Deep

Deep

I found myself in a situation that caught me completely off guard.  I had a couple meetings even the word meeting feels so loaded.   I went in my first meeting preparing to talk about my daughter who is 2 and her special needs. I came out of that really feeling shredded on a heart level. With barely a moment of time to regain my thoughts, I heading into my next meeting that missed the mark tremendously. All I can say is the reoccurring message between the two meetings was I am to deep for anyone to make sense of, in fact that if I were to present my deepness to the masses I would turn them away. The assaults carried on to I have way to many expectations. Nearly four hours from when the meetings first started I walked out just emptied, yet held my ground on what I felt needed holding but, only holding it by my nails. I found my self in a battle not over wether this was the place for us to be in, because despite what everyone sees from the outside  or how much we are squirming under this heaviness, we were called here and have not been called to leave. So it is our hearts that we must hold on the alter for the sake of freedom. It is in the moments of deep blows that it is so hard to press in, but the most critical time to advance. Yet in the midst of battle for the blind it is the heart that you must must treasure Prov.4:23 "Above all else guard your heart" I have a feeling that most everyone keeps an eye on there heart verses guarding it. In all truth it is the church that misses this target the most. We get caught up in the programs of perfection, that church has become a performance based belief from the top to the newest person that walks off the street. For the sake of time and energy a curriculum or some lesson previously taught is bought tweaked to through in some personality and delivered as a lesson instead of a heart experience.  The heart of everyone including the leaders are completely missed. We keep an eye on our hearts like we babysit a infant. As long as the baby is not crying to much and seems not disruptive we are golden. But the scary truth is this, our hearts are dyeing in the silence of unspoken misconceptions of the heart of God and what it's been for us sense before we were ever born. We are so used to hearing that our hearts are wicked, selfish, and  deceitful that there is precious little anyone can do or even say to make us believe that we have anything of value and worth. I think that this is a fare estimation that 99% of christians believe this is true about there heart. This is genocide of the heart in mass numbers taking place in front of the crosses that hang in our church and on the seats and pews that are polished. It is handed out in the program, and it is plastered on the World Wide Web. 

Wether you believe this or not once you became a christian God begins the restoration process on your heart. He takes the heart of stone and soften it. It is said time and time again to throw off the old and put on the new. Living with our new heart is a choice it is not nor has it ever been forced. Before the fall of man kind God made both male and female in his image. Not in the image of his enemy. It was through the fall that we became deceived. Through the belief that our hearts are not good and that God is holding out on us, Satan gets us to stop using our heart and we lock it up and throw away the key. The heart is lost, it is through the heart that you can be in relationship with God. A heart that is locked up cannot receive nor pour out love and there fore it leaves people feeling cold and detached discouraged and without direction. Church becomes a set of obligations and expectations about what is needed to make things run smoothly, a bunch of different steps to becoming a member so that we can plug you into our refined oiled program. Its more like a 12 program to serving rather than healing and setting free, binding the broken hearted most of all living from your heart and walking with God. 

The more we are living from our deep heart it is pure water we are filled with. For the more you are living from the heart you are being fed straight from the source. Jesus is in our hearts and that makes them good. I think of a cannel where water flows. It is used to transport water but when it is not receiving water it is dry. We were not called as believers to be canals we were called to be reservoir. 

Bernard  of Clairvaux said 

If then you are wise, you will show yourself rather as a reservoir than as a canal. A canal spreads water abroad as it receives it, but 

a reservoir waits until it is filled before overflowing, and thus

without loss of itself (it shares)its superabundant water.

When I read that I was thinking man, there are less than fewer that I have known that can pour out. Matt 13:52 Every teacher of the law who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his store room new treasures as well as old. John Eldredge in Waking The Dead said Storeroom? What storeroom? The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart...for out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks" Luke 6:25 emphasis added]

I have herd it said and I love this you take a man from the street who's been digging in trash for his meal cook him a mighty meat microwave meal and he feels as though he is eating like a king. Take a man who has been eating the food from a gourmet chef for years and feed him microwave mighty meat and you are not going to see that as food. 

The man from the street will only be satisfied for so long. He will start to become ill, gain weight maybe even become sluggish, because of all the preservatives and chemicals that are in the food that is not pure. Then he will die a slow unsatisfied death or he will leave feeling like if this was all that I am fighting forget it. It is sad but true. I see more unsatisfied believers scoffing about instant food when what they are wanting is gourmet, and more leaders burnt out from leading from a canal that they except any water to feed the hungry. 

A leader that is leading from the heart is pouring out fresh water because they are receiving it right from the heart of God. What is poured out changes lives and they experience life to the full that God promised.

If you are not living the life that God promised then go to the deepest part of your heart and open it up for God to rebuild, and check your water supply. Leaders this is the most single act of love you can do for those that you lead.