Issues and the Flow of Things

Really it all starts with a seed.  In this case the seed was a beautiful, well- thought out commercial for a church conference.  The promised speakers were three powerful men and two virtuous women.  There were POWERFUL MEN and virtuous women?  I couldn’t pinpoint why the terminology nagged at me but it did for a period of time.  Was there a dormant feminist within me that had suddenly awakened to cry out, “Are not these women of God as powerful as their male counterparts?  Must the church acknowledge women in the same manner as the world– the need for them to be Puritanical and dainty because to declare them powerful would stir up negative connotations?”  Ah, virtuous women thou art acceptable to be heard!  No. That wasn’t it.  I quietly tucked away that word virtuous along with a host of other nuggets for their purpose to be determined at another time. 

A few weeks passed by and yesterday, while driving to a worship conference, I decided to be a step ahead and worship as I drove.  Holy Spirit broke in to my singing reverie with a vision of Jesus turning about and asking, “who touched me?’  Said I to myself, ‘Oh, yeah, VIRTUE, went out from Him.”(Hint; in case you missed it Jesus was a virtuous man)  Luke 8:43-44 And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any, came behind Him, and touched the border of His garment and immediately her issue of blood stanched.

Issue of blood… I thought if, while chopping vegetables, I accidently cut my finger and it began to bleed profusely, my issue wouldn’t be of blood, per se, but an issue of the cut.  Jesus said, somebody has touched me: for I perceive that virtue has gone out of me. (Luke 8:46) I’m thinking this woman’s spiritual life had a physical manifestation.  It’s not an unheard of concept.  After all, Jesus was in such an emotional turmoil over His pending separation from the Father that He began to sweat blood as He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane.  A Dictionary of the Bible Comprising its Antiquity, Biography, Geography and Natural History (1897) Edited by William Smith says this about bloody sweat:  One of the physical phenomena attending our Lord’s agony in the Garden of Gethsemane is described by St. Luke xxii.44 “His sweat was as it were great drops (lit. clots) of blood falling down to the ground… of this malady, known in medical science as diapedesis, there have been examples recorded both in ancient and modern times.  Aristotle was aware of it.  The cause assigned is generally violent mental emotion.  Issue of blood as defined in the same book- the menstruous discharge or the fluxu uteri (Lev. 15:19-30, Matt 9:20, Mark 5:25, Luke 8:43) the latter caused a permanent legal uncleanness, the former a temporary one, mostly for seven days; after which was to be purified by their customary offering. 

Now then, what is virtue?  Webster’s 1913 Dictionary defines it as 1. Manly strength or courage, bravery, daring, spirit, valor. (Yes, I was surprised) 2. Active quality or power; capacity or power adequate to the production of a given effect; energy, strength, potency efficacy as the virtue of a medicine.  Incidentally it is under this description where it states “Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about. Mark v.30 (Jesus is medicine!) Let’s skip to 4. Excellence; value; merit; meritoriousness; worth 5. Specifically, moral excellence; integrity of character; purity of soul; performance of duty.  (I hear You, Holy Spirit!) Skip to 7. Specifically: chastity; purity, especially, the chastity of women (was her issue a means to deal with a lack of chastity and to separate her from unchaste activity?)  OK, the next definition surprised me: 8. one of the orders of celestial hierarchy, thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers.  Say what now, celestial hierarchy? Does this bring Ephesians 6:12 to mind or is it just me?  Oh, that word again but this time in the midst of celestial hierarchy.  My God, my God!

And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. (2 Corinthians 12:9a) The woman that touched the border of Jesus’ garment had a weakness in virtue.  The power of Christ perceived gone out from Him, the grace gone out from Him, was virtue and His strength was such that stanched her physical and spiritual condition.  His strength, virtue, was made perfect in her weakness, lack of virtue.  If I were to equate these findings with today’s believer, one who lacked virtue is one that lacks boldness (Ephesians3:12, 6:19-20; Hebrews 13:6), does not operate in power (Luke 10:19, Romans 1:16), doesn’t not move in the spirit of excellence (1 Corinthians 12:31), or moral excellence (Ephesians 2),  neither does such a one exercise authority over celestial hierarchy (Ephesians 6:10-17) and could likely be dealing with issues of chastity or carnality.

As an aside we should be wary of who is around us.  It is possible to keep company with certain persons and not perceive that virtue goes out from you when you do.  We should, as virtuous people, perceive even in the midst of a crowd, when virtue goes out from us. 

