Good grief

We don’t say as much, but in our church culture, we often count expressions of grief as sin, and suppressing grief a virtue. We expect the God-fearing mourner – whether ourselves or someone else – to skip mourning and instantly assume the role of comforter.

Eager not to dishonor God, distress others or embarrass ourselves, we have thus perfected the art of short-circuiting grief.

Notice how the American Heritage Dictionary defines short circuit: “A low-resistance connection established by accident or intention between two points in an electric circuit. The current tends to flow through the area of low resistance, bypassing the rest of the circuit.”

A quicker way to a desired end sounds like a good thing – especially when the quicker way appears to avoid pain. But when an electric current finds a shorter path of very low resistance, the current becomes very strong. Damage, overheating and fires result.

Thus, in electricity, short-circuiting temporarily takes a shorter route to complete a circuit. Yet soon, short-circuiting destroys the circuit and shuts down anything dependent on it.

In a similar way, short-circuiting grief may temporarily appear to resolve it. Yet denying and stuffing grief – thus taking the path of least resistance – only strengthens the “current” beyond what you were wired to handle, bypassing resolution, impeding healing and causing damage you would not have suffered if you had given yourself permission to grieve.

Short-circuiting grief never moves you past grief. Rather, it shuts you down. It leaves you stuck in the very place you’re trying desperately to avoid.

Read the entire article.

The God of Jerry

“I remembered that you are leaving for your trip on or about the 1st of May. If I haven’t missed you, please know that you & Jerry are covered in His protection and ‘underneath are the everlasting arms …’ Becky”

Jerry and I had looked forward for months to visiting our younger daughter Amanda and son-in-law Sam, who live in northeast France, just minutes from the Belgium border. After reading the email from my friend Becky, I looked up the passage she had referenced. It’s from Deuteronomy 33.

“There is no one like the God of Jeshurun, who rides on the heavens to help you and on the clouds in his majesty. The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. He will drive out your enemies before you, saying, ‘Destroy them!’ So Israel will live in safety; Jacob will dwell secure in a land of grain and new wine, where the heavens drop dew.

“Blessed are you, Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord? He is your shield and helper and your glorious sword. Your enemies will cower before you, and you will tread on their heights” (vv. 26-29).

I’ve loved the assurance, “underneath are the everlasting arms,” ever since I first discovered it during some difficult college days. What’s more, in recent weeks, God had stirred me to explore what it means that he is our help. How striking that this passage about the everlasting arms also speaks twice of the profound blessing of God’s help!

Three days after Becky’s email arrived, Jerry and I landed in Brussels, Belgium, about 8:30 a.m. Both jetlagged, we boarded a train inside the Brussels airport. After changing trains in downtown Brussels, we would travel to the Belgian border town of Mouscron, where Amanda would pick us up.

When we disembarked at the Brussels Central station, a helpful rail agent told us which train went to Mouscron, when it left and what platform it left from. Armed with that information, we decided to make a pit stop. We took turns guarding the bags and going into the restroom – yet Jerry’s backpack was stolen right out from under our noses.

The theft

As I headed into the restroom, Jerry took off his backpack and laid it with the other luggage. Then he took his passport and holder from around his neck and slid both down into the backpack. Also in the backpack were 100 British pounds and 100 Euros, a credit card, a change of clothes and some other items.

I exited the bathroom, eager to tell Jerry that using the facilities cost 50 cents. Digging in my coin purse, I provided the change he needed and also helped out two women who didn’t have the proper coins. After Jerry entered the restroom, I noticed his backpack wasn’t with the other bags. Uneasily, I wondered if he had worn it into the restroom. When he emerged without it, we were both panic-stricken.

We stood in a large open area. Our other four bags were there, grouped together. People were coming and going, but the backpack was nowhere to be seen. We talked immediately to the same rail agent who had already helped us. He told us to report the theft to the police. He also said to check later with Lost & Found at the train station. He said that, sometimes, a thief will take the valuables and leave the rest. However, when he explained the situation to another rail agent, the second man rolled his eyes. We knew what that meant. Bye, bye, backpack.

