Spiritual Interference

It’d been a week of continual spiritual battle. Things going wrong; discouragement and anxiety threatening at every turn (after telling at least two people in the past month that I simply do not suffer from anxiety anymore); and a heightened awareness of the enemy, regarding whom God has said, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8, KJV). And so very early Saturday morning, I sat down in the front room and turned on the lamp, intent and expectant about meeting with God on the matter. I know that the verse above goes on to instruct us, “Withstand him; be firm in faith [against his onset]—rooted, established, strong, immovable and determined” (AMP).

A verse came to mind: “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds” (2 Corinthians 10:4, KJV). Having a good idea of where it was, I flipped through my Amplified Bible until I found the place. Beginning partway through the third verse, I read aloud, changing a few words to turn it into a prayer: “Lord, by your help, I will not act according to the flesh—on the low level of worldly motives and as if invested with only human powers. For though I walk and live in the flesh, in a physical body, I am not carrying on my warfare according to the flesh, the old unredeemed nature, and using mere human weapons.

“For the weapons of my warfare are not physical (weapons of flesh and blood), but they are mighty before God for the overthrow and destruction of strongholds, inasmuch as I refute arguments and theories and reasonings and every proud and lofty thing that sets itself up against the true knowledge of God; and I lead every thought and purpose away captive into the obedience of Christ, the Messiah.”

I found myself in the tangible presence of God through declaring His word, and I continued to sit, reading special bits here and there, praying for various people as they came to mind. I was reminded of the reality of spiritual warfare, that the enemy and his interference are real. I was reminded, too, that God is much greater and actually allows challenges and even attacks to come against us so that we will draw closer to Him and also exercise our spiritual muscles. In less than 24 hours, I was going to need all the muscle my faith could muster.

One of the things I had been working on in recent days was editing a term paper for Melissa. She is in Tokyo for the second-to-last semester of her master’s degree. (The students are encouraged to get professional editing help on these major assignments, so this is not cheating!) I had done a first edit, gone over it with her in a long phone conversation, and then sent the edited version back to her. She still had several parts to revise and complete, pictures to insert, and so on. The paper was due Monday morning, Tokyo time. As we compared schedules to figure out how and when to do the final edit, I realized I would have to do a couple hours of intense work in the middle of the night, very early Sunday morning my time. Then I would need, I thought, about an hour on the phone with Melissa. I am usually up for a few hours in the middle of the night anyway, so it wouldn’t be that much of a stretch.

I went to bed in good time Saturday night and was asleep by 10:00. Three hours later I was awake. I texted Melissa and she responded immediately, saying her work was complete and she would email it right away. By 1:30 I had fixed a snack and was settled at the computer. I went to work, correcting typos, suggesting some better word choices, and rearranging some sentence structures. Focussed and intent, I plowed through the pages and was done about an hour and a quarter later. Popped her a text, asking her to call. She didn’t respond.

I got my bowl of porridge and went and sat in the front room with my Bible. That didn’t last long. I was trying to stay serene, but I was starting to get really tired and frustrated. I tried phoning, then sent another text message. No luck. I messaged her on Messenger and WhatsApp, and I emailed her as well. Nothing. I couldn’t believe this. It was our last chance to do this, and my internal battery had very little charge left.

I felt God telling me to get on my knees and use the time to pray. I flipped open the church Facebook page on my phone and began to pray through the various prayer requests. The social media site was a good tool to keep my tired brain on track. But every few minutes I would find my mind wandering and fretting, wondering why Melissa wasn’t calling. Each time I would hear God clearly say in my heart, “Stop fretting. It’s a waste of energy. Use this time to pray.” Over and over He prompted me to get back on track.

By the time Melissa phoned, it was a few minutes before 4:00, over an hour after I had started texting her, and I was drained. It was difficult to not let my frustration speak. She apologized as she told me she had been at a Sunday evening church service with a friend and gone for a bite to eat afterward. She sounded cheerful and refreshed.

I emailed her the edited copy and waited until she saw it in her inbox. Then the phone went dead. She texted: “I think my WiFi just died.”

“Oh dear!” I replied.

She said she was going to walk to the train station to see if there was WiFi there. Then she added, “Weird that I can still text though.”

Yeah, that was weird.

I prayed against what I perceived to be interference from the enemy. I waited. Five minutes went by; then the phone rang again.

She was seated on the concrete floor of the station, back against a wall, computer in her lap, and phone in hand. She opened the document. But we had been connected less than a minute when suddenly I couldn’t hear her anymore. I called and called her name. The call still appeared to be connected, but for all intents and purposes the phone was dead. Just as I touched the end-call button, I heard the whistle of a train. If only I had waited another second.

I went upstairs and peeked quietly into the bedroom. Greg was awake, his iPad screen lighting up his face. “My call with Melissa has just been cut off for the second time,” I said. “Would you pray with me? I think we need to take authority over the enemy.” I paused. “Before we pray though, I just want to renounce my anger and frustration. I also renounce self-pity. Lord, I lay this all down. Thank you for the privilege of helping my daughter with this. Thank you that I have the opportunity to use the gifts you’ve given me to serve someone else, especially her.”

Greg prayed with me against the powers of darkness; then my phone, still in my hand, rang again. “Hi honey,” I said, waving at Greg and heading back down the stairs.

We were on the phone for two hours. (Thank God for free WiFi calling!) It was shortly after six o’clock when we wrapped up, both very pleased with the results. Now I just had to email back to her the copy with all the changes in it. She would tidy up a few details and then, at school in the morning, print it and turn it in.

I was so fatigued that I was trembling. I had been up—and working intensely—for five hours. My brain was reeling and trying so hard to hang in for just a few more minutes. Because I was so exhausted, I made a point of speaking aloud, to both Melissa and myself, everything I was doing, to keep myself on track. As a result, I know exactly what I did, as I can still hear my words.

“Okay, honey,” I said, “I’m going to save it and close it so I can attach it to an email. Okay, saving, control s,” and I carefully touched the two keys. I opened a new email to Melissa and attached the file. As I always do, I opened the attachment before sending, to make sure it was the right document. The first thing my eyes fell on was the title of the paper, which was the first thing we had had to correct. It was no longer corrected.

“Oh no,” I said quietly. I began to scroll down the pages. All the highlighting was there that I had done between 1:30 and 2:45, all the spots I had wanted to go over with Melissa. But none of our corrections showed. “Dear God, help me,” I murmured.

“What’s happening, Mom?” Melissa asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Just give me a few minutes.” I went into the document’s properties, which showed me its history, when it had been created, accessed, and saved. Yes, 1:30. That was when I first received it from Melissa and saved it on my computer. Yes, 3:57. That was when Melissa finally phoned me back and I’d saved and sent her my changes and suggestions. Yes, 6:10. That was just a couple of minutes ago, when I’d saved all our work of the last two hours.

I clicked on the 6:10 version. None of the changes we had made together were showing. None of our two hours of work had saved.

