My computer just crashed (first time in 10 years of having a laptop!) and I went in search of the only piece of writing that I knew I hadn't backed up (thankfully I had e-mailed to a few people). When I found it, I was freshly struck by the truth that the only things you really have are the things you give away....think about it.....
So, pasted in here below are a new devotional format that I created for Tabitha Summers while she was in England making her first CD. They are each based on a very short youtube video and each limited to one page. Maybe you too find yourself in the place she was in during that week: excited about destiny, but challenged by the demands living toward that destiny daily makes! If so, take a week to breathe and walk this devotional journey, as I once again GIVE AWAY what I feared I had lost!
DAY ONE:
http://youtu.be/47LCLoidJh4
Awareness Test (55 seconds)
In labeling the right brain as the “creative” hemisphere, people might wrongly assume that one of the things it creates is disorder (like some artists they might have known)! But in fact, it is the right side of the brain that orchestrates and organizes left-brain data into a seamless and beautiful whole. Take a golf swing: It is impossible to swing a golf club well when you are consciously working on each component of the swing. The golfer must step up to the ball and clear his mind of the analysis—no matter how helpful it has been or how accurate--and instead hit the ball for the joy of doing it and love of the game! When this happens, there is actually a right-brain burst of alpha waves that calm all the activity in the left, creating a feeling of peace. (This happens in many other sports as well. All the details of training are set aside as the athlete in the starting gate releases them and reaches from a deeper and more intuitive place to actually run the race!)
Life is no different than sport in this respect. The left side of the brain definitely has a role, but when it is taking us over, we need a right brain burst---something has to orchestrate the data and remind us of the joy of living. The left side of the brain can enslave us, but God can bring a right-brain burst to set us free. When Jesus said, “Come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest,” he was speaking to a nation who had become so focused on the rules of religion that they had lost the joy of knowing God. He was calling them, in a sense, to have a spiritual “right-brain burst” that would calm the nagging considerations of pleasing and performing and return them to the freedom of just relating! (Matthew 11:28-29)
The Message Bible completes those words of Jesus by saying, “Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.” There is nothing wrong with drive and determination, but it is not a very good drummer—its rhythms will mess you up and ultimately cut off the creative flow that is necessary for efficiency! Life loses its orchestration and you bog down in halting, fragmented and frustrated motion. It is then that you need to return to God and lay it all down again. Trust that if a golfer can swing, knowing that everything he’s worked on so hard will pay off--without him consciously forcing it--surely you can also rest in the big processes of God.
These devotionals are meant to bring a right-brain burst from heaven. They are meant to help you run the race from a deep place—a place where God’s reality is not just theory in the mind, but actual efficient orchestration of all things such that they WORK TOGETHER FOR GOD.
The video you watched (if you hadn’t seen it before) gave you a little right-brain burst! When you laughed at yourself for not seeing the man in the bear suit the first time, your mind was also experiencing a moment of wonder: Could it be that the world is parading before your eyes many notable things that you are missing because of your focused expectations in rehearsed directions? You were trying to count the basketball passes—you had a job to do!
Don’t let the job you have to do today obscure your vision. Don’t let focus become a blinder. Let the “moon-walking bears” sent by God be noticed and BREATHE. You’ll get the job done—MORE efficiently!
DAY TWO:
http://youtu.be/BW4LseJp728
YouTube: “Even stars and galaxies show God’s greatness” (1:47)
In December of 2010, a study by Yale astronomer Pieter van Dokkum proposed that the estimated number of stars in the universe—100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, or 100 sextillion—needed to be tripled. Whether or not this astronomer is correct, that’s a lot of stars! With that in mind, read Isaiah 40:26 with a heart of wonder and pause to stand amazed:
Look up into the heavens. Who created all the stars? He brings them out like an
army, one after another, calling each by its name. Because of his great power and incomparable strength, not a single one is missing.
What is even more amazing is that, if we truly have the Spirit of God inside us, each of our creative endeavors is simply a retelling of the ancient story! The God who hung the stars in the sky with has chosen to dwell inside his people. Surely, surely, he knows how to bring out of them the “good works” he has already deposited inside us—each focused point of energy shall come forth in perfect placement. He knows exactly how to decorate, orchestrate, order, energize, strategize, adapt, release, mix, engineer, oversee...and the list goes on. (AND, he even knows how to do it all for an audience: consider the constellations decorating the sky!)
The universe has never stopped expanding because creation is an open-ended process. The energies of God flow through his people and take shape and form, translating themselves into the outflow of men and women’s hearts.
Lose yourself in God’s vast orchestration and take joy in the fact that this current initiative is being summoned forth BY HIM. You—and the relationships that have rallied around you—are a part of an intricately beautiful wisdom that has been at work from time immemorial. Your life and projects are a part of a display of power that is God showing off who HE is! You are proclaiming the Creator by participating in the creative release that He began!
