Spiritual Sisters
Spiritual Healing Serene Salad
Spiritual Voices Creativity Bakery
Meditations As servants of God, we must learn to make room for Him-to give God "elbow room." We plan and figure and predict that this or that will happen, but we forget to make room for God to come in as He chooses. When considering the span of a lifetime, there are definite stages of maturation which transcend nationality and gender: the baby is self-centered focusing entirely upon his bodily needs/comforts, by the time young adulthood has been attained, one should expect to be more people-centered continually evolving into a God-centered person. The more comfortable a person's life, the more effort is required to make the transition from self-centered to people-centered--which is vitally important prior to marriage and parenthood. To be a good parent, a person has to be oriented toward the quality of the marriage experience for their partner and the development of the child rather than the satisfaction of their own needs through their mate and their children. After the child-rearing years, parents are often tired and ready to have time for themselves. Can we successfully take this "time for ourselves" without subconsciously reverting to the self-centered position we were to leave behind years before? If we choose to use these more mature years in service to others, will our lives be enriched and fulfilled? Perhaps; but we also see those for whom a life of service to others has not been rewarded as expected. Was this due to a failure to incorporate a God-centered understanding of service and/or an understanding of God's plans for our lives? In service to humanity, can we be people-centered without being God-centered? Do not look for God to come in a particular way, but do look for Him. The way to make room for Him is to expect Him to come, but not in a certain way. No matter how well we may know God, the great lesson to learn is that He may break in at any minute. We tend to overlook this element of surprise, yet God never works in any other way. All of us have definite journeys we are to complete. It is so easy to look at the standards and try to pattern ourselves in a logical, rational manner only to get waylaid by the unexpected twists and turns life delivers throughout. There is no better example than the story of Job. He was living the righteous life and he was acknowledged by God as being a righteous man, yet things went horribly wrong for a time. Fortunately, Job did give God "elbow room"--he did not plan and figure and predict, nor make his own judgments--he stood tall on his foundation of faith in God until his journey was completed and his destiny fulfilled.
Self-centered, People-centered or God-centered?
Do not look for God to come in a particular way, but do look for Him. The way to make room for Him is to expect Him to come, but not in a certain way.
February 01, 2006As servants of God, we must learn to make room for Him-to give God "elbow room." We plan and figure and predict that this or that will happen, but we forget to make room for God to come in as He chooses. Would we be surprised if God came into our meeting or into our preaching in a way we had never expected Him to come? Do not look for God to come in a particular way, but do look for Him. The way to make room for Him is to expect Him to come, but not in a certain way. No matter how well we may know God, the great lesson to learn is that He may break in at any minute. We tend to overlook this element of surprise, yet God never works in any other way.
"Keep your life so constantly in touch with God that His surprising power can break through at any point. Live in a constant state of expectancy, and leave room for God to come in as He decides." --Oswald Chambers
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Rants The more I love humanity in general the less I love man in particular. In my dreams, I often make plans for the service of humanity, and perhaps I might actually face crucifixion if it were suddenly necessary. Yet I am incapable of living in the same room with anyone for two days together. I know from experience. As soon as anyone is near me, his personality disturbs me and restricts my freedom. In twenty-four hours I begin to hate the best of men: one because he’s too long over his dinner, another because he has a cold and keeps on blowing his nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me. But it has always happened that the more I hate men individually the more I love humanity. --Source: "The Brothers Karamazov" We enter a room full of people and are immediately drawn to the person with the biggest smile. Is it because we are excited to find someone who seems cheerful and happy or is it because we are wondering what's wrong with them and how to put them in their place? Petty jealousy, unbridled envy--how could we have drama without them? We don't even have to be anybody special to be smacked down by the envy of someone else who thinks they can make up for their own deficits by bringing another down. These are components of the world and they will always be with us so how do we survive them? Love! A consuming passion for loving!! We cannot change another person so let's not even go there. What we can do is equip ourselves so that no one can touch us--equip ourselves through a love that transcends human emotions. We must work with our Heavenly Father until he has filled us with a supernatural fire that consumes everything that would come against us. For anyone who loves Christ this is a particularly important, as well as difficult, situation for the stakes are high in the ongoing chess game being played by good and evil. One of the greatest temptations we face is our own desire to remain low key about our love of God so that we don't have to deal with others using us for target practice. What we all learn quickly and painfully is that the resistance to our passionate love of God comes from within our own circles more forcefully than from without our own group. If only we could all look at these poison-tipped arrows as having been issued from a bow which has been taken hostage by the enemy and is not really coming from one whom we believe to be a friend and comrade. Nevertheless, we are still human ourselves and perfection is not a suitable option, so let's explore what we can do to protect ourselves without trying to achieve the impossible: concentrate on God, concentrate on the feeling of love that comes to us through the Holy Spirit, concentrate on the love letters in the Bible, concentrate on the writings of the early Christians who were in an intimate relationship with God. Concentrate on love. Love! A consuming passion for loving!!
