The Shade Of Love

God’s Thoughts To Me

They were scattered everywhere across the ground and were completely dried out.

Then He asked me, “Son of Man, can these bones become living people again.” (Ezekiel 37:2b – 3, NLT).

Exhaling Dew Drops

I live and revel with holy reverence in the glory of Your Presence, my Beloved … my Lord… King of my heart.

My vulnerable spirit marvels and rejoices with each new breath, filled with your goodness and grace, refreshing like early morning dew.

My hungry heart delights in every single heartbeat of Your Resurrection … exhaling Your love onto the lifeless valley and its inhabitants where I was once a prisoner of the evil queen of death.

You teach me with endless patience and mercy how to live in the exquisite, gentle reality and power of Your grace-filled Resurrection … the reality of your new Life.

I barely owned a last breath of the lies of self-sufficiency, when you rescued me from eternal extinction in the religious Valley of Dry Bones … in that world where You inhaled our sin and death and exhaled Your eternal Life.

My heart, darkened by the deceptions of the evil one, and puffed-up by my own imagined importance and performance, was paralyzed … unable to detect the direction from where the Wind of Your Life was blowing.

But when You softly and gently kissed me with the butterfly kisses of Your Resurrection Love, my heart delightfully came alive … baptized into the Kingdom of Eternity in You.

You allowed me to go back to that dreadful valley, where millions of souls were still living in utter barrenness and darkest death … lifeless skeletons … there where I was a vessel of your Life out of the putridness of death.

The Eternity of Your Breath was the gentle, mighty Spirit of Life who exhaled grace upon grace, slowly seeping into the dryness of these thirsty, parched dry bones, grinning the rigor mortis grimace of death.

You filled my empty, seeking heart to the utmost with the a beauty of Yourself … You became Springs of Living Water, bubbling delightfully in my innermost … a life-giving oasis in the cruelest desert … the narrow Way leading to life … leading to Your Loving Embrace.

Much love and sweet blessings xx

Mia

Linking-up with Lisa-Jo and the dear ladies at my Tea Time and Link-up page. Today’s guest of honor is the word exhale.

 

 

When Clowns Cry

God’s Thoughts to Me

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love.

Neither death, nor life, neither angels, nor demons …

nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38-39, NLT).

The Chronicles of Life

In the circus of life people are cheerful and gay, performing their boring acts of  a lethargic existence.

They are compulsive clowns with scarlet sad smiles hiding a grimace behind a pretentious façade.

Silent tears slowly trickle down their cheeks, creating colorful paths of anguish for another wasted day gone by and empty eyes desperately searching the sky hoping to find a reason for tomorrow.

They are kept in line by the crack of the ringmaster’s whip to perform like voiceless puppets on a string of lies. They crave to be loved; to be cherished is the cry of their hearts.

They yearn for acceptance, but are casually tossed aside and discarded after every performance, carelessly stuffed in a box waiting for the next time the circus comes to town.

This is a world of make-believe where reality wears masks and truth pretends to be only that which the eye can see. Every layer of life is another verse, another chapter, another story in the chronicles of the Adventures of Life.

Hearts are adrift, each in a barren void … where all are lost … there where all dream alone … where shame is the place they all call home.

This is a world where encouragement comes cheap, dripping seductively from the honey-sweet lips of an immoral woman, spoken from a desert place where no conscience can survive.

This is a two-faced kingdom where all are crowned with crowns of death, where all are trapped in the snare of the fowler … where songs of praise are the gnashing of teeth and the weeping of lost souls.

But amidst all this sorrow, invisible to the naked eye, for just a moment, a fraction of time, the Word became Man. A Man who is God with life in His wings and eternity in His heart.

He encourages and woes the apple of His eye with delightful whispers of love, of joy, of peace and gently invites her to open wide the locked doors of her heart.

The tender bended reeds He never breaks, nor does He quench the little left-over light of a flickering flame. He is an avid collector of the puzzle pieces of broken lives and gently re-builds them all.

He seeks and saves His little lambs. He cradles His own in the warmth of His glorious smile. He cherishes them in the sanctuary of His Loving Embrace.

Much love and sweet blessings xx

Mia

Linking-up with Lisa-Jo and the ladies from my Tea Time and Link-Up page.

Courtroom Of Darkness

God’s Thoughts to Me

Then they said, ” Come, let’s build a great city for ourselves with a tower that reaches into the sky. This will make us famous and keep us from being scattered all over the world.” (Genesis 11:4, NLT).

