Maybe I'm a "Lefty"

Bill Johnson once said that there are specific meanings to physical manifestations of the Spirit that occur one one side of the body or the other. If I've got it correctly, things that happen on the right side signal that something's happening over which one is to take authority; things that happen on the left side have to do with one's purpose or calling in this world.

Now here's where it gets weird.

Nearly all of my life, I've had physical manifestations accompanying certain types of thoughts on my right side. Only in recent years (say, the past eight or so) have I had any analogous manifestations on my left side, but they're developing and, in fact, have been growing more powerful as time has progressed. These left-sided physical signs accompany thoughts of a nature pretty well opposed to the thoughts that bring on right-sided manifestations. Only once or twice can I remember having both sides go at once, perplexing the heck out of me.

I've never thought of these as more than natural manifestations; always wanted to find a neuroscientist (a real one) who would put all kinds of electrodes on my skin and show me sequences of images, to which I'd react with neural cascades from either my right or my left sides, and do some crazy cool analysis of it all. But I've got to ask myself: what if they've been more-than-natural manifestations all this time?

When I was first reaching out to God a couple of years ago -- first very faintly and then increasingly strongly -- I could (and still can) tell when a heavenly presence comes to me by a concurrent manifestation on my left side. Bill Johnson said that what he'd thought of as a heavenly presence (before he learned what it all meant) came on his right side. The first time I heard this, I was greatly discouraged and the only self-redemptive idea seemed to be that perhaps I was just a "lefty," in the same way that a small portion of the population writes, paints, or bats with the left hand dominant.

All I know is that currently, I have more manifestations than I know what to do with. I need help and guidance to learn what these signals mean and how He might want to implement whatever gifts I may have based on these manifestations, from the little "nudges" to the rampant cascades.

Anyone else have experience with this? Please do comment, even if it's just to say I'm a wacko and should, at most, just seek out a neuroscientist (a real one).


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To a Dear Friend

To the wonderful friend I just phoned, who unleashed the power of God's love over me to save my soul, I'm glad you found this page; please do keep in touch. I miss our times praying together more than I could ever put into words.
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Creeping Sunday

Creeping Sundays are the bane of Saturdays: their shadows cast themselves over Saturdays and creep longer and further to cover more ground as time progresses. Fear, anxiety, guilt, and spiritual longing build as Sunday creeps closer.

I've always made a crucial distinction between a Christian and a churchgoer. It is possible to be a Christian without being a churchgoer (I consider myself one of these), and certainly not all churchgoers abide in Jesus and He in them in the everyday lives to which they merrily return after Sunday services.

Since my experience of spiritual rebirth a couple of years ago, my spouse and I have tried maybe a handful of times to attend services at churches, but with no real success: we just didn't feel at home. Once, we went to church in a time of great crisis, when we weren't even sure we would make it through the next few days, and we reached out so far to the Lord that we even made it to church that week, hoping desperately to get closer to Him in every possible way. After the service (with hundreds of people in attendance), we knelt at the railing before the altar and prayed together for about an hour, in tears the whole time, and I had hoped so earnestly that some church member would notice us there and come offer to pray with us. People passed by (and perhaps even in) the sanctuary. But nobody came.

When I'm safely ensconced in a Saturday, the Creeping Sunday only looming in the distance, I always seriously consider going to a church for services. I'm acutely aware that there are some things the Lord has planned for us that can only be experienced by being part of a body of believers. I think it's very likely there are some things He wants to give to me in particular, which have to come through another person and can't be obtained through single-soul prayer. Looking at that Creeping Sunday, though, my mind remembers the futile efforts, my emotional core foresees all the awkward interactions with churchgoers whose judging eyes would pierce me, and my heart is chilled.

Sunday creeps closer, and then it comes, just another churchless day.

We live in Texas, which is the farthest west I've ever been (save for presenting at one conference in SF, during which I saw only the hotel, the convention center, and a cab the whole time). Perhaps someday we'll make it to California to seek our church home there.


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Shed Love over Evil

To understand the origin of this post, read Backslidden first.

The only way to stand against evil is to release the love of God upon it, for when all is Light, the darkness simply has nowhere left to exist.

In the room that is your soul (mine's rather cluttered with baggage and other objects), let in the Light, that it might shine from every element of your soul (yes, even the Samsonites): submit your mind to be a channel through which He may operate, let go of your will so it can merge with His will, and let your emotions soar with His very presence.

