The Light in the Woods

 

#10 – THE LIGHT IN THE WOODS – MAY 2006

 

© Aubri Dennison 2006

 

5/1/06 Reflections        When we truly have our place with God here on Earth we will be called to spiritual works of mercy – for if our will is God’s will, it’ll be manifested this way. God’s love will show through as our love. ** It doesn’t matter if, by wanting to abandon our wills to God, we end up with more tasks than the next guy. Once we know the end is full eternal life of joy and peace in the presence of God, it doesn’t matter what we have to do here. ** In fact, our trials will be welcome because we know it’s God working through us — that in itself is a reward if we need any. That’s why it isn’t unfair that there are those who live in sickness, war, and poverty while we have health, peace, and wealth. We can all end up saved, so it doesn’t matter on Earth in the way our human natures search for fairness. It’s the condition of the soul that counts, independent of life circumstances. If we are right with God He uses us in a way that seems right for Him — our sense of justice doesn’t matter, or our sense of fairness. It’s God’s plan we want to follow, whatever He has chosen for us and for others.

 

5/8/06 Insights from Prayer              We have nothing to lose by going to God and everything to lose by not doing it. This isn’t a hard decision, yet it’s the only one that God insists we make on our own. It decides our future. Why would anyone decide against God? You’d have to ask the devil — it’s unfathomable to me. But what the devil has to offer can only extend through our earthly lives, however long or short those happen to be. Why you’d want to risk your eternity for that is beyond me. To compensate for their consciences, people are always seeking ways to deny God and eternity. For instance — evolution versus creation. I believe in Both, because I’m not a slave to the literal interpretation of the Bible. (Bible-thumpers always ruin the righteousness of their arguments in trying to prove these points by quoting the Bible. If you only have one source, you can never prove the validity of anything to someone who doesn’t acknowledge that source.) To deny creationism, people say that life is a result of random chance; an accidental alignment of molecules — but they don’t explain what the molecules were a result of. And what created random chance? Or sorrow, bewilderment, love, or the urge to laugh? No march of molecules, I bet.

 

5/11/06 Insights from Prayer         I have yet another day in which I can show my love for You by showing Your love for others through me. It’s all interconnected — You use the people I come in contact with to teach me what it is You want me to know, and You put me in a place where I can be the instrument of Your instruction to others.

 

5/11/06 Reflections              It’s a hard life-lesson for me to hear on the radio Christian broadcasting which denies that non-reformist Christian faiths are Christian at all (“I grew up a Catholic, but eventually became a Christian”) or calls them pseudo-Christian. And when they do it they deliberately want to show their elitism. Does this make God sad, or disgusted? Or does he laugh and shake His head — those Bible-thumpers! These people deny anyone but them the title of Christian and then bemoan the fact that we can’t put up a united front to the rest of the world. For me — I feel bad because most of their message is so good — why do they have to go cliquish and spoil it? It does accomplish one good thing though — it brings home to me the realization of how fortunate I am to be independent; to not belong to any church since they are in danger of treating Christ’s followers that way. We have the rest of the world to do that service; why should we do it to ourselves? When I first heard that on the radio and realized they don’t always play down their snobbishness, I was upset that something that was doing me so good could suddenly seem so bogus, and I can imagine how scandalized these people would be at my beliefs. But fifteen minutes later I was calm again, because, just as I was told in a revelation months ago, the experts don’t always get God’s high-five either, and He will come to me Himself with His message if it bothers me to where I need an answer. They’d be horrified to know it, but thanks to the Bible-slaves at Christian Research Institute it’s proved that I’m right to go to God for my instruction instead of the works of men.

 

5/12/06 Insights from Study             I spend a good part of each day reading and listening to spiritual matters, and there are times when I feel like these authors and lecturers no longer have anything new to offer me. Or am I just different from the general population they preach to? Are they speaking to levels of spirituality that I’ve already passed? For many many years I’ve felt special and singled out for some higher purpose and at times it’s been agony looking for that purpose. I know it’ll come to me if I relax and let it be revealed, but I’m getting old and some days I feel much older than I am. I know God is all-powerful and capable — good thing, because I feel qualified and useless; a bad combination for human peace of mind. So I try to get my peace from the grace of God’s love and that works, but it also reminds me of how little I have to give back.

