Has God’s Hand Become More Exciting to Me than His Voice?

Rent was on my mind: mine and that of three other friends of mine – one, a young survivor of Child Marriage, who had been thrown, along with her young child, out of her humble abode two days ago for rent arrears. I had been kept awake particularly by the plight of this last one. And that morning, I rushed out of bed with the desire, the urgent need to run to my knees and stay there until God spoke to me.

I had missed my friend Helayi. I decided to make another attempt at calling her. She answered laughing as usual, and said she had been planning on calling me all morning. She asked how I was and we got right into it.

“Vip, you know my story, how I have lived like a bird for the last five years. In that I have not had a place of my own since I lost my job, and have lived with various family and friends. I have prayed some of that time for this to change but God showed me that defines His expression in each one of us. Despite an area of our lives not changing, the Kingdom of God has moved on in my life.”  Helayi was right. I met her about five years ago at a Bible Study I was then coordinating for women. Even then, her hunger for God stood out, and humbled me. I wanted to want God the way she did. And over the years, she had grown from being the one who asked me many questions, to one who answered mine. Our conversations have left me hungering to walk even further with God, and especially when I was least inclined to do so.

God may not provide for us the way understand it per se, but He will work in us so that, that area of lack in our lives is as nothing so to speak, except for knowing Him deeper. When God provides, what is it that He reveals through my life? It is not so much about materials. I can actually do without this things, but what is important is that God is revealed through my life, in spite of my lack. He wants to reveal Himself in ways that are unprecedented. In ways He has not revealed Himself to someone else. My lack, should push me towards seeking God in a new way, not just towards immediate gratification.

Re: Hebrew 4. God speaks about a people for whom His word, did not birth faith. Isnt it enough that I hear God’s Voice? This has always been available to God’s children but it is amazing that they take it lightly and for granted. There are those who have walked with God for years, and are no longer excited about God speaking to them and revealing Himself to them. They have become too familiar with Him. This is sad. God wants to work into us a new level of relating with Him in which we enter into complete rest in Him that when He speaks to me, it is enough. He Himself is enough. It is refreshing to meet one for whom hearing from God remains a novelty, exciting. That THE CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE should speak to ME, should be even more exciting than that which you desire, and in fact, in the event that you hear Him, fill you with even more excitement than the provision of that need, and more so, EVEN WHEN HE DOES NOT ADD A SINGLE THING IN MY LIFE.

When we got off that call, the urge to go on my knees was even stronger. The desire to move further into the divine nature that God intended me to live, even as I walked this earth, was even stronger. I stood ministered to…I still do.

Shalom

viplit@yahoo.ca

“[For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly], and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection [which it exerts over believers], and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death, [in the hope]

That if possible I may attain to the [spiritual and moral] resurrection [that lifts me] out from among the dead [even while in the body].

Not that I have now attained [this ideal], or have already been made perfect, but I press on to lay hold of (grasp) and make my own, that for which Christ Jesus (the Messiah) has laid hold of me and made me His own.

I do not consider, brethren, that I have captured and made it my own [yet]; but one thing I do [it is my one aspiration]: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,

I press on toward the goal to win the [supreme and heavenly] prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward.”

Philippians 3:10-14 (Amplified Bible)

 

 

I will Continue To Fly the Flag of my Country

I will continue to fly the flag of my country high

For the love and hope I know to have for it

I will fly the flag of my country with pride

And in defiance of those who would have me fold it away in fear and shame

For better or for worse, this is the flag that God Himself has placed as banner over me

 

It is not because I have not been wounded by the wounds of my country

It is not because I am less useful than you who choose to criticize my way of loving and honoring her

I have sat willingly within my beloved nation

Feeling boxed in by fear, not knowing who has targeted my brethren

Not knowing when their weapons will target me

 

I have gone to hospitals, visited with the sick

Attended the wakes and mourned with the families of those bereaved

I have given my blood…given my money…given my time…listened, read, cried,

I have been caught in the crossfire

Wondered where my brethren have fled to for refuge

And prayed that they find safety there to fly the flag that we bear

 

I have listened to words brandied as wisdom

Laced with barely concealed anger, malice, blood-lust, chauvinism, despair

Spoken by those who may not even know that their stance and agenda is visible to many

And may be twisted by many to fuel devious agenda

I have sat on my wounds, brought about by these words, resisted fueling the raging fire with irretrievable words

That keep trying to destroy my nation

That have already robbed us of neighbors, families, beloved, deeply so,

Are robbing us of the beauty that is our diversity,

The fiery words that gather within the gaps of diversity, not to bridge our sameness, but to gnaw and tear at, mock and soil our differences.

The words accuse and counter accuse camps that carry within them my own wounded brethren

Bearers of the flag I bear

 

I will fly the flag of my nation, as I lie on my belly, kneel down in prayer, broken and yet still living

A miracle defying the hate, the anger, the rage, the malice, the blood-lust,

I will fly the flag of my nation, believing that God still watches, and acts

And though my act of faith and hope does not to you, seem as powerful as your words,

Your anger, your position, your ability to criticize the love of those who don’t love your way

I will fly the flag of my nation, as I wipe tears from my neighbor’s face while mine flow unhindered

I will fly the flag of my nation, as I reach out my other hand to hold that of my brethren,

I will fly the flag of my nation, as I do my part, focus on it and allow you to do your part without criticizing you for not doing it like am doing it,

I will fly the flag of my nation because while I love and believe in her, my enemy has not triumphed over me,

I will fly the flag of my nation because in order to do so, I raise my hands up in supplication to The One Who will hunt down to wipe out of memory, all those that threatened to tear her down…

I WILL FLY THE FLAG OF MY NATION EVEN WHEN MY ‘PIETY AND PATRIOTISM’ ARE PHENOMENA THAT ARE AN OFFENCE TO YOU

And there is nothing you or the devil can do to change that.

And then… I will fly the flag of my nation, when she rises above all that her enemies has thrown against her,

Because like you, my brethren, I believe enough, to do my part.

vipslit@yahoo.ca