Tag: come

live life in community

Karla Lees

For many years, I have felt on the outside looking in… maybe you too can relate.

There have been seasons where I was missing having close sisters. That feeling where you long for family beyond the blessings you already have, Where my heart felt lonely despite a loving hubby, great kids, friends & family.

Heart sisters.

And I remember one day praying to Him, and ripping this longing from my heart & offering it to Him.

We were never meant to walk alone.

We are designed for community.

Community for me means walking along side those who share your passion & calling, who will give you a hand up on the hard days, and encourage you to unfurl the dreams yet to fly deep within.

live life in community (1)

We were meant to live life in community, just as our Father, Jesus and Holy Spirit do!

There are three elements of community which God has been revealing to me of late.

1. Come.

If you don’t show up, it isn’t community. Community gathers regardless of feelings, because it knows we are better together than on our own. Where we answer the invitation God offers to us all, to come and be. Be fully present, as you are.

2. Commune.

Also known as family. Living real lives together. Accepting us each as works in progress, on a journey towards wholeness:

  • Encouraging one another as we need it
  • Reminding one another to draw closer to Him and our loved ones
  • Giving our best at all times
  • Using our gifts for His glory
  • Praying over & for each other when needs arise
  • Being helping hands when we can meet another’s need
  • Crying together, sharing our brokenness
  • Offering one another a safe place to rest and be refreshed when we are weary

3. Unity.

When we gather with common purpose, somehow our unity makes us stronger, and greater than when we stand alone. I believe this is the secret to how God is which we gloss over in its complexity: God is three, yet one. Each fully their own person, yet united as One.

In community, we become the one He intended us to be.

Will community always be amazing? Nope. There will be hard times when our individuality rears its voice and cries out for attention, when we allow our unhealed places & pain to speak first.

Is community worth it? Always. There will be blessings you cannot yet imagine when we press in and dig deep together.

For me, community involves sisterhood. I have been so blessed with several heart sisters to live daily life with in the community I live in, here in Ontario. I don’t want to imagine life without them. They bless me more than they know.

But there was still an empty space left in my heart, a longing for more which was yet to come…which I believe we all have deep within.

God led our family to a new home church, and once we worked through our grief of missing where we had been, we found ourselves enveloped in the community He planned for us. Our family, as both a unit & individually, is the stronger & healthier because of it. Our church is intentional about loving God and loving people, and becoming family. Family is always welcome, warts and all.

He led me to Remade, and Beth Kinder. Beth & I connected, and before I knew it, I had the close sisters my heart had been longing for through their online community. Crossing country borders, denomination, age, race & status. Ministering, laughing, crying, writing, equipping, challenging, living life together despite the mileage that separates us. And that last longing was put to rest when I was welcomed in, and asked to join this community. Although Remade has morphed into a new season, I am still heart connected with the lovely sisters I met through that time of ministering together.

As I have followed His leading, He has blessed me with new friendships, and reawakened a few dreams through growing deeper in the communities He is planting me in.

Covid led to me putting a few former learned skill back into action, as I began to lead an online women’s Facebook group, helping sisters stay & feel connected despite lockdowns, through worship, bible study, prayer and sharing both the laughter & tears as we get to know each other.

God can unite us beyond our expectations when we follow His lead.

Community is His idea, the expression of how He lives life together as three in one.

Come, commune with Him & become one. This is the core of community, connected & grounded to God first.

Ask Him to draw you closer to the community He has for you here on earth.

Your best ‘you’ comes to life in the community where He waits to make it possible.

If you are intrigued by the concept of an online community, ask God to lead you to the One He has for you. Feel free to visit my connect page for ways to connect with my online community, for there is always room for one more!

If you too live in Canada, and long to meet with other Christians in the larger church community, Gather Women is crossing Canada and meeting provincially.

If you too have been lonely for the deeper authenticity and support of community, don’t allow your lack to drive you. Invite Holy Spirit to open your eyes to where He wants you to gather, connect and live in community.

community: family by choice

Karla Lees

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I am very blessed in community.

I know several people who feel like they are all alone in their circumstances or situations, and the reality is: often it’s due to your choices.

We don’t always reach out to show our need nor vulnerability when we can, so we essentially build a wall to block out connection when everything within us may be craving it.

Connection begins with a choice to be vulnerable, and let someone in.

Community happens when hearts are knit together through regular connection.

Family occurs when God blesses community with a love which can only come through weathering the storms arm in arm, knowing your family has your back and won’t leave you on your own.

Jesus modeled this well while He walked among us.

He carried an atmosphere of invitation to those who were outcast and lonely in society, and they came.

The disciples are a perfect example of choosing to connect, seeing what someone is capable of beyond their current situation, becoming community through shared living, and becoming family by choice.