Still in shock, we got on the train to Mouscron. We knew we could get into France (no passport checks between France and Belgium). But after visiting our children, we planned to spend a few days in London and fly home from there. Jerry did need his passport to get into England, as well as to fly home.

Aboard the train, we spent a long, hard hour-and-a-half traveling through beautiful countryside. Jerry kept worrying about not getting to take me to London. I kept praying we’d done the right thing by traveling on to Mouscron before reporting the theft to the police. I had not wanted to lose the hours we’d planned to spend with Amanda. Also, I felt it important to have her with us to help us navigate the language barrier, Belgian governmental etiquette, etc.

Amanda met us at the Mouscron train station and took us to the police station, where we filed a report. It was a Saturday, and the US embassy was closed. We planned to travel back to Brussels the first of the week to start the application process to replace Jerry’s passport.

The help

Into the afternoon, when we finally reached Amanda and Sam’s house, Sam had lintel soup almost ready for us to eat. While Amanda completed preparations for the meal, I sat at the kitchen table, opened my Bible to Deuteronomy 33:26-29, and told her, “This is the word God gave me for this trip: ‘There is no one like the God of Jerry, who rides on the heavens to help you and on the clouds in his majesty.’”

As I read the passage aloud, my soul felt shaken and violated. But in my spirit, I literally felt upheld, as if by everlasting arms. “The Lord wants to show us that he is our help,” I said.

Meanwhile, Jerry had signed onto the Wifi at Amanda and Sam’s house. Since arriving in Europe that morning, my phone had worked, but Jerry’s had not. Via Wifi, Jerry was able to get his email, however. And there, he discovered a surprising message from his boss, John. Someone had called John to tell him Jerry’s backpack had been found at a Brussels bus station!

We were elated – but then frustrated. Jerry called his boss, only to find that John didn’t know any more than what he had said in the email. The Belgian caller had not identified himself or told where he was calling from. So we had no idea who had the backpack and what was or wasn’t in it.

John gave Jerry the number from which the call had come. Dialing it, we reached a Brussels police station, but the person who answered knew nothing about Jerry’s backpack. We tried to call the Lost & Found number the rail agent had given us. At first, we couldn’t get the call to ring through. Then, we got no answer.

Sunday morning, Amanda called again in our behalf. That time, the person at the Brussels police station who answered knew exactly what we were asking about. Yes, they had the backpack. What’s more, it had been recovered with everything in it – including the passport, the money and the credit card!

The agent de police then apologized profusely for not being able to reach us sooner! We were deeply grateful that the police had gone to such lengths to try: On recovering the bag, they had found a business card with Jerry’s cell number on it. They had called the number, but because his phone wasn’t working, the call went to voice mail. In the Atlanta airport, just before boarding the plane to Brussels, Jerry had changed his voice message, saying he was traveling out of the US and giving the phone number of his boss, John, for any callers who might have business needs. Someone at the Brussels police station listened to that lengthy voice mail message in English, wrote down John’s US phone number and called him. Bless them, Lord!

The Brussels police kept the backpack and its contents locked in their safe until Amanda, Sam, Jerry and I traveled there on Tuesday to reclaim it. That train trip, we enjoyed. Further, the four of us enjoyed a delightful day together in the Belgian capital. Jerry and I also saw the inside of our second Belgian police station. Most tourists don’t get that experience or, if they do, they don’t come out celebrating.

“Blessed are you, Jerry! Who is like you, a person saved by the Lord? He is your shield and your help.”

We have no idea how a backpack that we know did not walk away by itself from a busy city train station was recovered by police at a bus station with everything intact. But we can testify: The Lord our Help rode in like the cavalry. He worked a miracle in our behalf.

Bullying in the church

photo courtesy of Kriss Szkurlatowski, http://www.12frames.eu

February 17, 2004, all hell broke loose against me at my workplace. Tension had been building for several weeks, but that Tuesday brutal behavior erupted. By evening, I arrived home feeling like I’d been dragged behind a Mack truck.

Sadly, the truck kept going – and dragging me behind it – for nearly 15 months. The abuse stopped only when I left the abusive situation. Sadder still, I worked for a Christian organization.

