Let There Be Light, and Other Divine Commands

Think with me for a minute.

It’s pretty clear that when God gave commands in Genesis 1, those things happened.

“Let there be light!” and Bam! There’s light.

And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so.

There’s a principle illustrated here: When God gives a command, power is released in that command to accomplish what is commanded.

For years, I misunderstood this. I heard (for I had been taught) “Be holy as I am holy” as instruction for how I needed to direct my own efforts.

“God says to be holy, so you need to follow all these holy rules in order to accomplish holiness. The best you can.”

“God says, ‘Go and sin no more,’ so you need to know all the Do’s and Don’ts and make sure you follow every one carefully for the rest of your life.”

I’ve since learned that this is complete hogwash. And it’s an insult to God.

God gives me a gift, “Be holy, son; and here is the ability (and the desire) to be holy!” But I had ignored his gift and tried to come up with the same “holy” result through my own legalistic efforts.

What a nightmare.

But once I quit focusing on the list of Do’s and Don’ts and just focused on my Father, once I gave my heart freedom (gasp!) to love him, my desire for sin left, and with it, my choice to sin.

I began to experience holiness. In my life. Mine! My own!

I’ve been reflecting on this process (with substantial thanksgiving!) recently, and then in this context, “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2) came to mind.

“Transformed” means changed, in structure, in appearance, even in genetics. Literally.

So how would I even recognize it when that transforming happens to me?

“Think about Easter, Son. Where was Jesus before dawn on that first Easter?”

Jesus was in the grave. He might have been preaching in hell, but he was between death and resurrection. (Around here, we call that “dead.” As in, “Jesus was dead.”)

But Jesus went into the grave as one kind of a man, one kind of flesh-and-blood, and came out another. If nothing else, he could walk through walls, afterwards. I’ll bet there were other changes, too.

He had been transformed, after. So right then, in the grave at that first Easter weekend, Jesus was being transformed.

At that point, my mind was spinning with religious thoughts like “dying to self,” and “being hidden away, cocooned,” and “renewing my mind,” in order to “be transformed.”

Father interrupted my thoughts. “What makes you think I’m not transforming you right now, right here as we talk? As we walk together every day? This isn’t something you do, Son. This is something I do.

“And if I can transform Jesus, even while he was dead, don’t you think I can transform you while you’re not even dead? “Trust me, Son.”

I’m a grateful son. I’m thankful.

And then it hit me: that’s the secret. The sentence continues: “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Choosing to be thankful, even excited, for who he is and what he’s done and well… maybe just living thankfully, that’s the key that he works through. Or at least one of them.

Letters

Knowing God

“Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, ‘This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.’

Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of lapis lazuli, as bright blue as the sky.

But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank.

When Moses went up the mountain, the cloud covered it. The glory of the LORD settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days.

On the seventh day he called to Moses from the cloud. The appearance of the Lord's glory to the Israelites was like a consuming fire on the mountaintop.”
[from Exodus 24]

A friend drew my attention to the cutting of the Mosaic Covenant, when God and the people of Israel formally entered into the covenant that the people had proposed [Deuteronomy 5:27].

I’ve always paid more attention to the proposal [Exodus 19 & 20] than the marriage [Exodus 24]. A few things speak to me here.

And it occurs to me that an excellent way to get to know someone better, is to sit down to a meal with them. I observe that both the Old Covenant [Exodus 24] and the New Covenant [Luke 22] were established with meals, and that he still invites himself in for meals with his people [Revelation 3:20].

In the Old Covenant, this was the first time they’d ever eaten with God, I think. In the New Covenant, it might have been the three thousandth time they’d eaten together (three meals a day for three years).

A little bit later, Moses gets up and heads further up the mountain into God’s presence, but it takes a full week for God to speak with him.

I reflect that the reality is that sometimes when I’m talking with God, it really does take a few days to connect well with him. But I also reflect that this is more a characteristic of Old Covenant thinking than of the New [Luke 11:13, John 10:27].

But while Mo and God were talking, it looked like a “consuming fire.” Sometimes when we meet with God, other folks can see the change in us. And sometimes the change does not comfort them, if they don’t know him like we know him.

