Pick me up like a paintbrush! (sharing a song)

I am sitting writing, and being thankful for so much that God has been teaching me. (And for some of you, beautiful friends, who have been encouraging, praying and supporting me these last few days).

Above all the thoughts that have been swirling around my head, so many of my friends and I here are on the same theme together of sensing a fresh desire and call to devote ourselves to The Lord. To surrender the pieces and moments of our lives and days and hearts. That is ultimately all we are born for.

He is so worthy, and I just want Him to pick me up, use me, enjoy me and to lay my life as a fragrant offering at His feet.

So as I am sitting working today, I am listening to this song on repeat. And wanted to share it with all of you.

🙂

It is written by Julie Meyer for Heidi Baker – someone who is such a crazy beautiful example of a devoted laid down life to The Lord.

Enjoy!

You can also find in a link under that video, a reference to a full version of the song, live on http://www.ibethel.tv

I have also been stuck listening to Tim Hughes seriously powerful worship set at Bethel this last Sunday – which also had a theme of surrender and being set apart for God. I really recommend if you have more time (its over an hour long, and SO worth the time) you take a look at that. Click here to find it. Powerful stuff.

Take a moment to remember

Today I am taking a moment to remember! His goodness never ceases and His mercies are new every morning! And it’s the morning, and I’m remembering.

Sometimes the fuel to move forwards is found in taking a step, or a look back, and remembering who He has been to you, what He has done for you and where He has met you, brought you, saved you, blessed you…

I love this topic. I can’t right now remember if I have blogged about this before, but I am remembering, again, and pondering things He has done with me these last few years.

At the end of our second year at school here we took some time to remember what He had done for us that year – we took stones, and wrote on them with markers the things He had done in the previous two years. We then took a silent walk to an area of the campus where we laid our stones in a pile, to build a place of remembrance like the Israelites did so often, to lay our memorial stones as a permanent statement of where He had brought us.

At the beginning of this year, my third year, I took a walk down there and was surprised to find myself weeping as I remembered His overriding faithfulness that defeated every obstacle, His ability to position me in the lessons and heart journeys He knew I needed that I would never have taken of my own accord, how He taught me aspects of His nature and heart that have changed my life and outlook forever.

On a recent trip to Omaha (which I mentioned in a previous blog), I was able to (thanks to airmiles and gifts from a few friends), take some more physical steps to remember the most significant week I had with The Lord last year, visiting an outpouring of Holy Spirit which was happening in a prayer centre there. Something about walking in the same steps that I had walked in before both brought me into new waves of thankfulness for His past workings in my life, but also brought me into a new encounter with Him. A good friend of mine often says, ‘whatever you are thankful for, is going to increase’ and I could certainly feel new waves of Holy Spirit pouring in as I took time to remember how He has met me before.

This week is also a week when many of us are remembering with thankfulness, on the 20th anniversary of the outpouring of Holy Spirit which began in Toronto in 1994 and has changed so many thousands of lives and drawn so many people closer to God. Remembering is causing me to hunger for so much more in the next twenty years!

And then this morning, I sat in a prayer meeting and we were remembering again the faithfulness of The Lord. We asked Him to remind us of significant past moments with Him, which we could then thank Him for. I found myself remembering nine years ago, when I stood in a room in an old (slightly mouldy) cold warehouse in Toronto and learnt to love the presence of God, and so many seeds of what I now live were planted in me as I spent time there pursuing God. So many situations in just the following year came to mind, situations that were different because of that moment, but I can’t imagine how many more there have been since then! He positions us so perfectly for increase, for our destiny, for where we are headed! Hindsight is such a beautiful gift, and what it shows us of His ability to piece together the puzzle pieces of our lives is mindblowing!

Take a moment today to remember – who He is, what He has done, and what He has been to you.
Sometimes looking back can be our greatest weapon to moving forward.

And for those who may like a song to go with that – this is one that is circling around my head and has been so significant to me at different moments of my journey this year – take some time, click this link and stick it on repeat and enjoy! 🙂

Jesus – My Daily Satisfaction

“…for I have learnt to be satisfied with whatever I have. I know what it means to lack, and I know what it means to experience overwhelming abundance. For I’m trained in the secret of overcoming all things, whether in fullness or in hunger. And I find that the strength of Christ’s explosive power infuses me to conquer every difficulty.”
Philippians 4:11b-13, Passion Translation

What does it take for you to be satisfied in your daily life? What is it you dream of, or wait to fall into place in life in order to feel peace?

In the last few months I have been getting rocked by the simple revelation, that the God, my God, who stirs a desire in me, is also my daily satisfaction. He is the author of my dreams, but the very reason I can be content without them. Let that sink in and mess with your head!