Father God I praise You and bless Your holy name.  I thank you for the time we spend together and you download your love, ideas and revelation.  Thank You for Your Son, Jesus, whose strength is made perfect in our weakness.  Whatever our weakness is be it virtue, sickness, or indifference to Your word, by Your stripes we are healed and by your grace we are saved.  I thank you Holy Spirit that You can plant the seed of one word and allow time for it to grow and develop within me that I may seek you for clarity and insight.  As Jesus was a virtuous man I cannot help but aspire to his model of virtue that I may perceive when virtue goes out from me.  I pray that I and those who constantly seek You will be conduits through which your love, grace and healing flows.  In Jesus’ name I pray.  Amen.

 

Wandering Headlong and Entering The Wilderness (W.H.E.W!)

I have reason to believe that I am on the backside of a season of wandering in the wilderness, a spiritual wilderness, that is.  It wasn’t like some untraveled, pristine meadow where wildflowers sway unimpeded in warm, dry breezes waiting for someone to pick them by the armful and twirl around singing, “The hills are alive with the sound of music!”  No.  No freaking way.  This was God I’ve made my bed in hell are You really here with me wilderness.  This was well travelled wilderness on paths thankfully left behind, road-blocked and marked with signage that reads “Warning no Trespassing; Danger Ahead” and there are no warm breezes but hot, howling winds of turmoil and reflection.  How did I get there? Well, sometimes when I pray I ask the Lord to purify me and sanctify me.  I ask Him to cleanse me with hyssop and allow me to decrease and Himself to increase.  Yes, stuff like that.  I pray or converse, really, and pat myself on the back for praying up some humility and the killing of my flesh.  Atta girl!  Way to go saint!  That kind of business.   I’ve prayed that prayer, oh, I don’t know how many times. A few?  Then God answered. 

I suppose Holy Spirit said with a wink and a grin, “God, I’ll take this one. Ooh let me, please, take this one NOW!”  I was led into the wilderness and if you know the story of Jesus being led into the wilderness to be tempted of Satan, well, my story… Let’s just pray with the expectation that I passed the test and will not have to repeat any portion of the exam.  You know when you have those kinds of exams and when you fail a section you only have to repeat that section and not the entire exam?  In fact, I do not care to repeat any of it; pray with me that I will not need to.

How did I handle the being in the wilderness?  Like any typical mentally challenged person off their medication would- paranoia, depression, anxiety, insecurity, being offended, being prideful, being shameful, being self-righteous, withdrawing and my favorite, eating a lot of ice cream.  Oh, I prayed throughout make no mistake about it.  I didn’t forget my lessons in warfare.  Have you ever felt your prayers being hindered?  I swear I now know the sensation of a prayer hitting the ceiling.  There’s a hollow “thunk” sound that accompanies it; you know, that sound you hear when you determine if a watermelon is ripe; that one. 

My dreams and visions evaporated.  I all but stopped writing.  Let me repeat that one.  I all but stopped writing.  Writing, for me, is a key manifestation of my communication with the Lord.  I had TONS of ideas and none of them were inclined to make sense enough to be pecked out on a keyboard or scribbled on paper.  I wanted to quit; not living, although I questioned the point of living at all.  I wanted to quit, like, a lot of stuff.  Seemingly everything I did was for the benefit of someone else and it was taking a toll on my life in every way one can possibly think of. 

Back to the business of purging.  I was shown I have some serious trust issues.  I mean serious.  Also there was this spirit of rejection that persistently dogs me.  I can’t leave out his partners, spirit of death (family members were dying left and right and then left again), the spirit of fear, (yeah, I know God didn’t give me that but it didn’t stop it from showing up at my doorstep) the spirit of confusion and the heinous spirit of suicide.  The term Luciferian Doctrine was one I heard in a church service and that really shook things up a bit.  Then there was the Doctrine of the Nicolaitans hovering about and making me feel suffocated in church; by the church?  The thing is no one could help me; not really.  I couldn’t help but to fight anyone that tried.  This was my Jacob wrestling moment kind of-sort of.  I was wrestling everything and everyone- my demons, myself, and my God. 

