He leads me beside quiet waters...

HE restores my soul....

Its always incredible when Joy is inexpressible, Isn't it! I don't even have words to describe my last few weeks, with this last week being the kicker. If you believers in Him don't believe that God still works miracles, feel free to email me and I will have a quite different perspective for you! After a week of fasting and fervent prayer, God turned bondage, attacks, and anxiety into tackle, tickle and rejoice. I really have no other way to describe it. After so many days of laboring in prayer, to feel the fruit is overwhelming. God does perform miracles. He does it however he sees fit physically, mentally, and most definitely spiritually. He absolutely honors our commitments, and our petitions to Him for the saints. I am speechless at His grace and His mercy. This blog will more than likely be stream of consciousness, because I am just a flat out fool for Jesus right now!

A couple of weeks ago the saints got together to pray for a miracle, and even though it didn't turn out as we believed, we still trained for war, as a friend of mine put it “with live rounds” and many different blessings poured out of that devotion. I know that none of our lives will be the same. I also know that the adversary was quite angry with the blows he received that week, causing LOTS of attack from the spiritual awakening that occurred.

that really sent me down a road I cant say I have been down before. Everything changed. The way I pray, and the way I ask have all been renewed since then. We must increase our asking for faith, and the bread of the Holy Spirit, we cant have enough! I also longed for the day that the body would come together for all warfare that way, with such devotion and fervor. That is who we are called to be as a family of believers and as warriors. Together as one mind and body unified Christ there is so much power it is unbelievable. God gave us all a glimpse of who we are to be, and I rejoice in that witness.

Well, that led to one of the most intense weeks I have had in a LONG time with attacks on myself, but also an endless stream of warnings in my heart. At one point friday I was riding in a truck with my friend Ronnie and he could sense my distress, it was so intense I don't even have the words. To the point he wanted to go visit some friends at the Lift House and I confessed that “there was just no way I could be around the anyone who wasn't a Christian right now” I knew the devil was on the prowl. I knew exactly where and what the warnings were, but I resisted them because I was trying to learn to repent of fear from the last time I had been given the same unmistakable groanings. I was so mad at disunity, I was so incredibly fed up with bondage that it just about took me out. I knew that when the Holy Spirit gives you such information you drop everything and fast and pray, you do whatever it takes to entreat God. I let the fear of loss squash what the Holy Spirit was giving me. God forgive me I knew better. It finally hit me so hard that I went to a friend and laid it out, there's danger and I cant do anything, you have to help me.... I had been feeling so judged for so long I let stupid self will and fear in letting the devil water down in me what I knew to be the will of God tugging at me to pay attention. I had made a commitment years ago that God was honoring, and I let fear of man stop me. Its kind of hard to explain. When we let doubt and fear in it becomes extremely hard to hear God. I was experiencing this something fierce. We have all experienced it, we are asking if we should do this or that, and something pops in to our head and we either agree or disagree or both for a split second thinking, was that me, or God? And how could this be when God tells us not to be double minded? He promised me that He was not a God of confusion, but a God of peace! I really had to know, I had let doubt in and I had let “rational” thought stop me where I had not let it in the past. I had questioned myself to the point where I didn't do anything. Ugghh... Saturday night was one for the books, I was in knots and so freaked out that I finally broke down. I knew that I had to give it to God, there was no choice, I had nothing left. so I did. I didn't see what happened next coming at all, I LOVE how HE works like that. Its incomprehensible. He changed my heart in amazing ways, He sat me down and I just poured it all out in sundays blog. He filled me with such love and understanding that it was pouring out of me. I knew that nothing mattered but His love in me, and Him manifesting His love through me. I that His will was to honor the commitments I had had made in my heart, with my mouth, and to the one I love. That is what mattered most to me, and I knew that was His will for me. No more bondage, I couldn't take it. Anything that keeps me from acting on what the Holy Spirit is giving must be tackled immediately. I didn't want to let it ever happen again. The most awesome thing about love is that its so much more powerful than anger or resentment...He affirmed to me that His grace and mercy is abundantly sufficient. Its the only path to walking in the light with Him. Its the ONLY place I want to be. He affirmed me in it, He grounded me in it, he filled me with it, and then the next day He tested me in it. When that happened immediately I felt His love just fill me till it overflowed, I couldn't hardly comprehend it. True love is from Him and I knew it instantly. God IS love and if we give ourselves to Him, He will show is just how amazing true love is. It doesn't perish, it doesn't fail, it doesn't ever stop enduring. Its definitely not an emotion but God honoring the commitment in our heart. I have never felt love so amazing or true. He is such an amazing God!!! So as the day progressed I knew I had to repent of disunity, I didn't know how, but I knew it was what I needed to do. He had shown me how to love that day and I knew that there was still much more to do. He had shown me His power that day, and I couldn't let the sun go down before I honored what God had put on my heart the night before. He had prepared me for it, albeit in an unexpected way that morning, but God is amazing that way. I had no idea the night before, when I had decided to go and talk to a dear brother about letting him know what was on my heart, the circumstances that would prelude that talk that day. I experienced James 1:2-4 up close and personal Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials,knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. WOW! Any doubts of God having His hand in my life at that moment were immediately unavailable. I am still in awe of how astonishing God truly is. A miracle of affirmation happened in my life that day, I didn't see it coming, but I am still rejoicing. God is still working and finishing this work, and I am honored to be a part of it. Hahaha, but after all of that we havnt even made it to monday! Phwew! So thus starts the waiting...

