BeLOnGings

Hilary is enjoying creating photo albums of some of our adventures….using those free coupons of course as all Proverbs 31 wives do : – )

I’ve come to see that the Bible is God’s photo album.

For example Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is a snapshot revealing at a certain moment in time the condition of that church’s life and the nature of Paul’s relationship as a father to the believers there.

He was answering some concerns that had been brought to his attention. Their unity in Christ was faltering as people were breaking into factions. Paul identified the root problem as the pride of immaturity. He also pinpoints a failure to distinguish between soul and spirit.

The world with it’s pervasive culture tries to ‘capture’ our souls (to profit itself) by that which is EMOTIONAL and LOUD.……yet what is offered leaves us feeling empty…….

One of my sons sent me a song by the popular Father John Misty expressing the disillusionment of many in his generation in the establishment……including the church establishment. The punch line (a play on Springsteen’s famous song) – “Bored in the USA”

We in the church, when evangelized by the world, employ the same marketing techniques, and most immature believers know no better than to be wooed emotionally by BIG names, numbers and noises while at the same time being conditioned to be spectators sitting in rows to passively watch the TV, the computer, the basketball game, the movie, the band and now, “the ministry”…..all happening – out there!

Failing to understand this critical distinction between spirit and soul we mistakenly take the bible snapshots and with our ‘soulish mind’  try to apply them in our current situations.

The result? –“Bored in the church!” (Maybe this was the sort of church experience Father John Misty felt more razed in than raised in?)

God’s intention is that we learn how to be genuinely lead by the Spirit – in here!

When we relinquish the illusion of control and tune in to God’s voice that is STILL and SMALL speaking in our spirits, we find ourselves being wonderfully and continually FILLED!!! 

The result of this way of living is that we escape from being prisoners framed in our own bad photo album to become actors moving in His marvelous movie.….in fact the same movie that Paul and the Corinthian church were playing in.

Recently I was in a first Corinthians church type situation. It metamorphosed from a boringly predictable service to a glorious rerun of one of the New Testament miracles where someone received back their sight! No one had any notion this is where things would end up, but as the designated actors knowingly or unknowingly played their parts, alternatively resisting then yielding to the Spirit’s prompting, a very antagonistic and tense situation gave way to tears and hugs of joyful reconciliation. Hope was kindled as the young people saw unfolding before their eyes the sort of “demonstration of the Spirit’s power” that St. Paul was promising his Corinthian family, that transforms lives and situations.

I wondered, “Was this also how that scene ended, from which that Corinthian snapshot was taken?”

The Trinity Studios movie is called Creation Restored. It is written and directed by the Father, stars Jesus the Son and is produced by the Holy Spirit. When you are awakened by the Spirit to find that Father has cast you in this, the real Christ movie, life can never be boring again as you realize in a living and exhilarating way…..SCRIPT — U – R !

 

P.S. You may have noticed I just discovered the color button : – ) I guess that makes it

Trinity Studios in glorious technicolor

P.P.S. We are planning to be in Ireland (also England and Netherlands) from May 1st – June 7th. so that may influence blog posts over the next weeks.

 

Last Saturday, the day before Resurrection Sunday, we had a visitor.

“Look! A hawk” I exclaimed, pointing to the large bird just outside our window.

“That’s not a hawk Papa!” said Ivan, our encyclopedia of animal and bird knowledge. “That’s a peregrine falcon!”

So I went to the fount of all knowledge……..google : – ) and discovered that to Native Americans this, the fastest bird alive, is highly esteemed as a heavenly messenger. I knew this visit was related to the impending death of a dear Ojibwe friend, Warren, whose spirit did return to God a few hours later…. at the beginning of “the third day”.

Later that evening Hilary showed me a letter she had just found while sorting papers in our room.

It was one of the old fashioned airmail letters. It had been written by my mother and father and sent to us on our honeymoon in America 42 years ago. Subsequently it must have returned with us to Ireland and hidden there for 20 years before sneaking a passage back to America when we moved to live here. It continued to lie unnoticed in our bedroom …..until last Saturday evening.

As I read it I realized it contained that message from heaven we had been promised……in fact it contained 2 messages. The first was a personal one. Earlier that evening I had done something I rarely do……….falling back into a bad American habit I reached for a big bowl of ice cream!

