Being is Seeing

My last post ended a little abruptly and, I felt, a little on an intellectual note, but instead of getting myself any deeper into waxing-eloquence with no power behind it, I decided to wait and allow the Spirit to bring application into a clearer focus. There are a few things He began speaking to me about that, but first let me describe a "seeing" experience that is really about just being. But in that being, a knowing, a realization that causes you to "see."

This has been a pretty yucky week, though I've hard a hard time figuring out why. I have been under all kinds of striving, confusion, hypocrisy, guilt, and heaviness. I've been "trying" to reach God to seemingly no avail, but still knowing He would soon come through. Today, after some heavy conversations for which my mind had no logical argument but my spirit recoiled, the air was thick with intellectualism. As I drove to the worship meeting at church, I told the Lord I needed to see into the situation. I knew I wasn't clear on anything and could really only pray for deliverance from the befuddlement that wrapped around my head like a cloud. I entered the service late and figured it would take me a while to "catch up" in the spirit. But the Presence of the Lord was thicker than the cloud that hovered over me, and in moments I remembered why I love Him, need Him, delight in Him! Lightness and joy overtook me and it felt like a heavy, encumbering blanket fell off. It's like when you've been sick for so long you don't realize you're sick .... until you finally start to get well, and you think "Wow! I didn't know I could feel this good!" I could hardly contain myself from jumping all over the place, waving my arms wildly around in the air, and shouting "I love you I love you I love you Jesus!" I noticed people moving away from me, but what could I do? I was overwhelmed with the sense of freedom that is the essence of His presence.

Just in this awareness, I was "seeing". I was seeing that my struggle for the whole week had been against religion and headiness. I was seeing - though really just experiencing by being in it - that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. I was seeing - by first hand understanding - that the spirit-life is not something you explain, it is something you live; that Paul was right when he said that words and logic won't do the trick, it just takes the power of God to make a difference. I was seeing alot about the situations and people I've been praying for and how the main thing is to pray for a visitation of the Holy One in our lives. You see, (uh, pun not intended), I was looking to "see" an explanation, when really all I needed was to "see" by "being" where God was, and getting changed.

Now, did I get to see, vision-wise? Oh yea. Not the explanation I was looking for, but - far better - the glory of the freedom of worshipping the one true God....

First everything was brilliant green: giant emeralds the size of temple pillars and an atmosphere of transparent aqua-marine, glistening and iridescent. It was air, and yet it had substance, like crystal. My thirst was quenched as I beheld it. As I got deeper into praise and closer to the throne, gold began to run down through the green and become swirled and entwined. I revelled in all God was giving me and the gold began to form into a fabric pattern and take on the form of ornamentation on a garment; then I saw large dark sapphire beads take shape that seemed to bind the gold to the green. Then golden ropes began to wrap themselves around me and tie me to the throne of God. These I willingly embraced, for they are not like the heavy weights of expectation and the reasoning of the world. They are the awesome privilege and liberty of being a bond-slave of Jesus the King. And what a King to be tied to! So beautiful, so life-giving. I gulped big breath-fulls of His clean air and of His Spirit.

When I got home, He gave me more ideas for my life, and then, then I saw Him sitting on my bed, sprawled out and laughing. I laid my head where I thought I saw His knee and just breathed Him in. I sensed He was about to speak and I held my breath for His majestic statement. You know what it was? "Tonight was great, huh?"

Lord! Tonight was great for You, too?! I guess I don't automatically think of things that way or that His message would be so simple and personal. But in this place of being with Him I "saw" that the swirling colors of heaven are the emotions of a personal God who, even as I revel in being His bond-slave, He calls me friend and delights in my presence as much as I delight in His.
Yes, I am beginning to see as He sees.

The Eye in the Wave

The other day I was talking to Desi about how many people are talking about seers and Eye of the Lord this year. From big name prophets to small town pastors, the Lord of the Eye is letting his people know that He is watching. As we wrapped up our conversation, I glanced up at a painting on my wall -- an oil-on-canvas seascape of crashing waves under a glowing sky. For the first time ever I saw - there in the middle of an arching wave - an eye. Clear and black, with perfect dark iris surrounded by the white and the clearly outlined lids. I don't know - maybe it was meant to be a rock in the surf, or it's just over-zealous shadowing in the painter's rendition of the water, but it jumped right out of that wave and I cannot look at the picture anymore without it staring at me.... and speaking to me.
Ayin.
God sees.
He sees me. From the wave of His glory He watches. In the waves of our tempest He sees our condition. His eye beholds the sea of humanity.

I believe He is calling us these days to see as He sees, in the middle of the waves. When we believe that He sees, we will cry out for deliverance. But when we see as He sees, we will rest in peace.

In the well known story of Jesus stilling the storm, his disciples accused Him of not seeing their condition. "Master, do you not care that we are going to drown?" (Mk 4:38) I guess, if truth be told, Jesus did NOT care about their drowning because He saw as the Father saw; and what He saw was that they were indeed not going to drown. He saw, not the storm, but His assignment on the other side of the lake. He saw, not the wind and the waves, but His unquestioned dominion over them. And so He rested peacefully, seeing with Heaven's eye, in the midst of the waves.

Jonah saw as God saw. I know, Jonah was a rebel and a whiner, but when it counted most, in the depths of the waves, in the belly of a fish, he came to a place of seeing as God saw and so became the crowning "type" and example of Messiah's resurrection from the grave.

Jonah knew he had sinned; he knew he was worthy of God's wrath, and as he was flung off the side of the ship and felt the cold splash as salt water pummeled him into the depths I wouldn't blame him for being certain that he WAS going to drown and that God did NOT care. Somewhere between the beginning of that storm and the third day after becoming shark bait he began to see differently.

"From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the LORD his God. He said: 'In my
distress I called to the LORD, and he answered me.... You hurled me into the
deep, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me.... I
said, 'I have been banished from your sight; yet I
will look again toward your holy temple.' The
engulfing waters
threatened me, the deep surrounded me.... To the roots of the mountains I sank
down.... But you brought my life up from the
pit, O LORD my God. When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you,
LORD.... ...I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good.... And the LORD
commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land." (Jonah 2)

AFTER Jonah worshipped God for his rescue, God rescued him. In the midst of his grave he praised God for His salvation and made declaration of what would come. How did he know he would ever look again toward the temple? Why would he say that God brought, past tense, his life up from the pit? What on earth would make him think he'd ever get a second chance to fulfill his vows? Positive thinking? A sense of invincibility?
No.
Ayin.
An eye in the middle of the waves. He believed that God saw him AND he saw as God saw. Because of sight birthed in relationship he could declare his future as if it were the present.