a longer journey, yet

As of late there has been a deeper joy that has begun to take over my countenance.Likewise, as of late there is also a deeper pain that has begun to take over my countenance. It is odd to smile even in the midst of tears and knowing this is deeper than before , but yet there remains still something deep within that is rippling because the source has come near: my God, my Father's comfort, forever joy and peace. These are my thoughts meddled with tears and joy.

As I said in my last blog I have been making my way through Mark and have been amazed as to what fruit it is bearing and the very things Jesus Himself says . But to speak honestly, frankly and candidly here there is some, more a lot of ,really troubling thoughts that come when I read through the book. Like for instance all throughout the book Jesus says " do not proclaim the miracle I have just done for you." what? He also says if we believe anything can be done...it will be done. What's wrong with us that this isn't happening? Why did Jesus take this tactic to ministry? Do we not even know our own God? All this troubles me deeply that there are seldom in the pages of history accounts of christianity working the way it was supposed to originally.

For many this would be the point where they are like " this whole God Jesus being man thing I'm over it." But the thing is over the years I have come to know my God in an intimate way and to understand the way He moves and His intents. He is not predictable by any means, He surprises and amazes me all the time by who he is. The thing is though He never proclaims himself beyond what he needs to and doesn't desire to be proclaimed because He desires our heart more than anything else.

Through a lot of really sucky friendships around me as of late I have come to realize that we as a culture and as a time period suck at being nice. People are not nice, they don't love and they don't care for one another. Argue all you want with this one, but if you have even a sense of perspective and truth within you you'll see this. Take for instance housemates in a lot of cases, they will not go into each others rooms and say hello for some reason, mainly because they don't think about it. People are seperated by a wall both physicallly and metaphorically for some odd reason and what troubles me is the thoughts of trouble arn't there they are covered up. You can seldom find a person that loves in the way that Jesus loved . You can seldom find someone who is going to have things like friendship come naturally. I doubt as well you can find someone who has things flow from them naturally, that is a major bummer. Because the bible tells me what Jesus' intent through all that he taught was for that to happen. And when I read things like Mark 11:26 which says if you don't forgive and love all the Father will not forgive you. And see pictures of Jesus in the garden praying and sweating blood because he is troubled by the fact we are not one I am deeply troubled . We need to get this whole love and intent thing down and we need to deal with the heart just like Jesus was doing and deal with why the heart isn't bringing forth streams naturally.

Ministry shouldn't be a forced thing that is why Jesus had it on the down low because he wanted it to ripple naturally out from Himself and not be a forced thing. Love that is forced is not real love.

The thing is we are sinful people, yes, duh! We all knew that when we said yes to Jesus. But did we become stagnant there? I think a lot of us have. We have fallen from the original design and arn't really working to get back to the original design... we have fallen away from reading and hearing God's words, from talking via Jesus to the Father through prayer. We are a generation so far gone and it deeply troubles me to find us this far gone. Something needs to change and it starts with the heart.Where intentions flow naturally and we take time to deal with what is going on within ourselves this weed of sin and stagnacity that has reaked havoc in our garden.

I have seen a lot of good effort put toward remedying this and that is in part the source of my growing joy . But as 1 thess talks about aim for more still " when we claim we are without sin, we make God out to be a lier." Some of you just don't get it.
My prayers are with you all, that God would begin with the individual and it flow to the masses.I don't care necessarily about my joy but make His joy complete by being of the same mind and letting our ministry be known by love. Remember it is all about Your heart.

"You shall love the Lord YOUR God with all YOUR heart and with all YOUR soul and with all YOUR mind and with all YOUR strength and the second is this you shall love YOUR neighbor as YOURself."( EMPHASIS ADDED PLEASE NOTE IT! )
Mark 12: 30-33

Know I love you all dearly so much. Do not neglect the longer journey, the road is still worth the travel.
JG