I chuckled as I read the last sentence written in my father’s artistic script

“Paul, go easy on the ice cream”

The second message I realized came earlier in the letter, for my father had informed me that the leading elder in the Irish church back then had just died in his early 60’s.

Like Abel in the grandstand of faith (Heb.11:4) my father, though dead, was still speaking, at the timing and direction of his, my and Warren’s heavenly Father.

I knew that Our Father was highlighting His view of brother Warren, and that A leading Jesus elder (among the Ojibwe people here) had just died.

Warren had been the fastest, strongest and meanest man on the Rez. Then near the end of his life he met Jesus and the new gentle giant would sit tenderly holding his wife Mary’s hand tears running down his face as he listened to others testify about how they too had been rescued out of dire straights.

I recalled St. Paul’s words at the end of his life now more full of meaning,

…….the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous judge will award to me on that day – and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing.” (2 Tim. 4:6-8)

Again I googled to see “What age was St Paul at his death?” – 61 yrs.

“Mary” I said at the funeral. “What age was Warren?” – “61 yrs.” she answered.

Warren’s life was a testimony to God’s promise in Is. 61.1  for at the end of his life on earth he was a captive who had been released to fly free as the Baapaase – red headed woodpecker, for which he was named at his birth.

His Ojibwe name took on even more meaning for me when I recalled how that Saturday morning little Isla lying on the living room floor spontaneously began singing,

“Baa ba black sheep have you any wool.

Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full

One for my master and one for my dame

And one for the little boy who lives down the lane.”

Warren had indeed been a black sheep as we understand that term, but in the end he was able to give back the warm love offering of a bag of wool to his Master Shepherd Jesus, to his Dame, Mary, and to all of us ‘little boys’ who knew him.

Later someone told me that in the Middle East a black sheep actually represents wealth!

This is Warren’s testimony in his own words from just a few months ago,

“I met the Kyles, Hilary and Paul, through my friends Carol and Kevin about 4 years ago. I started participating in their retreats. My way of thinking started changing, slowly at first, after coming to the retreats. I couldn’t believe how happy these people were – hugging and laughing and dancing and not even drinking!!

I am a Native American and I grew up on the Fond Du Lac reservation. I drank, I beat people up, and I partied for 50 years. My body finally started getting sick from it. I had to be life flighted from northern Minnesota to Minneapolis, and I died when they were taking the fluid out of my body. There I met Jesus. He said “Warren, you need to go back and do what you have to do”. I spent a month in a hospital bed then and it took me a good 2 years to get back to be able to walk around. My whole body had been shutting down.

But I started drinking and partying again when I was able. Finally I had a large stomach bleed. I lost nearly 6 pints of blood. I thought I was gonna die. When I started to be put under for surgery for my liver, Jesus again said, “Warren go back and do what you have to do”.

A few months later my ammonia started getting very high and dialysis hurt very badly. I was ready to die. Father God came to me. I heard that me, Warren Barney was saved!! I am saved!!…. and I am healed just enough.

My friends had planned a get together for me because I was going to go on hospice. But when I was walking up the aisle after playing the big drum, whoosh like something just came into the room and came over me, my whole body, my whole being and it felt really good. I wanted to tell everybody right then!! It was a very spiritual moment for me. I was healed just enough.

This was when I really started praying and believing. I have finally been sober for 18 months thanks to the prayers and help from these people and retreats. The desire to drink and party is gone now. I still struggle with health issues but God is helping me work through them and I know God is a good God and a loving God.”

I wonder which scripture came to your mind?

Possibly Psalm 27:4 as we hum,
“One Thing I ask for and that shall I seek                                                                                                                                       To dwell in the house of the Lord.”

But if there is a hierarchy of scripture, I favor Jesus words about Mary over David’s to God.

“Only One Thing is needful…and Mary has chosen the better part.”(Luke 10:42)

I believe worship should be a marriage of stating objective truth and expressing subjective experience. I think Charles Wesley got a good balance.

Nowadays however our hymnody seems to again have been evangelized by “The Century of the Self” and has lost that balance singing more about what we feel or think about God or what we want from God than about God himself and a response to the completed work of Christ!