God deliberately chooses to connect with each of us.  He wants us to live in close community with Him, Abba Jesus Holy Spirit.  He wants you to walk knowing you are already in His forever family, even if we aren’t physically there yet.

God didn’t choose those we would automatically assume would be on the inside.

For His community is family by His choice.

●Cain, marked with His divine protection despite his crime.

●Jacob, wrestling with God after stealing his brother’s birthright.

●Saul, more concerned with following his fears than God’s leading.

●David, lacking strong self control over his attraction to women.

●Solomon, who tried everything under the sun to come to the realization that without God, all is futile.

●Paul, murderer of the faithful.

●Moses, the stutterer.

And just so we keep it real, there were also women He chose to include in His community which make us sit up and pay attention:

○Sarai, who laughed off the Promise to come.

○Hagar, who took off when things got tough.

○Pilate’s Roman wife, who had dreams of the Jewish Messiah.

○Elizabeth, barren for so long she must have given up hope of a child, chosen to bear the forerunner to the Messiah. (And her priest husband ●Zachariah, struck dumb when he doubted the angel delivering God’s Good News, in the Holy of Holies!)

○Tamar, who tricked her father-in-law to do the right thing but broke the law to do so.

○The Samaritan woman at the well, with her colourful history, spreading the word about living water.

All of these people are and were part of His story through the family He chose to create.

And we are included.

We have the opportunity to build community and family wherever we are,  for we carry God with us.

The Father who is just waiting for us to come near and join the family.

The Son who is just waiting to connect with us and not only show us who we truly are but help us become whole.

The Holy Spirit who draws us into community, helping us to see beyond our natural sight the Kingdom He is shaping about us.

Community is family by choice.

It has always been God’s choice to choose you.

It is your choice to accept the invitation of life long family and beyond which He has always offered, or stand alone on your own two feet.

Only you can make the decision to move into connection, to stay isolated in your current situation.

Community is family by choice.

what is fueling your hope?

Karla Lees

Those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not grow faint.  Isaiah 40:31

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Hope is fuel and passion fuels hope. Christine Caine

How is your fuel tank?

Are you running low from all the running around you are doing, and not stopping long enough to sit as His feet?

I am coming to realize that if we make seeking Him foremost eac day, somehow everything we need to do gets done with more grace.

It’s part of the Kingdom of Heaven, how spending time with God fuels us up.

Hope is intertwined with passion in a circle which continuously redirects us to the other as we seek Him.

For its in the pursuit we discover our passion, which fuels us to pursue all the more, elevating our levels of hope in such a way we are even more fueled to keep pursuing.

Our energy feeds off this combination of passion and hope, calling us to grow deeper, soar higher and leap all the steeper.

We can become, do, see more than we ever imagined possible when we allow the fuel of Heaven to be our drive.

Jesus showed us this kind of empassioned hope fueled living while with us on earth.  He knew who He was in relationship to His Father, placing His desires before His own, and walked empowered by Holy Spirit wherever He was lead.

My prayer for you and I?

For us to catch that this was not an isolated incident in the life of Jesus; but a daily moment by moment occurance, one we too can live out.

Weary from all the running here there and everywhere? Low on hope? In need of a top up of love and passion?

○Head to your Father’s embrace.
○Sit at the feet of Jesus.
○Allow Holy Spirit to whisper their love deep into your very being.
○Soak in their Presence.

And then, in their power, refueled with their love, you will be ready to roll with fresh hope and passion for the day ahead.

For we, you and I? We are meant to be the ones who soar, who can stay on course in the race without losing our focus or source of fuel. 🙂

So let hope rise up and darkness tremble at Your Holy light, for every eye to see Jesus our God, great and mighty to be praised.

meet with Me

Karla Lees

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Come,
the invitation reads.
Meet with Me,
the Spirit whispers.

Today is unmarked
brand new, teeming with possibility
like the freshly fallen snow
and I want to guide you through it
Not from afar
but closely beside You

I love to listen to the sound of your voice
the rhythm of your heartbeat
as you begin to slow down
and align with my heartbeat
as you draw near

Meet with Me
has been my invitation
since the Garden
I have made it over
and over ever since
through the Word
through My prophets
through My priests
through My followers
through My Son
through My Spirit

Come to Me

I invited you
face to face
when I walked among you

Come as you are

It doesn’t matter to Mewhere you’ve been
My arms are always open wide
My love ready to pour over all your wounds
My touch ready to soothe all your hurts
My blood ready to cover all your sin

My Presence is always ready to walk with you
through all your wins and losses
hurts and healings
storms and deserts
sorrows and joys

I wait here
to meet with You

Won’t you come
and meet with Me?