Letters

Raising Children is an Act of War

One of our practices, while milady & I were raising our kids, was to have a “date night” every week, so we engaged a young lady from our church, named Bella. Bella knew that every Thursday, she had an appointment babysitting our three young kids, while Mrs P & I went out on a date together.

(Comment: the date night is not for business, household or otherwise; it’s for maintaining and strengthening the relationship. Sometimes we had dinner, sometimes it was just a walk in the park, but the business of bills or work or leading our church was off limits. However, “I love you!” was permitted, even encouraged!) (’Nother comment: Date night was an outstanding investment we made in our marriage; got us through some ugly seasons.)

Back to Bella. Bella was a great young lady. She was the oldest daughter of a couple who were “pillars” in our church, and she was amazing, and the whole church knew it. She was active in the youth group, earned good grades, and didn’t hang out with the scruffy kids at school. Her parents were real proud of her. She was at our house every Thursday evening for several years.

One Thursday, we came home after a quiet dinner, and a police car was in our driveway. It seems that Bella had left our kids alone in the house, and gone off to a quiet place to make out with her (hitherto unrevealed) boyfriend; someone had reported the trespassers, so the police showed up.

Bella had told the policeman who arrested them about our home and our kids, so a cop was parked in our driveway, making sure nothing happened to our kids until we got home.

We had some difficult conversations that evening. In a couple of months, we attended Bella’s hastily arranged wedding.

Then there was Bennie. Bennie was an Eagle Scout. He was squeaky clean: good looking, short hair, bright eyes, had memorized hundreds of Bible verses.

He was the oldest son of one of the church’s elders, and the whole community was proud of him. He led worship, taught Sunday school, and was making plans for Bible college when he snapped.

His parents were completely undone when he went missing. “He’s such a good boy! He’d never do something like this to us!” they wept.

Three weeks later, Bennie showed up, covered in poorly-drawn tattoos and addicted to methamphetamines. His parents wept some more, and tried to “fix him,” but he disappeared again, this time for the better part of a year.

I know more of these stories, but you probably know some, too: good kids, kids who seem to have everything going for them, and then one day, during that terrible transition between youth and adulthood, they snap, they go off the deep end. Most of them don’t really come back.

My kids were coming up on their adolescence, so I was intensely interested. I grieved for Bella and for Bennie, and for their parents, but I wanted to do what I could to keep my own kids from this sort of flaming crash-and-burn. I talked to God about it. A lot. Hours, weeks, months.

One night, I was sitting next to my campfire, praying for my kids, when he began to unveil some things. Now, the unveiling took a lot of time, weeks, probably months, and I don’t have time for that whole story, so let me cut to the chase.

It seemed, in at least these two cases, that these kids felt immense pressure. They carried the heavy weight of expectation of sainthood, of perfection, from their parents, from their extended families, from their friends, from their churches, from everybody they knew.

It was overwhelming, stifling, constraining them while they were young, and they grew more aware of these expectations as they grew, until the weight that nobody knew they carried crushed them.

I think there were three factors to this.

The first was that eventually, as they touched on adulthood, they realized that they didn’t have to choose to wear that weight any longer. But they didn’t know how to lay it down, didn’t know how to get help, so they just threw it off and ran screaming from anybody that they associated with that crushing burden.

The second factor was that they were heroes as children, showpieces as youth and adolescents, but now they were facing that great unknown: adulthood! They had no idea how to be heroes or showpieces as adults, in fact, adulthood in general was overwhelming, so they cut and ran, away from adulating, away from responsibility, away from perfection.

And third, he showed me that these particular kids were living on their parents’ faith, not their own. And when the pressure of looming adulthood got to them, they couldn’t live on their own faith. They were making the physical transition to an adult body, but not the transition from their parents’ relationship with God to their own relationship with God.

Father showed me that I was similarly proud of my amazing children, and I was setting them up – particularly my all-star firstborn, for the same sort of implosion.

He gave us a few strategies to protect our kids. Fair warning, these things did not make our church elders happy, nor did the kids’ grandparents always approve. But we have healthy adult kids, and we’re still friends, so something went right.