I can’t remember the tune to:

“One Thing I ask for and that shall I seek                                                                                                                      To obey the voice of the Lord”  : – ))

This year during the lenten season we have been pondering John’s gospel. Time and again Jesus reminds us of how his love is demonstrated in his heartfelt obedience to the Father.

For me this simplifies the life of faith to One Thing, which I summarize this way,

“Love who and what I have set in front of you – right now.”

What that looks like can only be revealed for each one of us as we learn to abide in Him and be instructed each moment by the Spirit within.

For Jesus it was no different,

“The Sovereign Lord has given me an instructed tongue to know the word that sustains the weary. Morning by morning He waken my ear to hear like one being taught. The Sovereign Lord has opened my ear…and I was not rebellious” (Is. 50:4-9)

…….even on that last morning of Gethsemane, sensing where things were going, he nonetheless double checked with the Father in the garden how that day was meant to end.

The One Thing Jesus is recorded as telling us specifically to learn from Him is meekness and humility of heart….resulting in rest for our souls. He address’s this direction to those who are “weary” (Matt 11:28-30)

Thus He simply divides the world into just two groups…….those who are “weary” and those who are submissively receiving a word from Father to sustain those who are weary.

May we be of those who are daily migrating from the first group to the second!

P.S. My friend Jim Hart also does a good job of balanced worship as President of the Institute of Worship Studies. I received his seasonal meditation this morning.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, Who, though he was in the form of God,      did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,  but emptied himself,      by taking the form of a servant,      being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form,      he humbled himself      by becoming obedient to the point of death,           even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him      and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,  so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,      in heaven and on earth and under the earth,  and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,      to the glory of God the Father. —Philippians 2:5-11, ESV

Dear Paul, A blessed Triduum to you and yours! The hymn text above from Paul’s letter to the Philippians is one of the most beautiful summaries of the story of Jesus the Christ found in scripture. The self-emptying love (or Kenosis) of the Incarnate God is at the very center of the entire biblical narrative. We read that the only Son of God did not consider equality with God as something to be grasped at, but in contrast, took on the scandal of the deepest fear of all mankind: an ignominious, painful, agonizing and humiliating death and descent into the lowest region of God-forsakenness. The focus of this hymn stands in stark contrast to the narrative of another biblical figure, said also to bear the very image of God, who did attempt to cling to equality with God—Adam. The primal sin of Adam was the arrogant grasping after God, and we, fellow sinners, have inherited the same propensity. We want to be God. In his Kenosis, Christ Jesus reverses this sin of Adam, reconciling, restoring and healing all of us, in fact all of creation, to true union with God. Hans Urs von Balthasar wrote, “Basically, in Jesus Christ’s death, Descent into Hell and Resurrection, only one reality is there to be seen: the love of the triune God for the world, a love which can only be perceived through a co-responsive love.” One more important detail: von Balthasar continues, “The founding of the Church is not an end in itself…. It is the whole world which is reconciled with God through the Cross and Resurrection of Christ (Col. 1:19ff). And yet the achieved reconciliation has need of the Church’s ministry in its service – a ministry which constitutes, according to Paul, the meaning of the mission Christ has conferred.” In other words, in this great act of God’s self-giving love in Christ we also see, hear, and are summoned to the call to mission. As we enter into the core of Holy Week, let us remember with “co-responsive love” the costly, immense sacrifice of our Savior, bearing our arrogance, humiliation and sorrow. But let us also enter into the victory of Christ, celebrating the fullness of God’s love, the divine life that reaches out to reconcile all humankind and all of creation to God. Remember. The Lord be with you, James R. Hart, President

It is said that the mosquito is Minnesota’s State bird. Fortunately they are not due to emerge from the cold for few months yet.

A few nights ago I was wakened with a severe cramp in the adductor muscle group of my left leg.

I lept out of bed sensing it was Father’s iron grip…….getting my attention. I glanced at the clock. It said 2.21, so I knew I should get my bible out and pursue the reason for this rude awakening.

