A Question Asked.

A question was asked of me once and this was it.

How come when someone speaks for God or is representing Gods words I just know that it is anointed, I literally get goose bumps as the words are spoken. Yet when someone else speaks in the same way another time I get nothing, only a sense of enduring this until they’re done.

Why is this?

When the Lord speaks through someone it may only be applicable to only one person or a specific group, He is speaking through someone to someone that doesn’t have the ears to hear God directly. He doesn’t necessarily talk to everyone all the time with the same message at the same time. The messages through some are meant for you to hear or understand or maybe just to get you to think or question. I know you’ve had the goose bumps with others speaking so if it doesn’t happen don’t worry unnecessarily that you don’t get that ‘rush’ from the word through others. Perhaps the message is meant for someone else right then. And He has deemed unnecessary that it be heard by you. It is unfortunate that so many get nothing from anyone at any time. Count your blessings that you do hear the Word when you need to hear the Word.  

IMAGE

Seeing a great dark forest as the sun is setting. It’s getting darker and darker as the night moves on. I can no longer see anything other than the stars in the sky and the occasional starlight reflected off of various bodies of water scattered throughout the darkness.

When I begin to think that there is nothing out there I begin to see the occasional flicker of an orange light deep within the darkness of the woods. Moving closer to this flickering light I begin to discern that this is the light of a small fire. Moving closer still I can see that there are three people sitting by this fire in the dark.

I find myself moving into a small clearing now with the fire between myself and the others. Being this close I recognize two of the people as my Cherie and her friend Lana. Between them is a man and he has his arms around each of them, It’s obvious that he is a good friend of theirs but I’m not sure that I recognize him. The three of them are in deep conversation with each other and don’t realize that I am there, on the other side of the fire, watching them.

            The conversation stops for a while and the man in the middle looks up over the fire and directly into my eyes. In that instant I recognize Him and He smiles at me. He speaks to me directly and says quietly,

“These two are my favorites now, and I love them”

When He speaks these words He hugs them tightly and kisses each on the forehead. When this is done He disappears into the night. Leaving myself and them with a peace and calm, deep in the dark forest. With only the stars shining above and the fire crackling below.

Picture This.

            Each of us is treading water in a river, each in an space that moves with the different currents, some fast some slow and maybe some even just spinning around in the same spot caught in an eddy. The waters in which we find ourselves are the trials and tribulations in which we all seem to become stuck in from time to time in our lives, the demons that we find ourselves facing every day. We fight to keep our heads above the waters of our everyday lives. We are being pushed along by these different currents having to deal with our different problems at different times.

            But, in dealing with all this stuff all the time we are unknowingly gaining strengths and knowledge that up till now we haven’t had or needed before. Perhaps some gaining enough to be able to help others that might flow into the current that is life. Helping others that may be having the same or similar struggles but as yet haven’t gained sufficient strength or stamina to survive. In this river called life.

            In keeping our heads above the water we are able to and should be keeping our eyes focused on God above, listening to Him as He tries to direct us to the final destination, the place He wants or needs us to go.

            Perhaps just coming to shore might be the destination of some but others may be following the river right to the end.

            Only God knows, only He can see the river right to its end. Only He has the ability and knowledge to understand fully and decide where or when this journey for each of us will end, or perhaps even to begin another.

            It is only when we make the decision to stop treading the water, when we give up the fight for survival that we can lose sight of God and drown in life. Losing sight of God is death. The end of everything and everybody. We must tread the water to survive and in doing so we become strong enough to fight those currents that push us and pull us where we might not want to go. Strong enough to fight and live.

            With this acquired strength we will grow both as individuals and as a group and God will lead us into shallower waters where we can beat the currents and overcome.

            We can finally come ashore with our families and friends, up out of the waters of trouble, coming ashore to where Jesus is waiting with a towel and a hug. Waiting for us to begin the new life with Him, a new life out of the water.   

God Sounds

God sounds like

spontaneous thoughts

that light upon my mind.

HAND DRUMMING

Playing a drumset

is like

making a really good

pencil sketch

of a picture.

Hand drumming

is like

doing that same picture

in colour.

Both pictures are

of the same thing

but seen from

different viewpoints.

Some nights

Some nights

I feel as though

there are ghosts

out there.

Not just of people

who have died,

but of the people

that we used to be.

And maybe

even the people

that we might have been.

A CONVERSATION BETWEEN ME AND HE

ME:      Mornin’ God.

HE:       Hows be you this day eh?

ME:      I’s be fine, hows bout you?

HE:       Oh, fair to middlin, should be better as the day goes on.

ME:      Ya, I know what ya mean.

HE:       You know that I’ll always be around for whatever or whenever.

ME:      Ya I know, but sometimes I forget. My mind (and body) just ain’t what it used to be.   I seem to become more easily distracted as I get older, at least I think I do when I can remember.

HE:       Ya, me too. It seems that there is so much more going on these days, too much to really focus on. But you know it’s a lot easier if you can just learn to focus. I mean really focus.

ME:      Focus? How? Where?

HE:       Learn to focus on what’s really important, and focus where it’s really important. As I told someone one time, don’t sweat the details I’ll take care of those. You can look at the big picture and enjoy it.

ME:        But what’s really important, most of the time just about everything seems to be really important. I just can’t deal with it all, all the time. It’s so overwhelming most of the time. I feel like crawling into a hole and hiding a lot of the time.

HE:       If you listen to me you wouldn’t have this problem. You know what to do because you’ve been shown this. You should know what to do because you’ve been told this. Many, many times. You see the effect that good focus has when it’s utilized. If you focus on what you have been taught by me through others, by me directly, and through your basic common sense (that I gave you by the way) it should be so obvious. A real no-brainer.

You’ve been taught that your focus shouldn’t be in the worldly realm but on the spiritual realm, focus on that and you’ll be focused on me. If you focus on me then the rest will be taken care of by yours truly.

Listen to me. Learn from me. Watch me and emulate me. The best thing in the world right now would be for you to be as much like me as possible. In being like me the problem of focus is non-existent, null and void. Problems as you think of them now become problems as I think of them now, non-entities.

            Simple right?

ME:      It sounds simple when you talk about it but…………….

HE:       Well you keep trying and I’ll keep teaching and between the two of us it will work out. I’m absolutely positive that it will.

Every work of art is an act of faith,

or we wouldn’t bother to do it.

It’s a message in a bottle,

a shout in the dark.

It’s saying,

I’m here and I believe that you are somewhere

 and that you will answer if necessary,

across time, across space, across lives.

though not necessarily in my lifetime.

HERE"S A WEIRD THOUGHT

            What if everyone only has just so many words inside them? A finite quantity of words, spoken or written. Sooner or later you would have to run out of words wouldn’t you? And you wouldn’t know when it was going to happen. You wouldn’t know because each one of us would have a different allotment, it would be different for each one of us, like the way hair colour varies or fingerprint variations. I could be in the middle of a story, and run out of words to use and it would never be finished. I could be using up the words I need for that story by writing this paragraph or even this last sentence. Then what would I do?