Month: October 2017

Posted on

Peace Plays the Umpire

Lord, what is the watchword for today?

The watchword for today is Peace–the kind of peace that plays umpire over your thoughts, calling fair or foul, in or out of bounds. My Peace outruns even your best thinking and your deepest understanding. When you come to the limit of all you know or understand, when nothing “makes sense,” that is when you need My Peace the most, and that is where you will find My Peace waiting.

Out of bounds thoughts and “foul moods” go hand-in-hand. I Am talking about thoughts like envy or resentment, thoughts that label others in any way less-than-you, or that label you as less-than-them, or–and this is very important for you now–thoughts that whisper you must do this alone. No, you have a team of helpers and Me as both Coach and Umpire.

But life has thrown a curveball, I hear you say.

Are you going to hurl your bat in frustration and take a chance on hurting someone else, or are you going to come to Me for some extra, private, one-on-one batting practice? You can hit this curveball. You can hit it out of the park. You can run the bases and you can drive others home, Home, on the strength of your swing. Don’t walk away from the batter’s box. Let Me show you how to handle life’s curveballs so that your peace, My Peace in you, stays intact and all your swinging for the fences bears much fruit.

It doesn’t seem fair, this particular pitch.

I know you are afraid of grounding out, of losing everything you cherish most. What happens with a game-winning run? The whole stadium cheers! All of Heaven rejoices. Let this turn into a victory lap.

How do I do that?

This is how. Your set-apart times with Me will give you everything you need. You’ve trusted Me for so much; trust Me in this.

Posted on

Grace

What is Your watchword for today?  

 

We haven’t talked much lately about Grace, but it is the perfect word for you right now. Grace is My answer when humanity—when you—hang your head and say, I don’t deserve…or, I’m not worthy…or, not enough, not good enough. Grace proclaims you worthy. Grace proclaims you as Mine, and that is all that matters.

You can be an heir in three ways—you can be born into, you can be adopted into, and you can marry into. All three are true in some ways with humanity and Me, the Creator-God. I made you, I chose you, I love you. A maker can put goods out as “seconds” or “as is” and that implies a rejection, as less-than. So I Am Maker, and I Am also Proclaimer and I Am also the One Who Loves You. You can make something and still not love it. But I love and choose that which I have made. And I choose for good and plentiful purposes.

Every time you choose joy, you are choosing My will for you. Every time you choose abundance for yourself and for others, you are choosing My will for you. Every time you choose health, wealth, opportunity, creativity, meaningful and joyous work, meaningful and joyous relationships, you are choosing My will for you.

The model of slavery in Egypt, tied to taskmasters and brutal mind-numbing labor is not My will for any of My children. I have designed each one of you with innate loves and gifts so everything runs smoothly. There are born teachers and born truck-drivers. There are born engineers and scientists, and born bakers and accountants.

There is always more to discover—even within you. For today, your watchword is Grace.

Posted on

Seeking Direction

Lord, I feel like Thomas. Where are we going? I sense You laughing.

First, I will never outrun you. When Time needs to stop so you can catch up—it will. When birds—or animals—or the Light—need to wait for you, they will. I want you to cloak yourself once again in My Love for you—the love that will never leave you, never abandon you. The Love that says, I am, I AM, so proud of you. The Love that says, well-done. The Love that says, here, let Me take that—of your fear, of your grief, of your pain. The Love that lifts your burden—your burden to succeed, to provide for yourself—and replaces that burden with a light-hearted joy that flows from My abundance, a confidence that lets you relax and enjoy and share freely without the burden of worry over every decision, every purchase, every thought. I just want you to flow. I want “Go For It” to be a new mantra.

I Am Alpha, Omega. I Am the Four Directions. I Am all these things; Love, and Joy, and Peace. King and Protector and Shield. Mighty and Gentle as soft rain. And so, in your own way, are you. Do you long for the Kingdom? Create it. Photograph it, paint it, write it, sing it, call it forth. Speak to the North and the South, the East and the West. Call, and I, Who Am All These Things, will come to you.