Sure enough I was lead to a book, the second chapter and twenty first verse. The message was perfect for the situation I had been holding before the Lord. It was confirming a disciplinary step I sensed I should take. In Hebrews  we read “No discipline seems pleasant but painful at the time” for the recipient yes…. but also for the one called to implement it!

A few nights later I was up again during the night. I had turned to the same verse and was checking with Father if he really wanted me to follow through on this, when  I noticed a mosquito hovering nearby. “It’s far too early for mosquitos!” I thought, and then watched in disbelief as it landed…..on my left adductor muscle group – and then sunk it’s proboscis into me!

I knew it was Father who had sent the little lady along (it is the females that bite) because I needed this strong and painful double witness on my left adductor group to embolden me to obey!

Yes, “No discipline (training) seems pleasant t the time…… Later on, however, it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness.” (Heb.12:11) As I obeyed, and ‘truthed it in love’, the fruit was indeed good!

And now I know why God created mosquito’s………they are His messengers……sent to serve!

Psalm 119:91 says “ALL things (even those pesky mosquitos) serve you.” which is why we can, as it says in 1 Thess.5:20, “Give thanks in ALL circumstances.” (even when called upon to donate blood to an unworthy cause : – ))

 

 

 

 

Well I was all set to send this week’s blog and as usual asked Hilary what she thought. She said “I don’t think so dear.”

I have come to appreciate this as one of the greatest gift’s God has given me  – a godly wife who is strong and loving enough to say,”No” (Ps.62:11)

So I went back to just Living Life, Looking and Listening, and Learning to Love, open to Father giving me another message………and found myself doing again today what I talked about in one of the first blogs………taking one of the grandchildren for a walk in the stroller to give his mum and dad some space……The only difference was that this time round, it was our next grandchild…Asher instead of Isla!

We paused for a photo shot in front of another local view that again featured in one of the early blogs…….. the Trinity of skyscrapers in Downtown Minneapolis: “Father, Son and Holy Spirit – Let your glory fill the earth.”

I realized it is now exactly ONE YEAR since I began this blog

When we discover how God works cyclically we notice these recurring  patterns.

Because of Christ’s redemptive work reversing the curse we can now as individuals and families by faith experience a cycling upwards instead of a downward spiral!

Although Asher, born to Ben and Kim (nee Larson), is the latest in the Kyle line, another grandchild has since been born in the Larson line. I had the joy of marrying Kim’s brother Rob and his wife Julie who have now given birth to a son they were lead to call Aiden. His name means FIRE

St Aidan was the Irish monk sent out from Columba’s monastery on Iona to evangelise the English from his base on Holy Island, where, at the turn of the millennium, when I happened to be visiting my friend Andy Raine, I discovered this statue of St. Aidan carrying The Flame.

A few months ago local friends who had also visited the island brought back a photo to show me from the cemetery in the shadow of The Flame statue. It did not surprise me for I remembered seeing these headstones myself in that graveyard

My father was also called George (Gilbert) Kyle, and my mother Anna Kyle! They were the ones who passed the torch of faith on to me that is now being passed to our grandchildren!

Kim and Rob’s father, John Larson, had a plaque making business in Mexico for many years. This is one of the plaques he gave us that hangs in our hallway with a quote from Lord of the Rings.

 

Who would have thought back then he would publish a prophesy about the union and sequential fruit of that union between the families? (God knew : – )

“From the ASH(ER)es a fire (AIDEN) shall be woken.”

This is also a forshadowing of the ultimate union between Christ and the body of Overcomers who are being prepared to receive from their King a crown to rule and reign with him on the earth for a thousand years. (Rev.5 and 20) for,

“…….the crownless again shall be King”

I noticed the RAINBOW in my photo over the word “again” – for God has made a New Covenant that out of the ashes, what was lost to Adam’s family will be restored through Christ who has now given us “the right to become –  children of God” (Jn.1:12) so that we might “be woken” to “Arise and shine” with Him. (Is. 60:1)

“When this age shall end and the time has come

For the Trump to sound and our Lord to come

Then as one we’ll rise and our Flame unite

With the one who loved and bought us.”

……God’s covenant will NOT fail, for our common Adamic family line….. nor for your immediate family line no matter how ‘broken’ it may now seem!

