Dissent at The Point of Labor

I saw this picture though, and just smiled to myself. If you know, you know. But the knowing goes beyond physical maternal health; to the spiritual and just about every realm in which we have labored hard, painfully, and too long. Or even shortly, vigorously, with maddening intensity. Our journeys differ. I viewed it with sad humor…both intense – the sadness and the humor. I remembered being in labor after several months of pregnancy…each with its own story for another day. Each a miracle, just to get to that point of birthing, because science had emphasized that I would never be able to have children. Twice. (And… are currently trying again to prevent it from ever happening again, because of ‘matters arising’ and the miracle of a cycle that has refused to submit to the natural wear and tear of some decades and a half 😇😉🙃)

But…I will handle this from a spiritual perspective. We carry a divine conception…first that we could be chosen to be Family with The Living God…His Bride, His Children, His Brothers…IS in itself miraculous. [ok…here…I ‘dissolve myself’ in ululations directed at The Throne and The ETERNAL Occupant.] Oh that always is a thrill for me. Then that…HE COULD TRUST YOU AND ME…knowing how we are…could trust us with ANYTHING Kingdom… BUT THAT HE DOES. AMAZING STUFF. So incredulous that the ‘company of witnesses’ that know us well, or think they do from the bits and pieces of us they have been witness to, vigorously fight the call. NO. NO. NO. This CANNOT BE GOD – they say…etc. etc. And when we sit back sometimes and think of it, for what it costs us, where The Wind that is God blows us sometimes…to land in excruciating, perplexing places…we concur, a little bit, with the chorus of the unbelieving.

We are on delivery beds – our feet strapped us to enforce a stillness that would allow for God now to be God. To proclaim Life or Death. And we wiggle free, seeking the comfort we knew before the conception…seeking to be free…unencumbered…because we fast forget at such times…how the burdensome the journey before this time was….

We try to pack our bags…but we forget that the company of those we knew previously are now faded from the spotlight…and in their stead, according to The Wisdom of The Commander of Heaven’s hosts, are a faithful heavenly Maternal Health Support group, including Himself – our ETERNAL BABY DADDY…ready to help you through and past this final push. They bring us, sometimes not so gently, back to that place of stillness. Our feet strapped up, and what we hide from everyone else, open to all witnesses – ONLY in this place of birthing. A select group of witnesses. Active witnesses. Mostly positive witnesses. What are trying to run from, because it is suddenly too uncomfortable to step forward. Yield and hang up your feet to The Hands of God. We will get through this.

Shalom.

“But My righteous one will live by faith; and if he shrinks back, I will take no pleasure in him.” BUT WE ARE NOT OF THOSE WHO SHRINK BACK AND ARE DESTROYED, BUT OF THOSE WHO HAVE FAITH AND PRESERVE THEIR SOULS.“
Hebrews 10:38-39

*No rights to this picture btw.

vipslit@yahoo.ca / vipadhiambo@gmail.com

BROKEN HEELS AND MORTALLY WOUNDED HEADS

Where do broken hearts and lives go? To whom will they belong?

So… you are out and abouting...and you see this other human being. Splendid looking. Seemingly DELICIOUS, provocative, alluring….You look, you see, you want, you desire, you crave…but even with those big bells banging in your skull you ALREADY KNOW that its not for forever that this desire had assaulted you …just to rub, to scratch an itch…for a moment. And after a moment or two, you imagine to yourself, that you would do anything to get that scratch…to be rid of that itch. Tell lies. Tell partial truths. Be kind. Be cruel. Buy gifts. Deny gifts – for the majority… Write poetry. Borrow other peoples’ songs to dedicate if you are not lyrically endowed…. Hang out with those you wouldn’t otherwise stand…smile at them even…face the elders and ancestors, argue your case even when it’s obvious – to even yourself – that you have none. Marry them because the itching does not go any other way in some cases. Even if you can only marry them verbally… If you are of a more base conviction, you club them over the head, or subdue them with potent substances…scratch and flee leaving them to deal with whatever you deposited in or on them…and whatever other consequences they have to deal with to pay, sometimes for a lifetime, for the fact that they temporarily assuaged your even more temporary discomfort. Discomfiture. Poh!!!!!

Let me start with some background. Earlier this week, I was talking to a friend of mine, a spiritual friend…I ended up having the same conversation with three other spiritual friends…broaching this subject from three of the four poles. But let me start even earlier so you understand the picture attached to this post. A few years, I was out and abouting myself…on heels. Suddenly one of them got caught between the cracks of a street pavement…and when I tugged…it broke. I had to make a decision – would I walk on and complete my errands barefoot, or balance the other foot to the level of the still heeled one, walk through my day as though I was comfortable and then deal with the consequences as I rubbed my feet at home…in the evening? I opted for the latter. You can’t just be obvious all the time – right? I hope you are understanding this situation from at least three poles…right? A word is sufficient for the wise. I took a picture of my shoes when I got home…and that’s what that…down there…is. My former, or rather, ex-shoes.

