Your Personal Journal
The Rest Stop
by Thom Gardner
It seems unusual that God would use a rest stop along the PA Turnpike to provide prophetic direction for the Church, but nonetheless, He did. At least I would like you to consider what the Spirit showed me just the other day
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Carol and I were headed west on the Pike to visit our daughter, Amy. Along the way we passed a rest stop called Sidling Hill. We have been there many times through the years, but the Spirit drew my attention to something more than snacks and potty time on this trip. (As we get older we need less snacking and potty time. TMI as my kids would say? )
As we approached the rest stop, I recalled that it had been recently remodeled. The Lord was using this remodeling as a prophetic message. The older version of the rest stop was rather small and limited, a rather 50’s kind of thing. IT had a few facelifts along the way, but remained essentially the same. There was a Starbucks (vital connection along the Turnpike for sure) and perhaps a smallish restaurant and a snack/gift shop. Originally the restaurant was the kind of place where you came in, sat down, and someone, usually a waitress dressed in a uniform came to your table, or maybe you got into a line at a single restaurant option and ordered something which was brought to your table. The point is that back then someone was facilitating your food and rest, and the choices were limited.
A couple years ago they demolished that older style rest stop and now it has been replaced with one that is more reflective of the postmodern way of thinking and living. The new version is several times larger and has up to 7-8 choices of restaurants on the outer perimeter. There is a large open space in the middle with what seems like hundreds of tables. (I did not count them) The message is clear; we want options, not direction. Whether we like it or not, 21st Century America, and I dare say the rest of the world, do not respond to someone telling them what to eat and how to rest or relate to other people--- let alone God. We value getting what we need and sitting where we want to sit.
The common facet of both the old and the new venues is the table and the hunger and the need for rest. Now, instead of the formality of the waitress and the little booths along the side which reinforces limited choices and separation, the folks choose what they want to eat and sit where and with whom they would like. Since the remodeling, I have gotten into a few impromptu and unlikely conversations in this new rest stop with folks I have never met and will likely never see again. No, I did not present them with a track or speak in tongues over them or lay hands on them; I just connected and gave them the Jesus who is at home in me. (I would have prayed if the Lord led me or they asked me to.) All because we gathered at a table positioned by the particular kind of food we wanted…what we were hungry for. What the world and the weary sojourners are hungry for is God not someone dressed in the Christian/churchianity uniform presenting them with the religious blue-plate special and a guest check!
People no longer value being spoon-fed. They want to explore on their own with relationships forming along the line of common need, not directed by common opinions or top down leadership. We are no longer Ozzie and Harriet sitting with the kids on Sunday morning forming an audience for a facilitator to tell us what God is saying. Post-moderns, or whatever we are being called now, no longer need a priest between them and God. There is a healthy, spirit-led anarchy of people emerging who are seeking true and transforming intimacy with the One whose breath is in their faces. There is still the table and still the need for rest. The Spirit longs to be the Facilitator who reveals Jesus, who reveals the Father who reveals us as His precious kids at His own table. When top-down leadership tries to facilitate the postmodern, the PM replies, “Who says so?” “Who are you?” If there is no evidence of reality and the breath of God in these leaders, they are not leading anywhere. They are irrelevant leftovers from the menu back in the 50’s and 60’s.
The rest stop and its remodeling are all a prophetic emblem to the body of Christ. We will inevitably have to provide a venue for intimacy and expression. PMs see the facilitator/pastor person like the waitress who used to serve at the old rest stop. They are an interesting caricature from the past. They are more like Guy Smiley from Sesame Street with “Rev-hair” and charisma—an “awe-shucks” attitude of disconnected and religious unreality. The older of us may feel this is rebellion and long for the days when folks would come on Sunday and submit to “God’s anointed.” The truth is we are all called and anointed. We must dust off our salvation experience, revisit our first love, and pay attention to the guy or gal sitting at the next table in the rest stop. They have a need and are hungry for God. Will we pay attention? Are we willing to trust the Spirit to lead us to the others seeking rest?
