"The Scent of Water"

Job 14 is a sorrowful lament with memorable lines like, "Man who is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble." There is a little internal story comparing the death of a tree to the death of a man. Job is very hopeful for the tree but not so hopeful for the man. The tree is cut down and is dead! BUT "At the scent of water"...just the scent...the tree begins to live again. For man--for Job who laments the loss of hope, the loss of life--it is not so. Man dies--he's is buried...but wait, here is the hope: there is a time of "change" coming. This is not the promised political change; this is not change that anyone with feet of clay can bring about. It is the change that will occur on "THAT" day, the day of the LORD when we will be changed: we will be like Him!
At the scent of the Living Water, at the sound of the Shofar; at the sight of His glorious appearing, we will be changed! (See Job 14:14)
This journey that we are on is all about preparation for our coming change, for the "day of the Lord when we shall see Him and we shall be like Him." These days I am praying for His swift return. Maranatha!

"The Glory of the Lord"

I was reading this morning in 2 Chronicles, Chapter 5. The last two verses say: "And when the trumpeters and singers were joined in unison, making one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord, and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and other instruments for song and praised the Lord saying, For He is good, for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever, then the house of the Lord was filled with a cloud. So that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God."
This recounts the story of King Solomon when he assembled the Israelites as they brought the ark into the temple. Rather than comment on this, I want to offer a prayer: Oh, God of David, of Solomon, of the saints throughout the ages, be as real to us as you were to the Israelites on that grand day. Show up in our hearts, in our homes, in our churches, in our world. Be so real that we fall on our faces and fill Your fleshly temples with Your mighty presence. Be a palable presence, one that we can see and feel. Come in on the wings of our praises to You. We need you this hour in our world and in our homes. We anxiously await Your mercy and manifested presence. Amen!

God's Gifts

I prayed this morning with a beautiful young woman. I am not sure how old she is but probably 17 or 18. She said that she knew God's calling on her life was in the area of leadership and other young people were coming to her with their problems. She said the problem with that was that she had problems of her own that she didn't know how to deal with. I told her to believe in what she had received from the Lord, then act on it. God does not call only perfect, prepared servants. He prepares the called; He doesn't call the prepared. Whatever He calls us to He will equip us for. We miss out on many opportunities to do His will because we think that we are not worthy, not ready, not smart enough, courageous enough, old enough, good enough. If He has placed a burden on our hearts of a person to speak to or of a task that He needs us to do, then we must risk trusting Him that He will do what He said He would do: He'll never leave us or forsake us. He is looking for a people to show Himself mighty through. We just need to step up. He has prepared the very resources that we need for the task He, Himself, has prepared.