“It’s okay, Mom,” Melissa said. “I can probably remember most of the changes. You need to go to bed.”

“Honey,” I answered, “we need to pray.” I got up from my stool and began to pace around my little office. “Devil,” I said, “You may not steal this work from us. You are a thief; that’s what Jesus called you. You come to rob and kill and destroy. You cannot take this from us. We are not ignorant of your devices. We command, in the Name of Jesus, that you put it all back.

“Melissa,” I said then, “I’m going to go get Dad.”

Greg was still lying awake. I quickly filled him in. He declared his authority in Jesus, over the enemy, and began to pray in the Spirit. When he spoke again in English, he said, “God’s Word is forever settled in heaven.” Then he added, “I think that’s a ‘word.’”

I didn’t get the significance of that scripture in this situation; it just seemed to me to be a powerful proclamation of God’s power, authority, and eternalness.

I went back downstairs and sat down in front of my computer, looking at the mess in front of me.

“What are you going to do, Mom?” Melissa asked.

“I’m going to start over,” I said. “I’ll be able to remember as I go through it.”

“You can’t, Mom. You’re too tired.”

I closed the 6:10 document. I opened it again. Greg appeared in my office. He sat down on a chair, praying quietly. I looked at the text. What?

That first word in the title was correct. What?! I scrolled timidly down, checking each highlighted part. I’d left the markings so Melissa could easily see where the changes had been made. When she was all done, she would be able remove all those different colours and markings with a few clicks. Now these highlights allowed me to quickly see each change we had made together, and wonder of wonders, all our changes were intact.

I thanked God profusely, all my gratitude inadequate to express my relief. “Melissa, I’m going to save it under a new name so there’s no confusion,” I told her. When I’d first saved it at 1:30, I had added “Mom’s Edit” in front of the name of her file. Now I hit “Save As” and changed the title to “Mom’s Final Edit.” I attached it to a new email and sent it off to Melissa. We waited until it had arrived in her inbox and she’d opened and checked it; then we said our goodbyes.

“Would you come back to bed and hold me until I fall asleep?” I asked my dear husband.

“Yes,” he said, “I was planning to.” He knew I was going to need that. I crawled gratefully into bed and into my husband’s embrace. My body and soul were distraught with fatigue, now that the battle was over. With a great sense of relief, I entered into rest under the spiritual covering that God has provided for a wife through her husband. I fell into a deep sleep and never even stirred when Greg disentangled himself and got up to go to church.

Part II

Throughout that day, once I got up again, I found myself pondering the scripture Greg had used: “God’s Word is forever settled in heaven” (Psalm 119:89, KJV). Later, when I was making supper, I told him I wanted to ask him about it. “But,” I said, “first let me tell you what I’ve been thinking, and then tell me if it lines up with what you sensed about it.

“God creates by His Word, by speaking things into existence. What He creates does not pass away, and neither does His Word. We all, by virtue of the fact that we are created in the image of God, carry a degree of that power in our words, and a degree of that eternalness. Not that that essay was a spiritual article per se, but both Melissa and I centre our lives on God, walking and talking with Him, so there is an eternal component to what we think and say and write. Although the enemy tried to lie to us and trick us into believing that he could steal our words, he could not, especially when we called his bluff and asserted our authority in Christ over him.”

“That’s right,” he said. And then he added a bit ironically, “And it was a Word document.”

I was eager to write about the whole experience, but now I had doubts coming in: Had I just been so tired that I opened the wrong document? Was the spiritual side of it all just in my imagination? So when I finally got to my computer again, about 24 hours after my intense editing session with Melissa, I did not start to write; instead, I prayed: “Lord, I really need to know if my original perception of this incident was correct. I don’t want to write a testimony of Your power and goodness that isn’t really even true. I need You to show me somehow if I am mistaken about this. Did the enemy really interfere with my technology?”

I decided to carefully go over the various versions of the document as well as the emails that had gone back and forth between Melissa and me. First, I thought, I will open that 6:10 document. Early Sunday morning, when I had first attached it to an email and opened it to verify it, it showed none of our edits. After we three had prayed and I’d closed and reopened it, the changes were all there. So now I checked the versions. There was the one saved at 1:30, before I did any work on it. It was saved again at 3:57, just before I sent it to Melissa so we could work together on the spots I had highlighted. And the 6:10 version, which I’d saved before trying to send all our final changes to Melissa . . . was not there. What? That was not possible. I had definitely saved it and then closed and opened it several times, after which I’d saved it again using the “Save As” function, renaming the file before sending it off at 6:30 a.m.

Thoroughly mystified, I now began to check the record of emails. There was only one from Melissa, in which she’d sent me her document at 1:09 a.m. That was the one I’d saved at 1:30. And then after I’d made my own changes, I’d sent it back to her at . . . I opened up my Sent Items . . . And there was nothing there. The only email showing during that time frame was the one I’d sent at 3:27, frustrated, after waiting 45 minutes for her to respond to my text saying I was ready to get to work with her: a brief and rather frustrated “Hello?”

And yet when she had finally called, I’d saved and sent my document at 3:57. But it simply wasn’t there. This wasn’t possible. I texted Melissa:

“Very strange. There is no evidence of my emailing you the document around 4:00 a.m. when we began our edit. Does it still show in your inbox?”

She answered, “I don’t see it.”

And yet she had sat with her backside on the cold, hard concrete of the train station floor for two hours with that very document on her laptop, while I had sat bleary-eyed in my office, and we had edited that document together, the document which now appeared to have been neither sent nor received. I was satisfied now that God had clearly shown me, there had been some serious spiritual shenanigans going down. I felt free now to write the story about this other-worldly interference.

As if God felt I needed further proof of this kind of meddling, there was another weird incident about 48 hours later. Again I was up very early in the morning. I sat down to read my Bible. Picking up where I’d left off last time, I didn’t get any further than one verse. It made me think of Melissa. She had texted the night before, asking for prayer. The essay was safely turned in, but she was so frustrated and discouraged now with the third member of their group, who had not at all been pulling his weight in the preparation of their final presentation.

The verse I read had a powerful application to Melissa’s unruly emotions in this struggle, so I decided I should send it to her. I began to dictate a text: “I am having a reading along with my porridge before heading back to bed. I am in Mark 8:34, the Amplified Version. ‘If anyone intends to come after me, let him deny himself—forget, ignore, disown, lose sight of himself and his own interests—’

The next phrase was “and take up his cross,” but before I could record it, the screen on my phone went black, then returned to the desktop. I was immediately in warfare mode: “I cut off your interference, devil, in the Name of Jesus. Ha, devil, you just make me believe in the reality of God all the more, and once again He will show His power over you. And furthermore, you are only serving to convince me that this is an important message for Melissa.”

