Dwelling in Your shelter, resting in
Your shadow.
Is it real? Is it possible? Or are
those just words printed on ancient pages spoken long ago by a clever
king?
“He who dwells in the shelter of the
most high will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.”
Psalm 91:1
When the hard days roll 'round, we've
got to have something we hold on to.
So i say to myself, ---- “donna,
where are you dwelling?”
It's a simple, hugely important
question. Where are you dwelling ? Mentally?
I've learned that where i'm dwelling
physically doesn't matter nearly as much as where i'm dwelling
mentally......... spiritually.........emotionally.
Took me years to get that piece settled
in my bones.
Truth is, where i'm dwelling physically
can even end up being a distraction from where I need to be dwelling
mentally.
Remove all the wonderfulness of being
in a comfortable place. Go through the personal “fire” of letting
go of all that you thought mattered so much. Lay down the house, the
stuff, the familiar wonderfulness of all you've nested up around you
-------- lay it all down and go to an uncomfortable, unfamiliar place
and if we let Him ----- He will show us Himself in ways we might
never have seen Him in that nest of comfortable.
That laying down can happen in about a
million different ways. No one way is more powerful or important than
the other. What's important is that we allow it to come to us.
Look around you and you'll find so many
souls who have refused to lay down their life.
They will not consider it ----- because
maybe it makes absolutely no sense to them. That's only because they
haven't yet let themselves feel the touch of His hand or heard His
still small voice saying, “Come away with me.”
It's ok. It's not that they are bad or
even selfish. It's mostly that they don't know how to get from where
they are to the place He can take them. It's that they don't know how
and they haven't been brought to the place where they “let go”
and “let Him” do what only He can do.
And maybe they're wildly afraid of even
considering it.
I wasted so many years pointing my
fingers at others. If you're one of those dear souls I pointed at
---- you likely never knew it ---- I was a closet pointer. Pointing
at others with a criticalness that only reflected my own ugly heart
of frustration towards myself. I knew I couldn't get from where I was
“dwelling” to where I wanted to be -------- so I pointed at
others who weren't there yet either.
What an exhausting, ugly way of
half-living.
Then the good One began reworking me
from the inside out. He began pulling my “nest” apart long before
He moved me out of the home where I perched. Abba began shifting my
thoughts. I asked Him to. I profoundly remember sitting on my front
porch with a blanket wrapped around me on a cold winter morning and
saying, “Fix me Lord. I'm not who you call me to be, i'm not who I
want to be. I'm not who my family needs me to be, i'm wasting time on
lesser things, when surely You had more in mind.” Nothing actually
happened in that moment, but something began to move. I kept knocking
and asking for help from Him.
I had to come to the end of myself. My
ways.
I was “dwelling” in places that
were consuming me.
Imagine that. We people can live in a
type of symbiotic existence with our mental/emotional nests of
comfort. It supplies us with a place to lay our thoughts ------ while
we provide it (un-alive as it is) with our devoted presence.
My mental, emotional, and physical
energies were focused on levels of living that spoke more of “this
world” than they did of “the shelter of the Most High”.
There are three types of souls reading
this.
Those who get it, because the same
Daddy-God has opened their eyes to it.
Those who have no idea what i'm talking
about and probably haven't even read this far.
And those who are aching over the
realization that they no longer want to remain in the
mental/emotional/physical nest they've worked so hard to create
around them.
The first group ---- i'm hugging you on
your good (albeit hard) journey.
The second group ---- i'm literally
praying for you as I pen these words ---- you've got a storm coming
that will scoot you towards the next group. I pray you make it all
the way to the the first group.
The third group ----- oh don't feel
alone in the Holy shift. If you'll hang in there for the climb,
you're about to get to step into places you never imagined possible.
Places of freedom (and loss), where you can breathe deeply and lay
many things down. A place where you understand more, have less
confusion, where you'll see and you'll care, you'll no longer judge
and compare. But it's not an easy climb. Moving is always hard.
Always.
“The one who dwells in the shelter of
the most High, will rest in the shadow of the Almighty”--- eat
every morsel of those words.
We simply can not dwell in God's
shelter and remain in our own place. We've got to be willing to let
Him move us w-h-e-r-e-v-e-r He wants to.
Over and over again I hear people say
things like, “Oh I love God with all my heart ---- but I could
never go.............. and do...............” and I get it. Who
chooses to free-fall into the unknown? I'd guess a very small
percentage of people would choose it. But, many of us just knew we
couldn't live without it.
----- we are living a half-faith-life
if we can say with one breath, “I love the Lord with all my heart”
----- and then insist on having it our (human-self) way. The two
pieces can never fit side-by-side. The two pieces can exist in the
same life ------- but they are not connected. It produces a divided
way of living.
That's the painful reality.
It's what so many people who have
stepped away from the church say they have seen. Seeing the church
say one thing ----- but living another thing. And oh God help us all
----- haven't we Christians done it so poorly. I have. But may it not
be so now.