P.S. Thank you for reading over the last year. I can track my little band of consistent readers by Mailchimp, and each time I go down the list of friends a smile broadens on my face as I picture and pray for each one of you dear folk! Although I haven’t activated the ‘Comments’ option, I love hearing from of any of you anytime!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I took off into the airwaves the other week to talk with one of my Irish friends on Skype. As we finally made a bumpy landing and connected eye to eye and ear to ear he complained of a bad case of “Dinasoaritis.”

He said he started going to a ‘successful’ mega church and realized when it came to following the bible passage he was the only one in his row who was looking at a paper version of THE book of THE face!

“Facebook!” he said, “That’s the magic carpet on which everything in the church seems to fly forward, and since I’m not on Facebook and have an old Nokia push button phone I don’t think I fit.”

I told him I was finishing off the blog about the “trouble” of Ps. 46.

He recounted how in recent years he had been shaken and his ‘mountain‘ of savings had slid into the sea! But he knew now this had been good thing because he was forced to trust not in his material assets but in God alone as his ‘refuge and strength’

I then said, “Imagine if the internet crashed and the IT ‘magic carpet’ on which we are all flying was pulled out from under us, where would that leave us?…..where would that leave the churches?”

To the early Celtic believers the Holy Spirit was represented by the Wild Goose… a fitting complement to the gentle dove, because fire, water and wind are types of the Spirit in scripture and these are elements that cannot be tamed and controlled by man.

Do you remember when the wild geese flew into the engine of  flight US 1549. Captain Sully was credited with making a ‘miraculous’ landing but “The heart of the king (Sully) is in the hand of the Lord who directed that flight to the (Hudson) watercourse as He willed” (Prov.21.1 Adapted!)

As we learn to fly in the Jet stream of the Holy Spirit then no matter what happens we can be confident that we will land laughing on that same river that flows through our hearts and “whose streams make glad the city of God.”(Ps.46:4)

As we believe Isaiah’s gospel message,

“How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news…. ‘YOUR GOD REIGNS'”

…..we tune in to the voice of the ‘air controller’ in our hearts saying.

“Be still and know that I am God.” (Ps.46:10)

 

P.S. I apologized in advance to my friend Eugene about poking fun at him in last week’s blog and told him he had of course the right to reply. He said in his usual magnanimous way,

“Happy to be a vehicle of humour anytime for my Edgar Allan-faced American brothers and sisters!”

I don’t know if Eugene realized that Edgar Allan Poe the famous American literary figure was of ‘dour’ Ulster Scots extraction!

Also my google search revealed that one possible origin of the expression “Po faced’ is the face one would make if a used chamber pot was presented to one. With dung picturing in Ezekiel the idols of the heart…. maybe when we get rid of the last of these we will indeed be able, like the Scottish air traffic controllers, to not take our ‘old self’ so seriously!

 

 

I thought with it being around St. Patrick’s day I should pass on to you a photo my friend Eugene sent me from Ireland. (I’m glad he was able to safely free himself from the driver’s seat and calmly record the event!) I’m publishing his name and photo because he is a holy man who lives out Ps.119:168,(KJV) “Great peace have they which love thy law, and nothing shall offend them.”

What relevance has this to today’s blog? Well I’ve been lead to make last week’s blog the first in a Trinity, so I needed a second racial joke in order to balance things out for my German friends and  introduce a few thoughts on our entering into deeper communion with the second member of the Godhead – Jesus. You’ll have to wait until next week to see which nationality gets made fun of in the name of the Holy Spirit : – )

Enough of my Paddy humor, now let’s get serious…but not about ourselves…in fact that’s the problem!!!

Last week I talked about learning to Drop Down in order to Delight with Dad in our hearts instead of Debating with the Devil in our heads. This week focuses on a Double Dose of Jesus Joy.