Take a deep breath and revisit the last sentence of the Scripture, now applying it in the here and now, since you now know that you are personally cooperating with the expansion the universe(!): BECAUSE OF HIS GREAT POWER AND INCOMPARABLE STRENGTH, NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THE MELODIES, MEANINGS OR EVEN SUBTLETIES OF THE “STARS” YOU ARE BIRTHING WILL BE MISSING! He has already called each one of them by name!
DAY THREE:
http://youtu.be/AFVac_XzxZA
YouTube: The incredible beauty in the life of cells (3:07)
Isn’t it amazing that even the work of researchers studying what happens when cells “go wrong” cannot help but create a display of intense beauty—the beauty that is present in everything that bears the fingerprint of God! Cells (and you have 50 to 100 trillion of them in your body) are little “storehouses” of the essence of YOU! Each one contains approximately SIX FEET of DNA that is unique to you, coiled up in extraordinarily tight fashion. Every cell is a literal treasure chest of “you-ness”, waiting to be summoned forth for service!
In Matthew 13:52, Jesus was explained the Kingdom by saying:
"That is why every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings both new and old things out of his treasure chest."
God (the same One who summons forth the stars on a large scale) knows how to summon forth every bit of potential that is in each one of us. He has created each compartment of our spirits to house the very things that are needed for us to fulfill our destiny. Though at moments we might feel empty, nothing could be farther from the truth. We are packed with tightly wound spiritual DNA—full of living information about who we are meant to be! It will actually require all of eternity to fully express our individual identities. In a real sense, the odyssey of discovery through which we unravel the spiritual “code” inside us IS the fulfillment of our destiny!
You are a treasure chest of things both old and new. In you (each one of you), all experiences are processed as preparation, according to the information in your spiritual DNA! In the grand scheme of things, every single challenge encountered only serves to summon forth strengths and skills from the storehouse of heaven’s resources inside of us! We were built to activate and release a host of Kingdom traits!
How do we know when the Kingdom DNA has been expressed? Because the end result is always and forever BEAUTY—subtle tones and colors and shadings and contrasting splashes of blinding light, but always and forever, BEAUTY. When Watson and Crick were attempting to construct the first-ever model of DNA, they ruled out several proposals because they simply weren’t BEAUTIFUL and they just knew—even though they weren’t believers—that this amazing molecule of life HAD to be BEAUTIFUL! They were right!
Beauty is in your DNA—reject what isn’t beautiful because it just can’t be God’s fingerprint! Wait for the beauty to fully manifest. Even amidst dysfunction, beauty shines through untainted—it has to: it’s in our genes!
DAY FOUR:
http://youtu.be/IcevP5tkWH0
YouTube: Cell Journey Deep Inside (1:44)
Each of the 50 trillion cells in your body is carrying on life constantly! This video shows the constant activity in just one cell, and it actually happens at this rapid rate. Whenever we feel that “nothing is happening” for us, we should remember that even on a cellular level (much more so on an invisible spiritual level), a whole host of processes are literally working for our good!
Proverbs 4:23 says, “Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.” Though most people focus on the command in the first part of the verse, “watch over your heart,” the second part of the verse actually carries the energy of grace to fulfill the command! Out of your heart are flowing springs of life! There are constant processes at work inside you, facilitating life and destiny! The life of God inside you is not stagnant or lacking movement EVER! God in you—every part of you—is dynamic and full of energy. Things are happening, even when you are at rest! Springs of life are on the move and they are available in every moment!
Notice that the word “springs” is plural. Imagine the variety of springs on earth. Some are high in the mountains and some are surprises in the desert. Some are in a well-tended garden and others are waiting to be discovered in wilderness. There are many kinds of springs in you and they flow with different strengths and at different times. They blend their waters into one glorious mixture but still retain the characteristics they took on from their various sources. The rushing water of the springs inside you carries dissolved minerals from its subterranean journey, giving a unique flavor to your particular flow! Every rocky place you have experienced has only served to add texture to your life.
Springs imply energy from another place. Fatigue is not a factor when the springs of life flow. Some springs come from a whole different geography, travelling hundreds of miles to contribute their stream. Heaven’s springs are in you, flowing forth, each carrying its own energy and climate. WATCH as they simply erupt and flow forth from your heart!
DAY FIVE:
http://youtu.be/DQus4je7Jw4
YouTube: Tabernacle _Animated (1:10)
Exodus 30:18 Make a bronze basin, with its bronze stand, for washing. Place it between the Tent of Meeting and the altar, and put water in it.
Exodus 38:8 They made the bronze basin and its bronze stand from the mirrors of the women who served at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.
Every part of the Moses’ tabernacle in the wilderness portrayed Christ in some way. And now the reality that the symbolism pointed to lives in us, since we have become his dwelling place. The basin for washing was a picture of the grace that not only removes sin, but also cleanses the identity from the desires and memories association with human dysfunction. As the priests entering the tabernacle paused to wash at the basin, they were looking ahead in time to the continual cleansing of being that would freely flow from Christ.
