I Am Not Impressed!!!

Here it is. The Burj Khalifa in Dubai. I have seen it quite often over the past few years as we live in Abu Dhabi which is a little over one hour away. God prompted me to take this picture of the Burj Khalifa. So I took this one awhile back while shopping in Dubai. I stood next to this building, which is the tallest building in the world,  I looked up, I stared, I gazed. I guess I thought I should be impressed. Ho-hum! I was not.

It is supposed to be so iconic, so magnificent, so awe inspiring. That is all we hear here. We hear SUPERLATIVE words all the time to describe what is going on here. Words such as BIGGEST, BEST, AWESOME, MAGNIFICENT, LUXURY, PRICELESS. This nations thrives on SUPERLATIVES to describe all this man made stuff. Yet we are not impressed. Who cares right?

Well, God does. He sent us here to teach us to NOT be impressed -  with iconic structures, Arab millionaires, luxury sport cars that cruise by us constantly on the roads, and money money money. I am not impressed. We see money, power and greed jockey for an earthly dominance in a nation that is intent on proving its superiority in the world today. I am not impressed. What does impress me? What does astound me? What do I marvel at?

I am  not impressed with anything or anyone except our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He is the SUPERLATIVE LIVING WORD in my LIFE that  surpasses the glory that man tries to achieve in this world. There is no one like our God. I have learned that here surrounded by so many mosques. so much of Islam, so much wealth, so much reputation..........and so little life.

My faith has been challenged to grow and expand each time I hear the sound of the mosque cry out. I cry out with SUPERLATIVE statements such as "There is no God but Jehovah! Jesus you are magnificent and awesome and filled with glory and wonder!"

He is the only ONE that impresses me. I have been raised up in the desert, stripped of so much, with no reputation, no big ministry, no great wealth to discover that He is enough. My superlative God. He is enough.

Everything pales in comparison to Him and Him alone. I will never be the same after our stint in the Middle East. The desert has been good for me. Now I am ready to come out to serve my King with a SUPERLATIVE attitude of praise and worship as we are called to the nations of the earth. \

So back to the Burj Khalifa.....................when you've seen one tall building, you've seen them all. Have I said it enough? I am not impressed!

Clarity

Focus on simplicity and clarity. After I wrote the blog yesterday called Pared Down, I left the apartment in Abu Dhabi to drive to Al Wahda Mall to go to Starbucks ( where I am having the best time with the Lord). Stopped at a traffic light, God prompted me to look up. He wanted to speak to me. When I saw this I smiled, pulled out my camera and clicked. What a wonderful confirmation to me from the Lord. God's prophecy in the midst of all the noise, the traffic, and in the midst of my day.

Simplicity pares us down in not having to prove anything but just resting in the simplicity that is Christ. Resting in the Lord is active, passionate and filled with momentum. Resting is not lethargic, apathetic or dull. But the momentum supplied in the simplicity of rest comes from the moving of the Holy Spirit, revealing Christ in us, to us and through us. Our Christian life then becomes a moving adventure led forth by the Spirit at all times, following Him at all times in the most simplistic ways. We don't have to prove we are cutting edge, or that we know all the right words to say or the right people to quote. We don't have to prove anything but that we are nothing without Him and that without Him we can do nothing. In that revelation, we find everything.

I have to say that trying to keep up with the Jones (old saying)............is not my style. Let me convert that into Christianity. Trying to keep up with the latest prophetic conference, word, revival, book or any such thing is not my style anymore. Why? I am not against these but I see that others so often are mimicking and imitating what they see or experience and in the process lose the simplicity of their own walk with the Lord. We are called to conform to His image and in doing that we come into the perfect unity in diversity that is found in Christ Jesus.

Why am I so passionate about this? Because my mandate to bring forth is FREEDOM and to encourage people to passionately draw near to Christ and in doing this, they find the template He has created for them. When we find ourselves in Him, we find life and in finding Life we find creativity.

Simplicity pares us down to looking at Him.
Clarity opens our eyes to see what He sees.

What am I saying? He is enough.

Pared Down

Pared down. Simplicity. These seem to be the words for the hour FOR ME. Are they for you? This blog (which by the way I said I would NEVER do) is for me and for those of you reading right now who I hope are being blessed by all of this. My heart. My thoughts. No pretense. No justification. Just feels good. In my own life, I am a messenger and called to prophesy and in that the message has to be worked in me before it can come through me. The words that God uses me to post are definitely worked in me before I can speak them. I impart that to which I die to. In other words, in order to speak I have to walk through much of what I speak.
Pared down. Those are words for me for this hour. Decrease Debra so Jesus may increase in me.

