I am Burning but I like it

I am burning.

The last three weeks of my life have been about burning.  I have had countless seasons like this but as always I am completely consumed with this one.  This one is more dangerous however than the last few.  This time it is accompanied by some kind of release.  Not the release I want.  Not the, go ahead and quit your job and get into the prayer room full time to gaze on my beauty and groan in repentance and intercession all day, release, but the, "I am not just teaching you this so you can learn", release.  He is calling me to respond.  With obedience.  Here is the problem.  What the heck does that look like?  How do I walk this out with wisdom and in love and doing my best not to offend anyone or break fellowship with anyone.  THAT is the hard part. 

I'm sorry, if this isn't making a whole lot of sense. I am being cryptic on purpose.  I can't take the time yet to fully pour out my heart on what is going on because the Holy Spirit is still forming it in me and I don't yet have verbiage for it all.

Jesus is reaching into my heart and changing my whole internal definition of Christianity, and it is painful.  Painful because it looks nothing like my old definition and it grieves me that I could live so long and be so off in so many areas.  Painful because I know that what He is doing in me now is only one more step to becoming like Him and I have a billion times further to go than I have gone.  Please please please don't think that I think I have "arrived" or figured all this out.  I so HAVEN'T.  I've just been confronted again with HOW MUCH I haven't. 

All I know is I cannot continue to be the SAME person.  I cannot continue to live the same way.  I wasn't in sin don't misunderstand what I am saying.  I just cannot live the same way anymore.  All my definitions are changed and to be honest with myself and with what the Holy Spirit is doing in me, I have to change too.  What I do not know yet is how far this change is going to go or what all of the ramifications of it is going to be.  I am willing to go wherever and do whatever the Holy Spirit leads me to do, but I do not yet know what that means.  The majority of the changes are in the way that my life is lived every moment of the day and will not be extremely visible to those that don't do every day with me, but there may be other changes coming down the road that will be far more radical.  I won't speculate as to what they may be.  I just want to hold my life with a very open hand and say "Yes Lord" to whatever He wants to do. The problem is that when you try to do something better than you have been, even when it is JUST ABOUT YOU, you end up offending people.  They see you trying to change and they call it a critique of the way they are living.  They feel judged by it.  That is another reason I don't want to TEACH any of this yet.  That is why I haven't been writing my Blog very often.  Everything I am hearing is beyond me.  Every time I try to explain it I only capture a small part of the massive thing He is doing in me and what I do capture is just a shadow. 

 

The best I can do is to say that really what is going on in me now is about a change of desires.  Father is teaching me to desire the things He desires.  I don't know enough about these things that He desires to talk about them with any kind of clarity.  I just know that I deeply deeply desire to see them.  Things like justice for the poor.  Things like REAL DEEP HONEST connection one brother or sister with another.  What does it mean when Jesus says "make them one as we are one"?  I just don't know but I know I DON'T HAVE IT and I DESPERATLY desire it.  What does the deepest heart expression of worship mean in the community sense.  How do we come to God together with one voice in prayer in worship?  What is God's will and desire for the market place?  Am I cultivating every area of my life to display the Glory of God through righteous living, giving, resource development and investment, relationships with my fellow Christ followers, relationships with the people of the world?  These are questions I don't have good enough answers for and I want them and of course the biggest question HOW do I do this?  Am I living my life truly deeply based upon loving God the most and everyone else as much as I love myself?  NO NO NO NO NOOOOOOOOOOOO! I'm not.  So HOW???

I'm not content to go on not knowing, and not trying.  I want to hunger and thirst after righteousness.  I can honestly say I am beginning to begin to hunger and thirst after righteousness.  That is my problem.  I am hungering and thirsting after it but I do not have it.  I have hope.  He said "they will be filled"  He meant it.

 

Oh thank you Jesus you meant it!