Loss of a Secret Place

Some people can carry their secret place -- the space in which they are free to pray and be alone with the Father -- everywhere with them. I never got the hang of this. In fact, since the actual, physical space I'd been using for prayer got turned from very-private to no-hope-of-privacy, I've been pretty well lost to prayer.

My secret place, before it got annexed by a new living area (formerly a storage space never frequented, now our bedroom), used to be my refuge. I could go in, close the door, lose myself and be neither self-conscious nor subject to being snuck up on and surprised. If I were ambushed mid-prayer or Bible reading, even by a well-meaning spouse, I'm not sure I'd be able to pray again. That's how self-conscious I still am about it; that's how enormous the risk of starting to pray again in an openly-ambushable area.

The only space I have now (the space vacated) is a loft, which isn't like a room with walls and a door; it's just an open space with stairs leading up to it. It's a place, but it's not private. It's not even close to a secret place.

I miss that secret place terribly. I've been trying to keep surrounding myself with things of the Spirit (but not too much -- not too loudly, as if I were tiptoeing around someone sound asleep -- lest I awaken to how much I want to pick up and move to a certain faraway place), but I miss my one-on-one time with Him. I listen to sermons about it, as recently in a message about the Holy Spirit being the force that brings the Word to life: "Yeah, I remember that. Right on! Good times. Can't have those anymore. Damn."

These recurrent, ultimate arrivals at "Damn" take their toll on the soul. Too much "Damn" is salt in the gears. Too much "Damn" is lemon juice in the eye. Too much "Damn" snaps its sneaky fingers and hope is nothing more than a thing with feathers, flitting quickly out the window and away.

The absence of hope reduces my potential to a storehouse of dusty holographic plates that haven't tasted the pleasure of a laser in what feels like an eternity. You can walk around and look at the two-dimensional plates but, since your mind isn't made of math, the patterns don't make spatial sense. There really is a person in here, but there is a catch: needs Light.

I need a secret place again, so that I might return to the secret place, alone with Him. I'm living under a huge deception and my eyes need to be opened. Prayers welcome.

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Confessions of a Facebook Addict

This is horrible. And I never saw it coming. Somehow, I got addicted to Facebook.

I think it started when one of Bethel's leaders mentioned on BethelTV that he had posted some information on his Facebook page.

Hmm, I wondered, what is this Facebook thing of which they speak?


Famous last words.

Perhaps not quite the last. There's so much that's happened in the past month. Time to begin.


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Half-Baked

There are several half-baked posts I'm still working on, including a word I received in prayer which should make for a really nice one.


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If you check out subscriptions with this link, you can let them know that I sent you.


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On Sabbatical

I'm indulging in a reading marathon of sorts, so my brain's been focused on drinking in the thoughts of others rather than leaking anything out. I didn't anticipate my blog going dormant so suddenly and protractedly, but I suppose this is a season for me to listen, pray, and read.

Peace.


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James 5:16 (Prayer Book)

Prayer is good. Part of James 5:16 (KJV) reads:

The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.


I can't remember what today made me suddenly recall the dream I had last night, but it hadn't come back to me in wakefulness until then. In the dream, I was being given the gift of a prayer book and it was contained in a box which, when I opened it, contained a very small volume with a dark cover and some kind of irregularity on the front cover toward the right-hand side, as if it were perhaps one of those small notebooks with an elastic band that slides around to keep it closed, but I couldn't quite distinguish it.

It was a bit worn, as it had been owned before, and it was at least a couple of decades old. I recall in the dream thinking that, when I picked it up, I could halfway expect to see yellowed pages from how it looked on the outside. Receiving this prayer book in my dream filled me with the incredible joy of finding treasure and also an overwhelming gladness that this book was now being entrusted to me.

Shortly after I recalled the dream, my spouse and I were sitting in the car eating some drive-thru cuisine to the sounds of the local Roman Catholic radio station. I'd say we had the radio on for maybe half an hour tops, and I know it's pretty likely that one would hear the words "prayer book" mentioned on such a radio station, but when I heard it, the dream was reinforced and I began to be sure that I was to seek out that book quasi-immediately.

I told my spouse about the dream and said that, if we passed a Christian bookstore on the way back, I might need to stop there and pick up a book. However, just as we started out of the parking lot, there was a Half Price Books store less than a block away, and looking at the store's sign felt right to me, so we stopped there and I went in. As my spouse was going to stay in the car, I said to call my cell if I was taking too long.

Got to the religion section, found prayer books, and there were two shelves to examine, with all kinds of hymnals intermixed. As I was looking, it occurred to me that browsing used books was definitely the right way to go because the book in my dream wasn't new. However, I opened my mind to the possibility that the book He wanted me to get might not look just like the one in the dream and, scanning the shelves, waited for one of them to call out to me.

