Twirling in Prayer and Life

 

Matthew 6:9 TPT “May the Glory of your name be the center on which our lives turn.”

As I was praying this scripture over the ones on my prayer list this morning, I thought of my friend, Natalie, a ballerina and prophetic dancer. Natalie is able to spin in place on her toes. She and other dancers, gymnasts, and skaters are able to spin without becoming overcome by dizziness using a technique called spotting. They focus on a specific point as they spin, which helps them to stabilize their vision and reduce dizziness.

Matthew 6:9, is part of what is known as “The Lord’s Prayer”. Jesus’ disciples saw him pray and then do impossible things, so they asked him “Master, teach us to pray”.

“Here’s how it works”, he taught them. “Make the Glory of my name the center on which your lives turn, your point of focus that you always return to, no matter what dizzying events come into your sight as you spin through life. If you are focused on my Glory- and remember that I manifested my Glory as my Goodness at Moses’ request – so if you are focused on my Goodness, you will not lose your balance.”

“Life is going to continue to spin. That’s a given, just as I told you the truth that ‘in this world you will have tribulation’, but I quickly followed that up with this promise, ‘but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world’”. John 16:33.

So sit back and watch Natalie as she spins seemingly effortlessly in her dance of life and remember to center yourself like she does. Focus on that unchanging point of God’s Goodness.

And watch what happens as you learn to “spot”. “The resting place of his love will become the very source and root of your life.” Ephesians 5:17

Samson and the Caller's Spring

 

What do you think of when I say the name Samson?

The strongest man in the world?

A lustful man?

A man with vengeance on his mind and blood on his hands.

Tragedy and poor choices.

So my devotional this morning led me to read Judges 15, about Samson’s actions after he found out that his wife, Delilah had been given to a friend of his.

Samson had married Delilah and right away she tricked him into revealing the answer to a riddle he had given to the Philistines. He should have known better than to marry a Philistine woman whose people hated both Samson and the Israeli people, but Samson followed his flesh right into the marriage bed. When Delilah betrayed his confidence, Samson gave into his flesh again. In anger he left his wife and returned to his father’s house.

But he couldn’t stop thinking about the beautiful wife he had left in the enemy’s camp. So he took a young goat as a peace offering for his wife’s family and traveled to his father-in-law’s house to reunite with his wife. His father-in-law wouldn’t even let him in the house.

“I thought you thoroughly hated Delilah for what she’d done to you, so I gave her as a wife to your friend.”

Samson became furious at this news.

His father-in-law saw the fire in Samson’s eyes and his clenched fists and tried to assuage his anger.

“Isn’t Delilah’s younger sister more attractive? Take her instead” he offered.

But Samson’s desire for his wife was immediately eclipsed by passion for revenge. He left his father-in-law’s house and went hunting in the nearby woods. He caught alive 300 foxes, tied torches to each of their tails and set them loose in the standing grain of his enemies’ crops. All the crops were burned to the ground, and the vineyards and olive groves destroyed along with them.

The Philistines took their revenge next by burning to death both Delilah and her father.

Enraged, Samson killed many Philistines and then fled to a cave in the rock of Elam.

The Philistines then turned to exact revenge on the men of Judah.

“Why are you attacking us? What have we done to you?” the Judeans asked.

“It’s not you we want,” they replied. Just give up Samson, and we’ll leave you alone.”

So 3000 men of Judah went up to the cave where Samson was hiding. “Do you realize what you’ve done to us? The Philistines are after us to make us their prisoners, and it’s your fault!”

“It’s not my fault,” Samson replied. “I was just getting revenge, doing to them what they did to me and mine.”

“We have no choice but to hand you over to the Philistines, Samson. Our lives depend on it.”

“All right, I will allow you to bind me and deliver me to the Philistines, only promise me this, that you won’t kill me yourselves.”

So God’s people bound Samson with brand new ropes and delivered him to the Philistine army. The Philistines took one look at their prize and came running, shouting curses against this man who had killed so many of their numbers.

But God. 

Judges 15 tells us that “The Spirit of God came upon Samson in power.”

What? God, would you really empower such a violent, angry, hateful man who followed his flesh instead of following you?

The Spirit came upon Samson and he stretched his arms and broke the ropes binding him. He spied a donkey’s jawbone laying nearby, grabbed it and stuck down a 1000 Philistines. Then exhausted, he threw down the jawbone and collapsed on the ground. He suddenly became overcome with thirst, but there was no water in that desert area.

So this blood covered, violent man cried out to God. “You have given your servant this great victory. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”

“Then God opened up the hollow place in Lehi, and water came out of it.”

