Fulfilled
Worthy of my life You are
For You brought me close from a far
Poured out Your love
My soul to fill
I meet not another
Who doesn't beckon me to spill
When alas empty,
Fear I will be
You draw even closer and
Call out to me
Beloved, You will say
My day again fulfilled
Michael Jay Acock
March 13, 2014
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Discovering God in the Creases
This thought has captured my meditation in the last few days:
"God is in the creases of every day and our enjoyment of Him and His joy over us is known as we endeavor to discover Him in the creases as each movement of the day unfolds into His sovereign purpose for our life"
What if every moment we believed that God would be revealed to us in the next moment as it unfolds? What we actually believed HE is with us and will be with us in each moment? Not the general, "I believe God is with me"; but, the He is with me and speaking to me His glorious perspective of redeeming all through His precious Son, Jesus, my savior by the ever present Holy Spirit of whom I am a habitation.
I like order but life is always moving forward. Life by definition makes it difficult to maintian order. There always seems to be another wrinkle or fold. So I have a choice. Do I curse the wrinkles and folds of life that conceal from sight the next moment or do I move forward with life living with expectancy of how the wrinkle or fold will allow me maybe even propell me into another glorious facet of God and knowing His presence differently. What if God so wanted to reveal himself to me in greater fullness that each fold was a new opportunity that He designed to show me (maybe grant me a revelation) Himself. Take peace for instance, I assume God is peace, yet there is peace in the tranquil moments of life like holding a new born and then there is peace like in the eye of the storm. Peace is peace but knowing peace in each circumstance requires a new circumstance. Could each circumstance of life be an engagement of my soul into a new revelation of Him whom I will never fully comprehend? Why would I fear Him who has extinguished the fullness of His wrath on His beloved Son, that I might become his son of favor?
The creases of the day become gifts to the soul. Lord, grant me this perspective of life. Who are you wanting to be with each unfolding moments. You are the only one who loves perfectly. I receive your embrace and respond with an embrace.
"God is in the creases of every day and our enjoyment of Him and His joy over us is known as we endeavor to discover Him in the creases as each movement of the day unfolds into His sovereign purpose for our life"
What if every moment we believed that God would be revealed to us in the next moment as it unfolds? What we actually believed HE is with us and will be with us in each moment? Not the general, "I believe God is with me"; but, the He is with me and speaking to me His glorious perspective of redeeming all through His precious Son, Jesus, my savior by the ever present Holy Spirit of whom I am a habitation.
I like order but life is always moving forward. Life by definition makes it difficult to maintian order. There always seems to be another wrinkle or fold. So I have a choice. Do I curse the wrinkles and folds of life that conceal from sight the next moment or do I move forward with life living with expectancy of how the wrinkle or fold will allow me maybe even propell me into another glorious facet of God and knowing His presence differently. What if God so wanted to reveal himself to me in greater fullness that each fold was a new opportunity that He designed to show me (maybe grant me a revelation) Himself. Take peace for instance, I assume God is peace, yet there is peace in the tranquil moments of life like holding a new born and then there is peace like in the eye of the storm. Peace is peace but knowing peace in each circumstance requires a new circumstance. Could each circumstance of life be an engagement of my soul into a new revelation of Him whom I will never fully comprehend? Why would I fear Him who has extinguished the fullness of His wrath on His beloved Son, that I might become his son of favor?
The creases of the day become gifts to the soul. Lord, grant me this perspective of life. Who are you wanting to be with each unfolding moments. You are the only one who loves perfectly. I receive your embrace and respond with an embrace.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Thoughts on Holiness and Ditches
Yesterday I was having lunch with a friend and holiness came up. He remarked that, as you in your own walk of faith become "more" holy it is inevitable that you will see more sin in others. That struck something in me - not a good chord actually. While I agree that there maybe some truth to this or at least this perception, the only position this leaves me in is that of judge over others pointing out their sin.
