For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. (The Bible, NIV: Psalm 91:11)
I and My Father Are One
“My image is love.” The image of my heavenly Father portrayed most clearly by the visual image of a Son who came to earth as an ambassador for the Father. I and my Father are one, says Jesus. What does it really mean to be one? One in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
I cannot imagine what it was like from time eternal for the Father, Son and Holy Spirit to be one. Show me a better picture of that, Lord, for my own understanding.
I the Father have always been. You cannot even begin to comprehend what that means because you are not God. If I take you back even a few thousand years, you will hardly be able to grasp it, so that is as far as we will go, not back eons of time when we were creating, and creating and creating. One day you will see just the tiniest glimpse of what we created when you are invited home – home to spend forever with Me, when you will experience time travel (or actually no time travel, since time will be meaningless to you as it is already for Me). The only thing that has meaning in terms of time will be the weekly celebration of My Holy Day when all my people will come before Me and My Son Jesus to celebrate the forever rest you will have.
I know you get tired at times. I can see the struggles you’ve been having over the past few months as you have been on your gradual back-to-work program. I see you come home at night and have no energy for anything. All you want to do is lie down and sleep, and you know what happens when you do that – you continue to perpetuate the cycle of a late afternoon nap followed by not being able to sleep at night, followed by a very tiring day at work the next day.
Remember The Bull?
But you won’t need to go through that when you are safe in my kingdom. You will have the energy of your childhood, when you loved to run and play, exploring the mountain trails and paths, running down sawdust piles and playing bakery in the creek bed. You have probably forgotten a lot of the memories of those days, haven’t you? But I have not forgotten.
I watched you and your sister and brothers with such joy as you played in a world where you felt safe. You knew Me with your childlike understanding and trusted Me as a young child does. Remember the day, the Sabbath day, when your aunt and uncle and older cousins were having a nap and you were outside playing.
Remember the little red cowboy jacket with fringes on the arms. Remember the cows and the bull coming down the dirt road. Remember the bull stopping not far away from where your brother had you tied up to the tree. And the bull prepared to charge. What went through your head at the time?
Who Really Saved You from the Bull?
I know, I am Your father – you cried out in silence to Me to save you. Your brothers and sisters were screaming for help and your aunt came out the door of the cabin. She paused for a moment. You didn’t know it then, but I can tell you now because you have grown. She was terrified. She thought the bull was going to gore you to death.
She sent up a quick prayer for help, and then her eyes lighted on a large bone lying only a few steps away. She picked it up and with the aim of a star baseball player, she hurled it at the bull, and hit him on the shoulder. The bull turned away and continued down his path.
So do you think your aunt was that skilled at baseball? How many times did you see her throw a ball or anything else with such accurate aim? She was always proud that she had made the bull turn away, as she related the story over the years.
But she didn’t speak aloud of what she knew in her heart – that I answered her silent prayer. I gave her the strength to hurl that bone – would you believe, I even made a few adjustments in the trajectory so it landed in just the right spot.
But something she didn’t know and none of the rest of you knew all this time – at the same time as she made her mark, your angel was there too and synchronously at the moment that bone hit, moved that bull’s head and body in a new direction.
Really, all of you thought a bone could make enough impact to move several tonnes of solid mass in a specific direction? Think again. I know – you didn’t like physics in school and didn’t do well in it (yes, I saw the exam paper you got back that day with the big 0 percent mark splashed across the first page. Ouch, how did you manage that one with all the intelligence I gave you?) But I think you can figure out that one bone does not have enough mass to turn a very heavy object. So there had to be something else.
Oh, sometimes I wanted so badly to let my angels reveal themselves to you, to let you see that you were safe in my hands. But it would have spoiled all the mystery and fun. After all, how many women can tell a tale of how they turned a huge bull away from killing a child because of their own strength and accurate aim? So Aunt K carried the story in her heart of her prayer, knowing I had answered. For some reason, she didn’t share the revelation I gave her during those few minutes. She needed to think about it before she actually realized that I had answered her prayer.
And I had answered your prayer too, sitting there staring down the face of a massive bull, helpless as your hands were bound by your brother’s rope. I know what went through your heart during that time and after. You were feeling guilty – you thought you deserved to die. You were out playing and it was my Holy Sabbath Day and you were playing “Cowboys and Indians”. You were taught that games like that were not appropriate. You thought you should either be sleeping like the adults or sitting in the house reading the Bible. How old were you then – only eight? A child – my child outdoors enjoying the beautiful things I had created for your pleasure! A few minutes of a childish game, using your imaginations as you played, and now you were condemning yourself, thinking the bull had been sent to punish you.
Live with Joy
Oh, how much you have to learn of Me and of My love for you. You missed so much because you were bound by the rules of the Pharisees. Yes, I know you didn’t live with Pharisees, they lived two thousand years earlier, but you and your family somehow managed to create Pharisees in your lives anyway. And missed so much joy because of it. How sad for you. How sad for Me.
So now do you want to live like a Pharisee or to live with joy? I hope it’s the latter this time.