• When they were younger, we built a great big treehouse in the back yard so they and their friends could do that thing that all kids need to do, but church kids don’t usually get to do: play. Be kids. And they could do it in our yard, under our oversight. We had water fights there (I bought the balloons, and loaded them, while milady chased screaming kids with a Super Soaker and maniacal laughter!)

• For the same reason, we bought a bunch of video games (we chose which ones we spent our money on, but we sought their counsel). For birthday parties, we rented a projector, invited the friends, and had a 16’ wide videogame on the wall. We played some of the games, but never as well as they did.

• We encouraged them to do things, to stretch their experiences, with their friends. Go camping with your teenage friends (here, use my sleeping bag, my tent; this is how you set it up), make a fancy dinner with friend (here, use our kitchen, we’ll go somewhere else that evening). We ignored it when they snuck out of the house at night, but we did ask the next morning how their midnight walk had gone. Sometimes, we walked together in the dark. Often, I bought chocolate milk for us at the 7-Eleven.

• We made an under-the-rose deal with them. If ever they got an invitation to go somewhere or do something and they didn’t want to go, or didn’t feel safe, we would be the heavy: “No honey, you can’t go to that. We have a family event that evening,” even if the family event was just dinner and a movie at home. (And we’d always come and get them, any time, any place, if they called and said, “I want to come home.”)

• Since “rule-keeping” was part of the heavy burden that had broken Bella and Bennie, we practiced breaking the rules together. We’d go off the trails when we went hiking (waaay off!), and I’d show them the edible plants, and we’d eat them! We learned how to start a fire rubbing sticks together, and then we put it out in a great big hurry because we were in the garage when we finally figured it out. We’d play hide and seek in the grocery store and in the mall. We took off our coats and hats in the spring rain and sang silly songs as we jumped in puddles. We played Frisbee golf on all the important government buildings.

• When they were approaching age 18, the age of legality, some of them made plans to get tattoos. Since I had no authority to prohibit an 18-year-old from getting a tattoo, I contributed to the “tattoo fund,” and discussed designs and colors with him. (The final choice was an ancient family motto, in Latin, no less! It looks great!)

I have a handful of things in my mind as I come to the end of these very fond memories.

1) Please don’t make the mistake of thinking we got it all right. We surely did not. But we actively loved them. We stayed in our kids’ lives, we stayed in communication together, we stayed in prayer. In the end, they’re still our friends, they’re still excellent people, though they sure turned out to be different than the good little church kids we’d originally (and ignorantly) envisioned.

2) I’m offering some perspective here, some opinion: There’s a reason why some kids blow up when they approach their majority. A lot of it has to do with how the generation before them handles the expectations they lay on them, how they train youth to become adults, how they give hope for a mysterious transition. Maybe with some understanding, we can choose wiser paths to lead them down. Every kid needs understanding. Like adults do.

3) I offer these as testimonies. There are some people who are facing similar situations and they don’t know how to respond, and these stories will give some folks hope, give other folks ideas. Your kids are every bit as worth saving as mine are. Every family needs hope.

4) In these, I’m offering a worldview that you can borrow, a worldview that says “people are more important than their reputation,” or “not every rule is for obeying.” You see, there’s more life outside the lines that everybody is coloring inside of than there is inside them. Wherever you want to exercise your right to color, that’s an excellent choice! Everybody needs freedom. Decide for yourself. Teach your kids to do that too.

5) If nothing else, here are some excellent ideas for prayer, for your kids, for your grand-kids, for the kids of your co-workers.

Every last child you know – every one of ’em – needs prayer.

Prophecy

Prepare for Breakout and Rapid Revelations

This evening (9-9-22) I was thanking Abba for the 49 years that my wife and I have been married, thinking back on the words, meetings, visions, and so on – just reminiscing with Holy Spirit, thanking Him for all He has done in our lives.

After chatting about some of the more significant words He has give me over the decades I had what could best be described as a vision (I was awake so it wasn’t a dream).

I was standing under some cooling shade trees along the bank of a small river, upstream the river had significant velocity, but at this point it was slowing down as it entered a large “pond” type of area.

