consume me...

Consume me from the inside out...these words were so poignant for my evening at Revolution. God has been doing some major heart surgery on me - but it hasn't been pleasant in any stretch of the imagination. I would consider my spiritual life at the moment as fairly dry. Not in the sense of God not "doing" stuff or "speaking" stuff in my life...just a lack of "feeling" it. Spirituality and the presence of God is far beyond a simple feeling...and yet what we feel so often dictates our passion or commitment level. In my relationship with God right now I have been learning to worship Him - not for what I've "felt" in the past, but for the simple truth that He is God and deserves my praise. Whether or not I feel anything does not change the reality of God of His greatness that compels worship.
And yet there are times I miss how things were... and such was my convo with God during worship. It was then He gave me this vision of a dried out forest/field. It was barren and lacking a solid rain. The trees looked like giant pieces of driftwood, parched grey. The grass had shriveled brown. Not a drop of moisture could be found. Reaching out His hand, His finger sparked the dehydrated forest. In a moment the whole hillside was ablaze.
Sometimes God needs the land to be parched dry of old ideas, selfish goals, distractive habits. We need to be dried out before we're ready for the flames of His fire to spread through our lives and be poured out in our earthly purposes. There needs to be nothing left of the old life - it needs to be squeezed out to the last drop so the only thing we desire - at all cost - is the consuming presence of God. And when we are dry, dangerously dehydrated, it will take but a moment to ignite our life and change the face of our destiny. As tragic as the Kelowna fires were to the landscape of BC, I was always amazed at the photos that caused the nite sky to become a glowing ember. May our lives be as bright a beacon in the darkness of this world.