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- Written by: Don Goulding
Worship God, for the testimony about Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. (Revelation 19:10)
A blast of wind slammed the slate-blue sea. A wave was pushed up, but no water traveled laterally as the wind’s energy leapfrogged through the liquid molecules. The water rose and fell, circled to where it began, then stayed behind as the wave passed on.
New winds pressed its back, and the wave increased to five meters. The great roller ran two thousand kilometers across the open sea toward its destiny. As it met the rising ocean floor for the first time, it hurled water in an open breaker. The kinetic energy that began weeks before, now combined with water, foam, and sand to crash against the coastal rocks, and die with a hiss.
The spirit of prophecy is a wave pushed up by the breath of the Holy Spirit. This isn't physical but spiritual energy, and so all the more real. It passes through our tangible existence evidenced only by a circle of earthly powers that briefly rise and fall. Prophecies about sin, righteousness, and judgment mount in indestructible power. For thousands of years, the wave has rolled toward the shore of end times.
The spirit of prophecy speaking through Isaiah, Daniel, John, and others, revealed that the spiritual energy will turn into physical signs and conflicts. In a final effort, the temporal will cast itself against the rock, Jesus Christ. Everything resolves with Jesus.
Even now the wave has reached the upwardly sloping floor of history. I feel the curl propelling me forward, tumbling me over, casting me at the feet of Jesus.
Prayer: Unstoppable God, carry me by the spirit of prophecy to Jesus.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
Even some of the wise will stumble, resulting in their refinement, purification, and cleansing until the time of the end, for it is still for the appointed time. (Daniel 11:35)
Tambudzai, with her beautiful white smile, was from the Shona tribe. She worked as a housemother at the orphanage in Zimbabwe. Dani gave Tambudzai yarn and discovered she could knit, without a written pattern, like no artist we’ve known. Regardless of fighting children, yammering coworkers, or singing songs, Tambudzai never lost track. If she changed one stitch in the bottom hem, it was the beginning of a pattern that would crisscross other cables to end at the shoulder.
God weaves the details of our lives into his pattern for history. Life may appear random with its disruptions and bad decisions, but, like Tambudzai’s knitting, God’s sovereignty never misses a stitch. Human failings and demonic mutinies become the contrast rows that raise up his beautiful purposes. The garment he is working has a shape and length he held in his mind from before the universe began.
The trouble I will encounter today won’t be a meaningless oversight. It will be a refining stitch dropped on cue so my response can be included in the grand design. My choices will embellish God’s eternal article.
Today’s test is already on its way, I see it coming. Now is the time to set my intentions to bring glory to Jesus. And yet, if I fail, the garment isn’t ruined. For the wise who seek God, he changes mistakes into stitches of learning. Even ugly failure becomes elegant victory. Such is the mastery of history’s Artist.
Prayer: Sovereign Lord, I celebrate your artistry in weaving my life into history.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
You give them drink from your river of delights. For with you is the fountain of life. (Psalms 36:8, 9) (NIV)
Poor thirsty creature, her tongue hung to the dust. My golden retriever stayed at my heel, but she kept glancing at the creek like she wanted to slide down the bank into the water.
“Just a bit more,” I said.
It was best if she held her thirst. We were headed home where our swimming pool brimmed with rainwater. And I knew my dog. She couldn’t lap up some creek and be on her way. Instead, she’d wade into it, tromp in the mud, and need a bath, which we both hated. So I kept her close. Still, the creek called to her.
My life story is in that dog’s thirst. In the Bible, water represents life, splashing, satiating life. The books of Ezekiel and Revelation give us peeks at the river of life flowing from the throne of God. I long to swim in that river. I’ve craved it all my days. Even the few drops now soothing my being are my world—they define the real me.
Along the trail, God’s earthly gifts provide murmurs of life. But the purity of those mouthfuls has been muddied by a fallen world, and by my own slopping in sin. I take clean pleasures and overindulge them into muck. Yet, my thirst continues so powerful I twitch, tempted to jump into the polluted trickle and get at life, now.
Then I hear the solace of Jesus. “We’re almost home. Bolting will only get you filthy and miserable. Stay by my side a little longer, because turquoise pools of living water await you.”
Prayer: Great Companion, I’m ready for the plunge, but help me wait