Four years later, I learned the name for what I’d experienced. It’s called mobbing, and also, workplace bullying. I learned how prevalent this type of abuse is and how devastating to the target. With deep gratitude, I saw how superabundantly God had poured out his grace on me. He had taken what could have been catastrophic to my life and health and, instead, produced the reverse: He delivered me into a more abundant life and now is using me to deliver others.

This month, Counseling Today published an article by Lynne Shallcross titled, “Grown-up Bullying.” In the article, Jessi Eden Brown, a counselor I’ve never met, described what I experienced – and the damage such experiences can produce.

Brown, a coach with the Workplace Bullying Institute, referenced WBI’s definition of workplace bullying: “repeated, health-harming mistreatment of one or more persons (the targets) by one or more perpetrators that takes one or more of the following forms:

• verbal abuse;
• offensive conduct/behaviors (including nonverbal) which are threatening, humiliating, or intimidating;
• work interference – sabotage – which prevents work from getting done.”

Yep, that nails it. So do these excerpts from “Grown-up Bullying”:

“Although popular media frequently portray the workplace bully as a volatile, verbally abusive boss, in actuality, the behaviors tend to be more subtle, insidious and persistent,” Brown says. “Examples include stealing credit for others’ work, assigning undue blame, using highly public and humiliating criticism, threatening job loss or punishment, denying access to critical resources, applying unrealistic workloads or deadlines, engaging in rumors and gossip, endeavoring to turn others against a person and deliberate attempts to sabotage someone’s work or professional reputation.” …

“There is a significant body of research linking workplace bullying to physical, mental, social and economic health harm for the bullied target,” Brown says. Studies have linked repeated exposure to stressful events such as bullying to severe physical ailments, including cardiovascular disease, gastrointestinal problems and increased levels of cortisol, among other things, Brown says. The psychological harm from bullying can be just as devastating. “Panic disorder, general anxiety disorder, major depression, substance abuse and dependence, acute stress disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder are but a few of the diagnoses encountered when working with targets of workplace bullying,” Brown says.

“The stress and exhaustion that targets endure is often isolating and paralyzing. After all, it is generally the bully’s goal to disempower the target. Even when they do speak up, targets of workplace bullying tell us their employers, family and friends do not often believe them nor understand how it could be so distressing …

“In most cases, the target has done nothing to deserve the treatment [he or she is] receiving,” she says. “The bully chooses the target, timing and tactics. Also, the target may have very little control or influence over these factors. The responsibility to stop the abusive behavior rests with the employer … [However,] 72 percent of bullies are bosses, and standing up to the boss can easily be misinterpreted as insubordination.”

It’s agonizing to be a target of bullying. The agony multiplies exponentially when the people engaging in this form of abuse are trusted Christian leaders. The pain of such a betrayal cannot be overstated. Often, the target succumbs to bitterness against the perpetrators, deep self-rejection and anger with God. The results are devastating – to the person and to the name of the Lord.

If you’ve experienced bullying, or mobbing, in a church setting or ministry-based organization, know this: You did not deserve what has been done to you, and it does not reflect who God is. He will deal with those who’ve wronged you. Further, he will use all that you’ve suffered to purify you and restore you, if you will put your hand in his and allow him to lead you through the healing process. Indeed, he promises that he will restore more than what you’ve lost.

If you have not experienced bullying, or mobbing, in a church setting or ministry-based organization, know this: It is so common as to be epidemic. What’s more, it’s often well-hidden by the godly appearance of the perpetrators and the whisper campaigns used to discredit and isolate the target. Before I experienced bullying personally, two people came to me and told me how badly they had been mistreated by the person later responsible for the mobbing done to me. I didn’t believe them. I still thought the abusive leader godly. Bullying in a “Christian” setting may well have devastated someone you know.

If you’ve participated in bullying, or mobbing, in a church setting or ministry-based organization – or if you saw it happening and looked the other way – know this: Bullying exposes cowardice and control issues. It exposes misplaced loyalties and divided hearts. What you did, or failed to do, reveals a hidden idol in your heart – something you’re so eager to protect that you colluded in hurting someone deeply and in dragging God’s name through the mud. I urge you to repent.