So, then this week happened. I was in a situation, reviewing a previous rejection by an association due to a recently concluded relationship. In plain English, my heart was broken, my body and spirit beaten, I could not hold in anything that went in, or keep what was there before. Aside from this, I was mourning the death of one dear one that I had known all my life…and then went through a sharply articulated eviction from a status I was born into, but realized that I would probably have to walk the rest of my life with, only as a memory. Understood? Have you been there? If not, please, I pray you never do. Unless it’s for your good, and The Glory of God. For me…I shed excess weight…drastically, which came with wardrobe challenges for both outer and inner wear 😁😇. If you know, you know. I bowed over and mourned with my entire life, emitting life, it was coming out of all my pores…there is a picture I took late last year…that was…scary…more than one photo from that season…that I was vehemently commanded to unplug from my social media…because I looked dead, or like ‘something’ that was. I WAS…dying. And I knew it. There was nothing I could do about it. But God. He…has ways…Yes He does.

So, I go to this interview…and not really because I trust, but because I find it easier to say the truth and deal with the consequences rather than take time out of what is left of my life trying to remember and defend lies…efforts in futility…I poured out my heart. Are you married? And the floodgates opened. I couldn’t cry anymore, because…I was basically dehydrated…of anything liquid in me. Anything that could flow. My interviewer listened…trying to hide her horror at my story. I could tell what she was thinking. I could NEVER belong. I understood her completely. If I was in her place, I would PROBABLY be in her shoes. Walking her way. Then God caught up with her as she ‘fled the scene’, and she remembered possibly, LOVE. Saw my battle wounds. Saw beyond my ‘dehydration’ that I still believed…that God COULD. So. she passed the rejection to a more vigilant warrior to effect it…to bury me alive if possible. And I went…’to my own funeral’… walked in, sat through the next interview…fought valiantly…clung to God and His instructions when He sent me into this situation…I STILL BELIEVED. And even though the one with the itch had turned their back, even though I was ‘out of status’, even though technically, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, I was standing before about eight open graves, I held on. They were beloved of God…and were holding on to what they knew too. From their perspective, they were destroying a bug, me, and doing their best to wipe out the smudge. I was too dehydrated to cry…so I leaned…leaned heavily on God…and on the ones He sent me to Love. Because even here, Loving still made sense. I don’t know if you have ever been here…

They said no to me. And it seemed to me, were offended that I did not die. And I say that in the nicest way I can. You see, they sincerely believed, still do, that I had sinned. That I had rebelled. Was an offensive outsider, an enemy. And that the mercy of Christ could never cover one like me. I on the other hand, knew, that I had been sent. The consequences were none of my business, obedience was. So, I obeyed. And loved. And the scratches became little pen-knife nicks, then were emboldened into stabs. I cried out as I obeyed. I had no one, nowhere, except this place. But God. He carried me through. One day, I couldn’t anymore, so I pleaded with Him, to let me go. The pain was killing me…I was still wounded from the eight open graves…and living in a ninth…alive…waiting for them to shovel in the sludge…so I could be…not even a memory. I began to claw out of that grave…and He, God helped me. I carried guilt for quitting…for letting God down by quitting…but I remembered who was not ready for the next day, if I was to die on that one. And on the other side of the grave, He met me and embraced me and strengthened me and widened the scope of His Love through me. And many times, my eyes would meet those of the most ardent warrior…and I could tell he was thinking that I was doing this to win his approval…and acceptance into association. I could tell also, that he was determined NEVER TO ALLOW IT as long as he was in that privileged position. But I was loving…for The Lover…Love Himself. God Himself. Without Whom I was, am, nothing. No one. No ones…

A leadership crisis and I became a leader in that association, without membership…and it was time again to show me how unlovable I was to God. And to His people. So, I made the appointment…so I could hear him out. And he ploughed at me. Scripture after scripture. God could not love me. But it was different this time. I had been through so much stripping…and had learnt to be strong without cloths, without props, without underwear. They had fallen off me like King Saul’s armor may have off a little shepherd boy named David as he walked in on behalf of a nation to cut off the head of a giant that had troubled them. Like the other Saul, the Apostle a.k.a. Paul, neither the bite nor the poison ‘took’.