Musings Whenever I heard someone proclaim that they had just had a miraculous healing, there would always be that seed of doubt. Was it real, was power of suggestion involved? What about power of the mind and mind control? Those ugly seeds of doubt were always there. I was a skeptic. I was also skeptical about ghosts, visions, anything predicting the future. The story of Daniel and the writing of a disembodied hand in the Bible helped me understand God does speak to his children in such a manner, but it wasn't something I expected to happen to me. Seven years ago, I was an unconvinced participant in a group praying for healing and blessings upon another family. If I had even a mustard seed of faith [Matthew 17:20] that evening, I was unaware of its existence because I was very uncomfortable with the entire situation. During the prayer, I wasn’t thinking about myself; I was thinking about the others and the words of the prayer until a very hot coal began pulsating through my veins. It was hot and it hurt! Yet it was happening to me! I was taking a cold that night and the cold never materialized. All these intervening years, I have no longer needed sinus medicine, no longer dealt with an arthritic limp and have at least one shriveled, dried up cyst, possibly two. With time I have come to realize this is God working on healing my spirit, one step at a time. First He made me skeptical of my skepticism about the power of His miraculous healing abilities. Once I overcame that obstacle, He began bringing people into my life--ordinary, everyday type people who "knew" things they had no logical way of knowing. All of them are deeply devoted to the One Living God and none of them have any control over what is or is not shown to them. In other words, we are not talking of psychics or fortune tellers for the Bible warns against them, as in Acts 16: We can also find references in the Bible to "seers" or "prophets" who are called into service by God.
The Demands of the Particular
The more I love humanity in general the less I love man in particular...I am incapable of living in the same room with anyone for two days together.
February 03, 2006
The Healing of a Skeptic
Seven years ago, I was an unconvinced participant involved in healing prayer. If I had even a mustard seed of faith that evening, I was unaware of its existence because I was very uncomfortable with the entire situation. During the prayer, I wasn’t thinking about myself; I was thinking about the others and the words of the prayer until a very hot coal began pulsating through my veins.
February 05, 2006 16One day, on our way to the place of prayer, a slave girl ran into us. She was a psychic and, with her fortunetelling, made a lot of money for the people who owned her. 17She started following Paul around, calling everyone's attention to us by yelling out, "These men are working for the Most High God. They're laying out the road of salvation for you!" 18She did this for a number of days until Paul, finally fed up with her, turned and commanded the spirit that possessed her, "Out! In the name of Jesus Christ, get out of her!" And it was gone, just like that. The Message
(Formerly in Israel, if a man went to inquire of God, he would say, "Come, let us go to the seer," because the prophet of today used to be called a seer.) 1 Samuel 9:9 (NIV)
On two occasions I have been warned of life-threatening dangers through prophets. Time revealed that both predictions were accurate. Two separate prophets who did not know me personally, told me there was no disease in my body. Shortly thereafter came the diagnosis of kidney disease which seems less and less a concern as time goes on. As I have become less skeptical, I have become increasingly more intuitive and although I've never reached the level of actually having these experiences myself, I have received supernatural guidance which has enhanced my life experiences.
