Daddy...

Today is a new day...and I have a new revelation of just how much my Father God loves me!  He is so sweet, so precious, so present when I need to know that he is here, that he is near.  I have looked at my walk with him in such a way that frequently it did not bring life to me at all.  I have compared him to my earthly parent's.  They are humans and they have their weaknesses.  He (as he revealed to me last night) is NOT like anyone else on the earth.  I cannot compare him to my parents.  He so fully loves me that I will never be able to comprehend it.  At our home group we sat before the Lord in silence for a few minutes.  It was beautiful!  The warmth of the living room along with the scented evergreen candle wafting through the air was so cozy.  I sat in a chair and had my feet up and felt like I was resting my head on the Father's chest as tears flowed freely.  Not tears of remorse or shame...but tears of understanding...He is not out to bang the gavel down, hoping that I fail so that he can place judgement on me.  No, He is wanting me to experience life in all it's fullness.  He gives commands not because he is just a rule maker, but because he knows what will bring life.  He wants life for  us even more than we do, life that we cannot even imagine in our finite minds.  He sees what our choices that go against him do- they bring different degrees of death.  I think of what God said in the Garden of Eden..."Do not eat of the tree of good and evil"  He knew what would happen, we would experience a kind of death, to our souls, to our purpose, to the divine destiny that he ultimately had in store for us.  Satan made it out like God was holding out on us or just didn't want us to have the best that we could have, he is such a liar!  We still believe those lies rather than believe that God is truly for us and not against us!  Why do we still choose to believe the father of lies over the very one who created us and gave us life in the first place? 

We live our lives out of a place of managing sin.  Is that really a place of abundant life?  Is that really freedom?  God's word tells us that "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free, do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery."  Slavery to what?  To sin, to having to be a certain way to tow the line or to conform to what others think we ought to be.  No, Christ has made us unique for a purpose, he has a plan for us, "Plans to prosper us and not to harm us, to give us a future and a hope."  Do we really believe that?  I mean really believe that?  I know that scripture by heart, but has my self-talk reflected the truth of that word?  His word says that "All things are permissible, but not all things are beneficial".  Is that really in God's word?  You bet!  We are free to do anything, but not all things will bring life to us.  It is not about keeping a list of dos and don'ts.  It is about do I want the peace that God offers?  Do I want to live fully in His love?  Do I want all that he has for me?  Yes, I want it ALL!  What do I have to do to receive ALL that he has for me?  Just believe that the Good News is really good news!  That "He came to bring life and life more abundantly!"  If we live his word, we will experience life to the fullest!

No more have to's...I have to read my Bible.  I have to pray.  I don't necessarily say it like that, but that is what I am feeling- the pressure to do this or that...No, I want to read his word because that is where I find life, that is where I find Jesus, the giver of  life.  I want to pray because I want to talk to Jesus about my day just as I would with a good friend, not putting on airs, not putting on a spiritual voice just for him- no, just being me, he already knows who I am anyway, after all he created me.  I can talk to him or not talk to him, but it is me that will lose out on friendship for that time or season...the very thing that I need so desperately!  He is not judging me, but ready to meet me whenever I am ready..."He is ever present in my time of need."  It doesn't say only when I behave according to some religious code.  He didn't have a religious code, that was the pharisees and the Sadducee's that abided by such rules that they made it difficult for anyone to come to God.  Our way to God is simple, through Jesus.  Period.  He made a way where there seemed to be no way! 

I will choose today and each day thereafter to live in my Daddy's love.  I will choose to reject the religious culture of our day, or judgements that others place upon me and just live my life to the fullest knowing that my Father is pleased with me.  "He loves me with an everlasting love" and no one else can give me that kind of unconditional love for all eternity.  Daddy I love you too!  Ready or not here I come...I'm jumping onto your lap and I am going to stay there where I can hear the stillness of your breath, hear you whisper in my ear...where I am safe from whatever the world has to throw at me- "In this world you WILL have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world!"  As long as I am with Him, my heart is safe.  As long as I am with him, no one can say anything bad about me.  As long as I am in with him I can be FULL of joy and not offended.  What a thought, if I am not living in a place of joy and I am easily offended, I truly do not know of His love for me..."Taste and see that the Lord is good!" If I see Him as good it will color everything I see...it will change how I see others.  It will change how I see sin.  It will change everything! 

Again, as long as I am with Him, my heart is safe!  "Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!"