To Be Fascinated

I'm reading this book.  It is called the Seven Longings of the Human Heart by Mike Bickle and Deborah Hiebert.  They identify seven longings that God put in our hearts.  IHOP offers this book as a free PDF download => Here 

In chapter two, Mike describes one of the longings as the longing for fascination.  This chapter is AMAZING.  It explains why I've found it so difficult to connect with God, and why I've been so sucked into TV.  This chapter is filled with nuggets of truth.  Here's some of my favorites :

"Unable to reproduce the celestial beauty of God, the heart of man has always reverted to earthly entertainment"

"As we increase our intake of earthly entertainment we dull our capacity to be fascinated by God.  It's not that we don't want to see God, we just can't find Him among the barrage of information to which we're exposing ourselves.  One does not have to be a spiritual giant to recognize the long-term implications of engorging on earthly entertainment while neglecting and dulling our ability to be fascinated with God Himself."

"As we attempt to fulfill our innate desires through movies, music and other forms of entertainment, we are touched in deeply personal places.  We open our innermost being to ultimately damaging messages, only to find ourselves frustrated, broken and abused by these forms of entertainment."

"By exposing hearts ... we feed our souls with attitudes about people and relationships that can take years to undo."

"Rather than acknowledge their hunger for fascination, and accept that God is the answer to that hunger, some people turn away from God altogether.  They blame their problems on the desire for fascination itself.....We were made to be fascinated.  The problem is not with the desire, but with attempting to fulfill the desire in a wrong way..."

"It is a prime trick of the enemy to leverage the God-given desire for fascination to entice us into actions that end up dulling our perception..."

"A satisfied, fascinated believer is a spiritually, strong believer who lives with a special measure of protection from Satan's schemes.  Many of the opportunities for sin that come their way are rejected, not because of some moral superiority...but simply because the believer is preoccupied with the beauty of God....deceptions of the enemy are more quickly exposed...unsatisfying distractions from that which is truly fulfilling."

"There is more to serving God than simply gritting your teeth and trying to avoid evil."

Now, the challenge is how to undo all the damage.  I want to love and be fascinated by God with clarity.  I want my heart to be changed.

St. Patrick's Day Parade

March 17th is St. Patrick's day.  Apparently, it is a pretty big deal in Kansas City.  They estimate anywhere from 30 000 to 80 000 people attend this parade, dependent on the weather.  And, it is a huge evangelistic event at IHOP.  600-700 IHOP-ers, decked out in green shirts joined.  For 2-3 hours before the parade, there were several areas we could could participate :

1) Handing out pamphlets on St. Patrick which tell people exactly what St. Patrick was in Ireland to do.

2) Street Survey/Prophetic teams - When was St. Patrick born ?  Where ?  Did he go to heaven ?  Why ? Are you going to heaven ?  Why ?

3) Dream Interpretation teams - "St. Patrick went to Ireland based on a dream.  What are your dreams telling you ?"

4) Musical teams 

I wimped out and handed out the St. Patrick's day pamphlets.  It was easy to do, and didn't have to worry about rejection.  But, hearing the stories from the other teams, I want do that next opportunity - they had more fun.

During the parade, St. Patrick sat up on a big green mountain and shared 10-20 sec gospel messages, and the 600-700 green IHOP-ers, walked behind singing and waving streamers.  It was quite cool.  Here's some pictures:

     

Passion for Jesus Conference

So, there was a conference this weekend.  I'm wiped.  But, it was good stuff.

One of the things that totally struck me was that Jesus does not self-protect like we do.  His heart is always open toward us, even when we hurt Him.  Really WHO does that ?  

Its like the last time a friend was in a bad mood and was a little chilly when I went over to chat.  You KNOW that the next time I say hello, that I'll be a little cautious, just to make sure she doesn't hurt me again, that is if I'm not a little miffed at her myself.  

That's not how Jesus is...every time we approach Him He scoops us right up into a big bear hug and says, "Welcome !!  I can't wait to spend some time with you!!"  

So, what if last time we talked with Him was 15 years ago and have been ignoring Him every time He tries to say hello ?  Or what if, we actually told Him off because we blamed Him for pain in our lives and have since then been telling people how horrible He is ?

What does Jesus do ?  He remains WIDE open.  Every word and harshness is incredibly painful because He remains open to it.  Why ?  Because He does not want to miss the slightest chance that we want to get to know Him.  

Believe me - I'm not that loving to even the people I love most.  

This isn't about me being not good enough.  Self-protection is a built-in human trait.  We can only take so much.  No, this is about how vastly different God is, He can take infinitely more and be infinitely more loving.  

Back for more

It was a hectic itsy bitsy visit home.  But, I enjoyed reconnecting with family and as many of the friends as I could see Sunday morning.  

Coming back, I'm happy to be here.  My visit totally confirmed that I should be here.  How do I explain this...the whole time I was home, I was longing for time when I could sit quietly with God.  It is good to know that I am where I'm supposed to be.

I had a pretty emotional time being home.  And, I carried that emotion here.  I think God is doing something in my heart (wooohoo!!) and it has me really vulnerable and not quite sure what to do with it all.  Typically, this is the point where I would find some mean of escape, TV, movies, hours on internet.  But, I'm learning that this is not really the answer.  God gave people (me included) some pretty powerful emotions....numbing them with entertainment does not end well.  Its taken me a long time to realize that what I need to do is learn to walk through these emotions.  Now, is the journey of learning to walk through them.  And, walking through them will involve some serious giving them to God and what that looks like.  

Really - what does giving emotions to God look like?  Its easy enough to say, I'm sure it'll be hard to do, but the question in my head is what do I actually do/say to God to give Him my emotions ?

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