- Author Kathryn Bonner
The Lord God… He awakens me each morning; He awakens my ear to listen... Isaiah 50:4
When I was a young girl, my friends and I would lay in the grass, flat on our backs gazing up at the wispy clouds blowing into different shapes. They would be ever so slowly blown forming many shapes. We’d point up to the clouds and ask, “Do you see the poodle? Do you see the airplane? …the high heel shoe? …the pelican?” Some of us would immediately see the object, and some of us would struggle to see what the clouds reflected. This activity was so entertaining; we’d lie there for hours on beautiful days. Even in our youth we knew that our Creator was amazing. Lying there with my friends, we would have really deep and profound conversations for our age, looking up at the vast never ending blue and white puffs in the sky; we’d ask such powerfully felt questions wondering “How did God form the earth and everything in it? Why are we here? What are we supposed to be doing?”
There was a huge sweet smelling honeysuckle bush that lined and entire fence and we’d pick the golden yellow trumpet shaped flower off of the bush and find the little green stem on the end and pull it like a thread through the flower, dragging the little tiny dab of sugary sweet syrup to our lips and enjoy the taste of the sweet honey! We wondered how God put the sweet syrup in the beautiful honeysuckle flower! Again we were amazed with the Lord’s creative intelligence. Continuing to survey the clouds we were delighted in the amazement and wonder of it all! This was the way that I began to attempt to discover who and what God was, and why I was here.
We would then fix our eyes on other creatures around us. We’d pick up the doodle bugs (also known as roly-pollies, pill bugs, and armadillo bugs). These bugs have a shell-like body that can tuck and roll up for protection, which is how they got many of the names we called them. Most people think that they are insects, but they are not! They actually breathe through gills! In the tiniest little creature, there is such creativity, such beauty!
Early on in my life I was aware of the Holy Spirit through Gods creation, through animals and nature, through the wind and the rain, the flowing river, the silence and through music, through laughter and tears, through joy, through relationships, through sweet aromas, sunrises and sunsets, and clouds! Ultimately, I experience God through you, through love, which I consider to be the most creative and intelligent source the Lord has provided.
When I think about “Creative Intelligence” I think of God, the Holy Spirit. God is the definitive, The Great Creator, and the Greatest of all Intelligence. This scripture comes to mind…
Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and His understanding no one can fathom. Isaiah 40:28 NLT
So, what does having an “Awakened Life” or “Holy Spirit-connected life” mean? It means to live wholly holy. Don’t think that Jesus expects this way of living as “having to be perfect”… For me, it means to be completely in step with the Holy Spirit, to make a choice for Christ. Within that choice is an amazing freedom. He carries our burdens, instills us with His Holy Spirit! This is amazing love! This is the ultimate in creative intelligence.
Keeping in step with the Spirit takes active concentration, commitment, and discipline. Unfortunately, many people (including myself) can pay attention to so many other things that keep us from living and walking with the Holy Spirit. One of those obstacles is pride, which CS Lewis says, “is spiritual cancer that eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense.”
It’s been said, and I believe this with my whole heart; that we speak to God with every word and breath that we release. And with each and every breath we breathe in He makes Himself known to us. After all He is the breath of life. We are never apart or separated from God, although we can miss “hearing him speak to us” if we are not tuned in to His message. Too often we tune Him out, like so many other things in our lives.
From my heart to your heart…
I want for you to be in connection with the Lord, the giver of life, who stretched out his arms on the cross, and offered himself, a perfect sacrifice for you and the whole world, so that you would have life everlasting.
He has joy for you, plans for you to prosper, and to love, even in the midst of struggle. I want to give of you hope and joy in your journey. The choice to live in every moment with love, faith, and glorious expectation is mine and yours! Don’t let anything or anyone stop you from living in the glory that the Holy Spirit provides.
For those of you who have God given dreams, keep dreaming. Make sure that you dream big enough dreams that you must include God!! Push beyond the limits of your comfort zone! Do you realize where those dreams come from? Do you trust where they originate? Step out in faith, don’t just sit there sitting on your dream, embrace it! Love it, and live it!
What are you doing with your mind? What way are you choosing to live your life? What thoughts, what character do you want or do you long for? Be transformed by the renewing of your mind!
Romans 12:2 reads; Do not be conformed to this world (this age), [fashioned after and adapted to its external, superficial customs], but be transformed (changed) by the [entire] renewal of your mind [by its new ideals and its new attitude], so that you may prove [for yourselves] what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His sight for you]. (Amplified version)
As a Life Coach, I partner with you in discovering the dreams God has given you and I encourage those I coach to begin praying, about the plan that the Lord has. Always pray about the choices you make and why you make them. My prayer for you is to Awaken your Spirit, transform your life into a breathtaking and joyous, Holy Spirit life! Live for God, because He lives for you!
If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit”— Gal. 5:25
My prayer for you is to Awaken your Spirit, transform your life into a breathtaking and joyous, Holy Spirit life! Live for God, because He lives for you, I know this to be true!
Go lie down, flat on your back, with ears to hear, a heart prepared, eyes gazing up into the clouds, and experience the enormity of His love for you! Dream, pray, bask in His glory; discover the beauty He has for you! Discovery is one of the best parts of the journey!
Here's to being Awakened each morning by His voice!
Kathryn
Kathryn Bonner is a Christian Life Coach, enhancing and accelerating the process of bringing joy & balance to life, deeper meaning & focus to ministry, harmony & understanding to relationships, insights to transitions, depth to the Christian walk, growth in personal & professional living, clarity of values.
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