Attracting the Dove – Just Be!

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The sun was barely peaking over the eastern horizon as sipped my coffee in backyard. “It just doesn’t get better than this,” I thought to myself as I opened the Gospel of Mark. Enjoying the coolness of the morning I mediated on the baptism story of Jesus –focusing particularly on when Jesus emerged out of the water and He “saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on Him like a dove…” (Mark 1:10). As I imagined this scene I glanced up and spotted some birds on the housetop next door. This sparked the thought of how cool it would be to see a dove!

 

Just then I heard cooing nearby, as I turned and looked, there on the peak of my neighbor’s roof was a mourning dove. I got so excited! I ran into the house and into the bedroom, scared Patty who was still in bed, and grabbed my phone for a picture. “Ah…this will be more than perfect for a blog post,” I thought to myself as I rushed out the patio door to capture the moment-but alas the dove had disappeared.

 

My spiritual high became a low quickly.   As I explained the scene to Patty, she sympathetically stated, “Maybe you were supposed to sit and just be.” Don’t you love it when God speaks to you through someone else? Too often I miss out on the work of the Holy Spirit because I’m rushing around, striving to capture something when the Father wants me to Just Be in His Presence and soak in His love as Jesus did at His baptism.

 

The Spirit wanted to underline this lesson for me as I read a few minutes later in the devotional Come Away My Beloved:

 

O My child, I have waited long for your coming. My eyes have grown weary with watching, and My heart heavy with longing for you. For I have said, “Rest in Me,” but you have striven, I have said, “Stand still,” but you have continued to run. I have called but you have been listening to human voices. Turn to Me. You do not need to do more. For you will find your quest ended…My child, I have need of nothing. I desire only your love…Abandon to Me your whole being…For when your life is wholly lost in My life, there is never anything but gain…So come first to Me. Yes, come until the stream of your life is swallowed up in the ocean of my fullness (p. 102-103).

 

I heard the Spirit loud and clear that morning, Just Be! How He is teaching me and creating in me a longing for the “stream of my life” to be “swallowed up in the ocean of His fullness” given to those “remain in His love,” (John. 15:1-17).

 

And would you believe that the next morning, as I once again basked in the vibrant Colorado sunrise, drank my coffee, and read from the book of Mark. Two doves came to visit and I didn’t run to get my phone!

Attracting the Dove – A Pure Heart

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Doing some Dove research I discovered that Doves are not the easiest birds to attract into one’s yard. Creating the right environment to entice these amazing and beautiful birds to nest in your yard means providing seeds, water, and shelter. Another interesting point I gleamed was that Doves are shy, sensitive, and desire a peaceful environment in which to live and have their babies.

 

Perhaps the demeanor of this gentle cooing bird is one of the reasons the Father chose the Dove as the symbol of the Holy Spirit to “remain” on Jesus at His Baptism. Jesus’ heart was pure and peaceful-ready for the anointing of the Spirit. I believe one of the attributes we can place on the Holy Spirit is sensitivity. If the environment within our hearts is not suitable to His sensitive nature the anointing will depart.

 

Jesus taught, “blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God,” (Mt. 5:8). God the Holy Spirit is attracted to a heart that is pure and clean, purged from worldly pollution. Paul teaches that we can “grieve the Holy Spirit of God” (Eph. 4:30). In essence push Him away by an unattractive heart filled with:

 

“Bitterness, rage, anger, brawling and slander, every form of malice, unforgiveness sexual immorality, any impurity, greed …” (Eph. 4:31-5:1ff.).

 

A heart controlled by one or more of the fleshly issues above will keep the sensitive Spirit’s anointing from resting one’s heart. The last few months the Holy Spirit has convicted me of areas in my heart where I have “grieved” the Spirit. One area has been the words I speak. I have thought about placing a lock on my mouth that would prevent me from speaking negative words, ah I have realized that my words reflect my heart. When I call the person who cut me off in traffic a-well not so nice name it reveals deeper issues in my heart. I need some heart help.

