Suffering with Purpose

I love you child. You are so precious to me. The suffering that you experience to break free of the passions of the flesh cannot compare to the glory that will be revealed in you at my coming. You must suffer a little while more but know that I am with you and I'm so proud of your persistence and undying faith in my power to deliver you completely.

I have collected your tears in a bottle and I do not take them for granted. Take heart my little one for I have shed my blood for you and you shall be victorious!

You want to know the secret to enduring suffering without giving into the passions of the flesh? It is found in the hope of glory. For the joy that was set before me I endured it's suffering and its shame. I did not defend my name, I let go of what people would think of me, I let go of my rights to pleasure and comfort all because I knew what was to follow when I would be victorious. I have purchased these things for you, they are already yours yet they are not yet fully manifested in your physical life. Hide in me.

Abide in me, find your strength in me, depend on me, look to me, listen to me, learn from me for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. I aimed to do one thing only, whatever it was that the Father wanted for me to do. I focused on Him and not on the things that I lacked. My gaze was always upward and future focused. Like Paul, forgetting what is behind I pressed on toward the goal.

The finish line is nearly in sight, and I have faith for you that you will not give up before you take hold of that for which I have taken hold of you.

Yes you must suffer a little while in order to take hold of your freedom, but know that I have taken hold of you and I will never let you go. Keep fighting, keep pressing on, don't give up, for your victory is close at hand my valiant little warrior. Your suffering is not in vain. Set your face as flint to take hold of the glory that is already yours. Those who suffer in the flesh have ceased from sin. I have seen your suffering and your faith has been credited to you as righteousness.

A Cup of Ocean

My child, I love you. Thank you so much for continuing to open up your heart and give me a chance to show my love to you.

The darkness is thickening and it has made a formidable attempt to overtake you, but I have heard the cries of your heart. You have felt yourself slipping but I promise you I will never let you go.

It is true what Jesus has said: In this life you will have tribulation but take heart for I have overcome the world. All creation is groaning as in the pains of childbirth for new life to emerge unlike anything you could possibly imagine. Trust me! The suffering you experience now is not worth comparing to the glory that is to be manifested in your life and in the lives of all of those who have adopted me as their Father.

There is no earthly comparison to the riches of the inheritance that is already yours which I have held in safekeeping for you. Even now I have released a deposit into your spirit as my son of that glory—my Spirit. And those who have my spirit are inseparable from me. How then could I ever forsake you? How could I deny my very own? Try retrieving a cup of water after it has been poured out into the ocean. My child, you are lost forever in my love and you are forever ruined as you have discovered who you really are in me.

Remember who you are and the resources you have available to you especially in the face of the coming storm. In this life you will face tribulation, but never forget that I have overcome the world. These things must be for I have called the Evil One to account and he is very angry with me. He would like to disrupt my plans but he will fail. I am unleashing a mighty torrent and I will scatter the forces of the enemy.

And you, my little cup, are an integral part of that torrent. Do not be disappointed for I am your God who shall overtake the Evil One like a flood.

Insomnia

Ever notice how disorienting it feels to be awoken from a deep slumber?

This morning the fire alarm was sounding. I woke up, but I couldn't even find my bearings. I needed to put some clothes on or at least I was pretty sure I needed to wear clothes. Maybe it was important that I matched, or wait... maybe it didn't. It took me a full 4 minutes of wandering in a stupor before I finally realized the alarm was sounding from a different building. I was safe.

Or was I?

It dawned on me later that in the midst of a real fire that my sleep altered brain could have been the death of me. I wonder: How many people have died due to sleep?

Even more disturbing: How many people have died due to being half-awake to the reality that they might be in danger? Almost safe is not always quite safe enough.

Over the last several months I have had the unsettling experience of my sleep being disturbed. I have been waking in the middle of the night with all kinds of unsettling thoughts. Feelings of impending doom, anxiety, and nightmares. I suppose some would say I might have a condition.

They might be right. My own self-diagnosis: Spiritual Insomnia

Spiritual Insomnia (my definition by experience) is characterized by a desire to stay blissfully unaware of anything that challenges that which I have tried to believe based on the feared consequences of believing something else instead. This desire is accompanied by periods of  anxiety, panic, unsettledness, restlessness, thoughts of impending doom. It is the feeling that at any moment the ground I stand on will suddenly vanish. Alternately it is also accompanied by periods of a sense of calm, peace, happiness, confidence and certainty. But all the while, there is still an underlying unsettled feeling that something is lurking around the corner.

I've suffered from this condition for years actually. But in the last several months the periods of unsettledness seemed to increase (especially at night) and so did my denial (especially during the day). I continued to tell myself that I was actually more at peace and more confident about what I believed. And then my house of cards began to crash.

Like a fire alarm I felt like God asked me a question--

"Jason, what is it that you're afraid that I might really be like?"

Seems like a simple enough question. What on earth (or in Heaven) did my heart believe that I had to fear that I was waking up with a sense of impending doom.

I wrote a list of my fears that I realized at some level my heart was still believing about God. As a result I discovered a distorted image of God that I had been trying to relate to which was cruel, sadistic, unpredictable and harsh. I was confused. Haven't I already debunked this distorted image from my heart before? What happened to the God who loves the world so much that He sent His Son to save us? Clearly there was some interference coming through my internal radio that was still distorting the message.

Fear! My heart was still fearfully clinging to the old distortion out of fear of being wrong and being punished.
Yet throughout the struggle I resisted and questioned embracing the distorted image of God which led to the fitful and sleep disturbed nights.

Through this process I have come to a conviction that the distortion really wasn't true. Already it has made a huge difference in my ability to trust God in a new and wonderful way. It has actually strengthened my ability follow Him. This new experience of being spiritually awake now feels much better than the nightmare I was trying to escape while I was asleep. God is not the sadistic, angry tyrant I secretly feared Him to be.

More and more I'm experiencing that God really is more loving, powerful, wise and wonderful than you and I could possibly imagine. I have tasted and experienced His supernatural presence in my life.

I have felt an urgency that God wants us to become certain of Him in these tumultuous times which is why I have started this blog. The alarms are sounding across the globe and they are signaling a brewing storm for those who have eyes and ears to perceive it. People's core beliefs will be challenged. The faith of many will be stretched beyond the breaking point in the face of confusion and disappointment. God wants to break open our boxes of understanding in which we hide our graven images of Him so we can experience that He truly is trustworthy and we can depend on Him no matter what circumstances we face.

read Ephesians 3:14-21