Archives for September 2014

In which I am Surprised by “Prophetic Words” (from the Glasgow Prophetic Centre at David’s Tent Worship Festival)

People from the Glasgow Prophetic Centre were offering “prophetic words” at David’s Tent: An Adventure in Worship, a 72 hour worship festival I went to in August. I signed up for a 15 minute slot.

I am “prophetic” with a very small p. Prophecy, as Paul writes, is a spiritual gift, a little-understood one, though not one to be lightly dismissed, lest we miss surprising blessings. In my case (small p, remember) I often have an accurate intuitive knowledge of what is going to happen in my own life, or the lives of people I care about. It’s a love-gift: providing a little extra time to prepare for adversity, as well as a certainty and reassurance about astonishing and unlikely things that are going to happen. This “prophetic” knowledge, in my case, allows for a lot less worry and a lot more carefreeness.

However, if I took my small measure of supernatural prophetic gifting as the norm, I would be foolish indeed. There are people with great prophetic gifts. Though I don’t understand exactly how these work, they are, again, love gifts, a way for God to tell people something they would never have guessed on their own. They are words of encouragement, edification, and sometimes, warning.

For instance, Patricia Bootsma of the Toronto Airport Fellowship on a visit to Oxford, saw me, asked me if I had daughters, and said she had a word for my older daughter: Satan had brought things against her, but that she would overcome and become a leader in God’s kingdom. The prophecy filled Zoe with confidence. She hadn’t done well in her mocks, but excelled in her year 12 exams, getting 100% in RE, and an offer from Cambridge University in 2013, (though she reapplied to Oxford University in 2014, and is going there next month).

However, Emma Stark of the Glasgow Prophetic Centre had a prophecy not for Zoe, but for me.

It was the absolutely most startling experience I’ve had in many years of chasing the wild goose of the Holy Spirit. My most astonishing experience of the prophetic.

Emma asked my first name, that is all. She instantly started speaking, “seeing” things, things astonishing in their accuracy.

I turned my iPhone on, and recorded the session: 12 minutes. Here’s my transcription.

“Satan has demanded to sift you for a season, but he didn’t realise that he was actually asking for a promotion because you have been found as someone who can be trusted through the previous season.

And the Lord says, “I am about to promote you like you have never been promoted before. I am about you to lift you up into a place because you have been found as someone who can be trusted through the previous season.

And the Lord does not say this to everybody, but he says it to you. “Daughter, in the testing and in the hard places, you have been found trustworthy. I trust you. I trust you. I trust you.”

It’s time to stop cursing yourself for decisions taken in the past. I forgive you and I let you off the hook. It’s time to let these things go, for I do not view them as you view them.

I do not view you as the Sarah who laughs when the angels come. I speak of you as the Sarah of the New Testament. I speak of you as of my faithful ones, and I speak of you as one of my righteous ones. I speak of you as one of my ones of integrity.

And in the mighty name of Jesus, (with hands on my back) I forcibly extract every toxic dart that was thrown into your back, and that criticised you and criticised your reputation, and all the toxicity that came into your flesh and even brought ill-health and insomnia, I utterly break that in the name of Jesus.

(Interestingly, on all except for a handful nights since then, I have slept soundly.)

(Then, placing hands on head) I speak alignment to your sleep patterns. I speak rest to your night. I speak alertness to your day. And I hear the Spirit of the Lord say, “Daughter, you will not even know yourself for I am coming in the night, and I am coming in the day, and I am re-aligning your cycles and your patterns and the Lord says to you, “Daughter there was a day where there was energy and joy and that day is coming back again. And there was a day when there was joy, and that day is coming back again.” And the Lord says, “There was a day when you rose and s. And you found a hop, skip and jump in your step, and that day is coming back to you.

“Daughter, this season is coming to an end, and it will not be like this. And daughter, you will not even recognise yourself in the coming days.”

And the Spirit says “Oh mighty mother, here I am going to give you spiritual children to steward, for I trust you as a mother to the many.”

* * *

And the Lord says, “I have even anointed your voice to speak, and I have even anointed you as a gifted communicator.

And the Lord says, “There is something that has been stolen and lost, and no platform has opened up to you. But the spirit of the Lord says, “I am now opening up a platform for communication in your life, and you are going to be heard, you are going to be heard, you are going to be heard.

And the Lord says, “For the gift I gave you is true. The gift of communication is right, and the Lord says, “You are a woman of truth and a woman of integrity.”

