Hi Everyone,
Usually I’ve posted in the mornings but tonight as I was seeking the Lord and He was compelling me to trust Him deeply for big decisions, I read a very provocative Proverb in 29:19. "A slave will not be instructed by words alone for though he understands there will be no response."
This really stopped me. I recall when Christianity felt like a duty in my life - a sort of slavery - and I heard all the ‘words’ but what I did was the exact opposite of my Master's words. You see, knowledge for me went in one ear and out the other. I knew it but it was being taken in by a mind that had no desire to be renewed by it or transformed by it. But more that, I did my check in the box and moved on with self at the wheel.
A couple of days ago I heard my Master say trust me and leap. This is not simply a word of knowledge that Jesus is trustworthy. This is a genuine dialogue between the Master and the slave where the slave has said "I LOVE MY MASTER!" This is intimacy that supersedes language going in one ear and out other. This is intimacy as a result of His Words landing deep because, by His grace, I allow them to be digested and become me. Why? Because through the same words and through a retrospective view of my life, I can claim without a shadow of a doubt He knows BEST. It is an intimacy such that when Satan comes and says, Did God really say that? are you sure? I can shout with boldness YES! His promises are true, His guidance is perfect, and He is trustworthy.
In the last number of weeks as I have faced large decisions on my own, I hear Him in my morning time. Cari - leap, Cari trust, Cari I’m testing, Cari I’ll equip you to pass the tests. Your job is surrender to ME, your Master, not simply with lip service but with your heart where there IS A RESPONSE of obedience even though you cannot clearly see ten steps ahead!
I may have started out in my walk as a bit of a ornery slave but over time more and more I make a daily decision to "stay put" - not look for a better master (which is usually myself) but embrace the best Master of my house - psychologically, physically, and spiritually. Sometimes an unexpected guest may show up and I’m called to ‘prepare a meal’ thinking I have no ingredients yet He provides. Sometimes I’m called to take an action ‘out of my order’ yet His order is magnificently perfect. Then there are those days where life takes a dramatic turn and deep loss is staring me in the face - and He catches the tears and prepares a table in that valley - and in a very odd way the Master is really serving me with incomprehensible love! - the depth of which I could never return in kind this side of heaven.
Maybe in context this little verse in Proverbs means something entirely different. But for me it was a fresh breath and an inner knowing that my Master and I are not just simply in a business relationship with an end but in an intimate one where "slave" in the secular vernacular, is NO longer the primary noun I would use to describe my walk!
Much love,
Cari