Devilish Togetherness

Once upon a time, when the world was lost in the evil one, the prince of darkness summoned his black knights around his throne of lies.

Their malignant wrathful presence filled the extravagant courtroom with their venomous sulphuric vapors of pride, evil grandeur, hatred and lies. They reeked of fatal destruction, decay and deceit.

Their prince informed them of his wicked plan to tickle the ears of the gullible earthlings by whispering damnable lies into the itching ears of their greedy hearts,

“Let us once again subtly mix truth and lies and deceive these vermin again. They know they are skilled master builders.

Let us inflate their arrogant egos and tell them that they are able to build for themselves a city with a tower to reach their God! Let us imprison them together in chains of our hatred.

With persistent lying we can convince them that standing together in humanistic, devilish unity, will make them like the King of Heaven.

Let us convince them not to use the stones that their God has created, but to build their own bricks to glorify the works of their hands.

Persuade them of the uselessness of tar and the benefits of using the mortar they have mixed with lime and cement.” The hosts of hell screeched with hateful excitement.

They bowed to their evil prince and departed for the dwelling place of man, not wasting a moment to spin their poisonous web of falsehood.

Their lies and deceptions seemed to be a succeeding, but they failed to consider the Omniscience of the Divine One. The King of Heaven summoned His host of angels,

“My naive ones are once again lending our their ears to be tickled with lies and their hearts to be filled with pride.

My children have once again rebelled and succumbed to the monstrous lie of spiritual independence.

They are standing together in devilish unity and trying to reach my Kingdom with a wicked man-made tower.

They are ignorant of the fact that this stairway to heaven will actually lead them away from Me and is nothing more that a cursed monument to glorify themselves!

Let us destroy this evil unity that makes them believe they are like gods by creating a Babylonian confusion.

I will confuse their speech and scatter them across the whole world. Only when they once again see their fragility, they will realize that they are but dust.

Then I will reach out to them with my endless mercy and draw them with the overtures of my love. I will woo them and cherish them in the cradle of my heart.”

Much love and sweet blessings xx

Mia

Linking-up with Lisa-Jo and the ladies at my link-up page

Unlocking Mysteries

God’s Thoughts to Me

And I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 16:19, NLT).

It is time we find the Resurrection Stone, and discover the “key” to these religious mysteries, to interpret the gospel as it was intended (Resurrection:  The key to understanding the gospel – James Fowler).

Priestly Prattle

The word “hieroglyphics” is a Greek word that means “sacred” or “priestly carving”. For more than a millennium, from the year 500 BC to 1822 Egyptian hieroglyphics were considered to be a secret code of priests and the key to unlock these mysterious writings was feared to be forever lost.

Until 1799 when some of Napoleon’s soldiers found the Rosetta Stone near the mouth of the River Nile. The same inscription appeared on this stone in three different languages: Egyptian hieroglyphics, Egyptian demotic and Greek.

The Rosetta Stone

But it took the Frenchman, Francois Champollion, 23 years to discover the key to unlock these mysterious writings. In 1822 he translated the symbols and the mystery of hieroglyphics was something of the past.

From as early as I can remember, I was a member of some or other Christian Church, but I was still lost in darkness and didn’t really understand what the gospel was truly about. I was well into my thirties when I first heard about our need to be born again through the sweet Holy Spirit.

Not unlike most of my contemporaries, I knew an awful lot about the gospel. I paid lip service, celebrated and paid homage to the gospel instead of the God of the gospel without ever really knowing or understanding what it was all about.

To say that the Scriptures were a lot like prophetic-apostolic hieroglyphics to me, is nailing the truth right on the head. I used to read everything I could lay my hands on, trying to find the key to unlock the sweet mystery of the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

I was as blind as a bat and lent out my itching ears to a lot of priestly prattling of quite a few deceived teachers and blind guides.

But my ignorance proved to be no problem to our Pappa and in His usual gentle, patient way, He had to use nearly a full bucket of mud to open my spiritual eyes to the simple truth of Jesus. The simple truth we have made a monstrous complexity of!

Suffice to say that for a long time I was happily falling time and time again over the stumbling block, our dearest Lord Jesus, the Cornerstone of our salvation.

I valiantly got up again after every fall, nursing my wounded ego for a while, dusting off my behind and then tried again from scratch.

