Notice the Stream

... of countless ways in which
Our Creator constantly romances us.

What would a Financial Ambassador from the Kingdom look like?

Good Morning, Abba. You are the unexplainable, invisible force holding every particle of this Universe together. And somehow You’re also a Being with personality. You are so much more and greater than I can ever comprehend with my human mind. You love me more than I can ever understand. You’re bigger than the largest planet and right here in my heart. I breathe Your Spirit. I live and move in an ocean of Your love. You are everywhere, always. And there is nothing good You can’t do.

I confess that I have grown comfortable and self-absorbed and I have no passion for Your purposes. I want to be about Your business, but I don’t even know how to do that in this world. I don’t know how to be an ambassador of a place I’ve never visited. And I confess that I don’t really know Jesus anymore, and I’ve allowed our relationship to drift. I don’t know what I believe exactly, and I’m not even really trying to sort it out.

Thank You for my beautiful, healthy, happy children. Thank You for this new school that opened up as a possibility for Ben. Thank You for Your steadfastness, independent of my performance. Thank You for my husband and that we’re getting along better now. Thank You for grace and forgiveness and the maturing process. Thank You for the reconciliation with Gramma as well, and for the Manna Room and the CalWorks & CalFresh on the way. Thank You for this crazy season and for the people we’ll be able to minister to as a result.

Please teach us wisdom in finances so that we can teach our children and others a better way. Please build a financial education ministry through which we can serve and rescue those being led away to slaughter. Please bring us into community with the friends and mentors that will round out our tribe and be our family for the next season. Thank You!

In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.

Rearranging Deck Chairs on the Titanic

Good morning, Abba!

You are. You absolutely are. I don’t understand Who or What You are completely or even close, but I know that You exist and one day I will see You. My little finite brain cannot come close to comprehending the magnitude of Who You are, but I know that You are absolutely jaw-droppingly awe-inspiring. If I could see You, my heart would all but stop beating, I’d be covered with goosebumps from toe to scalp, and I would be completely unable to speak. Even one of Your servants the angels would inspire the same response from me. You are just so Other. So beyond. So incomprehensible. Bigger, stronger, more radiant, more lovely, more majestic than I could ever imagine. And more loving and gracious than I could ever deserve.

I confess that I live my entire day without an awareness of this fact. I confess that while I intellectually “know” that the spiritual disciplines will bring me closer to the possibility of developing the ability to experience the spiritual realm–and that experience is the only thing that would really matter, since everything else is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic–I still spend all my time on those deck chairs, fully caught up in the illusion of the importance of this world, neglecting to do the only things that could make my True Dreams, my deepest desires, a reality. I live as if this world matters and Heaven is just a fairy tale. I have become Robinson Crusoe, creating a comfortable life around me here on this island. Every day I forget why I’m here. I forget about Your children. I forget that they are lost and lonely and hopeless. If they were my children, I would not let rest come to my eyes before I found them and helped them reconcile. HOW do I offer them the ministry of reconciliation? What does that look like in real life? I confess that I think of “witnessing” in a pretty cheesy light. I am so not fulfilling Your commission to go into all the world preaching Your gospel. I want to, but I’m so ashamed of the way Your gospel has been polluted and misused and so many have been hurt by well-meaning Christians who butchered Your mission and Your children.

Thank You that You can work through all of that and already are. Thank You that You are bringing into my life spiritual directors who “get” it. Who aren’t caught up in the religiosity of it all but live to fulfill Your mission. Who can help guide me into that same life. Who can speak into my life and cut away the fat. Thank You for Your Word that does that every day, even though it has been so mistranslated and misinterpreted. Thank You for my family, my creative work, the opportunities I have, the freedom I enjoy every day, the salvation that gives me hope and comfort. Thank You for our church tribe, for Facebook, for who I’ve become and the groups You’ve given me to lead into restoration and healing and habilitation. Thank You for discipline and the power of incremental change.

Please set my heart on fire for You and restructure my priorities. Help me to see the highest and best and how to cut through the distractions and the superfluous and get the things done today that matter most. Please give me wisdom and surround me with wise friends and counselors. Open their mouths to speak truth into my life and help me see what I’m missing, where I’m missing the point and wasting my time and energy. Heal Ian’s heart and mind and create in him a powerful drive to produce great work that is both fulfilling and financially rewarding. Please increase our income so that we can not only meet our family’s needs, but have plenty to share with those in need and invest in those who have great ideas and work ethics but just need a little boost. Please make me an angel investor and a powerfully focused citizen of Heaven.

In Jesus’ name, Amen!