Target, you can forgive. Indeed, your life depends on it. Perpetrator, you can be forgiven. Indeed, your life depends on it. Thanks to the God of all grace, you both can be restored.

Countdown to The Esther Blessing: 9

In our spirit, our innermost being, we yearn to be who we were created to be – and we were created to reign. Yet when we act from our soul, rather than submitting soul to spirit, we’re easily duped into settling for the counterfeit. The Esther story makes abundantly clear: “Getting the royal treatment” does not equal “reigning in life.”

Deborah Brunt, The Esther Blessing: Grace to Reign in Life. Coming this spring.

Messy New Year

We humans like beginnings and endings to be tidy. Finish one calendar page. Turn to the next.

Ring out an old year. Ring in the new.

Complete one project. Start another.

Because of this propensity, books give us great comfort. They start on page 1. They conclude with the last period. And by the time we turn that final page, all the loose ends have been neatly tied. Movies and TV shows do the same thing in even shorter order.

School semesters, likewise, have a first day and a final day. Between those two bookends, a semester may be frightfully demanding and complicated. But at the appointed time, it’s over. Finis. Last semester’s teacher doesn’t keep giving you assignments or expect you to continue showing up for class.

Ah, but life itself hasn’t yet come out in the movie version, no matter what the reality shows may say. And in life, beginnings and endings rarely happen so tidily. In fact, they’re usually quite messy and often overlap – like the homework assignments and projects and tests due during a semester.

Funny thing is: We rather expect life to operate in semesters or chapters or other tidy segments. It doesn’t. Life operates in seasons. On the calendar, even the seasons appear tidy. Each one begins and ends on a certain day. Yet in reality, the transition from fall to winter or winter to spring is far more protracted and far less predictable than the calendar indicates. In reality, the transition between life’s seasons is messy too.

Yes, each person operates between the bookends of birth and death. But death is not the tidy ending we may imagine.

And birth? Well, advances in technology have proven what many folks have long insisted: Life is well underway roughly nine months before birth. During those months, the little one to be born receives nurture in the protected environment of the womb. Meanwhile, the entire expectant family operates in that protracted and unpredictable overlap of seasons.

To use a phrase borrowed from a class I took, pregnancy is an “already but not yet” time, when one season is ending while another is being ushered in.

The trick in any time of seasonal shift is not to let the messiness and unpredictability keep you from ending what needs to be ended and starting what needs to be begun. A whole nation with a leader named Moses learned this lesson the hard way. After 400 years of living in Egypt, these folks headed for a land God had promised to give them.

They stopped en route at Mount Horeb for a year’s worth of instructions and preparations. Then, according to Moses’ account in Deuteronomy, “The Lord our God spoke to us at Horeb, saying, ‘You have stayed long enough at this mountain. Turn and set your journey, and go …’” (1:6-7 NASU).

Well, off they went. But almost immediately, things got messy. When their new beginning didn’t prove tidy at all, the people bailed on Moses. Or, actually, they bailed on God. For the next 39 years, they remained stuck – purposeless, powerless, pitiful – until God finally said again, “You have circled this mountain long enough” (Deut. 2:2 NASU).

Any year, any date, may hold for you a new season. When you find yourself in an “already but not yet” place, remember: Life’s beginnings and endings are never tidy. They’re messy and unpredictable – demanding and ultimately thrilling. No matter how frightening the change may seem, don’t abort the new thing God is seeking to bring to birth.

Trust him. And step into the new season that awaits.

Snapshot 103 in Focused Living in a Frazzled World: 105 Snapshots of Life, by Deborah Brunt, (c) 2005 by Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Tessa and the lion’s den

Writing from the Spirit takes you places your soul cannot go by itself. You sense deep within that God wants to show you something significant, something specific, through an event, an object, a Scripture, a word, a scene – whatever it is he’s brought to your attention.

Here’s the key: Don’t let your first thoughts or feelings mislead you as to what that significance might be. Your soul will want to jump to conclusions that are trite or forced and that fall short of the glory of God.

All of us who are writers and Christians have jumped to those conclusions. But the Lord, who is the Spirit, wants to teach us to wait until we recognize the Spirit-to-spirit spark that leaps across logic and sentiment and connects what he has showed us to a meaning we would not have dreamed.