Until the Rock of All Ages reminded me. “Anyone who stumbles over that stone will be broken to pieces, and it will crush anyone it falls on (Matthew 21:44)”.

When enough was enough, this Stone kindly fell on me, broke me into many pieces and took my legs from right under me through my illness. Gone were the days of my “self” being able to get up again and again.

This became extremely difficult and I had to hoist the white flag in surrender. I knew I needed to start building cautiously on the only Cornerstone through all the ages.

The Master Builder gathered all my broken pieces and glued them all together with His tender love and gentle discipline until I was just a fragile jar of clay with many cracks to allow His Light to shine through.

When one is blessed with a disabling disease, your time of dancing when the religious folk played wedding songs and crying when they played funeral songs, has passed.

I realized that I was not able to carry this burden of Fm/CFS on my own and I was soon knocking earnestly on Heaven’s Door.

True to His wonderful promise, He soon opened the Door to His Kingdom and gave me a wonderful key. This key unlocks the secret of our Resurrected Lord living His Resurrection Life in and through us.

Once we truly realize our need to decrease like John did and we fill up and straighten the roads of our hearts for our King of Glory to enter, we come to know the joy of denying ourselves daily to experience the life in our Pappa.

Through the above-mentioned article of James Fowler, I discovered the Resurrection key; the key to unlock the glorious gospel of Jesus.

Scales fell from my eyes and my heart soared like an eagle that has been released from years of captivity in the prison of religious jargon.

Many Bible verses that used to scare the living daylights out of me, became beautiful flowers in the garden of my heart. The Gardener, none other than the Holy Spirit cultivating flowers with the sweetest nectar to feed my thirsty heart.

The will of our God is one example of the secrets He revealed to my stubborn heart. I used to go on many a wild goose chase trying to determine the specific will of our Pappa for everything pertaining to my life; totally ignoring the sacred gift of common sense that doesn’t seem to be common anymore!

This glorious key unlocked many mysteries of our Pappa’s Kingdom and opened the doors of many prison cells where I was a captive for many, many years; a prisoner of the cruel jailer called Fear!

In my next post, I would love to invite you along a few of the roads to freedom our Pappa has led me and few mysteries He lovingly revealed to me.

Much love and sweet blessings.

Mia

The Feisty Philistines

God’s Thoughts to Me

He did this to teach warfare to the generations of Israelites who had no experience in battle. These are the nations: the Philistines (those living under the five Philistine rulers)… (Judges 3:3a, NLT).

All in all you’re just another brick in the wall
Just another blunder
Just another lousy call (Pink Floyd, The Wall)

A Brick in The Wall

In 1979 the rock band, Pink Floyd, released a rock opera, The Wall. It was a huge success and made the top of the charts worldwide.

The opera was written by the group’s bassist, Roger Waters, and was a protest against rigid schooling in general and the boarding school system in the United Kingdom in particular.

The Apartheid Regime in South Africa banned the whole album in 1980 and no radio station was allowed to play the song, Another Brick In The Wall. Supporters of a nationwide school boycott adopted this song in their protest against racial inequalities in education.

But this didn’t stop us young, teenage South Africans from the late seventies to listen to this album and to come to our own conclusions about the message of the song and the inequality in the education system.

The problems this album was addressing were actually much wider and much more serious than we would like to admit, for the whole world is lost in darkness and chaos and is under the control of the evil one (1 John 5:19).

I have often been overwhelmed by my finite smallness in comparison with a big, wide world. The only solution Satan offers for lost humanity, is to deceive us into thinking we can decide for ourselves what good and evil are.

As a result, we came up with “human rights” which have been a total failure world-wide, for man is totally addicted to power.

Too often the rights of a single individual is denied for the greater good of a group. No wonder the “unimportant, forgotten ones” feel like nothing more than bricks in the wall the rich and powerful are building on a very shaky foundation of human rights.

We have fallen prey to an enemy we do not even recognize, but who nevertheless has been with humanity since the beginning of time and with the Israelites in particular after they entered the Promised Land … the Philistines.

But man has not been created to have rights; we have been created with the need to be loved by our Creator, to love Him in return and also love one another.

Any right we think we have apart from the love of our Pappa will only result in another form of power struggle and puts the emphasis on the idol called “self”.

The name, Philistine, means, “wallowing in self” and according to Wordweb, “wallow” means, “to indulge in to an immoderate degree or to give oneself over to”.