Although I might have been tempted to be frustrated, what I was trying to send Melissa was the very antidote to frustration. The irony was not lost on me, and I refused to fall into that trap. I patiently began again. I got as far as I’d got the first time, then again, just before I said “and take up his cross,” again the screen went blank and returned to the desktop. This happened not just twice, but a third time, a fourth time, and a fifth time. I continued to pray against the enemy and to guard myself against discouragement and frustration. Now I changed my strategy. I dictated a short phrase and sent it right off, then another one and another one until I finally finished what I wanted to say—and what I felt God wanted me to say.

In the end, this is the message I sent: “‘If anyone intends to come after me, let him deny himself—forget, ignore, disown, lose sight of himself and his own interests—and take up his cross.’ Melissa, I am thinking of the frustration and discouragement you were struggling with last night, and the things I have been facing this week. Let’s not wrestle with these things, these negative emotions, these sometimes-demonically-fueled temptations; let’s deny them place, forget them, ignore them, disown them, lose sight of them. And take up our cross . . .

“Even sending this message has become a battle and a lesson—” and I explained what had happened.

“God seems to be showing me, ever since Sunday morning with you, how the enemy can mess with our technology. That’s why I’ve had to send the message in little chunks, sending each bit before it disappeared, praying and taking authority. Whew! Sometimes nothing is simple.”

Of course, I shared this with Greg later.

He doesn’t like to go about bashing the devil like a redneck firing a shotgun randomly into the night with no idea of where or what the threat actually is. He’s trying to learn to wait on God for a sure word, like a single bullet that goes straight to the heart of the matter. Neither does he like to give the enemy any more attention than is absolutely necessary. “The devil has nothing in us,” he said, “unless we give him place. In these situations, the issue is not what devices the enemy might come out against us with, but whether we’ll exercise our faith in God and let Him give us the victory.”

God has said in His Word that no weapon formed against us shall prosper (Isaiah 54:17a, KJV). He did not say, however, that no weapon would ever threaten us. Indeed, in the same passage He says, “I create the blacksmith who fires up his forge and makes a weapon designed to kill. I also create the destroyer—but no weapon that can hurt you has ever been forged (Verses 16-17, MSG).

Then He seals this promise with a grand proclamation (KJV): “This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD.”

Early-Morning Thoughts from God

Purging a stack of papers that has sat on my desk, mostly untouched, for many years, I came across some rough drafts of articles that I never did complete. Here is one that caught my eye. It was written in 2005.

This morning as I awoke, as I passed from sleep into consciousness, in that brief moment before my brain fired up and began to run, God spoke to me in the stillness. It was a precious thought, and an important one. I dwelt on it for a few minutes; then my mind ran on to other things, and within a few more minutes, I couldn’t remember what God had been talking to me about.

I apologized to the Lord.

Suddenly I had a mental image of 14-year-old Rachel, caught up in the fun of her own world, distracted, and my being frustrated with her because she has already forgotten to do what I’ve just told her, or worse, hasn’t even really heard what I’ve said.

“I’m sorry, Lord,” I whispered again. “Is that how You feel when I don’t heed what You say?” I knew even as I spoke that His responses toward His sons and daughters are much more patient and loving than mine.

“Lord, please, will you tell me again what You were saying?” Lying still and keeping my mind quiet and my heart wide open, I wait. Nothing comes. Too bad.

I get up and start my day, determining that I will go and sit by the pond and have some quiet time before I allow the day to carry me away. I take with me a Bible and a book. It’s the book I end up reading: Jesus Freaks, by a rap group, DC Talk, and an organization called The Voice of the Martyrs. The book is a stirring compilation of stories of believers who have died over the last 20 centuries for their faith in Christ.

I devour a number of stories. It’s time to quit now, but I will read just one more. And there, at the end of the story, on page 69, are two quotes that remind me of exactly what God said to me first thing this morning.

It seems God is limited by our prayer life—that He can do nothing for humanity unless someone asks Him (John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Movement).

When a believing person prays, great things happen (James 5:16, NCV).

I remember now: God was impressing me earlier this morning with the importance of praying: on my own, and as a couple in the way Greg and I sometimes do, taking the time to “cover all the bases,” as we put it, praying about everything and everyone that comes to mind until there seems nothing left to pray for. In those times, we feel spurred on by the conviction of the power and importance of our prayers: We are in a spiritual war, and the things we seek in prayer sometimes have to be won like spoils taken from the enemy after a battle.

It stands to reason, then, that if we don’t pray, there are some things that just aren’t going to happen. This thought, of God’s limiting His intervention in human affairs to the confines of His people’s prayers, is not intended to put a burden on us. Rather, when we are ready to embrace this responsibility, we will find it to be a joyous and powerful privilege. You may not be up for the fight every day; I’m not, but I’m working at it.

And this “covering all the bases” way of praying does not mean endless, repetitive prayer lists; it means listening to the Holy Spirit, praying as He prompts, and not quitting until you get the release from Him—the peace and assurance that for now you are done.

“Pray without ceasing,” says God’s Word in 1 Thessalonians 5:17. When we read this verse, we wonder how we can possibly do that—be praying all the time. But not all prayer is warfare; far from it.  We can be in a continuous state of prayer by keeping our hearts and minds turned toward God all day long, listening for His voice and responding as we go. Often our prayers are just our side of a conversation with Him. He is continually speaking to us, if we will just learn to listen. King David brings out this thought in at least two of his psalms:

Thy thoughts toward us: … would I declare and speak [them], they are more than can be numbered. (Psalm 40:5, DARBY)

How precious it is, Lord, to realize that you are thinking about me constantly! I can’t even count how many times a day your thoughts turn toward me. And when I waken in the morning, you are still thinking of me! (Psalm 139:18, TLB)

This describes what happened to me this morning: as I awoke, I heard Him thinking thoughts toward me, speaking to my heart. Early-morning thoughts from God.

Sometimes prayer is just our response to that inner voice. Sometimes it is a venting of our needs, our fears, our petitions; sometimes, certainly, an outpouring of our joy and thanksgiving. Other times it means heeding a call to the battle of intercession.

It’s a sobering thought that John Wesley expresses above, in a nutshell: “God is limited by our prayer life.” But God’s Word says it too: “Ye have not because ye ask not” (James 4:2, KJV). Stop and think about that for a minute.

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In rereading this old article, I bring away several layers of significance. First is the marvel of God’s talking to us, that He would take the time to intentionally impart His thoughts to us—to me. And then, when through my own carelessness, inattention, and distraction, I lose what He imparted to me, He so graciously runs it by me one more time. 

Not that He made it easy: I waited and prayed, then read several chapters thoughtfully, still waiting and listening. It was as though He was asking how important it was to me, how much effort I was willing to put in, to hear His voice again. He has said, in Jeremiah 29:13, NKJV, “You will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.” 

How astounding that He had placed the words that I needed to jog my memory in the very book He knew I would pick up and read that morning, and that I decided to read that “one more chapter.” The words that I read there helped me to retrieve my earlier thoughts.

Second is the thoughts themselves, the internal reminder of the importance of prayer and the concept of His choosing to partner with us through prayer to bring the Kingdom of God to earth.