That woman from last year IS DEAD. Perhaps they did shovel her and seal her in after all. But this version of her…has her head in and with God. She sees more than you would want her to…and will not react outside of God’s prompting. So, he reeled out how those wounded by family relationships, could not serve as leaders…and I asked if we were not playing into the enemy’s hands. An enemy that would strike the leaders, knowing that their colleagues, their Aarons and Hurs, would drop their hands in a second and use their own swords to gut them where they stood holding up God’s Kingdom should it become evident that their flesh not conform to the standards of their own understandings. And that the flocks would wander off…disappointed, dejected, doubting God, doubting the value of Life and Godliness, choosing Despair, Destruction and finally Death. Where was the place for restorative Love? Why were we using valuable artillery against our own gravely wounded and dying warriors? Warriors called out BY GOD to lead the battles, to lead us into victory…because someone used them as a scratcher…and then got tired and moved on to find more elaborate scratchers. Because their children do not look like the others that belong to the association…So, we not only turn our backs to their pain and to them – we also have our own issues to deal with – moreover we pursue them for learning to live without us…to steal what God would still have them retain, not even to use because the instruction Manual is The Living God Himself AND He HASN’T DECIDED TO TRANSFER OWNERSHIP OF WHAT we STOLE TO us, then, we decide to kill them in myriad ways… Do we really know this God that we have refused to get intimate with, and block others from His redemptive embrace?…Sighhhhhh…. Where are the brokenhearted going to around you? Do you care? Or are they casting a blight on your narrative by being hurt, being hurt in ways unlike ours, and for longer than WE WOULD ALLOW THEM TO BE? Where are the broken-hearted around you, that walk in the embrace of God…and He is strengthening to destroy the serpents that would be aiming at your heels in your own future?

Back to you from the beginning. The one with the itch. So, today is Friday. And you may have that itch again…first of all, avoid me. I am actually dead…and alive to another realm… I am done balancing heels that do not exist for He to Whom I belong, has fitted me with those that CANNOT wear out. And warriors have been activated to defend my course in God AND me, that if you saw with your naked eyes would lead to your own dehydration of both inner and outer wear. If therefore you are looking to complicate someone else’ like – Avoid me. Second, if you do go out and use the image and likeness of God for a scratcher to ‘get your hair in place’ know that for them, it never really ends there. Even if they seem Game. Sometimes…they live with the death you projected their way…several lifetimes over. So please remember my many words… take a brisk walk or run around your hood, then GO HOME, to your habitat and take a cold shower, warm cocoa, put on some fiery worship music and pray for yourself and for your intended victim/s that God would keep them from the snares those, like you formerly were, had dug out for them. Many times, our games deny those we didn’t think we were hurting that much, their very lives and destinies. Be responsible.

Shalom.

vipslit@yahoo.ca / vipadhiambo@gmail.com

“Then one of the elders [of the heavenly Sanhedrin] said to me, Stop weeping! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root (Source) of David, has won (has overcome and conquered)! He can open the scroll and break its seven seals!

And there between the throne and the four living creatures (beings) and among the elders [of the heavenly Sanhedrin] I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God [the sevenfold Holy Spirit] Who have been sent [on duty far and wide] into all the earth.

He then went and took the scroll from the right hand of Him Who sat on the throne.

And when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders [of the heavenly Sanhedrin] prostrated themselves before The Lamb. Each was holding a harp (lute or guitar), and they had golden bowls full of incense (fragrant spices and gums for burning), which are the prayers of God’s people (the saints)…

Saying in a loud voice, Deserving is The Lamb, Who was sacrificed, to receive all the power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and majesty (glory, splendor) and blessing!”
Revelations 5:5-12

AMPC

My Ringed Fingers

“What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?“
Jesus Christ in Mark 8:36-37

This evening, I was distractedly looking at my fingers contemplating the two rings that I wear very rarely these days. Gold. Yes. I have two golden rings. One a broken circle with four stones on my ‘wedding finger’, the other on my ‘God finger’ – same finger on my right hand – a beautiful delicate piece graced with a heart at its center. I once tried to sell them…during dire times, but the lady who I had been told buys gold would not buy them. She said what she could give me for them would not be worth the effort. Besides. she had already gone over her limit for buying used jewelry for the day. I was looking at those rings today, or rather last night, against the very soft light at Southfield Mall and just thinking how beautiful they were – in this light.

My thoughts wandered off, and I remembered some really valuable loops I once owned. Gold. Pure gold. Very high quality. One of the only two pairs of real gold earrings I have ever owned. My favorite – the other pair broke where it cannot be worn again, and a piece of it got lost during the myriad house evictions my household has lived through. I wore them all the time, everywhere, so much that I forget how valuable they were, and how dangerous wearing some of those things in some of ‘these places’ could be. So, one day, I was on the way to a place that I had never been, for the wedding of one of my brothers in Love. I think that was the day I tried to sell my rings. I dont know what happened to me when I left that shop but I was not as alert as I usually am while walking. I notice EVERYTHING without lifting my head or seeming to look around. My friend and current walk partner Ps. Anne likes to joke about me, that I should be FBI or some high-level spy. I laugh nervously when she says that…I actually see more than most people would be comfortable with my noticing. But thankfully, I forget quickly…or to be more accurate, forgive with alacrity. Life is too short to carry EVERYTHING you find with you all the way. But…back to what I was really saying. I got a little distracted after leaving that lady’s shop. I wanted to sell the rings so I could get a present for my in-law, as well as transport to and from the wedding and still feed my household when I got home. So, when I found I could not, I tucked them into my handbag and walked about a really densely populated portion of Kenya, praying for a miracle.

