Ezekiel 36 - 37; Psalm 110; Revelation 19

700 miles on the motorcylcle and time w/family at both ends....made for an amazing weekend. Talking to BIL and SIL and hearing their frustration w/their community of believers ie church(?)
I didn't know what to say....how to love, encourage and yet challenge them to model what it is they want.....be the depth they seek....without sounding like ......
I don't know I was just sad, to see believers, followers of Christ pull away and ....
I think eventually they will seek something new or maybe...maybe return and ....
I don't know....I really just don't know....our time w/them was amazing and filled w/curiousity and I hope in that they felt loved, encouraged and challenged.....
I have often felt loved.....occassionally felt encouraged....
but for me I don't recognize them (love and encouragement) until after I engage the challenge.....
so maybe I didn't challenge them to afraid of ..??
Even tho that's what's made me grow??
I don't know anything more.....I know I'm praying for them , for me....for all of us who believe to simply and completely follow...listen and in responsive obedeince follow......no matter what it may look like to others...follow wherever it is YOU lead....

Ezekeiel 36-24-28 "'For here's what I'm going to do: I'm going to take you out of these countries, gather you from all over, and bring you back to your own land. I'll pour pure water over you and scrub you clean. I'll give you a new heart, put a new spirit in you. I'll remove the stone heart from your body and replace it with a heart that's God-willed, not self-willed. I'll put my Spirit in you and make it possible for you to do what I tell you and live by my commands. You'll once again live in the land I gave your ancestors. You'll be my people! I'll be your God!

Is this what happens in accepting Christ....the process we undergo before we die and enter into ....is my heart softening really recieving a new heart....is all this seeing myself and accepting Your forgiveness and grace.....am I learning to hear ?? ....learning to be responsively obedient?? It's such hopeful thing...to be called Your child, to call You Abba...to not be fully changed and yet in process......to not be hopeless any longer......

And then this Ezekiel 37: 5-6 God, the Master, told the dry bones, "Watch this: I'm bringing the breath of life to you and you'll come to life. I'll attach sinews to you, put meat on your bones, cover you with skin, and breathe life into you. You'll come alive and you'll realize that I am God!"
...being told to not be about 'wet wood'.....same as dry bones??
To be able to simply and completely take your children and point them BACK to You...to relentlessly. hopefully , lovingly, encouragingly, challenglingly (is that even a word) point them back to You...to seeking You for themselves...to in the seeking FIND that You never left them.....that it's us who leave...
wanting more what we want, than what You want for us....
leaving because You aren't enough...
to help them to remember that that is what happened...that You never left them.....and in that reminder is Your breath of life, in that remembering they have to turn back to You and ask forgiveness.........
please Abba help that to happen as we meet and mentor those who have maybe never engaged You and Your grace....or those that found it to be not enough....If it sounds like I know what I'm doin...I don't....I am so blown away every morning w/what I read here that I get impassioned and in that passion I make mistake after mistake and yet every single time I come back and see and ask for....receive Your grace.....it happens again.....what a journey.....
praying for you, will you pray for me...all of us to live so in love w/our Savior that we come again and again to His word and in that coming, that passion we become those who love and faithfully follow where You lead......