I AM...

I AM...two of the most powerful words in the universe.  What you say or put after those two words shapes and defines your life and even the world around you and how you see your world.  The " I Am" of the Creator spoke the worlds into existence and was that most holiest of names not even to be verbalized or fully written by the Jews - the name He gave them as He called out their identity as a nation and people. 

    Not long ago I was talking to my mom about affirmations, what I've been learning about speaking truth over my life and obeying the Scriptures to speak even that which is not as though it is. To declare the person I desire to be and those attributes I desire to walk in but am not fully because our words have power and when we speak these out loud, and repeat them over and often, we begin to believe, be intentional about being and walking in those very things.  This isn't just the power of positive thinking but that where we put our thoughts and then our spoken word, we put effort and intention toward and rise up into those things that God has foreseen and called out within us to be.  

   In fact, before Jesus started His ministry, He spent 40 days fasting in the wilderness, solidifying His identity and the purposes and pursuits of His Father.  And the passage says that at the end of 40 days, He was hungry, but ready, and the Enemy came to Him, questioning from the very first, His Identity,  saying that if He was who He said He was, He could turn the stones into bread and feed Himself.  Jesus reply? Something like this: "Bread isn't life, I AM  LIFE because I Am the Word that proceeded from the Father.  You have to be connected in to the Father to have life, and I Am."  Again Satan questioned his true identity, and again Jesus affirms His true identity: "I Am the Lord your GOD - you shouldn't tempt me."  Finally, Satan, not able to shake His identity, offered to let Him abdicate it for temporary wealth and power. Jesus declared, "Away from me, I Am alone the worthy object of worship and servitude. What is seen here is temporary.  I Am One with the Father forever worshipped and served."  No, these aren't the exact words He used, but they are the concepts by which He defeated Satan.   And it is His truth and identity and the identity we have through Him that allows us to vanquist the Enemy of our souls and our enemy within.  If we lay claim to the statements that He speaks over us, we align ourselves with who He says He is and who we are, it could just changed the world!  It did for the disciples and many others through history.  It lifts our heads and our eyes, aligns us with a high and holy and beautiful and good calling.  

   Some of my own affirmations:  

1. I am a child of the Living God

2. I am brave and courageous

3. I am motivated

4. I am a woman of peace

5. I am a giver of love

6. I am joyful

7. I am wise beyond my years

8. I am the manager of my time 

9. I am fully accepted and favored by God

10. I am a powerhouse of action and multitasking

11. I am engaged in loving people hard and deep

12. I am available to whatever/whomever God puts in my day

13. I am confident and knowledgeable

14. I am given all things through Christ

15. I am forgiving and generous

16. I am healthy

17. I am relaxed

18. I am secure

19. I am worthy because He has given me worth

20. I am blessed

21.  I am abounding in gratitude

22. I am excited about today!

23. I am compassionate and thoughtful and loyal

24. I m an encourager and kind

25. I am a friend to the friendless and everyone God brings in my path

Scripture Affirmations - Youtube

He speaks to me...

    He speaks to me.  I needed it.  I heard.  Not only that, I listened.  His rebuke both pointed and gentle, instructive and compassionate.  It had been one of those days, but wait, let me back up.
    Friday night, we had a group over for folk dancing.  One of them, a single mom of two tow-headed little girls, was talking to me about child training, raising.  She was struggling and overwhelmed.  I've been there!  In fact, as we spoke, I too was convicted.  It's so easy as a parent to let things slide, abdicate authority out of fatigue, frustration, weariness of the battle.  We lose our consistency and focus.  As we spoke, I related it to an army training for battle. 

We as parents are the drill sargeants, preparing our children for what lies ahead, the battles they will face in life.  Our goal: to raise up wise, confident warriors who won't be taken out by their enemies, the lies and brokenness around them, or their own brokenness and insecurity.  So, what does a good drill sargeant do?  Works his soldiers, many times hard, always consistent, bent on soldiers who obey instantly their commands, are strong for the fight, trained in scenarios/tactics of the enemy that could cause them harm, aware of their surroundings and the dangers around them - not to fear them but to withstand them in the day of trouble.  If the sargeant allows for insubordination, everyone doing their own thing and figuring out how to be trained for battle on their own, exercising as much as they want or when they want, or who trains some days and moments and is unmotivated to at others, how strong/prepared will his army be in the day of battle?  All the while as I spoke, my own heart was stirred to hit the reset button in my own home.  Take my job as a warrior/teacher seriously, lovingly because I have goals for my children to be prepared that when they are no longer under my roof, they are still under the protection of my training. 