Suddenly, it felt as though a friend was hugging me from behind while tugging playfully at my ears. Then there was a sudden release and in the two or so seconds it took me to turn around, I saw a young boy, about 10 years old at most running away from me. I realized that he had been tugging at my earrings and had managed to get one off and that it was in his hands. I thought about screaming for help from the public…but at the same time I remembered my own very difficult pregnancy journeys, and my own pain in the labor wards. I looked at his fleeing back and wondered if I would ever wear that earring, if I had to pick it up from a pool of his blood after the public had dealt with him. I wondered about his mother…and her own labor pains. So, I stood and watched him run from death, from danger, from consequences, from me – his victim. I absentmindedly took off the other earring and a witness who had been standing near me as though he had NOT noticed the whole thing, stepped up to me and informed me that there were shops near there that bought gold to melt and resell. He suspected that that was where the young lad was headed, and I could try to trace his steps and buy my earring back before it was melted. My feet followed his advice. I forgot that even if I found that earring, I had no money to buy it back. I did not even have money at that time to get back home. At the end of my footsteps, I managed to sell my remaining loop for about 3,000/. Kenya shillings. Almost a hundred times less than it was worth in cash and incomparably less than it meant to me overall.

I am thinking about this today because it just occurred to me how much we take for granted what is truly precious, because it’s always there for us, with us. Until the day we loose a portion of it, and have to negotiate with God in public, over the cost of getting it back versus letting it belong to someone else. Someone to whom it may not mean much beyond a few thrills, and who would discard what was attached to your life for a set of pebbles…in less than a heartbeat. What’s your story so far in this regard. Let’s not loose anymore…what we will still mourn over, decades later. Look at who/what you have in the soft and True Light of Who God is. Perhaps, and I hope, He will birth in you a renewed appreciation of what He has given you, that is RIGHTLY UNLIKE WHAT HE HAS GIVEN ANOTHER.

Shalom. Do have a blessed week.

vipslit@yahoo.ca / vipadhiambo@gmail.com

God…Seemingly

Sometimes…we look down on a person because of our seemingly elevated positions above them…and God remains seemingly silent…unmoved by their pain even.

Sometimes we betray them, [and because they are spirit too they know it] because we sit in forums where it seems okay to break their confidences and twist what we know about them in the worst ways possible…and God remains seemingly silent…seemingly unmoved by their pain even.

Sometimes…we reward their smiles with scorn because something happened in our lives and another in theirs that sets us up as seemingly superior. Sometimes…we are privileged to see their need…even of us…and we gleefully walk away…because that is the plan with those that we know hate them…and it seems that we are LOVED BECAUSE THEY ARE HATED…like we are RICHER BECAUSE THEY ARE POORER… like we are IN BETTER BECAUSE THEY ARE AT THE BOTTOM…where we believe they will stay forever. We keep our ties with them…because we are determined to do ALL WE CAN to keep them at a disadvantage, because we SINCERELY ARE CONVICTED that their DOOM IS FOR OUR GLORY…

And God remains seemingly silent…seemingly approving by this posture, of our antiques…seemingly unmoved by their pain and our relentless onslaught over them.

I wonder sometimes…why we waste our energies, beating at those that we are TRULY CONVICTED CAN NEVER RISE FROM THE POSITION IN WHICH THEY ARE BURIED. Us and our company. Are we really convinced of what we tell ourselves over them…or is our back and forth, to collect information by which they can be kept down, also a sign that we don’t TRULY BELIEVE that ANYTHING can keep them down permanently, and we hope that they are fooled enough by our smiles, and fake geniality towards them, that in their EVENTUAL rising and TRANSFIGURATION, we would have carved ourselves a position as their ONLY FRIEND?

They know…. they know…from their position beneath us…they are better placed to see our nakedness…and it’s probably the filth they see…and smell, or the fact that God lies there with them…holding them still…that they too remain silent…and allow us to go as far as we believe we can…as we stand over them.

God seems silent, unmoved, uncommunicative, powerless, unloving…far removed today…

But CAN HE REALLY BE?

Shalom.

vipslit@yahoo.ca / vipadhiambo@gmail.com

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Battle at the Gate by ‘the litmus arrow’

I had been up for about three hours or more earlier today. I was reading, thinking, praying as I also waited subconsciously for a text from Leroy to confirm that God had granted him another safe trip to his now daily destination. Suddenly I it occurred to me that I had not heard the usual morning sounds of one member of my household. Aunty Njoki should have been in about half an hour ago. I dialed her number hoping that all was well, and that she was simply running late.

