Out of the Box

"Holy spirit you are welcome here,

come flood this place and fill the atmosphere.

Your glory God is what our hearts long for,

to be overwhelmed by your presence Lord."

Sometimes, I think that I put God in a box. A very small box. I ask God to fill his presence in my home, and at church. That's about it. I can just see me now with my little finger talking at God like he is a child, 

"Now... you cannot go into the formal living room or dining room unless I ask you or really need you to. But, you can always enter into the mud room and the play room but that's it. Okay, now go. Fill your presence in those rooms."

How wrong was I? How wrong have I been? God, overwhelm me while I am at church. Overwhelm me while I am doing a bible study. Just, don't interfere with my daily life. There comes the box again. Drawing lines for the creator of the universe. 

When I started this blog I was so excited about my new teaching job. Well, the summer has passed and HERE I AM! School starts in one week from today and I have this overwhelming feeling of excitement to meet my students, parents, and co-teachers. Yet, today I felt God make me take a step back and breathe. I felt like he was telling me... no let me rephrase that, I know he was telling me my purpose. To be his light to my students, to work for him, to pray for my colleagues, students, and my students parents. This is a big burden, I thought... and then this song was being sung... "Holy spirit you are welcome here, come flood this place and fill the atmosphere." and I thought, wow! God you want to follow me to work? And he said no. 

No? Well, okay maybe I am just making things up... then God does this little pause thing with me because my mind works like 100 miles per minute so he stops until I stop and silence myself. Then he continues, I want you to follow me at work. 

Follow you? 

God wants me to follow him. 

Like the "Follow me and I will make you fishers of men" kind of follow. And not just follow him he wants me to pray that his presence fills this place. 

Now, there is this whole ordeal of taking God out of schools. I get that. Right? Well, my God is telling me that I need to cross over those lines and bring him into my classroom, to invite his spirit in and to pray over my classroom and school. No, I won't be breaking any laws... I won't be "preaching" to my students but you know what! When someone looks at me they are going to see a difference because I am praying now as I write this and tomorrow when I go to school and every day there after, that I make a difference for God. On my hardest days I will remember that I am working for the Lord and not for people (Col 3:23), that  on the days that seem to be the craziest that I know for a fact in my heart that my God will NEVER leave me (Hebrews 13:5), on days when the world is screaming my name I will be still and remember who my king is and that he IS God! (Psalm 46:10).  This may seem impossible to some and sometimes I think it is impossible for me, but God told us once and I will tell you again that if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain move from here to there and it will move! (Matt 17:20). 

There went my mind at 100 miles per hour. Hope you caught it all. 

So I will follow God. I will invite the holy spirit into places that will shatter the box I put him in. My heart longs to sing the glory of God. I want to be that light because we were created to bring glory to God. (Romans 11:36) and not just bring him glory but put it on full display for everyone to see.