Are you comfortable with love?

This question has rolled around my inner being for a week or so. Heard it on Jack Frosts DVD series "Encountering the Father's Embrace." (www.shilohplace.org - cannot recommend this enough!)

Mmmm... I think my answer is Yes and No. No... to a mushy, clingy, needy expression of love. But yes to what I have experienced of God's healing, renewing love. No to words of 'I love you' that do not bear fruit in the coal-face of daily life. But yes to that joyful bubble of "Thank you Lord!" that surfaces as I read the Word and see the magnificence of his ways and his love.

But am I comfortable with receiving love from others? It depends - or it used to depend on who they were I guess. But I must say I have been hugged and held (sometimes for 4-5 minutes)and gazed at with love by more people in the last 2-3 months than for years before that! And many of them were strangers, or only just met friends, and they were both men and women. Such is the way of those exploring the love of Father's heart together. We have become comfortable with sharing his love together, believing our arms and eyes and voices can convey something of his divine, completely accepting and fully affirming love.

Am I comfortable with giving this warmth and love? Before I met Father's healing love a couple of months ago, I would say barely. Only when ministering to a hurting person - or greeting a good friend. But I am learning - and believing - that as I embrace others they too may just encounter HIS divine love that now has more place in me. And I found that a woman who previously annoyed me a lot by her attitude to life (negative, fussy) and who I avoided because of her long tales of woe, I just go and hug her now. No feelings of discomfort within at all. Astounding! That has to be the unconditional love of Father - who wants to comfort her agitated soul through me. It no longer feels awkward like it used to. Interesting!!?

The power of love

I used to find it hard to put together the words 'power' and 'love'. My perceptions were that power was force, and love was tenderness (even mushiness!). How wrong I was!

I saw the power of love a few weeks ago. At a weekend seminar on the Father's love a man in his 70s, comfortably retired, was exploring who God was. And in a time of prayer he was held by a motherly woman (20 years younger!)and he wept as Father's love filled his heart. Within two days of that encounter he has resigned everything associated with being the head of the local masonic lodge! If that is not 'the power of love' I don't know what is!

Who would not want such encounters! Who would not want to be so changed without days of argument..! His heart was washed and filled by Father's divine love. And nothing is the same any more.

I was talking to a younger woman yesterday who is hurting so bad because her mother will not spend time with her, but does with her sister. She aches to be loved by her mother in a way that takes away her pain of rejection. But she is looking in the wrong direction. The nurturing love of Father (who has mother love too - for that is where it all comes from) can fill that void and so complete her that she can forgive and not need to ache for this from her mother. We were created to be filled with his love. Anything else is a bonus. I am praying I can help her see that and reach out for this powerful love.
He comes as we abandon our search for substitutes - and our holding onto the debts of others. "You owe me nothing!" is a most liberating posture. Looking at our Father and saying "You have all I need" is the only way our aching hearts will be filled.

Divine Dominoes

I am agog at seeing 'divine dominoes' falling in a friend's life. It is a real 'WOW God' time! She has loved and served God passionately for years. In her early adulthood she researched and wrote a book for a mission agency about transformed lives. She and her husband have also written books together.

But the last 20 years or so have been such hard slog - lots of physical pain, as well as deep spiritual and emotional pain overwhelming her life. She is gifted and skilled and deeply earnest. Why had God not 'come through' and brought her out into 'a spacious place' as he promises? We had prayed with her often in her times of distress and pain, and nothing seemed to change. (So had many others)

But then... in June this year she was nudged by the Spirit to look out a tape made 20 or more years ago on the Father's Heart. About a week later I emailed her that David and I were going to the 6 day Fatherheart school 5 hrs away by car. Did she want to come with us? Something went ping! in her, and she thought... 'Is this God?'...and she came with us and was profoundly changed by healing encounters with her Abba, Daddy.

Then on the last day she and I were in conversation with a woman with an international ministry who mentioned she was trying to write a book but couldn't - it was not her... she needed a writer. I said my friend was a recognised writer... and more dominoes began to fall. They began talking - and since then she has been back to talk and record interviews and the whole thing is underway.

But get this! Just six weeks later there was a gathering of people there from around the world with stories that were needed for the book... so my friend was able to be there and interview 20-30 people whose stories will be put in the book... WOW! And at their times of prayer and being with the Father, more healing came, and words about the future. There is now the 'spacious place' - the fulfilment of years of seeking and groaning before a loving God. And there is also a sense of being 'at home' with kindred spirits in ministry that has eluded my friend for some time. WOW! We are marvelling at what has happened - so fast! So right. So amazing. What a privelege to be a little part of this story.

"When the time had fully come..." Mmmm. This is an interesting part of God's ways. He has a time and a way that will bring him full credit (glory) by causing things to be that were not! Isn't that better than any manouvering or organising we can do? But it takes a steadfast holding onto a faithful Father who is full of goodness.

