April 3, 2009 Not Withholding

These days I am slowing down, not because of age (at least not yet), but purposefully, willingly, consciously. There is a miracle that is not just 'going to happen' but 'is happening now' every minute of everyday, right 'now'.

Truth, life are perpetual gifts from God. The paradox is the need to slow down to see the perpetual movement of these gifts. There is no stopping the gifts of God, ever, they flow freely. Any limits we experience is a result of our limiting...not God's withholding.

Sometime back it came to me, it's like someone standing in the shower wearing a rain coat. This is how we are. To add to what I originally shared about this, He is showering on us His love, His mercy, His grace, His gifts are constantly pouring out on us and we inhibit them. When we can allow the rain coat to be stripped off and stand naked and vulnerable before Him we then can receive all that He is pouring on us.

Romans 12:1 So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life - and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. 2 Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. 3 I'm speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it's important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him. 4 In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around.

In order to embrace what God is pouring out on me everyday, I must become a....

http://thm-a02.yimg.com/image/64161cbad31707be

(what are the odds that a diver would find a sponge the shape of a heart?!)