I may no longer be a real skeptic, but I will always have concerns about misreadings and misinterpretations. I am deeply concerned that anyone listening for spiritual guidance which will provide them with God's instructions wait for confirmations that THE Source is Jesus. For me, there have always been three confirmations prior to my taking any kind of action. They have arrived in different manners, but they NEVER arrive with a sense of urgency, chaos or confusion:
- But an independent witness confirms me, the most reliable Witness of all. John 5:32 (MSG)
"When the Friend I plan to send you from the Father comes--the Spirit of Truth issuing from the Father--he will confirm everything about me. John 15:26 (MSG)
"I've told you this ahead of time, before it happens, so that when it does happen, the confirmation will deepen your belief in me. John 14:29 (MSG)
But by shifting our focus from what we do to what God does, don't we cancel out all our careful keeping of the rules and ways God commanded? Not at all. What happens, in fact, is that by putting that entire way of life in its proper place, we confirm it. Romans 3:31 (MSG)
God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. Romans 8:16 (MSG)
So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to do miraculous signs and wonders. Acts 14:3 (NIV)
Musings The permanent temptation of life is to confuse dreams with reality. The permanent defeat of life comes when dreams are surrendered to reality. - James Michener, Author The reality of this life can be so brutal. Everytime I pick up a newspaper or watch a television newscast the focus is on the pain in this world and I am depressed by how difficult survival in the natural world really is. As the reports of endless pain/suffering rain down upon my spirit, I feel suffocated by it and can only rise above the depression by taking breaks from the worldly news and spending concentrated periods of time when I refrain from hearing the news. This response is not because I don't care, but because I care too much. Knowing leaves me with a sense of impotence. Hopelessness and discouragement within me result, making me useless to myself and to those around me. I know that true change begins within each of us. When we maintain times of quiet and dwell upon the good that is around us, our spirits become more attuned to love, to caring, to the forces of good sent from the Creator. We reach a state of balance where we gain strength; strength which causes the change within; strength which allows us to change our reality through our attitudes. I cannot change the entire world--I cannot change those around me. I CAN change my attitude to one of love and extend this love to those with whom I come in contact--for my loving attitude must touch others in order to set up a scenario which causes change. The opportunity to create change is not necessarily something we can invision or orchestrate. For example, I loved to talk to God about the beautiful scenery he had created in South Florida. Apparently, I would be smiling as I drove along, thanking God, for a co-worker encountered me on the highway and has not ceased telling others about meeting a smiling driver when everyone else was scowling. Such an insignificant occurrence to have even affected another!
Consequently, those who see me in moments when I have a loving attitude will in turn react to this attitude; so it is up to me to maintain an attitude of love--since I never know when or how someone is reacting to me--and by concentrating on loving I am also enveloping myself in peace and harmony as well as allowing the circle of love to grow, thereby making a difference...a real difference. And so it goes...the more I shut out the suffering and concentrate on the loving, the more I can tilt the scales toward love. Dreams...Oh, yes, dreaming beautiful dreams instead of drowning in ugly reality can change the world to a better place. Seems to me, this is what Jesus was talking about so many years ago.
Meditations The dog and I snuggled on the trundle bed watching the snowflakes fly. Such a peaceful scene it was with the white-tail deer roaming in the woods and the ducks waddling up to the neighbor's bird feeder. My world's wimpiest watchdog jumped up in his most ferocious stance ready to defend the smaller birds' feed and drive away the fearsome ducks. I guess it's a good thing he didn't seem to notice those deer sneaking past our enbankment, preparing to encircle our encampment. Miss Kaylee came out, bundled up in her lilac snowsuit, sand bucket and shovel in hand, ready to gather in "snow" provisions. The watchdog felt the urgency of protecting Miss Kaylee from this danger-fraught environment. Never leaving the trundle bed, he fought many life-threatening battles to protect his loved ones and his kingdom. It amused me to watch the dog put all this energy into nothing; it also made me reflect. When I allow the world to come at me, when I get all involved in the piddly little events of my immediate world, am I wasting all the energy that the spirit would have used to embrace love, joy and peace, thus impeding my forward movement in the quest of the eternal world?