The table in the rest stop is the venue of the kingdom of Heaven. (See my book Living the God-Breathed Life) Jesus’ first sermon, “The kingdom of Heaven is right here!” is still good today. The kingdom may be established in the person sitting next to you at this moment. Look around and allow the Facilitator to draw us to the others who need rest so desperately in this restless place. I can hear Jesus saying, “Come to Me, all of you who are worn out and tired of the same old stuff. I will give you true rest. I am the rest stop!”
Revelation of Memory Frame Revisits
by Deb Steele
I feel God is encouraging me to revisit my previous healing sessions with an intensity to delve deeper into each memory frame. In obedience to Him I want to record in vivid detail and with as much exactness as I am able: memory pictures, sensations, emotions, thoughts, etc. surrounding each event. I know there are underlying layers of wounds God will reveal and heal. Before I revisit my sessions I want to record a personal moment I experienced with God. I prayed my standard following prayer and was soaking in His presence in preparation for my first revisit.
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Suffer the Little Children
by Thom Gardner
A little boy, perhaps in second or third grade, stands in the middle of his class that is practicing for an upcoming Christmas program. All of the students are wound up from coming off the playground and excited thinking about the upcoming program when all of their parents and families will be there to hear them sing. With everyone gathered and giggling on the choral risers, the music teacher now calls everyone to attention and the rehearsal begins. The piano sounds the introduction to the first song and the little boy opens his mouth to sing along with his classmates. He doesn’t have much of a voice, but he belts out his monotone offering with the same vigor that he used on the playground only a short time earlier. Now, as he opens his mouth to sing the look on his teacher’s face turns from a smile to a grimace. Looking embarrassed, she stops the rehearsal and fixes her gaze on the little boy telling him in front of the whole class to please stop singing. He was the only one she stopped.
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The Voice of God
by Thom Gardner
One of the tools we have found indispensable in growing our relationship with the Lord is the spiritual discipline of journaling. Journaling is an important way of capturing God's personal word to us whether through reading the scriptures or by what God is speaking to us in our devotional life with Him. To journal is to write down what the Lord speaks to us in order to evaluate and apply it. Habakkuk tells us to write down what we see in order to be able to respond to it.
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Running in the Dark
by Thom Gardner
One of the great tools available to us these days is the handheld computer better known as the PDA (Personal Digital Assistant). We use them for keeping our busy schedules, for contacts and a number of other things. Though I am not much of a computer kind of guy and generally bluff my way through techno waters with a few “computereze” terms I have picked up, I have come to really value my PDA. I have lots of Bible stuff in it and even use it for writing. It has become an important tool for me which I use on a daily basis.
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The God of Tight Places
by Thom Gardner
It is every parent's worst nightmare. I got the call as I was beginning a ministry session at about 10:00 in the morning. (I am a pastor) I was told that our youngest daughter had been in an accident but that she was OK. She had some kind of injury and was being taken to the local hospital emergency room. I left the appointment with apologies and drove the short distance to the hospital where I was joined by my wife Carol in a few minutes. She was the one first called after the accident by someone at the scene. In fact our daughter herself talked to her over the cell phone though she was very confused about what happened. Carol and I, like most parents, had to wait. It seems as though parents spend a large percentage of time waiting.
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Mercy's Seat
by Thom Gardner
From the moment we drew His first breath, God could not take his eyes off of us. We looked just like Him. God was filled with love for man—for us—for you. We were the capstone of His creation, created for connection with our Creator.
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Battered Reeds and Smoldering Wicks
by Thom Gardner
A man and woman sit exhausted on opposite sides of the lawyer's table. A look of empty resignation overshadows their faces as they divide up the ruins of irreconcilable differences. There seems to be no other alternative—no other apparatus to maintain the integrity of their covenant. Both sink into leather covered chairs loaded down with guilt and the weight of failed expectations. There seems to be nowhere else to go. The differences will never be reconciled—never perfected. They are like the man who lay helplessly by the pool of mercy waiting for someone to take them to the water. There was no help for them—no place of comfort. They are bruised and bent nearly flat under the burden of justice or injustice as the case may be. The light has been snuffed out.