She answered warmly and then her voice got frantic as she explained to me that the guards at the gate were adamant that she would not get in today. My phone disconnected and I looked at it frustrated. I didn’t have any more credit etc. I seethed quietly as I contemplated what was ‘really happening’…the ‘real story’. She had been coming to this house daily for over a year…and no one had ever demanded her particulars after her first month. Somehow, as I found out much later, her ID card had slipped out of her bag in the kitchen just yesterday. She called me back and asked me to speak to the guard who was initially rude. I firmly but gently asked him what the real issue was. The phone disconnected again, adding fuel to my fires. I got up and marched in ‘full combat’ (i.e. a lesso (a wrapper), house dress, hair bonnet and phone) all the way to the main estate gate. I was livid. I could hear though, the soft gentle Voice of The Holy Spirit counsel me above the fires of rage and calmed down before I run into Aunty Njoki on her way home. We greeted each other warmly and I asked pointedly if the guards had asked her for a bribe. She said no and I calmed down. Sufficiently to have a cohesive conversation a.k.a. do battle with the hostile at the gate.

Back home, much later – (oh I did get to the gate and have that conversation with the guards which effectively calmed both parties. I am not one that leaves my battles un-fought. If am still quiet – I am probably just bidding my time and gathering arsenal 😁🙂😉) I thought about the incident and something a friend of God and I were chatting about yesterday. When he referred to Daddy a.k.a. Baba Vip as an elder at the gates of Gem Ahono, my mind’s eye saw my father dressed as a warrior with a quiver full of arrows strapped to his back. In this vision, he reached back and removed all five of his and fiercely unleashed them at intruders at the gate of our rural home. It took my breath away, that vision. Then ‘the warrior was escalated’, and we were being launched from the quiver of none other than The Almighty God, El Gibor Himself. Oh…my entire being, bowed in worship at this beautiful vision.

I thought about being an arrow. That at the gate, my father and Father did not stand unarmed because they had us. For my earthly father we would either be his weapons of offence or defense. I smiled as a cheeky thought came to me; ‘no wonder I have had so many bumps and bruises in life – I am his first arrow. The litmus.’ The smile receded as I thought of the seriousness of my role, the role of Daddy’s children…it was imperative that we ensure, no hostile passed through that gate…and if they did, that we be the cause of their emphatic retreat. Or extinction. I stopped then and prayed. My Daddy had sired arrow-heads designed by God for the battles he would face at that gate. We needed to submit to the aim and hit the mark for his Good. Because I was also of The Hosts of YHWH, there was a special codding there that ensured that I not only honored Daddy as I flew free towards the enemies, but my True Maker Himself. I recommitted myself to that role. For, I am after all, a soldier in The Army of The LORD. Come what may.

“Behold, children are a heritage from The LORD,
The fruit of the womb is a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
So are the children of one’s youth.
Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them;
They shall not be ashamed,
But shall speak with their enemies in the gate.”

Psalm 127:3-5 NKJV

Shalom.

vipadhiambo@gmail.com

Circling Your Stubborn Enemies with Focused Worship

_{This is a post I shared on one of my Facebook pages ‘Homes and Nations – House of Prayer’ over ten years ago. I just realized I didn’t share it here. God continues to amaze me by how He uses lessons He taught me years ago, to move me forward in the present. This has also helped me when I read prophecies that at the point in which He spoke them to me, seemed time specific, but actually speak to my now. His Mind is not like ours. May ours rise to become like His. Be blessed as you partake with me.}

First written on March 13, 2012

About two years ago, I visited a church with my friend Roselyn and her mom. I quickly got involved in the worship and God began to minister to me through a vision. [I think I have shared this on my personal profile as Vip Ogola, but God has been speaking new things about that incident.] Let me tell you about the vision.

‘I was standing before a woman, beautiful, though her face was not too clear. Her hair was braided or in dreadlocks, and she seemed kind of elevated, in flowing red robs that constantly seemed to be blowing. I cant remember feeling any wind but it seemed windy just by looking at her. [i know…I am using the word ‘seemed’ a lot here but bear with me]. It seemed to me that she was standing on my pathway…in the way to my destiny. She had this hue of gold around her that seemed to emanate from within her. And that though she seemed fragile even, there was a silently strong power within her that controlled my ability to move forward. I began to declare the Word of God against her, frantically. A fear and pain knotted scratchily within my heart and belly. And I shouted more, she stood confidently and calm on my path. Smiling at me through eyes that seemed gentle but reminded me of a lizard, crocodile or a snake. Dark, loathing. As though she knew that there was nothing I could do to move her. Suddenly I felt in the physical, a pressure in the palm of my hand. A weight almost 2 kilos, and this weight began to lift my hands. My heart lifted beyond my vision of her, and began to worship God. And just like that, she disappeared. My path was clear again.’

I have on several occasions shared this and each time I do, a new revelation is placed, for the season am in. Even now, God is speaking a new thing…connecting this with something that happened in the past but I cannot share until I have His words to do so. Well, this week, my children Leroy and Shukri and I were having our devotions and God led us to the book of Joshua. Which is the theme of this week’s fasting prayer for our homes and nations. Joshua 2: 8-16, 4:1, 5:1 and 6 have been particularly significant. 40 years ago, Israel had opted to die in the desert rather than trust God with regard to conquering the land. They feared the occupants of the land and the land itself, believing themselves to be too small in their eyes. Rahab, and the kings in Canaan however give us a different story; they had heard about God’s exploits in the desert on behalf of His chosen race and it terrified them that this extremely large nation was headed their way. The Israelites, the warriors that had been liberated from Egypt wasted away in a wilderness for 40 years, and it was only after God had ridded His people of the evidence of doubt in Him [which am learning is extremely repugnant to Him] could He now begin again with a new generation – save for the remnant: Joshua and Caleb.