Teachings The real vision of love in action is so radical, so extreme and so fierce because of what it reveals—that all relationships of power, whether sexual, emotional, physical or religious, deeply deform the essential relationship of each human being to God and each human being to every other human and sentient being. Jesus recognized that the life of abandoned service and love and justice had to be lived on this earth, to transform this earth to what it is always meant to be—the living mirror of God’s love and God’s justice. --Andrew Harvey A loving person lives in a loving world. A hostile person lives in a hostile world: everyone you meet is your mirror. -- Ken Keyes, Jr. Paul said that he was gripped by the love of God and that is why he acted as he did. People could perceive him as mad or sane-he did not care. There was only one thing he lived for— to persuade people of the coming judgment of God and to tell them of "the love of Christ." This total surrender to "the love of Christ" is the only thing that will bear fruit in your life. And it will always leave the mark of God’s holiness and His power, never drawing attention to your personal holiness. --Oswald Chambers All sin is rooted in the failure of love --Thomas Merton
Teachings Twice my security has been pulled out from under me and I have been crashed. I think God did it both times to teach me from whence my security really comes (among other things). This time I am willingly agreeing to the setting up of the possibility of a third time. Do I think it will actually happen a third time? Only if it has a purpose in God's plan. I have a choice to be self-centered about security or be God-centered and be ready for the adventure upon which He will surely take me. See The Parable of the Talents. "I say to you, do not worry about your life . . . ." Our Lord says to be careful only about one thing-our relationship to Him. But our common sense shouts loudly and says, "That is absurd, I must consider how I am going to live, and I must consider what I am going to eat and drink." Jesus says you must not. Beware of allowing yourself to think that He says this while not understanding your circumstances. Jesus Christ knows our circumstances better than we do, and He says we must not think about these things to the point where they become the primary concern of our life. Whenever there are competing concerns in your life, be sure you always put your relationship to God first. "Sufficient for the day is its own trouble" ( Matthew 6:34 ). How much trouble has begun to threaten you today? What kind of mean little demons have been looking into your life and saying, "What are your plans for next month— or next summer?" Jesus tells us not to worry about any of these things. Look again and think. Keep your mind on the "much more" of your heavenly Father ( Matthew 6:30 ). --Oswald Chambers
Meditations Spending extensive time with those who have not had the opportunity to acquire a formal education has made me aware of how easily those advantages can turn into a spiritual liability. If our advantages becomes tools we use for the satisfaction of our own personal needs and desires, we may stand to gain in the physical realm while suffering great loss in the spiritual realm. God has a way of leveling the playing field over the long term. When the better educated spend time really getting to know older people with minimal education, there is a good chance we will be surprised by the amount of wisdom which has been gained through life experiences and if we are really honest, we may have to acknowledge we have been duped by our feelings of privilege: Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." --Matthew 9:14 (NIV) Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. --Matthew 5:8 (NIV) Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me --Psalm 51:10 (NIV) The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. --1 Timothy 1:5 (NIV)
Teachings God understands how easy it is for humans to make well-intentioned resolutions only to fail in carrying through with them. He actually offers us a lot of assistance--through the spirit--to sticking with those resolves and, I do believe, manages to make them happen IN SPITE of us! An example of his help would be: Remember that nagging, gnawing feeling that you should be someplace, following up on the feeling and finding you were desperately needed, or your presence made a difference? Remember the feelings of gratitude for whatever-it-was that made you follow through on an impulse? Remember the feeling that you had somehow made a difference without really knowing what you had done other than follow the impulse? Welcome to the wonderful world of the spirit. To love something with all that is in us is easier to say than to do. If you can do it, you're a much better person than I will ever be. I can only get close to there through lots of help from God. I can focus my daily thoughts on the spiritual--while Jesus changes me to be more loving--which is something I cannot accomplish on my own. There's always that sneaky little voice in my ear encouraging me to think about me and about what I want; about how others should treat me! As long as I let that cunning voice have my attention, I will fail to connect with the loving relationship being offered by my creator. As long as I focus on Him, He will work the miracles needed to make me whole.