Invite, invite, invite God in: He's been reaching out to you all this time, so all you need to do is reach toward Him and make the connection.


There's a particular Bible I have, an English Standard Version translation, which is very small (smaller than my handprint) and which has traveled with me wherever I've gone for about the past two and a half years. You can tell where the Gospels start because the gold edging is notably faded from that point on and the bookmark's always lying somewhere within that last chunk. Its incredibly soft leather cover has been made smoother and even waterproofed by deeply-melted-in wax from candles by whose light I read and prayed when I had a special place to read and pray.

This is the Bible that makes my hands tingle whenever I touch it. One time when I grasped it, there was this incredible surge of energy that bolted up through my hands and arms, as if it were as hungry to enter into me as I was to enter into it. This is the Bible which somehow, by its presence, soothes away my fears and anxieties -- and that's before I open it and start reading.

This is the book I'm going to keep with me at all times until the enemy is pushed back and away.

Retro me, satanas;
I belong to Jesus,
So you can go back to hell.


And a real verse, Psalm 40:11-14 (ESV)

11 As for you, O Lord, you will not restrain
your mercy from me;
your steadfast love and your faithfulness will
ever preserve me!

12 For evils have encompassed me beyond number,
my iniquities have overtaken me, and I cannot see;
they are more than the hairs of my head; my heart fails me.

13 Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me!
O Lord, make haste to help me!

14 Let those be put to shame and disappointed altogether
who seek to snatch away my life;
let those be turned back and brought to dishonor
who desire my hurt!


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Backslidden

Debating whether or not it's wise to put this out in public forum, I'm going to take down today's events regardless. This post may disappear.

Today I slipped backward fifteen years, and I'm not quite sure how it happened. I remember I needed to be alone and wasn't getting what I needed; I was followed around from room to room and poked and pestered until I finally fled to a bedroom and locked the door behind me. I was pissed.

It felt as though I had been drained of all my strength and the only thing I could do was lie in bed. The spirit of anger overtook me and I remember having thought that if I got interrupted one more damn time I was going to leave and head for a hotel room somewhere. Anger began to give way to sleep, and that's when it came.

Lying on the border between sleep and wakefulness, my five senses giving me very clear readings of the room around me as I struggled fully to wake; proprioception entirely intact but physically paralyzed and unable to move; my breathing slowed until I felt faint and my ears started to ring and my head felt full of fuzz closing in from either side as if I were going to pass out, and then the wave, that wave where the choice comes to give in to the enemy; it would come, I would actively catch it and give myself over to be a tool for the enemy, and the sensation of tilting backwards and rising, rising, in a silent scream of simultaneous agony and victory as I led a legion of hell.

This paralysis-faintness-falling event kept recurring and must have come about ten times over me, each time a little different. Once or twice, I fought the paralysis before the faintness started, trying as hard as I could to just open my eyes, hoping that if I could catch a glimpse of the world outside my mind it could help me be drawn back into being awake; one time I went fairly systematically over all the muscle groups, trying to move them, and all efforts failed except that I could get my tongue to move slightly forward and touch my teeth, and I could move my eyes in their sockets though not open them.

Wave after wave, each mightier than the last,
Till last, a ninth one, gathering half the deep
And full of voices, slowly rose and plunged
Roaring, and all the wave was in a flame.
(Alfred, Lord Tennyson)
just rose to the surface, and it does feel rather apposite.

After the paralysis-faintness-falling and the wave, each time I would fall into a light dream of sleep before resurfacing for another round. Once I dreamed I was falling from a great height; another time I began to have a recurring nightmare (and, as I was aware I was sinking into that dream, I remember thinking oh brother, not this one again); but most of the time, the dreams were simple fulfillment of sexual and sensual desires.

Wave after wave, I gave over; the enemy had put me in a high-ranking place in his armies -- as I say, I commanded a legion -- and during one wave I was actually laughing in pure, triumphant evil as I lay there paralyzed; it was a laugh that was failing to escape my lips, not a scream, amidst the fluttering of hundreds of dark wings of my compatriots as we launched upward into the air.

I kept asking why is this happening; this hasn't happened for fifteen bloody years. What changed that it's now being unleashed again? I thought I was way past this part. When these used to happen so long ago, they were timed in such a way that I began to think of them as flashbacks from some horrible experiences I had. But back then, I was afraid to give in to the wave of evil rising; I turned back at the last second every time but once out of a hundred of these that must have come over me during those years.

