Sunday, May 20, 2012

Vision of the Bride of Christ

"Isn't it here? The wonder?  Why do I spend so much of my living hours struggling to see it?  Do we truly stumble so blind that we must be affronted with blinding magnificence for our blurry soul-sight to recognize grandeur?  The very same surging magnificence that cascades over our every day here.  Who has time or eyes to notice?
All my eyes can seem to fixate on are the splatters of disappointment across here and me."
--Ann Voskamp in 1000 Gifts

In this day and this time, I identify well with Ann's processing of the death nightmare she dreamed.  I identify with her struggle to first recover from the shaky nerves that were its residue, and then to process it, to receive it as a thing that had good hidden in it somewhere.  "...how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!"  Matthew 7:11

June 27, 2005
Last Sunday in church, a woman stood up and gave a word of encouragement about Jesus waiting as a bridegroom for us to come down the aisle to him.  It confirmed a vision I had about a year ago.

In this vision, I saw a a beautiful woman.  Her countenance was radiant.  She had graceful beauty in her physical face, but she also had wisdom and humor in her eyes and her smile sent forth a message of peace.  I have never seen a face that so completely encompassed all that is beautiful.

She was walking, lifting her floor-length skirts so as not to tread upon the ripples in the skirting.  The gown she wore completely held my attention.  I had never seen such fabric!  Surely when we dress a bride even now, we have some deep spiritual sense what the Bride will wear, for we dress brides in gowns laden with sequins and pearls, which are a very crude facsimile of what adorned this dress.  If I had to name a color for it, I'd say golden-peach.  But overlaying that fabric were what appeared to be a sea of transparent bubbles.  They rose up in all sizes; and as they swelled they swirled warm colors across their surfaces...reds, pinks,  oranges, coppers, yellows...until they popped, only to be replaced by more bubbles.  As she walked, I pulled my "gaze" back from studying a few bubbles to seeing the whole garment, and was enthralled by the effect this sea of bubbles had.  Sparkling, flashing, gleaming, swirling and especially ever moving, ever renewing.  The thought occurred to me that I was surely not in a natural dream, for looking at the woman walking and her gown--felt so good, I realized with surprise, I could happily stay in that moment forever and never grow tired of the vision of her.  Never has a visual stimulus felt so internally, comprehensively good and never has a physical sensation felt so timeless.  But I knew I could not stay there...and I felt bittersweet as I woke from the dream, knowing it would fade in my awareness, as all dreams do.  Now I can describe it in words, but the "spirit" of it is locked away until the "fullness of time" I suppose.
 
I read in Revelation about the Bride that the woman in church mentioned:  "And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, 'Alleluia!  For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns!  Let us be glad and rejoice and give him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.' And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints."  Rev. 19:6-8.

When I read this, I knew what made that gown so unique and marvelous to see and why the fabric wasn't really fabric at all as I think of fabric.  I also knew the Bride made herself ready to wear it.

Then, I found that not only did St. John see "her" much as I saw her, but so did King David. 
"...The princess is decked in her chamber with gold-woven robes;
in many-colored robes she is led to the king..."  Psalm 45:13-14

Each of these discoveries stunned me.

Not much to add to this as an afterthought.  I'm still waiting to hear from the Spirit just why I was given the privilege of seeing "her" in all her Biblical glory.  Maybe it was to simply affirm that prophecy in its purest form is not passe, not dead, not of another dispensation after all.  If I saw her even in the same imagery context that John and David did, saw her and then discovered what others had to say about her from antiquity, then something out there in the prophetic world isn't altogether dead yet. 

Thursday, May 17, 2012

What Is in the Cluster?

