God Met Me @ Books-A-Million

Yes, it's true. God met me at B.A.M. today and resembled a family of five. Never before had I truly believed that God would take a vested and hands-on interest in my life until today. I was supposed to go to B.A.M yesterday and my plans kept falling through. Today didn't seem any different from yesterday but today was different for God had it marked in HIS calendar for His time and purpose for my life. And the old adage is true: He's an on-time God. He may not come when you want Him, but he'll be there right on time. Boy, was he ever there too! My visit with Him took me from the realm of fantasy and faux living to the realm of the real and alive. Oh, I was breathing and my heart was beating, but I was on Spiritual life support. I was given C.P.R. (Creator's Presence Restored) and God resurrected the hope of Glory in me. I know now why I have been so thirsty and hungry. I was merely surviving when I should have been walking forward in the Fullness of Life. The Life God is talking about transcends this cosmic hologram we call life. God is so beyond us that we will never fully understand Him or His ways. He shook me to my very core by leading me step by step with the very words he spoke to my heart and my heart alone and by speaking those words aloud to me through someone else. He gave me no more room to make excuses and to run and play the babe in arms. He showed me the Jordan and said "Ok. I'm ready when you are." He doesn't have to cross the Jordan, but I do and he has taken me as far as He has willed and shown me how it's my turn to take the first step into real bonafide faith walking. "Here's the edge of the cliff with the precipice below. All those in favor of Abbabiding please take one step forward." No guarantee of safety. No promise of prosperity on earth. No hope of this earth's glory and greatness. No assurance that I would survive. It's more than mere name and claim. It's not prosperity, it's true poverty. It's the willingness to trust him when all logic and conventional wisdom cries insanity. It's the willingness to look like a madman or a fool. It's the gaul to walk this earth and play by none of the previously sin-established rules and roles. It's a choosing the most meaningful relationship over the most "realistic". It's the will to die to really live. And God took the time to come to me, little already-been-weaned-but-I-want-my-milk-bottle-faith-waaaah me, and said, "I thought you said you were ready to eat? I'm not serving milk-faith anymore. We've got steak and potatoes-faith with collard-green-and-mac-and-cheese-faith on the side. And a scoop of grace for dessert. I'm waiting on you to take the first step to the table." God had me angry, angst-ful, somber, terrified, mortified and thrilled with a wondrous joy I've never before experienced all in the space of an hour and my heart's burden is gone. Those questions of whys and what ifs and whens, wheres and hows are gone and He replaced them with the understanding that my life starts right here, right now without the safety net. Outside of abiding in Him, life is irrelevant. Dare I say, fatal. God is not safe, but He IS Good. Really truly Good and worthy of my meager offering of trust. Who God wants me to be I am already by His grace and I will NEVER be the same again.