Can All This Life Be Sacred?

I've been recently guilty of unsuccessfully trying to pull my husband into a pigeon hole with me. I egged him to pray for a plan: how together we could meet with God the way I had been doing; planning, scheduling, carving out intentional time to spend in the Presence. 

It sounds funny, now... trying to plan God.

But I was wrapped in an old lie that was dry rotting and damming the free flow of God's Kingdom on earth in my life.

I believed that being born into skin/sin temporarily kept me from God in certain ways. 

I felt that any pleasing thing I could offer him on earth was only garbage compared to what I could do in sprit, alone. 

I thought that it was necessary for me have a ritual of setting aside my flesh -like an offering- in order to approach God.

Of course, I knew in my head from scripture that my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, that my body is a member of Christ Himself, that I am united with the Lord therefore one with Him in Spirit... that I was bought and paid for in full (1Corinthians 6:15-20)

But mind-knowledge is trumped again by heart-filled, as God introduces the bodied life saturated in Truth.

I've been devouring the book, The Pursuit of God, by Aiden Tozer. 

In the same day a friend of mine walked me to the awakening of my subconscious separation between regular daily life and my set aside time for God, I read these words of Aiden's: 

"Let us think of a Christian believer in whose life the twin wonders of repentance and new birth have been wrought...

Of such a one it may be said that every act of his life is or can be as truly sacred as prayer, or baptism, or the Lord's Supper. 

To say this... is to bring every act up into a living kingdom and turn the whole life into a sacrament." 

In that moment I willingly considered such a thing for the first time ever. No longer just working toward making choices that would be pleasing to the Lord through my life, but considering every act of my life to be sacred. 

In place of my disciplined scheduled times of offerings bowed low?

Was I worthy?

Could faith in "my body is a temple" carry me so far as this? 

In the same breath through the same book I read on, and God continued to teach. 

This time He brilliantly drew me to compare myself with the colt that Jesus rode into Jerusalem. Establishing in my heart that I am more valuable to Him than any animal (Matt 6:26), He then shows me that this creature was appointed, accepted, and accounted useful as Jesus' means for arrival. 

Then Tozer references the end of the relevant scripture; Luke 19:31, after which Jesus has sent two of his disciples to the village to bring the colt for Him, 

He tells the disciples, "If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it.’”

I stopped dead in my tracks.

The Lord needs it???

I was undone,

and with another long time lie staring me in the face strangling, "God doesn't need you!"

But... He needs the colt?

I had to look in the Bible myself, it was so hard to believe it from where I was standing. 

And sure enough, 

"the Lord hath need of him" 

Did I read that right? I scan back up to take the whole passage in perspective. 
It is said by Jesus Himself,

"THE LORD HATH NEED OF HIM."

And my whole world turned a little on it's axis.

This Truth was all warmed and ready in a bowl with a spoon for me when Tozer went on assuring,

"We need no more be ashamed of our body -the fleshly servant that carries us through life- than Jesus was of the humble beast upon which He rode into Jerusalem...

If Christ dwells in us we may bear about the Lord of glory as the little beast did of old and give occasion to the multitudes to cry, 'Hosanna in the highest'."

Delicious relief! 

Thank You, God.

Click here for a free internet provided PDF of Tozer's: The Pursuit of God

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Just More You

You assured me You made up the walls and beams of the last home we called our own.

And all I saw were generic coverings and low end finishes and clearly not enough room for my big dreams of children and animals and belongings...

I wanted more.

You said I’d have a baby boy and we would wrap him up our own and bring him home.

And I saw “first child”, and then aimed for the American standard, heard sounds and saw silhouettes and dreamed of more to come...

I wanted four.

You moved us here. You picked us up from what we had and placed us in a place we couldn’t get, and You have seen us through. You gave this to us.

And it’s a dream. Not one I had. It's the kind I never dared to have.

And now I know. I don’t need the space. Don’t need the things. Don’t need the more. The multiple children. The gourmet kitchen.

I just need You. The man and boy You gave me. The pug the trees the fires.

And was that the point?

I can think of a hundred good reasons You might have us here. But as for our needs?

How can I serve You best right here, right now?

If You want us to move, You will move us. I know.

Just move us.

But until then, what can I do? How can I serve You? How can this not be about my hurt and empty and lonely sad? How can it not be about where he's heading, and how safe I stay, and what we deserve?

How can this be about You. And what You want of me?

I don’t want to watch it tonight. The shows. I don’t want to move. Don’t want to waste. Away.

Feel like I might be wasting me with You.

I hear You whispering something on the breeze, something beckoning, I can’t make of what.

I heard You call me to this place of burning wood. Where things are cold but have a promise sealed to heat right up.

And I don’t know if it is here or someplace else we'll see those days,

but all this more just makes me want less. Less this. Less me. More You. Just more You.