One body, One Lord

If you needed any proof that all Christians are in the same church and body of Christ then just keep your eyes open and talk to your brothers and sisters. I think you will be amazed to see at the things God does individually in our hearts across the corporate body. I was very encouraged to stumble across this post by Brent Steeno (http://steeno.wordpress.com/). I feel that this is where I am at right now, especially the part I will bold/highlight below. I am not alone. God's loving kindness is better than life.

March 14th, 2007
Do I Really Believe?
I am finding that it is much easier to talk about situations then to actually walk through them. On the front side it is easy to give advice to someone about the trials that we go through in life and on the back side it is easy to look back and remember that it was not as hard as it seems. But in the middle of trying circumstances and situations it is not as easy as one thought. Your heart is put to test in the middle of it. Everything you have believed is suddenly put right in your face and the challenge is to fully embrace what the Lord is doing in your life.

I find myself it such a season. It is a season that I have thought about for some time, knew I would enter into and tried to prepare my heart for the best way that I knew how. But I realize that it was a subject that I seemed relatively comfortable to talk about but now that I am in that season I realize it is more arduous then I at one time thought.

My challenge in this season is this: Do I really believe in the nature and character of God? Do I really believe that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him? Do I really believe that the great “eye” of God is searching to and fro through out the earth looking for those whose hearts are fully given to Him? Do I really believe that the hand of God is upon my life and He is directing my steps?

Again, on the front end I could say yes without much of a struggle and I know that at the end of this season I will say yes with the utmost confidence. But it is this time, the great in-between, that I feel the Lord is testing my heart and really getting at the areas of unbelief that I have tried to conceal deep down in the depths of my own heart.

This is a painful process but one that is very much needed if I am going to go the places with the Lord that I want to go. I have to learn to trust the leadership of God upon my life and lean into in every season, even the seasons in which I feel as though His “eye” is not upon me. The more I think about the more I realize that it is in the seasons that you think His “eye” is not upon you, that you are just another person lost in the masses of humanity, it is in that very season, that very time that His great “eye” is upon you all the more. His eye is upon you wanting you to respond to Him correctly in this season. The joy the Father must feel when in these times, the times when no one is looking and we feel forgotten, that we choose to still give ourselves to the Lord. Oh the overwhelming emotions that must well up in the heart of our Father when we choose to live by faith and not by sight. When we choose to love Him back and cultivate our heart in meekness and humility knowing that this is what our Father in heaven wants for us.
So, I guess I know realize that it is in this time, when I feel alone and on the backside of the mountain that His eye is even more intensely upon me, watching how my little heart responds. Yikes! That KABOD!