The Philistines were an aggresive tribal group living in the south-east of Canaan and were Israel’s most formidable, feisty enemy and they battled against them even in the time of King David.

We all know the story of Samson and Delilah and how he eventually, after being their prisoner for a long time, killed many of them at a feast in their temple. Who can ever forget how valiantly David as a shepherd boy killed their giant, Goliath.

Please allow me to suggest that the five lords that were ruling these formidable enemies, represent five aspects of the self-life!

We get General Self-Pity with a whole bunch of troops below him like Privates Self-Loathing, Shame, Rejection, Despair, etc., etc.

Another high official in the Philistine army, is Colonel Self-Depreciation with his own bunch of underlings called Captain Self-Condemnation and Corporal Worthlessness.

Not to mention Major Self-Importance with his subordinates, Sergeants Boastful, Braggart and Windbag. Last, but not the least, we get Sergeant Major Self-Indulgence and the millitary attaché, Captain Self-Pleasure

We all have our own bunch of stinking Philistines in our hearts in all their different, delicious forms and flavors. They were not only a great formidable foe in the time of the Israelites in Canaan, but are still today.

It has never been easy to defeat them and they have the nasty habit to pop up again and again. I know I have to be on the look-out for especially those nasty critters, Rejection, Shame, Self-pity and their whole enchilada.

Someone else  may not have a problem with my enemies, but may have another bunch of Philistines to battle e.g.  that sly fox called Arrogance and his sister, Pride.

Only last week I was in a fierce battle against the Philistine army of Discouragement, Hopelessness and Self-pity when my illness almost overwhelmed me and I felt locked up  in the dark dungeon of despair.

I knew I was totally helpless, but for a day of two, I still valiantly tried to overcome the enemy with what I thought the grace of my Pappa. But without any success. My enemy was ready for serious combat and I was so weak.

I battled until I remembered that I was trusting my own skill, albeit empowered by grace. Only as I felt the hyena sinking his mighty teeth into my flesh, did I remember to turn around and run to our Lord Jesus.

When we have to battle this enemy in our hearts, let us not be foolish and think that we can defeat them on our own, for we simply cannot.

Let us submit to our Commander-in-Chief and resist this mangy pack of hyenas. These spiritual enemies can only be defeated by the sweet Holy Spirit.

Let us remember His words, “Do not be afraid! Don’t be discouraged by this mighty army, for the battle is not yours, but God’s” (2 Chronicles 20:15). Let us run to Jesus and Him alone, for He is our Conqueror.

Much love and sweet blessings.

Mia.

Desert Snippets

God’s Thoughts to Me

Then Aaron took the gold, melted it down, and molded it into the shape of a calf. When the people saw it, they exclaimed, “O Israel, these are the gods who brought you out of the land of Egypt!” (Exodus 32:4, NLT).

Egyptian Gold

The saying goes that it took the Israelites only a few days to leave Egypt, but they had to wander the desert for 40 years before God finished uprooting all the stubborn roots of Egypt from their hearts.

The ancient Egyptians had 8700 gods and after living in Egypt for 430 years, we can just imagine how much they have been influenced by the Egyptians and their useless religious ways.

It is therefore no big surprise when they wanted to revert back to the familiarity of a god they could see when they felt lost in the desert. They longed for the security of the familiar streets of hell they knew so well!

We are all well acquainted with the story of how the Israelites became impatient with Moses for staying too long on Mount Sinai. They pestered Aaron until he built them a golden calf from the golden earrings they brought from Egypt.

I used to shake my head in exasperation and disgust at the stupidly of these people, while silently patting myself on the shoulder, believing I would never be so shortsighted and foolish!

How could they think for a moment that their golden-earrings-turned-golden-calf was able to lead them out of Egypt? Preposterous, to say the least!!

But our Pappa knows me best and showed me how I used to wander in my own desert for a long, long time. He showed me all the mountains I loved trekking around numerous times before He could lead me further.

He opened my eyes to see how often I cried for the fleshpots of Egypt when the going got tough and the tough seemed to have no plans to get going!

He showed me the many times I saw the wonderful, luscious grapes of Canaan in my mind’s eye, but turned back. It took Him quite a while to usher me across my Jordan into Canaan … into the life of our Lord Jesus.