 And third is the timeliness of finding this old article, just when—with the challenges life is throwing at us right now—I need to be reminded of God’s intimate involvement in our lives and the importance of prayer in connecting our needs with His power.

A Cup of Tea with Jesus

It seems that so frequently lately, I have felt prone to a creeping anxiety and depression, not physiologically as was my difficulty for many years, but emotionally and spiritually. As I examine the anxiety, when it comes, I see that almost all of it has to do with relationships with people: me with them, them with each other, or them with God. A thought came to me early the other morning, that God is all about relationships, about healing and restoring them. This is His primary concern, His top priority, reconciling us first to Him and then to each other. He is the God of all reconciliation. (See 2 Corinthians 5:18-20.)

These anxious thoughts come with the sense, the conviction, that I must pray, but there is a lethargy there with the anxiety, and a hopelessness, that prevent me, discourage me, before I even start. I must recognize the discouragement as a ploy of the enemy and refuse to be held back from prayer. But then, even when I pray from this place, my words seem pithy and unsubstantial; they seem to fall to the ground powerless. They feel like “the vain repetition of the heathen.” A religious exercise. An ineffectual, obligatory gesture.

I realize that I must get with Jesus, truly get into His presence, and then really make my needs known to Him so that then He will garrison my heart and mind with His peace, as He promises in Philippians 4:6-7. So that afternoon, I determinedly block some time aside from the cares of this world and all my temporal responsibilities. I make a cup of tea, a rare event, using a big fresh sprig of peppermint from my garden, and sit down on the couch to visit with my Friend.

The first thought that comes to mind is this: Isn’t it kind of rude to sit down for a cup of tea with a Friend and not even pour a cup for Him? It reminds me of Graham Cooke, who says that He always pours a cup of coffee for Jesus as well as himself, and that he’s convinced that one day he will find that other cup empty at the close of their conversation. I get up and pour another cup of the tea, placing it on the coffee table a couple of feet from mine.

I settle back. I close my eyes, breathe deeply, and acknowledge and welcome Jesus’ presence. Immediately a great peace descends and settles around me like a gentle cloud of glory. It is such a relief, such a refreshing, that tears of gratitude come quickly to my eyes. It is so glorious, I wonder why I don`t do this every day. I breathe deeply once again.

I open a little old book I have recently found on our bookshelf: God Calling. I’ve never read it before. I turn to today’s date. The title of the reading is “Live in the Unseen.” It begins with a plea: “Our Lord, the God of the troubled and the weary, come and save us.” And then God speaks, through the words of the authors, two anonymous “listeners.”

I am your Saviour. Not only from the weight of sin, but from the weight of care, from misery, and depression, from want and woe, from faintness and heartache. Your Saviour.

Remember that you are living really in the Unseen—that is the Real Life.

Lift up your heads from earth’s troubles, and view the glories of the Kingdom. Higher and higher each day, see more of Heaven. Speak to Me. Long for Me. Rest in Me. Abide in Me. No restless bringing Me your burdens and then feverishly lifting them again and bearing them away. No! Abide in Me. Not for one moment losing the consciousness of My Strength and Protection.

As a child in its mother’s arms, stay sheltered and at rest.

Such a fitting reading. It deepens the peace I am feeling, and I am so at rest, even though I’ve only been sitting there for about two minutes. And then I hear the front door open. My husband is stopping off home, much earlier than he expected. My heart drops with disappointment. I am always glad to see my husband, but I have entered into a special place with Jesus, which seems as fragile as it is powerful, fragile in the same way that the Parable of the Sower tells us the Word of God, mighty and eternal though it is, can be choked out of our hearts by the cares and distractions of this world. I don’t want to be distracted right now.

“Oh Jesus,” I whisper, “please don’t let me lose this place.”

I get up to greet my husband. I find that he is extremely stressed, something he rarely succumbs to. Already running a month behind schedule with construction projects for various farmers, right in the middle of harvest time, now all kinds of things are going wrong. He comes and sits beside me on the couch.

“Let me read this to you,” I say, picking up the little book. “It’s very appropriate.”

He lifts his hand as though to block the flow of words. “I can’t listen to anything right now,” he says.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” I ask, even though he is a dedicated coffee drinker. “I poured it for Jesus,” I explain, “but He doesn’t seem to be drinking it.”

“Maybe it’s too hot,” he says, trying a sip.

“He prefers His lukewarm,” I say.

We both laugh. We have no idea how He likes His beverages, but we know He’s been very clear about how He likes His people: definitely not lukewarm. (See Revelation 3:16.)

After a few more minutes, Greg is able to listen to the devotional. We talk about it for a bit, and somehow, in the course of that short time, our burdens are unconsciously yielded over to Jesus. Then Greg drains his cup, gives me a kiss, gets up to leave, and says, “Thanks for the tea.”

“Jesus wasn’t drinking it anyway,” I answer.

Alone again, I marvel that the supernatural peace and quietness still surround me, undisturbed in spite of my solitude having been interrupted.

Oh, but I did, Jesus seems to saying.

What?

I did drink the tea. Remember how I said that when I was hungry, you gave me food; I was thirsty, you gave me a drink; I was sick, you visited me; I was naked and you clothed me; I was in prison and you came to me. And when I was questioned, “When, Lord?” then I said that whenever you did it for anyone, in My Name, you did it for Me.

You were “in Me”; you were “in My name,” moving in My Spirit. When you gave your husband that cup of tea—which was sitting there on the coffee table in front of him only because I had told you to put it there—and he drank it, I was drinking it too. Nice peppermint, by the way.

A holy mystery for sure. I glimpse it, but I won’t say I begin to understand it. Or maybe I should put it this way: my mind doesn’t grasp it, but my spirit does.

When I got up and left my place on the couch, I carried the peace with me. It occurred to me that I never had got around to laying out all my concerns and burdens to Jesus. He had simply shown up, reminding me of how real He is, and how sufficient. That was all I really needed.

And it was what Greg needed as well. When he got home late that evening, he told me that that short tea break on the couch had straightened out his whole day. It had broken the stress off him, readjusted his perspective, and filled his world with peace.

Cut Off

One day in August of 2014, I got a call from my friend Deb. She said that a friend of hers, Diana, had been battling lung cancer for several months and that now God had told Deb to go into the hospital and pray for her healing. She felt sure that God’s intention was to heal her, and she wanted me to come along for moral support.

Deb is my age and about ten years Diana’s senior. They first met when Diana was a troubled teen in a group home and Deb was one of the staff there. They remained in touch as Diana matured and got married. When she was pregnant with her third child, her husband left. Divorce followed. Diana remarried in 2000, this time very happily.

Early in 2014 she was diagnosed with lung cancer. The doctors pounded it into temporary submission with chemotherapy and radiation, but now, late in the summer, it was back with a vengeance. Once again, an aggressive regimen of treatment was begun, but soon the chemo took too great a toll on Diana’s body. Blood clots formed in her right hand and arm, cutting off the circulation. Essentially her arm was dying. Doctors were forced to cease all treatment. At the point where we went in to see her, they were scheduling her for an amputation, after which she would be sent home to die.