Holy Spirit then took me airborne and I could see dozens of other streams and rivers, that in similar fashion has great velocity and strength in the beginning, but were all entering ponds of there own at various point in the flow.

Holy Spirit began to identify some of the streams

Holiness
Healing
Jesus Movement
Azusa
Brownsville
Toronto
Deliverance
Prophetic
And many more.

Holy Spirit spoke to me and said

“All of My streams have had strength and purpose in their beginnings. Unfortunately, things of man creep in over time and clouded and polluted the streams. And eventually they faded from sight. But We knew this would happen and we had prepared settling ponds for each stream, so that over time the sediment and pollution would sink to the bottom of each pond and the rivers would be clear and ready for the next season.

That season is upon you now. The streams and rivers of the Spirit are about to break out of their retaining ponds and begin to flow in strength and purity as before BUT they will also begin to merge into one mighty river of the spirit. All that has come before coming together in unity and purpose to bring some of the greatest revelation My people have ever seen or heard about.

The flow will be impossible to stop and it will clear all that lays before it. Restoring the freshness of My revelation and purpose. My caution to you this evening – is beware of those who claim to represent individual streams – they represent the sediment of the past. This is a NEW flow and will not be named but experienced.

Martin Best

Whirlwind Ministries

Prophecy

Monocropping

Monocropping. Monocropping is the agricultural practice of growing a single crop year after year on the same land, in the absence of rotation through other crops or growing multiple crops on the same land (polyculture).

Last night and again this morning I heard “monocropping.” As I listened further I heard “Monoculture, monocrops, monochurch, monobusiness, monoschools, monohealthcare. I am forcing them to become cross pollinated for their own good. I’m releasing my cross pollinators that I have prepared. They will release small ‘tongues of fire’ (Acts 2) that will burn up the monofields created by the principalities, powers, world rulers of this present darkness, and the spiritual hosts of wickedness (Ephesians. 6:12).”

I then saw hunters (Jeremiah 16:16) approaching vast monocropping fields with their bows and arrows. The tips of arrows would ignite with a flame when released from the bow and wherever they landed in the field they would start a small fire. Soon the monocrop was ablaze. After the blaze died down, I was amazed to see some of the crop still standing and untouched by the blaze. The field was full of such ones. (Daniel 3:8-25).

I then heard, “The job of the hunter is direct and straight forward. After they release their arrows, their assignment is complete. Pray for the release of the hunters. Pray for those in the fields that are still standing in the conflagration as I destroy the works of darkness and release them for they are the laborers that you have been praying for me to cast into the harvest fields.” (Luke 10:2).

I then heard, “I am releasing from the monochurch those who I prepared for the harvest. You will see them appear next to you in the harvest field. They are bringing my goodness and my abundance that I have placed in them. They are not novice. They have been kept in reserve until this hour. I am releasing them into the harvest field with you. They will help change your thinking and cross pollinate with you. Some I have assigned to come alongside of you for a long season. Others for a short season. And, other only briefly.

“Honor and bless them as they come and go. As this process takes place it will magnify and multiply the harvest. You will notice that there are no threshing floors or grain silos for this harvest. That is because this harvest is designed to be immediately employed as new harvesters. I will do a quick work of transforming them from harvest to harvesters. Do not hold the new harvesters back. Do not think they are not ready for I have prepared them. I am doing a quick work. This is not the final harvest but only the first wave of the greater harvest.”

Dave Bodine
8/22/21

Letters

We Have Misunderstood Matthew 18

I’ll bet you’ve read this passage from Matthew 18. You may have heard it preached or practiced.

“Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.’ And if he refuses to hear them, tell [it] to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.” - Matthew 18:15-20

I’ve had to walk through this with folks (on both ends of it, actually). I’ve seen it up close, and I’ve seen the fruits of it up close.

And it’s made me think this through some. Did you know that this paragraph is surrounded by paragraphs where Jesus is not actually speaking literally? (Before: cut off your hand. After: forgive 70x70 and then the parable of the talents.)

