Yes, this life is hard and there are no promises of “soft landing” as we fall from the walls we’ve constructed in our outposts. That hopeless feeling that exists in the exact moment of our greatest helplessness is in fact a tool that God is using to force you to seek His Help. Why else do you believe that the Lord would create a world, into which He made man, knowing fully that man would fall from Grace, as the angels had done. Then provided a sacrifice so Holy and Righteous that it paid in perpetuity for the Sins of All men, the Lord Jesus. Then left us to struggle for ourselves in a world run by the fallen angels against whom we have no authority. Unless, that is the purpose of all of it to find that authority, that fairness, completion and protection in that Sacrifice which had been righteously performed?

We are not victims to this Hard Life but victors because of it and over it through the indwelling of the Spirit of Almighty God. This is no longer a set of circumstances and situations through which we plod in hope of simply escaping the punishment of its unruly practices. Order is God’s Way. We are meant to walk in order through this life fully armed, fully prepared and provided by physically, mentally, Spiritually by that relationship to the Sacrifice made on our behalf. We have been reborn to a new life, with new powers and authority exercised through us over all the powers and principalities of this once unbeatable foe.

Going through trials when you know the outcome is victory is not the same thing as experiencing the victimization of our old life. Try as we may or succumb as we may to the onslaught of false reminders, conviction and condemnation of this worldly prince, we cannot escape the fact that we have been reborn into the Spirit of Almighty God with imbued authority over all of it. This world is made to be temporary, it is made to be a challenge, a combine, crucible and passing for those being prepared for whatever awaits them in the afterlife. For those who choose to believe that mastery of this world or preponderance of its identities and treasures are the victory then they will have achieved what they came to achieve and will face an afterlife separated from the King of Kings.

For those who face this Life in the joyous outlook that this is just our temporary training ground in preparation for our new life to come after this one, then we will abide in Christ hear and with God for eternity. Yes, this life is hard, but in your wise understanding of that nature and your reliance upon Hope and Faith the difficulty becomes another sign of His Love for Humanity.

They remind me of You. Odd shapes and sizes, with interesting pasts and even more intriguing quirks and talents. They come from all over with accents that make me laugh and fears, worries and concerns that could power city electrical plants if we could ever harness their wasted energy. They Love wonderful things; like kids being free from assaults upon their innocence, birds, whispers, worship and song. They are a poem to the testimony of their creator, when I see them I know You.

They write down their thoughts and want you to read them just so you can tell them what you think, so they can feel acknowledged. They are so frail, yet when the chips are down, their freedoms are challenged, their families threatened or their God mocked they arise like a heavenly hosted army. They don’t want vengeance but understand that forgiveness comes before escape. At the top of their lungs they will praise their friends and with those same lungs give you the verbal dickens for forgetting to put out the trash. They are an odd breed, a peculiar people and I Love that they Love You.

They are so timid and afraid at times you have to holler at them to get out of the way of the charging bull yet they will wake you in the middle of night to talk about a shooting star. In times of trouble they forget who they belong to and try so darn hard to get it right or fix things that I have to throw pillows at them to recapture their diverted attention. They want what they want when they want it but are humbled and embarrassed when they see someone in need of which they already have collected too much. They want all to be saved but cannot find the courage to tell people about Jesus. But when squeezed they will mention Him First. They have nothing greater in their lives than You.

Their wishes are true, their faith solid and their bright expectations somehow unmanageable, yet they never fail to remember on which side their bread should be buttered. They try and avoid resemblance but are unmistakably children of the Most High, sent as Ambassadors to pave the road, the skinny road to paradise. They will run from a ghost yet march in Hades to free the innocent and pull captives back from the abyss. All because they are empowered and living filled with the Spirit that is You.

They are Yours and I adore them, not simply because they remind me of You, but because they are the part of you that I get see all day long as reminder of how close we are.  They are your sheep and they need feeding, comforting, encouraging, questions answered and wounds healed. I honor the position before me as their Brother at Arms. Mostly because it is the thing in this life that I get to do entirely for You.

Bless them continually in the Great Name of the King, Jesus.