I felt the Holy Spirit upon me and peace came over me. I paused to say a prayer of love and thanks that He was right there with me, and how I honor and cherish His presence.

It was a small, dark-colored volume, leatherbound, and it had seen some hard times. The first few pages had been torn out and a previous owner had written in the first half of the Table of Contents on the flyleaf attached to the cover, and all the publication information was missing. The upper-right-hand corner of the cover looked like it had been a little mauled by a dog, and there were lots of scratches across the page edges, which were a silver color.

My cell phone rang which, at the time, I didn't see as an indicator that my search was over, but in retrospect that's pretty clear. I kept looking for a short while, passing slowly over the books so as not to leave out even the smallest volume. Then I finished, paid $7.55, and brought it back to the car.

As I held it, it occurred to me that not only did this book resemble the one in my dream in that it wasn't new, but also the mangled cover corner made the edge look irregular, just like it was in the dream. We had some more errands to run, for the next of which my spouse had to get out of the car, leaving me alone with the book for a bit. I asked where it wanted to open and I prayed the prayer to which it opened. As soon as I started, a physical manifestation came upon me that I can neither describe nor explain in the context of a blog, but be it said that something was happening.

Then I started having a conversation with Him in a low voice, right there in the car. I asked,

Should I go back to Bethel again?

to which He replied with the question,

Do you want more of me?

Oh boy. I said Yes in every way I knew how. Of course this brings up a ton of conflicts and it won't be easy, but I sorta have to. I need more of Him!


Now that I think of it, I really had sowed the seeds of this encounter earlier today: First thing today, I had to go accompany my spouse someplace and then wait for about an hour, so I brought a book to read (one of my extra-Biblicals). When the time came, though, I never got to the book because I had started praying and just kept going, feeling ever nearer to Him. It was after this that I remembered the dream and the rest of these events came forth.

Glory to You, Lord Christ!


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Resurrection Day 2009

Got to church today hoping to receive, but I was called to give instead. We sat in the back row (at spouse's insistance, long story) and during the worship time, love just went out from me to these people and I started praying love, peace, and healing over that house. I drew from what I suppose has become a resource now, the connection that comes when I turn to Him in faith, and the house there just needed an outpouring of the Spirit, so I stood there in the back row praying over them, loosing Heavenly things over their house inasmuch as I'm able.

The specific altar call at the end of the service was for people who were especially broken or suffering, so I waited for that crowd to thin down before I went up and just quietly knelt down to try to listen to what He might be trying to speak to me. I closed my eyes and just saw pages of the Bible flipping in front of my eyes; I tried to single out a chapter and verse, asking whether there was a specific one He was trying to show me, but the pages kept passing quickly. Isaiah and Hebrews were the two chapter headings I could make out but the numbers kept changing, so although I honed into two ZIP codes, I didn't find a direct address.

Add to this the peculiar fact that He has just (in the past week) opened up the letters of Paul to me, and things get complicated. Every time I'd get through the New Testament to the end of Acts, I'd get a message to go back to the Gospels and go through again, that I wasn't yet ready to start on Paul (I went through those chapters maybe five times). Now that I'm opening up Paul's letters, today I just got two more chapters to add to the stack. The stack's becoming intimidating, especially with all the extra-Biblical stuff I'd had lined up as well.

Gotta start somewhere.
Oh yeah, and He is risen indeed: Alleluia!


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Return of the Electric Bible

My "electric Bible" is a compact ESV Bible that I bought in 2006 when I had the experience of receiving God into my life for good. I brought it with me everywhere I went for more than a year, and bit by bit I waterproofed the thick, leather cover by working melted bits of wax into it. It's worn at the corners and exceedingly soft to the touch, and some of the gold has rubbed off the edges of the pages where I read most. It fits right into my hands and is a little smaller than the span of my hands so that when it rests there, my fingers touch and start to fold together.

This book in particular has always done something special for me, and a few times it has sent surges of energy up my arms as I held it (thus my affectionately naming it "electric"). Generally speaking, though, it does give me these gentle, quiet pulses of energy when I hold it, like little waves lapping against a boat sitting still on a lake. It's such a delight to hold that once I touch it, it's hard to put it down again and leave it alone. It calls to me, almost as though it yearns for me to come and touch and hold and read. It settles me and declares peace over my body no matter what the conditions. It wakes, warms, and energizes me as it calls me to an ever-deepening relationship with its contents.

When we went on our trip to Bethel, this particular Bible went directly into the small carry-on bag that I held onto at all times and never let out of my reach (along with plane tickets and other vital necessities). When we got to the hotel room, however, I searched the bag and the electric Bible was nowhere to be found. I'd remembered seeing it in the bag at the airport and, though I hadn't recalled having taken it out, it had somehow disappeared. Both my spouse and I searched all our bags and the entire hotel room until I became quite upset, having thought I'd lost it.

