All right.
So I wanted to explain a few practices that you can do to apply choosing that God is who
he says that he is actively into your life, like actually making an intentional willful
decision, giving yourself the opportunity to also experience him in that new way.
So one of the things that I did is in fact, this was the first thing that I did is I realized
I was lying in bed one day, probably about three or four years ago.
And I was just despondent and just frustrated and felt very hopeless.
Like, Lord, you have told me that, and I'm just going to infer me it was love.
So it can be any other characteristic of the Lord that you might be struggling with.
But I told the Lord, I said, Lord, you know, you say that you love me, but I don't feel
like it.
And I don't feel, and I know that it's probably you're doing all of this stuff and you're
loving on me and that it's my fault that I'm not seeing it.
I understand all of that, Lord, but I'm just going to be honest that I can't see it.
I can't see that you really do love me.
I don't see it anywhere.
I don't feel it.
I just can't connect with it.
And Lord, I'm just frustrated because at the time I was like 30, I think 35 years old.
And I said, Lord, I have given it a darn good try, you know, I am 35 years old and I have
been a saved since I was four, I've given the 31 years of a good try.
And Lord, I don't know yet what, I don't know what else to do.
I've tried everything.
I've done more devotional time.
I've tried to worship you longer.
I have, you know, tried to do volunteer work.
I've tried to mission work.
I've tried to go to church every time it's opened.
I've done all of these things, Lord, try to spend time with you, try to think good thoughts
about you, choose you and doing and being obedient to you over what it is that I want
to do.
And, but, but I don't know what else to do.
And finally I, it dawned on me, I thought, well, the only thing I haven't tried is I
haven't tried to choose that it's true and just make the decision that I was going to
act like it, that it was true.
If God says it, even though I don't see it, even though I don't feel like it, if he says
it, that I'm going to live in that, in the, in that reality.
In other words, I'm going to live believing that that's how the world works.
And so I, I got up, I made my bed and it's like the Lord, and I'm telling myself and
I'm choosing, I'm like trying to, to make a heart change inside.
God tells me, you know, that he loves me.
God is loving me right now.
Wow.
You know, God's loving me right now.
He's loving me while I'm making the bed.
He's loving the fact that I am, I don't know that I got to sleep in a bit, that I allowed
myself to do that.
And then I go take a shower and I'm in the shower.
And I remember standing there and thinking, God is looking on me delighted in the fact
that I am enjoying my shower.
He loves the fact that I'm taking advantage of all of these laws of physics that he put
into place of water and the fact that it cleanses and the fact that it, and enjoying the fact
that it feels so good.
He loves me loving and enjoying the things that he placed, you know, in my life that
he placed in the world.
I'm starting to feel a little better, you know, and then I, and then I go to the, go
to the mirror and start doing my hair and start doing my makeup.
And I'm like, God loves me taking care of myself in this way, expressing myself in this
way while he's just watching me.
And then I went and made breakfast.
I'm like, God is loving me that while I'm making this breakfast and loving the fact
that I thoroughly enjoy this particular type of breakfast.
And that's why I'm making it for myself because I get so excited.
He loves the, he loves me and delights in me while I'm doing this, like I'm just doing
stuff.
I'm not doing something, you know, some great ministry, not volunteering anywhere.
I'm just doing normal life because it sounded good to me and because I thought it was fun
and because I enjoy it.
And he's looking at me, just delighting in me, just loving me just because I'm me and
I'm expressing that I'm doing the things that I love.
I'm appreciating the things that he's done, even though I wasn't thinking about God and
the fact that he was and the fact that he created water and then, Oh God, thank you
for making him water.
It wasn't that I was just loving.
Oh, I love how water feels or I love me.
I love this kind of breakfast.
So I'm going to make this breakfast for me.
It's kind of like being a kid, you know, and just, you know, as an adult, you could do
that.
You decide what breakfast do I want.
And then you just do that.
And I, and it started and that's how I, how I went about my first day.
I did the same thing when I.
Uh, when I started to, um, work on my job for the day, I sat down.
It's like, God is delighting in me as I am doing this thing.
He loves me.
He's just, and because he loves me, he's delighting me doing this
and I'm not doing anything for him.
I'm just being me.
I'm going through normal daily tasks.
And so I'm not giving him anything.
I'm just being myself and that's enough for him.
So I continue to make that choice.
So that's one thing that I recommend.
It is a very powerful and in fact, uh, impacted exercise and you won't.
