Sitting at Sonic Surrounded by Sovereignty

Last night we arrived at my son’s first high school basketball game in a distant country town and we were 3 hours early…woohoo!...unusual for me as I struggle being late so much of the time…and Sonic was one block away…even better…so I cruised into Sonic alone…but I wasn’t Alone…

And I sat there and realized that I layed down my Bible to get into my SUV and didn’t pick the Book back up…oh no…then I remembered that I had a journal with me where I had been jotting down verses God had been speaking to me…soooooo…

I sat still and said to my beautiful God….would you just speak to me…would you just tell me Your Thoughts, higher than my thoughts. I’m listening and looking over these verses…

For the next couple of hours I just sat and listened and tried to still my wearied heart, my lonely heart…and my beautiful God so showed up…He is always right here if we just return, just come. Draw near to our good God…as it says in Hebrews 10:19-22 “Enter the Most Holy Place and draw near with a sincere heart cleansed from a guilty conscience.” “The Nearness of my God is my good.’

I read a quote by Spurgeon this morning about Deut 33 that said that when you think that underneath you are the Everlasting Arms, that the Hebrew word actually means God is above you, around you, and underneath you. Surrounded!

So I am sitting at Sonic surrounded by Sovereignty! Ohhh!

I don’t pretend to know my good sovereign God any better than you do but it seemed to me as I listened to Him that this is what I heard Him say to me…and I just loved every minute of it.

The first Sonic thought that came to me was that my awesome Holy God is changing me and it is so GOD. I am not the person I was last month much less last year. For just like a leper can’t heal himself, a leopard can’t change the spots on his coat, neither can we who are accustomed to doing evil, make a change. It seemed to me God was saying that He has given me unbelievable insight as our family has walked through the most difficult year of our lives. But, He whispered to me--- insight doesn’t change you…it’s God! It’s God who changes us and that can’t be explained in any other way. And I am so absolutely eternally unbelievable grateful to Him for changing me! I have thought so much this year about what causes really deep change…it’s happening to me and I am so so so grateful to my loving awesome holy beautiful God.

Then, it seemed to me at Sonic, maybe, that my glorious God was saying that He is putting in me a Strength that people cannot disrupt, nor destroy, nor dent…did you hear how I put “maybe.” I wouldn’t want you to think more highly of me than what is really there. But I am seeing that when people disrupt my peace or intimidate me, I am finding a Rest I have not known. My friend the other night hurt me so deeply and I shared with my friend how much that hurt but didn’t stop there…no one can disrupt us unless we let them. And I went on to find a REST in my sovereign God. Draw near to Him even when things are not going right…and a deep heart desire to have compassion on that person came… and love for them rose up in my heart as I repented of my old ways of making them feel bad about what they had done to me. Hosea 11:8 – “my heart is changed within me; my compassion is aroused and I will not carry out my fierce anger nor will I turn on them or devastate them.” Either we are advancing our own kingdom or advancing the Kingdom of our King.

And then the verse came to my mind---He is abundantly available in tight places as it says in one of the versions of Psalms 46:1 says ‘God is our Strength, a very present help in times of need.’ And, oh, how I need Him so in my desperation. And there is a shift occurring at Sonic, really in me, that instead of pitching my tent and camping out at how I feel, I am wondering how He feels about me…

I feel deserted…but He is delighting in me. Isaiah 62:4, 19
I am sought after by a Wise God…so put away the sin in my right hand Job 11:13---jealousy over what is happening for others, not for me. Too many thoughts like that have pranced in my mind this week. Isaiah 44:20 - "Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?"--- if I think that my good God is not making it happen for me or my children. What is life for me? Things working out. How curved in on my own thinking.

The Message in Ephesians 6 says that we are in a life & death fight to the finish. For keeps. And John 13:37 jumped out at me---God is bringing some blank spaces in my life...don't fill in the blanks. The verse says---"Why can't I?"...don't fill in the blank...

Open my eyes to receive - Acts 26:18
Hold my head up high, please, my sovereign good God Psalm 3:3

Still sitting at Sonic...but I'll have to tell you the Sonic conclusion tomorrow...I just came home from an hour morning walk on the Trinity River that made a surprising detour. I was listening to a podcast from John Piper on "The Glory of God" and was so absorbed in it that I walked and jogged 1 1/2 hours one way down the river and then I had to get back!!!!!!!! So my one hour walk/jog turned into a three-hour 10 mile walk. So, I am a little bit behind on today...but it was a great podcast! And I listened to all this new music I downloaded. I was the one on the Trinity Trail smiling, crying, and screaming on the inside with JOY to my Glorious God. He was all over that trail this morning!