(I have a stack of certificates and prizes for debating, and had done much public speaking, but not for some years.

Interestingly, out of the blue, I was invited to be interviewed by Maria Rodrigues on Premier Radio’s Woman to Woman Show on the 18^th Thursday, 20 days later. Listen here. Starts at 34.20).

* * *

(Then, just as when you are listening to God in writing, you have a first draft, and then get closer and hotter, she suddenly “saw” that I was a writer. Amazing.

She was listening to God, hearing, hearing accurately, speaking what she sensed God saying. An incredible experience to listen to. I imagine it’s as the prophets of old heard and wrote.)

So she continued, even more astonishingly,

“Daughter, I am touching your hands, for in this season, I have called you to write. I am going to bless your writing. I see you up, hidden away, and the Lord says you need to take some time to hide away and write for there is an anointing on you not just for communication that is spoken, but for communication that is written.

And the Lord says that he wants you to focus on your diary, because it needs shaking up. And there are some things that need to fall out of your diary, and there are some things that need to fall into your dairy, and the Lord says that one of the things that needs to fall into your diary is writing time and creative space. And there is a push on your diary and the Lord is being very clear with you: you are too busy; there is too much.

And the Lord says, “What you were anointed to do, communication, is being squeezed and squeezed and squeezed, and that’s why you feel in this permanent state of deep frustration. And the Lord says, “I want to take away that frustration that you have hidden deep within you, and the Lord says, ‘Bring your diary to me, and I am going to show you what you need to cut out and what you need to put in.’ There is a great permission from heaven to actually say “No.” I need to fulfil the call of God on my life, and not to plug every gap.”

And so I want you to hear from your heavenly father that He is changing the season and giving you the space to say “Actually this is important, and this is not important.”

Then Emma said, “I am going to put my hands on your hands. I take off writer’s block right now, a stuckness in the gift.

And I bless a new level of creativity in you.

And I am watching angels (if you are okay with that) open the top of your head, and they are just taking out fluff. It looks like fluff! It looks like stuck fluff in your head, wooliness, confusedness, and the Lord is releasing angels to pour glory into your brain.

And the Lord says, “No longer are you going to be in a season of confused thinking. No longer are you going to be in season of writer’s block. No longer are you going to be in a season where you don’t know how to take decisions. But the Lord says, “there was a day when you were able to think fast and take decisions and that the Lord says, “I am going to give you back the ability for fast-paced decision making and for creative thoughts to flow again.”

(I was in tears at the end of all this. Wouldn’t you be?

The moment she said “There are some things that need to fall out of your diary I knew what she meant.” I was going to a Christian activity on a weekday morning, which absorbed more than three hours of my time, but did not inspire or energize me, and, in fact, left me mentally, physically and spiritually and emotionally drained. Increasingly, my heart sunk at the thought of going. A fundamental rule of simplifying your life and managing time well is: Get out of things you dread. However, like many people who’ve moved a lot, I do not easily consider changing–homes, cities, careers, churches or small groups, but in a flash, as she spoke, I felt God release me to step out of that group, to focus on writing, and to trust him to fill the void with something far better of his choosing.

In the Old Testament God spoke through angels, asses–and prophets too. I am so glad he still does so today).

Emma continued, “And I am watching as anointing pours into your head a new colour come all over your body. And the Lord says, “I am even going to change what colours you like, and I am going to add vibrancy. I feel like colours have become stuck, even creatively. It’s actually time for a redecorating of your house because your house has got tired.” And the Lord says, “I am going to enable you financially to start to redecorate the house because the house needs it, and you need it, and more importantly, the colours that God wants to paint around about you in this season, and inside you, are completely different to what they were in the last season, because different colours mean different anointings.”

Emma was accompanied by Leah from Marketplace ministries, who said, “He’s giving you a red rose, and he’s inviting you to dance.” I see healing in deep places of your heart. All the things that are rising up for you, his hand is in that. He just wants you to hand them to him, and to invite him into those things, and really give him your heart over those matters.

He’s going to release dreams of the night and waking visions. He’s releasing a refreshing of your hopes and dreams, the desires of your heart. Your lost hopes and dreams that have been stolen from you, he is restoring those for you, he is bringing them back. So begin to notice and have hope. I break disappointment and despondency off you, and I release a new hope for you, because he’s coming with promises.

I saw a lot of flowers, a garden, with so much nurture and nourishment coming from you.”