The "most probable conclusion" at which I arrived was that, the night before, I had needed to use it after I was finished packing, so surely I left it out, had imagined seeing it at the airport, and would find it upon our return. The "most probable conclusion" at which my spouse arrived was that someone had stolen it during the trip and that we'd never see it again.

I soon took courage in the thought that perhaps it would bring joy to whomever it ended up with, and also that perhaps it was time for me to go buy another one, so I did. The one I bought was a different translation (NASB), different size, and different feel, but still I like it quite a lot. It took the place of the old one in my always-at-hand carry-on bag, and it went with me everywhere during the trip: I read and prayed with it at the prayer house and brought it to services with me.

The night we got home from the trip, however, was a very weird night for a few different reasons. I had gotten into a worked-up, shaky state in which I could feel my pulse pounding at what was probably about 110 bpm, my left arm ached, I was having trouble breathing, and there were small chest pains. Wanting not to wake and alarm my spouse, I just kept an eye out for any "crushing" sensation in the chest that would signal a definite heart attack, but none came.

Still shaky, achy, and wired, though, I started to get very upset again about the loss of the electric Bible; I started to be truly grieved about it and became a little obsessive about the matter. I scoured the place three or four times looking for where I might have left it and neglected to pack it. Giving up looking, I prayed fervently and almost frantically asking the Lord that it be restored to me. I knew that He knew how much it had meant to me.

I knew He had heard me, so I ended with a prayer of thanks and headed upstairs to the bedroom. A feeling of peace descended over me, even though my body was still shaking and hurting in ways that made me a little nervous. I still wondered whether I was going to have a cardiac event that night, but now there was a new peace in having lifted up my prayer, so I lay down in bed to try to sleep. I thought, "well, if it's my time now, life sure just got a whole lot easier, as I'm being called home before more of the really hard times could come." I decided that if it was His will that I go, I'd like to be holding the two things I treasure most in the world, so I put one arm around my spouse and held that new Bible in my other hand. I fell asleep asking that no matter what else, His will might be done.

Somewhat surprised to wake the following morning, I noticed that all the nervousness and the physical symptoms that had me worried were gone, though I felt a little drained. I went downstairs to get a morning-type beverage and, on the way back up, my mind caught sight of that small carry-on travel bag. I heard a small voice suggest, "unpack that one now," so I did, thinking it was a voice of reason primarily for the sake of entropy control, as the bedroom had gone beyond messy to "disaster area." Putting things away, I had unpacked the bag about halfway when my hand found a familiar shape and pulled it forth in disbelief: there it was. The electric Bible had been restored to me.

When my spouse woke up, I hid it behind my back and started, "just in case there was any doubt in your mind as to whether His hand is at work in our lives..." and pulled out the Bible. I received back one very surprised expression.

"Where'd you find it?"

"In the same bag, under the little shelf thingy that lines the bottom. I thought I'd looked there before, but I didn't find it."

"I felt around in that space too, when we were searching the hotel room, and it wasn't there."


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Glimpse

It was just for a short while, but we did make it to Bethel's awesome Friday night worship service. It was the first time I'd been in the Sanctuary area as a part of their body of believers. We got there early and sat a while watching people gather and listening to the worship team band get ready for the service.

Does anyone remember the analog radio dial? Perhaps they still exist out there somewhere, where you actually turn a dial or do something continuous (not like clicking along in uniform increments of frequency as is usual now) to scroll up and down the radio band. If you do this very slowly, stations will fade in and out; some will get very clear before they fade and others will barely come in before they're gone. You'll pick up a piece of a sentence here or a fragment of a song there, with stretches of static in between.

That's what it felt like in my head as I looked from one person to the next and my ears heard pieces of conversations fade in and out. With a couple of people, I looked at them and felt as though I'd known them for years, like passing a radio station in the band where you recognize a song from just the brief moment that comes in clearly. People were registering with me, fading in and out amid the static, and I got a syllable -- three phonemes -- when my eyes passed over one particular person; it said, "Sol," (pronounce it somewhere between Saul and soul) and I don't know whether that was a fragment of a bigger word, was its own word in a sentence, or a portion of the person's name. It was just spoken in my head very clearly and had nothing to do with anything I was hearing at the time.

Though that was the only syllable that came through, I felt the fullness of nascent pronouncements when I looked all over the roomful of people, as if there were a statement or message in there concerning each one of them but something was impeding my ability to "tune in" to everything save that one breakthrough, runaway syllable.

Now, I could tell you only vaguely what the person looked like; the memory has faded out. It's not as though it got burned into my mind or carried any sense of great urgency. It seems significant, though, that the potential for much, much more seemed already to be there.

