Sept. 9, 2015
Me: The Shemita will soon be upon us. Lord, I know the days of bigger trouble are here, around the bend, and I know that all we want is to be in Your will and one, as one, with You. So please help us to do it/be it. I know that You’ve probably “already done everything,” but You have also reminded me of the power of prayer and admonished me to never underestimate it.
So here I am a-prayin, Lord, to know You better, to hear and see You better, to share You better. Please help me do it in practical and miraculous ways – both! You know I long to see people healed and made whole and lives transformed. You know that’s what I’ve always wanted to see and be a part of, Lord. I know that there is no work I can do to earn these answers to prayer.You truly have done all. I know that the “work of the Lord” is to believe You and to believe and act on Your Word. I just don’t do it very well.
You: Stop saying that! It’s not you, who does it, anyway. It is I, in and through you. Just let Me. You let me by believing that I can and will. Anytime you 100% believe that I can do who I Am in your life, you will see what you long for.
the following is the tail end of a lengthy processing of my thoughts after time in the Spirit:
me: Okay, so back to “agreement,” the big theme between You and me. It is highly unlikely that one will find one’s self in agreement with You quite by surprise or accident or…unintentionally. It will not “just happen.” Our pre-You conditioning predisposes us otherwise. It can only happen via acts of our will. This much is quite evident. That is clear. We will not simply wake up one day and find ourselves in agreement with God without some serious intentional decisions…on a momently basis, I will add. This could be off-putting or scary to new believers if not for Your amazing love which wooes us gently into trusting You…as You prove Your faithfulness to us in acts of loving kindness.
Your steadfast love is what has the power to change everything, including our very hearts. Your love is the Great Transforming Power – always has been, always will be! Where would I be, Lord, without knowing You and the power of Your love? I would be another person, altogether, …probably still searching for Truth in this world, but for You who answered my search with Your very Self. I would have experienced ever so much more heartache,I’m sure…due to terrible sabotaging choices…in spite of Your hand always being on me and keeping me generally safe from my self. That was the enemy’s set-up and strategy. And that would have been fulfilled, as in the lives of many of my hippie friends, without the intervention of You, which was actually via David. I am absolutely certain of this. So I should never bemoan unrealized dreams and creative aspirations – even in my thoughts silently…even for a moment.
This returns me to your initial statement today regarding the notion that grumbling is actually synonymous with magnifying the enemy of our souls. When we grumble and grouse, we are lining ourselves up in agreement with the deceiver. What-if-ing the past is useless. But what-if-ing in You, now and in the future, gives place to the application of You to every situation! We can and need to apply You to every situation in our lives – every thought, emotion, word, deed, and response and initiative in every circumstance.
Why begin any interaction or individual project “in the flesh” (on our own, independent of you) and then, midstream, attempt to correct or adjust it into alignment with You…(which may or may not work,) when we can start out in agreement with You at the beginning of all projects and interactions? This is so key and will save us so much time and energy and also spare us the sense of futility which I guess is inevitable when we begin on our own – outside agreement with You. I see the ideal. I can see it. I just do need to act on what I see – on a momently basis.
This is true for all of us. I use me because it’s who I’ve got to practice on and there’s no use sharing with others what I cannot or will not do, myself. And…You want me to share Your realities with others. That’s why I’m doing this.
This typing up of our conversations, however, can loom as somewhat of a chore. Sorry. Lord…I will alter that perception…or You will, if I let You. As with everything, You transform it with Your joy…if we will allow. It is so much simpler than we perceive, and we do really tend to complicate the whole thing by perceiving challenges, (great or small,) as burdensome, heavy loads to carry or obstacles to overcome. Needlessly! This is how the enemy wants us to perceive things. It is how we “weary in well doing.” It wears us out.
I got a reminder today that the adversary cannot read our minds. He can float thoughts and ideas across them but we can choose whether we take them or let them pass by. Point being: He doesn’t mind-read. If we don’t speak negative thoughts we will not agree with or magnify the power of deception in our lives. The thoughts may well float by, but they “have nothing in us…” unless we agree with them…in which case they actually do, by right of our own consent! It is our job to nip them in the bud and refuse to provide a home and environment for them to grow. Somebody (maybe Kenneth Hagin?) once said, “You can’t keep a bird from flying over your head, but you sure can keep it from making a nest on it!”
The adversary remains a law breaker, breaking Your laws. If we are to break laws they should be the ones set up by him, Deception: the temporary ruler of this world. And those would be laws of sin, sickness and death! “For the law of the Spirit,alive in Christ Jesus, has set us free from the law of sin and death.” – Romans 8:2