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THE LONGING
by Thom Gardner
Before the beginning—before there was anything, there was Love: a desperate longing in search of a home. This longing Love was more than a feeling or a noble thought; it was the inspiration which breathed a universe into being from snails to supernovas. God is a connecting, covenant God who lives in community within Himself. His nature is the very definition of intimacy filled with joy, dancing, celebration and boundless creativity.
The scripture says, “God is Love.” (1 John 4:8, 16) God, within Himself, is both source and object of selfless giving and sharing. John, the beloved disciple of Jesus, declares that God is not only Love but also that “God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5) If we translate this verse back into Hebrew we would have an expanded perspective of the community of God. It would read “Elohiym, (plural indicating three) is light and among those three there is no kind of darkness at all.” There is no darkness or misunderstanding. There is total transparency, complete communion with total unity of purpose and being. God, within Himself, is totally present to Himself.
Brennan Manning, who refers to God as the “originating lover” discusses the longing love of God.
“The foundation of the furious longing of God is the Father who is the originating Lover, the Son who is the full self-expression of that Love, and the Spirit who is the original and inexhaustible activity of that Love, drawing the created universe into itself. (The Furious Longing of God, Brennan Manning, David C. Cook 2009)
This furious longing of God is portrayed many different ways in the scriptures. It is the longing of the aged father for the lost son in Luke 15. It is the longing for the bride by the heroic king in the Song of Songs. It is the constant declaration of Yahweh to lead His people Israel into the land of promise so that He would be their God; they would be His people and live among them. It is the plaintive lament of Jesus outside the walls of Jerusalem; “How often I wanted to gather you to Myself but you would not come.” (Author’s interpretive observation of Luke 13:34)
Father, Son and Spirit reach outside themselves to draw us into intimate presence. We become the objects of this longing; sharing love—part of the celebration. God draws us to into the circle of His intimate love and loves us with the same intensity with which He loves Himself. And my heart finds a deep and personal rest when I realize that the Father loves me with the same intensity with which He loves the Son.
“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. John 17:22-23
We long for Him because, and only because He first longed for us. “We love, because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) Jesus’ first words to us, “What are you looking for?” tell us there is a constant and ongoing longing to reconnect with the heart and love of God which was lost in Eden. It does not originate in us but is echoes back from the Father’s longing heart through us.
What He wants—what He longs for are broken and humble hearts. The humble heart is not one filled with rules and mere religious proscriptions; it is the heart that knows it is welcomed to the King’s table.
Beloved, God is a Gatherer— Before the beginning—before there was anything, there was Love: a desperate longing in search of a home. This longing Love was more than a feeling or a noble thought; it was the inspiration which breathed a universe into being from snails to supernovas. God is a connecting, covenant God who lives in community within Himself. His nature is the very definition of intimacy filled with joy, dancing, celebration and boundless creativity.
The scripture says, “God is Love.” (1 John 4:8, 16) God, within Himself, is both source and object of selfless giving and sharing. John, the beloved disciple of Jesus, declares that God is not only Love but also that “God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5) If we translate this verse back into Hebrew we would have an expanded perspective of the community of God. It would read “Elohiym, (plural indicating three) is light and among those three there is no kind of darkness at all.” There is no darkness or misunderstanding. There is total transparency, complete communion with total unity of purpose and being. God, within Himself, is totally present to Himself.
Brennan Manning, who refers to God as the “originating lover” discusses the longing love of God.