And that was just the first day I continue to do it.
In fact, I do it to this day when I, when I'm struggling and I have to, uh,
with believing that the Lord loves me, I have to shift back into that.
Okay, Ashley, just do what you, the things that you normally do,
believing and trusting right now.
God is looking on me, loving me.
He is delighting in me.
He is, he's just pouring sunshine from his face down on me, just watching me,
you know, uh, and then, so that's one thing you can do that with any of the
other things that have got this really pesky fly, sorry.
Well, now he's now he's mad.
Um, but you can do this exercise with any of the other, um, characteristics
of God that we talked about his goodness, his provision, his protection.
You're making a willful, intentional decision that God is something.
Completely.
Unrelated to whatever it is that you're doing, um, and completely unrelated
to whatever situation that you're in.
It, and, uh, uh, if you remember that example that I gave about God being
provider, how I didn't see the manifestation of, of provision in a
physical sense with money, but I did believe that, and I chose that he was
provider and I chose that him being provider was more important to me than
me seeing a manifestation of provision.
And that that was my new value, that he was provider, not in seeing
a manifestation of provision.
Um, and, uh, so again, that who he is and us delighting in that aspect of him
is totally different from, um, and completely undisconnected from and
unrelated to any external experience that we're having, it doesn't change
God being who he says that he is.
Uh, then the other thing that I would recommend is, um, is, is
what I call, uh, sitting with God.
This is kind of interesting because.
You're just sitting with God and you're not doing anything.
You're not believing that he loves you.
You're not believing that he, I mean, well, you can, I suppose.
Um, but you're not, you're not thinking about any ways that, that prove to
you that God is, who says that he is.
You are just sitting in his presence, expecting him to be all of the things
that he says he is expecting him be well, God's love.
Okay.
So God is loving me right now.
God is being good to me right now.
He's just, he's here right now.
I welcome his presence.
So welcome his presence.
Just sit somewhere where you've got no distractions, you know, maybe set your
timer again, just like you do, you know, for five minutes or whatever, just like
you do for your journal set for five minutes, where you, where, again, you
don't have to worry about trying to remember how long you've been there or
to keep from falling asleep or something.
You've got an alarm and you're just going to sit there and you just no
distractions, no thinking about anything, no accomplishing anything, because what
you were trying to do is you're trying to position yourself to experience God,
not to figure something out.
And quite honestly, in a manner of speaking, not to have any faith.
I'm not saying that you don't need to have faith.
It's just that you're not working on anything.
Uh, so, but you do have faith in the fact that you're just choosing.
Okay.
God says that he's loved and he is love.
He is, uh, he's good.
He is provider.
He's protector, you know, whatever it is that you want to focus on in that
moment or focus on, you know, choose in that moment, and then you just rest in
that and you just sit there with God and you just feel him.
Do you understand?
You're not trying to learn something about God in this moment.
You're not trying to get a revelation or an understanding you were experiencing.
What the presence of God will reveal to you about himself.
Remember, we were talking about that earlier with that.
you know, in, in the teaching, talking about the fact that God himself, his spirit needs to affirm
to you and to tell you who it is that he is. And we don't need to be relying on other people.
There's nothing wrong with hearing other people like sermons and whatever pastors telling us who
God says that he is. We, in order for us to choose it for ourselves, we have to have God himself
affirm that to us. We have to take that before the Lord, Lord, give me the experience of who
you are. Meaning like, Lord, allow me to experience you. We're not talking about putting
out a fleece somewhere. Like God, give me a sign that, or God, if you really do love me,
or if you really do provide for me, well, then you'll do X, Y, and Z. We're not talking about
that. We're talking about you're in the presence of God and you experience all of a sudden this
sense in you because you'll shift to a place of rest. And you will sense in that place that he
really is all the things he says that he is. He really is love. He really is good. He really is
provider. He really is protector. He really is safe. And you'll just experience it. Again,
we're not talking about some revelation and some articulation and some understanding.
We're talking about, you will experience those that God is who he says that he is,
and he will then know, and no one will be able to take that away from you.
We're not talking about, oh, you'll suddenly be able to understand and be able to articulate to
someone else and logically point out in the Bible, how it's true. No, no, no. Or logically explain to
anyone else, even yourself about how you could possibly know and choose that it's true. You're
just trying to allow God to be who he is. When he's with you, you're creating a space for God
to be who he is. Just let him show up. Now remember, expect him to be those things.
