First of all, thank you so much to those who participated in last week’s “Stirrings”. I thoroughly enjoyed reading how God had spoken to you during that week and I must say, each of you gave me something to reflect on in my own Walk as well.
For me, this week’s message from the Lord wasn’t as clear as last week. He was definitely stirring something up, but I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to write about. None of the lessons had really come full circle yet and I didn’t want to leave y’all hanging!
One thing that’s been consistently on my heart is missing the feeling that God is present. I know that I will not experience this every day of my life, and a lot of times we have to just trust that He is there. However, it’s been a while since I was blown away by a real “God moment”, so I’ve been asking for one.
It reminds me of the title of the book most of us thirty somethings read as a rite of passage, “Hello God? It’s Me Margaret.” And that’s what I’ve felt like these past few weeks. “Hellooo??? Anybody there???”
I’ve heard it said time and time again that if we are having trouble hearing the Holy Spirit we may have unconfessed sin in our life. So I’ve been trying to figure out if that might be the case. I’ve turned my bedside into a nightly confessional, beginning with the mistakes I’m aware of and leaving an open ending, asking the Lord to convict my sorry butt where needed.
Even though I didn’t get a big revelation of any kind, I continued to pray in the same way. On Friday night, Jeremy’s mom invited us over for dinner. I rarely leave her house without a fresh Word and that night was no different. She made reference to David’s plea when he asked God, “Search my heart”.
Ooh, I thought! That’s the scripture I need to be praying! So the rest of that night and Saturday, I loosely quoted David, asking God to search my heart and find any evil within me.
Sunday morning I decided to stay home from church because Emery was running a slight fever and coughing non-stop. I sat down with 2 bibles, a Beth Moore study, and a book on grace, wondering which one I could read that would help me on today’s Sunday Stirrings post.
Thinking it would help if I started out by confessing sins, I grabbed my study bible and looked up the verse I had been so loosely quoting, finding it in Psalm 139:23-24. Then I moved on to Beth Moore, read a passage out of The Message, and followed that with “Captured by Grace” by David Jeremiah.
I was reading chapter 4, The Clear Perspective of Grace, when I came across a passage that made me grab my highlighter. It said, “…we seriously delude ourselves about the presence of evil in our lives. It’s like purposefully removing all the black keys from the piano. Once you do that, the white keys no longer produce a melody. If we edit the sin out of our awareness, then grace no longer has any beauty or power for us. In due time we wonder why we need a Savior at all.”
Wow! I spent some time taking that in and then read the rest of the chapter. At the end, Jeremiah writes “As you conclude this chapter, pray earnestly…take a moment to write out these words…Psalm 139: 23-24, ‘Search me O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.'”
HEY! There’s my moment! God is so faithful! I’m still not sure how the verse, the book on grace, and the quote about being aware of evil and sin in our life all ties together, but at least I know I’m on the right track. It sure makes it easier to pursue and persevere when you get encouragement straight from the Lord!
So now it’s your turn. What is God stirring in your heart? How did the Holy Spirit speak to you this week? I can’t wait to read your posts!!!
2 Comments
Oh, I’ve had those “dry” times too, where I’ve wanted so bad to hear God or to sense Him in a powerful way! I think my problem has been not slowing down long enough to hear the still small voice He so often speaks in!
Love that quote from David Jeremiah. I’ve never seen it like that before. I guess that is exactly why God is able to forget our confessed sins, but we aren’t. A reminder of where He has brought us from. I definitely have those dry times too – more often than I’d like to admit. And confessing sin sometimes seems so mundane and not personal enough. Thanks for the Scripture prayer.