The High Calling of God

Recently my husband and I had the opportunity to attend a Regional Conference for Voice of the Martyrs. I had never been to one of their meetings and I really didn’t know what to expect, only that God was urging me to go. There was one particular speaker I was anticipating hearing, other than that I thought I would be bored with a whole lot of statistics and slides. But that was not the case. We met and heard about people who truly had a passion for the Lord, a passion to follow Jesus wherever it leads. All during the day I felt the Lord dealing with me on things in my own life. No- He wasn’t calling us to a foreign country, but by the end of the day we were more determined than ever to do and live for God the way He wanted us to. Both me and my husband came away very touched by God’s Spirit and more determined than ever to do His will, with His help. I was very inspired and challenged by the testimonies of those who have followed the Lord through fire and storm, and have come

Recently I was thinking about how the Lord is sifting His people like never before. This is a time of sifting, of separation. Many people are leaving the local church and the Lord. They are those who have not allowed His Spirit to come into their lives and sift it. They never allowed themselves to be crushed; they have become ‘foreign objects’ in the flour- they won’t sift through. How many of us can remember that almost every recipe called for the flour to be sifted. We had to sift it with the baking powder, salt, baking soda and other ingredients. How many times were there pieces that were hard and would not sift? We threw it out. We didn’t want those hard, mineralized pieces to be in our batter. It is the same process for the Lord, though He doesn’t throw us out. He usually gives us another chance to be sifted, over and over again. There are those who are willing to go through the sifting process, the refining process. Others have refused-when the heat is turned up, when th

Slowly, softly, so gently, the Lord allows the warmth of the sun to filter through the clouds to soothe your aching spirit. It trickles down from His heart and once again your spirit is beginning to feel new life. Not in the earthquake, not in the tornado, not in the fire- but in that still small voice: "Be still and know that I am God." Psalm 46:10. After a time of darkness and silence, life begins to filter inside, deep into the caverns. As you weep and pour out your heart before the Lord, somewhere in the midst of the storm He begins to calm, soothe and restore. He reaches down and fashions you anew. He comes inside and heals and restores. In the midst of the pain, in the deep of the night, in the center of the storm, He is there, ever interceding, ever present. Even when you are not aware of His presence, when you acknowledge Him He is released into the very canyons of your spirit. 1 Kings 19:11-12 : "And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the L