Seizing Your Divine Moment - Erwin Raphael McManus (part 2)

"You must leave while it is still night," Maven reminded Ayden.

"Is that so we might slip past the shadows before they wake?" Kembr asked hopefully.

"No!" snapped Ayden. "It is so they know that it was we who woke them and dared interrupt their sleep!"

"The way is full of peril. Must we beckon it?" asked Kembr.

Maven knew it was not fear but thought that guided Kembr's queries. He looked past Ayden and spoke to her what she already knew from her dreams.

"The shadows rule the night. They hide blinded by the day and thus cannot be seen. The day is free. It is during the night they take mankind captive, keeping them in their slumber."

Ayden continued Maven's thoughts, "We must walk into the shadow's darkest place. Only there will we know if we have light enough."

-----Entry 988/The Perils of Ayden.

RiSk
Live before you die, and vice versa

• The most important decisions of our lives will require us to forsake invisibility and risk becoming visible. Whenever you choose to seize a divine moment, you move from invisibility to visibility.

• If we want to live life to the fullest, we must be willing to trust God and risk everything.

• Do you hear what he's telling us? Think any God thoughts you want; do any God deeds you desire to do. Do it boldly, whatever it cost.

• Whenever God is involved, the epilogue is not mysterious. God wins.

• Divine moments are not fail-safe, and they are not risk-free.

• You cannot fail without risking. If you have never failed, it might just be possible that you have never risked.

• If it is difficult to fail without risk, it is even more difficult to succeed without failure.

• You do youself a disservice when every story has a happy ending in this life. It's far more important that there be a meaningful middle.

• The fuel for a life of faith is more inspiration than information.

• To live outside God's will puts us in danger, but to live in His will makes us dangerous.

• When we begin to seize our divine moments, we do not begin to live risk-free but instead become free to risk.

Ayden led the way as Kembr followed. With every step the path thickened in its darkness. Their eyes provided little help to them, but somehow they were more than able to find their way.

Everything carried its own heat and vibration. The darkness did not diminish the colors, which exploded from the degrees of warm and contrasting cold.

In the midst of silence they could feel the sounds all around them. Sounds so melodious they would sweep a traveler from his course to simply sit and listen. Yet behind them were cries of despair and even torment. It was becoming more difficult with every step to move forward. The darkness was almost suffocating.

Ayden interrupted Kembr's struggle with a stark reminder. "With one blow they have the strength to slay you. Fear will grip at you and strive to pull you back. They can do us no harm as long as we advance. They can only strike if we hesitate or step back."

Kembr confirmed his meaning : "Then to retreat is to ensure our death. Let us move forward then and live!"

------Entry 1223/The Perils of Ayden

ADvaNce
Go unless you get a no

• Life is full of high boards, the place we stand where we realize that the altitude is higher than we expected.

• God was more than ready to act.

• God would give them victory in the battle, but He would not fight their battle for them.

"Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian's hand. Am I not sending you?"
[Judges 6:14]

• This is the intersection that we must cross: God begins with go, and we often begin with wait.

• God invites us to go in our own strength, trusting in Him and in our obedience receiving His strength.

• How would your life be different if you worked from a giant YES rather than a giant NO?

• Many times when we claim we are waiting on God, He is waiting on us.

• You are called not to be a survivor, but to be a conqueror.

• I don't know what it means for others, but for a follower of Jesus Christ, what it means to live on the edge is to stand at the epicenter of where the kingdom of God confronts the kingdom of darkness.

• When we become a people of the spirit, we join the wind of God as He moves through human history.

• You are going to make mistakes in this life, so make sure you make good mistakes.

• Even when we are committed to doing the good, we should not fool ourselves to think that we are doing the perfect.

• The one bad tree has turned into a jungle. God is looking for adventurers who will fight their way through to rescue those who are lost in its darkness.

• When you lean on the arms of God, you may find yourself in the most alarming situations, not safe from alarm. And even more important, when you begin leaning on God, you begin leaning forward rather than backward.

• Yet we have not been as faithful in capturing other aspects of who God is as described through rushing wind and fire.

• God's instructions are to go, live life, take risks, move forward, advance.

• You cannot advance the kingdom of God with people who are in retreat.

• No phobia, no fear, just pure defiance - leaning forward, seizing the divine moments, advancing the kingdom of God.

• After risk comes advance. After "no turning back" comes "you must go forward."

• The closer you get to a divine challenge, the bigger it will seem, and the smaller you will feel.

Aftershock

Creation groans for all to be set right.
The earth roars in violence -
disrupting what is to make room for what is to come.
Only after everything is shaken
can it find its rightful place.
Its movement destroys, divides and defines.
Even the mountains tremble.
Yet there is a kingdom that remains.

----Maven, The Perils of Ayden.

"What weapons have you brought?" Kembr asked Ayden as she felt the conflict drawing near.

"There were no weapons to bring," Ayden explained.

"And, Maven, he would let us come defenseless?" Kembr asked in disbelief.

"We did not come to defend but to conquer," Ayden declared, as if he missed the point. "We are both warrior and weapon." Ayden went on, "There is but one hope against the shadows, and that is the light within us. If it is not enough, there is no blade sharp enough to cut the thick darkness."