Jesus Joy is also located in our hearts, but is connected with our heads as the following photograph illustrates

 

I was directed to work as a delivery/deliverance man for 3 months for Jimmy John’s. This is me and my friend and co-worker Greg, beside our vehicles which are topped with the same symbol that is on our foreheads. For Greg and I the JJ stood for Jesus Joy. Our goal was with every sandwich delivery to also bring along a double dose of Jesus Joy deliverance. (You might notice our two vehicles were cons-trucked out of Eugene’s salvage : – )

So driving at breakneck speed to the corporate office or the private home or the local college I would seek to ‘get out of my head’ and Drop Down into my spirit in preparation for the upcoming 10 second encounter, so that I would receive from Jesus, the TREE of LIFE, a leaf for the “healing of the nation” I was about to meet. (Rev. 22:2)

I remember on one occasion I had barely opened my mouth when the lady exclaimed delightedly, “You’re from Ireland!…I’ve just been there!…O how I loved it!” She was thrilled as I gave her a copy of “O Ireland.” On another occasion I mentioned to the Korean receptionist about my trips to her homeland. She was so happy to get a copy of my ‘hit’ song there, Lord Jesus We Enthrone You…..and I was privileged to plant yet another seed. And so with a song, a smile, a listening ear, an inspired question, an encouraging comment, an essential oil, or a prayer as I drove away, I sought to feed both body and spirit.

This high pressured “Freaky Fast” environment was a challenging learning curve for an old guy like me.

The One Way

to survive…

and to thrive….

and have others thrive….

was In Christ to Abide

……and have His word

…..abiding in me

…..offered free.

The poem that is Psalm 1 talks about “the man” who we are in Jesus Christ and “the tree” which is who He is in us. As we identify with our “new creation” man, “Christ in us”, we will, “delight in, and meditate (‘chew the cud’ Msg.) on God’s law day and night”

The Hebrew word for law here is Torah, which is made up of 4 characters that together pictorially represent, “What comes from the Leader nailed to the cross.”

As we abide in this One who is “The Word” we will find as the psalmist says that we become “blessed fruitful and prosperous in ALL that we do!”

A few years on from sandwich delivery I continue to trust that the life giving word that I need in any and every situation will come up like ‘cud’ from where I have stored it in my heart through this practice of bible meditation.

In Jeremiah 31:33 God promises “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.” 

…………… as we co-operate in this process we all get to wear that Jesus Joy deliverance hat –

…………….not on, but in our heads

…………….and on our hearts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea.” (Psalm 46:1,2)

Through modern technology we are more tuned in to what is happening in the world than any previous generation….and it is indeed frightening! If our “first response” to those ‘mountains’ sliding into the sea is not to TREMBLE, we are indeed out of touch with this first level of reality.

The first word in Psalm 4:4 can be variously translated

TREMBLE
BE ANGRY
STAND IN AWE.

I would suggest these three represent a journey Father invites each of us to take.

ANGER I believe is a response to unresolved FEAR or SHAME.  However the rest of the verse holds the key to entering into a deeper level of reality and therefore peace.

“Meditate (ponder) in your hearts, on your bed, and be still.”

The voice of ‘Abba’ in our spirit that brings us to stillness and peace is “small” and can be easily missed if we do not know how to access it.

“On your beds” gives the clue. Scientists call it the alpha state when our brain waves slow down and we can slip past the conscious (soulish) man who guards our heart which is where we are told reside the ‘springs of life’ (Prov.4:23) Others have called this “The Heart Zone” which we enter when we are in a state of physical, mental and emotional relaxation such as occurs just as we are about to drop off to sleep or just as we are waking up.

As I have come to appreciate this, my nighttime wakefulness has changed from being a source of frustration to a source of fruitfulness as I enter into a time of deep communion with my Father.

To put it another way, in my ‘night watches’, I no longer

DEBATE with the DEVIL in my HEAD

in his language of FEAR and SHAME

but DROP DOWN…….

and in His language of TRUTH and GRACE.

DELIGHT with DAD  in my HEART

This is why I need to learn like the German coastguard how to “SINK” i.e. to “drop down” and think, from my spirit not from my soul, from my heart not from my head. And so as I receive Father’s perspective, by morning, I….

STAND IN AWE

 

 

We enjoy our avocados, and with a household our size go through them like a knife through butter. Come to think of it we go through an awful lot of Kerrygold butter too on our ketogenic friendly diet!