I found myself dealing with so much spiritual boredom over the past few years with the church at large. I will expand on that over the next week or so. Boredom with so much of Christianity but not losing my passion or love for Christ nor for people. Why was this happening? I withdrew from conferences, the latest books, the latest CD's, offers, words, prophetic lists and so much more. I became very selective without becoming self-righteous in it all. I needed what was real and I am finding what is real - Jesus Christ. He is enough. I would spend hours just sitting in His presence and writing and writing and meditating on so many things.

I was asking for wisdom to discern what I was seeing and experiencing. I was not opting out of Christianity. I was opting out of all  the hype and the superrflous stuff that goes on. I am so tired of it. It does not live up to what it proclaims to be. The ultimate book left me feeling just so so. The stupendous conference left me with a time of feeling ho-hum. Now please know this is what I was going through and you must understand, when I was going through this I constantly questioned whether something was wrong with MOI.

Have I lost something? Have I lost my position in Christ? Have i lost my cutting edge? The questions to me, right now, seem so ridiculous to say that I hesitate writing them. Aren't I supposed to give the impression that I have it all down? Heaven forbid. This boredom that was setting in on me was actually setting me up. For what? I should say. For whom? For Him. This boredom showed me that while all around me was whirling and swirling in ministry and books and conferences and every such thing, I opted out to spend time with Him. I simply began to believe His promises to me. Him and Me. In that I was and am never bored.

Complexity

To move past all the complexity and to return to the simplicity that is found in Christ Jesus, we must navigate to the simple truth of trust. We trust Him. We set our compasss on Him and Him alone, allowing Him to be Lord of our life and allowing Him to rule and reign over all our decisions and all our mindsets. Amidst all the hype that is out there, it is not my job to judge it, speak to it, or rail against it in any way unless the Lord gives me specific words. My task is to stay far from it so that I find the simplicity of His presence.
He is enough. That simplicity of heart and mind leaves us amazed and fascinated with Him. When we lose peace and rally around introspection we give the enemy access into our lives. In doing that the enemy brings forth condemnation, rejection, distress, discouragement and so much else. We navigate back to peace, the peace that is found in Him.
We are surrounded each day by a deluge of information that seeks to draw us forth into its whirlwind of ideas, formulas, and directions. Those who resist it are often labeled out of touch with reality. But what exactly is reality? It is not in what we see but in what we don't see. Our reality is Christ Jesus and He is moving contrary to the ways of the world or of religion that tries to surround us and get us in its grasp. Simplicity is the word for the hour. We don't lose touch with what surrounds us. Instead we filter through a new paradigm - the paradigm that we put all our trust in Him to lead and guide us through it all, taking what we need and leaving the rest.
So much of what is out there in the realm of prophetic writings and words and revelation, leaves me feeling at times frazzled in trying to keep up. So I don't. I trust God knows where I live, what I think, what destiny He has for me. He will keep me and guide me every day of my life. I need not worry or be anxious. He is with me and I shall not be shaken.,

New Day - No Hype

Thinking this morning about the simplicity of Christ. Does it all have to be so complex? How to say this? Hype is the fuel that empowers so much of what I see in the church at large. For instance, I recently bought a book that I loved and realized that it had only one endorsement in the front of this book. The book spoke for itself, or rather I should say, Jesus spoke through the author of this book without any fanfare or hype.

Yet I also have bought books where there were page after page of endorsments trying to convince me that this book would be the end all, be all to my Christian experience. Sadly it was not. The hype that surrounded it diluted the true value of the book. Was it good? Perhaps but it was not as superlative in nature as the hype that surrounded it.

So back to simplicity..................Jesus did not announce Himslef. The heavens backed Him up, the Father's voice proclaimed Him, and His sound of TRUTH went before Him.

So my question.......why are we trying so hard?

It is because it is all about US a lot and not Him and when that is true, we end up believing our own press and that is dangerous. Very dangerous. I refuse to submit to anything that say I need this or that or this or that for my Christianity to be enhanced. I only need Him.

Conversations from the Mercy Seat Introduction

My daily blog. Thought I would never do it but the Lord said to start.......short and sweet and full. The Truth as a catalyst in a world of chaos. I add my thoughts to the mix. Welcome!!!

These entries will be my creative expression of truth through me - Christ in me. Truth that sees in part, knows in part - still seeking, still observing, still discerning, still moving. Posted often as Holy Spirit leads me. Don't want to get caught in a religious trap. Tired of hype. Tired of boring Christianity but don't judge or blame. Trying to keep things positive but truthful. Speaking the truth or saying nothing at all has become my motto. I like it. I am not bored with Jesus Christ. He is alive and I am passionately seeking Him with all of my heart. So enjoy the journey with me.