Not to digress, but lets fast forward into the future a few days. I set out on a journey. I had questions about how to know Gods will for my life, how to know when its His will for me to continue in a direction and be able to discern if its me or Him doing it. God has “spoken” to me in many ways in my life, and I guess I had just flew by the seat of my pants until I really thought about it. I had let doubt in and I wanted it gone. I wanted only faith back, I wanted to know if I was hearing Him or myself. Big questions, but nothing scripture doesn't promise us, (rom 12:1-2) right? He impressed it on my heart so I looked in to the matter. 14 hours later I am still sitting in my chair, just in overload of information. I need ten lifetimes to just scratch the surface! Just as I suspected...God is so amazingly awesome that He does what He wants. He strikes people down on roads to Damascus, He talks to people in burning bushes. He talks to us through affirmation, and He gives us promises of “all things working together for the good”. Hahahaha, you know how many scriptures deal with the will of God? ALL OF THEM!!!! He is more amazing to me than ever. I am glad I asked. I was overwhelmed. In all that, I did still come across some incredible gleanings. There is no set way that God speaks to us, He does so as He pleases. I don't think that there is any set formula either on how to go about it, but I did see a lot of wisdom in one method I came about during my research. they are four general approaches to discernment in decision making through God's Word. All of these principles are clearly under the rule that God will NEVER ask you to do ANYTHING that falls outside or doesn't line up with the written Word of God.

1. The Principle of OBEDIENCE: Where God commands, we must obey.
Some things are absolute in Gods Word. they are clearly outlined as Sin.


2. The Principle of FREEDOM: Where there is no command, God gives us freedom (and responsibility) to choose
There is freedom from all bondage in Christ. The yoke is easy. We give all anxiety to Him knowing that. He gives us freedom of choice. He doesn't command us what color shoes to put on each day, or what shirt to wear. We are not religious robots, but salt of the earth. He gives us free will to make our decisions as long as they do not fall outside the written word, He wants us to be free in Him.

3. The Principle of WISDOM: Where there is no command, God gives us wisdom to choose.
There is no secret section of the Bible that gives us direct answers to really hard decisions. He gives us His written word so that the more we read it, the more we know how God thinks, and we can start thinking like Him. We know from psalm 23 that “He leads us in paths of righteousness”, so from that we know that He ONLY wants us to, when we make big decisions, to chose paths that lead us closer to him, not this world. This life is like grass, time is way to short to cultivate futility. I know, I know, the world has some pretty shiny stuff out there, but if we want to know that the decision is what God wants from us we just ask ourselves, is it a path I think will lead me closer to Him, or does it lead more towards the fleshly indulgence side of things. He wants us to make tough decisions in life, its what life is about. Its what faith is about “the assurance of things hoped for, the Conviction of things not seen” We are supposed to be sheep who follow and trust the shepherd. They arent constantly told what to do, or even bridled. They just stick together willingly following the shepherd for protection and general guidance. he doesn't want us to be like the donkey or the horse with a bridle in our mouth having to be constantly directed. Psalm 32:9 He doesn't want us to be the guy who buried his talent out of fear. He trusts us to make our own wise decisions and invest in things that draw us nearer to Him. He doesn't want us to constantly live our lives wondering if we made the right decision or not. It makes us powerless. It cultivates fear and doubt. know that He loves us and trusts us to “walk uprightly”psalm 84:11. which ties in with the next principle