We do most of our bulk shopping at Costco where we have an account. It is in St. Louis Park, known colloquially as St Jewish Park. The customers there are pretty ‘well heeled’. Today I noticed the avocados had gone up in price so thought I’d pass on them and swing by ALDI’s on the way home to see if they were still cheaper there (thrifty Ulster Scot that I am!). ALDI’s is a different kind of discount store in a very different neighborhood, or should I say – it’s in The ‘Hood.

There, the healthy green fruit (or is it a vegetable?) had shot up from 59 pennies to $1.29 each and so it was a mere savings of 4 pennies per avocado. I carefully selected three plump ones and went to check out. As usual it was pretty chaotic. One line had a CLOSED notice so I moved to the next line with only two customers in front of me. Then the cashier at the register that was supposed to be closing started inviting the people behind me to come to her line! I saw the lady in front of me flinch with the injustice of it. I dropped down into my spirit and asked Father what was going on with this ‘delay’

I noticed this first lady, a bright little Asian mom, had gathered up just a few things for her family in a box – mostly vegetables and fruit, a few eggs and some cheese. Then I noticed the African-American lady in front of her, and my spirit groaned. Her trolley was packed full with her weekly shop, but it was all unhealthy stuff; white bread, pasteurized milk, and bags and bags of chips and candy. Probably less nutrition and certainly more poison in her trolley full than in the first mom’s small box of wisely chosen groceries. This lady was very overweight and had another sort of heaviness hanging over her. I noticed her 10 year old daughter already showing signs of encroaching obesity. I looked at her 5 year old son, still innocently fit looking, but I pictured him in a few years time ‘blown up’ – another casualty of that shopping trolley!

I found myself in intercession for these beloved ones trapped in addiction and depression and enslaved by the sin of a system of marketing and commerce that has used and abused them.

It wasn’t for me to point anything out to them at that time, but as I lifted them up to the ‘throne of grace‘, I thought of Jesus words,

“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care….So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”(Matt.10.29-31)

I knew it was not for the three plump ones sitting on the conveyor belt but for these three plump ones standing beside it, worth infinitely more than 12 pennies, that I had taken the detour!!!

Last week I mentioned the young Native American woman who had been lead to intercede for the President…. one of my Ulster Scots tribe who sinned against her people.

“Well that’s nice” you might say?

No!!  – “That’s world changing!”

According to Acts 17:26,27, the Dakota tribe were given by the Creator the responsibility for this place where we now live. “From one man he made every race (Gk:ethnos=people group) that they should inhabit the whole earth, and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.” This young woman is a direct descendant of the best known of the Dakota chiefs. She reminds me of Queen Esther.

Interestingly this weekend is Purim when Esther’s courage is remembered in petitioning for her people before the king It resulted in their and our salvation! The best known quote in this story is,

“And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14)

For this one story that is on public record in the bible there are thousands of others involving those who have throughout the ages been humbled and prepared through their sufferings in this life in order to “stand in the gap” at critical times for individuals like the three in ALDI’s, or for people groups like the Jews or Dakota, as forgivers, lovers and overcomers in union with the ROYAL one who “ever lives to make intercession for us.” (Rm.8:34, Heb. 7:25)

Only the end of this age will reveal the hidden heroes.

 

P.S. After last week’s blog, Cowboy Pete wrote to me. I love introducing members of the royal family to one another, so here is what he said:

Paul,

Your blog, dated Feb 28th, touched my heart and stirred my thoughts in regards to Father’s voice and the unity of the Body of Christ. Our work here, in Nebraska, is a high school youth outreach the Lord has named ‘Father’s House’. In our home, we welcome young people for a time of fellowship, prayer, an evening meal, and ministry. We teach about Father’s love, Father’s heart, and hearing Father’s voice! We teach them through the fundamentals of Christian faith from the Scriptures and work to invite them into the life of the Kingdom, as opposed to giving their lives to the pressures, the passions, and persuasions of all the clamoring voices that are not the Father’s.

We have found as we work with the young people, that the sweetness of Father’s voice, His grace, mercy, and forgiveness are more than a welcome change from the clamor, deception, and betrayal that they experience when they attend to the many voices that are not His.

That in hearing Father’s voice, they finally find that which their hearts have been seeking. They become aware that the empty voices are only preying upon the natural desires given them, by Father, to find Him! All the voices, not His, are revealed as diversions from what they were purposed for and the corruption of His intention for their lives is exposed.