Even though I have been a member of a church all my life, I still didn’t know Jesus. My heart was empty, starving and yearning to know this strange God. I needed to experience His love which was not much more than a mystery to me at that stage.

One day, out of sheer frustration, I took my Bible and read that wonderful verse, “All that the Father gives me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out” (John 6:37).

As I used to battle rejection issues most of my life, my heart rejoiced when I saw the words about not being cast out!! Glorious light and joy flooded the darkness and despair of my heart.

I realized that although I have been a diligent church member for many years, I have never gone to Jesus personally.

I could only fall to my knees and cry out to Him that I was coming to Him and Him alone. I was in awe of this Jesus who didn’t speak the only language I knew so well: rejection!

I thanked Him for the assurance that I would never be sent away like a dog with its tail between its legs, when being rejected was about the only language I knew!

That was my Red Sea moment! But little did I realize that this was only the beginning of my journey to Canaan. I had my own treasure chest filled with lots of Egyptian gold and silver and a heart overgrown with the weeds of this world.

I didn’t take long for me to realize that the love, joy and peace I heard of so often, were still very absent from my heart and my eyes started lusting after the familiarity of Egypt!

Very soon I forgot my days of slavery and all the tears I cried when I sat down at the rivers of Babylon!

Very soon I complained about my monotonous diet of manna and I longed for the fleshpots of Egypt! How I missed the false security of belonging to a religious church, of finding my worth in a set of theological doctrines, of not thinking for myself and just gobbling up everything that was dished up onto my religious plate!

How I missed that wonderful gooey feeling of singing the beautiful gospel songs on the great rhythmic beat of drums. I soon forgot how I cried out to Pappa when I was a slave in Egypt.

But, I knew there had to be more to life than the empty futile striving, forever trying to be good enough to be loved. I was tired of empty rote practices of piety.

I was tired of being told to cry when the religious elite played funeral songs and to dance when they dished up wedding songs! (Matthew 11:17).

Like Abraham who trekked into the unfamiliar, I also set my face like flint and travelled into the unknown, never alone, for the Rock of All Ages was and always will be my constant companion!

Much love and sweet blessings.

Mia

Linking-up with

A House of Cards

God’s Thoughts to Me

A promise from God is not a challenge to man to assist God in bringing the promise to pass, despite the abominable religious cliches that say, “God helps those who help themselves; “Do your best and God will do the rest (James Fowler, The Galatians Series).

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and DO NOT let yourself be burdened again in a yoke of slavery (Galatians 5:1, NIV).

The Spirit of Freedom

I used to be a master in the art of persuasion. In fact, I did the daughters of Eve proud! The saying goes that practice makes perfect.

So, through practice and practice and some more practice, I perfected my skill in trying to convince my husband to do things my way, or why he needed to buy me another necessary trinket I did not need.

Using my womanly wiles was, after all, an integral part of my spirited womanhood. My husband though, called it manipulation and nagging.

Why do men always get it wrong? I nearly caused my dear husband to become an attic dweller.

I used to be just as bad as the Judaizers who caused the poor Paul premature grey hair when they manipulated the foolish Galatians by perverting the sweet gospel of grace.

They were shearing the sheep for their own gain, dampening the beautiful Spirit of freedom the Galatian Christians enjoyed in our Lord Jesus.

They came like a thief in the night after Paul left, convincing them that Paul’s gospel was true and right, but they also needed to keep the old Judaic religious laws. These Mosaic law-abiding Jews drooled over circumcision.

Paul was not friendly in his attack on these guys and suggested they rather go and castrate themselves, if they were so obsessed with a foreskin, and leave the Galatian Christians alone.

He didn’t mince words when he showed them the futility of reverting back to the spirit of law by building a religious house of cards.

In his letter he once and for all demolished the misconception that grace and law were bedfellows.

He made it crystal clear that their fence-sitting caused them to be cut off from Christ, cut of from grace. They had to choose!

Studying the letter to the Galatians , I was surprised by a very interesting point. I was taught that the Arab nations, especially the Muslims, were the descendants of Ishmael and the Jews were the descendants of Isaac.

i have found this to be untrue! Paul told the Galatians that holding on to their Judaic religion,  and all religion through the ages, caused them to be children, descendants, of Hagar the bondswoman.

On the other hand; all the people who trust our Pappa God alone to save them through His grace, are the children, descendants, of Sarah, the free woman, the woman who never went into labour. Allow me to explain.

