Today’s deep thought by another foolish follower…

“The gift of inspiring others to have greater faith. I want that one God! St Anthony was said to have had it, St Francis certainly did, why not us!” (an anonymous monk)

As many of us these days, are tapping back into early monasticism, finding a living and needed stream and anecdote there for our materialistic times, it is good to think about what their personal spiritualities really looked like. Reading some of the sayings of the desert father. Considering, not just there outer “orders” or rules (which at times for some became just religious), but what made them fruitful and abundant in the character of Christ, as many were. Perhaps their main gift is this one Anthony asked for—to inspire us to greater active faith. To be a living portent pointing towards faith, the ladder into the Father’s lands-that’s a good thing to want to be moving in! To be a living symbol like King David asked for, and some of these early monks, who still inspire us thousands of years later, carried and became, in themselves.

Here are some little tablets to run with. Felt led to write some little golden nuggets, for those with information add!

Little tablets to run with: speed teachings for those with spiritual add. Little seeds can still grow big plants, or even trees.

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Soil, Sight and Skin are three neglected areas of His Lordship. Our relation to the earth, our imaginations and our physical bodies are all places of meeting and knowing Our Lord.

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Creativity is meant to flow from core true identity. Culture flows from identity.

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Identity is hidden in Christ, and therefore eternal. He shows us who we are as we lean into Him. Both our names and our paths are in Christ. He protects and nurtures both. The streams of who we are in Him are trustworthy because of who He is. We are not broken lines in Him. We are not crazy in Christ. We are known seen and loved. Psalm 139—search me and know me. Ephesians 2:10—we are His masterpiece poems. He who made us know us, and can reveal us to ourselves, and share us with others for His Purposes and pleasure. Trust that your identity is held in Him, even when you cannot see the whole narrative yet. He is writing you, and you get to collaborate.

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An elder is never worried, but concerned. They know the Father, therefore are in His Peace, even in the midst or clear site of suffering and grief. Elders are commended for knowing The Father. When young we are commended for overcoming or for righteously reacting. We are also defined by what we push against. Elders are no longer pushing against. They simply rest in His I-AM-ness. There is still sadness, but more trust and less rush. Restlessness is worthless to an elder. They have given themselves to the Father, and so become shade for others. One of the occupations of an elder is to be thankful. Trust breeds thanks. Elders are comfortable not knowing everything, but resting in God. So seeming paradoxes don’t bother them as much. Some things just trail into mystery, and they are ok with that. Not everything must be black and white or fully known. For they know the Knower.

They are no longer being formed in reaction or by pushing against or competition. But are defined rather by being in His Being.

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The chain of communication. From Father to Son, to Spirit, to revelation to our spirit, down into our soul. Our spirit is higher than our soul, and is in charge of our soul and body. Our spirits should be leading, as they are led by His Spirit through the scriptures and The Holy Spirit. Through HIs Spirit we are led to The Son, and through the Son into The Father. That’s the heavenly hierarchy. There is a hierarchy in the Kingdom. For there is a King who is in charge and above every other name. Spiritual things are discerned spiritually! That is by our spirit talking to His Spirit. We cannot discern by the soul. When we are soul led, we are idolatrous. To lift the soul above the spirit is to raise an idol.

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We need to be in God, in order to deliver His Messages. God is One, and wants to be represented as whole. We go up the mountain, and draw very close. Then, if He sends us down into the valley, we stay in Him, and deliver what He has told us, in His Tone. That’s prophetic spirituality. To be close friends with God is more important than doing things for God. We are ones who instead prioritize being with God. God can use a donkey to prophecy. But if we have a spirituality of friendship with God, we may be useful to others. And have His prophetic orientation towards others and the world.

