Friday, April 23, 2010

Friend?

If a friend of yours is always wanting you to apologize just for being you, well...

I'm sure you have other friends who appreciate who God has made you to be. Until this friend gets over themselves, just let it go. This person obviously is getting over a past hurt, and needs space to figure it out. And there is no reason why you should suffer in the mean time.

I'm talking to myself here too. :-)

A defensive person is usually a hurt person. I would know, I used to be one of them. And sometimes, I'm not so sure if I am completely healed either. But I'm definitely on the road to receiving unconditional love without pushing it away.

To sum up, when a friend shoves you onto their emotional roller coaster, unless you hear otherwise from God, JUMP OFF!



Thursday, April 15, 2010

The Whole Dream

I felt I was supposed to share this dream here that I had several months ago. I think that it has to do very much with the body of Christ, and our individual futures/destinies.

At the beginning of the dream, two friends send me a letter, asking me to join them at a park at a certain time. I drive to the park in my volvo, and after finding a parking lot, I get out of the car and start walking. A paved path leads from the parking lot to various kinds of sports fields covering the park in front of me. The sky is gray, cloudy, and hazy. I realize that I have parked on the wrong side of the park, and that my friends are waiting for me on the other side. Thinking that the only way to the other side is through the sports fields, I enter the first one, which is a baseball field.

I notice right away that the baseball team is very angry and not working together. As I'm walking across the field, I see that the team is angry at each other. The team is playing chaotically, and feeling very much in the way, I run across the field and enter the next one. This is a hockey rink. The violence on this rink is even worse, and I don't even make it half-way across before I turn back around. As I enter the baseball field again, the coach runs up to me, angry and yelling, "You aren't in the right place! Get to your place, you're over there!" I realize that he thinks that I am in his team, and try to tell him that he has made a mistake, and that I'm just passing through. He becomes even more upset, and I quickly run off the field back onto the paved path to the parking lot, dodging players the whole time.

As soon as I reach the paved path, I turn back around to look over the vast stretch of sports fields in front of me. I see the other side of the park, where I know my friends are waiting for me. It is the most beautiful sight I have ever seen, with rolling green hills and the sun shining brightly.

(The other side of the park, the right side, represents my future and destiny.)

I want to leave this gray place and go to that side of park desperately. I am dismayed though to see that in between me and the right side of the park, is a stretch of land, miles long, covered with fields of various sports. I see that the last one, which is so close to the right side of the park that some of the sun rays reach it, is a racetrack.

(These fields with different sports being played on them represent churches. Many churches today do not work together, are competitive amongst each other, and tend to accuse their own brethren. The coach, representing a pastor, shows how many pastors want you to conform to their agenda, not always being willing to see that God has a bigger picture in mind. They become offended when you don't do things their way, and if you don't agree to help them and join their team.)

I then notice a dirt path leading down the rolling hills. Following it with my eyes, I see that the path leads all the way a small hill on my left hand side, where I see that there are no fields. Immediately, Jesus is coming up beside me from the right, on a skateboard, calling my name. He tells me that I'm going to skateboard to the other side of the park on the dirt path. I protest, telling Jesus that I have no idea how to skateboard. He says that He is going to teach me. I am not happy, because I know that this is going to take some time, and am worried about my friends waiting for me. But Jesus seems unconcerned about time, and urges me to get on the skateboard.

He teaches me on the paved path for a while. He is patient and we don't seem to be in a huge hurry to finish learning, but it is important. I am uncomfortable though with the skateboard, and don't like falling, although falling isn't a big deal to Jesus. He just urges me to get back on the skateboard and we go again.

Suddenly I find I have on roller blades, and I think, "Yes, I'll just roller blade! I like roller blading, I shouldn't have to fool with that skateboard, and I'm REALLY tired of constantly falling. I can get to where I need to be with the roller blades." I was now with a little girl and I started teaching her how to roller blade. I then found that I was uncomfortable with stopping on the roller blades. I didn't know how to use the brakes, and couldn't teach the girl how to brake either.

(Skateboarding to my destination represents balancing everything at once, all during my spiritual journey. Jesus was teaching me how to balance everything that He has given me, and at the same time showing me that He didn't want me to go fast, but instead wanted to make sure that I could balance, and also stop when I needed to. It doesn't even matter when I mess up, as long as I keep going. Roller blading though, was me trying to hurry along, not caring how I got to my destination, or worrying about stopping when I needed to. This was more dangerous, because going so fast with no way of stopping, I would've eventually wiped out. And even though I was teaching another girl how to roller blade, I was in fact hindering her as well, and Jesus wasn't even with me during this time. Here is a link to an earlier blog I wrote focusing specifically on this section of my dream http://jennyray123.blogspot.com/2010/01/skateboarding.html )

I suddenly remember that I have to get to the other side of the park, and forgetting the path, take of the roller blades and rush to my volvo. When I arrive at my volvo, I find that it has become a small black suitcase. I know that God has sent this suitcase to me. I open it, and am surprised to find a blue light saber inside. I'm surprised because the blue part has eroded into a styrofoam substance. I pick up the light saber and just look at it for a few minutes. What has happened to my weapon, and why did God send it to me when it is in this state?