4. The Principle of HUMBLE TRUST: When we have chosen what is moral and wise, we must trust the sovereign God to work all the details together for good.
Once we have made a decision, we stick to it trusting in Him to work it out. I don't think this means stubborn beyond repair. But marriage for example. God hates divorce, it was a decision that was made from the heart, and God tells us HE will work it out when we have problems if we just humbly trust Him. He trusted us enough to chose a mate in accordance with his will, so WE must trust HIM by honoring that free will decision that He gave us to chose as we please.

Ahhh... sounds good, but what about adversity? Well, from reading ACTS I know that there is no general rule on open doors or closed doors, God works through them all. When the Apostles were told they were going to be killed if they went back to Jerusalem(obviously a closed door) but they went anyway and won souls. But there were also times they were winning souls (an open door) and were led to leave. We must trust in Gods soveregnity. We cannot forget the fact the Holy Spirit is IN US to guide us. its not an audible voice that says ZANE...DO THIS OR DO THAT... He puts things on our heart, and trusts us walk out our walk with fear and trembling. We have His written Word which IS Jesus. We don't need the bit or bridle, He put His Spirit in us, we just have to discern(which He also gave us) with the wisdom He gives us through His Spirit and Word, what will lead us closer to Him. And this is just scratching the surface.. like james says, if anyone lacks wisdom let him ask. God wants to reveal His will to us WAY more than we want to know it. Faith without works is dead, so we walk and trust in Him to sovereignly guide us. Here is a few more gleanings from a book by Strauss. He has some solid statements on discernment.

---We pray, “Lord, show me your will.” But he has already shown it to us in areas which we may have conveniently ignored. And we cannot discover the next step in his plan for our lives until we demonstrate our sincerity by obeying what we already know. The key to knowing the will of God is not only a decisive act of surrender, but also a daily life of obedience.
How can we be sure we really want to do God’s will? By doing what we already know to be his will! The more important question is not, “What does God want me to do with my future?” It is, “Am I living as God wants me to live today?” When we get today squared away, we can rest assured that God will guide us tomorrow.
It is when our hearts are tuned to the Word and our minds are filled with the Word, that we are best equipped to recognize God’s guidance. It works like this: As we learn more of the Word, we grow to think as God thinks, we learn to see things from his perspective. Our attitudes, our opinions, our goals, our ideals, and our values become more like his. When we face major decisions we are able to evaluate them with the mind of Christ rather than with the mind of the flesh. In many instances we will automatically know what God wants us to do, and doing what he desires will become our daily life style and normal habit pattern of living.
The Word of God is the indispensable key to the whole subject of divine guidance. Think back to what we have already learned. We saw that the Word has assured us that God has a plan for every detail of our lives, and that he wants to reveal it to us step by step. We saw that we get to know him and learn to trust him through the Word. We saw that our minds are renewed and our lives transformed by the Word, so that we can be prepared to discern and do his will. And now we learn that the directions themselves are found in the Word. G. Christian Weiss summed it up beautifully: “There can never be any guidance contrary to the Word; there will seldom be guidance apart from the Word. Divine guidance must either come through, or in perfect harmony with, the written Word of God. Anything else is not divine guidance.”
“Giving thanks always for all things unto God. eph 5:20

Yet we can be genuinely thankful in our hearts for tragedies such as that, knowing
that they are part of God’s perfect plan for our spiritual enrichment.

The first thing God wants each of them to do is to thank him genuinely and sincerely for the problem, and to thank him for another opportunity to grow spiritually and to learn more about his all-sufficient grace. That thankful spirit may be the very thing God will use to relieve the tension and make the situation more tolerable. Do you want to know God’s will for your life? It is that you give thanks always, in every situation, for everything.

