Go Deep

Well it’s been a while since I’ve done a shout out Gems so I thought I would check in. It has been an emotional few months to say the least.  My last assignment ended March 17^th. I originally thought it would be the end of April but the Lord had other plans. 

My youngest daughter was married on May 21^st.  I’m thankful the Lord gave me the month of May off as there were so many things to do preparing for the wedding, not to mention the emotional cycle of your baby getting married that transpired.

As a reminder, without a job means without a regular paycheck. I was short about $300. to pay for all my bills but had comfort knowing God chose the time I would leave my job and has promised to always take care of me. It’s these times that the verse “why do you worry about what you will eat or what you will wear or where you will live” come alive!

I had no idea how God would provide and honestly Gems that is part of the, dare I say fun, waiting to see how the Lord will move forward.  For this month He blessed me from my mother. I got a check in the mail for $701 from a life insurance policy I didn’t know my mother had.

It was actually sweet feeling like my mom had a part in the Lord’s financial plan for me.

So now it’s June 1^st and I haven’t had an update from the Holy Spirit on what the next plan is. So I wait……. I have been offered a part time summer job but don’t feel the Lord leading me to accept.

I don’t know why the Lord chose me to walk this path. It started in 2007 when the market crashed, my job ended and I lost both my home and investment property. I began a walk of faith as a single mother that has taken me on a ten year journey. A journey that has been exciting and terrifying. It has been packed with new people and different places and at times so lonely my heart aches.

I never know when an assignment will begin or end. I don’t know how long it will be between assignments. The first 2 ½ years I had no income at all but I traveled more than I ever had and began a personal intimate relationship with the Lord I didn’t know could exist.

Now here I am 10 years later still walking this unexplained journey.

My newly married daughter Jessica came over the other day and we were sitting on the couch together just sharing where we are in our walk with the Lord. It was a day I needed some encouragement and I was telling my daughter and myself that we may make plans but the Lord ultimately directs our steps. I told her I really needed to hear a word from God to keep me focused.

I remembered years ago the Lord giving me a Psalm for each of my children so I pulled out my old bible to find the one He gave me for Jessica. At least that’s what I thought I was doing. I had to go through the whole book of Psalms and as I turned the pages I would randomly read out loud some of the verses I had highlighted over the years.

I make the word personal as I read so what the Lord spoke to me that day went something like this.

“Gena will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord make me dwell in safety.  In the morning O Lord you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.  You surround me with your favor as with a shield.  The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble, you have never forsaken me when I seek you.  I have set the Lord always before me. Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

I will be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. The Lord is the strength of His people.  Surely God is my help, the Lord is the one who sustains me.

If I cast my cares on the Lord He will sustain me. By this I know that God is for me. Come and see what God has done, how awesome His word in my behalf.

Come and listen all you who fear God; let me tell you what He has done for me!!!

The last verse really hit me.  “Come and listen all you who fear God; let me tell you what He has done for me!”

This Gems is where the deeper moment came…..

Why? Why do I walk this journey? Why the weeks, months or years between assignments (jobs)? Why the total dependence on God? Why me?

You see I’m really not all that important. Why would the star breathing, ocean forming, eternal universe making God of holiness invest so much time in me?

I’m not being melodramatic here, I’m sure many of my friends and family have asked the same thing. Perhaps you have asked yourself that question.

In Luke 9 Jesus gives clear instructions to His disciples; these instructions would also apply to me as I too am a disciple of Jesus Christ.

“And He called the twelve together, and gave them power and authority over all the demons and to heal diseases.

 

Jesus told us we would have the power to cast out demons and raise people from the dead.

John 14:12 Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.

I know for sure I have never physically raised anyone from the dead. I have prayed in faith for many to be healed but have not personally healed anyone never less everywhere.

I have a small blog and have written a few books but I’m not a New York Times Best Selling Author. I’m pretty sure not everyone in my OWN family has read my books. The truth is I have given away more books than I have actually sold.

I have a pretty sketchy past that thank you Jesus I’m forgiven for and a present I’m totally blessed with. I have children and grand children that fill my heart with love and friends that have become my family that I can laugh and cry with BUT I am pretty much an ordinary woman. There is nothing truly supernatural about me or my life.

At times I get caught up with the works mentality. I find myself thinking I better get busy doing something for the Lord!  If I’m not going to raise dead people or start a miraculous  healing ministry how can I expect Him to take care of me financially between gigs right?

Do you ever experience that? Do you think God NEEDS you to perform His works or have you come to the realization that He can do all things without you? Obviously God can use all of us but we are not on a spiritual time clock. Performance is a world standard not a Heaven one.

So the deep question I am pondering here, right now, is why Lord?

I go back to His word, as revelation can only come from the Revealer.

The Bible says God formed me,that He knit me together in my mother’s womb.

Psalm 139:16

¹⁶ Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;
And in Your book were all written
The days that were ordained for me,
When as yet there was not one of them.

So God knew “my book” if you will was not going to be all that exciting yet He chooses to pull me away from the world for lengths of time to be alone with Him. Why Lord?

As cliché as it may be the answer is LOVE. My Father loves ME!

Honestly at times I can’t wrap my mind around that.

Ephesians 3: 16 I pray that out of the riches of His glory, He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to comprehend the length and width and height and depth of His love, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.…

That dear Gems is deep. Those are Christ words to me and to you.

Who am I to tell God how to love me. He knows me better than anyone, He created me and He knows my love language.  It’s quality time, I grew up in a life of rejection and have scars to prove it. I have made bad and good decisions because of rejection. The enemy has tried to take me out using rejection BUT GOD has taken me on a long deep journey so today June 2^nd 2017 I could finally grasp how much He loves me.

I am overwhelmed with emotion even as I type this. I finally get it. It has never been about me or my writing or my volunteering or my parenting. It’s never been about anything I can do it’s all about what I can accept. God’s unconditional love!

For God so loved Gena that He gave His only begotten son that who so ever believes in Him shall not perish but have ever lasting life!

God wants me to seek Him the way I would seek a career or money to pay rent. He wants me to know that I know He is trustworthy. That I can be a living example of being provided for in every way by my creator. That my story can be a testimony of His love and encourage others to write their own story. It can be as deep as you allow Him to go with you.

What makes us extraordinary is being loved by a phenomenal, remarkable, unexplainable, wonderful, mighty, everlasting Father.

I pray you will go deeper with the Lord and experience your love language with Him how ever that looks, where ever it may take you, go deep……..