Say what!?!? I am moving in a house dedicated to prayer, God, love and generally good vibes and the major emotions I have been feeling are negative? I think it really weirded me out because I just couldn't understand myself. Whenever I experience the unexplainable it always harder to accept.

I've been thinking and thinking and thinking about this. I've been so busy moving that honestly beside little snippets of prayer saying "oh thanx for letting us move here God" I haven't really been chatting with Him at all. (I mean I had boxes to unpack and rooms to organize!!) ***blush****shame***ducks head****

When I was at work someone asked me how it was going. I answered honestly and said "Well we got all the boxes and stuff into the house, but this move caught me off guard... I didn't expect to FEEL different with this move because we just were moving around the corner"....

I didn't expect to FEEL different.... 

                                         This move caught me off guard...

I kept thinking about how I responded to my co-worker...wondering even more why this was? The other day as I was deep in thought I started asking God what the deal was. Why was I finding this hard? What were these feelings? This move isn't FAR... I've moved much FURTHER in the past, shouldn't this be easy?

I didn't audibly hear a voice, but this soft thought came into my head followed by the sweet comfort that I have come to know as my God being near to me... "Moving nearer to me isn't always easy, but it will be worth it." and then "Learn what this feels like, let it teach you, let it grow you."

Let it teach me what? Let it grow me?

                                               Why is God so weird!!?!?

I had to let this question really sink into my soul. How could moving just around the corner teach me more about God or people? What was he on about? I chewed on it a bit more.

This morning Steve kissed me good-bye before his went to work... I tried to fall back asleep (because he leaves crazy early in the morning to go to his school job. Hollah!! out there for all the teacher, staff, parents and students that do that on a regular biases!), but for some reason this morning I couldn't doze back off. I started thinking again about this place and how we have moved here to pray and how we believe that prayer changes things. 

Then it hit me. God was teaching me how to be understanding and accepting of people who don't yet believe in him, or those who desperately want to pray and learn to chat with him, but think they have to sort out their life first before God will speak to them, or people that have KNOWN God for years, but just want to BE with him, or people that want to be spiritual, but are held back by their logic and feelings and struggle to understand or believe in God because they can't feel Him, or people like ME who get crazy busy with life and we forget to include God in it...

For all those people that hold back, get distracted or are down right lazy (me!) from MOVING nearer to God because they think connecting with God is some BIG moment with out realizing its more about the little moments, the little effort, the little moves that often bring us the nearest to God. 

Being connected to God isn't about GREAT MOVES... its simply rising to the challenge to move nearer to God when and where he has us.

But wait a second "moving nearer to God"? That is a bit out there, how can we as regular people move nearer to God?!? We realistically can't shoot ourselves into the heavens can we?

I wondered how we do this... How do I do this? Then a bible verses popped into my head:

"The Word (that's Jesus, the Son of God) became flesh and blood.... " just stop for a moment and think about that... the very spiritual, unseen, untouchable, unfeelable God the Son decided to be changed into something physical, seen, touchable and feeling-ful... woah! But back to this verse...

"The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one of a kind glory, like Father, like Son, GENEROUS inside and out, TRUE from start to finish." (John 1:14)

Are you getting this? God, who created all of this universe, if you can wrap your mind and heart around believing, went from being a fully spiritual being to being both fully God AND fully man.... and then he...

Took over the world....

          Found the biggest and most royal castle and ruled the world he created from there.....

                       defeated every great ruler of his time and became the Emperor of the World!!!!!!

What!?!? NOOOOOOOOO!!!

This great God of ours, through Jesus, chose to begin his great story simply when he "moved into the neighborhood".

Not a great move, but a small one... not an easy move, but a hard one (after all it cost Jesus his life!). A totally SPIRITUAL act of redemption through a totally PHYSICAL act of living and being human on this earth. God's story of connecting to us is about him moving his spiritual self to connect with our physical reality in an effort to show us that are physical existence is connected to his spiritual reality. 

Say what!?!? Basically what I am trying to say is this: if you want to meet God, if you want to connect with Him, if you want to BE with him... sometimes you need to be willing to MOVE. 

Sometimes that moving will involve you moving from one form of thinking to another, maybe another moving will be about you intentionally getting up and going to a prayer room and being there to pray, or maybe in your own home you need to move from sitting when you pray to kneeing (or vis-a-versa) or maybe you will be moved to help your neighbor, share your food or be friendly to a stranger, or maybe you need to move to get your bible and actually read it and learn who this God is about instead of just saying all the time you want to know God but never making the effort to meet him, or maybe he is asking you to move house...

I think sometimes people look at people who are "into God" or "more spiritual then they are" and they simply assume that those people where born that way or dipped in some kind of special holy water. Those people who are better than us at being Godly must have some super God gene that was just built into them...right?? right?? RIGHT!?!?

Well let me tell you, as someone that is "into God", I am no different than any other person. I have questions about God existence, I am jealous of those who are more kind, compassionate and loving than myself, sometimes I want to slap people who are able to trust God and be secure in His love when their lives are going down the crapper. I struggle on a daily biases to even care to read my bible, pray or attend church gatherings.... BUT (and there is always a good but in the end of a blog).... I learned a few years back that "MOVING nearer to God isn't always easy, but it is WORTH IT".

So here is the challenge for us all. If you are interested in connecting with God when was the last time you moved for him? Not just spiritually ... but physically too! When did you last move to pick up that bible, kneel down to pray, go for a walk to talk to God, make that meal for the sick person, donate to your local homeless shelter, be kind to that lonely neighbor, recycle to take care of the planet, teach your kids to value quality over quantity, attended that group that talks about Jesus, went to a prayer room to meet God....??? 

The list of how, when and where to meet God is endless and totally personal... I couldn't begin to tell you how to do it... but I do know it will take YOU MOVING! After all, connecting with God is a two way street, its as much about God moving into our neighbourhood to be with us as it is about us moving into God. 

So will you move? 

I will because today I am Moved to Pray.