One Space

Help me exist in this moment, where I'm in love with mankind

Let compassion burn through me, leave me refined

Let this understanding stain my life

That there are no dreams broken in your time

Let my substance be your touch

Let my countenance be your reach

Drench me in colors that can't fade

At any moment come and invade

This soul that exists as a black hole

That seeks out life to be made whole

Let my rotation be not in vain

Let my gravitation pull in your rain 

For I exist for your pleasure alone

I don't want to make life my own

Only for your purpose, only in your embrace

Help me stand complete in this one space

Abide In Me...

At times I forget what it means to simply abide in Christ. Somehow simply abiding has been cast down to 'passive' living. I get so caught up in needing some kind of greater intimacy, revelation, or knowledge, that I become blinded to the love that grows when I am just resting in him. His love being enough without my longings to tell me otherwise is not a disenchantment of the yearning passion I should have. Instead it is the development of what alone brings peace and real passion into existence. Abiding in him is not only purely passionate but sustains me unto righteousness. How else can he sustain his righteous ones as he has promised to do, unless I give up striving for that righteousness and intimacy with him and exist in the reflection of the cross. That reflection is the abiding. It is the ability to realize that he is not looking at me for righteousness, he is looking at me for faith. When his son becomes my covering for righteousness I understand the beauty of not only grace, but the beauty of simply abiding.

Let them come...

Let the little ones come  -  Emma Mikityuk (Team Member)

Jesus said, "Let the little ones come unto me", and it is to no suprise why He would say that when you experience the reality of being surrounded by pure innocence and joy. Jesus' words about the kingdom of heaven belonging to such little ones take on real meaning when you watch the little ones here worship their loving Father.

 

The truth of what they know, what they experience, and of what God seeks from each one of us is evident here. Jesus said He is looking for those who worship in spirit and in truth and if He was to look upon the earth in the moment these children worship, all of His attention would be on them.

  

The pure love they express with their voices and their bodies as they lift up their hands or touch their hearts, moves you to tears. And as the Spirit of God moves among them you hear Him whisper "this is how you are to worship".

But the worship doesn't end when the singing is over. The little ones here worship God with the way they line up for their food and wait patiently, the way they eat silently and thankfully, and the way they make sure not to leave leftovers. They know the meaning of being thankful for each meal. Many times we come and think we can teach these little minds something about God, when God has other plans and allows the little ones to teach our hearts how to better love Him.

As our hearts are forever changed from such an experience, the knowledge of God grows as well, and we are the ones leaving with minds renewed. The real teachers are left here in the care of their loving Father, worshiping in spirit and in truth, living out the meaning of living life to the fullest.

If everyone was given a chance to look at the worship of these children, they would understand the abundance of Him, of life. 

Full link: http://www.heart4children.org/en/what-others-did/groups/2010-CA-USA-Roseville.htm

Fashioned by Love...

God wants to dress us in garments of righteousness. He longs for us to trade in our rags, our altered appearances with their “burden of striving” price tags. How tiring and mundane life becomes when we don’t take time to look into our own closets, and instead search after garments the world puts such a high price on. We only come to find that our searching, effort, and time has left us with an unsatisfied state of mind, weary from trying on everybody else’s thoughts. Why all the striving to be different or new when the priceless garments waiting to be discovered in our very own closets are unique? They are of the highest value, fashioned by love. The beauty of their vivid colors expresses our worth, our worth to their Maker. How joyous the look on His face when we delight in what He has to offer. He didn’t have to make them so wonderful, so perfect, but He did just to show us how perfectly He knows us; how He knows exactly what our hearts desire. Every detail says, “ I know YOU best,” and He cant wait to see how we look in them. As we stand before Him clothed in these precious garments we cant help but exclaim, “This fits perfectly, this makes me feel as if my value outweighs the universe, this makes me feel like a true child of the Most High King!” He cant wait to dress us in garments that can so well make us feel exactly how he intended us to feel. But will we take the time to let him take our measurements, allow him to know us more intimately as he strips off our worldly rags? That we may open our closet to find garments fashioned precisely to express who we were made to be, to express who it is we belong to.

ReWired

He cuts deep to rewire 

The only way to restore

The pain is to bring your brighter days ahead

Brighter in love, joy, and peace

Brighter in knowing forgivness

Brighter in knowing sacrifice

To understand why it is you have been called

To understand who it is that calls you by name

No purpose lost but the one to waist this life

No vision unforseen but the one to be blinded by your own

Given over to a life not yours

Makes this world make sense

The travels are many when the vessels empty

The destination changing but never far

To be beside the Captain

No greater satisfaction can you find in this life

 Once I was in the water with the hungry men

Restoration has brought me back to the place

 Where eternity needed me most

Beside my Captain, heading home

No matter what I will remain...

I’ve found that spiritual principles most often transform into simple reality. Understanding those simple realities and living in them become the hardest part of our lives. Drink my blood? Eat my flesh? That sounds so odd and strange and hard to grasp. I recently had a dream where I was a little girl and the devil was a hand reaching out of the ceiling of my child hood home. When it went to grab me it hissed while the fingers moved. But no matter how hard it tried, I didn’t get caught in its grasp. There were others who the hand did touch and I wondered why I wasn’t being grabbed. All of a sudden I realized that one day I had drank the blood. I was so happy drinking Jesus had worked, it was the only reason I wasn’t being grabbed. Even now (in my dream) when I had forgotten about Him, the act that one time alone was good for today. This gave me faith even when I woke. Faith that it really is an eternal act...believing in the blood that redeemed me. Salvation becomes a simple reality that can’t be understood by seeing with our natural eyes. It needs to be embraced as a proclamation of the heart that says, “no matter what happens to me, because of his blood I will remain”. Knowing the intimacy of salvation makes me want to pass it out like bread to the starving. There really is nothing more precious we can give any person, no matter the state of physical hunger they’re in, than the Bread of Life. It’s no ones job to convince people that Jesus is real, that God exists, or that there even exists salvation. Instead we are to live out salvation as we embrace Him as our bread of life, and continue to do good to all those God puts in our path. 