Lately, my mind is on the looming possibility that my little family might soon have to migrate.  We may have to leave this place we've called home (longer than any place we've lived as a family) and adapt to life in a new place.  It was a thing on my mind as I watered my flowers this morning.  It's on my mind again as I read the next flash-back journal entry.  With the flowers, the thoughts circled around this flower in particular:

It blooms valiantly, but it is severely stunted--mainly because I failed to transplant it in a timely fashion.  Instead, I let its roots get all bound up in a black plastic dixie cup, turning what should have been a towering 6 ft sunflower into this 6 inch miniature, not even as tall as the shortest of the bachelor's buttons blooming just a few feet down in the flower parade.  I think about yesterday's posting about God's timing vs. man's, and I think of how I failed this little one; but I also think larger things about space even as I did before about time.  Am I root bound somehow, too?  Is there a way I should be a statuesque tower of gold and instead have resigned myself to being a warped little daisy-ish thing? 
And then, I went on to the reading and saw this:

June 25, 2005
"He went out not knowing whether he went." Hebrews 11:8
Oswald Chambers says of this verse:  "You have to learn to go out of convictions, out of creeds, out of experiences, until so far as your faith is concerned, there is nothing between yourself and God."  

I watch my spouse and a friend of his toss around ideas and it reminds me of this sort of going out--exploring the taste of new convictions, new creeds, new experiences.  But my husband hesitates in it.  He jokingly says his religion is "No" right now--at least where it comes to discussing such things. But I think of Proverbs 27:17:  "As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend."  It is difficult for my husband to find a sharpening iron to match his own.  I pray for that.  Strip away all that might break rather than sharpen what is in the hearts of these men, God!

June 26
I'm still thinking about what Jesus had to say about faith.  Here's another one: "Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move."

It's a lot like the  other 'move a mountain' verse I considered earlier, only now I'm concentrating more on the mustard seed part of the verse.  Many people are confounded and/or guilt-ridden by this verse as they see it saying, "What's wrong with you?  If you only had the tiniest faith--like this itty-bitty seed--why, you could move mountains!  You're not even getting a good gravel slide started!"  Or at least, this verse has hit me that way.  But now, I'm seeing something different.  I'm not just seeing a commentary on size.  I'm seeing a commentary on potential.  Again, that timing thing.  This mustard seed has phenomenal potential for change.  It will become a huge plant...eventually--become something very different from how it starts. That's what has the power to move mountains! 

I see the same idea in Isaiah 65:8 "Thus says the Lord,'As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one says do not destroy it for a blessing is in it,' so I will do for my servants' sake, that I might not destroy them all."  The cluster promises to be wine to the eye that can see beyond the moment, but the servant must see, and the servant must raise a comment to God about it.  And that is faith.

I think again about my little flower.  It will never create a seed.  It will never produce another generation of its own kind.  I am sad because I took that from it.  But what a gift of hope it offers in that it bloomed anyway!  This is the lesson in the end for me, I think. 

Back when I wrote those journal entries, I was learning something of God.  I learned it much like I'd peel an onion.  I pulled back a dead, inedible layer and looked beneath, and there I learned to embrace faith as a thing that believes large truths about metamorphosis instead of small lies about failure. I learned that even the tiniest seed in the hand can become something quite powerful when planted.

But today, I peeled another layer on that onion, the layer finally deep enough to bring the tears to spill.  I turned the bulb in my hands, slid my fingertips along it's inner tenderness--like a baby's downy head, it was.  Oh, I know that the "greatest of these is love," as the letter-writer tells us; but today I learned to take the hand of faith and join it to the hand of hope--those runners-up in the great three.  And with these two standing by, I was able to honor a simple, barely noticeable sort of glory.  I had to kneel to see it, but it was there--shining through a stunted little flower that even without a future, and even if only for a day would decide to nonetheless bloom anyway!

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

The Things That Are Made

Back in that summer of 2005, my husband and I took a huge 10-year anniversary trip--8 months late, but all because we wanted to see Alaska in the month of June. And, this is Alaska in June...at least up in the mountains:
An old mining camp turned tourist attraction near Anchorage Alaska.

