There are verses in the bible that keep coming up in conversation, in preaching, in books being read... Why does this happen? Because God wants us to get the message.
I had a dream this morning where a group of people and I were sitting talking about this very subject. And one of the ladies said that a particular chunk of scriprure kept coming back to her and being in her face. I was prompted to tell her why.
What I said was someyhing like this.
We are meant to be about the Fathers business, and to do that, we need to have intimacy with Him. To be intimate is to spend time with Him, but we cant do that if we drop the axe head.
I read the story where a group of guys are out chopping wood to build stuff, and one of them borrowed and axe head from someone so he could do his bit. He's working away then he looses his axe head.
I have seen people, they are working away and then they stop. Why did they stop, becsuse they lost their axe head or they lost their intimacy with God.
In the story, the guy goes to the man of God and says to him, that he cant work because he lost the axehead and what's worse is the thing was borrowed.
The man of God says to him, take me to where you lost it. It wasnt "go to the shop and buy a new one". It wasn't "go and borrow another one". It was "take me the the exact spot where you lost the thing".
They go there, and the guy says its in there. It sunk to the bottom of the water. As axe heads will do! But, the man of God picks up a stick tosses it in and the axe head floats, and the guy retreives it!
The point is, that if we stop being intimate with God, we need to ask ourselves what happened! Did we move away? Did we drop our axe head?
We cant be about the Fathers business if we do not know what that business is. And we are meant to be stewards, not servants.
To be a steward, we need to be on the same page as the boss. Because we have access to His thoughts, His desires etc.
A servant will do only what they are told, they may have an incling of the bigger picture, but they are slaves, the big picture means nothing to a slave. Slaves do only what they are told to do, nothing more. Unless they have the desire to become a steward.
To be about the Fathers business we need to be about the Father. Intimacy.
Yearly? Well, you can try! But if you have a spouce and you only see them once a year on Christmas, are you really going to know what gift they want? You can guess, but you wont have had intimate conversations to find out what they like. So yearly with God doesn't cut it in the intimacy department.
What about monthly? Well, monthly, you've gotten closer to being a steward, but you are still a slave. The simple fact is that whilst once a month with God is a great improvement on once a year, in reality, if youre onlt committed to once a month, you may as well be committed to only once a year, because once a month isnt enough to get that intimacy thing going. Instead of being almost total strangers, you're sort of acquaintances, who still have huge awkward moments, periods of silence, and a vague desire to end the conversation to go your separate ways!
Once a week is a huge imptovement. Your relationship has kicked up a gear. You know the other enough to overlook the awkwardness. You know the other person likes coffee, but you've never made it for them.
But to have the relationship with God where you and He are in the same book, on the same page, requires effort on your part. When you don't feel like it, when you're sick in bed, when you're so busy that you're run off you're feet and thouroughly exhausted, when the world is great... its a daily thing, even an hourly thing, and right down to spending every spare minute with Him, even every second. And yes, you can still work while spending time with God. You can talk to your passengers in the car while you drive? You can tslk to God while you do stuff. You talk to your family whilst preparing dinner? You can do the same with God.
To swim means you need to get wet past your ankles.
To see the axe head float, means you need to go back to where you lost it.
To be intimate with God requires you to desire His presence wherever you are and with whomever you're with, whatever you're doing, every second of the day.
Things come up again and again and again becsuse God is trying to tell us something. Are our ears painted on? Or are we being about the Fathers business, in intimacy, leading devoted lives, that are totally in tune and walking in cadence with Gods Spirit?
May Gods blessings shower down upon you. And may you be coated in the dust of your Rabbi!
Australian Watcher On The Wall
http://australianwatcheronthewall.blogspot.com.au