The same feeling did not occur at any of the three services on Sunday, nothing of the same sort at all. The next time I go there, though, I'm going to go sit in the same place where it happened on the same evening of the week and try again, hoping to trigger a more lengthy "download," as it were.

That was my first download ever, though; an infinitesimal glimpse of potential things far greater. I can only marvel at whether He might have done this to whet my appetite for something to come more fully at a later time. It's certainly something I'll not soon forget.


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Into Love

I'm about to testify to the greatest miracle I've ever personally witnessed and to which I can hold up no doubt in the world because it happened right here within me. First, let me tell you what it is; then I'll tell you what it means. During a period of prayer and fasting, I was asking for two things: to be closer to Him, and that He would make me whole. In response,

He made me into love.

That's the only way I know how to put it. I became love at His touch. I walked in love, I looked around and saw through the eyes of love, it went on for days, and sometimes I can even still get there now. I saw people as love sees people, and I felt toward other human beings as I'd never been able to before.

Perhaps with a little background I can attempt to do some justice to the sheer magnitude of this miracle.


I've always hated children. People would say to me, "well you were a child once, too," to which I would reply, "yes, and that's why I hate them!" To me, no child was ever cute; when people would show me baby pictures I'd smile and feign affection but would feel utter disgust. When I saw a child I'd be overtaken by an instant, gripping, all-consuming urge to get away from it somehow, even if it wasn't screaming or misbehaving. If the child were of a different race or of the opposite gender, that could help my disposition a little, but seeing any child would set me into a blazing fury (often of expletives). A family with four or more children would make me physically nauseated. I won't even talk about how I felt about women getting pregnant, especially "by accident." I had a zero-tolerance policy for procreation in general.

You can see where this was coming from, yes? A therapist once told me, "There are some people in the world who simply should not have children. Unfortunately, your mother was one of those people."


After the Lord made me into love, all that attitude, all that hatred and anger, all that hurt just wasn't anywhere to be found. It's as though I looked inside myself and only saw a vacant storefront with a "For Lease" sign in the place all that pain and rage used to live. No forwarding address: just gone.

My spouse was the one first to pick up on the miracle. I'd been standing in line at a sandwich shop for about a half an hour waiting to get said spouse some food (this was during the time I was fasting) and there was this huge group of people with like eighteen zillion sandwich orders just ahead of me. I was standing there loving everyone, in awe of this new gift from Him, and everyone I saw made me smile and glow warmly.

I put in my order, got the food, and when I got back to the car my spouse said, "I'm so sorry you had to wait that obscenely-long amount of time in line, and with all those children around, you must've been going crazy!" I hadn't thought about it while I was in there, but there had been maybe 5 or 7 children in the huge party in front of me and I hadn't noticed a thing. I simply loved everyone I saw, like it was the most natural thing in the world, and somehow that included children.


Everything's different now. People being angry at each other puzzles me now. I can still get annoyed or frustrated, but I no longer spontaneously experience the pure, seething hatred I'd sometimes feel toward others (in traffic, for example). I mean, if I dig for the hatred and trigger it I can get to it, but I'm no longer seeing it through my own eyes; that whole deal now belongs to someone who doesn't exist anymore, so the emotion feels a little like stale bread tastes (if that makes any sense). Even my expletives are getting replaced by harmless, hate-free words.

And the only way I know how to even attempt to explain this incredible, instantaneous shift in my perspective, my outlook, my world-view, and even my knee-jerk reactions to certain stimuli, is to give glory to His hand at work.

I don't believe I would've been in a right place to receive this miracle if I hadn't worked through an issue of forgiveness that I had (problem stated in To Forgive, 3/6/09, and resolution described in Treasure Revealed, 3/17/09); of course, God's miracle would have stood no matter what state I was in, but I feel that my having found forgiveness through Him is what enables His gift of love to continue on in me to this day.

Walking in love -- as love -- is an experience that provokes a turn of phrase I've used before when He's intervened and changed my life: it's as though I'm now on a slightly different planet from the one I was on before. To Him be the glory, thanks, and praise!

Ephesians 5:1-2 (ESV)

1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children;

2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up
for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.


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Devilweeding

This one requires a little bit of background before I launch into description and also requires a bit of faith to believe/understand. I'm going out on a limb because some of the things I'm writing here are of the sort to which I wouldn't have given the slightest bit of credence, say, a few years ago. Now, turns of phrase like "demonic powers" and "gave me a vision of" are WNL (within normal limits), whereas they used to be off the charts, as it were: outside the whole realm of discourse. So proceed either with faith or with caution, to whichever you have the most ready access.

About a month and a half ago, when first I started this blog, I had just been delivered from captivity in the hands of the enemy (demonic powers), which had lasted for at least 6 months. As my good friend was praying for my deliverance, it felt as though the main resident enemies kinda slithered out the top of my head, and on the way out, they gave me a vision of what would happen to me when they got back.

