Outer Collapse - Inner Strength Part 13

Isaiah 54:1-6 "Sing, barren woman, who has never had a baby. Fill the air with song, you who've never experienced childbirth! You're ending up with far more children than all those childbearing women." God says so!" Clear lots of ground for your tents! Make your tents large. Spread out! Think big! Use plenty of rope, drive the tent pegs deep. You're going to need lots of elbow room for your growing family. You're going to take over whole nations; you're going to resettle abandoned cities. Don't be afraid—you're not going to be embarrassed. Don't hold back—you're not going to come up short.

I really don't know about all that. Whole nations........? I also don't really know that Tampa has been abandon. I have met many who have been praying for this area far longer than I. But to some degree I guess you could say that we are resettling. Onething now occupies a space that was abandoned by the world. It was taken out by an FBI raid. When it was first built it was a Christian Bookstore with a reading and prayer room. It has also been a church plant at one time while it was a karate studio. Now we're trying to settle in as a 24/7 prayer center. Fear... sometimes. Embarrassed... by my fears and lack of intimacy with the Father. Hold back... I sometimes wish I had just a little bit. And as for coming up short... not possible with a fully surrendered heart.

I embraced the words from Isaiah 54 and still do but what I have come to know is that my understanding of those words were influenced by my past and my then present. A year later I see more than what I saw then from this passage. Not that I was wrong then or any more right now because what I am seeing and sharing today is from my past and my present. It is limited by my ability to think and comprehend. Sharing is limited by my vocabulary, my ability to form words and express ideas.

My prayers have not been for lots of ground or large tents. My prayers have not been to spread out and think big as the world would view it. But... spread out? Yes, I pray that men and women would be drawn to Onething by God and not programs. That their hunger and thirsting would cause them to search for deep things. That they would experience the presence of God to such a degree that they would be ruined for anything else. That they would take it back to their churches and it would "spread out" there. It's always great to get words from God that seem to be clear and precise. After all that's what I have been writing about for months. What have I been thinking? I have just as clear and precise a word as Elijah. “Get away from here and turn eastward, and hide by the Brook Cherith, which flows into the Jordan.”

Spread out! Think Big! Those words come after "Sing barren woman who has never had a baby. Fill the air with song, you who've never experienced childbirth!" Until I can do that I don't think I need to be concerned with what follows. Let the air be filled with my song using the words from Psalm 131:1 Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor my eyes lofty, neither do I concern myself with great matters, nor with things too profound for me.