Looking at the human race, we see that even Abraham had the tendency to help our Pappa fulfilling His promises.

When the infertile Sarah nagged him to have a child by her Egyptian maid, Hagar, the poor man capitulated! I suppose Bedouin tents did not have attics!

It was quite an acceptable and moral practise in their culture. Ishmael was born as a result and we found Abraham pleading with his Father to accept Ishmael as his promised heir. All, of course, to no avail.

When we look at the two women and their sons, we see that they represent the two covenants. Hagar and Ishmael represent the covenant of Law, mans effort to fulfill God’s promises.

Sarah and Isaac stand for the covenant of grace, God doing what He does well, fulfilling His promises without human interference.

Paul explained that the Covenant of the Mosaic Law, “… came from Mount Sinai, bearing children who are slaves; she is Hagar (Galatians 4:24)”.

Yet, the Judaizers were convinced they were the descendants of Sarah. Actually they boasted in their heritage of being descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob through their genealogical heritage and law-observance.

But Paul turned their whole theory upside down and with a little huffing and puffing, blew their religious house of cards away.

Paul also dropped a bomb in my religious belief system, for I was convinced that trying to do my best in assisting my Pappa to redeem me from my captivity to the kingdom of darkness, made me the proud owner of the honorary title “Descendant of Abraham”.

Not so! All my trying, striving and coniving helping our Pappa to save His world and myself, only resulted in me being captured by the spirit of bondage.

I was a slave, a descendant of Hagar and Ishmael, wallowing in the mud of self.

Only by entering through the narrow gate, our Lord Jesus, into the freedom of His resurrected life, do we become heirs of the promises our heavenly Father made to Abraham and His descendant, our Lord Jesus, who lives in us through His Spirit (Galatians 3:16).

Dear Ones, let us search our hearts, asking our Pappa to eradicate any traces of the spirit of Hagar and Ishmael still lurking in the recesses of our minds and the murky corners of our hearts!

Let us ask Him to lead us out of the bondage to law-observance and self-effort into the freedom of His grace.. His forgiveness … His love … His mercy. Come, let us allow Him to usher us into His Kingdom of Light … into the joy of His Loving Embrace.

Much love XX

Mia

Linking-up with

The Joy of The Lord

God’s Thoughts to Me

This is a sacred day before our Lord. Don’t be dejected and sad, for the joy of the Lord is your strength! (Nehemia 8:10, NLT).

The Kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:21, NIV)

The Kingdom Within

We were all created with the longing to be loved … accepted, faults, failures, boots and all! It is quite the opposite of what the world teaches.

From childhood we are bombarded with the lie that we need to be independent! Stand on your own two feet. At best, keep your feelings at bay!

Work hard and climb the ladder to success, only to find that there is no end to this striving, no end to this crazy scurrying to nowhere!

And this longing to be loved goes unfulfilled. And we starve!

Another lie that is soon added to the world’s diet, is that worldy pleasures supposedly would still the hunger in our hearts for fulfillment.

We soon learn that playing just as hard as we work, is another prerequisite for happiness.

At some stage we begin to realize that there must be much more than this rat race that ends up only in the cat’s stomach and we feel the first stirrings of the sweet Holy Spirit drawing us to the heart of our magnificent Creator.

Some people try to quiet this stiil, sweet voice through drugs or sex or alcohol, only to spiral down into the destruction of their ability to be human.

Others sell their souls to a career only to find that ladder resting against a shaky wall, built on an even shakier foundation.

Others seek filfillment in sports and different societies, but I have found that my nemesis was religion!

My heart was like a sunflower turning its head towards organized religion hoping to find the warmth of the Son.

I was experiencing all these stages of life while I was a member of a church, a Sunday School teacher and part of a Bible study group and I was at my wits end.

For even there I couldn’t experience that deep inner joy and love my whole being craved for.

I cannot even begin to describe the intensity of that longing and how it robbed me of my ability to eat or to sleep.

I started on a journey, an inner journey, through the streets of the heavenly Jerusalem … a journey to find the priceless, costly pearl … that pearl of incalculable value.

Like the Shulamite, I said to myself, “I will get up and roam the city, searching in all its streets and squares. I will search for the one I love. So I searched everywhere but did not find Him (Song of Songs 3:2, NLT).”

Yes, I tried everything religion had to offer in the name of my beloved Lord Jesus. Yet, all to no avail.

