the power and presence
I attended a little church in the foothills of Woodland Hills, CO on Sunday. Sitting with me were my niece, her husband, and my 15-year-old nephew, and one of their friends. The church was housed in a small section of an empty strip mall and about 40 people streamed in to worship.
As we worshiped it struck me how powerful the presence of God was in this small church. Members had arrived early to pray, inviting God into the service before it began.
He must have been listening.
At some point I forgot where I was and who I was with and just centered in on Who I felt. Before that I was transitioning from working with the Writers Guild all weekend to thinking about the women of Aurora AG in Aurora, CO. I’m traveling to speak to these new friends at the end of the month, and was already thinking about what I was speaking about, what I needed to do…
As I basked in the presence of God I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be, and doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing.
If I show up perfectly prepared but without the power and presence of God, it won’t mean a whole lot.
There were other things that God gently showed me that morning in that small church, and perhaps I’ll be able to share more in another post. But the most important was that what I do is more than a message–it’s the immense privilege of communicating a transforming gospel. And I can’t share that without it first brimming over in my own life.
Well, I’m sitting in the airport, homeward bound, and only have a few moments left! I hope I see you in your community one day, friends, but until then I pray that God is so real, so vibrant, and the power of presence of God wraps around you in such a powerful way that you can’t help but share it with others.
Suz
Posted by Suzie @
12:09 pm |
a life of content
I’m speaking on Saturday to a group of women locally. It’s a conference on mind, body, and spirit, and I’m the “spirit” part. My topic is Living a Life of Content, and it’s a personal message that I have to keep close.
It’s challenging when you are a communicator and your passion for the topic fizzles.
Or worse, when you just keep on talking. . . (more…)
Posted by Suzie @
3:22 pm |
Leaving some baggage behind at DEN
I sat in the Denver airport yesterday for six hours, and then another hour on the tarmac. That’s a lot of time to think.
I heard a lot of great speakers at the conference in downtown Denver this past week. That’s a huge benefit of teaching at these conferences, in that I am privileged to sit under the teaching and speaking of people I truly respect. Like Max Lucado. Kendra Smiley. Phillip Yancy. Phil Vischer.
One thing that I’ve learned about great speakers/pastors/lay people is that no matter how polished it is, or how great the powerpoint presentation or videos, if the audience doesn’t remember it the next day or know what do do with the message, then it’s just a message.
But if you wake up thinking about it the next day, and the next, it’s more than a message. It’s a call to action. Somehow those words transcended into a “you and God” moment, and you know that you need to do business with your Creator. (more…)
Posted by Suzie @
12:11 pm |
six things
Have you ever had one of those weeks where you are working all day, and then you dream about it too?
I’m there!
I’m preparing some workshops for the Writing for the Soul conference in Denver the 18th through the 21st. Somewhere in there I’m spending some time with Richard’s grandmother (she’s almost 95, though she says she’s 104 and I love her like crazy), and driving to Dallas to meet my grandbaby on ultrasound. We get to find out if it’s a boy or a girl!!
I’m also preparing for two local events, and another parenting conference in Illinois in early March.
Somewhere in there I’m taking care of my Christian Writers’ Guild students, blogging, and tackling writing assignments and proposals.
When I’m in this mode, I have to remember that I can’t do it all. No one can.
This is when my Six Things kicks in and helps me. I’m a hummingbird head kind of girl, and can get sidetracked by so many things that not a lot gets accomplished, though I look busy. (more…)
Posted by Suzie @
6:47 am |
black iron gates
Sometimes, when God really wants to get my attention, He wakes me up in the middle of the night. I stare at the ivory trey ceiling, moonlight spilling in through the blinds and I know that it’s God. The clarity of the moment says, “listen”.
That happened the other night, after I visited the shelter where the black iron gates kept women and children from harm from their loved ones.
On that day, I sat quietly in my car afterwards, my world just a little larger than it had been a few moments earlier.