#crytotheBeloved

#oneword2016

Karla Lees

2016.

A fresh unblemished year ahead. only a few hours old.

I don’t know about you, but I was so ready for a new year to begin. After tackling many fears last year, I am just beginning to see the blessings which are starting to unfurl as a result.

For several years now. my word for the year has been hope. 

Over the past few months, God has been taking me past hope and stirring up expectation.

Belief in more to come than I can imagine.

Belief in a God beyond the limitations I have placed upon Him.

And although that would be a great word, belief is not my choice for #oneword2016.

But I have outgrown hope alone for my word for this coming year.

My awe at what He has been doing in and through and around me over these weeks was the clue.

Wonder!

Wonder as I recall where He found me.

Wonder at how far He has brought me in the past.

Wonder He is with me here and now!

Wonder for what He has for me yet to come.

Wonder seen in nature as it reflects its Creator, the God of Wonders.

Wonder as He reveals more of who He is and the promises He has in store for me, for us, through His Word.

Wonder at where I see Him moving in the world…for He, like Aslan, is on the move!

Join me as I put on my new wonder-filtered glasses to take in all 2016 has to show me about the wonderous God I love and follow!

#oneword2016
#WONDER

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come Home

Karla Lees

Come home, hope-filled prisoners!
-God

He is always calling us back to Him.

This invitation is constantly being whispered to, sung over, insinuated as God reminds us, over and over, how much He longs for us.

Not just because He wants to be with us, in the romantic sense.

But because He wants us free.
Filled again with hope.
Rebuilt with His love as our foundation.
Putting His gifts within us to use for his Kingdom.

All of which primarily benefitting us.

Did you catch that, Beloved?

When we make it Home, He makes us whole.

The way we were always meant to be. The way He designed us to become.

Our part is to come Home.

Home is where our heart lives

.

And until our heart longs to be with God, we can be easily swayed by earthly pleasures and settle for trivial pursuits.

Imprisoned in a false home of our making.

Today, His heart is reminding you He is your true Home.

His arms wait for you to return, draw close and connect with Him.

The areas of bondage within us will stop at nothing to try to keep us bound, because there couldn’t be more than survival and the way things always are, could there?

I believe this verse gives us the clue.

Come home, HOPE FILLED prisoners.

We may even have to ask Him to stir up that very hope within us to be able to believe there is more than we can see, sense or feel right now.

He will.

He waits.

He loves.

He’s Home.

#songfortheBeloved

I AM: Free Verse Friday

Karla Lees

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My daughter,
now is the time for you to step into the fullness I have for you.

I am the God of the present, not just the past which has been and the future which has not yet arrived.

I have enough for you today….

Enough energy to get all I ask of you done.

Enough strength to face the hard times which may arise.

Enough peace to calm the waves of your emotions when the unexpected rears up.

Enough food and drink for your soul as you seek My Word to fill you up.

Enough love to completely soak your spirit.

Enough grace for all you may face.

I am more than enough to cover each sin you may commit.

I am more than enough to set you free and make you whole in the areas of brokenness within you.

I am enough.

I am.

My very name confirms who I am. Ever living. Ever present, in every here and now.

Are you willing to take the leap to discover all that I am first hand?

I AM.

#FreeVerseFriday

comeback timing

Karla Lees

When that setback happens in your life, its impact can have you believing there is no hope for a comeback.

But that all depends on what you mean by these terms.

A set back sets you back from the plan for your life.

A come back gets you back on the right track.

But what if the set back reveals you weren’t on the right track?

And what if the comeback doesn’t look like you feel it should?

For those of us who believe in God, follow Jesus and allow Holy Spirit to speak to us, guiding us on our journey, we have a different plan in play.

God’s plan.

And as we all know, what we decide doesn’t always go according to our planning. no matter how much time or effort we have vested in it.

This isn’t the case with God.

He invested His all through Jesus so we could have a comeback from the fallout of our setback, our fall into sin.

He literally have His all so we could come back to God.

With a love like that laying down His life for us while we didn’t even get know Him, I put more credibility in what He says than any one with lots of knowledge or street cred.

If He made us and He saves us, there must be a bigger plan in play that I can see in my day to day life.

Because God didn’t just rescue us and leave us to fend for ourselves available. He left Holy Spirit within each of us, to remind us that He is with us. and nothing will happen to us that He cannot redeem.

Redeem means to make right in His eyes.

Not always ours.

Struggling in a marriage where your husband regularly hits or cheats on you?

God has a comeback for you that may not involve your husband, but will involve you & Him. Together.

Unable to have a baby? Your comeback may arrive in counseling others through your greatest area of pain, offering them the support you prayed for while you were struggling or a child in desperate need of your loving arms and a safe home.