I am still wrestling with the "more" holy idea, at least in an elevated sense that I am high up in holiness than someone else or that someone else is higher than I. Holiness I believe has much to do with a greater awareness of the flesh in operation and thus more often recognizing when I am operating in the fleshly desires of my soul and then repenting to a position of faith in the finished work of Jesus on the cross for the totality of my righteousness. More on that later in another post, possibly.
If there is any greater recognition of sin in the process of sanctification (becoming more holy) I have personally found that it is seeing the immensity of sin in my heart toward both God and my fellow man. I find the depth of sin to be seemingly bottomless and without end. Jeremiah speaks of the wickedness (utter depravity) of the heart. If you are willing to go there (into the darkness of your own heart) God (who is Light & Truth) will go there with you. In this discovery of more sin - I also have found a more than equivalent amount of mercy and grace and forgiveness from Jesus for my sin. To what degree I believe I can see more sin and recognize more sin I am always finding a reciprocal degree of grace and mercy.
So as I may see sin in others because I have understood my own sin to great depth, my response to others' sin is and must only be compassion and mercy not judgement. Mercy has been my portion and therefore mercy is my response. When mercy is not my response I find more often than not I am operating and living out of the fleshly desires of my soul that cry out out for acceptance, admiration, elevated status and arrogance which is a most unholy position.
I remember once a friend that was a construction worker. His crew was working in a ditch and a valve inadvertently was broke or damaged and the ditch began to fill up with water. The crew was doing everything but but stopping the water coming into the ditch. By the time my friend, the foreman, came upon the scene the ditch was waist-full of water. A few explicatives later, he jumped right into the ditch with his crew and plug the pipe. He did not simply yell from the high position you guys are wet and you shouldn't be. He got wet with them and was able to recognize the problem and address it.
Recognizing more sin I believe can actually position us to dive into the ditch and get messy but cause the real problem to be seen in another one's life and bring them to the real solution - the mercy of the CROSS. The reality is that this picture defines incarnation - Jesus becoming flesh and blood. He got into our ditch of fallen humanity so that He bring us to see real truth, Himself, and solve our real problem of a wicked heart.
Mercy incarnate maybe the response of holiness.
I am still wrestling with the "more" holy idea, at least in an elevated sense that I am high up in holiness than someone else or that someone else is higher than I. Holiness I believe has much to do with a greater awareness of the flesh in operation and thus more often recognizing when I am operating in the fleshly desires of my soul and then repenting to a position of faith in the finished work of Jesus on the cross for the totality of my righteousness. More on that later in another post, possibly.
If there is any greater recognition of sin in the process of sanctification (becoming more holy) I have personally found that it is seeing the immensity of sin in my heart toward both God and my fellow man. I find the depth of sin to be seemingly bottomless and without end. Jeremiah speaks of the wickedness (utter depravity) of the heart. If you are willing to go there (into the darkness of your own heart) God (who is Light & Truth) will go there with you. In this discovery of more sin - I also have found a more than equivalent amount of mercy and grace and forgiveness from Jesus for my sin. To what degree I believe I can see more sin and recognize more sin I am always finding a reciprocal degree of grace and mercy.
So as I may see sin in others because I have understood my own sin to great depth, my response to others' sin is and must only be compassion and mercy not judgement. Mercy has been my portion and therefore mercy is my response. When mercy is not my response I find more often than not I am operating and living out of the fleshly desires of my soul that cry out out for acceptance, admiration, elevated status and arrogance which is a most unholy position.
I remember once a friend that was a construction worker. His crew was working in a ditch and a valve inadvertently was broke or damaged and the ditch began to fill up with water. The crew was doing everything but but stopping the water coming into the ditch. By the time my friend, the foreman, came upon the scene the ditch was waist-full of water. A few explicatives later, he jumped right into the ditch with his crew and plug the pipe. He did not simply yell from the high position you guys are wet and you shouldn't be. He got wet with them and was able to recognize the problem and address it.