 

5/13/06 Reflections           Life on earth is just a blip on the radar of eternity. It’s like a birth we go through on our way to the full potential of life. Mothers don’t remember the pain; babies don’t remember the trauma. All is real but unimportant — a necessary thing so we can get on with the real living with God. That’s why it’s silly and dangerous to sell our souls for satisfaction in this life on Earth, when we should be ignoring worldly matters and looking ahead to eternity, the only thing of importance. In this context I just now see the possible significance of something that happened years ago, maybe 12 or 15 years ago. I was visiting someone in the hospital — a long enough time that I was going through serious agony from not having had a cigarette fix. I was standing on the walkway watching a casket being brought up the steps of a nearby church, thinking “well, at least he’s not having a nicotine fit.” No, he wasn’t, and if he’d known the glory to come he would have known that getting his next cigarette never was important after all. If only we could understand how unimportant our earthly satisfactions are in the great scheme of things, we wouldn’t jeopardize our eternity to get them. We could put them out of our minds and leave room for the things of God to enter there. Now at the time of this little incident, I wasn’t having this spiritual insight — I was still spiritually apathetic. I didn’t realize I was on the receiving end of a life lesson personally taught by God. The physical feeling I was having then at that moment was exactly like the “flight of spirit” ecstasy I sometimes feel now — the “presence of God lightness” that’s so hard to put into words. Back then I wasn’t spiritual enough to realize I was on a presence of God high — I assumed it was a particularly potent effect of nicotine withdrawal, so forceful and foreign that it was not unpleasant. I didn’t learn much then from the experience, but it affirms what I now know and that in itself is a valuable instruction even though it took years to reap the benefits. Funny how time means nothing to God.

 

5/13/06 Insights from Study              The dryness I feel when I read about angels, veneration of saints, memorizing scripture, Mary the Mother of God, etc. — all these things are the translation necessary to us as humans who can’t receive the full glory of God directly. But they can be gathered together and thought of more purely and simply as the working in us of God manifesting Himself as the Holy Spirit. If we grasp God’s ever-presence within us this way, do we need the other trappings of symbols? Since they cause such dryness in me, despite my upbringing among them and my study to test them, maybe God is telling me I don’t need crutches; that I can walk the path to Him with the help of the Holy Spirit and not bother and confuse myself with the extra baggage humans feel they need on this journey. For me, they cloud my vision instead of help me to envision the righteous life.

 

5/14/06 Insights from Prayer           All knowledge resides in the spirit; it’s just that we can’t get at it because our sinful nature covers it up. Devotional study of what others have been inspired to believe brings about subjects worthy of our reflection, and this brings about inspiration of our own and discernment of what is pleasing to God. In this way God tells us what is right and what is wrong — for we are faced with our individual needs and individual situations. What’s wrong with using scripture and what’s written on our hearts as general guidance, and infused inspiration for specific guidance? (It’s such infused insight that led me to the above reflection)

 

5/19/06 Insights from Prayer             I’ve prayed and haven’t gotten what I’ve asked for — in a case like this there’s three things to do immediately: 1) check to make sure I truly haven’t gotten what I asked for, 2) go over the good gifts God has given me even though He feels I don’t need this particular thing I asked for at this time, and 3) consider asking instead for the satisfaction of doing without what I asked for, or for the absence of dissatisfaction or tribulation associated with not having what I asked for. This last would have the same affect on my soul as actually having the request; the granting of this petition would be possible because such humble submission fits with the divine will of God.