Praise When I lived in the "what you see is all there is" world, I missed so many marvelously significant connections. Now that I spend time tuning in to my spirit--and to the Holy Spirit's messages through my spirit--I find there is so much more to life than is presented in the physical world. The things of the natural world have lost all color in comparison to the spiritual adventures. I am learning to look for connections, or patterns, between isolated often insignificant events. At first I found a few, and as time goes on I've come to the point I expect everything to have a greater significance. Becoming aware of this interconnectivity of unrelated events helps one understand the power which is available to us through the supernatural world. To be able to understand that power well enough to put it to good use in our everyday lives is to have developed a real relationship with the Father/Son/Holy Spirit. I can no longer spend time visualizing the future. I am too busy preparing for the NOW. At each step of the way, as I come across something for which I do not have the skill set, strength or prerequisite knowledge, I turn to prayer and my spirit zooms off an email to God. The answer, or the encouragement, or the help come back at just the right time--is God ever early? God is using my websites as a vehicle for connecting me with much of the help I need. It has always been of utmost importance to me that my time on the web be productive and useful in God's plan. Now that He is communicating to me through the words of those I've met through SpiritualSisters, I am deeply grateful and humbled. WoW!! Insignificant me---God loves me!! “Hope is therefore, an act of mutuality, an act of shared imagination, of imagining with. To lose hope is to lose the capacity for shared imagination, hope is an act that builds and is sustained by community.” --WW. Meissner
Teachings The little flashes of insight that alter our focus so we are mentally prepared for future events are one of the greatest benefits to this walk with God. So often the flashes of insight seem a mystery when they occur. We puzzle over what we have learned, we wish it to return in slow motion, but it does not. What we grasp at the moment is all we get until it is "God's time" for more to be revealed. The teacher taught about faith, now we are going through the workbook exercises to gain understanding of the practical applications. As soon as God becomes real to us, people pale by comparison, becoming shadows of reality. Nothing that other saints do or say can ever upset the one who is built on God. --Oswald Chambers
Meditations My twenty-something pound dog suffers from serious delusions--he thinks he is a guard dog. Let me tell you, that's the wimpiest guard dog I've ever encountered. When you further add the complications created by the loss of most of his teeth, his efforts to protect me are to be admired but not to be depended upon. His sincere belief in himself does have me pondering the false expectations we both want to hold tightly: his delusions of bravery and my delusions of power--there's serious deficits there for each of us. "No, Lord, you do not ask of me anything that is false or beyond my power to achieve. Through your self-revealing and the power of your grace you simply compel what is most human in us to become at long last aware of itself. Humanity has been sleeping--and still sleeps--lulled within the narrowly confining joys of its little closed loves. In the depths of the human multitude there slumbers an immense spiritual power which will manifest itself only when we have learnt how to break through the dividing walls of our egoism and raise ourselves up to an entirely new perspective, so that habitually and in a practical fashion we fix our gaze on the universal realities." --Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Hymn of the Universe.
Praise Life is a magic vase filled to the brim, so made that you cannot dip from it nor draw from it; but it overflows into the hand that drops treasures into it. Drop in malice and it overflows hate; drop in charity and it overflows love. --John Ruskin We agree with John Ruskin and then we forget the magic vase---we forget about love---forget how to love. We fail to notice others' needs to be loved--we even fail to notice the love around us. Who do you know who is so filled with love they don't know about fighting with their neighbors and families, don't know about getting more "stuff" and having more "fun"? Who doesn't feel they should put their own needs first sometimes---some of the time---most of the time? Always reflecting a spirit of charity sounds impossible--yet the Maker of the Magic Vase says it can be done--through Him! How great is our gratitude for a God who is willing to walk this journey with us: For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. --Hebrews 4:15-16 (NIV)
Praise Vicki wrote, "We always play the license plate game and we usually see them in pairs. Yesterday we saw 2themall and then we saw itzall god. Perfect." Perfect is correct. We have to be reminded of the danger of letting the mall replace God in our lives. For me, it communicates thoughts which turned into a special spirit moment. Most people like to shop. Some people HAVE to shop just like I HAVE to have time alone with God. The shopping trip lasts as long as it takes to get the stuff home and put away while the time with God seems to continue expanding forever. itzall god. "There must be a time of day when the man who makes plans forgets his plans, and acts as if he had no plans at all. "There must be a time of day when the man who has to speak falls very silent. And his mind forms no more propositions, and he asks himself: Did they have a meaning? "There must be a time when the man of prayer goes to pray as if it were the first time in his life he had ever prayed; when the man of resolutions puts his resolutions aside as if they had all been broken, and he learns a different wisdom: distinguishing the sun from the moon, the stars from the darkness, the sea from the dry land, and the night sky from the shoulder of a hill." --From No Man is an Island by Thomas Merton
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© Jane Mullikin used by permission of Project Ripple
Dreams of A New Reality
True change begins within each of us. When we maintain times of quiet and dwell upon the good that is around us, we reach a state of balance where we gain strength which allows us to change our reality through change in our attitudes.
