Faith is making the impossible normal

Take off the limits

To dare to dream the impossible when the dreams are inspired by God who declares through Jesus Christ that with God nothing shall be impossible to him that believes is one key aspect of faith that becomes very personal to those who have experiences in life when looking back cannot explain but fully appreciate with gratitude that they have lived impossible dreams.

I am constantly challenging the frame of reference within which I exist about its limitations, the creeping claws of doubt, disbelief, and despair seek to clamp you down into the perfunctory, the crimps offer what is run-of-mill, as you limp along in life with nothing exceptional for a story or an existence.

Latch unto the extraordinary

Then from within you rises a storm of protest, defying every known physical, mental, or structural boundary, telling you that the lived experience of people who did wonders and told of miracles is not the stuff of fantasy left in the unimaginative construct of the cessationist who has determined and declared that modern day has no need of miraculous living.

Be it the ideas that blow the mind and move the footsteps of mankind in strides too grand to fathom, the thoughts that defy every natural force, the belief that you can write a better story that even fiction would struggle to express, or the knowledge that with God on your side, everything is rigged in your favour, just because it is God’s will and it exists because God so loved the world and for that, He gave us Jesus Christ.

Think the impossible

I feed my thoughts with inspiration and revelation, mountains are to be moved, and problems will pass into the memory of insignificance with the triumph wrought on the cross and lived by faith in God. The insurmountable is reduced to a plain and a man given just 5 weeks to live at prognosis is writing blogs of a miraculous existence some 15 years later. It is no achievement of mine, just the lovingkindness of God, great mercy, amazing favour, and a love that no words can satisfactorily describe.

That is what the Scriptures mean when they say, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.” [BibleHub: I Corinthians 2:9] What God has prepared for my eyes to see, my ears to hear, and my mind to imagine is predicated on my willingness to believe that God can do everything I can find examples and references about God in the Bible that has been done and duly recorded, with the promise that even greater things than those documented things are possible.

Live a different testimony

It is a world ready to be lived in, not many have found the spaceship of faith piloted by Jesus Christ and facilitated by the Holy Spirit to enjoy the stupendous splendour of that world. Until my last breath, I seek to walk and bask the in reality of that world, for that is why I exist.

From futility to fruitfulness

As it ought

Indeed, I have faltered in my thought,
For long have I determinedly fought,
As a fisherman every night was fraught,
For the fish needed, never caught.

To your audience was I then brought,
And a boat for a soapbox you sought,
From which the people sat to be taught,
The parables of heaven you wrought.

Then the nets once cast for naught,
You spoke to me and I sighed to aught,
In response, you gave a grunt in retort,
Suddenly the greatest catch overwrought,
A boat and two were packed to the port.

In your words were a bounty bought,
Delivered from the pain of want and rot,
In miracles you ever generously allot,
To show we were never an afterthought.

Inspired by The Chosen, Series 1, Episode 4 – The Rock On Which It Is Built 

Is God trying to make His way home?

Mystery is awesome

The mysteries of life and what we choose to believe. I have many questions for which there are few answers. Something inside me suggests I ponder and meditate within rather than give voice to the misgivings, the misunderstandings and absence of clarity on matters I am trying to find rhyme, reason or rationale for.

Reason stands out as the place where I am allowed to consider, dispute, be persuaded, be convinced or otherwise. It is where the mind is exercised with knowledge and example, bringing you from what you understand to a place of faith and assuredness.

Rationale is for me something different, where situations and circumstances have to be given a basis for their existence without esoteric or ethereal underpinnings that cannot be explained away.

One of us to see

Much of what one might consider spiritual sits on a tripod and maybe a fourth leg of finding out more. The quest for knowledge, understanding, wisdom and experience must never cease. Curiosity ensures you do not fall to the delusion of having acquired all that is to be known.

In One of Us, a song first recorded by Joan Osborne and written by Eric Bazilian, I find myself gravitating to the cover by Prince in his multi-CD Emancipation album, which is a cut down version of the original lyrics. The lines below evoke a sense of awesome wonder to which one can only be forced to respond.

If God had a face, what would it look like
And would you want to see it
If seeing meant that you would have to believe in things like heaven
And Jesus and the saints and all the prophets?

