that anyone who sees me will see
only You and Your name written all over me and so that I will be a walking,
living testimony to Your sovereign grace and redemption. I will reflect that
glory to You and for You for ages to come, a living testimony to Your power and grace and life.”
As I said
this, I felt the Holy Spirit fill me, which I experienced and felt as a strong current of water, and it left me weak and I
was crying, but I can’t describe why or the feeling. It was
like relief and like joy and like something after confession. It was this
feeling of being light as air and open and airy- because somewhere, deep inside
me, unbelief had been pulled up and out by this movement of the Holy Spirit, and what was left was
something crystal clear and undefended now, arms wide open, heart wide open- so
vulnerable and so full of clear, lifting, breathless potential of something
that would be me but that my hands wouldn’t create.
A few days later, I was talking to my mother about this, and about what happened next. (The link is to the blog that I posted later, when Jesus asked me to share what He had taught me through the test.)
A few days later, I was talking to my mother about this, and about what happened next. (The link is to the blog that I posted later, when Jesus asked me to share what He had taught me through the test.)
"And then, when I was resting with Jesus that night, I realized that I had kept His word and I had not denied His name!" I told her, in this voice that was hushed and gentle with amazement. "And this feeling swept over me. And I said to Jesus, 'This is all because of You- You have done this, and is all to Your glory and I love You so much...'" I had to stop speaking to my mom, because I was on the verge of tears as I was relating this to her.
"I don't care what other things are shaken or fall away," my mom said passionately and she was crying too, "I will never let go of Jesus! I will never let Him go!"
I thought to myself in wonder, I really am anointed with the love of Jesus and this anointing is contagious!
October 28, 2015
Jesus wore a thin circlet around His head, almost lost in His hair and He was sitting in the brilliant light and I was sitting on His lap and He was laughing, overflowing with joy, with delight, His eyes dancing and His words of love were pouring over me- Oh My Jenny, He was saying, I love you; you’re Mine, My beloved, Mine alone, and I put my head close to His and I declared, “I want You and nothing but You and I will have You and I have You now- because You said to me, I have given all of Myself to you. And I believe You, Jesus,” I declared, accepted with open faith and open heart, “I do have all of You, and I will only discover more and more of what You have given me as You open up Your word to me more and more… and when I see You, I will know You!” I exclaimed, the truth of this bursting into me. And the wonder and glory of it was so much that I dropped down face first at His feet and I saw nothing more but the light.
Jesus wore a thin circlet around His head, almost lost in His hair and He was sitting in the brilliant light and I was sitting on His lap and He was laughing, overflowing with joy, with delight, His eyes dancing and His words of love were pouring over me- Oh My Jenny, He was saying, I love you; you’re Mine, My beloved, Mine alone, and I put my head close to His and I declared, “I want You and nothing but You and I will have You and I have You now- because You said to me, I have given all of Myself to you. And I believe You, Jesus,” I declared, accepted with open faith and open heart, “I do have all of You, and I will only discover more and more of what You have given me as You open up Your word to me more and more… and when I see You, I will know You!” I exclaimed, the truth of this bursting into me. And the wonder and glory of it was so much that I dropped down face first at His feet and I saw nothing more but the light.
*
Now may the God of peace-
[Who is the Author and the Giver of peace],
Who brought again from among the dead our Lord Jesus,
Who brought again from among the dead our Lord Jesus,
that great Shepherd of the sheep,
by the blood [that sealed, ratified]
the everlasting agreement (covenant, testament),
Strengthen (complete, perfect)
and make you what you ought to be
and equip you with everything good that you may carry out His will;
[while He Himself] works in you and accomplishes
that which is pleasing in His sight,
through Jesus Christ (the Messiah);
to Whom be the glory forever and ever
(to the ages of the ages).
Amen
(so be it).
-Hebrews 13:20-21, AMPC
And they said to Him, "We have here only five loaves and two fish."
He said,
"Bring them here to Me."
-Matthew 14:17-18
And they said to Him, "We have here only five loaves and two fish."
He said,
"Bring them here to Me."
-Matthew 14:17-18