 

The morning I wrote this blog I was reading my Psalm for the day and it happened to be Psalm 51. The Holy Spirit highlighted these healing words from the prayer:

 

“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me,” (vs. 10-12).

 

David messed up big time like we all do. However, the prayer in the Psalm prepared his heart for the presence of the Spirit to fill him up again with the assurance of forgiveness and joy of knowing the Father’s love.

 

The Dove may be sensitive but He is always working behind the scenes to point us back to Jesus’ blood poured out on the cross to purify our needy hearts with heaven’s unconditional love. Give Him your heart again today and let Him clean it up and make it once again attractive for the Dove!

 

Attracting the Dove – A Longing Soul

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I so appreciated the “dove” sightings that were shared with me after the last blog. One of the pictures and stories, which blessed me, was from Karen, whose husband Rick passed away in March. Rick, was and I believe still is, a prayer warrior for many of us as he sits with Christ in the heavenly realm, which makes this picture and story super special.

 

 

Karen says: “This lovely dove has been here over a month. She laid, sat, and hatched 2 babies then they all left for a little over a week but I saw them in the flowerbeds as she nurtured them in survival skills. Now she is back sitting in the nest again in the stag horn fern on my patio. She gently reminds me the Holy Spirit is indeed always with me.”

 

What attracts the Holy Spirit to settle upon our soul? A soul in need that longs after the presence of God. I can’t help but think that our Good Father sent a physical dove to Karen to remind her that in her pain and loss of Rick, His glorious presence is filling her and comforting her in the midst of her wilderness of loss.

 

One of the reasons that the Dove came upon Jesus at His Baptism and “remained upon Him” (Jn. 1:32) was because His deepest longing was for the presence of the Father’s love. Jesus modeled this longing through out His life. At the age of 12 He chose the Father over Mary and Joseph (Lk. 2:49) and on the cross screams from the depth of His soul as He feels the separation from the Father’s love that had daily sustained Him (Matthew 27:46).

 

After the resurrection Jesus has a teachable moment with the disciples taking time to reiterate their soul need for the Holy Spirit. In fact He tells them before He ascends to heaven not to do any ministry until the gift of the Father’s love comes by way of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:4-5). The disciples heard, obeyed, and the Father delivered the Dove to their longing souls.

 

We are living in great days! Yes, I know it may seem the opposite with the natural disasters, political unrest around the world, daily reports of school shootings, etc. But I believe such circumstances are creating a longing for something the American dream can’t bring to our souls, the supernatural love of the Father.

 

The Dove will come and nest in a soul that longs for the presence of God more than anything else in the world. Augustine of Hippo got is right when he said: “Thou has made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.” So what are you longing for?

Attracting the Dove

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I recently read about a missionary couple sent to Israel. They were given a home to live in near Jerusalem. After a few weeks, they noticed that a dove moved in the eave of the roof of their home. They took this as a sign of God’s favor over them in Israel. But they also noticed that the dove would fly away every time they slammed the door or yelled at one another.

 

The dove is a shy, sensitive bird and in order to keep it at their home they needed to live peacefully and therefore adjusted their behavior in order to keep the dove as their houseguest.

 

R.T. Kendall writes about this story in his new book Holy Fire. I would strongly recommend it as a balanced, Biblical view of how the Holy Spirit works in our lives. This past Sunday Pentecost was celebrated–the arrival of the Holy Spirit on the early church. On that particular day the believers received the Holy Fire of the Spirit and the Gospel went forward with signs and wonders from heaven. How I long to see Fire fall again on my needy soul and the struggling Bride of Christ.

 

But I wonder, perhaps before the Fire will descend, maybe we need to attract the Dove, the symbol of the Holy Spirit, the one that empowered Jesus at His baptism (Matt. 3:16, Mark 1:10, Luke 3:22, John 1:32). Notice the words of John 1:32-33:,

 

Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on Him. I would not have known Him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is He who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ ”

 

Do you see the word “remain?” The Holy Spirit never left Jesus because Jesus never offended the sensitive person of the Holy Spirit. Jesus lived a sinless, obedient life that brought glory to the Father and attracted the anointing and power of the Spirit.

