I just thought I would share with you what God has been doing in the last two days. (and yes, you may share this with the team as well) Yesterday, I spent time continuing to think on and ponder our session on Monday evening. I sensed God speaking to me, ever so gently. This morning, I knew I wanted to get up and do some reading, but didn't know if I would wake up early enough to do that as well as watch the tv program I missed on Monday evening. It was scheduled to be on this morning at 6:00 am. Well, wouldn't you know it, God, in His faithfulness, stirred me to wakefulness around 5:15. As I lay there praying, knowing I couldn't get back to sleep and being afraid that if I did, I would miss the show, I decided to get up and bring with me the book I mentioned Monday, A God to call Father. I have read parts of this book before (over the past 2-3 years) and never have I gone farther than the chapter I started reading again today. I have attached it so you can read it. I know it will put a huge grin on your face. Anyhow, I prayed the prayer within, with my own words, as I was reading it. As I look on all the things that have been going on in the past month, from the things I have been sharing with my friend Kathy (thy word is a lamp unto my feet...the covenant with Abraham...he followed, even though he didn't know where he was going...etc) I find that God has been speaking to me and drawing me to this point of decision. He reminded me on Monday, and continues to remind me that, yes, I WANT to have a deeper relationship with Him, but I have NOT been WILLING. I have been too afraid. Well, I am still afraid. But, I feel, especially after this mornings reading, that I am finally willing. Still afraid, but knowing that God is the one who has led me to this place and He is the one that will continue to lead me.
Thank you so much, again, for all you have done, through Him, to help bring me to this point. Please, (and I know you will) continue to pray for His strength for me to continue in this journey. As scared as I am of what is to come, I so look forward to having a Father I can truly call Daddy.
In HIS care, and in HIS love, and in HIS arms I know I am wrapped, Amy
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
e-mail to Kathy
After my inner healing and deliverance meeting on Monday evening, I have been thinking much about what was brought out. The desire of God to want to bring me into a closer relationship with Him. To be my Father, my Abba, my Daddy. Yesterday, I spent my free thoughts thinking about this. The difference between wanting to know Him better and getting into a deeper relationship with Him and the WILLINGNESS to do so. I have WANTED to have this type of relationship for many years. But I have not been WILLING to take the steps necessary to have this. To be willing to allow God into places in my heart that I don't want to see or feel or experience. This morning, He woke me up early. I had wanted to watch the American Experience: We Shall Remain at 6:00 am. He woke me around 5:15. I couldn't get back to sleep and so got up and brought the book, A God to call Father out with me. The following is what I read:
Starting out from the secure doctrinal homes in the valley you have known so long can be more than a little fearful. The first steps are often timid ones.
Though fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, we’re often so fogged in by the traditions of men that we can’t move beyond them to find out what the Lord’s wisdom actually might be. Especially dubious are we of any so-called new doctrine that seeks to explain things in ways we’re unaccustomed to.
And now I have come to the valley talking new and fresh ways of “knowing” God, challenging you to travel up into the mountain region you cannot even see from here. I would be surprised if there wasn’t some quivering your spiritual knees. Truly I understand, dear friends. I myself lived in the valley for many years before following the white-bearded man into the mountain regions.
How well I recall my own first tentative steps!
How afraid I was that I might overstep the traditional bounds of my Christian training in leaving the comfort of the valley terrain I knew so well.
Oh, but I soon learned to trust the stranger, my guide and mentor who soon became my friend. I saw that he desired only to lead me to God my Father, not away from him. How reassuring it was also to realize that he was only following his own Master’s footsteps and showing me what there was to learn along the way.
Likewise, as we now leave the valley and journey upward together, I only desire to lead you along some of the lesser-known pathways where the footsteps of Jesus himself have led.
Jesus sought his Father alone in the hills, and he invites us to do the same as we accompany him upward.
If you cannot altogether leave your timidity, at least do not let it detain you.
In time, you will look back and realize that your fears have vanished altogether in the fresh lofty air of the spirit.
Come…the adventure begins!
--------------------------
Quiet yourself just now.
Put away pen that would underline, take notes, or scribble thoughts in the margin.
We have arrived at the edge of the valley. The first step along the upward path awaits us. We begin now to move toward a new realm of “getting to know” our Father.
Pray with me, will you.
Father of Jesus, God of the universe, perhaps I have not known you as intimately as you would like. It matters not the cause. This moment has come in my life when I have become aware that I want to know you with the kind of intimacy that your Son, Jesus, knew you. I want to walk and fellowship and communicate and interact with you in a close and daily way. I want to know you fully, or at least as fully as is possible. But with the recognition that I don’t know you as well as I want to comes the realization that I don’t know how to get to know you.
