I will lift up my hands and my eyes to the heavens.

The ways we worship God are as infinite in number and unique in nature as each wave that curls over the last.  The strength of the tide or the storm is increased by the shortening of the delay.  One wave practically on top of the last - what incredible intimidation with amazement we feel as we stand on the shore!

Our worship has the static energy to create the same weather pattern.  Kinetic worship is that triumphant release of all the inspiration we have found and desire to give back to the Giver of all inspiration.  The longer we live in each day on earth without praising its Creator, the more static our worship remains.  The inspiration scatters and the practice is left off our day planner. 

All personalities have the potential to enter into divine worship in a number of ways.  As I stand in worship in the form of singing, my praise tends to splatter onto a canvas.  My spirit often takes the form of a paintbrush or a camera, and the imagery resonates long after the singing is over.  I am so thankful that God speaks beyond the written word!

The same phenomenon happens when I read the Scriptures.  This passage comes from Romans 8 (incidentally one of my favorite chapters for a number of reasons)...

²² We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. ²³ Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. ²⁴ For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? ²⁵ But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
 ²⁶ In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. ²⁷ And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. 

Imagine yourself at the point of salvation, when you first believed that Truth was not only real but that you could know it!  At that moment when your spirit was 'redeemed' it was sealed.  It's as though the spiritual layer of the human essence was originally pointing toward the earth.  And at the point of salvation, it is peeled from the toe upward toward heaven remaining connected.  And our spirit now ACHES  for the time when the body will also be redeemed.  When it will be free from pain, cancer, aging, balding, wrinkling.  It will be free to run without ever tiring and free to stand in awe without buckling at the knees.    The spirit is willing, but the flesh is still weak. 

On my giant canvas, I see a vivid picture of my spirit able to reach from the loving grasp of Christ all the way down to my physical body planted on the church floor.  And I see the Holy Spirit both pleading my case in heaven while also whispering to me the sweetest prayers that I may then repeat to God.  The hand of my spirit is holding my physical hand.  And as I lift my hands, it reminds me that I am already connected to Christ.  It lifts me in a way no piece of human art work can portray..

We change, He never does.

I'm not a scientist.  I'm a nerd, and yet I cannot begin to sort out how old earth is.  6-10 thousand years.  Several million.  How old is older than dirt..

And yet all these ages are still younger than God.  Though outside of time, He stood before them all.

I've been reading in Exodus these last few weeks, and it's interesting to see just how much God reveals about Himself without us even asking.  Last night, I started reading about God giving the Israelites manna from heaven.  Given to them new each morning from the dew of the ground.  Just as Jesus taught the people to pray for 'daily' bread in the New Testament, God required the Israelites to come every morning for sustenance.

What else does God ask us to seek every morning (or whenever you wake).  Himself!  King David recalls numerous accounts of waking early in the morning crying out to God.  Though God does not always ask us to come in a state of hysterics, He asks us to come always.  To cognizantly come regularly.

It's so important to remember one important reality about God when studying the Bible - He doesn't change.  We change.  God is not confined to the Jewish man-made customs.  Before He created blessed Israel, He still reached out to humanity with the same guidance.  Guiding us all the while because He loves this world still.

The blessedness of possessing nothing

Re-reading AW Tozer's book titled The Pursuit of God with a couple other leaders from the Gathering ministry.  His words are so fresh, even though they were written decades ago.  So raw.  So honest.  I pray the words of his prayers at the end of each chapter as if I were their author.  Thank you God for Tozer's servant-heart.

This chapter was about the struggle to be free from possessions.  How it is possible to own many things/ideas and be blessed with friends/family, and yet your heart possesses none of these.  And if something is to gain access to our heart's pedestal where we have rightfully placed God, we oftentimes find God Himself breaking that idol on the floor.  (Just as He did when the Philistines captured the Arc of the Covenant and tried to incorporate it into their temple worship with their other gods.)

When we pray for God to purge unwanted baggage from our spiritual bodies, so often, it is difficult to remember how painful purification is.  I see it as similar to cancer.  Caught early, it is typically a simpler procedure with minimal side effects.  But once cancer gains access to a blood supply, it grows quickly and spreads to distant sites.

If something sits next to God in our hearts, He being the Great Physician, must excise it from our spiritual flesh.  And like our physical bodies, the painful incisions cut away at our own tissue as well.  There is not exact cutting in cancer.  Unfortunately, we will lose function in organs and extremities because the cancer has eroded them.  Or, in order to ensure all the cancer cells have been removed, healthy tissue is removed as well.

So in our times of purification, be encouraged by prayers for renewal.  Because unlike the human hands that slide the scalpel in the operating room, God is able to do abundantly more.  In the same way he can create matter out of nothing, He is also able to make us like new. 

He gave me a new song to sing

I woke up one morning recently, and I made a very startling reality.  I don't want to be a nurse practitioner.  In fact, the day to day of it started to make me cringe.  What?

I am a few thousand dollars too late to make this discovery, but it is so true.  Saying it was so real, and I don't regret the realization.  But then, fear came over mean like a tidal wave.  I found myself in sobbing last night because I couldn't think of anything that would make me happy.  A very sobering reality.  But God broke through.

He made the waves.  The tidal waves.  And He curls the waves around His finger just as easily as He smooths the sand.  So I know He can handle this.  He's taking me somewhere I have yet to know.

God loves me.

He came.  He met me.  He held me. And He's lifting me!

I waited patiently for the LORD;
And He inclined to me and heard my cry.
² He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay,
And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm.
³ He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God;
Many will see and fear
And will trust in the LORD.

What good is a heart that can't be bruised?

So, it's not a secret that I work on a heart unit at the hospital.  I sometimes see patients after they've had open heart surgeries, and one of the most important concerns after surgery is to rest the heart and the surrounding connective tissue.  No strenuous activity, no lifting, and we even give them meds to make sure they don't strain on the throne.  That's how Elvis died.  Forget what you think you heard.

All these activities could lead to complications, such as separation of the sutures.  So, they give them these little slings to wear around their shoulders that they squeeze together in the front to keep from stressing the skin when they move around.  They're called "Heart Huggers".  Am I alone in thinking that's an adorable name?  Yes?

I think we have internalized supports we use when our heart is damaged by encounters with other people.  And unless you can call the demon by its name, you will only see the symptoms.  I don't even think everyone's problem is the same (or even similar).  But I think the various symptoms can manifest with a different diagnosis.

In medicine, a patient's diagnosis might be chest pain or shortness of breath upon arrival.  But that is just a preliminary diagnosis.  Chest pain and SOB (yes, we abbreviate it all the time.  yes, I still giggle about it after 4 years in nursing) can be caused by so many things.  They're just symptoms.  In the same way, depression, anxiety, serial dating, inability to commit, binge drinking, lying, cheating, laziness... they're all caused by something else. 

Pain is not a diagnosis.
Pride is a diagnosis.
Selfishness is a diagnosis.
Sinful human nature is a reality.

So once we determine the causative agent or vessel, we can operate.  We bleed.  We hurt.  And then we heal.  Because the alternative is an emotion heart attack and death of cardiac tissue.  It turns emotionally stiff.  And that sucks worse.