In more recent years, my mentoring friend used to tell me that God had written me a specific destiny and that the enemy's efforts (and sometimes successes) to win my will were a testament to what a powerful tool for God's work I would become. Of course, as this stoked my ego, I readily believed and headed into reading the Bible and praying with confidence. I was stupid. Oh, so stupid.

Because then, something like this happens. Nothing so dramatic until now. I suppose that, as I was beginning seriously to walk in the Christian way again, the enemy needed to reach out and just show me what I was missing; fill a void of despair with power, pleasure, and demonic form; show me how good it could feel again.


Now, though I'm certainly awake, a very large section of my mind is silently shaking, rocking back and forth, and with every breath seems to come the threat, far away but closing in, of being sucked back into one of these episodes.

I'm of two minds, though: I feel as though I should care, and it's quite annoying.


To whomever can pray for me: please do.
To whomever re-planted this blasted thing in me: you're winning, for the nonce. Felicitations. Go report to them and tell them I'm going to start fighting back again.


Damn; where did I leave my Bible?


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The Language without Words

The word spoken aloud is a powerful thing: it rends the silence to affirm our faith, lets our natural breath mix with breath given to us by the Holy Spirit, and catches up our hearts like iron filings to a magnet so that we can be led by the speaker. From what I've seen and heard of prayer, though -- and granted, that is yet VERY little -- people seem to be limited to praying by speaking aloud, as I've not yet seen the topic introduced of which I'm going to tell you here.

When I'm laying-on-of-hands-praying for someone else (outside my family, which I've not done often), I speak aloud just to show the person I'm praying for where my mind is, but when praying very deeply for someone I tend to fall into the Language without Words. However, the last time I did that, with a close friend, after about five seconds I was whomped across the consciousness by the awkwardness factor emanating from him just skyrocketing, so I stopped after a few more desperate seconds. I did warn him first that I was going to go into silent prayer, asked him if it was okay and he agreed, but all the same, it fizzled miserably.

When I'm praying for my spouse (the only current recipient of my laying-on-of-hands-prayers), free from awkwardness, I just tend to slide into this silent language right away. I'll try here to describe what it's like.

It's not a meditative state, as is the state of silent prayer into which I sometimes drift when praying alone (against the deepest versions of which I have to guard lest I take an unscheduled snooze), but rather this begins as a seeking state. I seek the other person and, if there's no place else to start, I begin by rolling my inner eye across my own experiences with the person and who I see the person to be. Then I can kinda launch that inner eye into the other person, as if I'm stepping into a new room in which I've never been before. (And it is a new room every time, as no one is exactly the same person from one moment to the next -- and even if it's much the same, there's the need to reacquaint myself freshly each visit.) I'll hear the electric crackling sound of a worried mind, feel the undertow of an aching heart, and can almost taste the hydrochloric acid mix responsible for that gastritis. I look around the room in all the different directions I can find, and if I'm looking for something specific, I can zoom over there right away; if I'm praying for the person as a whole, I just try to soak up that whole room at once into my consciousness.

Then I stretch out my hand so it's HUGE (a little like the much-distorted homunculus who "lives" in the sensory part of the brain, but with a smaller thumb), and for each place in the person there's a fingertip to rest upon it (even parts that aren't distressed), and then I take the other hand and reach for God. I'll say a little prayer that my mind might be filled with Light and sanctified to serve as a right and true gateway through which the Holy Spirit might manifest.

Then I begin to pray, still without words, but now in a state of rest rather than of seeking. And, when need be, I "refresh" -- I F5 my location, as it were -- among the phases of seeking, whichever of them needs strengthening. Sometimes an actual word will say itself in there (and I'm sure sometimes it comes out of me as a whisper): just the biggies, like Father and Love and stuff like that.

Sometimes I don't even get this far because it takes a little time for all this to happen, although it hardly seems to take any time from my own perspective; I'm always mildly annoyed when the person is ready to move on from being prayed for because dangit I'm not done yet! Wait! Arrgh! In fact, I don't know whether I can remember a time when I ever actually finished praying for someone; I always have to wind myself down when I feel them begin to come up for air (but, man, we can breathe down here, don't you see? Don't you get it? Arrgh!).

