leave room

 I know I share it every year when I flip my dilapidated copy of My Utmost for His Highest  to January 25th. I'm sharing it again..."Leave Room for God".

Do not look for God to come in a particular way,

but do look for Him.

The way to make room for Him 

is to expect Him to come,

but not in a certain way.

No matter how well we may know God,

the great lesson to learn is that

He may break in at any minute. 

Keep your life so constantly in touch with God

that His surprising power 

can break through at any point.

Live in a constant state of expectancy, 

and leave room for God to come in as He decides.

If it speaks to me every year, I guess I'm wondering why. And I think it's that I forget to be looking for Him.  I get to serving Him and working for Him and trying to love Him...and forget to leave ROOM for Him. forget to be seeing HIS ways...HIS places...HIS leading. 

Everything wasn't easier in Haiti, but that was. Poverty was always shocking me.  Unfixable NEED had me constantly looking for Him, needing Him. Crazy cultural experiences and confusions had me always looking for Him to break through, and I was so at a loss so often that there was room for HIm. 

I've pretty well got it worked out here, and with 43 years under my belt, 20 of them in full-time ministry. Most of the work, I can do and have done a million times. Most of the experiences, I have navigated. And it gets crowded...my mind, the calendar, the spaces...and I forget to look for Him.

Or I look for Him only in a specific way.

MAN do I want to be living a life that leaves room for God to come in as He decides, living in a constant state of expectancy.  

As much as we hate the hard seasons...they ARE the ones where we make the most room...where we go looking for Him, where we don't care how He comes, just THAT.  Just that He comes.

Lord, give us that kind of hunger, that kind of perspective...and in our families, in our churches, in our communities, may your surprising power break through.