Hello? We've Been Disconnected.

This is what happens often in our world of cell phones – we are having a great conversation whether walking, riding, or sitting still and then suddenly there’s nothing.  We no longer “feel” the openness of the phone line and say “hello” several times.  Sometimes we’ve just passed through a blank spot in the air waves, and the reception will quickly return, other times the battery may run out, and sometimes we inadvertently press the cut off button with our cheek or chin.  And In many cases we just run out of phone units and have to recharge by purchasing more time.

The beauty of it is you know where the person is and they know where you are.  Maybe you’re even traveling towards one another for a rendezvous.  Neither of you are “lost” even though the connection has been temporarily lost through technical difficulties.  This reminds me of another moment in human history where the connection was lost:  The Garden of Eden.

God and Adam were one, and even when Eve was brought forth, they still were all spiritually and intimately connected.  God knew everything about them, their thoughts and imaginations, their whereabouts in the garden at all times.  Because the Bible doesn’t give us more details of their time in the Garden it appears to us that they disobeyed God only a few hours or days after Eve was created.  But we do know that before they sinned God was not controlled or limited by time, even though He created the 24 hour period we call “night and day”.

Adam had lived in and with God alone longer than he did with Eve, so it stands to reason that he had to have had some quality time with her, his wife, enough so that when she disobeyed God and offered him the forbidden fruit, he was compelled to obey her over His Creator and Father.  He and she had such a pure and strong intimate connection, they were knit together and could see and touch and experience one another in such a way that they never could or would or did with God, that they were magnetized, and he could not see being apart from her.

So when they ate of the fruit, the line between them and God went dead.  They were disconnected.  Not lost in the sense that they could not be physically located, for God always knew where they were, but there was now death between them and God.  The line of life was severed and God said “Adam, where are you?”  This is the equivalent of our “hello, heeeelllllooooo?” when we can no longer hear the other person on the other side.  You can even “feel” within the phone the disconnectedness even if there is no click or fuzzy feedback noise.

This problem of communication is prevalent throughout the earth in every type of relationship.  We seem to meet people and hit it off well after we find that “common ground”, but then something happens along the way – words spoken or unspoken, deeds done or not performed, strange facial expressions and unexplained actions may at times cause the line to go dead.  Or we hit a blank spot and we don’t know why or how to respond, or how long we should wait before cutting off the phone ourselves since we don’t know how long it will last.  We don’t know that the other person’s phone battery died, or they dropped their phone, or it was stolen, or they forgot to turn it on at all that day, etc.  So many reasons as to why the line of communication has been interrupted, but what (and Who) is inside us will determine how we will respond or react to the dead line.  I’m learning, and some days are better than others however, that if I will give others the same reasons and excuses that I give to myself, before jumping to conclusions, new problems will not be created. 

The Bible says that “no temptation has taken us except what is common to man.”  In the context of this article I’m receiving from the Lord that everyone who has a cell phone is subject to the same challenges, rules, and regulations of having and using a cell phone.  If it has happened to you, whatever “it” is, it has also happened to others, but we all can learn from each others’ experiences and of course, the “powers that be” and even everyday normal people will come up with another solution to meet the need of everyone experiencing the same things.  Whew!!

How do you respond and react to “dead lines” of communication?  How do I respond or react to interruptions in communication or delayed responses?  How did God respond?  In Genesis we see that God searched for Adam and when He “found” him, and confronted what he had done, even though He had to evict him and his wife from the garden, He continued manifesting in the earth His plan to restore the lines of intimate communion with humans.  There are several scripture verses I can safely lift out of their contexts and not lose their meanings to reveal how God feels about restoring the lines of communication and intimacy between us and Himself, and in our human relationships too. 

One of the first ones is found in Matthew’s gospel 5:23 & 24.  Jesus teaches “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and you there remember that your brother has any [grievance] against you, leave your gift at the altar and go.  First make peace with your brother, and then come back and present your gift.” [Amplified Bible]  This is in cases where you know the other person is holding something against you.  Sometimes communication stops because people get busy and fall out of touch.  When this happens, the level of intimacy of those relationships (depending on the type of relationship, and also the reasons) may decline in intensity.  For instance, if a man or woman you are dating becomes interested in someone else, he or she may distance himself/herself from you in order to sever the line with you.  Unless he or she comes right out and tells you that this is the case, you could be left feeling the ever increasing coldness between you and assume you’ve done something wrong.

