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Room 712

Thin spaces and Divine wrestling matches

Last week I was doing some work at my Planet Changer Uganda office located in Seeta, just outside the capital of Kampala. I knew it was going to be a busy week as I was picking up supplies with our Uganda director Moses and his wife Bena.

We needed bunk beds, mattresses, sheets, chairs and a handful of other supplies to get the rooms at the office ready for a team from SVA Church. They will be coming in January to help with water testing, GPS tagging of completed water systems and conduct community health and sanitation surveys.

As there was not a bed for me yet, I stayed at a nearby hotel, this would be my basecamp for accomplishing the long to-do list. While I was looking forward to some alone time with God while savoring some amazing Ugandan tea in the mornings, my experience ran on the twin rails of beauty and struggle.

Behind the door of room 712 I passed into a divine portal where I was about to wrestle everyday for a week.

While no place is truly holier than another, as God is found everywhere and within you, during my prayer, meditation and sleep time I entered into a thin space. A thin space is the Celtic way of expressing that you have experienced the presence of God in such a real and intimate way that the veil between the here-and-now and the presence of God is as thin as translucent paper. Room 712 became for me a Jabbok river of sorts confronting my greater and lesser angels.

In the morning, while I read, prayed and meditated, God’s presence was so tangible my entire body was humming with the energy of creation.

It was amazing…
A place I didn’t want to leave…
Like Peter, I said, “Let’s build three shelters and stay here!” when he experienced the transfiguration of Jesus right before his eyes.

I felt as if I might float away, I even checked once or twice to make sure I was still sitting in my chair! I wondered if I might float right into His throne room on the waves of His love and light.

However, while I slept, we wrestled for control of things I felt I might lose, things I might gain. My mind wouldn’t settle, I felt the weight of my thoughts on my chest like a cement blanket.

Was I jacob at the Jabbok river wrestling with the man who was really God? Would I cling until He blessed me? Who was I, and why did the night spaces become an MMA ring? Was I jacob or Monty or pastor or activist or or or. If I follow His lead and surrender all, who will I become? Will I like me? Will others like me?

While my mind worked to control scenario after scenario crashing through my mind, in the tumultuous silence I finally heard what my soul needed most: “I love you, You are mine.”

And that is exactly what I needed to hear.

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Choices, they will change your future

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Everyday we have a number of choices set before us. A choice is a spiritual portal, an opportunity to exercise either faith or fear. In so many ways the truth of the matter is that making a choice is often the most spiritual thing you do.

Each choice carries an incredible amount of potential. You can choose one way and move closer to God, or choose another way and move away from God. Choice is the gift of freedom, but it also requires faith if we are to stay aligned with God throughout the day and move towards a God-centric future.

It has been said that we are the sum total of the choices that we made 10+ years ago, and who we will be in 10 years will be a result of the choices that we make today. In this sense, choices will change your future. The question is, are you making the choices that will create the best future.

Tonight, I did some meditating on great quotes about choices.

May the following thoughts about choices from others inspire you to see each of your decisions as a divine opportunity to move closer to God and experience the life He created you for!

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“In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.” ~Theodore Roosevelt

“God always gives His best to those who leave the choice with him.” ~Jim Elliot

“Every choice you make has an end result.” ~Zig Ziglar

“Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.” ~William Jennings Bryan

“Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content.” ~Samuel Johnson

“The remarkable thing is, we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.” ~Charles R. Swindoll

“Every thought is a seed. If you plant crab apples, don’t count on harvesting Golden Delicious.” ~Bill Meyer (1892-1957);Baseball Manager, Coach

“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” ~Viktor Frankl

“Let us not be content to wait and see what will happen, but give us the determination to make the right things happen.” ~Peter Marshall

“You must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right.” ~Rosa Parks

“Never, never be afraid to do what’s right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society’s punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” ~Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr

“What we call the secret of happiness is no more a secret than our willingness to choose life.” ~Leo Buscaglia

“Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely.” ~Buddha

“We are our choices.” ~Jean-Paul Sartre

“You cannot continue on the same path and arrive at a different destination. Make the choice to have your actions reflect your goals.” ~Steve Maraboli

“Far too many of us value the freedom to choose rather than the choices that make us free” ~Erwin McManus

“On a daily basis we’re faced with two simple choices. We can either listen to ourselves and our constantly changing feelings about our circumstances, or we can talk to ourselves about the unchanging truth of who God is and what He’s accomplished for us at the cross.” ~The Cross-Centered Life

“Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live! ~Deuteronomy 30:19

“… choose this day whom you will serve … But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” Joshua 25:15

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Bless What Eludes My Grasp: Loder

Powerful prayers Have you ever been praying for someone…some things…and you just knew that there was something else you were supposed to pray about? There was someone on your list of people that was eluding your mind in the moment and it gnawed at you so you prayed the generic prayer to the sovereign God of forgettful people reminding Him that He knew all and you remember scant little…We have all been there. In this prayer we are reminded that there are things that elude our grasp, so we trust in the God that is larger than our grasp.  MC

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Lord, so many things skitter through my mind,

and I give chase to gather them

    and hold them up in a bunch to you,

but they go this way and that

    while I go that way and this…

So, gather me up instead

and bless what eludes my grasp but not yours:

    trees and bees, fireflies and butterflies,

    roses and barbecues, and people…

Lord, bless the people…bless the people:

    birthday people,

        giving birth people,

            being born people;

    conformed people,

        dying people,

            dead people;

    hostaged people,

        banged up people,

            held down people;

    leader people,

        lonely people,

            limping people;

    hungry people,

        surfeited people,

            indifferent people;

    first world people,

        second world people,

            third world people;

    one world people,

        your people,

            all people.

Bless them, Lord.

Bless what eludes my grasp but not yours.

~Ted Loder (Guerillas of Grace)

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Finding Space

I read this meditation this week and it continues to speak to me…mcw

 

    Each of us needs an opportunity to be alone,

    and silent,

    to find space in the day or in the week,

    just to reflect

    and to listen to the voice of God

    that speaks deep within us.

    Our search for God is only our response

    to His search for us.

    He knocks at our door,

    but for many people their lives are too

    preoccupied

    for hem to be able to hear.

                                        ~Cardinal Basil Hume