Imagine a body held in place in a high-velocity wind tunnel where the temperature of the air is high enough to vaporize anything in its path. For a large, solid object, it might look rather like an ice cube as it melts; you can't see it melting away at the edges but you can see it shrink, seeming to go faster as the ratio of surface area to volume increases: you can't see the object burning away at the surface because the smoke and vapors it turns into are so quickly blown away in the wind tunnel, too fast to see.

That's what they showed me. An incredible forced-air furnace that dissolved my body.

The Lord is good at turning the enemy's weapons against him, and so He did again with this. I was at Bethel in the prayer house and God had just worked a miracle in me (which will be next post's content), but still I was being attacked intermittently by thoughts I know didn't come from me and I know didn't come from God. I asked Him what I should do with such things. He showed me the following.

I was looking at an overgrown lawn that looked much like the back lawn at our house. Mostly tallish grass covered the ground, but there were three or four large, prominent, thick and tall weeds among the grass. I saw the weeds start to lift out of the ground as if an invisible hand were plucking them out right at the bottom of the stalks where the roots begin, until I saw all the weeds, roots and all, just hanging there in the air.

And He said to me, "now, blow on them." When I did, my breath was somehow amplified and heated so that it produced a wind tunnel of super-heated air just like the one I'd seen before, and the weeds bent in the rushing air and were consumed from the outside in, until there was nothing left but the lawn of grass below. Not even one particle of ash remained.

The Lord gave me an incredible gift in showing me this. Not only does it work on unwanted thoughts, but it's also shown success in application to demons. But not just a puff of air like blowing out a candle; these require a protracted breath to disintegrate fully. Sometimes I'll just have fun by throwing in a huge blast of light along with the furnace just to remind them what they're really up against and not to come back anytime soon.

I do this until my mindscape is clear of them. I always feel closer to Him afterwards, the more free to follow Him more nearly, and waves of joy -- be they little ripples as in a pond or larger waves as in a pool -- often wash over me.


But I'm still waiting for His great tsunami. I'm running along the shore like a frantic ant, seeing it whack other people and chasing after it, aiming directly for its path inasmuch as I can even discern it. I am so ready to "drown the old man," there just aren't human words for it.

I think it was Pastor Kris Vallotton who once said that water baptism isn't just symbolic, but rather it's a prophetic declaration over a person's life. I was "Christened" as an infant with a sprinkling which I think was probably a nice little ritual with no power to it whatsoever. I'm ready for the real thing and so hungry for it my soul screams; nothing could make me stop sprinting along that shore.


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Alabaster House; Fire on Hands

Alabaster House, Bethel Church's Prayer House, Always Open

Bethel Church in Redding, CA calls their prayer house Alabaster House, referring to the alabaster vial of perfume poured out over Jesus' head in (I'm fairly sure the following is the particular Scripture to which they refer; someone please let me know if I'm misremembering; that little monument is one of the things I forgot to photograph) Mark 14:3-6 (here in NAS):

3 While He was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper,
and reclining at the table, there came a woman with an
alabaster vial of very costly perfume of pure nard; and she
broke the vial and poured it over His head.

4 But some were indignantly remarking to one another,
"Why has this perfume been wasted?

5 For this perfume might have been sold for over three
hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor." And
they were scolding her.

6 But Jesus said, "Let her alone; why do you bother her?
She has done a good deed to Me."

In the same way, when we bring our gifts of worship, prayer, and service to Him, we encourage each other to pour out our most precious gifts unto Him, and if someone wants to call that "waste," then great, let's "waste" the heck out of the best of all we have in offering it to Him!

Knowing that Bethel had a prayer house that was always open was a key factor in my deciding to actually head all the way out to California and go there. Pastor Bill Johnson, I think, once jokingly referred to Bethel as becoming like a "Denny's®: Always Open" when they first started leaving the prayer house open 24 hours. (However, as Alabaster House is overseen by Pastor Beni Johnson, I rather like thinking of it as "Beni's: Always Open" instead.) There is 24-hour video surveillance over every square centimeter as well, so don't even think about heading over there with any ill intent.

Sure enough, the morning after we flew in and got to Redding, I dragged my poor, unsuspecting spouse out of bed at 5:00 and through the chilly, pre-dawn darkness so I could come and pray. What was most surprising is that there were already several people there! There is praise and worship music playing inside at all times, though the volume varied so there must be a control for it somewhere. I kinda wish there were designated "quiet times" of day or week, when one could go and pray and just listen to the waterfall (yes, there's a smaller one inside the building as well as the big ones, with the pond, outside).