There’s this strange thing about being in the wilderness it’s like being a functional illiterate- no one notices that you’re not reading anything, they just see you functioning. Challenged persons off their meds occasionally let things slip.  I couldn’t tell one day/ date from another.  Mind you I have always had a challenge with dates and time perception- everything is always two days or a week away.  Oh, is that procrastination?  Well, the fact that it occurred during this season was more of an annoyance than anything.  Anyway, people see you functioning, albeit slightly off-kilter, and they don’t know how to approach you.  By people I mean those that are spiritually inclined as per the Holy Spirit.  Worldly people, well, they deal with other spiritual inclinations.  In other words not them.  Let’s let them watch reality television for now.  No one could approach me because their first inclination would likely have been to pray for me and at that time I didn’t trust solicited prayer.  I didn’t want the spiritual prying from any person.  I was working out my own salvation, indeed, with fear and trembling.  This probably doesn’t read like that was what I was doing, but I was.  God was the only living being that I could trust.  I needed to know for myself that He was there in that hell of a wilderness with me.  I was reading the word, I was praying, I was learning of Him in church and Bible College and I was lost as, well… I was lost as hell.

I questioned everything.  For example I questioned whether or not the things I heard/learned proceeded from the mouth of God or the heart of man.  The non-denominational but not non-man doctrinal thingamajig was like a spiritual rash.  Remember the children’s game pin the tail on the donkey? If not, someone hands you a donkey’s tail, blindfolds you, spins you around and sends you on your dizzy, merry way to pin the tail on the poster of a disturbed looking donkey. In my wilderness version of the game God was the target and man was spinning me around with his version of the word of God and sending me off on my dizzy, (un)merry way to find God except I was the disturbed looking donkey and maybe the tail also.

I must say, though, despite the fact that my dreams and visions dried up my hearing opened up and there was depth to it.  I kept hearing “first love.” I was like “Yo God, you know I love you, stop playing and give me some sugar.”  No I didn’t but it sounded good for the moment as I was typing.  Keep it light right?  First love, first love.  First love God.  I made it a point to first love God and not concern myself with the ways of men.  As the Father began to reveal and purge those things in me He began to occupy more space within me.  He was having an Occupy Me Movement protesting against the things He hates that were trapped in the deepest recesses of my being. He pitched a tent in my spirit and had a grass roots sit in and dwell in.  I’d like to say it was non-violent but the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.  My God fought for me and snatched me from the grip of despair. 

What I thought I had lost, my ability to write, was eventually restored.  The dreams and visions, too.  What I gained, though, was another means to outwardly worship the Lord in joining the Bible College’s Choir.  I had considered writing as my means of worship unto the Lord.  While it was being rested the Lord began to develop another means to worship Him.  I literally began to sing to Him a new song.  After one particular choir rehearsal I walked to my car, got in, sat there and wept I was so thankful to worship Him.  Have you ever had a pent-up worship? Perhaps I’m the only one weird like that.  The release is such that you don’t even care what happens next; God is worthy! 

I recently attended a prophetic conference and received a prophecy at some point during it.  Among the many things the prophet told me the most profound was the statement “You have been loyal.”  I thought it was an odd statement to make at the time and relegated it to the fact that during my wilderness season I was considering leaving the church I was a member of.  As I heard the words my first response to them was “Of course I have been!’  Another part of the problem was asking myself if it was misplaced loyalty.  Still I couldn’t shake the oddity of that particular statement.  While I was in the wilderness being attacked, tempted and purged I remained loyal to my Lord and Savior.  I did not ever consider turning my back on God.  Perhaps a handful of people but never once did I consider turning my back on God. 

After the conference ended and left me with more questions than answers, in my frustration I had planned not to attend the Sunday church service.  I, without reluctance, abandoned that plan and went anyway.  It was then the questions were answered that I really do hear from God despite what others may think of my hearing.  I received so many confirmations and answers- even to the question of why the Lord had led me to revisit one of the poems I had written perhaps four years ago titled “Time Machine.”  The guest speaker spoke of time in his sermon and Ecclesiastes 3, both of which are central to the poem.  More important than the answers and confirmation I got, I met the God who sees me, El Roi, that day.  I cannot tell you what that feels like.  I can only say that it involves a lot of thanksgiving, praise, worship, and yes, ugly face tears. 

Instead of reading Bible stories or hearing someone teach about it I went through the wilderness with God, Himself, by my side.  What better teacher is there than He?  If faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God then I got faith straight from the Big Man, the Author and Finisher of my faith!

Being in the wilderness for a protracted amount of time was duly rough but I would not trade that time of reflection,revealing, healing, spiritual growth and maturing, and relationship building with the triune God with anything any man can offer or preach.