What a pitiful sight she was that day. I had met her a number of times over the years, but I could barely recognize her now: bald head, puffy face and body, and her right arm discoloured purple and black. I was so moved that I kept reaching out to touch that hand, which lay closest to me, and she would wince in pain and ask me please not to touch her there. She spoke about the upcoming amputation. “I can’t believe this is happening to me,” she said.

As Diana had known Deb for thirty-five years, I had made the assumption that she had become a believer somewhere along the way. There was a scripture that had come to mind as I anticipated this visit. I was thinking of how, when we as believers need to ask something really big of God, sometimes we are inhibited by the remembrance of our weaknesses and failures, wrongly assuming that these shortcomings disqualify us from God’s mercy and grace. So I told Diana the scripture that was on my mind.

“If our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God. But even if our hearts do condemn us, God is greater than our hearts, and He knows everything” (1 John 3:21, 20). But the conversation that followed soon made it clear that I was several steps ahead of where Diana was; she had never yet entered into that personal relationship with God.

“I could always come to you, Deb,” she said, “to hear from God.  You have always been like a go-between for me.”

“But God wants to have a relationship with you directly,” Deb answered. “He wants to speak directly to you and have you hear and respond. He wants you to know Him.”

It wasn’t many minutes before Diana expressed that she did indeed want this one-on-one relationship with God, and that she wanted to know where she was heading when she passed on. Deb led her in a prayer, and it was the most precious things to witness. Diana’s eyes were locked into Deb’s face, tears rolling down her cheeks, as she repeated after Deb with earnest sincerity the phrases that expressed her need of God and her desire to have Him take charge of her life.

When that was over, Deb and I spent some time proclaiming scriptures over Diana that reinforce the fact of Christ’s complete provision, the healing that He established for us in His scourging and crucifixion. We declared God’s desire to heal her. Then we left.

In the next few weeks, I heard that they had amputated Diana’s arm just below the elbow, but that the damage had continued to move upward and they’d had to do the procedure again, further up, above the elbow. Then they sent her home, giving her no more than two months to live.

Six months later, she was still alive. She was booked for tests at the Cross Cancer Clinic in Edmonton and, astoundingly, was declared cancer-free. She phoned her sister and with characteristic wry humour said, “I have some good news and some bad news.”

“What’s the good news?” her sister asked. “I can handle the bad news if I hear the good news first.”

“I have no more cancer,” Diana said.

“And what’s the bad news?”

“You’re stuck with me for a while yet.”

All joking aside, this was a glorious miracle, such an exciting turn of events. I was so amazed and grateful when I heard about it. As the months went by, I began to think that I would like to write her story, so I asked her permission, which she graciously gave. One day she came by the Farmers’ Market to chat with me about it. She brought up something that hauled me up short. She said that some time after Deb and I prayed for her, Deb had contacted her, said that she had been hearing some amazing things about the use of marijuana oil and that she felt Diana should give it a try.

“It’s really powerful stuff,” Diana told me.

“Oh,” I said, and then I had to sit there and think about it for a while. “So what do you attribute your healing to,” I then asked, “God or the marijuana oil?”

“Both,” she answered.

Hmm. Suddenly I was feeling that I didn’t want to write her story after all, especially not on my Life Lessons blog, which is intended to journal God’s marvellous workings in our lives. How could I give all the glory to God when there had been a natural remedy involved as well? And not just any remedy, but a derivative of marijuana, of all things! It took me back suddenly 38 years to the night that God clearly showed me, a young hippie just beginning to enter into faith in Him, that there was no place in His kingdom for using “recreational” drugs. And despite the current press on medical marijuana, a stigma lingers for Christians like me whose past includes a relationship with pot that had nothing to do with its isolated medical qualities.

Of course, there would be some people who would read such a story and give all the glory to God, but others would be very happy to ignore the God factor and give glory to cannabis.

Oh dear, this was so confusing! I didn’t say anything to Diana; I took it away with me to ponder and ask God about. When I finally did talk to her again, I laid out my misgivings as frankly as I could.

“I understand,” she said. “That’s why I told you. I wanted to be honest.”

So I just left the idea of the article on hold, simply asking God about it whenever it came to mind.

Then one day I was reading through the story of Hezekiah in 2 Kings 20:1-7, NLT:

About that time Hezekiah became deathly ill, and the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to visit him. He gave the king this message: “This is what the Lord says: Set your affairs in order, for you are going to die. You will not recover from this illness.”

When Hezekiah heard this, he turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord … and wept bitterly.

But before Isaiah had left the middle courtyard, this message came to him from the Lord: 

“Go back to Hezekiah, the leader of my people. Tell him, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of your ancestor David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears. I will heal you, and three days from now you will get out of bed and go to the Temple of the Lord….

Then Isaiah said, “Make an ointment from figs.” So Hezekiah’s servants spread the ointment over the boil, and Hezekiah recovered!

Here was the answer to my dilemma! After declaring the Hezekiah was going to die, God considered his prayer and announced through His prophet that He was going to heal the king from his fatal illness. Then He told the prophet to mix up a natural remedy, a poultice made from figs. There has never been any question that this was a supernatural healing, and God certainly did not need the fig poultice to accomplish it, but for whatever reason, He saw fit to make this a part of the treatment. Jesus Christ, although He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8), rarely does anything the same way twice.

It was the prophet Isaiah whom God told of His intention to heal Hezekiah and whom He also told to make the poultice. It was Deb whom God told of His desire to heal Diana through prayer and the proclamation of His Word; and it was Deb whom He told to suggest the marijuana oil. Interestingly, when Deb passed this recommendation on to Diana, it turned out that her husband had already begun her on a regimen with the oil, just the tiniest drip placed in a gelatin capsule, swallowed once a day. The rest is history: Diana has been free of cancer these past three and a half years.

A year went by. Deb frequently mentioned Diana’s hunger to know God more and to gain knowledge of the Bible. Unfortunately, said Deb, she had no one to help her. She wasn’t attending church because her husband wasn’t interested in going and she was not inclined to leave him alone at home to pursue her faith—when she has little enough time with him as it is. She doesn’t read very well, what with both vision and comprehension problems, and the various medications she has been on have scrambled her brain.

One day Deb became more direct with me: “I would teach her myself, Nancy, but with work I just don’t have time. Besides, it’s not really my gift. Mine is prayer. But you—you’re a teacher.”

I went home and thought about it—for several months. I only go to town when it’s necessary, and I value my time at home with my own pursuits. But I finally determined that this was something God wanted me to do.