There's also been mention of putting a vending machine in there where one could buy little communion packets with a piece of bread and a tiny cup of juice; my opinion is that if there were a place to just take one (or purchase with a nominal sum) and an offering box next to it, they'd probably make more money that way and it wouldn't rob the largely-impecunious student/youth population of the experience. Idea: a vending machine that will take a student's (or any church member's?) ID card swipe as a form of payment, with a limitation of maybe 23 hours between uses (an hour's grace for those who come every day at nearly the same time). Complications abound and, at any rate, I digress.

Were it not for the general imperative that my spouse and I not be separated outside our home city (very long story), I would have basically lived at that prayer house all my waking hours while we were there. Even as things were, I got in several blessed sessions of decent length.

Every time I could relax enough to listen for Him (all except once), He was there, and I was in a place (not just physically) to receive Him. Things started to be revealed to me.

For a while, I'd heard people talking about The Anointing coming upon them in physical ways and, though I did (and still do) have my own peculiar physical manifestations (Maybe I'm a "Lefty"), there seemed always to be a theme among others of a fire-like sensation in the hands that I'd not experienced at all, and I had been both puzzled and dismayed.

Well, it came.

It didn't feel like a painful kind of burning, nor did it feel like sizzling per se, but it was more than just tingling or the feeling of a pulse. When I jotted down an exceedingly brief note of what had happened just after the fact, I wrote, "fire on hands" (not "hands on fire"). There was a sensation of tongues of flame licking but without the actual burning or hurting that one would normally expect to accompany it. It was a fairly strong sensation and felt quite unusual. When it faded away, it went out of my right hand before my left, and the last places it lingered were the left thumb and first two fingers, all the way up at the tips.

Now, what actually came of it? Nothing thus far. I've only tried using it three times, though, so it almost doesn't even count. Actually, I'm really glad it hasn't begun yet because I don't yet know how to carry it, especially now that I'm back in an environment where I'm not surrounded by a "Kingdom culture," full of resources and support. I just got a small taste when I was there.

I got a small taste of a great many glorious things during this trip. More to come.


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So Much News to Give

We had our first trip to Bethel Church this past weekend. Three wonderful days of church (real church!), prayer, and fasting (for me, at least).

I have much to post including pics, miracles worked in me, and many other experiences & thoughts thereon.

Without faith, it would be difficult to believe all that happened for us there. But, having traveled through Buddhism, agnosticism, atheism, and a couple more different mindsets to new life in Jesus, perhaps I'm in a decent situation to try and convey these things for believers and nonbelievers alike.

Also, much love to two new friends, C. G. and M. R.

_______

Sneak Peek
He gave me a word:

Let there be respect for measures of time, but let time only be given measure.

All things important are given without measure: Holy Spirit without measure, mercy without measure, love without measure. Measures of distance across the planet have been largely overcome with high-speed transport and the internet. Our big limitation in being put here on the earth is our being confined to time as it exists for us. That's the only real obstacle with which we have to contend in bringing His heavenly will to our hungry, desperate, longing world.

Measures of space, however, do provide beautiful analogies through which I'll someday soon be able to explain ways of thinking mathematically that will point the way to God, and then to right relationship with Him, especially for the math-minded.

The equations already started coalescing this past weekend at Bethel. So close I can almost taste them.

Praise and glory to the Lord!

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Bethel Church, Trip 1

First Trip to Bethel Church in Redding, CA
March 2009

For the sake of organization in future months, let this serve as an index for posts about this visit.

Posts will be listed in the order in which they're posted (oldest first). New stuff will be added to the end of the list so that once I've written the full scope of what I can, there will be a full index here. Hazzah.


So Much News to Give

Alabaster House; Fire on Hands

Devilweeding

Into Love

Glimpse




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Kingdom Rice Krispies

I have this plan in mind, and for the past couple of days I've been doubting that I'm on the right track, that this is really what He wants me to do. For me it's a pretty radical idea, but they say obedience is supposed to be that way. Still, some pesky little doubtlettes (small doubts) were lingering in my head.

So this afternoon, I'm waiting on my spouse to go out, and my eyes gently roll across the stuff on the kitchen counter: peanut butter, bread, microwave popcorn, and then to the side of a blue cereal box: the print's so small it looks fuzzy and, even though I do recognize the box, my mind parses the text on it as:

Kingdom Rice Krispies

Of course, it really said Kellogg's (I didnt really have a heavenly cereal box in my kitchen), but I started smiling and all the doubt just melted away. It's potentially a beginning stage of a kingdom mindset, as it were, and my confidence is bolstered in what we're about to undertake.

Thank you, Lord, for bringing each of us that much closer to our destiny in You. Even if it's weird. Even if it's radical. And especially if it takes our lives in directions we never could have imagined.


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It's Always in the Last Place You Look

When you're searching for something, it's always in the last place you look.