It was a phenomenal trip, and when I arrived back home, I found myself reflecting on the poetic usage of mountains in scripture in a whole new way.
A "typical" view leaves this flat-lands girl breathless.
June 23, 2005
"Lift thine eyes to the mountains, whence comes thy strength."
Mt. McKinley rises 20,000 feet. Only 1,200 people try to climb it per year, and only 50% of those actually make it to the summit. Those that do make it fly in at 7,000 feet just to start their climb. With the help of a guide, these climbers' trek takes them 3 weeks and requires proper gear and outerwear or they freeze to death. No wonder we're told His ways are above our ways! No wonder these are the leading example of His incomprehensible strength!


A "lucky" day: when Mt. McKinley is visible from below--especially with a high-powered zoom working its magic.
Mount McKinley is so massive and so tall that it is only visible 3 out of 10 days. The other 7 days, it is "making its own weather" which obscures the view from below.

I'm thinking about the verse in Mark 11:
For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. (vs. 23)

One of the things I learned about these mountains in Alaska is that the moving weight of ice in glaciers grinds the rock of a mountain into a powder called rock flour. This flour moves down the mountain in the melted-water streams and rivers. It gives the moving water a pewter cast and a distinctive smell. These streams fed by glaciers are unique because of how they originate, although they follow a typical stream's course on its way to the sea.

Do I ever consider how God casts mountains into the sea every day in His own time and way? And, how does this relate to Christ's words? Nothing in His statement addresses timing. Is the miraculous nature of his statement all related to immediacy--that God's timing bows to man's and His 1000-year norm meets man's 1-day? These "miracles" are ongoing, everyday events in a different environment from that of the Middle East in Bible times. They are the norm in the frigid North. It is an interesting thing to ponder.

Sometime later, I had the thought occur to me that snow operates as the world's way of representing of the role of prophecy in the heart of mankind. Snow comes and rests on the ground, visible to the eye, but ineffective in watering the earth until it melts some time later.

Psa 147:16He giveth snow like wool: he scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes.
Psa 147:17He casteth forth his ice like morsels: who can stand before his cold?
Psa 147:18He sendeth out his word, and melteth them: he causeth his wind to blow, [and] the waters flow.
Psa 147:19He sheweth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel.
Verses such as these seem to confirm this more spiritual aspect of snow--giving it a new level of God-breathed honor, something that out-reached even its natural loveliness. But I had not thought through such things when we took this trip. All I knew was that the day I saw Mount McKinley, I wept. I didn't know why I wept--majesty, I presumed--but I wept. Since then I have come to a greater awe of those unfathomable depths stated so simply in Romans 1:20 as it is expressed in the larger world.
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, [even] his eternal power and Godhead;

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Purposeful Rest

For some reason, I've felt drawn away from this blog for a time here, but now it seems time to return to it.

June 8, 2005
That approval thing comes up again--this time not in experience of the Word, but in life circumstance. 

Yesterday at the park, I had an experience that proved to be a rare opportunity to be "Christ" for someone needy.  We were at the "spray ground" which is a cement playground with many fountains and water play options, minus pools.  I was sunning on a bench while my kids played.  Idly, I noticed that on the next bench a very heavy woman sat with her two children.  One was two and a half or three years old and the other was maybe four months old.  The mom had a cheap little stroller for the big girl and carried the infant in her arms.  Both kids appeared to be at least mildly retarded--or maybe the older one was autistic, I don't really know, they were awfully young and I'm no diagnostician.  In any case, the older girl couldn't communicate verbally although she was sufficiently mobile.  Still, she was playing happily enough, and so the mom carried the baby here and there while the bigger child ran around playing. 

I didn't pay attention to them for a while--there were many kids playing in the water, and there were mine to tend--but suddenly, an older, obviously wealthy couple came up to the play area and began shouting, "Whose little girl is this?" 

