Approaching the Heart of Prophecy by Graham Cooke

I was fortunate to get a copy of Graham's first book of his 6 part opus on the gift of prophecy.
I sat down and read about the first third of it last night and I really like it.

Sudden provision when we ran out

I tried to describe what happened in one line for the title of this post. I'm a coffee person. I love espresso or a fresh brew. Today, I used my very last beans and was tapped out. No one else knew this- my little dilemma. Later in the day, Marc Coffey (or someone employed by Marc) decided to stop by and drop off one bag of coffee on our doorstep. Yes, this is his real name, and his signature line is, "here's what's 'brewing' in your neighborhood..." He's a realtor.

Numbers 33:33

"And they set out from Hor-haggidgad and camped at Jotbathah"

Hor-haggidgad means "hole in the cleft, place in the desert, cave, crowded"; from "gadad" witch means crowd pressed together, assembly of troops, crowding in upon to attack, and "gad" means troop.

Jotbathah means "pleasant place in the desert".

Sweet speech

"The wise of heart is called discerning, and sweetness of speech increases persuasiveness."
"He who loves purity of heart, and whose speech is gracious, will have the king as his friend."
" Let your speech always be gracious"

I had a dream that I was with my grandma and she had sugar cubes for teeth.
I had a cigarette in my hand and there was a black cat at our feet.

Kindness

"Be kind to one another."

"Love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons and daughters of the most high, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil."

There is a shortage of kindness today. Unkindness abounds. When we practice kindness we are reflecting God. It seems so paradoxical to be kind to our enemies and those who are unkind to us and in one way or another are trying to do us in, but it's God's way and if you are his, this is your code of conduct and you will let him sort it out.

Generational restoration

The very last word of the Christian Old Testament and the Jewish Prophetic opus is a call for reconciliation between fathers and sons, and by implication; mothers and daughters, sons and mothers and daughters and fathers. It's a call to generational reconciliation and not just within individual families, but within the whole covenant community.

This is how is reads in The Message:

He will convince parents to look after their children and children to look up to their parents. If they refuse, I'll come and put the land under a curse.

The curse issue seems pretty harsh, so it must mean that this is really important to God.

I got a Grindenstein

I've been wanting to get a knock box for my coffee set up and finally did the research that led me to the Grindenstein. It's from an Australian company that only makes this one product and stands behind it with a 30 year warranty. They have a great website and I discovered that Mark Prince also put it to the test and liked it.

Conscientious Objector

How about not killing people with words or thoughts? How about obeying what Jesus taught about loving our enemies, praying for those who mistreat us, turning the other cheek, and giving more than is even unfairly asked of us? How about relying on God to justify, judge, avenge, and deliver us?

I saw a movie over Memorial Day about the guy who was a conscientious objector in WW2 and who went on to win the medal of honor for his bravery and the idea has stuck in my mind until now. I finally realized that the message for me is the idea of staying out of the wars and fights that we're tempted with. I'm all for good communication, speaking the truth in love, boundaries, fair fighting, and loving enough to confront. These are all great topics I could talk or write about, but what I'm saying here really is the idea of ceasing from killing and sniping, and mouthing off at people as a way of paying them back, getting revenge, or playing God. This can be done overtly or covertly, out loud or under your breath and in your thoughts. It's all bad and toxic. It's unforgiving and nonspiritual.

Saving Reilly

We went for a walk last night and we saw a lost dog. I followed him, signaled cars with a flashlight to not hit him, and after some time and sweet talking; I gained his trust and was able to read his tag and hold him by the collar. We found his house and his embarrassed master who was very happy to have him back. Reilly had gotten out when his master took the trash out a little while before we saw him.

Some thoughts:

When you're lost, you're utterly lost. You could be near home or help, but you don't know where that is. It's as if you are blind in the dark and have to have a helping hand or you're lost.

When you're lost, you're in more danger than you know. Most people who are lost have no idea they are lost.

God sends people to help those who are lost get found. My grandpa and the father of my friend both had Alzheimer's disease and they would get out, far from their homes, going for walks, sometimes late at night. Kind police officers brought both of these men back home. I had an incident where I could have drowned about 9 years ago and a lifeguard saw me and rescued me. He saved my life. Thanks James!

Let her go to bat

I had a dream this morning that a woman was at bat in a ball game and she hit the ball towards the left field fence where the left fielder was, who fumbled the ball.

Update: The next morning my wife had this dream:

My wife dreamt that she and I were going to switch bodies and roles. She'd be going to my workplace and I would stay home with our eleven kids. She wondered how she would do my job and I told her to tell them that she'd been hit on the head and forgot all I do there and would need to be retrained. She then realized that our eleventh child did not have a name, then chose Kaycey, which I said was fine with me.

The Rock

"On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand."

"But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don't work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach. When a storm rolled in and the waves came up, it collapsed like a house of cards."

The key to making it through life storms is to practically work out Christ's teachings in your life now. It's not about knowing stuff through maximum exposure to Bible studies, classes, and sermons; but it's about doing the stuff he did in your daily life. Then when it comes, you're already there.

Jesus says that just listening, just reading, just talking about it, just knowing it, just knowing people who walk in it..... these are sand foundations, not solid for storms and winds; and worse yet, it's foolish- stupid.

You have to do it for it to work. To have a life in God, you must participate you must work out.
You can't be passive and think you're ok. It's by faith, but you have to exercise your faith. Faith is not faith unless it is acted upon. It's a continuous acting upon, a lifestyle. He did it for you, but now you must do something. You don't do what he did for yourself, but if you have faith in what he did, then you'll do something and if you don't, you really don't believe in him and you are not his.

PS- after writing much of this post, I visited a young campus evangelist / church planter's blog from UCLA and was introduced to a missionary from Alabama named Paul Washer, under the title "Shocking Message". Paul was preaching from the larger passage that contains the text about building on the rock. He said that many people in churches and church groups will be going to hell because they aren't really saved. Paul has a deep passion to see people genuinely saved and transformed.

Keep going by God's grace

I got this idea that as we run the race which is actually a marathon, we are
able to run it or are empowered to run it because of God's grace.
Another athletics picture is of a reciever in football.
You run downfield, open for a pass continually.
I could say that you'll catch that ball by God's grace
and that's true, but my real point is that you keep going downfield,
you keep going out, without seeing the ball coming,
although you still expected the ball to come,
and it may never come, but because of grace, you keep going. You don't keep going
because you know you'll getsomething, but you keep going because the one you're going for is good.