Not that it's in the last place you would look, but that it's in the last place you do look, because after you find the object you usually stop looking.

The kingdom of God isn't like that, though. Seeking it out is a lifelong process -- I mean, there's more there than we could possibly learn in the natural course of time itself -- so in times of success, when you've reached for the kingdom and have found it and connected with it, and with Him, just keep reminding yourself:

Don't stop seeking; for the kingdom of God is not your car keys.

The thing about the kingdom is that if you seek it out, find it, and feel that point is an endpoint, then you've not found the real thing. Seeing, approaching, touching, and even walking in the kingdom of God should always make you hungry for more.

Just as in good science -- where the questions raised by each significant discovery will far outnumber the original questions that led to the discovery itself -- the more you see in the kingdom of God, the more you'll see there is to hunger for, and thus your hunger multiplies in being fed.

And with this increased hunger comes the potential for so many more ways of having that hunger satisfied. Remember Luke 12:32 (ESV),

Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure
to give you the kingdom.

Take a minute to digest that one. When you seek the kingdom and find it, you. give God. pleasure. Think about how huge that is. So many times when I'm thinking or praying I think if only I could know without a doubt that, through all my efforts, I'd pleased Him for just one moment, that would be food for my soul for the rest of my life; that's all I would ever need.

Knowing that would be ammunition enough to blow away the evil ones that still try to come and dwell with me and convince me to destroy myself. It would sustain me through the "dry spells," the seasons in which I might not be able to get as close to Him as I'd like.

It would be an existence proof! In logic, an existence proof means that once you prove that something can be done, you then have to consider it as a possibility (a possible reason, a possible cause, a possible diagnosis, a possible explanation, or just possible to do) in everything you do from then on. If you can observe an instance of a thing, then you've proven that something in that category of things can exist, because it existed at least once: even the category itself does exist, even if it just contains that one instance, but it opens up the realm of possibility that other things might also exist in that category.

If I had an existence proof that I'd pleased God once, then two things happen: first, I can celebrate that one occurrence because it existed and secondly, knowing that it's possible provides encouragement for me to try to repeat the experience and please Him many times.

So seek, find, rejoice, take courage, repeat.
Amen!


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Favorite Biblical Verse

Perhaps my very favorite Biblical verse of all time is John 16:33 (here in ESV):


I have said these things to you, that in me you may
have peace. In the world you will have tribulation.
But take heart; I have overcome the world.


Does anyone else see Him smiling while saying that last sentence?


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Pillow Talk

If Jesus is the lover of our souls, does that make prayer analogous to pillow talk? Only of the most intimate and sanctified variety, but yeah, why not!

Anyway, here are some prayers I've been saying lately, that I want to share. I know I've borrowed parts from everywhere in my experience, from readings to teachings to songs and hymns, so I claim no "ownership" of, or originality in, any of these words. For example, the last phrase is stolen shamelessly from prayers in church I remember from childhood. In fact, I feel closest to God when I find myself thinking of nothing as my own, so here; I hope you enjoy my abject and despicable thievery:


Heavenly Father,

Let Your breath be my life;

Let Your light be my joy;

Let Your love be my strength;

Let Your word be my bread;

Let Your call be my walk and my way;

Let Your will be the desire of my heart also.


Father, please help me grow and sustain perfect trust and faith in You;
Lord Jesus, please help me to follow You ever more closely in my daily life;
Holy Spirit, please come to dwell with me, that I might be transformed through Your manifest presence;


Heavenly Father, you know what we need even before we ask it of you;
Please grant unto us everything we need, even (and especially!) if that includes things we might not expect nor even have in mind;


Please help us to become strong vessels, laid upon the sound foundation of Your word, that we might have the integrity to hold together as we are filled to overflowing with Your grace;


Please help us to know Your voice and to see the movement of Your hand in the world, to the end that we might faithfully sow the seeds of Your heavenly kingdom here on the earth;


Heavenly Father, all this we ask in Jesus' name -- to whom with You and the Holy Spirit be all honor and glory, world without end.
Amen.


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Treasure Revealed

Had a breakthrough on the forgiveness thing (original post). Many aspects of life suddenly have become amazingly easier. I'm also finding shorter pathways to kicking out demons when they try to come.

The person I forgave was an important influence in my childhood so with this new-found forgiveness has come this HUGE treasure chest overflowing with old memories that can now come back to me in a non-destructive form. I'd thought no good memories could ever come of my thinking back on that relationship, but now they're coming in droves! Songs and the words of some prayers and hymns start coming to my mind just about as soon as I start praying -- things I'd forgotten or suppressed for years. The memories emerge with this glow of love about them because the forgiveness I found for this person grew out of a new love for them through the Lord.