[PrinceVault: One of Us]
[AZLyrics: Prince cover of One of Us]

We may or may not know what God looks like, the Bible says we are made in God’s image, but what representation or perspective is that? Are there physical, mental and/or spiritual dimensions to that imagery? [Knowing Jesus: Image of God] Further on in the Bible, it says, Moses saw parts of God, but not the face. [Bible Gateway: Exodus 33:18-20]

Spirited to new truth

Three questions bring the weight of the matter to the fore, the mystery of God’s face, whether we would want to see God’s face out of whatever human need presents and if after seeing we would be so convinced as to believe everything we have heard before.

Then that conversation between Moses and God, “You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live.” There is no life to live on earth once that encounter becomes a reality. It makes you wonder if the context of life is death or being spirited away from an imperfect earth like Enoch, Elijah or Jesus at His ascension. [Wikipedia: Entering heaven alive]

Sometimes, I wonder if indeed, we are ready for that experience and that is probably why, God is not one of us.

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Thought Picnic: Find your holy river in which to drown

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Let's go down 2 the holy river
If we drown then we'll be delivered

Courtesy of AZLyrics.

These are the first two lines of the lyrics of The Holy River that I probably heard so many times before when I received Emancipation, the 3-CD compendium of prolific songsmith genius by Prince.

Looking beyond ourselves

This is where many of us find ourselves, the need to go to a place where we can lose ourselves in the awesomeness of something so beyond ourselves that we are born anew. To imagine and believe that the in drowning there is a beginning of deliverance rather than the termination of death is to have faith in wonder that defies explanation.

It is without a doubt that when I look over events in my own life, I have stories of visits to the holy river where I dared to drown, to lose myself to the danger of the loss of life only to emerge delivered from a fate that once seemed ready to overwhelm me.

In times of untimely birth, or when I was within inches of becoming roadkill completely oblivious of the vehicle passing in front of me at full throttle on an expressway, and a life-threatening cancer diagnosis just a day under 8 years ago, I became a pilgrim to the holy river.

Escape self-deception

U can try and try but there's nothin' 2 hide
U can't run from yourself and what's inside
U got 2 find the answers 2 the questions that U most fear

So over and over U ask your soul
Why'd U come down 2 a world so cold?
And the voice inside says 2night the truth will be told

I will make no grammatical corrections of these lyrics by Prince because he writes his songs in this manner and that is the way things are. And so here I am with myself and the realities that so scare the wits out of me, yet in the darkness that attempts to engulf me, I strive and strain to see some light, a light the lights of the path to redemption.

The grace that has been granted me to live through things I could never on my own strength endure is unquantifiable and in such abundance, that as I appear to faint, I am revived. The day my sleep deserted me for the troubles of lack of supply in money, options and excuses necessary to liberate me from the quagmire and pressures of all corners I could face almost sapped me of all resolve.

Give despair no place

Worry solves nothing nor does it offer any ideas for the better, that truth became a revelation once again, even as the issues weighed heavily on my mind that it was almost a supernatural feat to avoid being distracted from the focus I needed to have on the assignment I had to hand.

U surrounded yourself with all the wrong faces
Spending your time in all the wrong places
Puttin' your faith in things that only make U cry
People say they love U when they wanna help
But how can they when U can't help yourself?
The more they say they love U, the more U just wanna die
So here we go again, the self analysis
Have another glass of Port and uh.. forget this
The band's playin' at the club 2night and they're bound 2 groove

At which point you are on the verge of lamenting that you are a lost cause, the cause and course you chose looking like the ignorant and unschooled you have become. The question rings out in self-flagellation, what have I done with my life. Bad choices, lost opportunities, rotten decisions, irrational angst and stupid advice all computing a result about to print out a 7-letter word that is the antonym of success.

Find your holy river in which to drown

It is enough to turn to drink and seek the solace or succour of escapism, even if in reality you have hardly escaped that circumstance.

