THE TETHERING PLACE

It was months ago that I showed up at a gargantuan church just a half hour from my home, to volunteer at the first of many stops on Beth Moore’s current speaking tour.

I was placed in the overflow room with some dear friends also involved with Young Life, so that we might be available for prayer after the final teaching portion. Contrary to the excited and vibrant heart I had said “yes” with weeks before to the opportunity,  I drove to the conference feeling dry and unequipped… Truthfully, I wondered what I might have to offer to hundreds of women needing prayer when my own conversation with Jesus had been stilted and distracted of late. My heart felt a bit shriveled.

But I am learning that often walking with Jesus and serving others does not mean we show up with excess, but means we merely show up. And when we show up, He is faithful to provide what we need.

So I took my chair, expectant, excited to hear from this woman steeped in scripture and glowing with faith and intimacy with Jesus and maybe a bit of Texas sun.

The teaching was rich. RICH. We largely sat in Isaiah … and we sprinted all over the bible as she wove together what the Lord had been teaching her about His resting place. That God has deliberately made US, his people {no longer a special seat or a temple, not a hidden mecca or elaborate building}, His resting place. And He has made us glorious.

Think. When we invite the Spirit of God, the same one who rested upon and filled Jesus, who raised Him from the dead, to take up residence in us, THEN WE CONTAIN GOD.

We walk around all filled to the brim with the living God!

And yet we are thirsty.

I know I am thirsty.

And over the course of that weekend, via the words of a petite, feisty, truth-filled southern belle, God began quench my thirst. My shriveled up heart began to marinate in the goodness of God, and swelled with Him.

And at the end of the weekend, I couldn’t contain what he had done in me. It was a butt-kicking in the best sense of the word.

These words spoken by Beth in the final moments of the conference did not fall upon deaf ears. Spoken in the most delightful of southern accents with loving conviction, it felt as if she looked right at me and said,

“Girls, we have the fullness of the living God and we take him up on an OUNCE of what he has offered us. WHAT are we doin’!?  You need to get your tail outa bed in the mornin, get your face in your bible, pray that your flesh would be bound and the spirit would be loosed!!!”

Amen, sister.

The words came back this week. A fresh invitation to get my tail outa’ bed.

And so despite fatigue and little boys getting up earlier and earlier and a little one rolling around inside my belly and bruising my ribs, I have been trying {and often failing} to get my tail out of bed in the morning, to get my face in God’s word, to be available to what he might have for me, and to be present to the day ahead.

Don’t you know that you too are invited? Invited for more. To not merely survive on a sip here and there of the living water. But to drink deeply and often from the river of life! To dive in and soak it up!  I am learning over and over that it is indeed a free gift, this life God offers, but it takes effort on my part to enjoy it. Like a gift from a friend, if I never exerted the energy to unwrap it and use it, it would never bring me joy or life. Unwrap, open it up, and USE the gift!

I don’t doubt another dry season will come. I don’t doubt that I will find myself in that place, thirsty and desirous of more. But for today, I commit to drink, to be filled to the brim, and to live.