Posted on

Fear of the Future

Lord, I feel like Kingsley. Sometimes he is content to play or chew, sometimes to nap or cuddle, but the last couple of days he is so wiggly, so squirmy, as if he can’t settle or get comfortable. I am picturing myself exactly like that—arms and legs flailing, wanting down, wanting to run. For him, this is natural and healthy; he is growing and running towards his future. Me, I feel as if I am trying to run away from it and it is looming larger and scarier every day.

Do you think I have changed? Do you think I no longer Am already in your future, preparing you, preparing your life for the days ahead? Do you think the future is some country where I Am not present, not involved, not caring about and for you?

Some people struggle with anger or pride or selfishness. You struggle with fear and worry. These are your challenges. You have made much progress in trust and faith, but let Me ask you a question. I already know the answer, but I want you to hear yourself say it: do you think I Am no longer good? No longer Love? No longer Peace, or Joy? Do you think hope is foolish and gratitude is empty? Do you think all I have said, all I have done, is a lie—or am I a truth-teller still?

Oh Lord, I know You are all those things—and more. I know You are good and kind and that Love and Peace and Joy are not only Your gifts but also Your very nature.

But…? You are thinking a But…

But we get thrown curve balls. You have said You are not testing us, or not just for testing’s sake. You have said You don’t cause natural disasters—or, I am paraphrasing now—human health ones either. So if these challenges are not You, then what are they? How can I understand them?

Do you remember what I said the other day about a clockmaker, making and winding a clock?

Yes.

Now I want you to imagine the clockmaker doing something that in your limited viewpoint seems pointless, even unacceptable. I want you to picture the clockmaker holding in his hands a clock that no longer keeps time, that constantly stops and starts. Picture that clock scratched and scarred, with vestiges of its earlier beauty marked by years of use, faithfully ticking away, but no longer able to function anywhere near its peak performance. Now picture the clockmaker carefully disassembling the clock, the very clock he himself made. I want you to imagine the clockmaker taking all these parts and laying them out, cleaning and polishing them, repairing where needed, and adding new parts to the pile. Now watch as the clockmaker assembles a new, even more beautiful and intricate instrument that doesn’t need winding and that keeps perfect rhythm for eternity. Who wouldn’t want that? Who wouldn’t want to be that? You see clues in nature even now. Why do you think you are noticing all the butterflies this season? Why do you think you got to watch the caterpillars and chrysalis formation? These were all meant as gifts to encourage you, to give you hope. What do you do with Kingsley when he seems frantic?

I hold him close so he can hear or feel my heartbeat.

And?

And he calms down, almost immediately.

Let Me hold you close. Listen to My Heartbeat. Remember Who I Am. Remember Whose you are. And know this: every human clock you watch unwinding is being readied for a limitless life of perfect rhythm, perfectly balanced, perfectly in tune, perfectly aligned. Do you—can you—believe for this?

Yes, Lord, I can.

Then let this strengthen, encourage and comfort you. If you can calm your new puppy, why can’t you let Me calm you? And don’t run away from your future. I still have much to give you, much to show you, much to share with you. And you have much to share with others. Be at Peace, Little One. Sleep easier tonight. I Am with you, and with everyone you love. I will never leave you, nor will I leave them. So, you rest in My care and let Me care for your loved ones.

Posted on

Gentleness

Lord, the theme or challenge right now seems to be health. I need to remember to be gentle with myself in my thinking. I need energy.

Your secret right now really isn’t Power. You think it is–you think you have to rev your engine and power through. That will actually make you feel worse, physically–and that will make you feel worse emotionally. Your secret today is to coast. Drift. Soak. This is a gentle day–start by being gentle with yourself. Eat gentle-to-digest foods. Treat yourself gently and easily. Catch your breath. Your calm is what attracts most people to you. You have an opportunity to model that calm now.

