The Love of the Father

So I used to be a rag-tag, vagabond, wanderer. Skirting on the fringe of society, quite angry, truth be told. But I was always for the outcast, the lost, the downtrodden, the rebels, the hippies, the gypsys, the crazies - the non-conformists, the colorers outside of the liners. The marching the beat of their own drum-mers. Then I had a radical heart conversion and found a new life with Jesus. I tried really really hard to be a good girl. To learn the rules and conform - in every way possible. Jump? how high! Sit? sure thing! Crucifying my questionings and reasonings and all the things that had kept me estranged from God to begin with! I just began to learn to submit and be the

 very best me who I thought I should be!

Until another radical heart encounter where God basically showed me that I still was "THAT GIRL" but I had just locked part of her away in a backroom closet. Bound and gagged, she was denied her existance. So the vision I had was me standing at the stove in my kitchen and I had these big black straps attached to my back. The Lord "cut" them and these great big wings unfurled! And God said to me that basically I was a bird. And that was why I was never happy trying to be a squirrel.

Insert 18 marvelous months of living and breathing and celebrating LIFE! DISCOVERING WHO I REALLY WAS CREATED TO BE! No longer constrained by the "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts" "coulds" and "can'ts" --- I was almost two decades into this Christ life and I was just now beginning to discover the FREEDOM and the LIBERTY that we have in Jesus Christ! -- to FULLY BE all that HE created us to be! I am not you and you are not me! And that is marvelous! After all, the bible does say those that compare themselves among themselves are not wise! doesn't it?

And I found myself IN MY NEW FOUND freedom and liberty, once again beginning to balk at rules and regulations. At touch not, taste not, handle nots. At anything that was crimping those unfurled wings. And I began to have a distaste for things that were "churchy" for lack of a better word. And I once again was just drawn to the fringe, the outcast, the lost, the hurting, the disenfranchised, disgruntled, nonconformists. I realized that I was finding I had a lot of mercy for the lost but was beginning to have a lot of disdain and judgement for the "FOUND"! For those "in the house" -- This was an internal struggle and an internal dialogue with my creator began.

One night I felt the Lord speak and make it very clear to me -- I felt the Lord say, "Laura, you love the prodigal, but you hate the elder brother."

:( ouch. Now I could get into a whole expletive of how i was justified! the one was lost! the other was wrong! 

but in my heart of hearts in that moment I knew I was wrong. This was wrong. God is love.

He went on to say --- your love for the prodigal and your hate for the elder brother BOTH need to die so that all that remains is the loving heart of the Father FOR BOTH.

It's God's heart for ALL to come.

It's God's heart to reconcile ALL to Himself.

Our "fleshly carnal" (Love) is just as bad as our fleshly carnal disdain, disgust, hatred or judgement -- because it is soulish, earthly, conditional and fleeting ---------- and it is "apart" from Him.

(remember Jesus saying "apart from me you can do nothing?")

If I crucify that flesh with it's affections (good) and lusts (bad) -- then Christ can richly dwell within me and the Holy Spirit can manifest Himself and flow THROUGH me. Then all that people will see/feel/experience when they encounter "me" is HIM -- because the "I" the "me" and the "my" have died...............and all that remains is Him.

The mind of Christ 

The heart of the Father

A yeilded vessel pouring out fresh living water

reconciling the world to HIMSELF.