So God again causes His priests to stand in the gap and let Israel pass by. Here I need to say that those few of us, 12 perhaps who will stand in faith of The Living God, and believe Him for the healing and deliverance of our homes and nations would be enough to hold up the waves headed our way to destroy us and keep us from inheriting that which God has lovingly extended our way. Is there anyone who would risk they all to stand in the gap on behalf of your land? On behalf of your home? As I prayed through this passage, the crossing of the Jordan River, I believed that everything, every issue that I had been praying about that concerned others would cross over from slavery to freedom and have a fighting chance to this inheritance if those it concerned would themselves step out in faith.

Then there was the circumcision – the decision to allow ourselves to be indelibly marked by God as His own…before we head to chapter 6 and the saga of Jericho. I don’t know if like me, it looks like God has made you vulnerable in the eyes of your enemies who seemed so safe in their high towers? I am speaking to those of us who have prayed, trusted and yet find themselves again somewhat disadvantaged, having to go through re-consecration, and feeling like this would give the enemy unfair advantage over them? Do not worry, God blesses your choice to obey Him even when you do not understand it. His particular strategy. The kings were in hiding even though Israel did not know it. Do not be afraid – this trial/temptation/discomfort is of God. He is in control even though it seems nothing like it. Many have sent messages to me this week about not being able to pray, and asking me to pray with them. I have been non-committal, because of what God was saying to me about the situation. That we must all bear the circumcision, That we must all re-ally ourselves to Him. That it is He Who has held the stone flint knife against our innermost and most intimate and protected parts. And that He will keep us there for the four days it takes to heal us. Remember Zacharias the friend of Jesus who remained in the tomb four days till all hope was gone? You and I must remain within the will of God, even when it seems to hurt us because He will come, sometimes weeping, but healing and resurrection is within His Nature. He is coming. Just submit to the knife. His Hand is the Hand of the Surgeon not the murderer.

Then I asked Him…what was it about going around Jericho those 7 times…the first 6 silently? I needed a word for the place am in. A word to share with my children, Leroy and Shukri, and the ones who call me Mami about this place…this tall order. We are healed. We are restored to Him. But what He is saying to us belongs to us, is still a big deal. We have been firmly shut out. And the hostility and animosity within the place He has sworn is ours is fact. Yet He says to us, go to that place…and then just begin to circle it. Don’t take a battle stance yet, just blow the vuvuzela/trumpets/shofar and lift up the evidence of your testimony and go round it. One lap. Then go home and rest. Then tomorrow do the same. and the four days after tomorrow. Just obey me. I asked God, what was that about. Nothing changed those six days. The hostile, fearful, deadly enemies were still above us as we took a stroll around them; declaring Whose we are and worshiping Him for Who He is. He said to me. “There are things that still need to be broken in you that are broken only in such circumstances. Your dependence on your intellect. Your pride at what God has done just for you :). Your crowns, victories won. Your knowledge of the enemy, his powers and tactics and how useless yours is against his. Your tendency to rebel against Me when you are afraid, when you have evaluated a situation through your knowledge, experience and the experience of others. Your distrust for My Word and Instruction and your tendency to go to the devil for his opinion of what I have said to you.” God reminded me that I am not focused if there was no internal and external challenge to try it. I would know that the battle is won, when I learnt to focus on worshiping Him, on His revealed nature. By keeping my enemies aware that I had them circled in my worship of Him

I guess by the end of day 6 the worship did not even feel adequate to Israel. They could do it all in one day for the freedom it gave them. Nothing had changed but everything had. They had laid down every earthly shackle that kept them from true worship and had received from God the ability to soar above the challenges that had kept them in submission. And when they worshiped Him in Spirit and in Truth and lifted their voices in victory, they found that the walls, high towers, and the ‘powerful enemies’ had been an illusion before The Truth of the Might of The Almighty God.

This week my counsel to myself and all those seeking prayer is to circle their inheritance with worship. What has God promised you? What has He said is yours? Stop focusing on the hindrance, focus on Your God and worship Him without addressing the issue but calling Him by the Name that covers your need. e.g. Do you need healing – His Name is Jehovah Jireh. Also remember with thankfulness the works He has done in your life before. Sincerely. There are no guarantees [remember Joshua 5:13-14]…except that You will be closer to Him then than you feel now, because you would have pleased God. That alone is a major victory. And that whoever tries to restore in you that which God has destroyed will pay a hefty price for it. Joshua 6:26

s/he who has ears….

shalom.

vipadhiambo@gmail.com

Detour to Samaria

ONE OF US HAS A NEED THAT JUST ONE OTHER CAN MEET

“It was necessary for Him to go through Samaria.”