When I write, or when I speak, there will be women in the audience who are experiencing something so hard and so painful, that trite words or a formula or a canned speech or book only serves to cause them additional pain.
My visit to the shelter was a reminder of that.
And also a reminder of a conference a few years earlier. I was one of many workshop speakers, and then there were the keynoters–the women who spoke to the audience of thousands. I was standing in my booth when I heard a woman stop one of the speakers.
She was hesitant, standing there with her long dark hair, her Ugg-like boots, and a Bohemian skirt. “My husband and I are struggling,” she whispered.
I closed my eyes in pain when I heard the speaker’s response. She looked the woman up and down and patted her on the shoulder. “Shave your legs, sweetheart. Dress nice for your husband. Put on a little makeup.”
The speaker, immaculate in her cloned NYJones suit and matching shoes, gave her a quick hug and walked away.
The woman stood in the center of the massive conference center, stricken.
She was handed trite advice without any knowledge of the problem. Maybe the challenge was intimacy. Maybe it was spiritual. Maybe he was cheating. Or maybe she was just a tired mom of four who needed a break. But shaving your legs and throwing on some lipstick doesn’t even begin to cover most issues, much less a serious one.
How do we get to that place; where we fail to listen, where we think we are Methuselah, all wise, all knowing? Dear God, please don’t let me fall into that trap. Don’t let my world get so shallow and so isolated that I believe that the world is one rosy place, beautiful and unfettered, making my life or my perspective the total lens through which I peer.
It’s another set of black iron gates, where we are so shut in our own world that we forget what’s on the other side.
Those were the things running through my brain the other night. Waking from a peaceful slumber to a conversation with an all-knowing God. But it was more than just a conversation, because that’s the way God operates. It was a call to action.
My world is too small, and I have to do something about that. I have plans, but just need some prayer time to make sure I’m taking the right step in the right direction.
Deep down, I know it is.
Posted by Suzie @
12:54 pm |
holy discontent
Have you ever felt it? You want something, but you don’t know what it is. It’s right under the surface and it won’t go away, so you do other things to cover it, or you push it aside.
It’s holy discontent. You might feel stuck spiritually. It may have been a very long since you felt God.
Oh, Suzie, don’t give me that emotional stuff. You don’t have to feel God to follow Him.
I do. I have learned to trust Him in the times that I don’t feel Him. I have learned to dig deep into the experiences of the past that remind me of God’s faithfulness. I have learned to lean on Scripture and the promises within.
But I need to feel God, His presence, His strength.
I want to feel Him, and there have been times (many) that I’ve had to stop and find the source of that holy discontent.
That’s exactly what happened the day I stood in the ballroom of the hotel at the She Speaks conference as my friend and Proverbs 31 Ministries founder, Lysa TerKeurst spoke.
(To see the original devo that started this crossroads discussion, click here.)
I was discontented. I had been for a while. Like King David in Psalms 51:12 I was praying, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me”. I needed Him. I had allowed some really meaningless things to take the place of intimacy with God. I still talked to Him. I still loved Him. But I knew there was more because I had experienced more. I had misplaced something very valuable and I needed it back.
I remember standing there in a room of 700 and it was as if I was alone with God. I held back, waiting for the final amen so I could escape to the prayer room. I didn’t care who was in there. I didn’t care if people saw that I was part of the team. All I knew is that I needed to get alone with God.
It was a course correction of sorts.
Holy discontent is a beautiful gift. It’s the Holy Spirit, the One who knows you and the heart of the Father drawing you closer, stopping you in your tracks and reminding you that there’s more to being a child of God than church, more than committees, more than writing books, more than teaching, more than being just being moral or good.
Maybe you are connected. Maybe you are right in the heart of His plan, and you still feel holy discontent. This is a prayer today for you and for me.
I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit. And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him.
May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God.
Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope. May he be given glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever through endless ages. Amen.
Ephesians 3:16-21 (New Living Translation)
Posted by Suzie @
6:23 am |
