The Goodness of God 8-30-09

The past month I feel like I have been getting my teeth kicked in. My spiritual authority had told me to keep writing something each week, yet for the past 5 weeks I have felt nothing to write about. I have seen yet another example of the absolute importance of fellowship and support. You see, when I went to Montana I was overwhelmed with the anointing of God as it rested and dwelt upon my spiritual authority. For two weeks I was immersed in God's Presence and Anointing. Then I came back to Tennessee, and awaited the time when God would open the doors and I would move to be discipled by these mighty one's of God.

And time passed.

and time passed.

and passed.

And before I knew it, it had been close to four months that had taken place since I was saturated in God's abundant grace. I found work (the only work that was available, but it required me to work on Sunday which would prohibit me from attending church.) But I told myself it was only for a time and then I would be moving and once again be able to experience the support and encouragement of the corporate body of believers in church.

As the four months rolled by, what had been a wonderful clarity of God's voice in my life faded into a whisper. And that whisper faded into silence. What had been a weekly encounter with the Holy Spirit, turned into a "Holy Spirit where are You?" moment. The anointing being diminished in my life. Now hold on, before you call me a heathen for saying God's Presence wears off, allow me to explain.

King David had a wonderful anointing upon him. He was anointed for war. So strong was David's anointing that those who fought beside David also gained that anointing for fighting. These would become David's Mighty Men (2 Samuel 23). In fact, the New Testament describes God's Presence and our relation to it, as a "cup" that overflows (Psalm 23:5, Luke 22:20, Romans 5:5). God promised that He would "pour out His Spirit on all flesh in the last days (Joel 2). Constantly we are told to be "filled" with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:4, Acts 13:52).

This is not a one time filling, it is a continual filling because as is evidenced throughout the Bible, God wants us to remain dependent on Him, so just like when He sent Manna from Heaven for Israel, He also wants us to keep coming back to Him to get more of Him.

So over the last four months, because of not being able to go to church, and not having much Christian fellowship, I have not been getting filled up on a consistent basis. This has led to getting less and less able to clearly hear from God concerning what He is wanting to show me. Christians should be the most interdependent people on the planet!

Today I was able to go to church for the first time in the better part of four months, and though the service itself was not what some would call a "moment of divine revelation", what it DID do, was to plug me in to share in the corporate anointing that rests upon New Hope and the people there. All day long God has been showing me things that have rocked my heart in ways I thought I had forgotten about.

Yesterday I went to work and was told that I would not be able to work ue to not having a certain item in my possession and a $20 bank for change. Yesterday I was more upset than I have been in MONTHS. I had to ask friends to keep me in prayer because I was on the verge of venting in an emotional outburst of "what I REALLY think". Needless to say, today after church I was not REALLY keen on the idea of going to work. Yet, in many ways God showed me certain things which I will now outline here.

I hear Christians everyday talk about how they are being persecuted in the workplace. Some are, but most are simply immature and think that ANY conflict is a sign of the other person hating them for their faith. I have never liked saying things like "my faith is being challenged at work" because to me, it almost seemed like such a person signs up for the victim role. I want to be salt and light... not a victim.

For close to three months, I have been pushed into a corner at work. Many times it truly felt like they were trying to make me quit. And had I still been that immature young man who had a horrible work ethic, I would have. But something inside me has shifted. Something has changed. I thought it was just a matter of maturity. But today I think it is something else. Yesterday I was pushed into a corner and my shift was given to another server who wasn't even on the schedule. I was sent home, and they worked.

This ate at me ALL DAY. After church I received a phone call from a sister in Christ who wanted to call me and tell me she was praying for me. This instantly encouraged me, for I honestly do not know if I would have gotten through this season without her prayers. But something she said really resonated with me. She had told me that she started praying for me from the first day we started working there because she could see from day one how I was getting railroaded. This was the first time I REALLY thought about the idea that I might be getting pushed to quit. Now the old me would have looked for a confrontation to take advantage of, use it to voice my opinions, act in a self righteous way, quit on "moral grounds", and learned NOTHING. Today I actually THANK them for being used to confront me with these issues I used to struggle with.

Today I am not the same person I was 2-3 years ago. Today I can see how God has used them to refine me and to bring out His reflection in me. While others will berate managers, I hold my tongue. While others speak out, disrespect authority and rebel, I humble myself and submit, respecting those in authority over me. While others fly off the deep end because they don't want to remove a lip ring, I do pretty much everything asked of me while at work. While others sit behind closed doors gossiping about the managers, I choose not to spread rumors. Numerous servers have come to me and said "if that happened to me, I would have walked out." I simply smile and say "I'm not you."

But it is clear at this point that there is a push to get me to quit. Yet this makes NO sense to me because I have already submitted my 2 week notice and will be leaving in about 8 days.

So today before work, I was spending sometime alone with God, and I picked up the Book "The Knowledge of the Holy" by A W Tozer. This was a book I had tried NUMEROUS times to read but could not get into it. Yet today I flipped to the chapters and my eyes quickly fell to the "Goodness of God" chapter.

As I started reading it became clear to me that in my quest to draw closer to God through His Righteousness, Holiness, and Grace, I had lost sight of a KEY element of the nature of God. And that is His Goodness. We say it all the time, "God is good." Yet we shuffle past this without really letting it sink in.

God is GOOD. He listens to our prayers, not because He has to, but because He is GOOD. He created us, and redeemed us by sending His Son to die for us, not because He was forced to... but because He is GOOD. God LOVES giving us GOOD things! He delights in His children! He adores us!