The Oil - Overfilled

It has been quite some time since I have shared words and life here. I truly miss it. Of course life has continued and there has been so much that I need to share and since I have been led to re-ignite this forum of expression, I will do just that. I want to share a very profound and deeply spiritual moment for me. In reading my blogs, surely you have figured out that I am in love with and loved by God. Nothing in me is a part from Him. What I want to share today is very personal and yet, I know that it will enlighten and challenge you; as it has done for me.

About four weeks ago, my little Mitsubishi (which was already falling apart and would become a river whenever it rained) was basically totalled in an accident. Three weeks later, God had a friend give me $1000 to buy another set of wheels or put a down payment on a vehicle. I opted to find something used but reliable because I need to be positioned to grow my business and a car payment was not in that equation. I found a car for $700 and I was on the road again! YAY! Four days into the car, there is a problem. I discovered, haphazardly, that the oil gauge does not work. This discovery was only made after I had poured WAY TOO MUCH oil into the car, trying to make that oil gauge rise. I was slightly bummed out about it; yet did not believe that it was anything major.

On the night I realized there was a problem, I'd dropped one niece off to the movies and the little niece and I headed home. We did not make it; because so much smoke was coming from the rear and hood of the car that we pulled into a parking lot and called for someone to come get us. I was distressed. It was dark and she and I were sitting in a parking lot. She asked what was wrong with the car and I explained it. I also told her that God did not bless me with this car to take it away with a silly mechanical problem. She understood it as best she could for a five year old. Then, in that moment, God had her share with me the Easter story that she'd learned in children's church and she ended with, "Auntie we have to remember to tell God thank you every day." So we told God thank you at that moment for the car, for the smoke and for the person coming to get us.

Today is April 6, 2010. During the wee hours of the morning I woke up and after allowing my mind to run through every personal and business matter, I finally said, "Ok God, clearly you want to talk to me, so I am listening." He asked "Is your gauge working?" My mind immediately went to the car - "No, it isn't." He inquired again, "Is your gauge working? Do you know that your oil is overflowing?"

I knew at that moment He was not talking about the car, He was talking about me. In Biblical terms, the oil represents anointing, the thing that you are spiritually called out or ordained to do/be/abide in. God very clearly said to me in that night conversation, that I keep reading my oil gauge as empty or too low, when in fact it is overflowing. My gauge, my mindsets, my confidence - keep registering low oil - it was a false reading.

Clearly, at this point, I am blown away; yet He wasn't finished. Here is what I learned. The mechanic said to me that when you put too much oil in a car, it has to come out. A car will find a way to get rid of it: it burns it off, it forces it to leak out, it pushes through filters and at some point before the damage happens, you have to change the oil and clean up the leaks and spills. What I learned as God brought this all back to me; is that there is so much anointing (oil) in me that it is looking for a way to get out. It is burning off the things that keep my gauge broken and my perception and acceptance of my anointing low. It is pushing to come out because it is too abundant to sit in my life (engine) and it wants to operate.

Finally, the mechanic kept saying to me, and I kept hearing his words as God spoke to me, "It's okay, the car is fine, it is not damaged, it's a good car." I kept hearing his words in the midst of God's words, because I needed to know that although my gauge was broken; my vision/my dream is still intact and the oil is still flowing and active. Is your gauge broken? Does your hopes, dreams, calling gauge always read empty or low? Now ask yourself, the question I did - WHY?

Today's writing assignment is to draw a gauge that is indicative of your life and mark the point on that gauge that represents where your calling is. Then write your mechanics notes to repair the damage and get to the place of your calling. My gauge was broken, but wonderfully there is another way to test the measure of oil in your life and that is to seek God and hear Him when He speaks. Is your gauge broken?

LIFE ON PURPOSE

One of the things I love about having an intimate relationship with God is the way He talks to us. Recently He has been giving me a very direct message surrounding: life on purpose and/or living on purpose. It has come at me in at least three very clear and distinct ways over the last week: in a book a friend suggested, in a Saturday morning meeting and in a recent worship service.