And how great the love the Father has for us that he should provide such a specific and loving intervention through a stranger, rescuing me from a time-consuming and draining commitment that I wasn’t enjoying but hadn’t considered leaving.

That he should reassure me about my writing, and anoint me through a stranger, whom I did not even mention my writing to.

Oh how he loves me.
Love is a hurricane
I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight
Of his wind and mercy!

* * *

I have heard about Sozo Healing Ministry from Bill Johnson’s Bethel Church in Redding California, and since David’s Tent was offering 90 minutes Sozo slots, Roy and I signed up.

I brought up three worries, then sat in silence with the two prayer ministers to listen to God speak about them. God speaks through words or images. In this case, interestingly for someone as verbal as I am, He spoke in images.

I asked prayer about a memoir that is taking rather long to finish, and saw an image of snowy-covered mountains. I remembered the words from Psalm 121, “I lift up my eyes to the mountains/where does my help come from? /My help comes from the Lord,/ The Maker of heaven and earth.”

There is help in writing it, I remembered again, from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.

I asked for prayer for my battle with health. I have lost about 24 pounds over the last two years, but still use food as a crutch—when I find it hard to settle down to writing, when stressed, tired, bored, despondent, discouraged (though far less than I used to).

I had a powerful image of living water flowing, always flowing. There is always grace to help me in my time of need. I just need to avail myself of it, go to the waterfall of grace, and ask God for help rather than turn to chocolate for the quick blood sugar boost that will make me more resilient to long hours of work, or the sadnesses of life.

(But, chocolate is pretty amazing, let it be said.)

Interestingly, I’ve asked for prayer for both these things here and here. And I have progressed in each, though am not yet “victorious.” Sometimes that is how change happens: the “victorious limp” in Brennan Manning’s phrase.

* * *

David’s Tent was a three day worship festival. In Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster suggests choosing prayer as a recreational activity. And when I need refreshment, and I am alone, or the rest of the family is busy, I often do.

At David’s Tent, worship was a recreational activity. And perhaps it is the purest recreation there is, the purest self-forgetfulness, forgetting oneself in worshipping God, three days spent worshipping God, an alabaster jar of precious time and energy and potential income smashed on Jesus’ feet. And the tent was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

* * *

There were thousands of young people worshipping God. It bodes well for the future of Britain.

The musicians were largely from America; many of the audience came from Scandinavia and Germany, Holland but mainly from the United Kingdom, England, Wales and Scotland.

Several new expressions of Christianity have spread out from England—Anglicanism, of course, Presbyterianism, Methodism, the Baptists, the Quakers, you name it.

Britain is uniquely placed for the re-evangelisation of the world. Her former colonies, America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and those in Asia and Africa view her with affection. And Europe views the hobbits from Britain with bemused affection.

Perhaps a new wave of revival will spread out again from these shores, a new wave of love, surrender, worship, and an experience of the fullness of the Spirit.

What is revival? A massive renewed love for God and enjoyment of his presence, a commitment to him that thousands experience in common.

I hear the sounds of distant thunder. I hear the sounds of coming rain. I hear revival blowing in the wind. I smell it.

Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus!

When Christians Behave Badly: Seedlings and Saplings in God’s Kingdom

By Anita Mathias

A friend of mine had once been deeply humiliated by a fellow Christian, a soulful worship leader. She told me the story, then burst into tears, saying, “I don’t even know if she’s a Christian. I cannot bear to watch her lead worship.” My friend left that church.

I often think that when I am shockingly treated by another Christian: “I don’t even know if they are Christians. Perhaps they were Christians. Perhaps they are living on fumes.” And sometimes that is the safest assumption—that the person was a Christian, and has now settled for church position, or power, or prominence, or, perhaps, in Jesus’ language “the cares and worries of the world and the delight in riches” have choked the fragile, beautiful seed of new life in them.

Or sometimes, when I encounter decidedly non-Christian behaviour in Christians, I think of circles of discipleship. Jesus had an innermost circle of people he chose for purity of heart, passion, strength of character: Peter, James and John. Then there were the twelve, the seventy-two, the five hundred, the five thousand plus women and children for whom he multiplied the loaves and fishes; the crowds who followed him on Palm Sunday. All following Jesus, but with varying levels of intensity and commitment. Perhaps the people whose behaviour is unlike Jesus’s have strayed to an outer circle of discipleship, as I myself sometimes do. That’s one way of looking at it!

