One Phone Call

I had a friend that I went to high school with.  That was over thirty years ago.  His mom attends the church that I attended most of my life.  She is also friends with my mom.  They aren’t the kind of friends that get together very often, but the kind that have the same heart and faith and the few times that they do get together they both leave blessed. They both belong to a traditional Lutheran church over those years, but they knew the LORD in His fullness of His Spirit.  Both of them lived with the gifts of His Spirit.  

Rarely spoken about in the church, these charismatic women would find each other and have a prayer time in their private homes where they were free to pray in His Spirit and worship in His fullness and power.  It was a little bit of an underground, but those prayers kept families, often unknowing pastors, and one another going.  These women are remarkable and I am blessed to have grown up under their prayers and love.

My mom has been spending time in Florida during some cold Minnesota months.  Apparently she wrote her friend a letter and she shared some of the things happening in our lives.  Good things.  God things.

I had just finished writing another article and I sat in the quiet and wondered to myself, “Now what?”  The phone rang and broke through the silence.  It was my mom’s friend.  I may have had conversations with her on the phone two times in the last thirty years. She was crying.  She quickly told me she was crying and praising.

She began sharing that she got a letter from my mom and she was moved by what my mom had shared in regards to the miracle of our new grandson.  From there she proceeded to pray for my family, my children, my husband, my brother and his family.  She prayed blessings, she praised and she prayed in the Spirit.  She wept, prayed, prophesied and praised some more. 

As the ring of the phone burst into the quiet, so did her prayers like a sudden gust of wind.  I can’t really describe it.  I received her prayers.  As quickly as it blew in, it was done and we hung up.

This lovely lady in her eighties has been widowed two times.  She told me that she is alone in her home and she sings and praises and sings towards that empty place where her husband used to lay beside her. He has been gone for two years.  She says she misses him, but she doesn’t grieve any longer.  She said it is because she knows how happy her husband is with Jesus.  

Instead of counting her loss, she counts his gain.  She sings and praises and prays for others.  She says she likes this quiet time because she’s free to fill her house with singing to the LORD.

Her exuberance in the call, her hope and joy were life to me.  Her prayers for the people I love dearly were a blanket of comfort and protection.  It was a shower of gifts; one gift after another, with every word of life, love, hope, blessing and prayer.  Her words that were spoken in tongues that I did not understand were velvety and beautiful and sounded like they belonged in a palace for a King.  And they were.  She did not hold anything back from the flow of His Spirit. 

I am still in a bit of wonder from what feels like such a holy time that burst through my quiet.   I am inspired by one so sweet and courageous to boldly speak this kind of blessing and celebration into my mind, heart and soul.  She prayed for and blessed going down the generations of my family; my husband and me, our children and our grandchild. 

Her choice to use her time and life by placing a phone call praying and blessing while praising the LORD was a powerful choice and it gives much into our lives.  She is an example of living life boldly and that we can continue to do great things in life and in His Name  even from a home alone, but filled with His Presence.

If you come across older women with twinkles in their eyes and smiles on their faces, there may be a whole lot more going on than you thought and if they offer to pray for you, let them.

Psalm 145:18  The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.

Ezekiel 34:26  I will bless them and…there will be showers of blessing.

 

 

 

A Different Guy

 

 

 

“Pay attention to the weird,” a friend had said.  Out of the 12 disciples, John was a bit different in the way he referred to himself.  “John, the one whom Jesus loved,” he wrote, is sprinkled in the gospel of John.  No other gospels say this about him, nor do other disciples like Matthew, Luke or Mark refer to themselves as, “the one whom Jesus loved.”

 Weird.

Teachers I have sat under recently through DVD or television have trended to make fun of John and his sense of ego in his own gospel.  I’m seeing it differently.  I’m paying attention to the weird and seeing John.

John used more symbolism throughout his gospel  as Jesus being God than the others.  It opens in John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”  John is seeing much more.  He’s revealing more spirituality and bigger picture things.  

What is it about him?

John receives.

John doesn’t appear to hesitate or work on coming up with his own stuff.  He receives. 

He received Jesus’ love.  He believed it.  He walked in it and he claimed it for himself. 
“John, the one whom Jesus loved.”

John also wrote that others were those whom He loved.  John 11:5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.

John recognized and received Jesus' love and saw that He had it for others.  If you do online searches on Bible verses about love you will find that the larger majority are in Psalms (David was a man after God’s own heart) the book of John and the three small books 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd John.

