More recently, I needed some spiritual help from the Lord. I had a dream in which I defecated and when I tried to move it, it was a sticky, gooey mess that I could not clean up easily. It appeared to be a prophesy that something was going to happen that was not going to be pleasant, but I would have to deal with it. I waited and watched. At one point I asked the Lord if dreams that He shared with me, in which negative situations were forecast, could possibly be avoided. The answer was a strong, “No” in my heart. So I continued to wait. When God said, in the Word through the prophets, that something was going to happen, it did. We can trust that God will reveal things to us (for me, mainly in dreams), that allow us to prepare prayerfully and be watchful. Although I wanted to avoid the sticky mess coming, I was actually reassured that prophesy God gives us is unchangeable and will come to pass.

By the way, God does not follow societal rules about what symbols are proper to use in dreams and which ones aren't. He has no qualms about bodily functions. They are just a part of this “fearfully and wonderfully made” body—the “fearfully” part. The obvious meaning of defecated material in a dream would be stuff that has to be discarded, moved out, and eliminated from our lives. In this dream, I knew that in the next few days, I'd have to eliminate something.

When my inevitable “dump” occurred, just a few days later, it was a big, nasty one. I felt that an injustice was occurring to me, big-time. It made me angry and any poor soul who happened to be around me at the time, was subject to my outburst. This message was written by someone (me) who claims to know the truth. I've taught many that what we perceive in others can often reflect the dark spots in our hearts that need to be brought to the surface and exposed so that the Holy Spirit can heal them. The injustice that I felt happened to me, however, felt real and obvious. But then I remembered what God told me in the dream. Who had the dump? There was no one else I could legitimately blame. God said I was the one who perceived incorrectly and thought I was being attacked. Actually what was happening were areas of unforgiveness in my heart were being exposed and, though it seemed almost impossible to me, I was being asked by God to allow Him to heal this dark spot in my soul. I had to be willing to give up my stronghold on appearances and cry to Him for help in forgiving the other person, then, in a natural chain of events, God would forgive me and heal me. I cried out to Him in my pain and He comforted me and, even now, is working with me on this. I thank God for the dream which prepared me for the uncomfortable exposure of one of my "sticky" infestations!

Another truth that I had forgotten at the time, is that God ordains all things that happen to us (and He even uses Satan, if necessary), but always ALL things work together for good to them who love Christ Jesus.

Rom 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. (MKJV)

I know I can usurp the truth mentioned above and fall into a pit, but it is not in my best interests to do that. Rebelliousness is as witchcraft and could cost me, dearly if I were to willfully continue.

We have everything from twinges of anger to fits of rage and, often, we have a desire to get even with the people who perpetrate these dastardly deeds upon us. When we react in this unChrist-like way, this indicates our own “dark spot” which God is bringing to the surface so that we can release it to Him and be healed of it, once and for all. We need to do this or God will continue to send people to harass us, annoy us, perturb and disturb us. God is the surgeon and He is removing our hard skins, digging out, surgically revealing our dank and dark fears and deeply ingrained misconceptions about the life He has given us. We have long forgotten them but, just because we've forgotten them it doesn't mean they aren't still there. These dank and dark fears are festering, causing us to look through a glass darkly and view all things through this tinted, tainted lens that shows us Satan's world and not God's. Unless we allow God to heal our buried hurts and misconceptions, how will we be able to help Him bring more of the lost into His Kingdom? We want to be efficient vehicles for our Lord and Savior's work, don't we?

God wants us free from this tainted viewpoint and though it is painful, He always invites us to sign up for this surgical procedure (which we do by really making sure Jesus is our Lord and Savior) and take the operation, thereby trusting Him more and more as He works on us. If the operation fails, it isn't because God failed. It is because our response to the “surgeons” He sent, catapulted us further into the pits of our earthly hell, as we continued to rebel against God, insisting that we are right and our divinely picked surgeons are wrong and they should be damned. Matthew 7:2 says what we do to others, God will do to us. So when we react this way, we perpetuate the surgical process and need to return to the operating table for more work. There is no successful operation that occurs by our whining or our stubborn anger. The operation is only successful when we, like Christ did from the cross, sincerely ask our Father to “forgive them for they know not what they do,” and we, too, die as we carry our crosses. In this death, though, because it is for Christ, we learn to truly live.

In Matthew 16:19 in the Amplified Bible, Jesus says, “Whatever you bind (declare to be improper and unlawful) on earth must be what is already bound in heaven; and whatever you loose (declare lawful) on earth must be what is already loosed in heaven.” I believe this means we can believe ANYTHING we want to and because we do, it will become (to us) the truth. But only God's truth (as stated in the Bible) is really true. All else is false. Nevertheless, the nature of our being enables us to believe a fabricated truth, which then causes us to misuse our sight as we find “proof ” that it is true. We may never realize that we are the ones who have added up, computed, if you will, only what we wanted to see. We have, by our belief, then, manipulated the numbers to add up the way we wanted them to. Then, because of pride, it becomes doubly difficult to back off from what we've convinced ourselves is true. When this happens it is in our best interests to remember our fallibility and realize only God's truth is true. We can be humble and grateful that He gave us the Bible, His Word and His truth.