Samson gulped down the cool water and was revived. The new spring was called En Hakkore, which means caller’s spring.

Who is this God who gives gifts and doesn’t take them back when the recipient goes rogue, like Samson did.

Romans 11:29 “And when God chooses someone and graciously imparts gifts to him, they are never rescinded.”

But God, people abuse the gifts you’ve given them all the time. Leaders taking advantage of their followers. Prophets speaking words they never heard from you. Yet you say you don’t remove their gifts. Instead you stand ready to forgive and to pour out Holy Spirit to empower them.

The Caller’s Spring. The only requirement to gain the life giving water was to call out to God for it. How can you use such evil men to accomplish your purposes, men like Samson who allowed hatred, lust and revenge to motivate him, who shed so much blood,? Yet Samson went on to serve as Israel’s judge for the next 20 years.

God, is there such a thing of too much grace? You give gifts with no strings attached, no guarantee that we will use the gifts unselfishly. The only requisite for the spring of water was that Samson had to ask you for it.

So you empower madmen? Sometimes. But the grace you poured out on Samson reaped a harvest at the end of his life as you once more gifted him with supernatural strength to destroy the enemies of God’s people by pulling down the pillars of the building where he was held captive.

God, you amaze me that you give me gifts and don’t tell me how I have to use them. You don’t snatch them back out of my hand, even when I mess up. “I trust you,” you tell me. “Just seek me first in everything, and you’ll know how to use the gifts I’ve placed in you.”

So I read your word and grieve over this bloody man, Samson, who experienced betrayal and pain all of his life and gave in to anger and lust, allowing them to motivate him. Yet you never gave up on him, even renewing his gifting on the day he died along with his enemies. And you reserved a place for him in the Hall of Faith, noted in Hebrews 11:12.

Here I am, Father God, in possession of your gifts of grace. Help me never to take them for granted, even though they are mine to use as I desire. Help me to be like Jesus, to only do what I see the Father doing, and live to please you.

Romans 8:32: “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”

Ekloge - Claimed as his own

 

Remember jumping in the car with mom or dad and yelling out to your siblings, “I’ve got shotgun!” and hearing the others moan.

Claiming your spot. So what makes a location desirable? You wouldn’t want to reserve your seat in the trunk of the car, or claim your space in a garbage dump, would you?

So I came across this scripture the other morning that I’d never really looked at closely before.

In 2 Peter 1:10, God claims his spot:

“For this reason, beloved ones, be eager to confirm and validate that God has invited you to salvation and claimed you as his own.” TPT

First of all, you didn’t crash this party, or just happen upon it. You received a personal invitation from Father God. When the angels were writing out the invites, Daddy said to send a special invitation to Taffy Tucker Spaloss.

Then not only did he invite me, he also claimed me as his own. He staked out his spot – I’m sitting next to Taffy.

In the Passion Translation, the footnote for this verse teaches us that the Greek word translated ‘claimed as his own’ is ekloge (which means ‘from his logos word’). The footnote says “God spoke and you were his. You are meant to be a “chosen word” from his mouth, and you will not return to him void, but you will accomplish what he has destined for you to do.” (See Isaiah 55:11)

Don’t miss the meaning of this statement. Herein lies my value, my purpose, my raison d’etre. The God of the universe has claimed me as his own. He has declared in the presence of heaven and earth that I am his chosen word. My life has impact and purpose because he spoke my name.

And one day I will hear him speak my name out loud. When I step through the portal into heaven, pass through the throng of my loved ones who’ve gone ahead of me, and step into Jesus’ outstretched arms, I’ll hear him speak my name. I think of Mary Magdalene at the empty garden tomb, heartbroken because she believes someone has stolen the Lord’s dead body. But then she hears a soft voice, or is it just a breeze whistling over the desert bushes.

“Mary”.

“Did I really hear that? Is someone saying my name? It sounds… it sounds like...Jesus! Jesus, it’s you! You’re alive!”

Yes, it will be life changing to hear you speak my name. But you said to pray and declare on earth as it is in heaven. So could you speak my name now? Could you enable my ears today to hear you claim me as your own, ekloge? May I live today as your chosen word, accomplishing all that you wrote about me in your book. For I believe that “You saw who you created me to be before I became me! Before I’d ever seen the light of day, the number of days you planned for me were already recorded in you book.” Ps. 139:16.

I will NEVER leave you.