* * *

In Matthew 13, Jesus talks about the mysterious Kingdom of Heaven, which is here, right now, in which it is possible to live, today, in full communion with the Father, walking step by step with the Son, and experiencing the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus’ parable of the mustard seed provides another way of understanding Christians who behave badly. The Kingdom of God in the micro-world of our lives, and the macro-world of the world is “like a mustard tree, which though is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.”

And so it is with each individual Christian—we are seedlings and saplings in the Kingdom before we become mighty trees.

Perhaps the Christians whose behaviour puzzles me (as undoubtedly mine sometimes puzzles others) are still saplings, new or distracted in the ways of following Christ. Perhaps the Lord will send them water and sun and good soil, and they will one day grow so astoundingly that what they become bears no resemblance to what they were. And perhaps Jesus shall do the same for me!

* * *

Judging others is a soul-sapping, soul-stunting distraction. I know this because I so often have to rein in and retrieve my falcon -thoughts when they go critically swooping around someone else.

Jesus gives us a way to deal with our natural tendencies to judge. When we find ourselves judging others, we are to immediately check to see if we are guilty of the very same thing that we are judging our brother for, or a closely related thing. For if Freud was right, the traits we most hate in others are those we secretly see and suppress within ourselves.

So Jesus suggests that when we see the bossy Christian, the manipulative Christian, or the over-ambitious Christian, instead of gnashing our teeth at them, we should examine our own souls, remember the times we have used the short cuts of manipulation rather than the slow road of prayer. Have sought the drug of fame or success instead of the new wine of Jesus. And so instead of descending into the bottomless black hole of judgement, we grow, we change! Our judgement of our brother proves a spur for us to grow ourselves.

We pray for our enemies, or those who irritate us. We do dare not assume that they are not in the Kingdom at all. Rather we realise that they may be just saplings in the kingdom as we ourselves might well be in the eternal eyes of him who judges wisely, and we pray that, one day, because of the sunshine of grace, both they and we will become mighty trees, and the birds of the air will come and nest in all our branches.

Oh, Let it All End in Worship

By Anita Mathias

Jacob’s Dream by William Blake

And Jacob worshipped as he leaned on the top of his staff (Gen. 47:31).

And so it ends, Jacob’s long busy life of intrigue and wrestling.

Ever has he schemed, manipulated and deceived to get the blessings which God intended to give him even before he was born (Gen 25:23).

And his intrigues backfire–disastrously. Quite possibly, they slow down the destiny God had always intended for him. Again and again–as a consequence of his deceitfulness, and his attempts to look after himself–he’s on the road, in flight from Esau, from Laban, from Esau again.

Exploiting Esau’s desperate hunger, he demands his inheritance in exchange for a bowl of lentils. Esau now hates him. Exploiting his blind father, he pretends to be Esau, stealing his blessing. Now Esau’s resolved to murder him and Jacob’s on the road (Gen. 27:41). Never again will he see the mother who adored him.

He flees to a father-in-law fully as deceitful as he was himself. Works seven years to be given a near-sighted bride he never wanted. Has his wages changed seven times. Still, he attempts to look after himself, and does get the better of Laban with his selective breeding. And consequently has to flee again by night. His beloved Rebecca steals her father’s household Gods without Jacob’s knowledge, and dies, falling victim to his rashly invoked curse (Gen 31:32).

As he had deceived his old father, his sons deceive him, breaking his heart with their fabricated account of Joseph’s death. He lives twenty years without his favourite, gifted son. He deceived and was deceived by his three generations of his family. Deceit warps one’s character; the deceivers of the world then practice their evil arts on you without compunction.

On the night before his dreaded meeting with Esau, Jacob wrestles in the darkness with a man by the Jabbok River, who unable to overpower him, casually disables him. Sensing the divine, Jacob declares, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

He is blessed.

After that crippling encounter, after he learned his limits, after he sees God, Jacob becomes passive. He gives up his trickiness and scheming, and comes to the end of his life with no more intrigues, no more wrestling. He is now a jellyfish in the stream of God’s will, and God, in painful contorted ways, positions his family smack-dab in the stream of salvation history. Joseph’s son will save his family from famine, will help them become a multitudinous people, and they will return to Canaan with the wealth of the Egyptians.

* * *

And that long life of wrestling with God and man, all ends well after all. It all ends in worship.

“And Jacob worshipped as he leaned on the top of his staff.”