We must follow God. We must not try to make God follow us because that leads to disaster and, just like in Noah's time, much cause for flooding brought on by God because of too much carnal living. We must ask ourselves, “What do I really know about my life, about others' lives, or about the situations in which I find myself? Really, nothing!”

However, God says we must know the truth, then we'll be set free. But it isn't our fabricated “truth” that sets us free, but only God's truth which is found in the Word. Our prayer time is a time to know the truth, God's truth, and, thereby, manifest His truth in the physical. Attempting to manifest the world's truth or “our personal truth” is disastrous. Just look around you and see the results of following Satan's temptation to do this. Allow yourself to only believe the REAL truth. Study God's Word and find the truth and choose to believe only it by taking it into the very depths of your being and “knowing” it. This gives us a good “brainwashing”. We are washing our brains clean of the tainted and deceitful “world truth” and allowing the real truth in the Bible to become the foundation on which we build our lives. This is good prayer fodder.

If you would know the world and all its chaotic attempts at finding “truth” by physical appearances, this will not bring you closer to God. This is what most people do. They put the cart before the horse by believing what they see. It isn't what we see that's true. Jesus said not to judge by what we see but to judge righteously. Let's recognize that we want to begin to see above this world, to be in the world but not of it, to see beyond the prison bars of this earth and gaze contentedly toward the open gates of heaven. Isn't this what you want? You are not being “unrealistic” to want this. God has put this optimistic thought into your mind. Use it for your journey out of the mockery of heaven that this carnal world is. Do not stay in it. Do not believe in it. Do not care for it. But care only for the Kingdom of God (and all our needs—including the maintenance of this world as long as we should need it) will be given.

What, then, brings us closer to God? The truth that God cares for you and loves you and that He gave you your salvation through the blood shed by His Son on the cross. THIS is what we must know. All else is baloney.

For the last few weeks my prayer time has increased to an hour in the morning and sometimes additional time in the afternoon and evening when I can get to it. Prayer time has become very holy and I feel the Holy Spirit by my side. I have been guided to trust God even more and faith has been my key word. I've been inspired by Jesus telling people, “By your faith you have been made whole.” I've decided to put all my eggs in one basket: A basket of faith. Jesus also admonished the disciples, once, saying, “Oh ye of little faith,” when they were unable to perform an exorcism. This gave me further drive to grab onto faith and be stronger in faith than ever before. After all, it is my choice to believe whatever I want to. I am not a victim of my beliefs. I choose my beliefs. And lately I've wanted to dive into faith fully, not once descending into my own thoughts of what I think will come about, based on appearances and the past, similar situations. Faith in God is all I want, all I need, all I would focus on.

With this an amazing thing has begun to happen. At times, when I'm able to get completely out of the way, not allowing a single dark ray of doubt to penetrate my heart and mind, I've found God's healing has been able to be unleashed through my laying on of hands for someone. I've always been amazed when someone successfully allowed God's healing to occur and a miracle manifested. When I'd tried to be a channel for God before, I was not successful. The key here is “I” was not successful. I now know “I” am never successful. God is (to His glory). Therefore, as I ask for and receive my greater faith (which I do by saying in my heart and meaning it “I HAVE faith”) God's healing power is able to come forth. Here is the thought process as far as I can understand it: I see the situation that needs healing, I forget the situation that needs healing, I know I have faith, I watch my thoughts, not allowing them to look behind me at the appearances, but just have faith, ever increasing faith.

My wife had some serious physical issues and after spending a few weeks in my prayer time thanking God for my faith and seeing God's faith increase in my heart, I asked her if I could lay my hands on her and just “have faith.” The results were miraculous as well as reassuring that by dwelling on and requesting faith in my heart, God could truly do His healing work. If anyone reading this still has doubts about whether God exists, please drop all your other goals and go for faith. Watch your life become the way God wants it to be and watch your own worthless goals fall to the wayside. Put all your energy into going for the Kingdom of God and His righteousness—and, while you are at it, go for faith, ever increasing, ever satisfying your deepest thirst.

When my wife saw some immediate results by my prayer of faith, I was deeply moved and more in awe of God than ever. I knew it wasn't me that did this, but God. How honored I felt that He would use this flawed container to spread His healing light! Obviously, I want to continue spending time just knowing God, having faith in Him and NOT having faith in other things (like appearances that something will surely go a certain way because, in the world, it always goes that certain way).

Take a shovel and scoop out that negativity. Don't allow it to dominate your life. Take dominion over your thoughts, never once forgetting who gives you the ability to think in the first place. There is now no room for fruitless maneuverings, fruitless concepts, or belief in fruitless appearances. We simply don't have the time for them anymore. The fact is, they are a misuse of time and cause us to miss the eternal nature of God. When Jesus asks us to have faith, He means it. You will be amazed at the results. I know that this chapter of my life will be ongoing as faith increases in my life. But I want to stop for a moment and ask you something: Do you have a mind that likes to persist in your goals until you achieve them? Do you believe you can do anything, when you put your mind to it? Please make this heavenly goal your goal instead of worldly ones and you'll never, ever want to walk in the ways of the world again.

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