Habitation

What is your habit?

What is your place of habitation?

What is your hiding place?

Where is your place of refuge?

I have no resting place, I have no hiding place, my habit has been disrupted, I have what I do not want, and I do not have what I want! This wide open place has hemmed me in, restrained my movement, disrupted my pattern, I have lost my bearings. I know not where I am or where I am going! Hebrews 11:8-10 Urged on by faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed and went forth to a place which he was destined to receive as an inheritance; and he went, although he did not know or trouble his mind about where he was to go. Prompted by faith he dwelt as a temporary resident in the land which was designated in the promise of God, though he was like a stranger in a strange country, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs with him of the same promise. For he was waiting expectantly and confidently looking forward to the city which has fixed and firm foundations, whose Architect and Builder is God.

What did I promise to establish?

To lift me out of the miry clay, to set my feet upon a rock, to steady my steps and to establish MY GOINGS!

You are anxious that you are of no fixed address, that you will have to move again, that what I am establishing is beyond your capacity, beyond your habitat, beyond your boundary, beyond your definition, beyond your ability to define it.

You are restless, you are agitated, the tension rises and does not fall, you burst to break free.

Yet are YOU NOT FREE!

Why wrestle to be free? Why fight to be free? Just accept that you are free! What does freedom feel like?

You don’t know, it is beyond your capacity, it is beyond your senses, it is beyond your experience.

In life you don’t know how to define it, yet in worship it is your regular experience.

When you pause and reflect on me what is your experience?

No limitation, no restraint, no restriction, no pain, no lack, no captivity, captivity held captive. Just you and me.

Is this not your habitation?

Eyes open or closed, seated or standing, up the front or down the back, in the car, in the cafe, heck even in McDonalds, am I not present?

Was Moses’ tent of meeting a permanent residence? Are not tents designed to be mobile, to be moved?

You crave the old, you hope for the old, you miss the old, your mourn the old, you feel robbed of that which you no longer possess.

Yet you never possessed it!

You are correct Lord, you know that I care not for what I possess, yet those things you have given me I hold dear. I love my car and get annoyed when others don’t look after it, and yet I am one of those. It is very old now and yet I still love it for it came from you. Yet I feel the time is coming and very soon I will have to give this up too. For you asked me to clear out the old to make way for the new. I hate the new, I loathe the new, I have no desire for the new, I am even getting tired of new technologies which I used to love. You have brought me to a new place, yet I care not for it, I could care less, I am beyond it, I am shocked by it, I am overwhelmed by it, and yet you tell me to embrace the new! I have no place that I can call my own, no office, no retreat, no comfort, nothing familiar. I am tired of going around in circles!

Yet this is not the wilderness!

This is all yours, this land is yours to possess. Why have one spot, when it is all yours! Did I not say that this land is yours to possess.

EVERYWHERE YOU PUT YOUR FEET I HAVE GIVEN YOU!

I want you to know and feel and experience and taste and touch and enjoy and receive my fullness, my freedom.

How would you be free if I placed you in the dungeon, in the cell?

You are free of it, yes free of it.

Hold on it hope, grasp hold of hope, be entangled by hope, be embraced by hope, be intimate with hope, be covered by hope, be wrapt in hope.

For today this promise is fulfilled.

“Return to this place of hope, ye prisoners of hope, for today this day I will restore DOUBLE your former prosperity to you!”

At first you see it, it bubbles up before your feet, a trickle, then a stream, then a fountain, now it springs forth all around, across the land as far as the eye can see.

Arise from your prostrate, depressed state that circumstances have weighed upon you, rise to a new life, be radiant, for I am drawing all things to my self.

You shall be my instrument of freedom, of multiplication, of prosperity, of wealth, of abundance, of power.

I have removed the curse, you shall be both a symbol and source of blessing.

For my glory!