Do you see it Gertrude, that shining light upon the Mountain? It’s as if the hills are aflame with no smoke, but the flames are clear as day. What do you think is causing such a thing? Should we go and see? Wonder if we should leave word or just head out right away.

What is your hope of tomorrow? What is it, that light, that ideal, that understanding that compels you onward? What awaits in your heart filled with promise that it resonates louder and clearer than any objective reality offered in this temporary dimension? Why do you believe the promises of God? Was it a choice based on rational information and considered deliberation?

Why do you choose to believe? I mean when Grandma Henry told you all about Jesus, what made you want to believe it was true? Why have you sat alone, content all those hours peeling over a tome of Words as old as time itself, searching, seeking, familiarizing yourself with the God of Promise? Why would you accept on faith a Book so audacious it offers cleansing of all unrighteousness for a simple believing prayer? Why would you hold to its promised right living and transformation from your current unhappy existence? Why do you feel that eternity awaits for those who trust on a God they cannot see, cannot hear and barely know?

Well, Samuel, I will tell you like this? What else is there to believe upon deserving of my faith, than a God who loved His Creation so much He took mortal form, lived the same life as you and me and then gave His Life to pay the debt of sin for “all” men? And yes, I will go up that mountain with you, in hopes of taking my shoes off and being on that Holy Ground that God might speak, use us or even if we just get to stop and pray. Why? Well you will have to discover that answer for yourself, because the belief and faith in God to me is the most rational, easiest, most sustainable thing in this mist of a life. It is a thing for each of us to decide, struggle through and come to an agreement or discord upon. Right now let’s get moving because we’ve many miles to go if we are going to make it there and back by morning.

As we turned toward the light I scratched my head and wondered.  How could I have been so convinced by Love, that this story of God’s Plan for Creation set so firmly in my mind was nearly impossible to deny or discount? I walked quietly, listening to the scratch of my feet on the rocky ground, and found myself smiling. Then laughter filled my heart as I realized the flame lived in my own heart, that God had already invited me to the Holy Ground of Grace. In Jesus’ Mighty Name.

It is understood that these drastic upsets are challenging to your courage and willingness to stand the ground you’ve recently taken. No one has the right or realistic authority to tell you that this is not scary stuff. Or that the tremors shaking your nervous system are somehow manufactured fears or unreal impulses felt by you alone. These are clearly difficult, dangerous and frightful occurrences that when reviewed must certainly be considered as sufficiently audacious that they would rock most peoples’ countenance. Reaction to frightful impulses or perceived assaults upon one’s psyche or person naturally trigger reflective and protective responses.

There in lie the miracle. For being born of worldly seed our typical reactions are entirely excused as natural. However, in consideration and direct reflection upon the “new creatures” standing in the space our carnal bodies once occupied, the “normal” responses and defense mechanisms born of sensory reflex shall never again be assumed as the the only responses available to “spirit” seed creations of God.

Those assumptions that accompany our carnal passions and understanding must themselves be re-calibrated, rerouted and readjusted to collateral information regarding the arguable upgrades of being a person now born, sanctified, ordained and prepared for Spiritual Living. We no longer react like carnal beings, is a statement that upon reflection does not describe the depth of these changes and how considerably they cause an adjustment to our parameter of understanding. If we are no longer limited by the sensory catalysts and reactions to sensory stimuli, what then are the true boundaries for “natural” response within a Spiritual discussion or action?

This is a necessary conversation and frankly very productive in each our of walk with God. Therefore, it first requires that direct communication between a believer and the Lord followed by considerable reflection, meditation and prayer. This may in fact be the chapters’s of Christianity that we are meant to ponder and upon which we may be called to provide adequate discourse. The true question is “have I taken that adequate and necessary time with God to effectively comprehend and determine the range of reactions, for me, as I seek to understand the definition of the new Normal”.

Shall I never again be afraid, God tells me that fear, unless an alert of emergency or potential hazard on the road ahead is a carnal impetus fed by the enemy for our consumption, pacification and paralysis. Fear in this life is no longer consistent with those whose fear was previously based on the protection of this life and the sufficient and adequate fear in the real or imaginary potential of losing it. What then is normal for a man or woman who has belief that the coming new life is now the starting point for their True existence and that moment may not occur without direct approval, permission and the will of Almighty God. Shall we then fear that moment in this glorious and insightful Spirit filled understanding, especially when we know it cannot happen without God’s Okay?

