Yes, I believe that Abba Father loves to have fun—and I think His favorite game is Hide and Seek. It’s not that He hides things from us to taunt us, but for us to discover. God delights to draw us into relationship with Himself as we seek the meaningful messages He frames within mystery…and dreams are often the mystery He uses.
I woke with a powerful picture in my spirit the other morning—a message from God for me that I believe is also for His Body in this season. In what I call a “waking dream,” I stood at the entrance of our laundry room. I saw that the door leading into the garage was open, as well as the garage door itself was completely up. The light in the laundry room was on and seemed exceptionally bright, and instead of cars in the garage, there were bikes – perhaps three – that were neatly parked where a car would have been, standing parallel to the back door. It was light outside – a beautiful day.
As the picture faded and I crawled out of bed, my initial thought was: who left the doors open all night? As I made my way to the kitchen to get my morning coffee, I thought about the three things that were clearly prominent: the laundry room was “highlighted” (the ceiling light was very bright), the doors were open, and there were bikes instead of a car (we don’t have any bikes). After time in prayer, this is what I feel is the meaningful message in the mystery.
First, it was God who had opened the doors and was inviting me to take a ride with Him – not for ministry sake, but just for pleasure. It is an invitation not unfamiliar to me as I hold many fond memories growing up of riding bikes with my earthly dad – just me and him seeing the town, riding to a pancake house (our favorite), laughing, sharing fun moments together.
I believe we are in a new season of the outpouring of the Spirit not only of greater works, but a greater understanding of how God created us out of His good pleasure. As children who love their Father and want to honor Him, we take serious our call to righteousness and our “labor in the fields”. This is right and these are needed. But pleasure is also important with Papa. He says to delight in Him and He will give us the desires of our heart (Ps. 37:4). In His presence is fullness of joy (Ps. 16:11). He has pleasure in our prosperity and takes pleasure in us as we revere Him (Ps. 35:27; 147:11). And I think that includes revering His passions and delights and taking time to just delight with Him in the life He gave us. However, He also says that if we love pleasure (making it our pursuit above God), it impoverishes our life (Prov. 21:17).
Second, the way to the bikes led through the laundry room – a place where things that are not “appropriate” to a fresh state are removed. Those “things” may be sins that we are holding on to—or they may simply be things not suitable to being there, e.g. chocolate belongs in my mouth, not on my shirt; dirt belongs in the garden where it helps to make things grow, not smudged on my white pants. And of course there is the sweat (of self-effort) that needs removing, as well. So too, things (activities and alignments) from another season may not be right for this one. We may be holding on to good things, but they may be weighing us down, sucking our energy and leaving us empty. We find ourselves doing things out of duty rather than delight.
We were created to experience God’s pleasure—the One who delights in our prosperity. If you need to let go of something that is keeping you from being fresh in the Spirit, something that the Lord has been highlighting lately, then I encourage you to let go of it. Climb on the bike with Dad and let your hair blow in the breeze as you ride with Him in the pleasure of His presence and purpose with you today.
J. Nicole – Abba’s Daughter
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