Posted on

Dancing Butterflies

Lord, I knew this new puppy would be exhausting. Thank You, by the way, for the extra hours of sleep last night. I am so grateful for some rest. What I did not anticipate and I don’t know how to handle is that the schedule is making it much harder to have my time in the morning with You. The past few days it has been impossible. Right now it is nearly 6 pm and I am snatching minutes before supper to sit, and think, and talk to You, and feel.

And what do you feel?

Honestly, it wasn’t a bad day. But You said to keep connected to You, and how am I supposed to do that, when I don’t have a regular, concentrated time to journal and to listen?

What did you do this afternoon?

Ran the errands I needed to run. Took Pete to the bank, we stopped at Yellowhouse, came home, put the puppy pen together outside.

Besides all that?

I took a few minutes and photographed the monarch butterflies on my lantana bush.

You noticed them. And you took some time to watch them and then to photograph them.

Yes.

Do you remember the verse that says, whatever you do for the least of these, you do for Me?

Yes, of course.

You treat yourself in your own thinking as less than the least of these. You contributed charitably, you helped your friend get his car, you finished up the long refi at the bank, you did business tasks at home before that and after that…and in the middle of all that, you gave your attention to honor these winged flights of beauty–and you felt guilty for those few minutes. Didn’t you? Isn’t that why you laid your camera down and moved on to another task? All those errands and chores you did to help anyone else, they count for something in your thinking, in your assessment of your day. But taking time to count butterflies? Not so much. Yet those few minutes were actually minutes of serenity and calm for you. And although you were not uttering prayers, you were actually praying the whole time. You were living moments in deliberate honor and gratitude and you were noticing the beauty of your world.

Lord, it was amazing! There were monarchs and painted ladies and I don’t know who all, on that one bush!

There is more than one way to set a bush ablaze. With Moses I chose fire. Today with you, I chose wings the color of flame. Drink beauty like water. That is one more way to stay connected to all that is, and to Me, as the Source and Creator of all that is. I Am glad you enjoyed the dance of the butterflies. You could not hear them, but angels were making the music they could hear and all to refresh you. Now, let me ask you one more question. How do you feel right now?

Relaxed. Refreshed. Grateful. And somehow leaning on You. And You are smiling.

Yes, yes I Am.

Posted on

Longing

Lord, recently I had this aha moment. I was thinking how I always come back to art journaling or vision journaling about travel. And I realized I have been beating myself up about that. The aha came when I thought, what if I always come back to travel because I am meant to travel. What if it is calling me and literally is part of Your calling on my life? What if this longing I have is from You to begin with?

 So, Lord, I have this want. But…I shall not want.

Stop right there. You are reading the Psalm incorrectly. You are applying the wrong English definition of want.

You are thinking, the Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not long for…anything. You have made longing for sinful. No, no, no!

The meaning is, the Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not lack for any good thing.

What is a good thing for you? Of course body nourishment, sustenance. A safe place to live and work. Meaningful work that brings you and others joy. And yes, travel. I didn’t create this beautiful, diverse world and then sentence you to spend your days behind some small fenced-in area.

You cannot let the fear of what might happen, which you carry every single day anyway, stop you—stop you from living your own life in the now. You keep hitting Pause, and then getting up and leaving the movie of your own life. You keep stopping the action to live in the commercial.

Write down, right now, quickly, all the places you can think of that you want to travel to.

Lord, I want so much…

I am I AM; I Am your Shepherd, you shall have all you want, all you long for. For it is I Who planted these seeds of longing within you. And after you have begun to fulfill your longings for beauty and connection here, I shall unroll the map of the world, place by place. You shall be My Creation’s ambassador. You shall go and see and experience, and teach, and come back and share and write and create and go again, all with camera in hand. Your blessing will bless and enrich many others. You are an explorer of light; you shall not lack for any good thing.

Posted on

Sourced in God

Gosh, God, the schedule…the stress…I need You to help me so I don’t tumble into either burnout or fallout, meaning broken health. What is your solution for me?