So, I ask you to help me. I want to know you and to do so, I need your help and guidance. I open my mind and my heart and my soul to you, and I ask you to begin turning them in new directions—toward all that your Fatherhood would speak into the depths of my being. Begin strengthening my will, too, so that it becomes trained in pointing the way you, as my Father, would have me go. Help me to think, to feel, and to choose in harmony with your Fatherhood in my life.
Reveal yourself to me. Show me what you are like, show me your nature and your character. Open me to all you would make known to me about yourself. Teach me to call you Father.
Now, please set down this book, close your eyes, and pray this prayer again. Do not repeat the words written on these pages, but pray quietly in your own words, giving to the Father the open and humble expression of your own heart.
This is a prayer any man, woman, or child can pray, whatever their level of spiritual development.
To all who open themselves and humbly ask for the Father to make himself known, worlds of true knowing will slowly and gently begin to open. Not because of any how-to lists you will learn of here, but from being in the presence of the Father.
By continuing to pray your own version of this prayer daily, bringing it to every step of the way we progress together as well as to the Scriptures you read, you will find yourself gradually perceiving truths on newer and deeper levels, at the most unexpected times and places. This will be the Father speaking to you. He always answers prayer! If you speak the words in earnest to him, you can be sure he will give answers to your heart and mind.
Not all at once. In fact, no change may be apparent for hours, days, maybe even years. But as the desires of your prayers are infused into all of you, the Father will answer them. Such prayers will open doors and windows into the higher realms of the Father’s being and purposes.
With every new step we take on this journey, silently lift up to God the heart-opening reaffirmation: Reveal truth to me. Show me how to call you Father. Draw me into you presence.
Do you seek practicalities?
You have just prayed the most vital and practical prayer in all the universe—the prayer God longs to hear his creatures pray.
With those sixteen simple words, you have begun a quest that will change the course of your spiritual life! And a long as you continue to orient your inner being Father-ward, it is a quest that will continue to lead you to new heights, which will, in turn, open into realms of new depths of “knowing” throughout this life…and throughout eternity.
We are now embarking on a journey to discover he whom it delighted Jesus’ heart to seek. This journey, upon which the Son invites us, is a quest of discovery. He bids us rise with him early, a long while before day, while the world yet sleeps. He invites us to accompany him into the quiet hills alone. As our Guide and Friend and elder Brother, he bids us toward the mountains there to discover intimacy with his Father…and ours.
.
I have to tell you, it is so amazing to me how God has been working in my life and through our discussions together, to speak to me at this time. As we were talking on Monday at my inner healing, I was talking about how I had shared with you that "My word is a lamp unto your feet, and a light unto your path" and just how, that is all we really need. Because, if we were to see the whole picture, we wouldn't travel down that path. How Pastor Ed has been preaching about the covenant relationship with Abraham. He told him to go but didn't tell him where and how Abraham went. He trusted in God. The illustration that was used when I was trying to decide whether or not to go to China. The illustration was that God was telling me that he had built and invisible bridge over the Grand Canyon and He wanted me to walk across it. Did I trust Him. As you know, I took that step and went to China. Now, He is telling me he has another invisible bridge over the Grand Canyon and that I once again need to trust Him as I continue my journey into a closer, deeper and more intimate relationship with Him. He is not forcing me, but He is asking me. I prayed, with my heart, the prayer found in this chapter. I didn't wait until after to pray it again in my own words, I changed the words as I was reading/praying it. I read/prayed it out loud. It brought tears to my eyes. Yes, I am afraid, but I also desire such a relationship with God that He IS my Daddy. As you read this, I pray that you would get this book out and begin going through it yourself. Right now, you need a Daddy. The journey will not be easy. But, He will walk you through it. He loves you, and He wants this relationship with you as well. Are you willing?
Starting out from the secure doctrinal homes in the valley you have known so long can be more than a little fearful. The first steps are often timid ones.
Though fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, we’re often so fogged in by the traditions of men that we can’t move beyond them to find out what the Lord’s wisdom actually might be. Especially dubious are we of any so-called new doctrine that seeks to explain things in ways we’re unaccustomed to.
And now I have come to the valley talking new and fresh ways of “knowing” God, challenging you to travel up into the mountain region you cannot even see from here. I would be surprised if there wasn’t some quivering your spiritual knees. Truly I understand, dear friends. I myself lived in the valley for many years before following the white-bearded man into the mountain regions.
How well I recall my own first tentative steps!
How afraid I was that I might overstep the traditional bounds of my Christian training in leaving the comfort of the valley terrain I knew so well.
Oh, but I soon learned to trust the stranger, my guide and mentor who soon became my friend. I saw that he desired only to lead me to God my Father, not away from him. How reassuring it was also to realize that he was only following his own Master’s footsteps and showing me what there was to learn along the way.
Likewise, as we now leave the valley and journey upward together, I only desire to lead you along some of the lesser-known pathways where the footsteps of Jesus himself have led.