Light of My Life

She closed the door on her heart, used bars and locks

Through what window will a breeze remind her she's mine

No invitations, no recommendations 

A stillness left to question the direction she can't find

It's safer now, though much lonlier still

It's like home, but the one she thought she'd left

I saw the stale curtains that once danced to the wind

That felt like summer nights with the grass beneath her skin

The clock stood still for me as eternity seemed her waiting

I decided it was time for her to see the glow of eyes that once replaced her moon

With all windows locked, I became bold and without doubt

Knocked on the door and waited for the sound 

It was opened wide for once and for all 

For with excitement she knew it was I

Who could never break windows, but always broke time 

To come to the rescue of the one 

Who made my night sky disappear 

 As her eyes met mine, still I would say 

"The light of my life you will remain"

It's all I want to be

I struggle because I'm human

I cry because I know I am

I'm changing to fit into the scheme of things

Just not the scheme anyone wrote

There's music in my heart I sing along to

No one can sing these songs with me

I want to share my soul with those I love 

I want to scatter my notes across the world

Somedays I'm not sure of anything but the breath I have

Other times I have no doubt I know what life is really about

I'm getting lost in time 

And finding it's better that way

I'd rather not question my mistakes

My today's they make so much brighter

These days my clouds are the color they should be

Perfectly pink and smiling

These days I'm finding I'm hungry for thought

But not about life or where I'm heading

These days I'm looking for nothing

But constantly finding Im human

And that's all I want to be

Sometimes Direction Isn't Needed

In my element following the lines of this road 

Looking down distracted, somehow I don't step off the curbs

They are easy to follow even in the dark

It hasn't always been this way

Many times I've wanted to cross the road 

But I close my eyes and keep walking

Trusting that the lines will never break 

I don't need you to show me what's next

I'd rather walk slow and feel your hand 

Moving down my back and reaching for my hands

Standing still can't stop me now

It only helps me feel a full embrace

Never will I run when I can choose to be still

Made to feel that direction isn't needed 

When you're all I'm perceiving

Faith or yearning.....which one is leading you?

What gives you a sense of security in life? What makes you feel like you are living life to the fullest? Are you so concerned with your future that that's all you see? How can we live in the present but be secure in our future? Jesus would tell us that we need to live by faith, which is "the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen". But how often do we live by yearning and confuse that with faith?

Its perfectly normal to have hopes and dreams and think about our futures, but if we are not careful our hopes can turn into yearning. Yearning causes us to stray from reality and produces the opposite of faith. When we strive for future success, and become focused on the future instead of the now, we only attain a false sense of security. 

In order to become aware of the present and its importance, we need to become eternally conscious. From birth an eternal conscience is placed in us, but somewhere along the road of life our “ego” or sinful nature gets fed so much that it takes over our conscious thinking and we become selfish or ego centric thinkers. Since we are born as sinners with a sinful nature, we are naturally going to feed our ego’s quicker than recognize we are selfish beings. When we keep feeding the sinful nature we drown out hearing or being sensitive to hearing the Holy Spirit. 

Learning to recognize or being aware of the Holy Spirit and our own selfish thoughts is becoming eternally conscious. It is recognizing that GOD speaks to us TODAY. Apostle Paul described a battle that is waging, that I believe is this battle to keep us in that state of thinking. I think with these words, ”I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin,” he’s giving a perfect description of how we are conscious of eternity but because we are flesh we must always battle to stay in that state. We are battling to live according to what the Fathers will is, which is being revealed to us through the Holy Spirit. 

If being eternally conscious means we are carrying out our life purpose by putting all our efforts into the now, and that the present is more important than the future, then children are the ones living in the higher form of reality. Jesus uses children to show that they are the ones who will easily enter the Kingdom for the reason that they have true faith, and are perfect examples of living in the moment.

Unless we train a child otherwise, they naturally tend to do things for moments gratification. They enjoy their present moments because to them the future doesn’t exist in the way it does for adults. The future is the biggest thing an adult sees because of worry and lack of trust that comes from the lack of knowing their Maker. It is not until we begin to live with an eternal conscience that we will recognize our Maker wants to be in relationship with us NOW...that eternity begins NOW.

To maintain a relationship with our Maker we must be willing to listen to the Holy Spirit and recognize Him in our lives, the way He’s moving, the way He feels, His characteristics. He is so different to each individual. Some recognize Him quicker through music, some through natures beauty, some through little life situations. He is a supriser, speaking in all the ways mentioned, but also a gentle sweet imposer, who loves to crash pity parties and remind us that we are loved, that nothing can be as bad as it feels, that every moment of life should be filled with excitement because He the CREATOR is right HERE with us. 

If we aren’t being awakened by the Father's voice through the Spirit, then we are falling asleep, and staying in a “ego centric” dream like state, detached from the real reality. The real reality is that life on earth is short and a spec in eternity. Living with an eternal conscience means you are aware that life here is short, this is not our home. The question becomes not what are we taking with us, but who are we taking with us. People become the most important assets to us, just as they are God's most important asset. Jesus truly becomes who He says He is, (THE way, THE truth, THE life) the ONLY way to living in the highest form of reality.

(February 2009)