We believe, in our day, young people have come full circle and are heartily sick of empty promises made by empty voices.

Your allusion to Cowboys & Indians, and the antagonism represented in those age-old conflict(s), we find melting away as we hear the one true voice, who knows all hearts, and all lives. He is intimate with all pain and heals all, restores all, and both fulfills and fills all!

In Him, then, we come to know that we are reconciled to each other and to Him! When young people hear this voice, they can’t get enough.

Thanks for all you do!
Sincerely,
Pete Lundin

 

P.P.S. The following article about how our diet in America is killing us arrived in timely fashion on my desktop this morning!

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/03/08/us-life-expectancy-declines.aspx?utm_source=prnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1&utm_campaign=20170308Z1_UCM&et_cid=DM135885&et_rid=1916366316

 

 

Thank you Collins for responding to last week’s blog with Psalm 45:3. ‘Ride forth victoriously on behalf of truth, humility and justice.”

I think the order here is significant. It is only when in the pursuit of truth we dismount in humility from our ‘hobby horses’, denounce our idols and desist from our isms that we are freed to ride with Jesus the just Judge who puts things right.

The antidote to all human sch-ism is God’s coming king-dom of justice, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.(Rm.14:17) This kingdom “Is better felt than telt.”

At a meeting I was at recently, some indignant young white folk were ‘shaking the fist’ at President Trump. Then painfully but peacefully a young native woman began to speak.

“I am of the minority group. I know what it is to be horribly abused and maligned. If I allowed myself to go there I could imagine some very scary scenarios……but as I have gone instead to Father God he has directed me to 2 Timothy 2:1-4

1 First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, 2 for kings and all who are in authority, in order that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. 3 This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires [thelei, “will have”] all men [including those in authority] to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

and so I am going to pray for this President.”

The kingdom was ‘felt’!

To enter and dwell in this kingdom the most important sch-ism to discern is that between our soul and our spirit, for the kingdom consists in…. the Spirit.(Rm.14:17) The word of God, we’re told, is alive and active piercing to the division of soul and spirit.(Heb.4:12)  It is when we are in tune with God’s active and living word within us that we can discern what is soul and what is spirit. The soul can get dressed up in all sorts of ‘religious’ as well as ‘spiritual’ language and behavior…but it is still soul. It shouts down the still small voice of my spirit and leaves me devoid of real peace and joy as the true ‘child of God’ me.

Paul writes to the Corinthians,

“I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be lead astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit  from the one you received, or a different gospel  from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.” (2 Cor.11:2-4)

I share Paul’s fear that we live too much in our souls with our dominant reality being what I think, what I feel, what I want. As such we are susceptible to manipulation by the worldly voices in the media – mainstream and social. (See Dec.6th blog)

We can take the title “Christian” but God looks into our hearts checking for sincerity and purity. I believe that is what he found in that young Indian woman’s heart.

I have written much about our Indian friends, but since coming to America, Father has also given us some great Cowboy friends with a similar ‘sincere and pure devotion to Christ.’

One of them, a prophetic brother who lives near the Canadian boarder was ‘horse whispering’ long before it became fashionable. His painting above is entitled  “Self portrait with 45 and Stamping’ Kid.” I treasure the memory of running along the Northwoods trails beside Joel as he rode bareback a magnificent creature with whom he had developed an Edenic relationship. Joel was recently lead to connect with the local Natives. His daughter laughingly told me, “He’s pretty conservative….. except for the Standing Rock pipeline where now he is standing solidly with the Indians!”

Another Cowboy who first visited us in Belfast many years ago has been released by Father from his tough inner city teaching vocation to return to the family homestead in rural Nebraska to raise cattle in a God, earth and creature honoring way. Pete and Sandi have also found themselves caring for many disenfranchised young people in that area in an expression of ‘Father’s house’ similar to our own.

The Western narrative I and the rest of the world was raised on, pits Cowboys and Indians against one another as enemies.

These Cowboy and Indian friends of ours, inhabit the same land and are united in the same king-dom where they reverence and honor, with sincere and pure hearts, the same Creator and the same King.

This is the hope for America…and the whole earth.

Please watch the short video below.