Filling the holes

Been realising there are emotional/spiritual 'holes' in me. Whenever I was sick as a child, I was not comforted or fussed over much. I had to be stoic and accept that the household just went on without me. This has made it hard for me to receive the comfort of the Father (and his nurturing 'mother' qualities) in times of pain or distress.

Last night I was sick with a bad chest and cough. My ribs felt bruised from the violent coughing. David wanted to take me to the emergency doctor at 10pm at night. I said wait till morning. I dosed up with everything I could lay my hands on, and David anointed me with oil and I tucked up in the bed in the spare room so David could have a good sleep. I lay there just saying over and over, "Father, I am yours - you are loving me and healing me now." I slept soundly and woke without the cough or the bad throat, and feel almost normal again. Wow!

But I realise there are these holes - gaps in what I can receive and realise. More Father. More of your nurture, comfort and healing of my heart, my emotional make-up, not just my body.

Spiritual Agoraphobia

I heard this great phrase from James Jordan on his teaching CD 'The False Covering of Fig Leaves' (availalble on www.fatherheart.net)

Spiritual agoraphobia. The fear of big open spaces...in spiritual terms - the fear of not having things in a small, comfortable, manageable space. He was talking about how we can confine our knowledge of God (and knowing him experientially) to what we can understand within our framework of what we have discovered so far. But of course he is infinite - and often the scriptures use the phrase 'beyond knowing'. He can do 'far more than we can imagine...' Hallelujah for that!

All around the world the Lord is doing things beyond our imagination (check out Iris Ministries for one - with Roland and Heidi Baker www.irisministries.org) and showing his love and his power in unprecedented ways. Why not in our lives? Why not throw open the windows and doors of our minds and hearts and say 'More - Father, more - Lord Jesus, more - Holy Spirit'?

When the Scriptures talk of 'mysteries' it means things that are 'veiled' or hidden. Bill Johnson astutely says they are hidden FOR us to find (because we seek) not from us. There are many things we have not yet had revealed to us from the Word. It is not just logical truth to be understood - it points to spiritual realities that only our heart and spirit can taste and grasp. And we do not know when or how he will do it. He is sovereign. But an open and seeking and child-like heart will always be READY to see and taste and experience more, and perhaps understand as well some of the 'mysteries' of the Kingdom. Oh for such seeking hearts.

It is really about POSITION. What posture do we take - what way do we face? Our words frequently reveal our posture because the mouth cannot help but speak what the heart is full of! Are we keeping our eyes on heavenly things - on him who is our Wisdom, our Life, our very Source? Or are the trials and testings of earth our focus? I have to keep checking my posture and my position. It slips... looking down - looking at others - looking at myself and my failings...

"Father - lift my head to fix my eyes on your sufficiency at all times. To whom else shall we go... And may my vision have vast horizons and endless possibilities in you."

Where IS the Father?

I was just listening to Barry Adams on www.fatherheart.tv/teaching-videos (inspirational stuff!) and he said he always thought the Father was 'way up there somewhere' because of the Lord's prayer, "Our Father, who is in Heaven." And something went ping in my head. If we pray this prayer often, will we have a false view of where the Father is? Barry did.

So did Jesus MEAN us to keep praying it? After all he later said that the Spirit would come and consequently he, Jesus, would live in them and so too would the Father. John 14:23 Mmm... It is clear that we cannot confine the Father to either Heaven or 'our hearts' - as he is above and beyond all things. But somehow we can miss this reality, of the Father's love actually invading our hearts and the deepest places of our being because we have this picture of him being 'up there in Heaven'.

There is always a danger of taking one scripture and making it exclude the truth of others. He is not JUST 'in heaven' - he also comes to us now, in our hearts, here on earth. Psalm 139 describes it well. "Where can I flee from your presence?" Actually - no-where... but we do have the capacity to shut him out of our hearts and our deepest memories and subconscious mind. He awaits our invitation to come in and heal and reveal and comfort and cleanse and make new. What a privilege - to invite in this guest and ask him to take over! Why do we resist such perfect love...?

Being unravelled...

Over the last few days I kept crying. I was being unravelled. An area of pain that I am bringing to the Father to heal was exposed. I just kept saying, "Father, I forgive... Please come and fill that empty space with your comfort and love."

I wondered if I should go to church - I might become unravelled again and 'make a scene'. But I went, and I didn't. But someone did unravel. It was our worship leader, as she led the final two songs. The Lord had touched a place of deep pain in her during the preaching. David, my husband, was preaching from Galatians 3 and 4 about becoming sons and heirs - and he said that the Father, our Abba, not only loved us deeply, but also had a deep affection for us. He was 'very fond of us'. This touched our worship leader - as she knew God loved her - but to know in her heart that he LIKED her was too much. She had experienced much disapproval in her growing years.

She was prayed for - and another woman took over leading. Father's love was at work... may there be much more unravelling. It is his way of bring light, truth, healing, love and comfort into our hearts. This is the 'power of his love'. Let him do some unravelling for you - it is so, so healing.