He is enough, but the one who keeps me seeking after more.
He is the author of my hunger, and fully satisfying at the same time.
He is my provider, and He is all that I need before the provision comes.
He can never be understood! Yet my life is a pursuit of wanting to understand Him more.

The existence of tension in His nature keeps me connected to Him. Wow. I am so thankful for the things I don’t understand. The keep me leaning, and keep me close to Him. I have been learning a bunch about being thankful whatever life looks like. This last week, that gets applied, for one, to those things I don’t understand. But for the sake of this blog, I am going to jump back to the beginning of my journey into knowing Him as daily satisfaction.

I took the opportunity, a few months ago to sit in on a meeting with a pastor in the school of ministry here. I had noticed he had some wisdom I wanted to hear more of, so I jumped at the chance just to get to listen as he chatted to some second year students. And he threw out a one liner that changed my life! Time well spent. He was discussing how he has stewarded favour in his life, and he said that the biggest thing he had done to steward favour was to steward thankfulness. He then went on to tell us about the early days of his marriage, when they had very little material possessions, but he would sit on his couch, and get so thankful for his couch, TV and stereo that he would weep. Yes, weep.

Cue conviction/uncomfortable feeling. Cry with thankfulness??! I don’t remember the last time I did that, I thought. That is something I should fix.

I started, following his example, with what I could see, and a few days later, sat in my bed, thanking God for what was around me – Thank you God for a roof over my head, that I’m not sleeping in the rain! – Thank you God for my shoe hanger on my closet door, a gift from my old roommate, it makes such a difference to my organisation of my closet! – Thank you God for my sheets, high quality, they may be old, but I love that my mum bought them for me years ago when I went to university! – Thank you God for my soft blanket on my bed, I love it! – Thank you God for what I can see, my clothes, my bed, my speakers, my printer… I am so blessed!

If you just start with what you can see, you will no doubt get rocked at how amazing your own life is!! Then try taking a moment to realise, and be thankful, for the fact that you can even see at all…!

I started asking myself, why should I get more thankful for a large financial gift like $2000, than for when someone gives me a cup of coffee? I mean, it’s all a gift from Him! So I started working on getting thankful for coffee! I started writing down every time I got given a coffee in my journal, and on the page opposite, I started writing every aspect of the nature of God I could see in those things. It’s amazing how much you can miss when you are not thankful; as soon as I started doing this, I realised even backwards the blessings I had received that had passed me by! And in those cups of coffee, I could see God, my provider; God, who knows what I like!; God who cares about the small things; God whose blessings are tangible; God who provides for my wants as well as my needs; God who is generous; God who surprises me; God who knows me; God who sneaks up on me with encounters… and the list goes on!!

I wonder if sometimes when we are looking for God, or an answer from Him, He has hidden himself within circumstances around us, and is just waiting for us to look into the details, and find him, as were, in the cup of coffee! He loves to be sought out.

Then I started realising, I could be just as thankful when one of my friends gets bought a coffee, instead of me, and even more so when she gets my favourite coffee, and gives me a sip! There is no limit to how small a situation can be a source of thankfulness, and an invitation to encounter. He is waiting for us in the small things!

Suddenly, I just started getting so happy! Journeying into thankfulness literally changed my perspective, and as I have been choosing it, I have been realising I don’t need to wait for this dream to happen, that bank balance I’m waiting for, or that problem to be solved, to know fulfillment – and it is Jesus, My Daily Satisfaction. He is in everything, if I take a moment to see Him.

He is the God who gives me a desire for more, or births a dream in me, but He is My Daily Satisfaction both now, on the road to my dreams, and once I get there.

Fun things have started happening as I’ve shared this with people. One day I walked up to a friend (I was actually in a stressed mood, if I’m honest!) and said to him, “Zach, I’m thankful that God gave you breath today!” I mean, even our very BREATH is a gift from Him (wow!). As I said it, he told me later, God instantly healed his cold (which was restricting his breathing)! Wow God! Thankfulness is powerful!

I have heard people say before, that whatever we are thankful for from God, will increase, and I think I am beginning to experientially understand what that means. And it starts with my perspective – the way I see God makes room for more of Him in my life.

Right now as I sit, honestly, asking Him for a bunch of answers to prayers, and looking at things in my life, which despite all my blessings, I am still waiting to see God change, I am even thankful for the chance to sit, and write this blog, and remember what he has been teaching me over a few months about this. I am beyond thankful for my breath, this day and this life He gave me to live, and for Him, the God of the universe, that lavishes love on me, all day, every day, that I live and breathe.

Whether in lack or abundance, I am learning, what it means to be satisfied, and this has been the big key I have found.
Jesus is Our Daily Satisfaction.

So here’s me inviting you to join me on the quest to experience more and more of what that really means, as I chase answers to prayer, dreams fulfilled, and all those good things that He loves… ultimately HE is my Great Reward. And I am thankful for Him.