How sweet to plan to meet with God in your own personal place of worship! It is like planning for a very special guest. The invitation to do so comes from Him in many different ways. Over a year ago, I heard the invitation. Like the children of Israel, the Lord said, “Linda, I want you to take this little room and turn it into a chapel. I have some things I want to tell you.” It has been an amazing experience. The idea that God would tell me He wanted to experience time with me and for me came as a surprise. It really shouldn’t. He is constantly coming down to us. He even died for us.
I believe that He extends this invitation in many different ways. Some of them are not comfortable. We keep thinking someone else is going to provide this experience for us. This is a misconception. Not even the church can provide this very intimate experience that the Lord wants to give us. Our disillusionment with much in life is because this need is going unmet. This is modeled by Christ in the examples that come from His life. From the very beginning of His story, we find that Jesus was not found in Jerusalem, the religious center. There was an extra trip that had to be made to find Him…the trip from Jerusalem and Bethlehem.
From the beginning, Christ did not meet their expectations. That is because we have preconceived ideas of how His coming into our lives will be. He will take us all by surprise! We do not expect that He will come at this time or in this manner. We do not think that it will cause us to rearrange our lives and maybe a room in our house. We have left it all up to Him. It came as a complete surprise to me that I might be asked to create a place for Him. The irony, He does not need a place, I need to give Him a place. Like the children of Israel who needed a visual representation of His presence in their midst, I, too, needed a place of remembrance.
Is this not sweetness that the Lord wants to meet with you, and He wants to tell you things to guide and instruct you. We are told that when the Spirit of truth is come, He will guide us into all truth. The truth of the Bible is just the beginning. I think that He likes to say things like, “What I mean by this story is…” There is such great depth in the Bible. Like His gatherings on the side of a mountain, the Lord wanted to give them more. This is where the real Jesus was found…the mountainsides, the roadsides, the gardens, an upper room and on Mt. Calvary. He was a master in laying our expectations in the dirt. The cock crows the third time and then we are broken. It is funny that we do not hear the cocks two previous calls giving us a heads up.
My sister turned a closet into a pretty little chapel. It has bifold doors and when open it is spacious. It is perfect for her. I know that I am so blessed to have my little room as a chapel in the home. It is good to have a place set aside for these gatherings. You come to expect some amazing conversation with the Lord. You also come to appreciate His silence. What is He “saying” in His silence? What questions is He waiting to hear from you?
I know some young people who recently consecrated a room in their home as their family chapel. They have been busy getting things in order for their special chapel. I think that the Lord must take pleasure in this sweetness. Going to the chapel is much different than going to the church with all its busyness. It is an intimate time of getting to know Him in Spirit and Truth. A God who cannot be measured and kept by time, steps into time as we know it because He delights in being with us! Beautiful!
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