It ended well because of the mercy of God.

Because what Jacob wanted more than anything was God’s blessing.

Because he had eyes to see the thin veil between the worlds, the ladder between heaven and earth with angels ascending and descending on it. The angels were there all along. It took quiet and spiritual eyes to see them.

Because he had eyes to see that man in the darkness was God. God was there in the darkness for anyone to see; Jacob had the holy night vision to see him.

Because realising that the most precious in life was God’s blessing, he refused to let God go unless he was blessed, even if the cost of that blessing was a limp, a somatic memory of that divine encounter.

God blessed him because Jacob asked him to, because Jacob demanded that he did so, because Jacob would settle for nothing less than God’s blessing, because he physically refused to let him go until he blessed him. As God would have blessed anyone who pursued him with the intensity that Jacob did.

And so it all ends in blessing. It all ends in worship.

* * *

The irony in Joseph’s story is that God had always intended to bless him. And if he had waited for God, not taking advantage of Esau, not deceiving Isaac, not seizing an advantage over Laban, God would have still blessed him. Almost certainly sooner.

Because God sovereignly chose Jacob seeing in him the toughness, the pertinacity, the God-hunger to be a father of our faith.

He had the character of a man of destiny, a man God could use. Eager, hard-working, imaginative, enterprising, thinking out of the box, with eyes to see the spiritual world, to see angels and God himself as only the seers do.

God honoured Jacob’s numinous sense of God’s sovereignty, his sense that what was really important in life was that one operate under God’s blessing.

* * *

Oh may it be so for me at the end, after all the excitement and all the grief; the things I succeeded at and the things I failed at; the things I am proud of and the things I cringe at; the relationships which have endured and the relationships which have crumbled; the times I refused to speak to God and the times I spoke to him all the time; when the evening comes and the sun goes down, may I like Jacob, lean on my staff and worship.

Yes, let it all end like this, in worship: I worship you. I worship you because you made me. I worship you because you are infinite, and I love to lose myself in you. I worship you because you are the sea into which I run and sink, tonight and every night, and there I shall find peace, a drop lost in your sea.

Oh at the day’s end, at my life’s end, let it all return to singing

Let it all return to worship.

Whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me
Let me be singing when the evening comes

Let me be singing when the evening comes

By Anita Mathias

My daughters, Zoe and Irene, returned from a visit to my mother in India moved and struck by a 91 year old childless widow called Jenny.

Jenny lived alone, in a tiny house that a landlord had carved off from his own house. One “room” was a corridor. Her tiny bedroom leaked and the landlord would not fix the roof, so she slept in the minuscule living room.

She owned little, had no income, and meagre savings, but was cheerful and happy. “When I wake up in the morning, I thank Jesus for everything.” “I read my Bible all the time.” She was upbeat and positive, singing them a cheerful song about counting blessings in her quavery old voice. With very little money, a tiny leaky house, and no family. My goodness!

They took her a little box with five Thornton’s chocolates. In return, she gave them five bars of chocolate, and a tiffin of chicken curry she had prepared, keeping only a wing for herself. The next day, out of her generosity, she sent pork curry. Overflowing generosity; overflowing joy. There is a link.

* * *
One of my life’s epiphanic experiences was visiting the Bible teacher Dick Woodward who was paralysed from the neck down and in pain, but ebullient, wise and cheerful. What is inside is everything, I realized. Our attitude is everything. The spiritual life is everything. All the wealth and success in the world cannot give us happiness. The spiritual life, on the other hand, is like magic eyes which bathe everything in rainbows and gold dust.

I have a slight advantage when it comes to happiness stakes, because I am naturally cheerful and high-spirited. “Happy” if you like. Current psychological research suggests a “set-point” for happiness–life events move us a few points up or down, but it’s basically set by our inherited biology.

However, being cheerful and positive is also learned behaviour, a facet of character, and of paramount importance to develop as one ages.

Andrew Solomon in his writing on depression (Noonday Demon) suggests that, as we age, the sheath of myelin around our nerves wears away. Anyone who lives long enough will eventually become clinically depressed (he speculates).

What’s our best defence against becoming a crabby, ungrateful, tiresome, negative old person?

Practising. Practising cheerfulness. Practising gratitude.

Positive psychologist Martin Seligman posits that whose who record the “three blessings” of their day find themselves 25% percent happier in 1-3 months.

Wow!