Kembr's steps felt heavy as she walked. Is this how fear paralyzes you? she thought to herself. Yet with every step it seemed as if the ground would tremble. Or was it her?

"What is happening beneath me?" she shouted to Ayden as the earth below shook with increasing force.

"It is the density of the light!" Ayden yelled back with excitement. "It is the weight of the Presence!"

-----Entry 1771/ The Perils of Ayden

ImpAcT
leave a mark

• Most divine moments need to be seized, not simply walked through.

• You cannot be a people of conquest if you're unwilling to enter the battle.

• There will come a moment of impact when your insistence will meet the world's resistance.

• You can talk all day about what God has promised to do through His people, but you wil never live in those promises until you act on them.

[1 Kings 19]

"For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him."
[2 Chronicles 16:9]

• It is a privilege to be called to go first even when it means you are the first to suffer and the only one at risk.

• Often alone when it comes to men, never alone when it comes to God.

• They were not carbon copies of Jesus, but dynamic expressions of His character.

• When we offer ourselves as instruments for God's purpose, we create opportunities for others to experience God through us.

The battle raged from one place and time to another. The enemy held such unfair advantage. He knew every fear, every doubt, every weakness they held. He would choose the battleground and then change it when it was to his favor.

Ayden and Kembr stood shoulder to shoulder as they fought back the endless darkness. The light served them as sickles cutting through the shadows.

Their shrieks would expose them as they moved with force toward Ayden and Kembr. The shadows knew if they could divide the two, it would cause them to weaken and perhaps fall back.

"We are almost to the darkest place," Ayden exhorted as they fought their way forward. It was there that Maven told him the light would find its highest density.

They all heard the distant rumblings. Then like the most glorious of sunrises, light appeared that was so expansive, it marked the horizon.

"Look," Ayden shouted. "The light pursues us!"

-----Entry 2358/ The Perils of Ayden

MovEmeNt
ignite a reaction


[1 Samuel 14:16-19]

• Live out what God has already spoken, and you will not find God silent.

• To live a prayerless life is to miss the life that God created you to experience. Yet there are times when prayer can become a religious veil for an empty life.

• If one danger in regard to prayer is to be prayerless, another is to pray more and remain empty of genuine contact with God.

[1 Kings 18:26-29]

[1 Kings 18:36-39]

[1 Samuel 15:19,22]

• There are moments when our obedience is to stop and pray, and in those moments comes the word that we must go and obey. And it is in this obedience that the voice of God becomes intimately clear.

• There is an old saying that there are no atheists in fox-holes. I wonder if it's also true that there are no true believers in bomb shelters.

• What you may never see is the number of people who are pulled into God's purpose for their lives through the wind shear of your obedience.

• Take Jesus to godless place.

Maven was with them once again. He, too, was weary from the battle fought. Even in victory there is pain and death, and his thoughts traveled far beyond this moment.

He turned to Ayden and seemed to answer his thoughts: "Today we have seen a great victory, and to celebrate is a pleasure we must not neglect."

Ayden responded with joyous exuberance, "The valley of darkness is now a forest of lights!"

"Yes," Maven acknowledged. "The density of the light restrains the weight of the darkness."

"Will we settle here?" asked Kembr as she reveled in the beauty of the land.

"No," answered Maven. "The light of mankind shines only when moving forward to engage the darkness."

"Are they ready for the journey? Certainly we should stay until it is safe for them to go?" Kembr pressed.

Ayden spoked in a calming tone, "It is not the place but the Presence that upholds them! This is their only certainty."

-----Entry 715/The Perils of Ayden

AWakEnInG
wake the dead

• Asleep within the people of God is an army waiting to be aroused.

• Potential is a glimpse of what could be, yet there must be a shift from where we have potential to where we are potent.

• Jonathan was simply the first part of the whole.

• When we choose to do what is right, what is true, what is good, it always bleeds over into the lives of others.

• Those who are willing to live the adventurer's life may be required to endure great hardship for the good of the kingdom.

• There will be places on the adventure where you will have to stand alone. If God is using you to launch a new adventure, you may even have to bear the burden of pioneering a dangerous trail.

• The armor-bearer reminds us that half the battle of seizing your divine moments is just being there, just showing up.

• Faith is such a big word. It's exciting, daring, magnetic. Faithful is such an ordinary word. It is somewhat dull, routine, and bland.Have faith and be faithful.

• When you grow up in the battle, you don't fear the war.

• He modeled that you look for a person who is willing to take on the lowly tasks and develop him in his God-given potential.

• God wasn't just freeing the land; God was shaping the people.
• It is not simply battles that are won, but fear that is conquered.
• Simply translated, we get better when we give ourselves away.

• If you have ever dared to love deeply, then you have been deeply disappointed.

• A part of challenge is to never give up on people.

[Ezekiel 37:1-10]

• A valley of dry bones transformed into a vast army of God.

[Ezekiel 37:11-14]

• You know where to begin: take initiative. You know who God is, so embrace life's uncertainty.

• Impact your world by fighting the battles that are on God's heart.

• Move with an urgency that creates a movement.

• Engage in an adventure so compelling that it causes the awakening of the dead in spirit.

[1 Corinthians 15:50-58]