February 07, 2006
Determining the Trivial and the Significant
To have found a loyalty from which one cannot escape, which one must forever acknowledge, one cannot ask for more
February 09, 2006To have learned through enthusiasms and sorrow what things there are within and without the self that make for more life or less, for fruitfulness or sterility; to hold to the one and eschew the other; to seek, to persuade, and reveal, and convince; to be ready to readjust one's values at the summons of a new truth that is known and felt; to be unweary in learning to discriminate more sharply between the false and the true, the trivial and the significant, in life and in men and in works; to be prepared to take a risk for the finer and the better things,--that is perhaps all we can do. Yet somehow as I write, the words "perhaps all we can do" seem a very meager phrase. The endeavor to be true to experience strikes me at this moment as the most precious privilege of all. To have found a loyalty from which one cannot escape, which one must forever acknowledge. No, one cannot ask for more. --John Middleton Murry, To an Unknown God
Love in Action
The real vision of love in action is radical, extreme and fierce
February 11, 2006
Do Not Worry About Your Life
The cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lust for other things, will choke out the life of God in us
February 13, 2006A warning which needs to be repeated is that "the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches," and the lust for other things, will choke out the life of God in us ( Matthew 13:22 ). We are never free from the recurring waves of this invasion. If the frontline of attack is not about clothes and food, it may be about money or the lack of money; or friends or lack of friends; or the line may be drawn over difficult circumstances. It is one steady invasion, and these things will come in like a flood, unless we allow the Spirit of God to raise up the banner against it.
Connecting with God
Who had the more truth? Those who followed a rumor, or those who remained sitting, satisfied with all their knowledge?
February 15, 2006What a contrast! The three kings had only a rumor to go by. But it spurred them to set out on a long, hard journey. The scribes, meanwhile, were much better informed, much better versed. They had sat and studied the scriptures for years, like so many dons. But it didn’t make any difference. Who had the more truth? Those who followed a rumor, or those who remained sitting, satisfied with all their knowledge? --"Provocations" by Søren Kierkegaard.
To Love With All that is In Us is Easier to Say than to Do
When one takes God as He is, divine, having the reality of God within him, God sheds light on everything.
February 17, 2006God’s intent for your life is more than 75 years of self-focused living with a bit of religion sprinkled on it for the afterlife. God wants you to live fully alive and He came to the world in the flesh of Jesus Christ to demonstrate this life to the world. You are most satisfied when you allow the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ to direct everything you do.
When one takes God as He is, divine, having the reality of God within him, God sheds light on everything. He will be like one athirst with a real thirst; he cannot help drinking even though he thinks of other things. Wherever he is, with whomsoever he may be, what ever his purpose or thoughts or occupation--the idea of the Drink will not depart as long as the thirst endures; and the greater the thirst the more lively, deep-seated, present, and steady the idea of the Drink will be. Or suppose one loves something with all that is in him, so that nothing else can move him or give pleasure, and he cares for that alone, looking for nothing more; then wherever he is or with whomsoever he may be, whatever he tries or does, that Something he loves will not be extinguished from his mind. He will see it everywhere, and the stronger his love grows for it the more vivid it will be. A person like this never thinks of resting because he is never tired. --Meister Johannes Eckhart, 1260-1327, Meister Eckhart. Trans. R. Blakney.
Hope is an Act of Mutuality
What you see is NOT all there is...
February 19, 2006
Those Little Flashes of Insight
What we grasp at the moment is all we get until it is time for more to be revealed
February 21, 2006Whenever God gives a vision to a Christian, it is as if He puts him in "the shadow of His hand" (Isaiah 49:2). The saint’s duty is to be still and listen. There is a "darkness" that comes from too much light-that is the time to listen. The story of Abram and Hagar in Genesis 16 is an excellent example of listening to so-called good advice during a time of darkness, rather than waiting for God to send the light. When God gives you a vision and darkness follows, wait. God will bring the vision He has given you to reality in your life if you will wait on His timing. Never try to help God fulfill His word. Abram went through thirteen years of silence, but in those years all of his self-sufficiency was destroyed. He grew past the point of relying on his own common sense. Those years of silence were a time of discipline, not a period of God’s displeasure. There is never any need to pretend that your life is filled with joy and confidence; just wait upon God and be grounded in Him (see Isaiah 50:10-11). --Oswald Chambers
Humanity's Immense Spiritual Power
Fix our gaze on the universal realities in order to break down dividing walls
February 23, 2006
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Life is a Magic Vase
It is in the mystic tenderness of the guidance by His sympathy that God gives a love like His own.
February 25, 2006
itzall god
Playing the license plate game
February 27, 2006