So there’s good reason to reconsider our normal practice of ripping this paragraph out of its context in the rest of Matthew, out of its context in a first-century agrarian society. There’s good reason to reconsider our 21^st century Information-Age literalist interpretation of this passage.

So consider this alternative rendering of this passage. Think of this as a cultural reference.

If your friend gets caught up in the stuff of their life, if they forget who they are, go be with him (or her), remind them of who they are, who God sees him to be, who you know they are. If he hears you, it’s all good.

But if he’s not able to hear you, gather some friends with you and remind him how awesome he is. Remind him of who you’ve known him to be. It’s likely he’d listen to a group of friends, if they’re people who he’s known are for him.

But if he still can’t hear you, get him up in front of the church. “Guys, this is Matthew. You all know how awesome Matthew is. Come on, let’s lay hands on Matthew. Let’s remind Matt of who he is, cuz he’s had a hard go for a while, and he needs our support!”

But if he is so messed up that they still can’t get past the garbage in their life, then treat him like a tax collector.

How did Jesus treat tax collectors? (He’s our example, remember?)

He befriended them (Matthew 9:9), he brought them close to him, he put them on his ministry team (Matthew 10:3, Luke 6:15), he trusted his reputation to him (the book of Matthew), he went out of his way to hang out with him (Luke 19:5).

That’s how we treat people that have forgotten who they are and gotten stuck in sin.

Go thou and do likewise.

Letters

Audacious Prayer

Conversation, even online conversation, is a useful tool for discovering what’s in the heart, discovering what you’ve begun to believe that you didn’t realize you believed. These are some of the best conversations in my world.

Recently, I’ve been conversing about audacious prayers, “crazy prayers” with some good folks, and I realized some things that I have begun to believe.

I’ve been burned badly by “crazy prayers,” my crazy prayers, that I’ve prayed which were not actually on the heart of my Father. He graciously answered them anyway. It took the better part of a decade to recover from one of them. His grace, his kindness during that season were overwhelming.

And I’ve prayed some “crazy prayers” (for things I frankly did NOT even believe at the time) because he said to, which he then answered. Some of these completely revolutionized my life and my family’s life, and others changed the shape of my neighborhood, my city.

As a result, I’m all for “crazy prayers” that are in His heart – whether they were in his heart to begin with and I just figured it out, or whether they started in my heart, and he’s supporting my free will. But if I don’t find them in Father’s heart, I’m pretty gun-shy about what I’m asking for, what I’m speaking about.

I believe I’ve come to this: the more audacious the prayer, the more I need to have confidence that it is in my Father’s heart before I speak them out.

But if I hear these things from him, if I find even the most audacious, the craziest prayers reflecting his heart, then yeah, let’s do this!

Letters

Are We Mere Men?

I’ve been struck by how much vitriol and, well, hatred that there is toward certain congressional leaders among Christians. I’m struck by how much vitriol and, well, hatred that there is toward President Trump among other Christians.

I’m actually quite disappointed in how free Christians are about telling the world of their hatred for various leaders in Washington.

Let me hurriedly add that I have no great love for their political shenanigans! I abhor their apparent willful dismantling of the American constitution. I can see why so many American patriots have such hatred toward them.

But Christians? Really?

I get that we care about what’s going on with our country. I get it that icky things are being revealed. And believe me, I understand that what has been going on with our country over the past several years is pretty bad, about as bad as anything since the Boston Tea Party. I get that.

And I also get that we want to vent our frustration about what’s going on, and our frustration about our political powerlessness.

But this is not how sons and daughters of the Kingdom of God express themselves.

I find myself thinking of 1 Corinthians 3:3: “For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men?”

“Mere men.” What an indictment. But it appears to be a pretty accurate description of so *many* of the angry, hateful, disrespectful comments I’m hearing from Christians, that I’m seeing posted on Christians’ walls. “Mere men.”

Mere men are people who are swayed more by the news media, than they are by the Word of God. I can tell, because the Word of God tells me to “love without hypocrisy” (Romans 12:9) and that our love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Corinthians 13:7) We’re not “bearing” or “enduring” all that well right now, are we?