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What we will be has not fully been revealed but is already in Him. The way to know yourself is to know God. We lose ourselves-our versions of ourselves-in order to find our true names in Him. We die daily to the false versions of ourselves, to live in our new creation selves. We reject the streams of accusations and enter into the streams of intercession. This is our hourly practice. This is applying the Cross in the area of identity. We confess, thank and get true revelations of who we really are in Him. We then seek to live from our true selves. Then we are able to truly lay down our lives for others. Jesus knew who He was when He endured the Cross. He knew what He was laying down. He was not victimized by the Cross. We should choose to take up our crosses also. But we need to know who we are while doing so, so that we are truly laying down our lives for others. The apostles knew themselves, because God had revealed it to them. So should we.

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The spiritually mature are slower to speak, and quicker to listen in Love. They are less loud and more comfortable in His Silence. The Silent Being of The Father. The secret place of the Most High. Elders reside in the I Am.

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Deeper sanctification includes getting Christ into the whole self. So that He and our true selves are co-ruling within. A deeper embodiment of the Life of Christ is the spiritual journey for us all. The further He comes in, the more I am my true self. Sometimes, we need practices which help us let Him in. That’s our part of working out our salvation. We learn to progressively yield more and more of our lives into His.

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Some are in healing seasons, and just need to meet Him working through the grief, necessary confession and forgivingness, and transparency in order to get less opaque. In order to come clear. We meet Him where we are meant to meet Him each new season. If we are in denial, we are unable to confess, grieve and let Him in. This stunts spiritual growth. Confess constantly is what John is teaching in his first letter. He is faithful to guide us to areas in ourselves which still need healing. And He is The Healer, and will make us whole in that area. He who started a good work in you, is able to walk it out into completion! He is faithful.

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Knowing what season you are in matters. We need spiritual maps to know where we are in Life, and where He wants to meet us. What is He forming in you now? What part of His Life is He grafting into yours at this moment. We need that GPS to know where we are in Him. Where is He discipling you and how. This is another way of getting to appreciate how Great He truly is. Trust that process. There are lots of good spiritual growth maps stated and implied in scripture.

The whole journey of Israel is one: from slavery, to wilderness refining and training, to the great equipping of Sinai with His Law (growing in knowledge of His Ways), to crossing over and co-reigning through possessing, occupying and cultivating the lands of your spiritual inheritance.

There is an order to occupying each city, and particular enemies revealed in the book of Joshua. Each city (or part of self, area of life etc) had a way God was taking it, and a particular enemy to overthrow. The whole book is a prophetic map of spiritual growth on one level.

Other basic models are John’s blessings of youth for overcoming, and elders for knowing The Father.

When young we claim the word and do battle to know Him. There is a blessing in doing that well given by John. As older ones, we are blessed for knowing God, and resting in His Nature. This offers clues as to what the trajectory of spiritual growth is meant to look like. It heads toward The Father.

We cannot take land outside ourselves if He has not already taken that land within us! To the degree He has, we will have authority to bless others in that area.

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The basic foundations to a theology of the arts are: God is One; Jesus is Lord over every area of Reality, including the arts and imagination; God loves the whole person, including their creativity. The rest are footnotes. The God who is One desires to meet and love, call forth, bless and be Lord over, every area of our lives. He loves our whole being, so wants to meet us in our creativity. He is the Father of the arts.

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The Lordship of Jesus over every area of Reality, frees us up to bring His Kingdom into whatever our sphere of influence is on earth. We are no longer divided into sacred and profane. He is One, and is making us one integrated expression. We are free to bring Him wherever He leads us. This is liberating knowledge. In this sense our ultimate calling is to become our true selves in Christ, and walk on the paths He has prepared beforehand to be our way! (Ephesians 2:10) He is already there, when we get there! He is with our future selves, forming Himself in us. We continuously transform as we walk with Him through time. He is Lord over the past, present and future. The Alpha and Omega. So we are free to grow, and go wherever in Him.

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Freedom is among other things, correct interpretation! If we interpret our situation from His Perspective we remain free regardless of our circumstances. This is the spiritual contentment which St Paul wrote about. He had learned to be free in every situation whether he had or didn’t have, whether rich or poor, in prison or walking around in the marketplace. He had learned the secret of spiritual contentment-to be in Christ. Freedom involves seeing things and understanding them from His Perspective. This occurs through prayer mostly. When Paul said to pray without ceasing, he was talking about an orientation of being with God in whatever you are doing. This is a freedom practice. It is the walk of faith into freedom.