    Armed with new fervor and conviction, I spoke to my children Monday morning about my renewed intentions to work with them and for them, to bring greater order and peace to our home.  You know, the enemy wasn't too keen on that.  It seemed like it was one thing after another with bad attitudes, direct or indirect disobedience and squawbling.  Half way through the morning, I wanted to hang my head and cry.  I was feeling overwhelmed and worn.  I had to be out of the house with dinner made for three families by early afternoon, the kitchen was a mess, and I hadn't completed our school agenda for the day.  I felt a stress headache coming on as we rushed out of the house.  Day one and I felt defeated. 

    Later that afternoon as I was driving my daughter and a couple other girls to a Bible study small group, it came.  He began quietly speaking. "How can you train your children for the day of battle when you are taken out in the first few skirmishes.  This is not who I made you to be.  You have great intentions and resolutions, but you weren't prepared for the fight.  You were surprised when it came.  In order for you to be effective, you can't let the enemy take you out in the first round.  You're speaking over yourself the wrong things. You believe yourself to be weak, almost helpless.  Prepare for the battle, arm yourself for war, fight for your kids and for peace with confidence and joy, and you will certainly win."

   

   So, I changed what I was speaking over myself.  I made an "I am" statement, to arm myself with truth.  I am a strong, confident, joyful warrior, armed and prepared for the day of battle. 

   This life is not for the faint of heart, motherhood is not for the faint of heart.  The battle is real but the victory belongs to those who persist and grow in the confidence of walking in what is right, armed with Truth.

Two Fears, Two Roots

   I was considering moving on, moving on to a new paradox.  Have I said everything about the Fear of the Lord verses fear? Certainly not. I imagine this could be as deep and wide as God Himself, but my thoughts had run dry.  So, I asked the Lord if He had any more thoughts for me on this topic.  I was feeling restless to write but empty of ideas.  Then, in the quiet way that He comes, that He speaks, I see plain as day the roots of these fears.  The underlying reason why these fears are antitheses.  Why we are implored to give all to lay hold of one, and urged in gentleness to let go of the other. 
  It's all a matter of perspective, of gaze.  What consumes the thoughts when fear is present?  Where is the focus?  Is it not self-consumed?  We fear harm to ourselves or loved ones, financial, social, psychological, physical, relational distress or destruction.  Our gaze focused sometimes on what we see, often what we fear we might see or experience.  Our gaze is self-consumed.  Fear is rooted in self preservation, an attempt in our psyche to control our surroundings or what happens to us.  It is often irrational and gives us a false sense of control, as if by fearing we could prevent bad things, we could shift circumstances in our favor or change the outcome.  I don't say this, pointing the finger at those who fear, as one who stands in judgement - condemning the fears and one experiencing fear - for I myself am in an ongoing battle with fear.  And there is a created, instinctive, life-saving, self-preserving fear that keeps you from being captured, eaten by a lion, crushed by a falling object, etc.  That is not bad.  But I am coming to believe that one of our life-long wrestles for deliverance is tied to a freedom from fear correlated to a freedom from self-preservation, having fallen into radical trust in a Sovereign God.

“When we fear what other people think about us, we are frequently more focused on 'being interesting' and less focused on 'taking an interest.' That's why many people talk a great deal when they are anxious and why many people never feel heard. If both people and conversation are trying to be interesting, there is no one left to genuinely listen.” 
― John Yokoyama, When Fish Fly: Lessons for Creating a Vital and Energized Workplace from the World Famous Pike Place Fish Market





   The verse that keeps circulating in my mind is 1 Jn 4:18.  "There is no fear in love (because love is in essence others focused, removes focus from self-preservation to blessing, benefiting and seeking the good of others), but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment (fear gazes inward- what will happen to me).  The one who fears has not been made perfect in love or has not fully experienced His perfect love." (Because to know what is the height and length and breadth and depth of His love is to lose sight of all fear in the wonder and knowledge and security of both His kindness, tenderness, favor, love and His power.