Then after all that, the Book, the Word of God, our Orders from Heaven, gets even more direct: "I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people-- for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness." (1 Timothy 2:1-2)

This is how sons and daughters of the Kingdom respond.

Politically, we are pretty powerless. But that’s on purpose: we are not primarily a political people. We are born to be a people who live from heaven, toward Earth, who walk in a body among the physical and political places and events of this planet, but fundamentally, the reality is that our primary reality is being seated in Heaven, seated with the Son of God, sharing his throne, at the right hand of the Father’s throne.

Fundamentally, the power we wield is not *supposed* to be merely human. The power that we are born to wield is the power of the Kingdom we’re born into: the power of Heaven. The power that will halt and reverse the damage done by various administrations, various congresses is wielded by the means of prayer: by “petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people-- for presidents and all those in authority.”

We are a prophetic people, but it’s not legit prophecy to declare what’s wrong and how mad we are about it. That’s the work of “mere men.” That’s submitting to the principalities of this world. Outrage demonstrates our failure.

Our prophetic calling is to call out the solution – which nobody else can even see – to the problem – which nobody needs help seeing. Our calling is to draw resources from Heaven and implement them on earth. To implement them in the House and the Senate and the White House in Washington DC. To implement them in the schools and businesses and news organizations in our communities.

Our calling is to be the fulfillment of “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.”

Now let’s see if we can go beyond being “mere men"

– Nor'west Prophetic

Letters

What is a Tidal Wave, really?

I grew up within driving distance of the ocean, and we made frequent trips. I love the pounding surf and the tide pools and the beaches and the delicious meals the ocean provides.

A couple of decades ago, I was walking along an unfamiliar beach during a storm, watching the rain’s effect on the sand, listening to the surf pounding behind me, when my attention was drawn over my shoulder. I turned and, not with my natural eyes, I saw a huge wave rise up from the surface of the sea. When it reached its mighty height, way above the sea, it stopped, like someone pressed pause.

The question came to me: “This is me. Shall it continue, or shall it stop? There will be damage.” The wave just waited for my answer.

I thought for a moment; this was not an every-day experience for me. But I’d learned to trust my father, and he’d already said this was him.

“It shall continue,” I said, and it did. The wave rushed to the shore with a magnificent curl, and then far inland, miles inland, spilling over houses and shopping malls and government buildings. Then it receded, dragging a lot of dirt and detritus with it, leaving people stranded, separated, unstable.

That vision has shaped me for decades; I’ve anticipated “the move of God” as a wave, rising up from above the sea and crashing on the shores of “business as usual,” catching everyone unawares. Sometimes I’d refer to this vision as a tidal wave or a tsunami.

Many years later, a formidable earthquake struck just off the coast of Japan. It was a big deal. It was also my first experience, albeit only through the news, of an actual tsunami.

The tsunami did not act like I had always expected: a big wave coming in and splashing, and then receding like every other wave. Instead, this was more like the sea just rising, and rising, and rising. The wave just kept coming, and didn’t just recede after a few seconds like I’d always imagined.

The 2004 tsunami that devastated so much of Indonesia was like that as well. This time the sea did draw way out in preparation for the tidal wave, but then the wave came in, not like a wave, but like a tide, and it wiped a great deal of civilization off of the islands in its path.

Recently, I’ve begun to wonder if the move of God that I’m expecting (that we’re expecting) won’t be more like that: not so much a wave that passes through, has an effect, and then moves on, but more like an invasion, more like the tide rising.

Last night, a friend and I were talking about what God is up to in our day. As we talked, we realized that there is a rising tide of what God is doing among his people.

And as we talked, I realized that my ideas of the tidal wave of God’s involvement in our midst is not going to just be another wave, larger than the rest, washing us and moving on.

Those are fine, even good. But the thing on Father’s heart is more of a rising tide, a true tidal wave, that is already begun, bringing the water of his spirit, bringing refreshing, bringing devastation and destruction to an awful lot of “business as usual,” particularly among the church.

Suggestions for application:

• Pray for eyes to see what God is actually doing. It is not what the media – not the mainstream media, not the Christian media – is reporting.