John 4:4 AMPC

I don’t see it in scripture, where it says that the Samaritan woman ACTUALLY GAVE Christ Jesus that drink of water that He asked of her. Perhaps, the rest of the story is written in another chapter, or book. And that He, The LORD of ALL creation, including that well, desperately needed to drink particularly from the waters at Jacob’s well…and yet John 4:4 said He had to be there. The ensuing encounter was so powerful, that the woman herself stopped her own pursuit of that commodity, perhaps until after the two days He spent ministering there… perhaps, were not told. This got me thinking…

A few weeks ago, we were in a desperate situation. My friend’s son Leroy was missing again, and we had been searching for him – literally day and night – for four nights and three days. I remember waking up on Friday to the search. His sisters would be at the house in which I live, under the watch of Njoki, Leroy and Shukri – of cause playing hectically with Giovanni, while the search party would head out… but where does one even begin to look for a child that is lost, especially in a densely populated neighborhood in a populous city like Nairobi? Especially when the child lives with a challenge that makes it difficult to communicate his need to others, beyond those who already know him. I was overwhelmed, heartbroken, perplexed, AFRAID and yet was called upon to be present, have FAITH and help. We passed through a school, a supermarket and ended up at CITAM Embakasi’s sanctuary – three ladies and two men. The female part of the search party spilt ourselves on the altar there, and just wept our prayers beyond words. I sat back, having already broken down earlier while trying to explain to the staff at QuickMart Embakasi why a thirteen-year-old could not just find his way back home, if he wanted to be home. The exasperation of this place.

In the sanctuary, I sat for a while somewhere in the middle and asked God to speak to me. Show me where He would have us go. Actually, He had already spoken twice – once to his father, on the first day of the search, and earlier that morning to his mother, the name of a place – Kayole – but we needed clarity. We had already been to Kayole. To the police station. On Wednesday. It was Friday. I heard God speak to me, simply, quietly two verses that seemed to have little to do with the situation found ourselves in – John 4:4 and Isaiah 46:4. So we went along that day. On our #roundiemwenda through other places except Kayole, where he had been found or where he had been sighted in our about four previous searches – South B, Tena, Greenspan, Tassia, Fedha….We found out later that evening, at about 10:30pm that he had been in Kayole that whole day. This was confirmed by a comment on the Missing Children Kenya’s post on him, and on my other wall. People had seen him being ejected from places in that area. We got there at 10:30pm and were there until 1:30am and again, the whole of the next day with a larger search party. ONE OF US, found him on the line to get a matatu to Juja…at 7pm that evening, in the CBD, and he is now home safe. EMMANUEL.

But God’s words to me lingered still. Why had God given me that verse? Those verses. What was He saying to me?

I am still learning from particularly John 4, even today. But as one who often seeks from and conveys help to others, I am learning that sometimes the one who asks of us, has more to give us than we could give Him. When God asks me to give Him something, it is often an opening to a teaching, an experience, a gifting that I would never have partaken of, if I had not stopped still, and just heard Him out. The One Who takes care of me, is permitted to ask of me, and while I stand thinking about how…ahem…’improper’ it is of Him to ask of me, He opens me up to a world that I would never have known about, a liberty that makes little of my current endeavors while paradoxically fulfilling them.

Listen today to the appeal. Your own salvation could be attached to it.

Shalom.

FOCUSING ON GOD’S POWER

“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in His holy people, and His incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength He exerted when He raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at His Right Hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under His feet and appointed Him to be head over everything for the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way.”

Ephesians 1:18-23

Ok… I could live on the AMAZEMENT of Ephesians 1, but let me focus. God’s Power. The Power of The Living God that He HAS SET ASIDE/APART/IN TRUST/FOR US BECAUSE WE DARE BELIEVE HIM . And that POWER makes POWERLESS any other power or conglomerations of powers that try to come against The imprint of His in us.

From the very beginning and constantly through Scripture, and in His direct relationship with those that were caught up in Faith in Him, even for a moment, The Almighty God – do we even understand what that Name of His implies – ALL POWER IS HIS. EVERYTHING ELSE THAT PARADES ITSELF AS POWER IS A SHAM IN COMPARISON, BECAUSE THERE IS NO COMPARISON #HALLELUJAH .

Ok back to the thought I was on…The Almighty God, from the beginning, has promised and given those that believed, elevated them into dominion over every thing that’s sets itself up to mock His power in them. Even when they don’t know that this Power is available to them. The demonic trick is to disable your ability to connect with GOD’S POWER SO THAT YOU ALWAYS SUBMIT TO THAT WHICH IS INFERIOR and live a life that is mediocre in that it isn’t what God created you to live.