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Performance orientation towards God is deadly. So is spiritual perfectionism. The first rest in the stream of lies about God not approving or really loving us, unless we perform well. In truth, we are simply “included in the Beloved” despite ourselves.The second puts our own soul attempts to do things perfect above His Grace and actual Presence. They both choke the spirit’s growth. Both have to be daily dislodged by His Cross actively. Put to death. We are responsible to be collaborators in working out our salvation; but we can’t perform our way into approval by God. He accomplished this through His Son. His Son is the only Perfect one. Let’s let ourselves off these unnecessary and crippling hooks.

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Reading “Falling Upward” today…mostly focused on the second half of life! A quick first take review:

Richard Rohr’s book—nice. He is foxy and cagey, and pokes at religious preconceptions, but when he gets mellow, and speaks from his own knowing, wow. When he just speaks from who he is, so powerful.

He starts speaking from eldership instead of about it. And when he does, something truly transformational starts to happen!

In his, “a bright sadness” section of his book for instance, you start to feel not the need to feel that this is valuable information, you start to feel moved.

Moved to transform, moved to grow up spiritually, a sense that there is something to look forward to in the later half of life, that it’s not a wasteland of regret!

Not the western version of being stuck in needing to compete and contend for being, but the resting in the contradictions of becoming. And still caring for humanity and those around you without being in competition with them. Rather, in true care.

The section on living in a bright sadness is brilliant, i think. As we age spiritually, we continue to sense all the grief but there is also this growing hope, which is resilient and obvious to those around us. There is no need to be loud about it, it just has been formed there in our hearts, and radiates outwards. Feels true to me, as I begin to experience this depth of knowing in my own journey.

The beginning of the book is really trying to convince Christians that this is valuable spiritual information to consider, but then it shifts into the content of what is truly valuable-how do we head towards spiritual maturity and the later half of life well.

 Nice to encounter teachers who like to share it freely and are open about their own blind spots. The older the teacher, the more they begin with confession!

Very self critiquing, which i also trust in teachers. And in this teacher’s case, from a catholic standpoint. It’s another angle on spiritual formation.

 Dallas Willard carried a similar content, but coming from the Protestant position and addressed that part of the Body’s needs for a more complete formation of the life of Christ. And the spiritual mechanics of sanctification, which both teachers hallmark.

 I like looking at how different teachers have downloaded spiritual information about growth from different streams. Renovators really. But in their own authentic and needed roles in the Body. Refreshing when people get to the point of King David dancing before the Ark of the Lord, and just don’t care!

All great teachers, self critique, firstly. Then they move out into what they have learned. Confession always precedes useful information! When someone has been humbled, they begin to be useful. I think this book is useful.

re-Reading some contemporary spiritual Elders this week:

Reading Dallas Willard again. I like reading seasoned spiritual teachers, who no longer have anything to prove, or who have committed intellectual suicide to find higher thoughts (put their own best thoughts on the altar to find His, and found trust instead, as St Paul did)! As the American poet William Stafford wrote: “my mother told me, you don’t have anything to prove to God”. There is something nice about older teachers who aren’t in competition with the world, God, or other leaders, or trying to build their own empire or proving themselves to God. This stage of spiritual maturity, usually comes later in life, but I can always note the tone when i hear it! Dallas was convinced in his heart that true Christianity (not just the religious or traditional version) offered the real answers to life.