I soon realized I was in an adulterous affair with the letter of the word and it was killing me slowly but surely (2 Corinthians 3:6), while my heart was longing, no craving, for the love of the Living Word!

Yet, it is so human to prefer the familiar, known streets of captivity, than escaping to the glorious freedom of the unknown.

I had to ask for grace to leave it all behind and to start my journey to Mount Zion … grace to be bigger and wiser than my fears!

When I read verses like Nehemia 8:10 , I became so frustrated, for the much coveted joy seemed to mock me in its absence.

Until one day when I realized that I was not searching for my Beloved with my whole heart like our Pappa advises us to do,”If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me (Jeremiah 29:13, NLT).

Just then and there I decided to take the first step … that leap into the unknown and my whole heart rose up to seek and find the one I love. I cried out … deep cried out onto deep … longing, craving, starving for my Beloved.

Then, one day in the early morning hours after another sleepless night, I was sitting on the floor, totally lost in my longing to be found by Him, when a shining white figure of a man appeared next to me. He held out His hand, inviting me softly, kindly and gently to come.

Just that one word,”COME”.

At first I was frightened, for after all, I didn’t believe in ghosts. But He kept inviting me with so much love and kindness that I couldn’t resist Him any longer. I took His hand and collapsed into His being.

I was lost in love and peace and surprised by JOY unspeakable.

I was lost in His Loving Embrace.

Much love xx

Mia

Linking-up with

Songs the World Sings

God’s Thoughts to Me

To what can I compare this generation? It is like children playing a game in the public square. They complain to their friends, “We played wedding songs, and you didn’t dance, so we played funeral songs, and you didn’t mourn” (Matthew 11:16-17, NLT).

Prisons of Boxes

Pain and exhaustion greet me every morning when I arise to the gift of a new day our Lord has made, a day to rejoice and to be glad in Him.

I am enveloped and embraced by a debillitating chronic disease, Fm/CFS. According to the clever people, this illness has disabled my whole nervous system and not much is working the way it should!

Sometimes, when my bird friends welcome the new day with a beautiful song, their joyful singing cause a sensory overload in my body and pain washes over me like the waves of the sea, breaking on the sand … wave upon wave upon wave of excruciating pain.

When the frolicking rays of the sun invite me to come and play this game called life, I have to seek shade and darkness for their brightness pierce my body … stabbing … cutting … wounding, and the result, more pain!

My mind is encamped by another Fibro friend, Mr Fog! This  guy steals my thoughts and words like a thief in the night;  for this one truly is invisible!

But this box has another side … the only side visible to the world. It is beautifully wrapped in colorful gift wrap. It is decorated with satin ribbons and perky bows of lace … a frivilous box fiiled with jokes and tears.

But this is a facade … a heartbreaking, lying facade. It tells another story the world chooses to believe and adds tons upon tons of heartache. For it causes a short-circuit, overburdening an already disabled nervous system.

The world mostly finds it easier to label this illness as a monster in the mind; a psychological monster.

But this time the pain cuts much deeper than flesh … it cripples the heart and the soul. This monster has the ability to inflict pain where it hurts the most.

Yet, our Pappa God, in His divine wisdom, knew that I was held captive, floating aimlessly in another prison … the prison called “The Ways of The World”. The prison warden of this jail was a detestable master of telling lies.

He overwhelmed me with  neatly wrapped boxes of systems, rules and laws. Political systems … economical systems … social systems … systems of morality … but … the most dangerous of all;  religious systems, laws and regulations.

Systems and laws forcing the  common folk  to hold their tongues and not query the status quo.

The maestros of these songs want to play wedding songs for their followers to dance … or funeral songs for them to cry. They love a charade of play-acting and role-playing with them as the directors of activities.

They call the shots, but are seldom happy with our performance for we can never measure up to their demands.

We are damned if we do … and damned if we don’t … So the games go on and on and on in a never ending circle of performance.

And I danced and mourned and cried and performed until the blessed day arrived when my Pappa released me from that unbearable burden … that prison of pretense … of trying to please the world and the directors of its ways.

Our Pappa took away my ability to mourn and dance and perform on the lyrics of the songs the world sings. My feet and my heart ached from  all the useless striving on the dance floor of life.

He freed my heart and spirit from the prison of this world and gave me citizenship in heaven.