Yeah, it's like we're underwater. Yeah, I know it feels weird. Yeah, I know things are packed closer here and there's a heaviness about it. Yeah, I know it can be scary if you worry about running out of air. But the breath we receive is faith happening down here. We can breathe down here. We can breathe.


I'll end with a the first verse of a hymn I always especially liked in church, from when I was a child:

Breathe on me, breath of God
Fill me with life anew
That I might love as Thou dost love
And do what Thou would'st do

Many thanks to Jeff for verse additions and some very sound advice (comment)!


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New Definition for "Agnostic"

That a person is agnostic simply means: a soul is hungry for God, but with no idea of where to start.


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For You

For You, His Gate is Always Open

This Means YOU.

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A Path Made Straight

Luke 3:3-4 (KJV) speaks of John the Baptist:
3 And he came into all the country
about Jordan, preaching the baptism
of repentance for the remission of
sins;
4 As it is written in the book of the
words of Esaias the prophet, saying,
The voice of one crying in the
wilderness, Prepare ye the way of
the Lord, make his paths straight.

One week ago today, I had been months in the cold, dark places devoid of faith; I had turned from God in an act of will and had been occupied constantly by the enemy; I had lost all hope but for a solitary glimmer I couldn't even catch a glimpse of very often. A very small voice had whispered:
don't waste me.
I could barely hear it, but it brought me to call up a friend and erstwhile spiritual mentor to just "give it one last shot" by asking him to pray with me.

I then underwent the transformation of greatest spiritual distance over the least amount of time (the steepest spiritual gradient vector) that I'd ever experienced. In under an hour, I had risen up, laughing-crying-whooping and praising the Lord, in a newfound life.

One of the first things I felt, and the only way it came to me to explain the incredibly steep gradient of spiritual transformation that had occurred, was that the Lord had made my path straight: straight to Him. I looked back to see where I had been and indeed, in my mind I saw a straight path leading from there to here. Of course, my next thought was, "Ack! Ack! Blasphemy! Can't-think-that!"

But a part of me still wishes humbly to suggest that perhaps that was what happened. He gave me this enormous, incredible gift I could never hope to deserve (and we can think of many other gifts of this character that He has bestowed upon all of us) and made straight my path to His open arms.

Because, I'm telling you, I started so far away from Jesus that, to get to Him, the path needed not only to be straight but to be downhill for me to have ANY chance of making it!

I was coming from a place of spiritual weakness and destitution. There was no energy in me to carry me forward anyplace. I was out of gas, sitting motionless but shivering and watching my breath come out in white clouds of condensation, in a car whose inner temperature had slowly been sucked down to approximately that of the outer darkness that had surrounded me.

Given its choice of places to go, a particle (like, say, an electron) will tend to go down the path of least resistance (sound familiar?). If an electron's traveling down a voltage gradient and sees two paths, one of which has a resistor with a HUGE resistance value and the other of a low resistance value, which way is it going to travel; which way is the current (the big stream o' electrons) going to flow? Any student of electronics will tell you: through the smaller resistor.**

Now, if you're an electron in a circuit and ALL paths available to you have a high resistance, what happens then? Well, not many electrons will make it through at all: the current going through the circuit will be very low. Are you with me here?

The Lord reached into my low-current, impossibly impassible circuit and, by His will, simply plucked out a big-time resistor blocking the path to Him and laid down a simple wire in its place. He made this electron's path straight. I opened my heart to that path and flowed straight to Him.

Hallelujah!


** This is why, if you're looking at a live circuit and see resistors of different values in there, DON'T TOUCH the ones with smallest resistance; they'll be HOT from all the current racing through them! It's rather easy to burn out low-resistance circuit elements; one time when I toasted a resistor, I clipped it out of the circuit, and scotch-taped the blackened, singed component to the wall with a label of warning: "Resistance is Futile."


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Jesus was a Physicist, Part I

Wisdom's Tension: Bill Johnson 02/15/09
And what's French for "voltage"?
Tension.

Do we love how the Lord works through this guy?
OH YEAH.

I'm telling you, Jesus had a Ph.D. in physics.


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Test

If this is a POST test, then I must be a motherboard. Ugh.
Well, I've been called worse.


Blog sites look strange without their first real post, so I'll endeavor to say something soon that's actually worth reading. For now, visit Bethel if you haven't already!


Adios



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