 

Have you experienced the Dove come upon you? There is no greater gift. There is a heavenly peace and a “joy unspeakable.” You don’t worry about time or the future, because you are engulfed in eternal love. This sweet anointing from the Dove empowers with a courage and boldness to live for the glory of God.

 

What is puzzling is He, referring to the Holy Spirit, doesn’t seem to stay or remain like He did on Jesus. Now don’t misunderstand if you are a child of God the Holy Spirit will never leave you (John 14:16). Yet the Scripture teaches it is possible to “grieve” and “quench” the Spirit by how we live. It is as if the Dove flies away, although the Spirit never leaves you, it feels like His manifest presence and anointing from heaven has vanished. Why is this so?

 

The next few weeks I’d like to wrestle with what causes the Spirit to seem to fly away and how we can prepare our hearts to attract His presence and anointing. Join me as we continue to search our hearts and cry out for the presence of the Dove.

A Mother’s Heart

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I asked Danell Czarnecki, a Board Member of Oceans Ministries, to share this post and invitation to Africa.

As we celebrated Mother’s Day this past weekend it was such a blessing to have all three of my children and their families together. My son has recently moved his family to another state, so having his family here was an unexpected gift. As I enjoyed the love, noise and a bit of chaos, I thanked God for the privilege of being called mom and grandma. Being a mom has brought me such joy; and if I am honest some pain along the way; but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

My reflections on Mother’s Day also brought about precious memories of my recent visit to Lesotho, Africa. I had the honor of spending time at Beautiful Gate, a childcare center for orphaned and abandoned babies ages birth to 5; as well as visiting The Good Shepherd Centre for Teenage Mothers, and Semonkong Children’s Centre, a care center for orphaned and poverty-stricken children located in a one of the mountain villages.

While I was at Beautiful Gate I was overwhelmed with emotions as I watched the House Mom’s (BoMme) of Beautiful Gate care for the 12-15 children in their care, (there are 5 baby houses, so about 75 children are housed at BG) they sang over them with joy, tended to each child, one after the other without rest, without complaint and loved them unconditionally. And because I know some of the stories of the children and the BoMme, I know there is pain, tears and loss and yes, even a joyful loss as they send one of their children to a forever family. I couldn’t help but think of Jesus and how overwhelmed with love he is for us; the joy our Abba takes in us, and yes, the pain and tears He sheds for us too. The time at Beautiful Gate was such a beautiful reminder of the joy, care, and patience our Abba has for us and I am so grateful to not be left orphaned but to have been adopted by the Perfect Father.

Our team also had the chance to spend some time at The Good Shepherd Centre. They house teenage girls who find themselves pregnant, often as a result of incest or rape. Many have been rejected from their homes due to poverty and/or shame. The Good Shepherd Centre takes in these young moms-to-be and offers them hope. They receive love, pre and post-natal care, education, skill training and learn how to care for their newborns. I again found myself overwhelmed by the goodness of the “mothers” that cared for them and the Abba who loves them so much. And us “moms” on the team had the pleasure of holding these beautiful new mother’s babies with joy while listening to their moms stories; knowing these babies will not likely be found abandoned in a field, by a dumpster or worse; all because someone took the time to share the Father’s love with them.

My last few days in Lesotho I kept thinking about my own daughters and how I want them to know they too are loved and rejoiced over; and I thanked their Abba for calling them into His family so they can experience the unspeakable joy of knowing they will never be orphaned or abandoned. And I couldn’t think of a better way to help them understand just how deep that love goes other than taking them to Lesotho to experience it for themselves.

“The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” Zeph 3:17

Those words in Scripture are some of my favorite, and it is exactly what you feel in the mountain Kingdom of Lesotho. After returning home God made it very clear that I was to plan a Mother/Daughter trip to Lesotho in late September of 2018. I’ve been praying God would bring a few more moms and daughters to join me and mine on this life-changing journey. If you are interested in more information regarding the Lesotho Mission trip in September of 2018 or scheduling a trip of your own contact mike.verkaik@oceansministries.org, tim.spykstra@oceansministries or danellcz@verizon.net.