He showed me the absolute futility of trying to do what only He can do and which He does with excellence, saving me and His creation from the chains of sin, death, chaos and destruction.

He wiped away all my tears, healed my broken heart and whispered love-filled words to my soul. His song of love, joy and peace opened a new world to my understanding.

He opened all the worldly boxes imprisoning me, freed me and gathered me into His rest … into His life … into His Loving Embrace.

Much love XX

Mia

Linking-up with

A Man Called God

God’s Thoughts to Me

The People who walk in darkness will see a great Light. For those who live in a land of deep darkness, a light will shine (Isaiah 9:2, NLT).

And He will be called: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, his government and its peace will never end (Isaiah 9:6, NLT).

For you have said to yourself, “I will ascend to heaven and set my throne above God’s stars” (Isaiah 14:13, NLT).

Light of The World

During my earthly wanderings in the deep, deep darkness, the chaos and the ways (especially the religious ways) of the world, I met a man.

Actually, this man is a King; a King not of this world, but from another Kingdom … a Kingdom of Light and Love … a spiritual Kingdom.

This incredible god-man is called Jesus. This man is the Light of the world, the Light of my life … my Beloved.

He stole my heart completely and ever since I have been happily lost, yet securely found, in Him.

He loves me with an everlasting love and I am learning to respond to His loving overtures for He has never been anything but good to me … my Knight in shining amour.

What is so remarkable about my Prince of Peace, is His unmeasurable love for … well … everyone His Pappa has ever created.

And that is the entire human race through all ages and time. Everyone since Adam and Eve opted out of this relationship of love with Him through the deception by my King’s archenemy, Satan.

This enemy was once called Lucifer and he was an archangel in the courts of my King. But he became proud and wanted to usurp the place of my humble Prince of Peace.

But thousands of years ago he was defeated and thrown out of the palace courts of heaven. Actually he was thrown out of my Prince’s Kingdom altogether.

For the time being, he is still roaming the earth like a roaring lion, trying to devour any gullible soul he can find to take them captive on his journey to the lake of fire our Pappa has prepared for him in advance.

He knows his sand-glass of time is running out and he is ferociously using his mightiest weapon, lies, to steal, to kill and to destroy. He is not called the father of all lies for nothing.

Of him, my King says,”How you have fallen from heaven, oh shining star, son of the morning! You have been thrown down to earth, you who destroyed the nations of the world. For you said to yourself, “I will ascend to heaven and set my throne above God’s stars (Isaiah 14:12-13).”

Only our Lord Jesus have the honor and can be rightfully called the Bright Morning Star, Wonderful Counselor, Everlasting Father.

The government of my life rests on His shoulders for He rules with fairness and justice … with love and peace … patience and mercy, gentleness and kindness.

He has many more honorary titles of which I want to mention just a few more. He is the Light of the World, the Way, the Truth and the Life.

He is the gate through which we enter into His Kingdom of matchless beauty … a Kingdom where there is no sorrow or tears … there where the lion feeds with the lamb.

His love is not dependent on anything we can offer Him. Even if we don’t love Him, He still loves us for He is love and He never changes.

He cannot become a better version of Himself for He is already the best there can ever be. He does not upgrade Himself for then He would not have been God in the first place. He has been the Perfect One from all eternity.

He cannot become a lesser copy of Himself, for the simple reason that He cannot change. He is the Great “I AM” who forever was and is and always will be … the same!

Any goodness our finite minds can perceive, is only a tiny fraction, a gracious gift from His abundant supply. Any love we can feel towards Him and one another is also just a tiny morsel from the storehouses of heaven, a gift from His Heart of Love.

He has a burning desire that everyone would hear His still, small voice beckoning us all into His Kingdom. He wants to betroth us and is preparing a feast at His Father’s table for His bride … the Lady Ekklesia.

I know that there are many travelers on this road called Life who are still seeking for His Kingdom … for His love and His redemption.

This year I want to expose the many boulders of lies I have encountered on my journey to His Kingdom. If it is the will of my Pappa, I want to bring Him glory by being His girl to clear the way for the King’s coming to many a heart.

For His name is Emmanuel … God with us … Christ in me, my Hope of Glory!

For those who are still seeking Him like the Shulamite, “Tell me, my love, where are you leading your flock today? Where will you rest your sheep at noon?”, I want to show a better way than the world’s … a way that leads to rest … into the shadows of His Loving Embrace.

Much love XX

Mia

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