You are not responsible for your family’s—your grandchildren’s—your son’s—happiness. All you can be to anyone is a loving inspiration. Be that. Model what a full life centered in Me looks like. Right now you are modeling a full life centered on your own effort and strength—and it’s not working. It’s not working because you—humans—were never meant to go it alone, by yourselves, or even with one another without Me.

You were meant to be Sourced in Me, My input, My watering, My Presence, My leading, My anointing. Sourced in Me each day, with set-apart times for filling up the well on a regular basis. Make Time to be Renewed in Love. Let Chronos become Kairos again. Right place, right time. Right person—you. Take a next step in this journey we are on together. Renew your pledge to live in synchronicity. Let My Spirit guide you.

 

 

Posted on

Suffering

God, I have—we all have—been taught so many different things about You. They can’t all be true. Here is one: You make bad things happen to punish us. Is that true?

You have been taught that I Am a God of suffering, that I afflict My Children to test or punish them. I have much to say about this.

But let Me begin with this: My Heart is to bless My children, to lavish My Love upon humanity. There are consequences for bad behavior or bad choices, and people misinterpret those consequences as My punishment. Even genetic or environmental illnesses come about because of ill-thought choices.

No, My Will is to see each of My children grow as Jesus grew: “in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man.” What does that mean? It means growing mentally, physically, spiritually and emotionally. Growing in relationship to the earth, to your own body, to Me as your God, and to others around you. It’s another way of saying, growing in Love.

What gardener wants any of his flowers to wilt? What farmer wants any of his crops to fail? What rancher wants any of his animals to sicken and die? How can you possibly think I Am less than any earthly farmer or gardener or rancher or shepherd? Am I not the Good Shepherd? Do I not give good gifts?

 

Posted on

The Most Peace

The sun, this Sunday morning, threw a pink glow into the clouds at 6:30. The color gave me peace, like I could breathe. I think “outdoors” as a generic term is my peace-place, my peace-time. But You asked me yesterday, what gives me the most peace? I think of peace in two ways–as a connection to everything and everyone, and as calm, or non-agitation. So the most peace, I guess, is the experience I have outside either in beautiful light or with critters, or in combination. You made me, You said, to connect with You. And with the natural world. So is it wrong that I find my greatest peace outside, in that connection?

Little One, you have been so schooled to think in terms of right and wrong, excel or fail, okay or not-okay. I Am trying to teach you, to show you, another way of looking at your life. If you think in terms of Joy, of Peace, of Love–of all the fruits of My Spirit like gentleness and patience and kindness or in terms of gratitude–you will find yourself making “right” choices, “excelling” in all the ways that matter, and living a very “okay” life indeed. In fact, you will be living an abundant life.

So right and wrong don’t matter?

I Am trying to shift your perceptions away from that duality into a mindset, into a heart focus where Love and Peace and Joy matter most of all, where your connection to Me matters most of all. Can you see that, if you could live in deliberate, conscious connection to Me every minute, even for 24 hours, you would be living in a realm in which “wrong” becomes literally irrelevant? This is what heaven is like–and it is the Kingdom-Come-On-Earth I tried to teach My Disciples when I came as Jesus. It’s the life I lived in a human body. It’s a life I Am inviting you to live. The more you live here, the less you live in fear or doubt or angst or stress–or at odds with any other living being.

What if they live at odds with me? Or my values? What then?

What do you want for someone like that? What do you truly want?

Lord, I want them to be well. To prosper. To have a wonderful, amazing, abundant life. I want that for everybody. I want them healed, in body or mind or spirit.

Now you are thinking as I think, feeling as I feel.

Lord, this idea of always being connected, of there being no wrong in that state of being–is that what You meant by praying without ceasing?

Yes. Praying without ceasing doesn’t mean you have to become a cloistered person, on your knees, chanting religious sounding words every waking minute. It means what I have been saying to you: stay connected. Don’t unplug. Live in My Life. But live life. Life is My Gift to you. So embrace it. Relish it. Cherish it. Live it–but live it connected to Me.