Stage IV of Practicing His Presence

Mark 9:5, "Peter said to Jesus, 'Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three tabernacles, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah."

Stage I of Practicing His presence for me is to look God straight in His eyes, forgetting His promises and just getting to that spiritual place where nothing matters but to be with Him. "Rest," He said. Meaning stop "doing," and enjoy My company. "Now" also becomes relevant in this stage. Nothing is important except right now, not yesterday nor tomorrow. What is God doing right now.

Oswald Chamber said this, and it applies here. "We have to learn that our individual effort for God is an impertinence(an intrusion on God, not co-operation); our individuality is to be rendered incandescent (Emitting of the light of Christ) by a personal relationship to God... We fix on the individual aspect of things; we have the vision - 'This is what God wants me to do;' but we have not got into God's stride. If you are going through a time of discouragement, there is a big personal enlargement ahead."

Stage II of practicing His presence is to transition from that place of meeting with God, leaving, and coming back, but rather being AWARE that He is with Me always. It is marked with leaving Him behind from time to time and having to constantly return. This stage is also marked with a second rest realization. In the second rest revelation the question becomes, God what are WE going to do today? Not, God what am I supposed to do today? It is the realization that we do everything together with God.

Stage III of practicing His presence is the transition from God is WITH me to God is IN me. In this stage I am aware He is in me and the scripture calling us the temple of the Holy Spirit is made real in the revelation. Unlike the conscious leaving Christ behind in stage II, the leaving Him behind is not as easy and behavior comes under a new scrutiny. But with that scrutiny there is also a new sense of power. God's power inside and the faith it is.

Stage IV of practicing His presence is what I am going to call inexplicable gratitude. I am still working on defining the stage as a whole, but let me share an experience I just had at my barn.

As I was filling the horses buckets with water, in my spirit I just practiced His presence. I didn't need to know where Christ was, I knew He was inside me. I just made the conscious decision to be aware of that. In an instance my first thought was thank you Jesus for filling the water buckets with me. It was then I saw the truth. The truth was He was filling the buckets and I was with Him -- so humbling and so beautiful, and something worthy of inexplicable gratitude. "Thank you Jesus for allowing me to be with You while You fill the buckets... Thank you for allowing me to see what You are doing. Thank you for allowing me to enjoy Your horses. Thank you for letting me enjoy Your home." In this gratitude there is the revelation that it is all His.

Another example happened yesterday. I was again at the barn and as I went to move the horse from the pasture to the barn. Looking at the barn I saw a glimpse in my spirit of a barn three times bigger. Call it imagination, call it a vision, call it anything you would like. But understand I was conscious of some point in the future a barn three times bigger is a possibility.

How do I know it was three time bigger? Because it is what I have planned since moving here. The difference this time is that this image was accompanied with revelation. This time it was not me looking and seeing a bigger barn. This time is was Christ in me, showing me what He sees. And in that moment there was nothing but gratitude. Not gratitude for a barn, but for seeing what Christ sees. I said, "Thank you Father for Your vision. Whether a bigger barn ever stands there is irrelevant. But my vision is Your vision." In this new sense of gratitude I am beginning to see the revelation of God doing beyond anything we can think or ask. It was a revelation of God giving us the desires of our heart.

This is not a formula. There is no need to try to create this outside of practicing His presence. There is no need to declare my barn sacred as it being someplace that God showed up to give me a vision. It is simply being in relationship with God. Don't make the mistake Peter made and think that it is setting up a tabernacle, it is not. It is inside you.

One thing I can tell you... I cannot wait to see what Stage V is about. Woo hoo... hang on to your hats.

Looking back can be dangerous

Philippians 4:11, "Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am."

I had every intention of not posting today as I thought that I had nothing to say. The past 24 hours has been a lot of wallowing in self pity. Not on the outside, but certainly on the inside.

Yesterday I took my son to the beach. We had an awesome time. He rode the boogie board, the skim board, did a little fishing, dug a hole... was just a boy. It was nice too because my brother-in-law was there along with my nephew. But the whole ride there my son talked, which is very usual. He asked me where to catch all manner of fish. He shared is most recent snow ski trip with his mom and her family. All good stuff, but it all was eating at me. It was making me sad that there was once a day when I could have shown him the world and more. When a ten thousand dollar vacation was literally nothing. I didn't want to talk about catching wahoo, I wanted to take him to catch one.

At the beach my brother-in-law unintentionally added to my sense of inadequacy by occasionally mentioning the beach house I once had. Which made me think of the boats I had, and all the awesome things I used to do. Like fishing offshore almost every weekend of the summer. I really missed being unhindered by money, and more I felt inadequate that I could not give my 7 year old son those experiences. So I used all of this to justify complaints in my spirit. To say to God, look! Look at me, at what I've lost. Look at my suffering because I no longer have a platinum American Express. Why me and not them?

And then I get smacked in the head this morning with a lesson on gratitude. Crazy, but God demands gratitude in all circumstances. Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 6:8, "If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content." And I have so much more than that to be grateful for... wonderful kids, the most incredible wife, family that loves me and who I love. Sure there are no boats or vacation homes. But there remains plenty of good times to share and things to be grateful for. For that matter there remain many victories in the past where God showed up and did incredible things. If I'm going to look back, that is what I should be looking at.

After all, even David looked back. Before defeating Goliath David looked back and reminded himself that God was with him when he killed a lion and a bear. At Ziglag he looked back and reminded himself of the other victories God had brought. So even though looking back can be dangerous, it can also be inspiring. I think will spend some time looking back at what God has done, and not what has been lost.

The really stupid part is that if I had not bought boats, beach houses, $10K vacations and used my Platinum Amex like a drunken sailor I would be just fine today.