It's as though I'd been blinded to the good parts of experiences in that relationship before I could forgive the person, but now I see them -- they were there all along, of course, just my capacity to enjoy (or even perceive!) them had been squelched by the venomous evil with which that relationship was tainted. But there were good parts, and my mind is starting to shut down old pathways and start digging new troughs through which my thoughts can flow.

Heretofore, I'd only been able to remember the bad parts of the relationship and I know that, in order for my thought processes to change, there had to be something to replace the old pathways: a shunt to a new way of thinking. The catch with trying to change your thinking in this way is that the new thought absolutely must be more appealing to think of than the old one; no matter how hard I've tried, I've never been able to push thoughts down another path from behind but always have had to coax them out gently and lead them with a treat, as if holding a carrot in front of a tortoise on which I'm riding (or just holding a big piece of cake in front of myself; perhaps that's the better analogy).

Then good ol' GABA goes to work. Sy Rogers acutally impressed the heck out of me during a talk he gave by starting on about thought patterns and using the full name of this neurochemical: gamma-aminobutyric acid. If I recall correctly, it's GABA in the brain that suppresses the firing of neural pathways (I think glutamine is the corresponding antagonist molecule that stimulates neurotransmission, but I'm too lazy to look it up at the moment). So I would contend that not only do you need to shut down the old pathways but actively seek out new pathways down which the thoughts can flow and to make these the paths of least resistance (or greatest reward) to think about, so props to glutamine as well.

At any rate, just recall Luke 1:37 (ESV):

37 For nothing will be impossible with God.

That word nothing, traced to a Greek word, I believe, has to do with the freshly-spoken word. I'm still trying to tune in to God's freshly spoken words, but I think I'm making some headway there.

Praise God -- from whom all blessings flow!


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Instructions

Another dream just now while napping just after some prayer time; so much happened there's no way I'm going to even remember it all much less get it down. However, I can certainly say that there were some pretty clear instructions there. And it happens that I woke up at about 6:58 PM and was facing the clock when it turned 7:00 PM.

Does anyone else get a little scared when it seems that, with increasing clarity and certainty, He's sending you messages?


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Timing

I just awoke from a dream wherein my dream-self was visited by an angelic presence, and it had a lot to do with timing. I'll attempt to describe it a bit.

A tangle of vehicles, from motorcycles to RVs, some moving and some stationary, a TV in nearly every room of every residence, houses without outer walls such that there were no completely enclosed rooms, and motion, constant motion back and forth among these dwelling places. I was darting around, always glancing at a TV to see what was going on in this community and who needed my help. It was as though I were some sort of spirit of comfort.

People were going through things like relocations, divorces, family issues where children were coming back home, broken limbs, auto accidents, and travel to faraway places. I was somehow zooming around among them, checking TVs as I went; the TVs were changing channels every few seconds and when I looked up at one, I got an eyeful of whatever (or more specifically, whoever) was the object of the current channel. I never had time to stop for more than a few seconds to watch the TVs though, because I'd see some urgent need arising and would need to go to the people I saw who were in need.

They were always glad to see me and they kept asking me questions I coudn't answer; all I could do was go to where the calls were strongest and try to do my best with the situation.

Will my arm stop hurting in this cast; will I get better?
When will my son come home to visit me?
Why do you think such-and-so thing happened in this situation; can you explain it for me?
How long should I keep dancing?
Can I be joyful and celebrate now, or is something bad about to happen?
Is my expected party on their way?
Will I make it as far as I need to go?

but sometimes it was just a cry out for comfort, like:

I'm alone and in a strange place; would you come to me?
I'm feeling sad and need your support; would you come to me?
It seems like the dark times will never pass; would you come to me?

Oddly, it was as though I were still in some period of training; I was still learning how to react to these questions and situations as I visited people, and some visits were more awkward than others. I recall things got a little smoother by the end of the dream as my experience built up.

But at exactly 7:00 PM in the dream (a constant urgency that I had to keep checking my watch as I went around to different people and places), I had to be in a particular broken-down, red truck with a crack extending halfway across the windshield, in the front seat. I felt maybe 80% sure that's what the message was, but I knew that if I got there on time and something happened then and there, it would be something really big. It was one of those thoughts that just comes out of nowhere in my head but comes with great weight and certainty. I just had this faith about it.

I made it to the truck in time (but not too early); I could finally rest a little and take a breather, and my eyes lazily followed the crack in the windshield and I just sat there quietly examining and comtemplating it for a moment, but I didn't have to wait long before the angel came. I either don't remember or never could discern the angel's gender, but it was clothed in radiant white and it was very glad. My spirits absolutely soared, I felt restored and no longer weary, and I burst out into smile and even into joyous laughter as the angel and I communed.

I was as glad to be with this angel as people were glad that I had come to visit them.

Then I woke up.


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