And then it hit 'cha like a fist on a wall
Who gave U life when there was none at all?
Who gave the sun permission 2 rise up everyday? (Ooh, oh yes)
Let me tell it (Go'n)
If U ask God 2 love U longer
Every breath U take will make U stronger
Keepin' U happy (happy) and proud 2 call His name (Go'n and say it)
Jesus (Jesus)

One must remember, the source of sustenance that does not submit to rational thought, yet it makes a difference that no words that so readily explain. Why do I speak in tongues, words that escape my lips daily in a language I have no comprehension of? I pray for a difference, for liberty, for freedom, for security, for happiness, for companionship, for another with whom to share and bear the burdens of living and life.

Indeed, I want to go down to the holy river and take more than a sip of the crystal life-giving waters, I feel ready to drown in the swell that sweeps me off my feet and delivers me to the other bank lifted, resuscitated and refreshed by angels that strengthen me with every supply to be well beyond what my even my dreams could never contemplate.

Let’s go down to the holy river, if we drown then we’ll be delivered. My deliverance is here.

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Full Audio of The Holy River - Provided to YouTube by Sony Music Entertainment

Thought Picnic: At death do we close the book?

Look!

Facebook is a terror, the harbinger of tidings least expected, even of news that shocks and saddens.

Many a time, I have happened upon page and status without the need to dig or explore, for before my eyes is another flicker of light gone, the passing of someone I once knew.

With seeming regularity with premonition of proximity, I count the numbers of some with whom an intimacy was once shared and never will that be shared again, they have gone to the place of reminiscence in the lake of memory where maybe a ripple or a wave brings for thoughts, a smile, a tear or both. We meet only in dreams.

Brook!

Then you wonder, what is death?

A natural process where an episode has run its course?

Yet for all that ends in death, many are not a natural cause but a sudden and abrupt pulling away of the carpet, disease, illness, murder, suicide, terrorism, courses totally unanticipated in many instances and not softening the effect of the blow.

What is death, you wonder still?

A cessation or a beginning?

A defeat or a victory?

A wall or a portal?

Gobbledygook!

It is difficult to say, for if there were more to the end of life beyond the end of life, where are the souls if those be significant gone, for the total number of humanity from the very beginning of time indeterminate is in the innumerable and unnumbered billions.

Of these billions gone, their stories wherever they have gone, if there be a place, none have returned from that journey with news of exploits.

Going by the measure of earthly time, there is no time for exploits for the many we are told by legend, fame or happenstance have revived from a state of death have only been dead for days, nary a week, never a fortnight, forget a month and a year is quite impossible.

Hook!

Religion with its many belief systems offers plenty a shoulder to cry on and bosom to weep to soften the shock of death with a hope, an expectation and longing placed in a time and space unreachable without passage.

Some, however, have beguiled and bemused as peeping toms and messengers between us in the living world and those who have left the living world. Are we to believe them?

It there is anything tangible left beyond the works, the legacy, the memories and the bequeaths, it is the solid tombstones and mausoleums, the deep waters, the ice show windows created by those who got lost, the rock faces before a plunge. the kindling for flames or graves, many unmarked for assuredly in death we return to earth from whence we came or completely reduced to ashes.

Whether this is the end or not is the story of man and his encounters with death.

Thought Picnic: The quiet place

The place to be

Sometimes we need to know our quiet place, the place where within the turmoil and the disarray that surrounds we can steal away and find a place of safety.

The safety we seek is essential for making sense of life and finding perspective when things do not look right.

I find my quiet in many places, the best is when I am travelling, when I embark on a long journey, a calm descends upon me as if I am caught away halfway to paradise. I make time for travel when I can afford it.

Memories we must cherish

Through my life, I have also found milestones, times when I have apparently felt so good, so well, and almost too sure, without a care in the world.

A colour, a smell, some music and the memories convey me to a place to daydream out of the present and latch on to the affirmative.

I do this not to find reasons to regret, but to appreciate that I have had a wonderful and blessed life full of many things to be thankful for, and that is a good thing.

For wonder and awe

Nature also offers a great sense of awe and wonder, be it in a forest, listening to carefree birds chirping in the trees or watching the wash of large bodies of water ebb and flow against banks or shores; mysteries expressed in beauty that words will never speak, but the heart and mind will fully understand, poured into the senses like an elixir of life.

Know how to find your quiet place, your break away from the rat race, where you can leave that hustle and bustle that will nevertheless continue whether or not you are part of it because there is always more to life and more to live for than the endless quest for survival.