Now to worry, concern, upset, anger, depression and similar emotional categories that have the same weighty potential to cripple Christians in their walks with Christ. The Lord directs us to give these “burdens” to Him and in so doing receive a more than adequate cancelling mechanism in the Peace that surpasses the worries of this world. So, if I receive sensory indicators of the world around me and I determine that I should consider them of more import than simple acknowledgement of circumstances then I am remaining in the potential detention of my own carnal misunderstandings in the Spiritual Environ. In fact, prevalence or repeated occurrence of this semi paralyzing status should now be a Spiritual indicator of our next item for surrender to God. He does the changing but we must go to Him having received the  awareness of what must be surrendered repenting of our carnal thinking otherwise we will simply be revisiting the throne for the same set of prayers the next time we make the same mistake of misconception. Often or perhaps even always, yet to be determined, it is the awareness that sponsors the true prayer for transformation.

When I see what I have been doing, it is then time to move on from that behavior inadequate to my new reborn understanding. Unfortunately, I get these insights and indications of my carnal perceptions daily and must pick up my cross daily and walk the walk he bids me make with Him. I pray for perfect reaction in all things that my actions would bring Glory to God in each display for the people who unfortunately must interact with me. However, the fact that I remain on this Earth is clear indication that I am truly inadequate to that expectation. For if I had already mastered the Spiritual Walk such that I reacted in each situation as God would expect or in tandem with His Spirit, then honestly we know I would no longer be here. That being said, the awareness of my situation may apparently be more important than the action within the situation. If, I know what God is trying to teach me or I know what God wants me to surrender for His transformation am I not at a point that I may turn it over to Him in Trust and Faithful expectation that at His Good timing He will make the necessary change to align me with His expectation?

I pray Lord that I see it all that I may surrender it to you for transformation, dispensation and rewiring of my internal circuitry. Let me no longer fear to act carnally but instead catalog each episode that it may be brought to the Throne Room at the next available moment and surrendered to You. Let me no longer judge myself for carnal behavior but rejoice in the realization of these reactions as awareness opportunities through which I might be corrected, guided and sanctified into the Spirit Man I was always meant to Be. In Your Precious Name I pray my God and My King, Jesus Christ, the Lord.

If it’s about you then I will not continue listening. The ratchet scream just oh too much to hear. So ill the fate to be caught in analysis and reason. Sandwiched between control and abject fear.  Cannot let go your hands are fused together. The polar price a charge between the ears. We are left still to imagine our next nightmare. Where all that’s gone will be hashed out through the year. Next Step, windswept, family kept just won’t accept. Some loss, provided by the boss, as rolling moss grows greater with each toss. Let it go was your mantra of the morning, but by midday your will had turned to sand, along the way a dream or two were broken, shattered upon the rock we chose to stand. Cannot be helped, it’s all so polymorphous, changing shape and identity each turn. The mind is whole the body known as corpus, meant to us that we just couldn’t  bear to learn. So on the shelf we sit with waiting pleasures and bide our days leading into longer nights. All represent the not too drastic measures will be evoked to exercise our rights. Gone is the fog and the frog that leaped right over to windy shores and mighty fields of clover. To sleep on it we draw our paws asunder, as lightning shakes and peels in crashing thunder. The moors forgive but the river is forsaken by all who pass into the wishful past. Too bright to live to much energy to last. Gone is the night and forgotten by the morning the day begins without giving dawn its warning. And we are stretched by attitude of mourning as our hearts dim to the content of our sins. We recollect in the objects of our laughter, twice intersect the past and days come after. We entered dreams and found ourselves convicted to play the roles we’d invented for the king. Our righteousness and hope were both constricted and held in check by the old song that we bring. This new life waits and does not come for calling, stand up against all our hemming and our hawing. No excuse is born that meets content’s charter The veil is torn you’ll have to pray much harder. To be heard we’ll have to stand in patience, to seek that call by attendants of the throne. For after all when the wind has all stopped blowing, In His Great Palm we will never be alone.