What Happens When We Stop Dwelling?

The Lord continues to impress on me to dwell. To be honest, I thought I already did that. I feel His precious presence so much of my day. Anytime I speak his name, I feel Him. When I first started to sense His presence, I was afraid to move. I thought I might risk losing this awareness if I so much as took a step in a different direction. I have learned over time that I can move and still have Him with me. It has been a wonderful thing to experience.

So, the question I had was what more about dwelling did I need to learn?

Well, in typical Lord fashion, He took me through an exercise. It turned out to be a moment of learning many lessons.

Long story short, I was writing at a location Jesus had designated for me. When I came to a stopping point, I understood the Lord impressing on me that I could go to a particular store. But, I didn't know why I would go, so I decided to push forward in writing a few more minutes before I stopped for dinner. (Looking back on it, I had a sense that I was not doing the right thing. But, I pushed it aside.) 

When I finally headed out on my merry way, I saw a fire truck pulling up to that store. Wondering what may have happened, I said a prayer for the emergency personnel and the victim.

Later, after a Bible study that focused on asking the Holy Spirit into conversations and asking ourselves why we didn't follow through on what we hear from the Holy Spirit, the Lord reminded me of the fire truck at the store.

I realized at that moment the Holy Spirit wasn't telling me I could go to the store, He wanted me to go to the store. He had planted the visit to the store in my mental plans earlier that day. So, when I came to a stopping place in my writing I was to stop and go. But, without realizing it, I had stopped dwelling in His presence and proceeded forward in what I wanted to do... telling myself it was still in His plans.

Joshua 7-9 shares how the Israelites stopped asking what they needed to do to conquer the next town. They just went ahead and took actions that followed what they understood of God's plans. They learned the hard way that they skipped a step. In a sense, they stopped dwelling.

My take away from this exercise was to acknowledge that I had stopped following the directions from the Holy Spirit. Sometimes, when I hear my part of the plan, I think it's the whole package of plans. As a result, I set it in stone... not to be moved by anything. This experience opened my eyes. 

When I confessed my wrong, immediately I felt the return of His presence and equally important I felt His forgiveness and grace wash over me. He also kept bringing to my mind the apostle Peter. The man blundered so many times. Yet, each time, God picked him up and continued to use him to do wonderful things for the building up of the church. In other words, I hadn't blown a gasket in my work for God.

I don't know if I would have been part of the emergency or not on that night of my lesson. That is not the issue. The teaching I received from this was that I should have gone to the store, so if God chose to use me, He could. I need to keep checking with Him for any changes in the plan of the day. We each need to dwell on Jesus and the Holy Spirit, so that we can be used by them for the purposes of the Kingdom.