If I want to “dwell in the shelter of
the most High”, I must not insist on living in another shelter (one
that i've created and one i can manage). My emotional, mental,
spiritual dwelling must be in the place He is found.
And oh the goodness that when ---- I
move to that shelter ------ I can breathe “in the shadow of the
Almighty”.
Is this making sense?
I'm not talking about the physical
place we lay our heads down and call our home.
I'm talking about the mental place we
let our thoughts lay down in.
We can live in a palace and our
mental/emotional thoughts dwell in the gutter. Likewise, we can live
in a dirt-floor-room and our mental/emotional thoughts dwell in a
sanctuary.
We people too often think that if a
person is living in a fine mansion, then they are “doing well”.
But that's only the physical appearance of things. They might
actually be the “poor” that are in need of the most. The other
side of that coin tries to tell us the person living in a hut with no
modern luxuries is “in need”. But again, that's only the physical
appearance of things. They might actually be “dwelling in the
shelter of the most High”. It all depends on where their heart and
mind are centered.
Jesus never owned a home on this earth
------ and yet He was and is the King. His mind was centered solely
on the Father. Jesus dwelled in the shelter of the Most High.
God speaks this soundly to my soul.
I've had to learn it over and over
again.
I was willing to care for the one
without food or water or shelter ---- because I could easily “see”
their “need”.
But I was brutally blind to the one
living in opulent wealth who was grievously poor in heart. So wrong
donna.
Last Sunday we went up on the side of a
mountain in Kenya to speak at a remote church. The old me would have
been troubled over their obvious “needs”. It's hard work to
resist that old-self. But God let me see something precious --- it
was a reminder again.
There was a beautiful little girl
running around with an old, worn baby-doll held tightly to her back.
It was ragged and dirty. She held it to her back as if she was a
Kenyan-momma. I watched her for so long. She was happy. Bouncing
about with a worn doll on her back, wearing a torn dress, and I
thought to myself of the challenges I knew she would have to face in
the years ahead living on this mountainside.
My thoughts wanted to “dwell” in
the wrong places ----- places that were not “in the shelter of the
most High”. My mind began its old way of thinking. “donna, the
least you can do is buy this precious little girl a new doll. You
need to send one back up this mountain to her. She needs a new dress
too........ and then............”
But i've learned .....
So I grabbed those thoughts and held
them up to the One who adores her most.
And He whispered so sweetly to my
heart, “She is thrilled with her tattered baby-doll. Someone loved
her enough to give her a doll they were able to provide for her. Look
at her eyes. They sparkle. She has no idea you are watching her. I'm
letting you SEE her. Stop looking with wrong eyes. If you try and
make 'things' better, according to your standards ------- then you
will silently convey that how she is living is not good enough and
how her hard-working parents have provided for her is not sufficient.
And you'll teach her to define poverty wrongly. Truth is, she
sparkles. She is not actually poor in My eyes. Remember how many
other children you've seen surrounded by too many dolls and things of
that sort who were not sparkling at all. They were pouting over
wanting even more. See with My eyes donna, those who have so much are
so often the poor. This little darling will have needs all her life,
and you have your part in helping her, but it has nothing to do with
the ragged, torn doll she happily carries on her back. Do the part I,
God, call you to do. Stop letting your thoughts 'dwell' in the wrong
places ---- 'Dwell in the shelter where I am, rest in My shadow
there.' Follow MY lead. I will guide you. You can not do My work ----
your way. It won't work. But dwell close to Me and I will give you
rest as you do My work My way.”
The only way to live from the place of
His shelter, and rest in the place of peace found in His shadow
------------ is to turn my eyes always to what He says matters most
to Him.
The world will not understand it. The
world will even be critical of it. But the One who is our Shelter
will let us rest in His shadow ----------- even as we put our
hands to the work needed in this broken world again and again
and again.
But this world Lord........ in this
world.......
When babies are being slaughtered
inside the womb --------- we must stay focused on the One who always
reaches for them.
When babies are rejected out of the
womb (abortion) and lay crying in their struggle to live (surviving
abortion)-------- I must stay focused on the One who hears their cry
and gathers them up in His good arms.
When 'little'-power-hungry-people pass
laws that feed a fallen world ----- I must not focus on them (the
people or the laws), I must focus on the One who sees it all and will
deal with those who are corrupt.
When a “preacher” says things that
are NOT in God's Word ----- I must stay steady in saying
what is in line with God's heart (and His Word).
When eyes are diverted and focused on
lesser things ---- (I must remember my own tendency to do the same)
------ and choose carefully to see with His eyes what my
distracted-eyes will miss.
When criticisms and/or accusations
come------ I must remember ----- I have a Defender who says, “Get
in My shadow daughter, i'll handle this MY WAY.”
“The one who dwells in the shelter of
the Most High, will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.”