It was no accident that the basin was made of the brass mirrors donated by the women who served. Christ is not just an addition to our identity: He engulfs that very identity with Himself, rendering it unrecognizable apart from him, blending it into the very grace that he gives. And all of this happens as we experience him through living worship. The cleansing of our sin is only the beginning; the REDEMPTION of our very IDENTITY is the real goal of the presence of God!
Our identity thrives on a continual washing in the realities of heaven. I can’t help but think that Bono’s faith along these lines must have informed his lyric writing when he wrote the bridge to the song Walk On. After singing, “You’ve got to leave it behind,” he lists the categories of things that can be left behind:
All that you fashion
All that you make
All that you build
All that you break
All that you measure
All that you feel
All this you can leave behind
All that you reason
All that you sense
All that you speak
All you dress-up
All that you scheme...
We need to see our identity--both the “good” and even the self-perceived “bad” of it—lost in the basin of grace. In the place of worship, we can let the notion of our separateness from Him be just a distant memory. Turning in our mirrors to become a basin for others’ cleansing is MINISTRY…..
DAY SIX:
http://youtu.be/R_w4HYXuo9M
YouTube: How to Turn a Sphere Inside Out (1:38)
Romans 12:2 “Do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind….”
The word “transform” in Romans 12:2 is a door into a huge room of truth. It does imply metamorphosis like the butterfly, but there is so much more! The Greek roots of the word “transform” mean literally to CHANGE FORM IN KEEPING WITH AN INNER REALITY, AS AN AFTER-EFFECT OF BEING IN SOME ENVIRONMENT! The verb comes from a noun that means AN OUTWARD EXPRESSION THAT EMBODIES AN ESSENTIAL INNER SUBSTANCE SO THAT THE FORM TAKEN IS IN COMPLETE HARMONY WITH THE INNER ESSENCE! It is not just finally changing into something useful or worthy! True transformation from God is about manifesting the real YOU (which is in every way beautiful).
God is clearly up to just one thing in all our lives: INSIDE-OUTING us so that our inner essence—the expression of HIS creativity—is on display! But, like the mathematicians that know how to inside-out a sphere, he does not cheat! He doesn’t abuse us or break us or force us in any way. Moment by moment, he leads us in a deeper understanding of who we really are so that what we end up giving to the world is an authentic expression of Him in us! The process may stretch us, but will never break us, and if we know that the goal at the end of the road is the giving away of ourselves in complete freedom, then we can endure the intricate twistings and turnings and rejoice in the beauty of his realm of ultimate order!
Death Cab for Cutie’s song Soul Meets Body contains the amazing line, “I still believe it’s true that there are roads left in both of our shoes…” What makes that line so amazing is this: In God’s view of things the paths of our lives aren’t really inanimate things stretching out before us, beckoning us to embark. Instead, the roads of our journey are actually inside of us, waiting to come out! Isaiah 26:12 says, “LORD, thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us.” Our future is waiting to emerge from within! As we are inside-outed by God’s Spirit, our destiny unfolds. The Kingdom of heaven is within….
(You might want to watch the video again with this all in mind. The sphere is you and, by the way, the process of inside-outing you will change the world—but that’s just a glorious side-effect!)
DAY SEVEN:
http://youtu.be/GtiSCBXbHAg
YouTube: Cymatic experiement (2:05)
Cymatics is the study of “visible sound”. The beautiful wave patterns displayed by the sand in this video are generated solely by the frequency of the sound being emitted. The sand is self-organizing according to the standing waves patterns created by the vibrations. You are watching sound energy literally organize matter! The information in the pitch (the wavelength of the frequency) is being translated into a visual form!
This simple experiment provides a great metaphor for our relationship with God. There are really only two “requirements” for flowing with Him:
1. Don’t resist the organizing force of His orchestration! (Release the desire to set up patterns of our own or to take charge of the other pieces involved: imagine a grain of sand in the experiment nervously running around trying to help the patterns emerge!)
2. Hear the frequency of heaven and welcome its energy! (This is just living a life of responsive worship.)
God’s universe is one of both extreme order and beauty and our lives will ultimately reflect that when we rest in Him and simply tune in. The chaos with which we are all too familiar is simply a perception we experience in the moments in which we are temporarily unable to see the pattern, and the lack of a pattern is just evidence that the frequency (energy) is increasing!
In Genesis, we read that God created the universe with his WORDS! In a sense, the world around us is just “visible sound”, still vibrating to the patterns that God generated with His voice! He SAID, “Let there be light….” And there WAS light. And there still is, because when God speaks, the vibrations continue throughout the ages.
In Psalm 51 in the Message Bible, David prays, “Shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.” The voice of the Lord is inside you today saying, “Let there be light” and calling for that light to be divided from the darkness. The sound of heaven is organizing your energies and even your thoughts (which are just biochemical events, really) according to his patterns of beauty! You cannot fail and you cannot fall. You are simply responding to the creative sound of His voice. And you are becoming “visible sound” for others who have never heard Him! He is acting on you in unseen ways in every moment.
