Getting to know God more deeply definitely requires moments where we hold off "judging" both ourselves and God.
Of course, everything in us wants to surmise the situation and come up with the "reason God is not talking to us anymore". Don't give in. Hold out for something much better. Yes. it will take some effort, a bit different mindset, but once you capture a few keys your walk with God can always find the wind of his voice.
We have to learn to float to learn to swim.
I remember when my boys were learning to swim. Some kind of crazy freaked out aliens invaded their minds and bodies. They could not imagine themselves at peace in any body of water unless the feet could touch and the arms was close enough to the side to grab with no effort. Parents have to push through this stage because of the sheer important of teaching their kids to swim. Life has too many hazards for those who don't know their way around a large body of water.
So my wife found this breakthrough swimming school in Salem Oregon. They seemed to get the fact that kids were freaked out. That they needed basic confidence just to move away from the side of the pool. Right away I could see they were looking to create the right atmosphere for the kids to find the most basic success in swimming.
Learn to Float.
They knew kids needed to loose their fear or they would never swim. So they taught the kids to float. Their feet could touch the bottom. Their little arms were not that far from the side and the instructor was right there. They gave em the fundamentals of survival in water. LEARN to FLOAT. Motionless in the water let your bodies natural floating ability carry you. Settle in. Trust it. You'll see that floating takes no effort. We let go....and float.
When they had the skill down the instructors celebrated the kids to the whole pool. "Moving on. Isaac Reynolds is now a ....." Sorry, I don't remember what the title was. Everyone clapped and celebrated and something changed dramatically in my kids. They were not afraid of large bodies of water. They were not afraid of loosing themselves. They learned that they could float. Rest. Hang out. And it was easy.
Floating is actually fun once we get the hang of it.
I remember floating in the pool in the warm summer sun. The water covering my ears and my arms all stretched out with legs dangling down into the depths. Things slowed way down. Just to hearing myself breath and looking up into the vast blue puffy cloud sky. Floating. Hanging there in the water. Nothing like it.
Christians need to learn to float in the vast pool of God presence.
If we want to learn to swim in a life of hearing God, the first step is to learn to float in his presence. We can learn to float in a vast body of water without fear. Peaceful. Eyes wide open to the vast sky of his presence.
When we no longer hear the Lord in the ways we were used to or have experienced so easily, down we jump into our survival mode. Possibly protecting ourselves from the fear that God may not love us anymore. That we have done something wrong. Even that God was not real and all we experienced was a hoax or some kind of self delusion. Down we jump searching and stretching for the bottom of the pool for our feet to find some Terra fir-ma.
To Float in God's presence is to find God as our Terra fir-ma.
The best abiding comes when we reach out with toes and hands and find the presence of God as our resting place. But we are talking about Floating. Sorry.
We have to learn to abide through thick and thin, to float. Settle down into the presence, just like the water, and trust that we are going to float. When the water covers our ears and we start to hear ourselves breath, its time to realize that we are able to float. Floating is natural.
We were made to float in his presence. An effortless float. Held up by all his promises and the reality of the victorious love of Christ Jesus. We can float when everything screams to reach for the side of the pool or try and get your feet to touch. We can Float, when our thoughts incessantly demand some resolving idea that will put all our fears to rest. Calm our minds. Quiet the alien. The flesh is the alien in the pools of his presence by the way.
Day in and day out finding connection with the Trinity God is our heritage and inheritance.
"For your Maker is your husband— the LORD Almighty is his name— the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth."
Isaiah 54:5
God says we are his temple (I Cor 6:19). He dwells in the temple all the time. "Christ in you, the hope of glory". (Col 1:27) Because of the perfect work of Jesus on the Cross, through the new life resurrection and by seating himself in heaven after he ascended, we share in the victory of Jesus and in his relationship with the Father and the Spirit. No one can snatch us out of his hand. (John 10:27-28)
So. What makes you float in His presence?
A. No one is greater than our Father
"...and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. 29"My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.… (John 10:28f)
B. We have passed from death to life
"We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death." (I John 3:14)
C. God so loved the world
Jhn 3:16
For God so loved the world
that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall
not perish but have eternal life.
By faith in Christ Jesus, the way, the truth and the life, we find our ability to float in the presence of God with no effort. Love, grace and mercy are the waters of the deep holding up each of us in the heart of the Father. Jesus paid with his life for our redemption. And no one can snatch us out of his hands.
Finally, we all have heard this but hear it as a new word of encouragement to float.
Who shall separate us from the love of
Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness
or danger or sword?
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This is the water we float in. Let God the Father of Heaven show you how to float in his loving presence. You will never be the same.
In his love,
Brother Jeff
Jeff Reynolds. Sr. Leader
Capstone Christian Fellowship
jeff@jeffreynoldsministries.com
jreynolds@mycapstone.org
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