When the Flame Ignites

I pray that your Thanksgiving holiday is surrounded with the presence of God and precious family. Take time to ask each person at your dinner table what each one is thankful for. It's a great tradition and makes for interesting table talk.

As I'm getting ready for Thanksgiving, I have been thinking about what I am grateful for. This year for the first time I can say I'm thankful for my new blog! I'm having so much fun and I'm thrilled that so many of you are posting and connecting. Please keep it up.

Before you click here to visit my blog, let me warn you. You might want to wait until after the holidays to read one of my previous posts titled True Confessions. It's about gluttony. I know. Bad timing on my part.

When the Flame Ignites

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Isaiah 6:1

A guest speaker at our church discussed a familiar passage of scripture in his sermon on Sunday: In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord high and lifted up. I've heard messages on Isaiah 6:1 before, but this time I captured new perspective. Like a flame that ignites from a match head, a new revelation struck me.

In seeing the Lord high and lifted up, Isaiah not only saw God exalted, he had an "aha" moment. Something clicked that hadn't clicked before. The seeing brought forth understanding.

Like Isaiah, my greatest encounters with God have also come on the heels of some type of death. Death has a way of cleansing, stripping false hope, and opening my eyes to a new reality. It doesn't have to be the death of a person. In Isaiah's case, it wasn't so much the departure of King Uzziah as the demise of an icon. His 52-year reign was characterized by prosperity, promise and a hope for the future and now that he was gone, perhaps Isaiah's longing to see God increased.

Often it takes the removal of what we deem significant in order for us to esteem Significance.

Prior to his vision, Isaiah held a respectable career in the royal palace in Jerusalem, but God was calling him to be a prophet. The meeting with God came with a commission that altered the course of his life.

The same thing happened to the woman at the well and Saul on the road to Damascus. Maybe it's happened to you too. If the book of Isaiah recorded your testimony, what would it say?

I'll go first.

In the year that my first marriage crashed, I had a revelation of the Lord that changed my identity. I knew God was calling me to discard my addiction to relationships and minister to women.

Now it's your turn: Copy this statement below. Then click here to paste the statement in your blog comment and fill in the blanks. If you prefer, write your own.

In the year that _______ I had an encounter with God that _______. I knew God was calling me to __________.

www.christyjohnson.org

By the way...we had a great time with

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