Should we share our hurts, our struggles, and our weaknesses with other believers, or should we keep them to ourselves? Some of us feel that our reputation as Christians and our influence for Christ would be destroyed if anyone ever found out what we were really like on the inside. But the biblical principle establishing the church as the Body of Christ should help us see this issue from God’s viewpoint. “The body is a unit though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body.” “If one part suffers, every part suffers with it.”
How can we feel with one who is hurting if we do not know where he hurts? How can we support him before God’s throne of grace if we do not know where he needs support? How can we bear his burden with him if we do not know what his burden is? I am not suggesting that we broadcast all of our faults for everyone to know. But the practical outworking of this principle might demand a greater openness with one another than most of us have. The honest admission of our shortcomings to our closest Christian friends will be an encouragement to them. They will know that they are not the only ones with weaknesses. It will likewise be a blessing to us as they pray for us, encourage us, and check with us periodically on our progress. The proper application of this principle stimulates spiritual growth.
I’m afraid some Christians seek signs in an effort to relieve themselves of responsibility for their actions. “God didn’t do what I asked him to do, so he must not have wanted me to . . .” But God does not always accommodate himself to our unbelief, our lack of spiritual discernment, or our carnal demands. He will not let us turn our personal relationship with him into a mechanical operation in which we punch buttons, pull levers, and get a readout of his will. He wants us to walk in fellowship with him, get to know him intimately, and then trust him implicitly to guide us by whatever means he chooses.

Maybe because we talk about finding God’s will they get the idea that it is lost or hidden, or that God is playing some kind of heavenly hide-and-seek game.
God’s plan for our lives is much too important for that kind of foolishness. He does not take pleasure in making things difficult for us. He wants to show us his will far more than we want to know it. If we have not yet discovered what it is, it has to be our fault, not his. Finding God’s will is not a matter of frantically searching for something hidden. It is following the divine Shepherd, and there is nothing mysterious about that.

Well, I know, that was a long digression, but that was my monday and I really just scratched the surface, God is so wonderfully real and right here with us and in us. I was grateful that I could ask Him, the creator of Heaven and earth, all of the questions I had and He took time out of His unfathomably busy day to sit with me for a day in class taking me through some of these things. My homework assignment was a lifetime more of study to get to know Him better so that when I see Him as He is He knows me.

Knowing that our walks are a daily battle, we get to tuesday. Tuesday was day two of fasting and praying and it got crazy for me. I mentioned at the first mile of this blog that God had even changed the way I pray, well even knowing that, I was in no way prepared for that night. It pretty much ran the gamut from solemnness, to crying out, to praying in the Spirit in all shapes and forms, Hahahaha, I even burst out in to song a few times. At least my neighbor across the hall has known me since high school, so theres no surprises there! It was a wonderful night spent with God.
Wednesday I had the joy of an 8 hour drive through Colorado and it was such a wonderful trip. I just put on praise music for a while worshipping and then I sat in silence while I reflected on how wonderful God is and how grateful I was for working so diligently on our lives. Thanking Him for the trials that He blesses us with to give us the choice to choose Him and not this world. When I got home that evening I got an answer, and I nearly jumped for Joy. Wow! FREEDOM!!!! Hahahaha, It came in the form of waiting on the Lord, which is something I have become gratefully fond in my life. He has affirmed in me one portion of what I am sure will be a lifetime of affirmation and revelation of love from Him. He has upheld in me that the path I seek leads me to righteousness, It cultivates it in me everyday and that's all I need to know its His will. I am not afraid of feelings I might have in the future. I know that He will prepare me beforehand for any obstacle that comes my way because I trust Him to make it all work out for the good, so it doesn't matter anymore, the devil has no power over us when we trust in HIM who holds us to guide us and lead us every step of the way.

this is only the tip of the iceberg of these past few weeks, the rest I reserve to tell my best friend whom I have never trusted, loved, missed or am honored to know more than I do today. The best friend I will surely tackle, tickle and rejoice with the next time I see them. The most awesome part about love between believers is its not emotion when you see them, its devotion. Just as it says when Jacob worked seven years to have his darling Racheal, it seemed to him as a few days. God has put more love than I can even fathom through all of this in me. I am humbled and grateful to know and belong to such a powerful God. A God that is so powerful but yet loving enough to nail ALL sin to a rugged cross. So I gratefully continue to wait. Rejoicing that all bondage and pressure is finally gone and the blessing is there. Watching Gods incredible plan unfold before my eyes because I know He is in it, in me, in all of us that belong to Him. Grace and peace in our Lord to all who followed with me through every mile of this blog...