What the Journey is About

I’m not sure how we expect to have a progressively positive impact on those around us if we don’t have an ongoing talk with Jesus about freedom in our own lives.  Learning to live moment by moment, day by day with what God says about us as opposed to what other sources say about us is the key to going where we want to go in life.  The key to seeing our hopes and dreams become reality.

Bill Johnson in Redding, CA asked something several months ago that got me thinking on this;  he said “What is the mystery of life that the Spirit speaks to us?”.  And then of course he really didn’t add anything, it was just an aside from the main point he was making, but WOW!  That one question sent me on a treasure hunt with the Lord.  What is the Spirit speaking to me, to us?  Deep in our heart of hearts, in the places we’re not sure we want anyone to see or be a part of, there is a mystery of life that is happening, and Oh my gosh!  We better watch out, the people around us better watch out, when  we finally get it.  Because when we find out who we are, that is when we find out how powerful we are.

For those of us like myself who are not always given to introspection, this can be a scary place to visit, but that is the place that needs to get out of us for people to see.  That is where we need to speak who we are to the people around us.  That is where we find the identity that is ours as sons and daughters of God.  That is where we begin to speak life to the people we love and care about.

You will find it difficult to speak life to other people if you don’t know how to speak life to yourself.  The practice of this is key to having an intimate relationship with anyone else, wives, husbands, kids, friends, parents.  That’s why we need to first learn it with God.  He already has this ability down pat.  The places that he speaks to in our heart are the places where we are supposed live from.  He is the greatest teacher in learning how to speak life to others because he does it so well with us, don’t you think?  My guess is that most of us hear good things some of the time, but we often don’t hear those things when we need it most.  Like when we’re in the middle of an argument with our spouse and we need to respond from a place of health, but what comes out is venomous (what Dan calls the nuclear weapon) or self-loathing (what I refer to as I’m never going to change).  Only people who know how to speak life to themselves can speak life to others.

God speaks the language of the human heart in a way that gives life.  He can teach us to speak that same language to ourselves and others.  The fact that it is a mystery is supposed to be an encouragement to us to go on a journey with Him.  Discovery of who we are doesn’t happen overnight or even in a week.  We often find that 5,10,even 20 years into our walk with the Lord that he reveals something of ourselves that we had never known or maybe only suspected was true of us.  The journey is  being aware that God has new “stuff” to teach us about ourselves all the time.  Our hearts need to stay open and expectant for the revelatory moments that are coming.  Living in freedom is not just about being aware of what we’ve been freed from, it is also about being aware of what we are not free from (even if we are unaware of what the specific issue is).  The Holy Spirit is waiting for the right convergence of time, awareness, receptiveness and faith to speak life to us, to give us truth.

God is waiting for you to meet him so he can teach you what he knows to be true about you!  So that who you say you are is really who you are.  This is how the mystery that he speaks to our spirits gets feet.  How husbands and wives find resolution, not just middle ground.  How parents and children are connected in a life-giving way.  How friends are drawn close in intimate graciousness.  How the church brings freedom to the world around it.  Freedom in our world begins with freedom in ourselves and that is what the Journey is about.