Something has come over our finicky cat. She wants to cuddle.

I still cannot hold her for more than 12 seconds. But the last couple of days, the feline that usually eats and exits can’t seem to get enough of human touch.

The first night, she was lounging on her pillow when I sat down beside her and began stroking her silky fur. She started purring, low and throaty, like a motor on idle. Turning this way and that, she stretched luxuriously, extending first one paw, then another.

I figured our bonding would last roughly a minute. But Tessa didn’t want me to stop – ever. Eventually I did, and she left to cat around.

The next night, as I stood at the bathroom sink, she padded over, sat at my feet and looked up at me as if to say, “What are you waiting for?” Let me tell you: it’s a trick to brush your teeth and wash your face and take off your eye makeup while stroking a cat with one foot. But, again, Tessa didn’t want me to stop.

“Who are you and what have you done with our cat?” I asked her.

Standing there, watching her stretch and listening to her motor running, I recalled a story I’d first heard as a kid. It’s a true story of a man named Daniel who, as far as I know, had no cats. What Daniel did have was “an extraordinary spirit” and a bad habit of praying regularly.

Both got him in trouble. The guys around him, seeing that Daniel was about to get the promotion they all wanted, tried to find a way to discredit him. Unable to dig up even a tiny bit of dirt, they resorted to treachery.

At their urging, the king passed a law declaring (my paraphrase): “No praying to any deity or human except me, the king, for the next 30 days. Offenders will be thrown into the lions’ den.” Guess who got caught praying?

Now the king really liked Daniel. But he couldn’t figure out a way to undo the irrevocable law he himself had signed. So, at sundown, he had Daniel thrown into the lions’ den. But first the king cried, “May your God, whom you serve so faithfully, rescue you” (Dan. 6:16).

After a long night without food or sleep, the king hurried back to the lions’ den with another cry: “Daniel, servant of the living God! Was your God, whom you serve so faithfully, able to rescue you from the lions?” (Dan. 6:20).

When Daniel actually answered, the king realized: Something had come over his ferocious lions. Specifically, according to Daniel, “My God sent his angel to shut the lions’ mouths” (Dan. 6:22).

I wonder: Did Daniel spend the night stroking those big cats and listening to them purr? Or did he spend the long hours from sunset to dawn sitting in the pitch darkness of that stone-capped den, heart pounding, ears straining to hear a feline footfall, expecting any moment to be pounced upon and eaten?

We might assume the latter. Yet the Bible speaks of Daniel’s night as one, not of terror but of trust: “Not a scratch was found on him, for he had trusted in his God” (Dan. 6:23).

Facing lions who tore other people apart before they hit the floor of the den, Daniel didn’t quake in his sandals. He was serene as a woman stroking her cat.

You see, Daniel didn’t have lions’ den religion. In his darkest hour, he believed in the God he’d served all along.

“Tessa and the Lion’s Den” is Snapshot 101 in Focused Living in a Frazzled World: 105 Snapshots of Life. © 2005 by Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations are taken from New Living Translation.

E-mail response paralysis

Writing from the Spirit can be playful. It can evoke laughter and smiles. Un petit exemple, penned in 2001 …

If you’re one of the people waiting for me to answer your e-mail, please don’t be angry. I can explain.

No, actually, I can’t explain. But I think it has something to do with the century in which I was born.

I’d have done well in the days of quill and ink. In that era, while you were blotting, you had time to ponder what to say next.

In today’s e-mail e-ra, people expect a reply roughly 4.5 seconds after clicking the Send button. That’s no problem for some of the guys on my floor at work. They can answer 120 e-mails in just under 12 minutes.

And me? Well, I delete the deletable stuff immediately, especially anything forwarded that says, “If you do not send this warning and/or message of love to your 25 closest friends, you are dirty scum not fit to walk this planet.” But when it comes to real messages demanding real answers, I ponder. I deliberate. I labor over the briefest of replies.