 
   Which brings me to the Fear of the Lord, a gaze at the Most High and Holy, a centering on all that is True and Right and Good and Beautiful.  It is perspective. It is an acknowledgement of WHO can change all things, preserve all things, direct all things and a recognition that He is worthy of all things, above all things, in all things (even can be found in the heart wrenching, broken things).  At its core, is not the Fear of the Lord a life laid down, a letting go of control, of your own agenda or self-preservation and laying all of those things to rest in Him? His ways really are higher, better, of purer motive and intention with a perspective of countless ages rather than minutes, hours, days and years.  Eyes lifted up as a maidservant to her Master, knowing that His is the source of all good and giving - that is the Fear of the Lord.  When one is consumed with Him, all else fades away - fears are laid to rest, wounds are soothed and comforted, all things become reconciled in God. 
   

  Are all things then just puppies and rainbows?  It's easy.  No sweat!  Aw, if it were only so.  But how often our flesh wars against truth, our spirits wrestling with right rather than resting in it in the midst of hard and even terrible things.  This shift in gaze, shift from self focus to God focus can be an all out battle of the mind and will.  Often is a willful intention to tear ones-self out of the grip of fear and muster all the help of Heaven to lay hold of rest in the Everlasting Arms.  But it's a fight worth having, worth taking on, worth expending all energy toward because the value of rooting one deeply in GOD and seeing Him rightly is a treasure of inestimable worth- far beyond what all the world could offer, and is indeed the satisfaction of our souls, because it is what we were made for.  

Uncontainable yet contained

    God created marriage, union between a man and a woman, as a picture, a pale image of the intimacy He created us for.  In young, intimate love, there are moments when love and longing are so deep, there is a desire to just become and remain one and fuse two lives together.  And so, in God, Christ came as an act of sacrifice and union that the Holy Spirit might come to be inside of us - an act of beauty, ecstasy, transformation that gives birth to new life.  

     The ONE who holds the whole universe in His hands - Whom the heavens and heaven of heavens cannot contain - the Eternal One, Alpha and Omega took on flesh! Contained Himself first in a man-child, a squirming bundle of energy and needs - the One who needs NOTHING took on need.  He then completed His task of redemption and returned to the Father's side BECAUSE IT WOULD BE BETTER!!! for us and the earth!  Then, instead of the GODHEAD containing Himself in one Man, He now constrains Himself to be contained by the SPIRIT in many - in all who call on His name and receive His extended redemption.  Our flesh and blood becoming temples, Holy of Holies, vessels for the Most High, Most Holy.  He constrains Himself in measure to fill what we will give Him and work to consume us yet more till we are fully ONE.  My mind can't conceive, can't begin to wrap around the impossible becoming possible.  But my heart craves it!  Yearns insatiably for the ALL He died to give me - the full expression of His life in mine. 

     I am humbled by the very thought, awed by it, don't understand it but am desperate for it all at the same time.  This great paradox that the great I AM should be: I AM IN YOU - the hope of Glory, the fulfillment of Creations purpose beyond what could have been fathomed -a depth Adam and Eve walking with Him in the garden could not have experienced...Come Holy Spirit- consume all of me.  Contain yourself in this weak and broken flesh and blood body made for high and holy things.
     From "Be Thou My Vision"  "Thou in me dwelling and I with Thee One"
Be Thou My Vision


From Jonathan Cahn's book "The Book of Mysteries"  The I AM of all I AMs 
 ..."Do you know the Name of God?" asked the teacher. 
"I don't know that I do."
"...YHVH.  It's the most sacred of names, so sacred some refuse to say it.  And yet, you say it all the time."
"The sacred Name of God?" I replied.  "How could I when I never knew it?"
"When you speak of yourself, you say the Name."
"I don't understand."
"When you feel happy, you say, 'I am happy.' And when you're not, you say 'I am sad'.  When you tell others who you are, you say, 'I am' followed by your name.  YHVH means 'I AM.' It's the Name of the Eternal, the Name of God.  His Name is I Am."
"Then we all say His Name."
"Yes. And you have always said it.  It is woven into the fabric of existence that when you speak of yourself, you must say His Name."
"Why is that?"
"It's because your existence comes from His existence.  He is the I Am of all existence...the I Am of all I ams.  Your I am only exists because of His I Am.  And as you exist from Him, so it is only from Him that you can find the reason and purpose of your existence.  Therefore, when you say your name, you must always speak His Name.  And you must always speak His Name first."
"Because..."
"Because His existence is first and your existence flows forth from His. That's the flow of existence.  Therefore, you must put Him first and then let everything flow from that.  Let everything begin with Him and flow forth from Him.  That's the secret of life.  To not only live for Him, but to live your life from Him, to live from His living, to move from His moving, to act from His actions, to feel from His heart, to be from His being, and to become who you are from who He is...I am."