A narrow place

Image by Brett L. via Flickr

While journaling this morning:

I see You Lord, deep inside a cave. Your light shining, but You seem far from the entrance and in a spot where the cave narrows.

Yes, little one, you see correctly, for surely it is a narrow road to walk where I Am. It is like the road you envisioned last week, that began broad but grew smaller and smaller. As you come to Me, you will indeed be squeezed and pressed. But though I may seem distant, see how My light illuminates the entire cave?

Do not fear the narrow places. Do not be afraid to come to where there is only room for one. I Am that One and in those places you cannot survive but that you abide in Me.

So then Lord, this is more about the journey towards death to self? We cannot both occupy that small space, so I must die to live in You. I'm not sure I know how to do that, Lord.

You know more than you think, child, and each day you are both growing and shrinking. Each act of forgiveness, is death to self. Each time you choose to lay down some perceived rights, death. Each act of submission, how ever small, an act of dying. Listening for My voice and responding in obedience, death to self and life in Me.

Step by step by tiny step you are indeed walking the road to your own cross. When you find others willing to walk that road, help each other, love each other enough to press each other onward.

Does it seem strange to you to set death as a goal? Surely that is not the way of the world. Continue to be radical for Me, little one, for I tell you that life in My Kingdom seems like the world turned upside down and inside out.

Your ultimate victory over death is death. Death to self and new life in Me, and once alive in Me, death cannot harm you.

All those things that the enemy seeks to steal and destroy are things of your "self". When you lay that "self" aside he has nothing to threaten you with.

Do you long for that kind of freedom from fear? Then come, little one, continue to press into this narrow place, for there Am I.

Are you also on this journey, walking the way of the cross, choosing life in Christ instead of living for yourself? Let's take His advice and encourage each other, day by day, step by step.

Let's see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshiping together as some do but spurring each other on, especially as we see the big Day approaching. Hebrews 10:25 The Message