If you wrote me but haven’t heard back, I’ve read your message – and appreciated it greatly. I probably also clicked Reply, typed, “Hi!” and, several agonizing minutes later, clicked the button to Delete my half-written response. I quit mid-message because: (a) I couldn’t think what to say; (b) I couldn’t think how to say it; and/or (c) 3,258 other duties, including 71 more unanswered e-mails, were shouting from all directions, “You’re taking too long with that one little message! Hurry!”

Alas, the word “hurry” often does more harm than good. In some cases, it can even create E-mail Response Paralysis, also known as ERP.

So here I sit, swamped with unanswered messages, trying desperately not to ERP, while my unanswered senders out there in cyberspace echo the sentiment a young upstart named Elihu expressed to a sufferer named Job. With Elihu they cry, “Behold, I waited for your words … while you pondered what to say” (Job 32:11).

My accusers are right. I’m guilty as charged: a confirmed ponderer. But may I say in my own defense: Pondering may make for slower answers, but it usually makes for better ones.

In Proverbs 5:5-6, a man known for his wisdom used these words to describe the woman who “does not ponder the path of life”: “Her feet go down to death … Her ways are unstable, she does not know it.” Not a good scenario, wouldn’t you say?

By contrast, this same wise man declared in Proverbs 15:28: “The heart of the righteous ponders how to answer.”

Now hang with me here. In the original language of the Old Testament, this word ponder is hagah, a close cousin to our own, “Ah hah!” A man named Vine who wrote a dictionary explaining such words, said, “It seems to be an onomatopoetic term, reflecting the sighing and low sounds one may make while musing.”

If we stuff all the meanings of hagah into that one sentence from Proverbs, it reads: The heart of the righteous moans, growls, utters, muses, mutters, meditates, devises, plots, speaks.

Notice that the speaking (or in this case e-mail writing) comes after much rather noisy deliberation.

So if you’re expecting an e-reply from me, take heart: it will eventually come. Meanwhile, imagine me sitting at my computer moaning, muttering, meditating, musing until that ah hah! moment when I know just what to say.

“E-mail Response Paralysis” is adapted from Snapshot 102 in Focused Living in a Frazzled World: 105 Snapshots of Life, by Deborah Brunt. © 2001, 2005, 2012 by Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations are from New American Standard Bible (NASU).

I’ll run

I’m gonna run this race

To hear You say, “Well done.”

Click to enjoy “Well Done” with lyrics on YouTube. Artist: Moriah Peters

The blessing of an undivided heart

All my life, I’ve heard the story of Elijah and Mt. Carmel. But only as I prepared to write We Confess! The Civil War, the South, and the Church did Elijah’s signature cry to God’s people begin to echo within me: “How long will you try to go both ways?”

After We Confess! was published last December, I returned to Elijah to explore more deeply his heartcry to those in covenant with the Lord: “Worship him alone!” What life could sound that call with such authority? Where and why was such a cry needed? What had lured the people of God to seek so stubbornly to go both ways? What warred against their surrendering fully to the Lord once more?

Searching Elijah’s life, I discovered Ahab and Jezebel. Oh my! I had seen that pair, up close and personal, without knowing what I saw.

In every generation, Ahab and Jezebel exploit divided hearts. Under cover of strong deception, they devastate and destroy God’s people. Elijah lived where Ahab and Jezebel ruled, yet he lived victoriously from a pure heart.

One weekend in March, I met with a small group eager to seek what God wanted to show us through Elijah’s life and times. None of us has been able to articulate what God did that weekend. The intensity of his Presence astonished us. The Lord himself demonstrated how deeply it pleases him when we seek to live before his face with an undivided heart.

Then, one night in June, God spoke to me about writing a series of e-books and calling it “The E-Blessings Series.” I knew immediately the focus of two books in the series: Esther and Elijah. I wasn’t sure which to tackle first.

Esther seemed the obvious choice. For years, God had been showing me insights into her story that I hadn’t seen anywhere else. I’d taught those insights over time, the teaching growing and shifting as God showed me more and more. For years, I’d wanted to put what I was learning into a book. Now, finally, I had the Lord’s go-ahead to do it.

The insights into Elijah and into Ahab and Jezebel were so new I didn’t know how well I could put them into words. Surely they needed to marinate for a while.