Jesus sought his Father alone in the hills, and he invites us to do the same as we accompany him upward.
If you cannot altogether leave your timidity, at least do not let it detain you.
In time, you will look back and realize that your fears have vanished altogether in the fresh lofty air of the spirit.
Come…the adventure begins!
--------------------------
Quiet yourself just now.
Put away pen that would underline, take notes, or scribble thoughts in the margin.
We have arrived at the edge of the valley. The first step along the upward path awaits us. We begin now to move toward a new realm of “getting to know” our Father.
Pray with me, will you.
Father of Jesus, God of the universe, perhaps I have not known you as intimately as you would like. It matters not the cause. This moment has come in my life when I have become aware that I want to know you with the kind of intimacy that your Son, Jesus, knew you. I want to walk and fellowship and communicate and interact with you in a close and daily way. I want to know you fully, or at least as fully as is possible. But with the recognition that I don’t know you as well as I want to comes the realization that I don’t know how to get to know you.
So, I ask you to help me. I want to know you and to do so, I need your help and guidance. I open my mind and my heart and my soul to you, and I ask you to begin turning them in new directions—toward all that your Fatherhood would speak into the depths of my being. Begin strengthening my will, too, so that it becomes trained in pointing the way you, as my Father, would have me go. Help me to think, to feel, and to choose in harmony with your Fatherhood in my life.
Reveal yourself to me. Show me what you are like, show me your nature and your character. Open me to all you would make known to me about yourself. Teach me to call you Father.
Now, please set down this book, close your eyes, and pray this prayer again. Do not repeat the words written on these pages, but pray quietly in your own words, giving to the Father the open and humble expression of your own heart.
This is a prayer any man, woman, or child can pray, whatever their level of spiritual development.
To all who open themselves and humbly ask for the Father to make himself known, worlds of true knowing will slowly and gently begin to open. Not because of any how-to lists you will learn of here, but from being in the presence of the Father.
By continuing to pray your own version of this prayer daily, bringing it to every step of the way we progress together as well as to the Scriptures you read, you will find yourself gradually perceiving truths on newer and deeper levels, at the most unexpected times and places. This will be the Father speaking to you. He always answers prayer! If you speak the words in earnest to him, you can be sure he will give answers to your heart and mind.
Not all at once. In fact, no change may be apparent for hours, days, maybe even years. But as the desires of your prayers are infused into all of you, the Father will answer them. Such prayers will open doors and windows into the higher realms of the Father’s being and purposes.
With every new step we take on this journey, silently lift up to God the heart-opening reaffirmation: Reveal truth to me. Show me how to call you Father. Draw me into you presence.
Do you seek practicalities?
You have just prayed the most vital and practical prayer in all the universe—the prayer God longs to hear his creatures pray.
With those sixteen simple words, you have begun a quest that will change the course of your spiritual life! And a long as you continue to orient your inner being Father-ward, it is a quest that will continue to lead you to new heights, which will, in turn, open into realms of new depths of “knowing” throughout this life…and throughout eternity.
We are now embarking on a journey to discover he whom it delighted Jesus’ heart to seek. This journey, upon which the Son invites us, is a quest of discovery. He bids us rise with him early, a long while before day, while the world yet sleeps. He invites us to accompany him into the quiet hills alone. As our Guide and Friend and elder Brother, he bids us toward the mountains there to discover intimacy with his Father…and ours.
.
I have to tell you, it is so amazing to me how God has been working in my life and through our discussions together, to speak to me at this time. As we were talking on Monday at my inner healing, I was talking about how I had shared with you that "My word is a lamp unto your feet, and a light unto your path" and just how, that is all we really need. Because, if we were to see the whole picture, we wouldn't travel down that path. How Pastor Ed has been preaching about the covenant relationship with Abraham. He told him to go but didn't tell him where and how Abraham went. He trusted in God. The illustration that was used when I was trying to decide whether or not to go to China. The illustration was that God was telling me that he had built and invisible bridge over the Grand Canyon and He wanted me to walk across it. Did I trust Him. As you know, I took that step and went to China. Now, He is telling me he has another invisible bridge over the Grand Canyon and that I once again need to trust Him as I continue my journey into a closer, deeper and more intimate relationship with Him. He is not forcing me, but He is asking me. I prayed, with my heart, the prayer found in this chapter. I didn't wait until after to pray it again in my own words, I changed the words as I was reading/praying it. I read/prayed it out loud. It brought tears to my eyes. Yes, I am afraid, but I also desire such a relationship with God that He IS my Daddy. As you read this, I pray that you would get this book out and begin going through it yourself. Right now, you need a Daddy. The journey will not be easy. But, He will walk you through it. He loves you, and He wants this relationship with you as well. Are you willing?
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