Evidently, a child had crawled over the grassy hill and to the road--in fact was nearly in the road.  This couple coaxed her to crawl back--her legs were caked in mud.  The well-groomed older woman in her heels and jewels wouldn't pick the child up and carry her, so we waited for the little girl to crawl back over the hill as they herded her, and we realized she was the heavy woman's older daughter.  Quickly, someone had found the mother and brought her over.  The rich woman said she was going to call the police because letting a child crawl to the road was surely a form of child abuse. (But making a child crawl back wasn't!?!)  They screamed these things loud enough that everyone at the sprayground simply stared in silence--not so much awkward as stunned.  This sort of thing never happened at this nice suburban playground.  The couple stormed off before the mother collected her wits enough to say anything in return--supposedly they returned to the car they'd parked when they saw the child and decided to stop and intervene.

For a moment, the mother tried to wrestle with both kids as the older girl began making almost feral screaming cries.  I went over then and offered to hold the infant while she dealt with the crying girl.  She thanked me, and I held the new baby--he could hold his head up some, but could barely focus both eyes on me as I rocked him in my arms--meanwhile she calmed the older girl, put her shoes on her and got her settled in her stroller.  The mom was shaking like a leaf the whole time.  Another young pretty mother tried to reassure her that the man and woman were "way out of line" in the way they interacted with her--they were just scared and didn't know what to do.  But the mother burst into tears and quickly left in fear.

I've thought about the incident a lot today.  I've come to the conclusion that the older couple did not act out of compassion, even if they did keep the child from being hit by a car.  They wouldn't touch her, and they were screaming before they even got over the hill.  They were simply motivated by fear and powerlessness.  Saving the child was merely incidental.  In the end, insensitive cruelty and self-righteous indignation ruined any honor they might have earned with their rescue of the child.

I see that attitude so many places.  Pity for those less fortunate than ourselves is rapidly being crushed by our need to have power and to feel affirmed in our privilege to react with outrage.  Looking back, I fear my own shock and dismay paralyzed me; I feel like I did too little for this poor beaten-down mother. 

O, Lord...send laborers into the field who won't destroy the harvest in the very act of reaping!

I see now why I had to wait until today to post again.  This memory was not meant to be revisited until I confessed something to God:  I am not as strong as I like to think I am.  I am needy, too; and I can't short-change my own need to receive care just because I desire to reach out a helping hand to others.  Why do I want to help anyway?  If I don't accept seasons of rest along the way, my desire to help is polluted with self-importance and a false sense of infallibility.  If I don't sit and rest at Your feet, I am in no better position to be eternally effective than this harsh couple who appalled me years ago. 

I can't under-prioritize what I need from God even as I over-prioritize what others need from me.   False urgency may beg me to follow this disastrous path, but I know better, and must turn instead to follow this now overgrown foot trail. In the last week or so, I've felt it in my heart, anguished over defining it in my mind and now today I get a vision of what might even yet occur if I don't heed the lesson I'm meant to learn.  Sometimes the greatest discipline is letting another take the scythe in hand and head for the field.  Time to let my eyes be drawn away from the harvest for a time; allow myself to see what else is happening here.

God's timing is surely exquisite!



Friday, May 4, 2012

Seeing the Forest Behind the Nearest Tree

My probing of the Spirit for information on this idea of "prophetic living" led me to look at the miracles of Christ in a new way. One passage that felt like it was lifted to a higher level of "meaning" was the pair of miracles that happen in Luke 8.  Pardon the long Bible quote, but it is pertinent to the notes I wrote in the journal relating to it.

A Girl Restored to Life and a Woman Healed

(Matt. 9:18–26; Mark 5:21–43 )

40 So it was, when Jesus returned, that the multitude welcomed Him, for they were all waiting for Him. 41 And behold, there came a man named Jairus, and he was a ruler of the synagogue. And he fell down at Jesus’ feet and begged Him to come to his house, 42 for he had an only daughter about twelve years of age, and she was dying.