A close friend of mine met this teacher before he died and described how humble Dallas was and thankful, and a listening teacher; how his intellect, and best ideas had intentionally committed suicide to find God’s-(“It takes teachers a long while to die properly—pride is mighty in the human heart and especially lodges in the mind.” 1st C monk)-in order to be re-born into actual trust in God, the real Life of knowledge (spiritual things are discerned spiritually, our soul must quieten down, and listen through our spirit to His! “Human philosophy and wisdom is like a gnat in God’s Eye”)

Anyway, humility, rather than talent or expertise, or even articulation or erudition, or raw talents in art or ministry, always makes me want to sit under a teacher! The tone of love is even a clearer sign of a great teacher. A Father’s laugh underneath the message. A grandfather’s chuckle at themselves, and how kind God still is despite a clear view of who we are.

“All of the spiritualities that are now clamoring for attention, from explicit Satanism to what we hear on Oprah, are concerned with the two issues of identity and empowerment. Who am I? How can I have the power to live? Those are the questions everyone has to deal with. If we don’t come to terms with these, we lapse into some form of human decadence and failure. Renovation of the Heart is simply an attempt to say, “Here’s the Christian picture. It’s all true. It works. It’s accessible to everybody. And there’s nothing that compares with it on earth.”

Dallas Willard from an interview one of his most interesting books, “Renovation of the Heart”, which is all about deeper spiritual formation, or deeper incarnation of the actual Life and character of Christ in people, and some of the spiritual mechanics of that process. It’s also about our role in that work, so we are not just “paralyzed by Grace” as he put it. Good read. If you don’t like Christians, you still might like this book! Wisdom is wisdom.

I also like the idea of his soon to be released post-humous, but humorous or at least gentle, book, “Preparing for Heaven”. The basic idea that life doesn’t end, down here, that we are preparing for the continuing transformational process of the next life. Rooted in the idea that Jesus is Life itself, and that life never ends in Him. Great last meditation! I always have felt life is like rehearsal in theater, and then the real play happens!

A word on the prophetic spirituality: a spirituality of friendship with God.

“I tell my friends what I will do.”

 The prophets are called friends of God. Their basic spirituality is friendship. They model or are patterns of what it means to actually prioritize intimacy with God above all else. They minister before Him, yes, but mainly they are more concerned to be with Him and get to know and love Him and His Ways!

I remember having a vision of Jesus on a battlefield. He had nothing to drink, so I asked Him, hey do you want something to drink. Yes. Why is no one here to offer you a drink? Many are called, few are chosen-few choose to put my needs above their own, He responded. I wanted so desperately to offer Him a good refreshing drink. It’s not as if we can meet Jesus’ needs, but if we really love Him, we will care about how He is and what He needs. His concerns. That’s a spirituality of friendship! That is the spirituality of the prophets.

 Seek God while He may be found. Go ahead and pray and build prayer support before you are in trauma or the heat of it. This is wise. Seek God when it’s easier to find Him. Not that He goes anywhere in our traumas, but we do. Pray and seek beforehand. This is just spiritually smart. Build prayer support around projects that you know will need them, which is most projects or things we “do”.

 Seek God while He may be found. Then trust, that if you don’t lean on your own understanding, but rather trust Him and His Ways, that He will protect and reveal to you what you actually need to know. God reveals Himself to His Friends.

Jesus told His people, to them it is hidden, but to you, I reveal My Kingdom. He blessed Peter, for receiving the revelation of His Own Identity! That’s the ultimate revelation. But the principle remains: we draw near, to hear and be transformed by Him in the process. Our delivering what we hear, is also part of our getting to know and love His Ways!

 I often worry more about getting my choreography, direction or message right, or my own perfect timing, than I do just trusting Him, that if I lean into His Understanding, He will direct my path, and reveal in me, and then out to others, what are His words or communications. God likes revealing Himself. He has promised to guide us, and change us in the process; and is able! Able to communicate to us our steps etc. We are responsible for the trust, and seeking and climbing the mountain of intimacy to be near Him.

I confess being more focused on getting it right, than in trusting Him at times. I think many of us do this. We are worried and caught in some form of performance orientation or spiritual perfectionism with God. He is concerned but never worried. He wants to know our hearts more than to minister with us. He likes to minister to us as much as through us! Ministry is overflow from communion and intimacy, and our own formation of His Life in us!