And yet, Elijah’s cry kept resounding deep within me, along with a strong sense of being compelled to warn how deceptively and destructively Ahab and Jezebel are at work in our midst.

Only when I talked with Erin Ulrich, of Design by Insight, about tentative plans for the E-Blessings Series did it become clear: The Esther or Elijah question revealed a spirit/soul battle within me. Writing about Esther felt better (less scary) and seemed more logical, so my soul was voting to take that route. But my spirit recognized the voice of God’s Spirit, telling me, “No, Elijah needs to come first.”

And so it has. The Esther Blessing: Grace to Reign in Life will be published on God’s timetable in early 2013. But today, The Elijah Blessing: An Undivided Heart is available on PDF and on Kindle, where you can also Look Inside the Book! It should go live on Nook this week.

I’ve prepared a series of blog posts to run the other four Mondays in October, each of which will give you a taste of The Elijah Blessing. I pray you won’t be satisfied with a taste, but will press in to receive the fullness of the Elijah blessing – the blessing of an undivided heart.

More blog posts related to The Elijah Blessing

See more about or purchase The Elijah Blessing: An Undivided Heart

Mastering the language in which God speaks

Writing from the Spirit isn’t effortless. In fact, the opposite is true. To write from the Spirit, you have to master two languages – the language in which you’re writing and the language in which God speaks.

Previously, we looked at the challenge of “Mastering the language in which you write.”

Today, let’s consider the impossible – and utterly delightful – challenge of mastering the language in which God speaks. It’s a challenge crucial to living from the Spirit, whether or not you write.

Here’s a look at the subject, excerpted from my e-book, The Elijah Blessing: An Undivided Heart, to be released in October.

As you stay before God, he will reveal himself to you – by his very Presence, by the things he shows you, by the things he says. He’ll draw you to his written Word, the place he has promised to meet you, the place he has promised to speak. As you abide in him and his words abide in you, you’ll learn to recognize his ways. You’ll learn to recognize his voice.

You’ll hear him first in your spirit. “Spirit can be known only by spirit – God’s Spirit and our spirits in open communion” (1 Cor. 2:14 MSG). Pay attention when that happens – when he nudges you, or pokes you, or rattles you, or raises a question, or even speaks clear words deep in your gut.

Sometimes you’ll understand what God said in the moment you know he spoke. Often, though, understanding comes only with pressing in. As you hear his voice, turn toward it. Ask, “I know that’s you, Lord. What are you saying?” Then wait and pursue. He may speak directly, or send you to search the scriptures, or tell you to let it germinate, or point out another place to look. As you search as for hidden treasure, the moment will come when you find it. The translation of the thing that hit your spirit will open slowly, like a flower, or burst full-blown into your mind.

It’s like learning a new language. There you are, standing before a native speaker. He speaks. You hear the words. You see in his eyes that he’s waiting for a response. But you don’t know what he said. Maybe you caught a word or two, but not the whole thing. If you want to save your pride, you pretend to have heard and mumble a response. But if you truly want to communicate, you humble yourself and ask, “Répétez, s’il vous plaît.” The other person repeats, more slowly and distinctly this time. You listen closely. Ah, yes. Now that jumble of sounds makes sense.

Hearing God is learning a new language, the Spirit’s language. You may have thought that God speaks in English. He does not. He speaks his own language. He teaches you in your spirit to hear his language and to translate into yours. You may not understand a lot at first. But as you press in to seek him, to listen spirit-to-Spirit and to keep your eyes on his face, you’ll grasp more and more of what he says.

As he teaches you to hear, he’ll surprise you with the places and ways he speaks. You’ll never know when his voice may break in on you or what he may say. But when your heart is wholly his, you’ll delight in the creative ways he shows you himself. You’ll lean in to him till understanding comes. And once you know what he’s said, you’ll set out to do it. You’ll act on your spirit’s yes.

Be blessed to commune Spirit-to spirit with your Lord. Be blessed to hear when he speaks into your spirit. Be blessed to seek until you know what he’s said.

And you who desire to write from the Spirit, be blessed to master two languages – the language in which you’re writing and the language in which God speaks.

From The Elijah Blessing: An Undivided Heart, by Deborah Brunt, © 2012 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.