God however doesn’t desire to move away from us.  He longs after us.  His heart and soul desires us in every way.  He is not content with blank spots in the air waves, temporary cut-offs, and delayed responses.  He shows us in His Word how to keep the line connected and open with Him unto ever increasing levels of intimacy with Him.  But we have to go into another garden to get our new “mobile phone” and calling plan. J  We must meet Him in Gethsemane and walk with Him to Calvary (which one gospel writer records to be a garden also) where we surrender our will back to God “Garden of Eden” style, and then we are crucified with Christ so we can be resurrected with, and in Him.

 In Gethsemane Peter and Judas (and all the disciples) got disconnected from the Lord.  The difference between Peter and Judas is that Judas gave up trying and not only hung up the phone, but cut off his service.  Peter on the other hand kept his phone with him just in case. . .  “It might ring again.  He might call me again and I can apologize; He might give me another chance, for after all, He knew me better than I knew myself, and He even warned me in advance of what I was going to do.  I just over estimated the strength of my commitment to Him.  I won’t discard my ‘phone’ neither cancel my phone plan.  Just leave it open, for anything is possible.”  Then one day women came telling him “The Lord is alive!! And He asked for you specifically Peter!  He said to meet Him in Galilee.”

“Wow!!  He rang my phone again.  The lines are open again.  We can communicate, talk, clear the air, start over again, get to know each other better, respect.”  Hmmm.  “Hello”?

Peace.

Congestion

When we wake up in the mornings, even if we don’t have a cold, we experience minimal congestion in the sinuses and chest area, especially in geographical regions where the climates change drastically from hot to cold and the seasons like to play with our minds.  When we begin drinking water and hot fluids, this stuff we call mucus and/or phlegm beings to break up, become diluted and flows more easily from the body through our coughing, swallowing, or blowing the nose.  In times of extreme colds and flu season, the mucus build-up may be so great that it becomes a film over the eyes.  When one suffers from a “head cold” the congestion can fill all of the cavities in the head causing stopped-up ears, nose and watery eyes (and dry eyes) as the eyes do their job of trying to wash this stuff away.  The doctor will take his light and look into your eyes, throat, nose, and ears to see how badly the cavities (caves, holes) are filled.  You probably talk with a nasal sound and thus everyone can see that you are suffering from congestion.

Things just are not flowing and moving as they normally do and should.  Something has happened along the way to slow things down, and now even you have been slowed down to a snail’s pace in your daily life and affairs.  All you want to do is lie down and be still, but your Megamind bids you to get up and get out, and get on with life, otherwise nothing will work without you.  WRONG!  Life will go on, with or without you, but how you deal with the congestion before you (without you) will decide how and whose life goes on – with or without you. J

Most illnesses and diseases in the body and soul are reactions to some kind of outside “substance” or stimulus.  For every kind of information we receive into ourselves through our five senses and our sixth sense – the mind – the body has a response and/or reaction to.  The body must process everything we do or don’t do whether positive or negative, short termed or sustained and part of its response is to release chemicals from certain organs which travel in the blood to and through all of the other organs.  Picture in your megamind (just love this word and the movie too) a highway with many exits and entrances.  Traffic is coming on and off all day long at fast and slow speeds. Vehicles with poorly maintained engines and such, giving off pollutants into the vehicles behind them.  Cough!  Yuck.

On weekdays when everyone is going to work at the same time is usually when traffic jams (not jelly) occur, and because of impatient drivers (whether they’re on time or not) accidents happen stopping the movement of traffic altogether.  You know when your six year old comes into your bedroom talking funny, he says “I’m stopped up mummy.  I can’t breathe through my nose.”  You then get the picture of a traffic jam.  (Jam has pieces of fruit and more sugar than jelly so you can see why we call them traffic “JAMS” and not traffic “Jelly” J)  Now might not be the best time for a meal.  You can eat after you finish reading this blog.  LOL  Anyhoooo, nothing’s moving.  Until this traffic jam is cleared up.  But how in the world can an already crowded freeway (I won’t mess with that one) be cleared when every vehicle on the road is a part of the problem?

Authorities on motorcycles and even police cars have to make their way through the narrow spaces between the cars and trucks and along the median.  They are “authorized” to go where common folk cannot go, and make commands which by law the regular people must follow.  They have to assess the situation and implement a solution.  Let’s go back to the nasally head for a minute.