(A light saber is a sword of light, and blue is the color of the Spirit and also revelation.) I believe that this was God showing me what had happened to my spiritual sword of the Spirit, because I was not reading the Bible a lot at the time, or even praying in tongues, which both edify the spirit, and bring us into communion with The Holy Spirit, allowing Him to speak to us and through us.)

Jesus suddenly came down the dirt path on my left, and said, "Your horse is back from the other side of the park, and he needs you." My horse had gone ahead of me to the other side of the park to prepare the way. He had returned early because he had gotten tired and was getting sick. I needed to take care of him.

(I had no idea what my horse represented, so I asked God. He said, "Your prayers." I immediately got the download. The horse represents my prayers for my future, which go ahead of me and prepare the way. They then are able to carry me to my destination. But I had not been praying faithfully, which is why my horse returned early. I also feel that this is also connected to my eroded light saber.)

Jesus and I lead my horse into the front of a stable, and I start taking care of him. But I suddenly get distracted and forget about what I should be doing. I go to the back of the stable and climb into a stall that is very deep. It is full of mud that comes up to the floor level. Climbing into the stall, I am now almost shoulder deep in the mud. There are other people in the stall, and we're all learning to adapt to our muddy surroundings and deal with it. I feel like I am being very productive, which is why when Jesus showed up at the entrance to the stall, I tried showing Him everything I was learning. I said, "Look! Look at what I am doing!" But Jesus only looked at me sadly. He said, "Your horse needs you, he is getting worse."

I couldn't understand how I had forgotten about my horse, and climbed out the stall and following Jesus to the front of the stable. I found my horse lying on the ground, incredibly sick. Horrified by my carelessness, I rushed to his side and started taking care of him. I then woke up.

(The muddy stall represents my past and present problems that I was trying to deal with or live with during the time I had the dream. Since the horse represents my prayers, and my prayers go out before me, into the future, preparing the way, I knew that it was vital that I pray for my future now. I needed stop focusing so much on my past problems that I had let create the muddy present mess. Here is a link to my blog focusing on that section of my dream http://jennyray123.blogspot.com/2010/02/future.html )

If any of you are feeling like Jesus is pulling you away from a church that you are involved with right now, don't hesitate to obey this call. It is hard to think that there are churches that have their own agenda, and leave no room for God's, but it is true. We only need to be concerned with what Jesus is telling us to do, especially if we want to be ready to help the church completely step into it's Bridal calling.

Also, I know that there are churches out there that are pursuing God. And I also know that there are Christians who are called on assignment to some churches. So just pray and yield your heart to whatever Jesus is leading you to do.

KEEP CALLING YOUR FUTURE IN!

Friday, April 2, 2010

Cravings

One of my new friends gave me a book to borrow. It's called Soul Cravings by Erwin Raphael McManus. He gave me no specific reason, except that it had really helped him, and that it was Awesome.

It is split into three sections. The first, he talks about how our soul craves love. I only had to read the intro and the first entry to realize that this book wasn't like anything I'd read. It sounds pretty basic, ofcourse our soul craves love. But this book started peeling my sleepy eyes open, and I had not even been aware that they were closed.

I have always made sure that I needed no one. I watched friends growing up needing each other in codependent ways, and I wanted no part. I was convinced that all I needed was Jesus. We could hang out, I'd tell Him my problems, and no one else was getting inside of my head. His love was all I needed.

God really used this for the past few years, we were really close, and it was true for a long time. The fact that all I needed was Him. It still is true, but deep down, I was craving true blue friends, and finally started crying out to God for them.

And now I have AMAZING friends! But I still did not know how to receive love from them fully, and therefore could not love them fully either.

But after reading some of the entries in this book, I started to realize that it was OKAY for me to open up to my friends. I had been thinking that if I spent too much time with them, they would see me make an awful mistake, be in a bad mood, something like that, and they wouldn't love me any more.

I realized this, but didn't know what to do with it. Then, a couple weeks ago, this lady came up to me during a church service and started reading my mail. She said, "You've been thinking that your friends can't and won't satisfy you. But this is not true! This is the enemy deceiving you so you won't receive their love! They will satisfy you! They can satisfy you!"

Then ofcourse the waterworks started.

But ever since that lady came up to me, God has also been assuring me to trust the friends He has brought into my life. He said that He doesn't always just want to speak straight to me when He has something to say, but He wants to speak through my friends and other people in my life, and use them too!

So I've been letting go of my fears, and was honest with my friends about what has been going on, and it has been AWESOME! I've been accepting their invitations to hang out more, and they validate me all the time. We get to minister to each other just through simple fellowship and good eating, and I have never felt so loved! God is loving me through others, and it is extremely healing.


this song has been haunting me for the past couple days. I LOVE it!