5/19/06 Reflections            Democratizing the world takes a lot of heat from good people who see it as America forcing others to believe what she believes and to do things her way. But many good people don’t view things through a spiritual perspective. Those who do, realize something about the doctrine of global democracy – it gives power to the peacemakers; to individuals, most of who are good people who only want to be left alone by their governments. America itself has let it’s national government drift from it’s original mandate — to provide for the people by pooling resources to achieve what they can’t achieve at the state level, which would leave us protected so we can concentrate on individuals, but leaves the humanitarian issues to local governments or religious institutions. Democracy is good in a basic way because individuals are governed by God, who does an excellent job. If the individuals of the world were free and powerful, conscience and reverence in all individuals would become a defining force. We are, globally, all sinners, but the vast majority of us are basically good people — democracy gives good people the power to insure good things are done by nations. As America is blessed with prosperity and expected by God to give therefore to others less prosperous, so too it is expected to spread God’s gift of democracy throughout the world.

 

5/19/06 Reflections            Generalize your prayer of petition — instead of asking for an end of your pain, ask only for God’s help in enduring your pain. The pain itself has a purpose which we as humans don’t understand, and shouldn’t interfere with, but asking for God’s help to endure any trial is always a righteous request because it gives glory to God’s design.

 

5/21/06 Insights from Study               I think that one of the reasons we don’t understand the ways of God is that so much of what we do depends on our saving face in the course of events in our lives, whereas God never does things with the thought “I wonder if this will make me look good or bad.” Israel would never have been dismantled if humans were running the world, because having once created it, we would never let it go no matter how awful it became because it would look bad admitting that the great experiment had failed. But God didn’t worry that other nations would chalk it up to Israel’s following a bad god. Israel had to take the consequences of breaking the covenant even if it meant that other nations would believe it was a sign of weakness in the God Israel worshiped.

 

5/21/06 Insights from Study         We should help the poor and weak for their sakes and for the pleasure of God, but it isn’t wrong to keep in mind that if you help the poor in spirit you’ll share in their inheritance — the kingdom of God.

 

5/24/06 Insights from Prayer           After surviving a bad lightning storm I was thinking that maybe that’s what dangers and fears are for — to remind us we live by God’s grace alone; to give us opportunity to thank Him for our lives, the very act of which brings thoughts of Him to the forefront of the lives for which we owe Him.

 

5/28/06 Insights from Study       I read the Bible by sections each Sunday — historical Old Testament, non-historical Old Testament, Apocrypha, New Testament — so chronologically there’s no line-up. Except today, coincidentally, four different passages prophesied the same thing — those who delight in the troubles of Israel will see their own downfall at Israel’s, and God’s, hands. In light of today’s troubles in the Middle East, such a coincidence makes me sit up and take notice.

 

5/30/06 Insights from Study           We have to look beyond both earthly and spiritual pleasures — to avoid aspiring to self-assurance and to embrace a trust of God as our only goal. The nearer we are to seeing God’s perfection, the more disgust we have for ourselves and our world. This is by design, because humility is the path to acceptance of God and trust in His works. That requires us to stand back from introspection and seeking; to trust that God will give us the grace and knowledge we need, and those will satisfy us more than anything we can do ourselves. This is not an easy task, as it’s in our nature and in our upbringing to be self-sufficient. But it’s a main component of Jesus’ request — drop everything and follow me. This was the purpose of God as man — to show how it’s done and the results we can expect, even thought the process is foreign to us. We don’t have to strive so that God loves us — that’s already happened. We only have to put our trust in Him completely in order to do what’s right.

 

5/31/06 Revelations           “Stop worrying because other people’s beliefs always have something in them that doesn’t fit in for you. I have a special mission for you – all you have to do is give yourself over to me and I will fill you with what you need, and it will be right.”

 

5/31/06 Insights from Study           God’s purpose for manifesting Himself as Jesus is to show us that God can and will dwell in man; that we are products of His divine nature as well as our human nature.

 

5/31/06 Reflections           There’s no use trying to explain to anyone my moments of God’s intervention if they haven’t experienced them. And if they have experienced them, they don’t need me to explain it.

 

5/31/06 Reflections          My heart is in the right place, but I need God to give me the grace to overcome my tendency to use human faculties to figure out how to relate to Him. This method leads to confusion and disappointment. I need God to allow me to give myself over to His care so that I can be sure that what I receive is right because it comes from God. I need His help to empty my spirit so it can be filled with His Holy Spirit. I want to come to Him pure and innocent as a newborn; ready to learn what my father in heaven wants to teach me.