In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will and is able to direct your path!!!

True intimacy with God, always precedes revelation from God. We go to the garden, we go up the mountain, we draw near to hear! From that place we encounter His Ways, His Why’s, so that that particular directive becomes part of our formation and discipleship in Him.

Our “getting words” should be part of our true spirituality or relationship with God. But that intimate relationship is a priori or is the priority—getting closer to God; what messages we get from God, then become clearer in the light of who He actually is (His Ways are revealed, so that His Works He is asking us to do, make sense and are part of getting to know Him.) Ask why when He tells you things to do. And then trace that back into who He is and His Ways. And be amazed once again! I always am!

His Ways are higher in Him than His Works, but they are attached or integrated! It’s wisdom to seek His Ways!

Some of us are given visions and words often while with Him, but we have to remember that Moses, Samuel and all the other prophets were up the mountain with Him firstly. Jeremiah, at his prophetic calling, was taught that first He was knit together in the womb by God, therefore he was called to do the particular good works he was called to do. Intimacy is higher, and precedes our good works. Our intimacy creates the atmosphere where we can truly hear from God and be transformed by Him as we listen well. Then we have something to offer others which will transform them and us!

 We get to know Him, by delivering what we have received-by bubbling forth or fountaining (the two words for prophecy, both speak of very flexible living imparting life forms of communication) His Nature and Communications! That is the art of the prophetic. Learning to deliver the message in His Ways! In His Tone of Love—what I call prophetic orientation. Over half the knowledge is revealed by giving it in His Way!

The prophets are often on the ridges rims and rivers. They are always running up and down the mountain, then and now. That is the way of the prophetic. To be His Friend, and run around manifesting His Messages. But their first love is up on that Mountain! That’s home, the rest is a cascade from that high and intimate space with The Father. The secret place of the Most High is our true eternal home.

I often get visions of a cosmic elevator going up to heaven. When I pray it starts going up until I am up near Him in His Throne Space. Then He starts showing me things and telling me things in His Presence. Then He will point towards the elevator when He wants me to go back down and share or just return in light of what He has revealed. It works like that for me. Everyone has unique spiritual experiences, but I think He understanding that the images and metaphors make sense to me.

Other times, He uses a balloon image, especially when I am praying for cities. I often pray from a spiritual balloon over neighborhoods and sections of cities.

Other times we just fly around together, sort of like He is superman. Regardless of how you meet Him, He is always there waiting for us to draw near. When we do, He will tell us what we need to know, and direct our feet as to what to do.

My highest thrill is to be getting closer to My Lord each day by drawing near to hear and be with Him, and then when He directs, sharing His Presence and messages with others. That’s my basic spirituality. I love Him, and I like sharing with people all that He is thinking, feeling and desiring for them. Everyone is different, but that is my basic passion. Which is a prophetic passion, I’m at home with. My worth doesn’t come from how well I serve Him, it comes from Him, and His Love and formation of my real life. The rest is overflow.

I remember when He directed me to be at 911 in NYC, there was a clear timing aspect and a three part mission; one of which was just to behold it, and consider global ramifications. Other times, the word is much less urgent or about exact times. That day, He made it very clear, which plane to take, and how long to stay where. There are moments in which He quickens timing and gives us specific objectives. But it is never about how well we do the job, and much more whose Name we are in and with as we are doing it. I often have to remind myself of that spiritual fact.

I think prophetic people specifically are responsible to keep the main thing the main thing—intimacy with God. We are His friends, and that has to continue to be our priority no matter what stunts He allows us to collaborate with Him in. Once, I got to talk a suicidal man off a bridge in Paris. The whole thing occurred in tongues ( sort of french prayer language, i had never spoken). That evening in Paris, He was very specific about pacing, what to do, how fast to walk, what to draw on a napkin etc. (very cool prophetic drawing for that dear man). Sometimes God is urgently communicating. But for us, there is this inner Peace of being in and with Him, which is our basic practice. Apart from Him, I can do no lastingly good thing. Draw near, while He is Present, and draw his Life into our hearts, then share His Life and messages with others. That’s the basic prophetic practice, a basic friendship spirituality. I’ve had many other God stories like this, but each time, it has come from that place of Peacefully dwelling with Him beforehand.