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God and everyone that loves is born of God and knows God.  He that doesn’t love, doesn’t know God, for God is love.” 1 John 4:7-8.

And in the Aramaic translation, John 3:16 For God loved the world in this way: so much that he would give up his Son, The Only One, so that everyone who trusts in him shall not be lost, but he shall have eternal life.

This is the difference.  John was one of the inner circle guys because he confidently followed closely knowing he was loved.   At the time of eating the last meal together it says that Jesus said one would betray him.  John 13:23-25 reads that the one whom Jesus loved was close to Him and Peter asked that one to ask Jesus who it was.  John did so as he leaned back into Jesus’ bosom and asked Him who it was.  Jesus answered him.

Looking at this, here is John so close and comfortable knowing the love Jesus has for him and leaning right into his “bosom” or chest.  He presses into his chest, leaning and asks.  He is relaxed, near, intimate and confident that Jesus will answer him.  John is receiving and believing and living in the position of love and nearness of Jesus.  In that, he is also answered.  Peter, in his own uncertainty, asks John to ask Him. 

John is also the disciple that receives the great revelations of Revelation.  He receives.  He is open and believing.  He believes in such a level of spiritual awareness and openness to all God is that he sees huge things. 

He was at the transfiguration.  This was when Jesus’ human body took on a heavenly body and He conversed with Moses and Elijah.

He was at the crucifixion and there, he received more.  John 19:26-27 When Jesus then saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, "Woman, behold, your son!" 27Then He said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother!" From that hour the disciple took her into his own household.

From that moment, he received her.  He didn’t say, “O no Lord, I’m not worthy of your Mom” or “I need to check and make sure it’s okay with the rest of the family.” 

He received her as his mother.  And Jesus knew he would.  Also notice his proximity.  Again, John is near.

He was at the ascension.  This was when Jesus was taken into a cloud and went into heaven.

Being receptive is everything. 

It is the beginning place of incredible blessing. 

It is the vision through eyes of grace and the fuller view of His glory. 

Many teachers teach the portion that Jesus spoke about having child-like faith.  That the Kingdom of heaven belong to such as these.  Children are strongly faith filled. They trust, they don’t come with agendas to confirm their own views, and they are open.

 I see them as receivers.

They are dependent on others to provide for them and care for them and they readily receive.  They started life that way and have yet to acquire anything significant on their own.  They have to receive.  Have you ever seen a child reject a gift?  Have you seen an adult?  I have seen adults say, “Oh, no you shouldn’t have done that” or “No, I couldn’t possibly take this.”

 We play unworthy.  Children don’t.

A little boy named Samuel was serving Eli.  Young Samuel received the words of God as God called to him he responded, “Speak to me LORD, for your servant is listening.”  1 Samuel 3:10  He received.

My husband traded his car in for a different one that was a convertible.  He gave the convertible to me and took over driving the older car I was driving.  I could hardly handle that kind of generous gift!  I couldn’t even initially drive it and had to have my husband drive it for the first 20 minutes because I was crying and feeling like it was more than I should have, that I wasn’t worthy of it.  It took me a month to fully receive it and enjoy it and accept it as a blessing.

 Now it is nearing November and I can’t have the top down anymore because it is too cold.  We live in Minnesota.  I wasted a month of warm summer days not feeling the fullness of joy, even with the top down, of this incredible gift by instead feeling like it was more than I deserved.  Now that I got over myself, and I realize how much he loves me and it is his expression of love,  I enjoy it and I see how much of a blessing it and he really are.

 I receive that love.

Those that receive from God and His love see a bigger picture.  They see more spiritually and they speak it more freely because they are not encumbered by doubt, unworthiness or have worked to acquire their own view.  To those that receive, it just is and they got it and they trust it and they enjoy it.

That was John.  He received Jesus’ love and he trusted it. 

Think of what your life could be like if you said your name and after it, “the one whom Jesus loves.”

Because, you are.

Receive.

In the receiving we are told to give, too.  As John received the revelation, he wrote it out so others would have it. He didn’t keep it for himself.  As God does things in your life, tell that story to others.  It encourages them or sets their eyes on His glory. 

Matthew 10:8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.

John was also the only apostle that did not die in martyrdom and lived a long life, believed to have died of natural causes.  Hmm, weird.