But as He went, the multitudes thronged Him. 43 Now a woman, having a flow of blood for twelve years, who had spent all her livelihood on physicians and could not be healed by any, 44 came from behind and touched the border of His garment. And immediately her flow of blood stopped.

45 And Jesus said, “Who touched Me?”

When all denied it, Peter and those with him  said, “Master, the multitudes throng and press You, and You say, ‘Who touched Me?’ "

46 But Jesus said, “Somebody touched Me, for I perceived power going out from Me.” 47 Now when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling; and falling down before Him, she declared to Him in the presence of all the people the reason she had touched Him and how she was healed immediately.

48 And He said to her, “Daughter, be of good cheer; your faith has made you well. Go in peace.”

49 While He was still speaking, someone came from the ruler of the synagogue’s house, saying to him, “Your daughter is dead. Do not trouble the Teacher.”

50 But when Jesus heard it, He answered him, saying, “Do not be afraid; only believe, and she will be made well.” 51 When He came into the house, He permitted no one to go in except Peter, James, and John,  and the father and mother of the girl. 52 Now all wept and mourned for her; but He said, “Do not weep; she is not dead, but sleeping.” 53 And they ridiculed Him, knowing that she was dead.

54 But He put them all outside, took her by the hand and called, saying, “Little girl, arise.” 55 Then her spirit returned, and she arose immediately. And He commanded that she be given something to eat. 56 And her parents were astonished, but He charged them to tell no one what had happened.
June 7, 2005
I've written on this passage before; but now in this 'prophetic lives' vein, I see the miracles here in a different light.  I see Jairus' daughter as representing the Hebrews, and I see the bleeding woman as representing the Gentiles in their "unclean" death march. 
1) The bleeding woman gets saved "along the way" as Jesus is on the path to save another (Israel.)
2) She is at the end of all her resources for bringing life to herself, and no physician has been successful.  All she has left is her faith.
3) But, most of all:  His pausing to stop for the bleeding woman means the little girl dies before He gets to her.  In this age, we Christians see our healing already; but the first sons of Abraham, the Jews, seem as if dead to us in their rejection of Christ. His timing was indeed "off" by their calculations, seeing they didn't perceive the "suffering servant" that He first came to be.
4)Now here is the part that is still a mystery, but a wonder.  Jesus continues on His way to raise the little girl from the dead!
That He calls for it to be kept secret, and only takes a few in for its happening, and is ridiculed by the majority in the house--these are things to be pondered.  What are we to make of them in this light? What does it mean that the woman had bled for as many years as the girl had been alive?  These details are there for a reason.  God doesn't add local color to a story without a larger purpose--something more than just an embellishment. I haven't got the answer to that yet.
But this I know, with these two miracles, He fulfilled Isaiah 57:19--"I create the fruit of the lips; 'peace, peace to him who is far off and to him who is near' says the Lord, 'And I will heal him.' " 
Looking back on this now, after I've seen more Biblical events "come alive" in this prophetic casting, I see other elements of the story in different Gospel tellings that make all the more sense under this expansion of the significance of these two ladies.  For instance, why should this be one of only a few miracles in which we are told the literal Hebrew words He used in a healing? 
And he took the damsel by the hand, and said unto her, Talitha cumi; which is, being interpreted, Damsel, I say unto thee, ariseMark 5:41 
Might the Hebrew be deemed worthy of Gospel mention because in this miracle is the foretelling of  a "greater" later miracle, one even we Christians hear as Hebrew words because it predicts the healing of the Hebrew nation? I know there is another like it--a blind man being healed maybe? And do I remember that the method of healing that man was rather odd.  Maybe not so odd if I read it now.  I must go find it again, and read it with this Spirit-overlay. 
Little wonder re-reading the stories never gets old. 
That summer of 2005, I began to mine Bible stories with this new eye, and I saw a larger efficiency layered over the top of many of them, a significance that I never imagined existed.  I began to see Christ's receptivity of His Father's direction in a much more cosmic way as the miracles became far less random, and what seemed like odd asides in the Gospel stories became touchstone elements for defining the larger story hidden behind each miracle. I realized He is brilliant in a way I'd hardly even begun to fathom. Some of that level of perception has slipped away from my reading over the years.  I am glad for the reminder to open my eyes again.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