• Press into what God is doing in order to find what your place in this tidal wave is. I figure I have the choice of whether to be among the devastation with my life destroyed by the wave, or among the first responders, speaking the words of life in the midst of the new move.

• Keep building relationships. When this fully lands, life won’t so much be found in jobs or possessions or church gatherings or places where we’re used to finding stability. Life will be found in real relationships.

Letters

What is a Tidal Wave, really?

I grew up within driving distance of the ocean, and we made frequent trips. I love the pounding surf and the tide pools and the beaches and the delicious meals the ocean provides.

The question came to me: “This is me. Shall it continue, or shall it stop? There will be damage.” The wave just waited for my answer.

I thought for a moment; this was not an every-day experience for me. But I’d learned to trust my father, and he’d already said this was him.

Many years later, a formidable earthquake struck just off the coast of Japan. It was a big deal. It was also my first experience, albeit only through the news, of an actual tsunami.

Last night, a friend and I were talking about what God is up to in our day. As we talked, we realized that there is a rising tide of what God is doing among his people.

And as we talked, I realized that my ideas of the tidal wave of God’s involvement in our midst is not going to just be another wave, larger than the rest, washing us and moving on.

Suggestions for application:

• Pray for eyes to see what God is actually doing. It is not what the media – not the mainstream media, not the Christian media – is reporting.

Prophecy

Unexpected Authority

Last night I woke up about 2:00 am after an interesting dream, which then continued after I went back to sleep.

In the first scene, I was in a large meeting room of government and private sector officials and representatives that were meeting to discuss changes to state grant funding and regulations.

As the meeting progressed I complained to an individual sitting next to me that “we have been talking about the same stuff for years, and years, and nothing seems to be getting done. Here we are once again wasting a lot of time and resources to talk about the same thing with no hope of fixing anything”…

In the next scene I had moved to the front of the meeting room when the governor came in. She looked at me and for some reason asked me to come sit next to her. As the meeting progressed the governor became seriously ill and before she passed out, she grabbed me by the hand, looked at the people next to her and said “I’m appointing him Acting Governor” and then she passed away.

Everyone was shocked including myself because this wasn’t the way things were supposed to work.

In the next scene I was leading the meeting and making decisions to get things done…simply cutting through the red tape and organizational attitudes. After the meeting I was taken to another meeting with a different group of people – but with the same problems – going over and over the same old thing with no results. I listened, made decisions, and like the first meeting got things done. As expected there were large numbers of individuals in both meetings that didn’t appreciate what was going on and expressed their opinions.

As I lay awake thinking over the dream scenes and talking with Holy Spirit this is what He said:

“Change is upon the Body, change in focus, change in perspective, change in attitude and change in authority. The traditions created over many centuries are being shown to be less than accurate, less than desired, and definitely less than ME!

Many of My children are about to find themselves in unexpected levels of authority. Authority to bring change, authority to represent ME, and authority to get things done. These children have been soaking and resting in Me, they have found what their hearts desired and their desire is not for authority but to share Me…which is why they are perfect for what I am about to do. They will not desire authority for authority’s sake – but authority for the Kingdom’s sake and for My glory.

My son, you have been in a long season of preparation and so do not be surprised with you find yourself in a new and much higher level of authority. So be ready and enjoy that which I have prepared for you.”

January 3, 2018

Martin Best, Whirlwind Ministries

http://www.whirlwindministries.org/

Prophecy

Unexpected Authority

Last night I woke up about 2:00 am after an interesting dream, which then continued after I went back to sleep.

In the first scene, I was in a large meeting room of government and private sector officials and representatives that were meeting to discuss changes to state grant funding and regulations.

Everyone was shocked including myself because this wasn’t the way things were supposed to work.

As I lay awake thinking over the dream scenes and talking with Holy Spirit this is what He said:

January 3, 2018

Martin Best, Whirlwind Ministries

http://www.whirlwindministries.org/

Prophecy

A Season of Bumbling Around

One of the things that I do is I look at the seasons, the “big picture” view of what’s going on in the Spirit.

This is an interesting one. I call it the Season of Muddling Around. My brother Craig refers to “fuzzy-fog of not-quite-sure-what's-next.”