“The foundation of the furious longing of God is the Father who is the originating Lover, the Son who is the full self-expression of that Love, and the Spirit who is the original and inexhaustible activity of that Love, drawing the created universe into itself. (The Furious Longing of God, Brennan Manning, David C. Cook 2009)
This furious longing of God is portrayed many different ways in the scriptures. It is the longing of the aged father for the lost son in Luke 15. It is the longing for the bride by the heroic king in the Song of Songs. It is the constant declaration of Yahweh to lead His people Israel into the land of promise so that He would be their God; they would be His people and live among them. It is the plaintive lament of Jesus outside the walls of Jerusalem; “How often I wanted to gather you to Myself but you would not come.” (Author’s interpretive observation of Luke 13:34)
Father, Son and Spirit reach outside themselves to draw us into intimate presence. We become the objects of this longing, sharing love—part of the celebration. God draws us to into the circle of His intimate love and loves us with the same intensity with which He loves Himself. And my heart finds a deep and personal rest when I realize that the Father loves me with the same intensity with which He loves the Son.
“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. John 17:22-23
We long for Him because, and only because He first longed for us. “We love, because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) Jesus’ first words to us, “What are you looking for?” tell us there is a constant and ongoing longing to reconnect with the heart and love of God which was lost in Eden. It does not originate in us but is echoes back from the Father’s longing heart through us.
What He wants—what He longs for are broken and humble hearts. The humble heart is not one filled with rules and mere religious proscriptions; it is the heart that knows it is welcomed to the King’s table.
Beloved, God is a Gatherer—One who created us with dust and the condensation of His own breath; Who longs to bring us to His table to live with him face to face.
Stepping Into Christ
by Thom Gardner
Jesus said to the people who believed in him, "You are truly my disciples if you keep obeying my teachings. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." John 8:31-32 NLT
I can remember the first few steps of my baby daughters, especially our daughter Amy. She had crawled around for a while and eventually learned to stand on her feet holding onto something. One evening we were sitting in the living room of the little apartment we had outside Hershey, PA. Amy was holding onto the coffee table (one whose sharp corners had been removed by me so that she would not fall and bump her head on them). She navigated the territory around the table then got this look of delight on her face as if to say, “watch this.” She was, as they say, “full of herself.” In a moment of sheer delight and purpose Amy stepped away from the table toward one of us, though I do not remember who at the moment. Amy stepped away from what once was her security and into the waiting arms of someone who loved her and was as excited as she was to see her motor across the warm, burnt orange carpet. (It was the 80s after all)
Life is filled with first steps, isn’t it? The first steps of our babies; our first steps into the kindergarten classroom; our first steps as husband and wife; perhaps our first steps walking across the platform at graduation from college or university. Life is a succession of first steps. We are a people in motion going somewhere. Our life in Christ is no exception. There was that first step in our following Christ. It was not the last.
There is a freedom that comes with those first steps just as there was when our little Amy, now with two little ones of her own, stepped away from what was familiar and safe and into the delight of new life and amblitude. Jesus said to the folks who came to believe him that they too must step away from old constructs and earthly life to a new life from above; a kingdom coming kind of life. (John 8:23) That step would bring them to a life of freedom—a life no longer holding onto the coffee table so to speak and into the arms of the One who loved them so extravagantly. He would be as delighted at those steps as the spiritual babe taking the steps.
Jesus said, continue, walk in what we understand then we become free. Freedom does not come from declaring truth regardless of how loud, eloquently or how often we do so. Freedom comes with the change of direction, away from the old life with its wounds and consequent limitations. As we take those steps, truth moves from the realm of the head to the realm of the heart—it becomes reality to us. We cannot hold onto what seemed secure yesterday where our souls were misinformed about the nature and intentions of God. We will find that He is good and compassionate filling our hearts with wonder. Once we step onto the path and into the journey we will never go back to holding onto whatever our particular coffee table was.
Our healing journey is a succession of first and next steps into the arms and excited embrace of the one who calls us to Himself. With each step we move into a new realm of life and discovery of the ancient heart which longs to hold and heal us. Step away—step into Christ!