A Woman of Substance

God has spoken once, twice have I heard this:  That power belongs to God.  Psalm 62:11
Commit (literally roll) your works to the Lord and your thoughts will be establishedProverbs 16:3
One sows and another reaps John 4:37
"Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops." Matt 10:27
By your patience, possess your souls..." Luke 21:19

June 2, 2005
What is 'Abraham's tent' for me?  What is my prophetic life, and how am I to live it out?

June 6
He thinks truth is a philosophy that clarifies relationships.  How do we turn his eyes to see that Truth is a relationship that clarifies philosophies? (Spoken as a prayer preface for the sake of a friend whose heart carried questions.)

The old journal is soon to take a turn like a river whose course meanders a new direction.
Soon, dreams will come and be recorded as strange things--in part unnatural.  Then imagery will rise to a larger context, a purpose revealed in life and scripture .  Thus a sort of dance will happen.  For now, in the journal it is but a swaying...a swaying to the rhythms of verses like those above as they began to hum for me years ago.  But soon the pull of that rhythm, the inviting hand of the divine Partner will draw my feet to the dance floor, and the steps are all recorded there...and soon enough here as well.  For today I will tell of but one dream. 

In this dream, I lay on the ground, and a woman moved--or more nearly floated--down the length of my body, and her hair trailed above her head rather than hanging down about her shoulders.  Her hair followed her, running the length of my naked flesh, and each lock was like a tiny winding stream of gold. The "good" feeling that accompanied those streaming locks as they caressed me was as an echo of the goodness of the dream of the Bride of Christ--which will be recorded here a few days hence. 

The reason I tell this dream now is because this one, even though I dreamed it somewhere back in 2005-2006, found its "meaning" this very day.  I've read before that a covenant dream's significance can often be gauged by the length of time required for its realization.  This dream knew about a seven year gap between the giving and the start of its defining.  To share that definition, I must first describe something that happened yesterday. 

When I went to the drop-in center where I serve breakfast to homeless teens once a week, I took the young staff woman who has been my closest associate there aside and told her I needed to step back from my Tuesday morning role.  Only now has the Center completely fleshed out this volunteer position of "house mom" which is a role I've covered since it first appeared last October.  The center's hope now is to make that role more of a supervisory one so that staff members can focus on relationship-building with the youth. A need for crowd control prompts the change now as the number of youth is burgeoning, and while I see the value in that change, I also know it is not a role I can fill.  They want a commander/enforcer to make the youth learn self-care skills and to share in the communal burden.  But, I am not a commander, and no matter how much I see the benefit of having one, I can't be that person.
I asked God to give me language. "Who am I then?"
He said.  "There is a reason wisdom is personified in Proverbs as a woman.  You are designed to personify her.  And she is an inviter." 
I have been called a prophet and a teacher by those around me, and so it has been.  But passing this timing-test ushered me into a new naming--the calling to Wisdom.
And suddenly, I just knew who she was in my dream, the woman with the rivers of gold growing out of her head, and so a question that has swirled in the back of my mind since the time of the dream was answered.
God has spoken once.  Twice have I heard...
My works have indeed rolled onto You, and my thoughts are indeed established...
And when I sowed and left the field, knowing another will reap and this is not a condemnation--
--as I patiently waited,
I came to that place of possessing my soul.

Today I can finally attach this dream to a verse:
Say unto wisdom, Thou [art] my sister; and call understanding [thy] kinswoman:
 Proverbs 7:4