 

I was running around in my jammies on Saturday morning, trying to button up my Sunday School lesson for tomorrow. Finally finished, I headed toward the computer room to print out the story, when all of a sudden I smelled my favorite perfume. I walked on, smelled the collar of my bathrobe, but there was no fragrance there. After passing the scent several times in my travels between my prayer room and the computer room, I backtracked and found my jeans jacket hanging on the back of my sewing chair. I sniffed at the collar of the jacket, and there it was. Some of my perfume must have rubbed off on the collar the last time I wore that jacket.

I smiled and started to walk away. But then Daddy said “wait”.

I knew he was speaking. Something about stopping to smell the fragrance, and I knew he wanted me to stop what I was doing, still in my jammies and now it’s nearly noon, and write about what he was saying to me.

The day before, while I was doing my routine early morning walk before work Daddy had reminded me of a time many years ago when I was traveling home from a conference in the Chicago area. A 20 hour bus trip home. I was quite discouraged at the time, had just broken up, or rather was dumped, by a boyfriend, and had the awful experience of running into him at this conference. I just wanted to run and hide. But I made it thru the conference and got on the bus to return home, alone.

Only I wasn’t alone. I had this strange awareness of a presence over me, like a cloud over my head. You know the kind of sensation you feel when you’re with people in a room, even tho your eyes are closed, you can still sense that someone is next to you? It was so intense that I kept looking up, only seeing the ceiling of the bus, because I felt like something was actually hovering over me. As the hours passed by I realized that it was God’s presence I was feeling. He knew I needed his physical presence, God with skin on, to carry me thru that discouraging time.

For 20 hours he hovered over me. When I got home, the sensation slowly dissipated until I couldn’t feel him anymore. But I was so thankful that he had done that for me.

So as I walked yesterday, Daddy reminded me of that amazing intimate bus trip. Then he said, “that’s the norm. I’m always there, right above you, beneath you, all around you. Look for me.”

And I had to get ready for work so I’d never journaled about what he’d showed me. Until this morning – well it’s nearly noon now – when he blew on the fragrance of my perfume on the collar of my jeans jacket and said “stop and recognize the fragrance of my presence.”

So pause with me, ok? Maybe you’re still in your jammies, too:) Hold up your hand and count off on your five fingers as you recite Hebrews 13:5,

I will never leave you.

I will NEVER leave you.

Once more, I WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU.

Enjoy the rest of your day!

Watch me, Daddy!

 

Daddy, I’ve been feeling “less than” again. Like I used to be, striving to do better than anyone else, chip on my shoulder. Not feeling accepted, like I have to strive for acceptance and be someone I’m not.

But you keep telling me that you love me right now, where I am, who I am. I hear you saying the words of a song: “You don’t have to change a thing. Just be here with me…”

“Rest in who you are because I love you for who you are. I’m not done yet, but I love you throughout the process, from glory to glory.”

Psalm 37:23 “The steps of the God-pursuing ones follow firmly in the footsteps of the Lord, and God delights in every step they take to follow him.”

Can you hear him cheering, like an unabashed daddy watching his daughter take her first wobbly steps?

You’d think I just ran a marathon, not stumbled across the living room.

“Watch me, Daddy!”

Grinning, he reminds me, “I delight in every step you take towards me.”

INTIMACY AND LADYBUG SLIPPERS

 

Intimacy and Ladybug Slippers

“Awake, O north wind! Awake, O south wind! Breathe on my garden with your Spirit-Wind. Stir up the sweet spice of your life within me. Spare nothing as you make me your fruitful garden. Hold nothing back until I release your fragrance.” Song of Songs 4:16 TPT

“So I kneel humbly in awe before the Father of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah, the perfect Father of every father and child in heaven and on the earth. And I pray that he would unveil within you the unlimited riches of his glory and favor until supernatural strength floods your innermost being with his divine might and explosive power. Then, by constantly using your faith, the life of Christ will be released deep inside you, and the resting place of his love will become the very source and root of your life. Then you will be empowered to discover what every holy one experiences – the great magnitude of the astonishing love of Christ in all its dimension. How deeply intimate and far-reaching is his love! How enduring and inclusive it is! Endless love beyond measurement that transcends our understanding – this extravagant love pours into you until you are filled to overflowing with the fullness of God! Never doubt God’s mighty power to work in you and accomplish all this. He will achieve infinitely more than you greatest request, your most unbelievable dream, and exceed your wildest imagination. He will outdo them all, for his miraculous power constantly energizes you.” Ephesians 3:14-20 TPT

It’s all the same message God has been speaking to me. It’s all about intimacy.

So what, you may ask, do ladybug slippers have to do with intimacy with God?