This by the way, it's not, it's not hope or wishful thinking. Okay. Well, no, he says he's
love. He says, he's good. He says he provides and protects me, you know, and all of that.
I really hope it's, you know, really hoping it's true. You know, okay. I, you know, how do I explain
it? It's like, you know, I'm really hoping I'm going to get to see it. There's an anticipation
in there that you're going to be disappointed. Here's the problem with that. It is declaring
God to be guilty to you. And then him having to prove his innocence in order to be let out
of the dog house and allowed to come near you to touch you. If you approach it from the perspective
of wishful thinking, Oh, you know, I really hope so. The problem with that is you're asking God
to come in and to overcome your choice, your belief that he's not those things. You really
want him to not to, to be something different, but that's not what you've chosen. You're just
hoping God will come in and prove it to you otherwise. And that's not faith. God says, nope,
you have to choose that. I am. You have to expect it. You have to be emotionally vulnerable
and risk full disappointment that God actually risks the disappointment of finding out that God
really isn't who you thought he was really risk the fact that he isn't loved, that he isn't good,
that he doesn't provide to protect you. And that's what you're risking. You're risking
disappointment. You're opening yourself up to not kind of like, okay, well, I might be
disappointed because he might not overcome. No, you are fully expecting it. And if he doesn't,
you're going to be devastatingly disappointed. That is reckless abandonment of faith to God.
That's what you have to do. And you continue. And in that vulnerable place, what vulnerability is,
is it is continuing to sit in that place. And in the midst of basically fear because of the risk
that you're taking, but you still sit there in that fear and wait, and God will give you
a different experience of himself. I promise you that. So if you also, also, if you have scary
things to come to mind, you know, just disregard them as if they are important and they don't
matter. So like, in other words, my point is like, if you have, if you have a fear,
you know, that comes up, if you don't, don't hold on to it and think, oh my goodness, that,
that might be, it might be telling me I'm in a bad and scary place. And it's trying to send me
a life raft. You know, fear is a life raft that I can grab ahold of to kind of like save myself
before I'm disappointed, ignore the life raft.
ignore that completely and just sit in there.
And I promise you,
you will experience things of God
that you never have before,
because you're fondly risking full disappointment
in your vulnerability
and you're risking being wrong about him.
So I hope that those two are helpful things.
So in your practice,
I mean, meaning like on the notes,
by the way, I don't remember which day this is,
you don't have to do,
you can do your practice whenever you want,
but you don't have to,
but I set up the practice.
I divided out like the,
now he's kind of mad at me.
I set up the practice in such a way
that you can, how do I explain this?
I divided out the amount of like time or work
or I don't know, homework assignments, whatever.
I've evenly distributed them throughout the week.
So if you want, you can wait and to do the practice,
on the day that of the journal entries
that it's closest to, if you would like.
If you would want to do it earlier than that,
you're absolutely more than welcome to,
because the good thing about this is
I don't want these practices to be something you just do
when I give them to you.
I want these to be basically tools
that you have in your tool belt.
You're like, oh, now I've done it.
And then now I can just,
now I can just, I can do it whenever I think about it.
I'm like, okay, you know what?
I'm really struggling with my faith or my emotions
with the Lord right now.
I just want to sit for five minutes,
just set your little five minute timer
that you do for your journal,
just sit with him for five minutes.
He's really pesky.
Just sit for five minutes
and just to allow myself to experience God,
allow him to show up as he chooses to be with me.
So anyway, and when you write in,
you'll see that there's a page
that's just titled My Practice.
You can journal in there with like full sentences
or phrases or whatever, however it is you want to,
or you can just write like bullet points.
I do find phrases particularly helpful for people.
I mean, meaning like if they don't want
to do full blown sentences,
instead of like one word or whatever,
just write like some phrases of how the experience went.
This is how it started.
This is how you felt when it started,
but then this is how you began to feel.
It doesn't, you don't have to take up that whole page,
but I just gave you a whole page to have access to,
but just write out enough
where you are articulating, okay, how did I feel?
Basically, what did I experience?
This is what it was like going in
because that's my, I don't know,
basically kind of like your MO,
how you're used to living, but this is what I chose.
This is the transition that I noticed that I went through,
and this is how God showed up.
And therefore this is what I think or whatever.
So if y'all have any questions, just reach out to me.
So I hope that's helpful,
and I will see you at our next gathering.