Thou that has given so much to me,

Give one thing more a grateful heart

Not thankful, when it pleaseth me;

As if thy blessings had spare days:

But such a heart,

Whose pulse may be Thy praise. (George Herbert, “The Temple”).

That is one of my frequent prayers: Give me a grateful heart. For all the blessings, all the wealth, all the success in the world is of no benefit to us if we do not have a singing heart, thankful for the goodness of the world pouring itself into our very small hands.

Oh, let me be singing when the evening comes!

Image Credit

17255: Numbering my Days to Learn Wisdom

By Anita Mathias

Joash shooting the arrow of deliverance. William Dyce

Last week, during a 72 hour worship festival, I found myself thinking of a dominant woman in my life, who apparently delighted in blocking my ideas. Off and on, I mentally composed apparently innocuous emails to her, sardonic and biting in a veiled way, emails I would “accidentally” CC to everyone in the email chain. Completely accidentally, you understand!Yes, in the middle of beautiful soulful worship that thought crossed my mind.We are made of mud and the breath of God, we are told in Genesis. That is the only way to understand us humans.

* * *

And the image I kept “seeing” was of me standing with a great golden bow and arrow, pulling back the bow, the arrow poised at the bow-string, about to shoot my arrow at that uber-annoying woman.

But no, I would not.

I thought of where that image might have come from. The gift of words can be used for a livelihood, as Ishamel kept himself and Hagar alive in the desert with his bow and arrow. It can protect oneself or one’s family, as Elisha instructed the naïve King Jehoash to shoot his arrows, declaring as he did so, “The Lord’s arrow of victory, the arrow of victory over Aram!”

Or we can waste our arrows on sniping, conflict and negativity.

* * *

We are finite beings. But we find it hard to remember that our time is limited, our energy is limited, and our abilities are limited. We continually believe we can squeeze in one more thing, say one more “yes.”

Then suddenly in middle age, these limitations of energy become very real to us, and realize that we are in the land of trade-offs. If we do A, we will not get to do B: we realize this through bitter experience. We have to choose carefully!

We have a finite number of arrows. Spending our energy in petty hostility and arguments and conflict, whether online, or in real life, means we will have less time and energy to do what we really want to do, the one thing we’ve been put on earth to do with our one wild and precious life.

A limited number of arrows, a limited number of hours. I come from a line of long-lived women on both sides of the family. My grandmother Josephine Mathias died at 98. I remember visiting her mother, my great-grandmother Julianna Lobo who died at 102. My mother’s grandmother, Alice Coelho, also lived to be 100.

If I live to the average age of my grandmothers and great-grandmothers—and I have better medical care, a more careful diet, more exercise, but far more self-imposed stress—I might live for another 17255 days. A lot, but not infinite.

Teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom, the Psalmist cried.

* * *

I noticed something else. Each time I thought of writing my silly snarky little email, all peace left my heart, I felt out of alignment with the worship around me. When I decided to send a tactful non-distressing email, peace and joy returned and I could worship. And then the naughty writer in me slyly suggested yet another sardonic wisecrack, and the white dog and the black dog wrestled.

I thought of an overstatement quoted in John Arnott’s excellent book, Grace and Forgiveness.

“Every negative thing and thought is always of the Enemy, and every positive, life-giving, up-lifting thought is always of the Holy Spirit.

“Settle this issue in your heart. The Holy Spirit is always positive, and Satan is always negative.”

* * *

How will I spend my limited arrows, my limited hours?

I don’t want to waste any of them in conflict, hostility or shooting down enemies, instead of leaving God to deal with them, or (sadly!) to allow them to remain in my life for my growth in strength, patience and wisdom?

I decided. I would send no foolish emails, none at all.

I want to steward my time and energy wisely, using my arrows to open up deep life-giving wells of beauty, wisdom, peace, and joy for myself and for other people. To create something beautiful.

* * *

I no longer live, but Christ lives in me (Gal 2:20). In my early years as a Christian, that statement mystified me. It seemed extreme and theoretical.

I now think it’s a choice. We choose to be aligned with Jesus, we choose to live and move with his grace that so powerfully works in us. When it’s difficult—in diet, or exercise, or writing, or relationships–we rely on his grace to help us, step by step, relying on his benevolent “possession”. And if the very thought of doing something makes us lose our sense of peace and joy, we do not do it.

We choose the positive, and not the negative. We number our days that we might apply our hearts unto wisdom.