This morning in my time of prayer and meditation I had to face the fact that so much of my living on purpose and according to the things that really make me happy - I simply gave up on. I started to think about some of the goals that I wrote in my high school memory book and I how I would envision my home adorned with art pieces vibrant with color and who speak to who I am. Somewhere along the way, I gave up on seeking out the things in people that wonderfully and positively challenge me and I started to allow to many "just anybodies" in. While I have also learned to detox people, behaviors and insecurities; I was amazed in those quiet moments this morning about the amount of intrinsic joy and energy I had lost to the matters pre-detoxification.

I had to admit to myself, that I am still the woman who wants to have four sons frolicking around her, as I read books on a private beach. I am still the woman who wants to pick up and travel to wherever my imagination can take me on a whim. I am still the woman who envisions a house with a wraparound porch and Southern summertime gatherings of artists, intellectuals and street corner philosophers all sipping delightful elixirs as we mingle; and the kids take over the yard. I am still the woman who wants to be surrounded and poured into by women of powerful integrity who can get deep yet can be real; and at it each gathering we pour into another woman who needs that assurance and compassion. That is life on purpose for me.

So I have decided that before my head hits the pillow tonight and my nine year old son bear hugs me into a thirty minute conversation that will surely prolong his bed time I am going to do something major to start life my life on purpose anew. I am going to re-script my life completely and purposely according to those things that God implanted in me in His initial thought of me. As I re-write that script, I am doing so from a mindset that God can and will redeem not only the time, but the energy loss to those things that are me that left me. Honestly, I can not really put a finger on when they left, how they left or why they did - but they have often resurfaced in my spirit and brought tears to my eyes as though they were mourning for me. Isn't that something? Your true spirit will mourn losing you when all it wants to do is live on purpose through you.

What does your life on purpose look like? Today, not scribble something quickly in your journal, but really think about what your purposed life designed by The Spirit and the things of your spirit really looks like? Write your way back to it. This is not about goals or to dos, no, this is about waking up every day and deciding that you have a purpose and every bit of your character, your decisions, your thoughts and your focus on that purpose should bring you joy. I am excited about having life on purpose - I pray you are as well.

AFFIRM YOUR LIFE

I have adopted affirming my life as a way of life. It has done wonders for the transformation of my emotional, intellectual and spiritual being. I certainly need those three things aligned to the positive energy that circulates around us. You see, I understand completely that their health is directly tied to my ability to exist in peace and rest in the true nature of God. So I have learned to affirm, speak and claim, every powerful and positive thing I need to come into being in my life.

Interestingly, when I worked for a gospel station, I and some others on staff would often tease the midday host about a particular song she would play as she closed out a special prayer segment. In a weird kind of way, a strange piano key would be played at just the right moment as she read a scripture. So enthralled in the music and teasing her about it, I missed the power of that scriptural passage for years. It says: whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. It is about affirming.

I can raise my hand along with many of you at this statement - life has some hard, difficult, bad and painful days. A medical diagnosis, a broken marriage, a sudden death, a child bent on doing everything that pleases hell can register like an earthquake of unbelievable proportions in your life. Yet that are some true, honest, pure, lovely and just things that we can infuse into every situation to squash the negative and damaging energy that comes with hard moments. I am healed. I am whole in spite of who has walked out of my life. I am complete in me and my God. I am perfectly positioned to accept the provision that is for me. I am confident that my child is safe and that no manner of evil will overtake him. I am true and unconditional love and therefore true and unconditional love is all that will come into my life.

You have to affirm some things daily in your life. There are times my affirmations may change. I have learned to use them as weapons in my arsenal for holistic success achievement. That means I believe and accept that the words are more than just flowery statements. They are in fact, marching orders. I speak them and they go out and get what I speak. What are you speaking in your life today? What are you speaking about the hard challenges that shake you awake in the middle of the night? Are your words giving life to the challenges or giving life to the positive resolution of the same?

What can you affirm that speaks directly to what your life needs, right now? Write your affirmations, here I will help you get started:

I am all things light, where there is light there is no darkness.

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I am powerfully positioned to bless others.

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I am forgiving and I am forgiven.

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I hold no anger in my heart or spirit, I release it so that I can receive love.

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Above all things know that what you speak is what will happen in your being and in everything connected to it. If you are going to talk, how about this: speak life, speak peace, speak joy, speak affirming words - otherwise be sure that you can live abundantly in what you say.