God is One, so His communications are not separate from who He is, and our priority is to be getting to know love and live very closely with who He really Is! When we are with Him, we hear His Voice and know His Heart. They go together in life and ministry! If we live in constant confession, into thanks, into praise into His Presence, and into His transformation, then we can more fully, freely and in joy baptize the nations and others into the There Names of the Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit!

Works versus Ways of God!

To trust God and lean not unto our own understanding is our operating system! (Wolfgang Simpson) He shared His works through Israel, but His Ways to His friends, like Moses, Abraham etc. God’s spies. Works versus ways.

To know the Ways of God not just His Works…Ways is why He is doing certain works. He reveals that to those He chooses. The prophetic. The cost of hearing is the mountain! You have to go up separate yourself like Moses, climb up the mountain away from the people….In my own life, my first prophetic calling vision was of sitting on His Lap He would give me a message, and i would run down the mountain into the valley and deliver it. He took great pleasure in how I would do it. We collaborate! This pattern of drawing near to Father first, then we get His messages, and can deliver them in His Ways, hasn’t changed for me. We want to offer the messages in His Ways—the Tone and Nuances of His Love!

Seek God while He may be found. Go ahead and pray and build prayer support before you are in trauma or the heat of it. This is wise. Seek God when it’s easier to find Him. Not that He goes anywhere in our traumas, but we do. Pray and seek beforehand. This is just spiritually smart. Build prayer support around projects that you know will need them, which is most projects or things we “do”.

Seek God while He may be found. Then trust, that if you don’t lean on your own understanding, but rather trust Him and His Ways, that He will protect and reveal to you what you actually need to know.

I often worry more about getting my choreography or direction right than I do just trusting Him, that if I lean into His Understanding, He will direct my path. He has promised to guide us and is able! Able to communicate to us our steps etc. We are responsible for the trust, and seeking and climbing the mountain of intimacy to be near Him. I confess being more focused on getting it right, than in trusting Him. I think many of us do this.

In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will and is able to direct your path!!!

True intimacy with God, always precedes revelation from God. We go to the garden, we go up the mountain, we draw near to hear! From that place we encounter His Ways, His Why’s, so that that particular directive becomes part of our formation and discipleship in Him.

Our “getting words” should be part of our true spirituality or relationship with God. That is a priori or is the priority—getting closer to God; what messages we get from God then become clearer in the light of who He actually is (His Ways are revealed, so that His Works He is asking us to do, make sense and are part of getting to know Him.) Ask why when He tells you things to do. And then trace that back into who He is and His Ways.

His Ways are higher in Him than His Works, but they are attached or integrated! It’s wisdom to seek His Ways!

Some of us are given visions and words often while with Him, but we have to remember that Moses, Samuel and all the other prophets were up the mountain with Him firstly. Intimacy is higher than good works. Our intimacy creates the atmosphere where we can truly hear from God and be transformed by Him as we listen well.

Then we get to know Him, by delivering what we have received. That is the art of the prophetic. Learning to deliver the message in His Ways! In His Tone of Love—what I call prophetic orientation. Over half the knowledge is revealed by giving it in His Way!

Gathering some stories and teachings in seed form towards a larger collection of the tale and adventures in God series…

Why tongues can be helpful.

My God story about talking the Parisian guy off the bridge in tongues and three images. What a God story—I’ve told it many places, but hope to write down more the nuances later—here’s the rough cut:

I speak in tongues sometimes, when led, usually just in prayer when i can’t fully understand or overhear what Jesus is actually praying for someone. The Spirit fills in the story, and it keeps us humble to realize we just don’t really know how we ought to pray, but this day, it was actually helpful in a unique way to someone.