I find that in the morning time, the more I drink water and hot tea, the better I begin to breathe, not just in my head, but in my chest as well.  This is because the fluid and heat of the fluid are authorized to go where nothing else can go, and break up that traffic jam in the head and chest.  Hmmm,  Somehow you knew that this message was not just about traffic jams and jelly in the head and on the highway.  And you’re right! J  Let’s go for a ride with the top down.

While spending some time in prayer with the Lord I felt led to keep my mouth shut so I could hear what was going on inside of my head and heart.  See, the mouth can be speaking one prayer while the head is thinking something else.  If you don’t believe me, do two things, not at the same time mind you.  First, call someone on the telephone and just talk, and see how soon or eventually you will be saying one thing but thinking another.  And depending on how close you are to the other person, you might just confess to them what’s going on with you.  Second, read Isaiah 29:13.  Here the Lord complains that His people say one thing but their hearts hide something else.  So I didn’t want to be a parrot in my prayers.  I wanted to know what was in my own heart and the way to do that was to keep my mouth closed in the presence of the Lord, and listen to the conversation between His heart and mine.

He said to me, “you notice how your sinuses and chest cleared up as you continued drinking the water.  You were washing your organs with water.  Your body is 98% water and thus water is the only fluid authorized to flow throughout the entire body to cleanse and heal, to clear things up.”  I continued listening while Holy Spirit said “the more you spend time washing in My Word – the Logos, it clears away all the gunk that causes congestion in your heart and soul which blocks you from letting my Word transform you into My ‘personality likeness’" (for we are spiritual beings made into His image, but our social skills don’t reveal the image of Christ dwelling within.  So our souls must be continually washed to clear up the internal traffic jam.).

One of the main reasons this process is necessary is so that we can fully “act” without pretense, hypocrisy, falsehood, in spirit and in truth like Jesus did when He walked the earth.  When He speaks a Rhema Word into our hearts we SEE it as He sees it with our spirit, and then we SAY it as He says it.  Next we DO it – the works we SEE Him doing, whatever they may be.  But there can be no Saying without first Seeing and there can be no seeing without first BEING and there can be no being without first YIELDING.

It’s not complicated, but what makes it difficult is what’s inside of us already – it gets in the way, clogging things up, stopping things up.  Congestion.  Not processing well all that’s coming into our “space”, or trying to process too much of the wrong stuff, or trying to process too many things at the same time.  Remember the entrances and exits on the highway – a lot of vehicles coming on trying to go in the same direction at the same time within and through a limited amount of space.

We become, and become like what (and who) we ingest spirit, soul, and body.  The good and best things received in the right doses at the best and right times can keep things flowing at a steady pace.  Of course the wrong and bad-for-us substances (in whatever forms – material or immaterial) can and will clog and stop things up, and we find ourselves sitting by the side of the road waiting for a tow truck. J  However, the GOD things received on a daily basis throughout every 24 hour period we are allowed to breathe J can and will keep things flowing and moving as they should – stopping at the red lights, driving the speed limit, keeping the safe distance between vehicles, obeying the warning signals, taking the best route which may not always be the quickest J, but will help avoid unnecessary troubles and delays.  Checking and changing the oil, using the best gasoline and keeping the tank full, checking the air level in the tires and the treads too, carburetor, antifreeze, catalytic converter, shock absorbers, etc.  I’m not talking cars here people, but our lives – spirit, soul, and body.

I have a book which I use to help me understand my dreams and visions and the author says that when you’re dreaming about a car – driving a car, more than likely you are receiving a message concerning your life.  Hmmmm.  Congestion on the highway of life.  There is help and it is called the Word (the Logos and the Rhema) of God.  The breath of God.  Jesus the Christ Himself.  But in order for it (Him) to keep you flowing and to keep things flowing within you (us) we will have to spend copious hours bathing in it (Him) and drinking it (Him):  the Water of the Word.  You wash your car and body in water, not in milk, tea, coffee, wine, or juice, for water is the only fluid qualified and authorized to cleanse everything.  When pollutants get into our eyes we don’t rinse them out with tea or juice.  The doctor irrigates our ears with . . . water.  It is the only substance authorized and qualified to wash us fully – inside and out.  “So that He (Christ Jesus) might sanctify her (His Bride, the church – you and me), having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, . . .”  Ephesians 5:26 [Parentheses mine.]  Water is our best Friend.  J

Peace.