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God is always meeting us, but we are not always finding Him. See, God is on the move.  In each season, He moves ahead of us, and we must once again find Him. This is to protect us in some ways from getting staid in our spiritual walks; but it is also because the nature of the spiritual journey is to keep coming to know and love more and more of God.

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There is no circumstance or season where God is not currently willing to meet with you. It is impossible to feel meaningless if you meet God there. You may suffer, but not with a sense of no purpose. God offers the context for purpose.

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For this season, abiding is a new challenge because of levels of responsibility. But it is my challenge now; to meet and stay with God, However and wherever He moves.  The point for me is to stay in constant contact with Him, even if He moves. Then, others also feel His Presence with me, and that we are in close contact. Therefore it is a ministry to abide.

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Practicing the Presence-ie abiding constantly in Him- is  another challenge in the adult years of responsibility, but even more important. To have a monk’s devotion while parenting many responsibilities is a matured spirituality.

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Take the soup of the hidden place and share it with others.

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Christ is doing things through us, and therefore in us firstly. We do not ask Him to bless our gifts, but to give His Own to us and then through us. Give Yourself to me and then, through me today Christ! Enjoy giving through me today, whatever You desire to give.  Each day has particular gifts given to you and through you-what is given through you, must be in you first. In short, His Life is what we offer. Learning when He is giving through me, and when, to me, is also essential. Which gifts is He giving to whom, and why-what in Him wants to give that particular gift through me (and, why through me?). This last meditation brings me into The Father’s ways. He must work the thing in us firstly, before we offer this newly implanted Life to others.

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This way is an overheard spirituality. It’s less direct as when you are with Jesus in the yard serving people. This is more you are in the house downstairs with Jesus and receiving things, and from this deep hidden place your actions flow in the outer world. The fruits are seen later, but come from a deeper well.

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Thomas Merton said, when you sit with Him, you already know the world. But not the other way round. In the corners of a room, His Presence can teach you about the entire house. This is another way to know the whole. To sit with The Source of all, reveals all as He sees fit to reveal it. So there is an order to the revelation of things. In order to know the entire, sit with and in the One who created it.

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My cross has the history of trees in it; consider this. To take something which symbolizes the tree of Life (physical trees on earth), and to nail the actual Tree of Life to it, is a reversal of the hierarchy of symbols! The enemy of Life was saying that I will reverse the order–the material tree will be that on which The Eternal Tree will be killed. And Jesus submitted Himself to this apparent inversion in order to reveal the character of the True Tree-Himself.  His enemy was saying the created can destroy the Creator. It is the enemy’s way to reverse the ranking of symbols to confuse the messages of God. God was saying I will submit to this forgery to show the true version of Myself through My Son. Only a few saw it at the time–what was and is the true mystery of His Way on His Cross.

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I’m getting used to going down to the hidden places, then returning to the surface. It is a new way for me to ascend after being with Him.

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Several of the gospel writers had a hidden spirituality. John was one. They listened in the secret place of depth, and uttered things back up to the surface.

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What if one made art from this hidden space. It would look like Merton’s photography! That depth of stillness and observation.

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At first one must give up the do in order to enter the be. Then the do can flow out of the be. No matter how much to do there is, if it does not spring from the be, it becomes empty.

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Abide in Me, and I will abide in you. If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship also with one another. The way to connection outwards with others, is to start inwards with God.

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All things are connected in Christ Himself, the sustainer of all things. To be communioned with Him, is to be in contact with the entire world, and all that is in fellowship with Him. The way in, is the way out.

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To not be in His Presence is to be useless. He alone makes us useful eternally. Not I, but Christ in me. Without His Presence, we are an interesting, but un-empowered idea God once had.