This story all started on a rainy night in Paris. I was prayer walking and the spirit drew my attention to a man on the edge of a bridge . He was shaking and very unstable and immediately i knew he was about to kill himself.

First the Spirit slowed my steps. Walk towards but not at him. I did. Then something odd happened. I started just talking to him in what sounded to me like french tongues. I had explored different prayer languages over the years, but never heard this one.

What was more amazing-the man understood everything I was saying. I paused, and kept talking to him from a short distance, then he turned towards me, and i felt led to walk closer to him, while still speaking in french tongues.

He started asking me questions. I would pause and reply in these tongues an answer that evidently made perfect sense to him. He was not crazy either. Then I felt God say, draw a picture of a door and steeple and an arrow as I recall. I did and started pointing at the images and explaining them in these tongues.

He started crying and hugged me and went walking towards this enormous church building in the neighborhood.

God has a thousand thoughts towards each of us daily, and that day i got to express some of His Thoughts towards this desperate man. God is able to communicate to His Own creatures, whatever the language.

Also, working on a piece about’s and  the directional right left’s of the Holy Spirit and how I found my wife after 911.

How I found my wife after 911. God had led me to be at 911, told me the flights to take and where to land, but this is the story after 911. I had bought a red scarf for my wife in London before going to NYC.

I knew i had to deliver this very special red silk scarf as part of my courtship of my soon to be wife, but had never been to the city where my fiancee lived and did not know where she lived.

As I approached CIncinatti, He said, turn right, then left and park in a particular parking lot and wait. I did so, and then a woman arrived in a car. He said ask that woman if she knows Amy MacDonald. Well, a bit stunned the woman replied, yes she is my best friend, are you Derek? I said yes, and then followed her to their community house. Amy was not there, so to be romantic I left the scarf on her bed. Actually I had her friend put it there, as i didn’t want to be intrusive.

Then I had to leave, as there was one more assignment on this mission. I had to go tell a friend in Denver to move to the west coast. So I didn’t linger.

On the un-fear of Death since we know Life:

Are you afraid of dying?

We think of death as the monster at the party, but what do we really think about it?

I think death is just a passage way into a continuum with Jesus. He doesn’t stop loving us as we go into a new form.

And I’m not so sure we just stop and rest for a long time. All my visions have taught me, that my elders are all up above and still growing and transforming and becoming, and helping us out…just a thought.

We really don’t just not need to fear death, we need to welcome that transition! I know there are many mysteries around it all. But we are fearless in Him who has already overcome it. Not just fearless, as if it were an enemy, but trusting that the One who grabbed our hand and held onto our heart down here, when we were blind, will continue to do so into the next!

And we, from my experience, get to continue growing and learning and transforming in Him when we are up above where He is. I’m not fearful, but sort of excited about this great adventure of crossing over the Veil that He has already ripped open.

I’ve had many experiences of my own elders above giving me counsel. So I know they are active and still concerned with what is happening on earth now. They lean in, and help us out! They have more to teach to us down here. This makes me think that even their discipleship of the saints on earth doesn’t end. They keep teaching me many things!  That makes me hopeful that we too will get to continue to grow and bless into that realm.

I’m not afraid of death, i actually see it as a transition, and I trust the One who is guiding me over to the other side or spaces in Him. I think He really did go to prepare a space for me. But I also think i will continue to transform and grow in Him.

The One we trusted down here in this rehearsal, is surely able to guide us into the real play! Don’t fear death, fear God-in the best sense.

Be in Awe of Him, and you will gladly enjoy the transition from this life into the next forms of who you are in Him!

Deliver us from a fear of death, and let us trust You in the transition from season to season down here, and up there! I have no doubt of the continuum of our identities in You! We keep growing, learning, becoming and being satisfied in Our Lord forever.

It just starts here, where our faith is proven or tested or forged, or whatever other word you want to place on how our faith is made genuine and authentic down here in our three days on earth! Let us live before the One we will always live before! Now and forever, Amen.