There are more accounts of broken and hurting people in the Bible whom God used than there are perfect people.

There was only One who had it all together, and that’s because He was God.

Abraham, Sarah, Moses, David , Bathesheba, Rahab, Esther. Mordecai, Ruth, Mary, Joseph, Peter, Paul… and the list could go on and on forever.

Because each of us has had a setback, haven’t we, of one kind or another?

Life is full of hurts, blocked goals, loss, betrayal, and pain.

It is also filled with Hope.  Because of the One who came to be our Hope in the midst of each of our setbacks, as well as the all the mundane and wonderful moments interspersed in our lives.

He Himself is the comeback we need to cling to when faced with our setbacks.

He alone can guide you towards the comeback He has in store for you. even thought the path is so clouded by your pain, you can’t see beyond the next step.

But He can.

What sets us back the enemy tries to warp and tell us is designed to set us apart from God.  Which isn’t true.

God is always crying come back to His children.

He always has, and ALWAYS will, until each of His children has made their way back Home.

I am in a holding pattern for my comeback after a major setback which occurred in my life.

I refuse to allow the enemy to discourage me about the fact my comeback is not fully here yet.

I can say not yet, because God has clearly revealed Himself to be with me in a way I could not have experienced apart from His meeting me in that setback.

So, like you, I choose to wait for the comeback He has for me.

Because He promises in Isaiah 35 that He has better than what was taken from me ahead for me.

Blessing is coming back to me.

While I wait, He holds me tight and reminds me of His love.

I may not understand His timing. but I have felt His love for me, and choose to place my comebacks in His capable hands, for them to come to me in His timing, with His full blessing released as it comes.

I think some times if our comeback came right away, we wouldn’t know the comfort of His Presence had we not had the delay.

I wouldn’t trade the God I discovered in my setbacks for any of the tarnished treasures this world tries to offer me as I wait.

Instead, I choose to place my trust Jesus, author of the biggest comeback in all history!

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love letter to the Beloved

Karla Lees

Beloved,
yes, I mean you.
Please look at me.
I am inviting you
to come out of hiding
and enter My embrace
just as you are.

My love for you?
It’s not based on what you do,
for I am not interested in performance as a basis for My love.

My love for you?
Overflows out of me,
because I am Love.

And I felt desire for you
my Beloved,
my Bride,
back before I created
this world & all its wonders.

Do you grasp that I consider you
to be My crowning glory
of the wonders in this world?

I had a glimpse of you
as I laid out my plans for Creation
and although I knew
it would take time
and many many lifetimes
in earth’s time
for you to come to me,
I was excited
for our meeting.

I have been waiting for you
since before time began
to meet with you.

Love cannot help but long for the one it loves.

And You are she to me.

My Beloved.

I know life in its daily drudgery can be hard to cope with some days,
but I hope you know the Truth which accompanies you always.

I am with you, each & every moment of your life.

In the hard times, I bring comfort peace as the jewels of My love for you.

When you are rejoicing, I clap for joy.

When you are grieving, I hold you even closer to my heart.  For I too know the pain of deep loss.

When you finish the race before you, I am the Prize waiting for you at the end.

When you feel discarded or broken by this world, know that I long to reshape you into the masterpiece I saw you as & created you to be from the beginning.

Oh my Beloved,
that you would accept what you may not be able to fully understand on this side of Heaven….
you are loved.

Walk it out.
Be loved.
Allow yourself to be my Beloved,
no holds barred, without restraint.

As you walk as my Beloved,
the fragrance of My Presence you will carry will entrance those who do not yet know they are part of My Beloved.

My Bride awakens when she senses My desire for her.

Be loved, Beloved.

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God has been wooing me with quiet loving whispers to my heart, and reassuring Words to my spirit.  The harder my days seem, the lighter they become when I recognize that being His Beloved is not like work, where you can turn it off or on at will.  His Love is meant to cover us, soak into us, and become part of us, making us over as His Beloved from the inside out. 

Be loved today, Beloved.  Allow Him to speak the words & song the song over you He longs to bless you with.

Sunday Psalm: Let Heaven Come

Karla Lees

When Your people
humbly drop to their knees
before You
inviting Your Kingdom
to come & invade us,
You come.

Just as You have
throughout human history
since its beginning,
come and let what You
want to be done
happen here on earth.

Take our brokenness
and let Your Light shine through it.

Take our wounds
and bind them in Your strength.

Be the One who holds us all together.

Use our gifts, our passions
as only their Giver can.

Let our hands, our feet, our words, our actions show Heaven to a hurting world.

Let Love lead the way to freedom & victory.

Let the lost be drawn in,
and make their way Home.

Your Kingdom.
Now.
In every moment.

Let Heaven come.

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