It seemed to me kind of a waste to drive all the way in and spend that hour and a half with just one person, so I decided to invite several other women. And now and then Diana and I did have another one or two join us, but it was when it was just the two of us that the Holy Spirit came so richly and so sweetly. I would share a grand old story from the Old Testament or a spiritual principle, and her eyes would lock on mine the way I’d seen them rivet on Deb’s that day in the hospital. Her eyes would fill with tears as the understanding and power of God’s word came through to her, and I would cry, too, with the beauty of what we were experiencing.

I had felt led to begin our study with the genealogy at the very beginning of the New Testament—of all the unlikely things, because it gave us a framework from which to view the entire history of God’s story with mankind and a timeline on which to orient all these wonderful characters and their experiences. Each week we looked at a story or two from the Old Testament and then did some reading directly out of the New, beginning in Matthew. Stories and principles were not enough for Diana, she wanted to also be reading the Bible itself.

The day came, inevitably, when, taking turns reading verses by verse, we arrived at Matthew 5:30. In her halting, floundering way, Diana read aloud: “And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.”

It was kind of brutal. We were quiet for a moment. Then I said, “Not that your right hand was causing you to sin like in this context, Diana, but look at it this way: all that has happened to you, the cancer, the amputation, has brought you to the place of finding a relationship with God. He has promised that He is continually working everything together for your good, and although this may sound insensitive, I believe the day will come when you will honestly be grateful to God for the loss of your arm, because of where it has brought you.”

She looked steadily at me through her tears. “I’m already there,” she said. “Because now I have—” she deliberated for a split second, “I have life.” She went on to say that she is now much more content, not as anxious. She has an inner peace that she didn’t have before. She finds that she no longer picks fights with her husband, and that they really talk now.

 There have been big adjustments since her arm was cut off. She has had to go through a grieving process, very much like when a loved one dies. Simple things become impossible. I remember one day watching her struggle with her jacket. I felt awkward; I didn’t know if I was supposed to help her or let her alone. She saw my dilemma and rescued me: “The rule is, let me do it myself unless I ask for help.” Another day I stopped by Deb’s business, and she mentioned that she had to go by Diana’s place after work. “I’m going to glue a nail brush into her sink,” she said. “She hates dirty nails, and she hasn’t been able to keep her left hand clean.” How ingenious; how kind!

As difficult as her loss has been, there is another loss that has cut her much more deeply. When her ex-husband remarried, he came looking for the three children. He and his new wife trumped up some charges of sexual abuse and were able to secure custody and to bar her from seeing them. While she admits that she had shortcomings as a mother (don’t we all!), she maintains that the allegations of sexual abuse were a complete fabrication. But as of this writing, Diana has been cut off from her children for 18 years.

However, along with the physical healing that she experienced, there has come a steady faith and hope that the God Who healed her body can and will also heal the relationship with her kids. Perhaps those who read this story will be moved to add their prayers to hers, that the God of all reconciliation will have His way in this situation.

In the meantime, Diana has raised her husband’s daughter. Deb has the highest commendation for Diana as a mother. It was she who told me that this girl, who was two years old when she came into Diana’s life, has fetal alcohol syndrome, which brings with it many challenges. Diana found just the right balance of being very loving and very strict to give this daughter the boundaries and security she has needed. Deb feels that the girl, now a young woman, has been given the very best foundation for life that she could have.

Diana continues to wait and hope for God to expose the lies that have been told and to restore her own children’s hearts to hers. Meanwhile, one unshakeable thing remains: Diana is reconciled to God. She has found right-standing with Him through faith in Christ; and from the foundation of His life within her, she is living out a whole new kind of existence. And this is God’s promise to her, and to all who live in obedience and faith toward Him (Isaiah 56:5, NKJV):

“Even to (her) I will give, in My house and within My walls, a place and a name better than that of sons and daughters; I will give (her) an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.” 

The Visitation of God

The other morning I was reading Matthew 23. The chapter ends with Jesus making a nebulous statement: “You will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’” (v.39), NIV. It’s one of those verses that has always seemed to me to be obscured in a fog of religious meaninglessness. But suddenly I thought I glimpsed, through the mist as it were, something taking shape before my eyes.

Context is everything. Let’s go back to the beginning of the chapter. It starts with Jesus speaking to the crowds and his disciples about their spiritual leaders. He affirms that they are the legitimate interpreters of the law of Moses, so, essentially, “Go ahead and do what they tell you. But,” He adds, “don’t do what they do, because they don’t practice what they preach” (v. 3).

Then He thoroughly scolds these leaders, the Pharisees, who are ever-present in the crowds that follow the Teacher. Over and over He declares, “Woe to you! Great sorrow awaits you!” Now he outlines their faults. They are hypocrites: that is, they say one thing and do another. They are full of pride, Jesus says, caring more about being approved by people than being commended by God. They look righteous on the outside but are inwardly full of corruption.

They zealously proselytize, but then subject their converts to impossible standards of behaviour that even they themselves cannot keep. They don’t know what it means to have a change of heart, to be truly regenerated by the Spirit of God. They nit-pick about technicalities of the Law and yet miss the whole heart of God’s instruction.

They honour posthumously the prophets whom their very forefathers persecuted and murdered, saying, “If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would never have joined in the killing” (v. 30, NLT). And yet, says Jesus, “Your words and deeds testify that you are just like them and prove that you are indeed the descendants of those who murdered the prophets” (v. 31, The Passion Translation).

In what way did their words and deeds show that they were like their forefathers? In their attitude toward Jesus. They resisted Him from the get-go. Like their fathers before them, they did not realize when God was among them. They failed to recognize the day of His visitation.

He calls them a brood of vipers. This doesn’t just mean a bunch of snakes; it means the offspring of such. Like father, like son. (Interesting that one of the dictionary definitions for snake is “a treacherous or deceitful person.”) Jesus was saying in so many words, “We all know what your fathers did to the prophets, and I know what you’re going to do to Me.” In The Passion Translation, He says, “Go ahead and finish what your ancestors started!”

He wishes longingly that this broods of snakes would behave like another species instead: a brood of chicks, gathering trustingly under His wings:

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem—you are the city that murders your prophets! You are the city that stones the very messengers who were sent to deliver you! So many times I have longed to gather a wayward people, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings—but you were too stubborn to let me (Matthew 23:377-39).

Another account of the same event, in Luke 19:42, adds to Jesus’ soliloquy over Jerusalem: “How I wish today that you of all people would understand the way to peace. But now it is too late…. Before long your enemies will … close in on you from every side… because you did not recognize it when God visited you” (NLT).

He was foretelling the overthrow of Jerusalem by Titus, the future emperor of Rome, which would happen in 70 A.D. At this time, the temple, the centre of Jewish worship, built by Solomon a thousand years earlier and rebuilt after Nebuchadnezzar’s invasion, was completely destroyed. “Not one stone will be left upon another,” Jesus said of this future event (Matt. 24:2), and that was exactly what unfolded. 

Why did God let this calamity befall His people? We find a clue in these haunting words from John’s Gospel: Jesus “was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own [the Jews] and his own received him not” (John 1:10-11, KJV). The nation of Israel as a whole rejected Jesus, failing to recognize the visitation of God, and so falling under His judgement.