My ladybug slippers came to me identical, no left or right shoe. As I began to wear the slippers they became molded to my feet and now there there is a definite right and a definite left slipper. Now, if I wear them on the opposite foot, it doesn’t feel right.

God does that to me. He comes and make his imprint on my heart, on my thinking, on my emotions. He makes his soft spot in me, and now nothing else fits there but him.

It’s like the words of the song “Come away with me...Open up your heart and let me in…” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jagoM0WSSu4

My prayer for the Church is that she, like the bride of Solomon, be ruined for anything except God’s presence in the secret place. And may the Holy Spirit blow the fragrance beyond the secret place where those who don’t yet know the intimate love of a Father will be drawn to seek him out.

One generation makes your faithfulness known to the next!

 

Isaiah 38

Do you remember Hezekiah? Hezekiah was a king of Judah. His story is told in the Book of Isaiah in the Old Testament. As we read through the history of the nations of Israel and Judah we hear of king after king who “did evil in the sight of the Lord” and whose reigns were cut short. It is with a breath of relief that we finally read about a king that got it right! Hezekiah “did what was right in the sight of the Lord”, we read in 2 Chronicles 29. “Hezekiah repaired the doors of the Lord’s Temple and made them strong. He opened the Temple again.” (2 Chronicles 29:3)

So when we get to Isaiah chapter 38 and read about Hezekiah’s terminal sickness, our hearts cry out with Hezekiah, “Let me live!” Look at what I’ve done, how I’ve served you and repaired your Temple so your people can come and worship you again. Don’t let me die now! Why, God?

So Yahweh changes his mind. And we get to watch the whole thing play out in Isaiah 38.

Hezekiah becomes deathly sick. The Bible doesn’t tell us if he sent for the prophet, Isaiah, or if God just sent Isaiah to him to deliver the news of his impending demise. “This is what Yahweh has to say to you,” Isaiah began. “Set your affairs in order, for you will not recover from this illness. You are going to die.”

What went through Hezekiah’s mind as he considered Yahweh’s message? We don’t have to wonder, because Isaiah 38 recounts Hezekiah’s own rendition of the story, “Hezekiah’s Psalm of Praise” later in the chapter.

Hezekiah’s initial reaction to Isaiah’s death sentence: “He broke down and wept…” Then he did what any other child in distress would do, he ran to the Father. He “turned his face to the wall and prayed, O please, Yahweh, please, I beg you, let me live.” I’ve walked faithfully before you. “With all my heart I have sought to do only what is good in your eyes!”

Then Isaiah, barely having left the king’s palace, heard the voice of Yahweh stopping him in his tracks.

Go back to the king and deliver this message.

What? I just left there? Seriously?

Yes, seriously. Go and deliver this message to Hezekiah:

“Go and tell Hezekiah, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will add fifteen years to your life. And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city.” Isaiah 38:5-6

And Hezekiah’s gonna have a hard time hearing this change of plans, going from the depths of despair to the heights of joy, so when he asks you for a sign that I will do what I say, tell him this:

“‘This is the Lord’s sign to you that the Lord will do what he has promised: I will make the shadow cast by the sun go back the ten steps it has gone down on the stairway of Ahaz.’” So the sunlight went back the ten steps it had gone down.” Isaiah 38:7-8

I love it! Love it when you do the impossible as if it’s no big deal. You think nothing of just making a promise of an additional 15 years of life for Hezekiah, and then turning back the clock to confirm your promise!

You say, see if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing on you! See, look and see how much I love my kids and desire to delight their hearts! I take no pleasure in depriving my children out of anything they want or need – it is my joy that they be filled with wonder as they receive from my hand pressed down, shaken together and running over.

I encourage you to read through Isaiah chapter 38, in the Passion Translation if possible. Hezekiah’s’ “Psalm of Praise” describes what he felt as he prepared to die, weeping bitterly as he cried out to God: “..restore my health and give me life again!”

Now armed with Yahweh’s promise and seeing with his own eyes as the hands of time were turned back and the shadow receded on the steps, he pens this poem of praise so that his children, and their children, and now anyone who picks up the Bible, can read the story and believe with Hezekiah in this God who loves his own and joyfully works all things for our good.

“One generation makes your faithfulness known to the next!” Isa. 38:19

So we grab onto this picture of God’s character that he reveals through the prophet, Isaiah.

Do you need healing in your body today? Sing and declare the words of Hezekiah in Isa. 28:20 over yourself today:

“Yahweh is pleased to heal and save me! We will sing to the music of stringed instruments every day of our lives in Yahweh’s house!”