Recognizing more sin I believe can actually position us to dive into the ditch and get messy but cause the real problem to be seen in another one's life and bring them to the real solution - the mercy of the CROSS. The reality is that this picture defines incarnation - Jesus becoming flesh and blood. He got into our ditch of fallen humanity so that He bring us to see real truth, Himself, and solve our real problem of a wicked heart.
Mercy incarnate maybe the response of holiness.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Fingerprints - which ones matter?
I enjoy the TV show CSI (Crime Scene Investigation). Many times the work of the CSIs is to lift every piece of evidence including the fingerprints. Most finger prints are simply taken and dismissed but there is usually one that starts connecting the dots for the mystery or crime to be solved.
The fingerprints that mattered.
Much of our days are honestly lived disconnected. We go here for this errand, we meet this person, we work with people we don't really know, we hope tomorrow will be different than today. Then we do it all over again. Living like this is not bad it is kind of just how it is. The problems come when we start drawing conclusions about life and our existence based on this perceived disconnected monotony.
When the crimes are being solved on CSI there is always the apparent perpetrator based on the surface review of the scene; however, the deeper the investigators go the true perpetrator is revealed.
So, my thought is this: Whose fingerprints really matter? The true perpetrator's.
I am beginning to see that the disconnected events of my day are not so disconnected. If I begin to look more closely and more intently and more reflectively on my day I am finding God's fingerprints. As see God's finger print in one aspect of the day I soon recognize His fingerprint on another place in the day. God's fingerprints connect the dots of His redemptively work in my life throughout the events of my day.
Reflecting on the day or yesterday I begin to see how God was guiding but because of my distraction and the seeming disconnectedness of the day I missed it.
Be a lifter of fingerprints especially God's - life starts to make sense.
The True Purposer.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
The fingerprints that mattered.
Much of our days are honestly lived disconnected. We go here for this errand, we meet this person, we work with people we don't really know, we hope tomorrow will be different than today. Then we do it all over again. Living like this is not bad it is kind of just how it is. The problems come when we start drawing conclusions about life and our existence based on this perceived disconnected monotony.
When the crimes are being solved on CSI there is always the apparent perpetrator based on the surface review of the scene; however, the deeper the investigators go the true perpetrator is revealed.
So, my thought is this: Whose fingerprints really matter? The true perpetrator's.
I am beginning to see that the disconnected events of my day are not so disconnected. If I begin to look more closely and more intently and more reflectively on my day I am finding God's fingerprints. As see God's finger print in one aspect of the day I soon recognize His fingerprint on another place in the day. God's fingerprints connect the dots of His redemptively work in my life throughout the events of my day.
Reflecting on the day or yesterday I begin to see how God was guiding but because of my distraction and the seeming disconnectedness of the day I missed it.
Be a lifter of fingerprints especially God's - life starts to make sense.
The True Purposer.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Real Life
Relationships and soul connections are the base of all real life. All other structures begin to become fabrications of reality when relationships and soul connections cease to exist.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Who is Michael?
The answer to this question may not completely ever be discovered this side of Heaven; however, I believe that it is this question that every member of the human race is asking or must ask and the journey that you take to discover the answer will eventually become the answer. Much like an onion that is peeled away layer by layer ultimately becomes nothing; except, that it has fulfilled what the peeler of the onion desired, answering the question of Who am I will ultimately be answered in how my life has fulfilled the purpose and design of ONE quite outside of myself. One who understands better how this layer of me mixed with this circumstance and heated to this level of pressure will taste quite nice, I will be a little less crunchy and will cause a few less tears.
This would be the heart of why I have started this blog. To discover more about who I am based on the dealings of ONE quite outside of myself and to have understanding of the deep water of my heart and the purpose of that water for the sake of the ONE.
This would be the heart of why I have started this blog. To discover more about who I am based on the dealings of ONE quite outside of myself and to have understanding of the deep water of my heart and the purpose of that water for the sake of the ONE.
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