But we mustn’t think of this type of judgement as “punishment,” not as a churlish and retaliatory reaction. God’s heart is always toward correction and reconciliation. When He sends judgement in this way, He is trying to rouse people to spiritual reality.

I looked up definitions of visitation on merriam-webster.com. Here is the one that fits the context of this article: “a special dispensation of divine favor or wrath.” I found eleven references to God’s visitation in the Old Testament: ten of them refer to God’s judgement falling on a continually disobedient people. There is only one where it is used in a positive sense, when Job says, “Thou hast granted me life and favour, and thy visitation hath preserved me” (Job 10:12, AKJV). The only reference to visitation in the New Testament is used in the positive sense, that of blessing, and it is in the passage that we are looking at here. However, that blessing, in the person of Jesus, was rejected, and so judgement still came.

I commented to Greg on these scriptural examples of the two different kinds of visitation, and he said this: “The visitation of God always comes with both blessing and judgement. It’s all part of the same God. His blessing comes to those who love the truth. When the same visitation falls on those who reject the truth, it manifests as judgement.”

To explain this seeming contradiction, I think of an illustration I once heard James Robison give. He spoke of holding a cat in his arms and stroking its fur, much to the contentment of the cat. But if the cat turns around and faces the other direction, the same stroking, now against the fur, becomes an irritant to the cat.

When we align ourselves properly with the movements of God, they are a great blessing to us. Even His judgements, which are “true and righteous altogether” (Ps. 19:9, KJV) are the fire that burns off impurities and refines our faith. That is why David, who wrote Psalm 19, goes on to say regarding God’s judgements, “more to be desired are they than gold” (v. 10, KJV). We see him embracing and inviting God’s judgement at the end of Psalm 139: “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (v. 23-24). He loved the truth, and he welcomed God’s refining fire.

The Pharisees, however, did not. We don’t have to read much of the Gospels before we recognize that they are almost always the bad guys. We sure don’t want to be like them. But perhaps we sometimes are. Look again at the list beginning in the third paragraph above. Do we preach one thing and practice another? Do we sometimes care too much what people think of us and consequently turn away from what God is prompting us to do? 

Do we pretend to be something we’re not, acting upright on the outside but refusing to show our faults—for fear of rejection or loss of status. James encourages us to be transparent: “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed” (James 5:16, KJV). Did you catch that? Healing is what comes when we drop our facades and show who we really are. What a blessing we will miss if we refuse to do so!

The invitation to transparency comes with the promise of wholeness and restoration. This was readily sensed by the so-called sinners that flocked to Jesus. Not so their religious leaders. Jesus said at one point to the Pharisees, “I have not come to call those who think they are well but those who know they are sick (my paraphrase); not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners” (Matthew 9:12-13, NLT).

Also like the Pharisees, we become focussed on and critical of the behaviour of other believers, trying to get them to live up to our arbitrary standards. We “regard [them] according to the flesh” (2 Cor. 5:16, ESV) rather than by the Spirit, judging by our own faulty senses how well they are following God, failing to recognize that they are new creations in Christ (5:17), that they are God’s workmanship (Eph. 2:10), and as such, above our reproach.

(There are exceptions: when we see a brother or sister “overtaken in a fault,” if we have the discernment and spiritual maturity ourselves to go to them in true humility, we may be effective in helping them along their path [Galatians 6:1, KJV].)

Our criticism of other believers, our Pharisaical contempt, is rooted in our inability—or our refusal—to see the Kingdom of God at work in other people and in the world around us. We feel unable to relinquish the workmanship into God’s capable hands and must express our own opinions or interfere in the process instead of simply and powerfully interceding. We fail to discern His presence and His movement among us—His visitation, and in that, we fail to recognize Him for who He really is.

Like many of the Jewish forefathers, and like the Pharisees who came after them, we often fail to recognize the day of God’s visitation. We sometimes fail to recognize the true authority of God’s prophets, of His Word, and of His Son. We fail to see the presence of God in the people we come across, fail to recognize His hand in—think about this—the circumstances that overtake us. We don’t understand that “the kingdom of God is at hand.”

That’s why Jesus said to the hard-hearted that day, “You will not see me again until you are able to say, ‘We welcome the one who comes to us in the name of the Lord’” (TPT). We will really see Jesus when we have the humility and discernment to recognize the people who come in His name—and receive them, honour them, and bless them as such.

As I finished writing this article, I pondered on it for a few days. I asked the Lord if I had said what I wanted to say, if I had stayed on track from beginning to end with what I was trying to get across. I had begun with a single verse, and when God opened it up to me, the thoughts had come gushing with such abundance that I couldn’t get it all down.

It had all been about coming to understand one specific sentence in scripture that I had always had difficulty getting anything out of. God, is there any other thought you wanted me to add?

Then after a few days of thinking about it, I woke up one morning with a thought coming suddenly to mind. Yes, it was initially a tough verse for me to understand, hard and impervious like a rock. And then right on the heels of that thought came this: When the Israelites thirsted in the desert, God brought water out of—of all the unlikely places—a rock. Talk about hard and impervious! And yet from that seemingly unyielding rock, God refreshed a couple of million people. And the New Testament tells us (1 Corinthians 10:4) that that Rock was Christ.

Where the Rubber Meets the Road

This isn’t the first time I’ve been tested on a subject shortly after writing about it, but this life lesson kicked in only a little more than 24 hours after finishing my last article. I posted “Where Am I?” at about 6:30 on Sunday morning. Then I went back to bed to top up what had been too short a night. But I could not go back to sleep after my early awakening.

The rest of the day was intense. There was church, followed by a baby shower, followed by having friends over for dinner, and then finally a late-night phone call with one of our daughters. I wasn’t settled until midnight. A day like that can still stress my adrenals, seven years after crashing them. So Monday morning when I woke up once again at 5:00, I knew I would need several more hours after I’d had my first breakfast. By the time I saw Greg out of the house and got settled again, it was 9:00. That’s almost too late for me to get sleepy again. But I tried to relax in the Lord, and I read scripture on my phone for a few minutes while I tried to gear down.

A phone call came in, and it presented something that was going to make a demand on my schedule for the day. Up until that point, there had only been a dentist appointment to consider, early in the afternoon. Now I could feel myself getting tense with an added responsibility. Once again I tried to relax and push the cares of the day away, reading scripture until I began to feel sleepy. I was just powering off my phone when it rang again.

This call was longer, and it engaged my emotions in a negative way. I finally had to cut the conversation short. I lay back on the pillows and took some slow, deep breaths, but I found my emotions starting to spiral out of control. I wasn’t going to be able to go back to sleep, or so I feared. The day was beginning to look like too much to face. (Perhaps this doesn’t seem like a big deal to many, but for me it is a frequent challenge on my long, slow journey back to health.)