It’s a season where God doesn’t seem to be giving as much direction as he has in other seasons. You may experience it as “OK, what do we do next” in your home group or your church gathering. Or you may be having a hard time finding clarity in life choices or in addressing perplexing situations.

Paul went through a similar season. In Acts 16, Paul and his traveling ministry team finished one project, and had trouble finding the next one. They were “kept by the Holy Spirit” from ministering in Asia, and “the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them” to minister in Bithynia. This was a challenging transition season for him.

What’s this? The Holy Spirit is preventing them from preaching the gospel? That’s the Great Commission; God can’t be stopping them from obeying what they’re called to do! Yep, that’s what it says.

It seems like a number of believers are experiencing this sort of thing: just trying to do the thing that God has called you to do, but God’s not blessing it, God’s presence isn’t in it, or he stops you before you ever get started.

So a lot of us are in a season of “bumbling around.” We’re trying this new thing, or that tried-and-true thing, and it’s not working. It’s easy to get frustrated in this season.

If you’re feeling some of this, let me say a couple of things to you:

No, there’s not something wrong. God does different things, or does the same things in different ways, in different seasons. This is that season. This isn’t because of sin, or because you’ve “missed God.” Remember, this is a transition period. It’s temporary.

This is actually a season of promotion. You’ve been maturing, growing up. You don’t need as much direction from Daddy as you used to need. You can make more decisions for yourself and for your place in the Kingdom. Think of this as a season of taking new “baby steps” and learning to walk as mature sons and daughters.

Of course we stay plugged in with God, we stay intimate and connected, eyes on Jesus and ready to hear. Paul eventually had a dream that told him where to go, and it led to a surprising new ministry. The end result of his transition was pretty awesome.

Don’t be shocked if God leads you in a surprising new direction. Don’t freak out if he takes you in an entirely new and unexpected direction. Likewise, don’t choke if he takes you in the direction you expected, but it turns out to be completely different than the way you thought it would be, or than it has ever been before.

In the meantime, keep doing what you’re doing, and keep your ears open. Stay in healthy relationship with solid people, and keep talking together about what God is doing, what he’s saying.

And stay ready to change gears, quickly if necessary.

So congratulations on the new place in God! Well done! Now, are you ready for the next step?

nwp

Prophecy

A Season of Bumbling Around

One of the things that I do is I look at the seasons, the “big picture” view of what’s going on in the Spirit.

This is an interesting one. I call it the Season of Muddling Around. My brother Craig refers to “fuzzy-fog of not-quite-sure-what's-next.”

So a lot of us are in a season of “bumbling around.” We’re trying this new thing, or that tried-and-true thing, and it’s not working. It’s easy to get frustrated in this season.

If you’re feeling some of this, let me say a couple of things to you:

No, there’s not something wrong. God does different things, or does the same things in different ways, in different seasons. This is that season. This isn’t because of sin, or because you’ve “missed God.” Remember, this is a transition period. It’s temporary.

This is actually a season of promotion. You’ve been maturing, growing up. You don’t need as much direction from Daddy as you used to need. You can make more decisions for yourself and for your place in the Kingdom. Think of this as a season of taking new “baby steps” and learning to walk as mature sons and daughters.

Of course we stay plugged in with God, we stay intimate and connected, eyes on Jesus and ready to hear. Paul eventually had a dream that told him where to go, and it led to a surprising new ministry. The end result of his transition was pretty awesome.

Don’t be shocked if God leads you in a surprising new direction. Don’t freak out if he takes you in an entirely new and unexpected direction. Likewise, don’t choke if he takes you in the direction you expected, but it turns out to be completely different than the way you thought it would be, or than it has ever been before.

In the meantime, keep doing what you’re doing, and keep your ears open. Stay in healthy relationship with solid people, and keep talking together about what God is doing, what he’s saying.

And stay ready to change gears, quickly if necessary.

So congratulations on the new place in God! Well done! Now, are you ready for the next step?

nwp

Pacific Daily Times

Know each other.

Tag Archives: change

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A Season of Bumbling Around

A Season of Bumbling Around