(From my private diary, February 23, 2002. I am going to post, and not post, some private content. This is a tiny portion, then some comments and not even all of each of the sentences. I just want to let you know how God speaks to me and why. He wants intimacy with us. I had only been receiving intimate conversations with Him in the few years preceding it. I grew up in a fairly rigid church in the South of the U.S.A., the Bible Belt, and this “hearing God” was not popular. Then as I grew closer to God, almost losing my faith in my university years, I felt Him telling me things. Others said, “You must be careful. That might not be God. Blah blah…” Then I received a very fine Calvinist theology training in the English Bible. I am very happy I got it, but this made it even harder for me to work out how God interacts with me in some particular ways. Thirty years later, this entry appeared. I wrote five pages that morning-this is a fragment. God was teaching me truth, teaching me Scripture again, in a new way.)

I woke at 6:30, early for a Saturday. After some family routine, I sat here and felt the Spirit say I was going to live a long time. I told God that seemed like a possible self-promoting  thought (although I prayed for special connection to my mind!) I asked him about that — what he thought about self-promoting thoughts versus his voice?

He said he was Jesus and His word is His- not mine. Then I went to Scripture and as usual he gave me confirmation.  I opened the Scripture in John were Jesus s-this is for now a secret between God and myself.  I will pray and plan and enjoy my life based on this. He tells me things for his reasons.

I saw a large city, with  a chasm on one side, deep and dark, and the “Dragon”  or serpent- I had seen in another vision-on the far side of the chasm. The city was huge and on a mountain face from the top all the way to the chasm and on other ridge-side views. The city was on the west of it as I read the light.

It was a very special place. And I sat as a king/priest with my queen/priestess and a very large family of children. There were children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. It was a confirming scene and an awesome one. Praise God.  Make me worthy, Father.  Then the Lord took me to Romans chapter 7 about being freed from the law and being free to live in the spirit: “to bear fruit to God.”

God has set up my life so that “love and joy might be perfected.”

“As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.

These things I command you, that you love one another.” John 15:9-17 (I wrote by pen the entire passage in my journal)

“These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.

No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.

You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.

I am writing this in light of the dream I posted on these pages: Delilah’s Delights.

The earlier pages(not seen) in my diary were about love, just so you understand what a profound time this was in context in 2002. Also, The dream was very hard to explain to some of you and simple to others. It should be brought together better in light of this vision of a protective barrier between us and the world, even though we live in that very dangerous world.

This paradox, or even antinomy to borrow a theology phrase (A contradiction between principles or conclusions that seem equally necessary and reasonable) seems difficult for us and is defeating some of us. We were told to live in the world but not be of it. How do we do that? I often want to retreat from the world altogether, which is to disobey God. How can I be a king and a priest in a world with a dragon staring me down every day?

The Kingdom is usually invisible

I am going to say a simple answer, and you can comment if you like. We have to be like a child. The Kingdom comes to us invisibly. It is an open door from heaven. Angels come up and down the portal we create in our spirit much as the dream of Jacob demonstrates. The riches we have are in our hearts. Th gold is people. We rule with service. That is what love is. The world will not destroy our Kingdom. We are like a virus in a computer, or even a virus of influenza. It is not detectable easily and can spread without being seen or known and crash a computer, even systems, and can cause pandemics as a disease. This means it is viral and can transform the scene with no detection at first. Change comes. Our virus is love! God’s love comes from heaven every moment through us and infects a world that is looking to take it out before the disease spreads.

The final passage to tie this together remains one of my very favorite for comfort when I see injustice and deceit “winning” in the world. (And I hate it!) This passage also bridges from the Delilah’s Delights dream. You will see if you read it that this dream and vision tandem are pictures of the living word. In both, a looming wicked watches “the righteous” and righteousness is our boundary, not “ruling and lording it over:”

The wicked watches the righteous,

And seeks to slay him.

The LORD will not leave him in his hand,

Nor condemn him when he is judged.

Wait on the LORD,

And keep His way,

And He shall exalt you to inherit the land;

When the wicked are cut off, you shall see it.

I have seen the wicked in great power,

And spreading himself like a native green tree.

Yet he passed away,[a] and behold, he was no more;

Indeed I sought him, but he could not be found.

Mark the blameless man, and observe the upright;

For the future of that man is peace.

But the transgressors shall be destroyed together;

The future of the wicked shall be cut off.

But the salvation of the righteous is from the LORD;

He is their strength in the time of trouble.

And the LORD shall help them and deliver them;

He shall deliver them from the wicked,

And save them,

Because they trust in Him. Psalm 37:32-40 (NKJV)

My final thought is yet another Scripture-they are exciting when we understand them! Jesus said the Kingdom of God (remember He pictured me as a King) is like a tiny seed planted (mustard), undetectable, then it grows into an “organic kingdom.” Birds and animals use it for shelter. It bears much fruit and gives shade and beauty, comfort and reproduction. It is like an almost invisible seed, much like a virus. The children in my vision are not only my kids they are the people who come to Christ as a result of my life. Many will not know me. That is the Kingdom.