Waves Crashing

 

Conviction..... like the waves crashing...sweeps over my soul.  

Luk 10:41-42  And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things:  (42)  But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.

 

Have you ever been slammed with the deep conviction that only the Holy Spirit can bring?  The kind of conviction that hits you in the gut and almost doubles you over from knowing how wrong you are in the presence of a Holy God?  I encountered one of those today.  Conviction for being a hypocrite.  Conviction for being a Martha in a Mary moment.  Conviction for honoring God with my lips but where does my heart and my actions lie?  Conviction for not seeking for the one I claim to want with all of my heart.

My lips say that I want to see God move, my lips say, pour out your Spirit Father, let us reach you and touch you and worship you. My lips say from the first word to the last amen, let it be all about you.  Yet my actions…. I had a moment, so let me catch up the work in the office,  I had a moment so let me…. I have a moment so let me check my messages,  I have a moment so let me fix this.  I have a moment…  

What if, the Spirit spoke to my heart, when you have a moment and you spend it on the One you are seeking?  The One you say you want with all of your heart?  What if when you have a moment  you begin to prepare your heart?  What if when you have a moment  you set aside all the responsibility of the moment and just worship at my feet and learn of me?  What if you have a moment and instead of squandering it on stuff that will always be in front of you, you give it to me?  What if???  Would our service begin differently?  Would our hearts already be at a place of receiving from the Father?  Would our Worship already be on our lips?  What if?

What if we would choose to be a Mary in a Martha world. 

(and let’s not even talk about the challenge of the sermon & the conviction of checking where our eyes  are focused the discouragement or the promise? )

SHARDS

Have you ever wondered when your heart is crushed in a jillion pieces, how it can shatter even more?  I find myself wondering often at times, just how many more ways can a heart shatter.   Yet.  A careless word, a wrong thought,  a meaningless action, pound and shred what is already broken.  A phone call, demands on you that you don’t have it in you to fulfill, circumstances,…a loss, rejection,  another blow to an already shattered heart smash, smash, smash, the pounding continues….

Shard: a fragment.  Sliver: a small, slender, often sharp piece, as of wood or glass, split, broken, or cut off

Tiny slivers, that when you try to pull them back together cut and hurt.  Tiny slivers that when you speak around them, the air causes them to fly through the air and stick in someone else and hurt them or perhaps they try to walk through the pile to help you and get cut in the process. Tiny slivers that splinter and wound. Tiny slivers that are impossible to sweep back together.  Tiny slivers that will wound those trying to help you. Tiny slivers. Tiny slivers that you grab a hold of tightly and pull them to you rather than risk opening your hand and trusting. 

I find that one of the HARDEST things to do when sitting among the shards and slivers, trying to put the pieces back together,  is to just sit still and trust God. To trust that God is not going to crush you but that HE  is fixing what is broken.  I find that opening my hand and exposing the pieces takes more courage than I often have within myself.  Trust oh so difficult.  BUT if I wait, and let God be God and trust the master craftsman, He will gather the pieces, will fire the oven and will create a far more beautiful work than I could ever accomplish just by gluing the broken pieces together.  There is GREAT HOPE in brokenness if you think about it for it allows you to be open to God's workmanship.  How amazing when God sweeps in and does what only He can do....for  "I" am no longer in the way......

JESUS said: Luk 4:18-19  The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,  (19)  To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

Psa 34:17-19  The righteous cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.  (18)  The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.  (19)  Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all.

Psa 51:16-17  For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.  (17)  The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.