I knew I needed Jesus. Remembering the article that I had posted the day before, I knew I needed to find my place in Him, but suddenly it just seemed too hard. Instead I phoned my husband. And I ranted a bit. I considered aloud that perhaps I should cancel my dentist appointment, and Greg agreed with me. Then all at once I realized that Greg had arrived at his destination and I needed to let him go.

Saying goodbye, I hung up, phoned the dentist’s office and left a message, then lay there wondering if I had done the right thing. I was starting to fret. I knew I had to call on the name of the Lord. And I did, even though I wanted to cave in and wail, “This is too hard! I can’t do it!” Mustering the self-control afforded by the Spirit of God, I called Jesus’ name, really loudly. Then I clasped my wrists like in the photo in the previous article, and aloud I said, “Jesus, I am in You, and You are in me. I am hanging on to You, and You are hanging on to me.” I thought it was going to have to be a long prayer, but I felt the oppression begin to break with just taking that stand, affirming my place in Christ.

The dentist’s office called back and told me they could see me the next afternoon. Thank You, Lord!

Before turning off my phone, I texted my husband, saying, “Please don’t worry about me. Jesus is helping me.” Then I lay there breathing deeply, praying in the Spirit. Amazingly, I fell asleep within a few minutes. When I woke up, I was surprised to see that only an hour had passed: I felt so refreshed, as though I had slept two or three hours. There was a great peace and calm in my soul, and I got right up, ready to take on the rest of the day. 

As I turned on my phone, it displayed a text from my dear husband: “Satan has asked to sift you,” it said, “but I have prayed for you that you will not faint.” It was perfect. Tears prickled in my eyes as the Word of God touched my heart, a word in season (Proverbs 15:23 & Isaiah 50:4—two beautiful scriptures on this concept). Greg was quoting Jesus, shortly before Simon Peter would deny Him: “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat.  But I have pleaded in prayer for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail. So when you have repented and turned to me again, strengthen your brothers.”

Yes, Satan had tried to sift me, to shake me in the sieve of emotions and circumstances, hoping that all my faith might run out the bottom. But my husband had been praying for me—and then I suddenly realized that, according to the scripture above, Jesus also had been praying for me: anything Jesus told His followers can be applied to us in our day as well. And Hebrews 7:25, KJV, says, “He is able also to save them (deliver or protect them—Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary) to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.” I had just experienced the truth of this: Jesus had rescued me from my circumstances and my emotions.

When I looked up that scripture, I was struck by the fact that when Jesus spoke to Simon here, He concluded, in effect, with this: “So when you have changed your mind and turned to cleave to Me again, share what you’ve learned with your brothers and sisters in order to encourage them.” The desire to do exactly that is what, in fact, compels me to write.

Having cancelled my dentist appointment in Edmonton, I realized there were some things I needed to look after in Wetaskiwin instead. I got ready to go with an uncharacteristic efficiency and drove to town. It was a warm spring day, bright and cheerful. I felt sunny too, body, soul, and spirit. I was so in-the-moment, so unhurried, still filled with that peaceful calm, aware of God’s presence, cognisant of His leading and timing. I had several encounters that could only be described as divinely orchestrated, all of which would take way too long to relate. 

But here is a small excerpt: I stopped to drop something off for an elderly shut-in and found God making me very aware of his recently widowed state and cautioning me not to be in a hurry but to take some time to let him chat for a bit. And then as I left him, the timing was such that a staff member passed me just as I arrived at the exit. She smiled and said hello. It would have been perfectly appropriate to just return the greeting and keep right on going, but God prompted me to pause, resulting in a delightful conversation with this complete stranger. The subject of health came up (no big surprise to anyone who knows me!), and she indicated that she would like to come by the Farmers’ Market sometime and talk further.

As Greg and I got ready for bed that night, I shared with him all about my amazing day. Then I thanked him for the timely word he had texted me, telling him how much it had helped me. He draped a big arm across my shoulders. I thought it was just a gesture of affection, but it was more than that. “When two walk together…” he said.

Right. Ecclesiastes. ^“Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble” (4:9-10, NLT).

“The enemy really was sifting me,” I said.

“But God was there too,” Greg said, “giving you an opportunity to test what He is teaching you and to prove it true.”

The next day I made my way to Edmonton for my dentist appointment. As I waited my turn, the receptionist said to me, “It’s a good thing you cancelled yesterday. We were crazy busy and were running really late.”

“So it worked out for the best at your end too?” I commented.

“Yes,” she said, “it was meant to be.”

Greg stayed out of town that night, so as I ate my dinner alone, I went on YouTube to listen to Graham Cooke. I clicked on a short piece obscurely entitled “Why We Must Always Begin with the Goodness of God.” I was astounded to hear him summarizing many thoughts from my last article and this one.

He began by speaking prophetically in the voice of the triune Godhead:

“Beloved, we abide with you in both the present and the future. Our intention is to teach and develop you to live in Us—now. All your life circumstances…, no matter how hard, grievous, or oppositional—they can be turned around for your good, and for your personal growth in Us. We do not cause the painful moments in your life…. However, we will teach you how to take charge as you lean in to Us, yield to us, and practice your identity in Jesus.”

Yes, this whole experience had been an object lesson in deliberately taking my place in Christ.

Think about the freedom that we experience when every single circumstance … becomes an opportunity for us to encounter the goodness of God. It doesn’t mean that what’s happening is always good. But it does mean that God wants to come to you in those times and say, “Here’s my goodness, here’s my peace, here’s my kindness—whatever it is that you need, here is my gift for you…. And every gift I bring is wrapped in self-control, because you’re going to need that….

Graham’s mention of self-control (which is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit mentioned in Galatians 5:22) reminded me of how I had been required to get a grip on my emotions that morning and to choose deliberately with my will to lay hold of Jesus and His provision.

Self-control is like the crossing guard who stops the traffic of negativity…. When fear rises, self-control joyfully rises up from inside of us. He puts his hand out and says, “Stop right there! There is no fear in perfect love [1 John 4:18], so fear, you stay there, and perfect love, you come right on through. …” [Self-control] is like pressing a pause button: it creates the stillness that allows us to hear Him saying, “Take a deep breath. Be at peace. Don’t fear.” It gives us a “pause moment” when we can be still and come into a greater awareness that He is God….

He finishes off speaking once again in the prophetic:

“My peace … will elevate you to a place of stillness, rest, and confidence where you’ll know that I am God.”

“Stillness, rest, and confidence”: that perfectly described the great calm that had enveloped me as I awoke from my nap and moved on with the rest of that glorious day.

The next morning when I got up, wanting to once again remind myself of my powerful place in Christ, I linked my hands on my wrists once more and repeated the current theme: “Jesus, I am in You and You are in me. I am hanging on to You and You are hanging on to me.” 

In a split second, an entire thought flashed through my mind. 

“Yes, Lord,” I responded, “there is a difference between how I hang on to You and how You hang on to me. I hang on to You because I need You; You hang on to me because You love me.”