Another is to EQUATE GOD’S POWER WITH OTHER POWERS SO IT MANIFESTS AS A CONTINUAM OF OTHERS NOT AS A SEPARATE INCOMPARABLE PHENOMENA. And that’s where we are often trapped… power manifests for someone a certain way, and suddenly that’s the ONLY way we think God can operate for us. And everyone else. I can think of several examples but one or two that people use within their own dictionaries is ‘what do you have in your hand/house?’ ‘those who don’t work should starve to death’ – while defining work as something akin to their hustle, or that of anyone else’s that is in conformity to theirs. i.e. what God called the ones who believe Him to do is not work but errrr…a hobby, entertainment… So what happens to the ones without hands and houses? Is God limited to creating something from ONLY that which is already in existence? And WHO GETS TO LIMIT HIM TO THAT? Me? You? Bosses? Kings? Others? God forbid!!!!

He has done things that way before, may be doing things that way and will probably do so in the future, but that’s NOT HIS ONLY WAY. He remains UNCHANGEABLY ALPHA AND OMEGA – THE BEGINNING AND THE END. MEANING, what He did in the beginning, speak order and excellence into that which was dark and formless, He HAS NOT LOST THE ABILITY TO DO NOW… IN ANY PLACE WHERE DARKNESS, FORMLESSNESS AND DISORDER EXISTS. And beyond these boundaries.

Back to the scripture quoted above – am asking myself this question this morning, what/who of mine, is in hell literally and symbolically today? What battle have I lost to darkness, that seems sealed and settled there? God, in His Fullness, in that Might/Power that He makes available to you WHEN YOU BELIEVE – not when you dare Him , we are not His equals/superiors to dare Him – is able, and had already removed someone from Hell to Heaven. Oh as I write this I hear in my spirit a rumbling that terrifies and yet comforts and settles. #HalleluJah .

What of yours is in Hell that you can believe Him to relocate to Himself? Oh God forbid that you and I would then go back to thinking that anyone/anything else could determine anything over us in Faith. Don’t go back into perdition – let’s march into our salvation.

Shalom

“God has spoken once,

Twice I have heard this:

That POWER belongs to God.”

Psalm 62:11

vipslit@yahoo.ca

Christmas by a Child

“…And a little child shall lead them.” Isaiah 11:6

 

Never have the words of the above scripture verse been as true for my household as it has been this past few weeks. And such a true delight. But particularly in the last few days. Christmas this year has been difficult to celebrate – not because of the debates around its origins and the true dates of the birth of The LORD Jesus Christ ( I am one of those who are of the opinion that dates are details when it comes to this – the fact that He came, and the impact of His coming to me and mine, and indeed the larger Household of God are worth celebrating) but just how the year 2019 has been.

December came with many still reeling from the year’s devastating whirlwinds. Particularly with grief over loss of loved ones and property, and heavy questions about the morrows…what, where and when. God was not really silent for us, but seemed to be over the issues that stabbed continually at our open wounds. Fatigue came, with it a sense that we were walking through the surreal…indeed the unreal, because storms were not known to run this intense – this long. But it was in this month that each member of my household found themselves seeking God together in late night prayer meetings. The most awake, and the most active during these beautiful encounters with God has been our ‘little one’.

It was he that shouted out his prayers (I wonder why toddlers rarely speak in low tones) and decided the order of service – including who prayed when. His thoughts over the scriptures we have read as well as his prayers have been simple and profound. So much so that we would giggle as we ‘Amen’ed at his pure and selfless requests. He had heard that God had a birthday coming up so his daily prayer would be “Heavenly Father…Your Birthday. Give us a party.” The rest of us were concerned about rent, bills, food and fees – the usual culprits – BUT GG wanted a party – A Birthday Party for God. Ok…

Christmas midnight found us in prayer, and led by him, we sung the birthday song for Dear Jesus and then went to sleep. I woke up a few hours later wondering what to do about God’s Birthday party. I was not really in a party mood. I had spent the last two days with my aunt and family over the loss of my cousin Sussy – whose funeral is this Friday. I was also thinking about those with no homes in Kisii, Tassia, Pokot, Nyando and the various places in Kenya for whom December had meant burials etc. I actually intended to engage in a fasting prayer for the nation but God spoke up and said ‘Not Today.’. There was not a drop of food in the house so I got up, bathed and went out to hunt. Driven by the Spirit inspired prayers of a little child. By the time he and his mum were up, breakfast was available. Leroy and I are early risers.

It was a slow day, but Gio was determined to jump-start it by dragging about the box that had the Christmas decorations from yester-years begging us to put up the lights and blow balloons until we gave in at around 4pm. And then he honors our efforts by drawing us all in to marvel at the lights as we sung again ‘Happy Birthday Dear Jesus’. Honestly, I don’t think I have ever lived through a more profoundly meaningful Christmas ‘party’ than this one.

God bless my little drummer boy. God bless the little child. God bless you for honoring God, with either a fast or a feast ton this day that is dedicated to Him. Amen.

#GodinTheDetails

vipslit@yahoo.ca