Stagnation

John7:38, “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’”

Once again Iwo Jima (a men’s meeting) inspired me with men who are not only seeking God with their whole heart, but finding Him new every morning. I look at my life over the past couple of weeks and time and time again I have been sucked into the pursuit of money, when I know full and well that God first wants me to practice His presence in this mundane world of mine. More than just being aware He is in me, God is pulling me to this place of not only learning what it is to be His son, but to actually be that.

So here I am, realizing that I have stagnated. Not fully, but enough to be uncomfortable… How does this occur?

In short, by being focused on the flesh and not the spirit can cause spiritual awareness to stagnant.

Every morning I wake up and take 4 pills. These pills help me feel “normal.” If I skip my thyroid medication I feel bad. Same goes for the blood pressure medicine. And if I don’t feel good I can easily be distracted with the flesh not feeling good. From there it becomes an exercise to connect to the spirit. Same goes with work. Not only can work disconnect me from spiritual awareness, changes in my routine do as well. Having transitioned from working at home to an office job my routine has been dramatically altered. Where I used to listen to worship, I have found myself listening to talk radio. Where I once would spend time reading, I am spending it in a car getting to and fro.

The flesh and the spirit are wholly in opposition to one another, and unfortunately the spirit is gentle and selfless whereas the flesh is selfish and violent. To achieve the balance of greater spiritual awareness with enough fleshly concern to survive planet earth can be a precarious dance at times. For me, in this awareness of stagnation I am going to first adjust routine because it is routine that has been most effected as of late. Already the Christ inside me is coming more alive as I forsook talk radio this morning for worship and prayer.

In the end I am determined… no I am called by God Himself to be aware of Him, to be in His presence 24/7. I am being drawn to a place where situation, circumstance, feeling, pressure, people, none of it affects my awareness of Him. God reminded me of this desire He has for not only me, but all of us with T Austin-Sparks this morning.

T Austin-Sparks wrote, “Fellowship with God must be of that kind, that whether we can go to meetings or not, we still have the Lord; whether we have nice soulish music or not, we still have the Lord... Man's soul can communicate with God only through the vehicle of his spirit in union with God. That is what Calvary has done. You can understand now, of course, why the message of the Cross is unacceptable... and that, because of this strong cleaving to a historic, traditional inheritance, you will be outside the camp if you are going to proclaim it and stand for it... You see, we are up against a terrific business; we are up against a spiritual opposition which is colossal, and only a spiritual position is adequate to that - nothing less. We do not want to be in any position less than the Lord's first and best for us. The toys, the picture books, the illustrations, the symbols, the types are for children who have little intelligence; they are taken away at a certain time when God is out to have, not children but sons; and there is all the difference between the two. And so Calvary dismisses the kindergarten of external things in relation to God and brings in the fullness of heavenly order so as to make of us full-grown sons of God. May we be so!”

At the end of the day the only way to truly keep from stagnating is to be fully connect to the source of the living water. 

Father help us connect. Help us to allow that living water to flow through us.