Two Ways of Living in Anticipation of the Latter Rain

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How many of us like John are praying for the latter rain of the Holy Spirit, while by our actions we are telling those around us that we don’t really believe?

Click on the title of the blog to read a pointed (for me anyway!) parable about the Latter Rain. God's really been prompting me lately to get serious about preparing my field for the approaching rain, and I thought this little illustration was a good way to sum up a important lesson.

Singularity

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In keeping with the theme verse of this blog, I thought I would direct your attention to this blog by Pastor Shawn Brace. He highlights some of the key circumstances that lead him to the conclusion that we're rapidly approaching this world's singularity.

Do you agree?

Excelsior

Intimations of the Ocean

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Our boundary-settting rights protect us from the seemingly overwhelming responsibility that would flow from a recognition of unity. This is, I think, a frightening form of the "oceanic feeling", intimations of which have reached us. We fear being "invaded," "taken over," not just by threats but by demands - the overpowering demands of those in pain and hunger all around us. We wall ourselves off from their cries - genuinely do not hear them most of the time, even though we "know" they are there - by telling ourselves that we are "within our rights," that rights define our obligations as well as our entitlements, and that as long as we have violated no one's rights, we are doing nothing wrong in our daily non-responsiveness...

From Law, Boundaries, and the Bounded Self by Jennifer Nedelsky

Study Subjects

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The experience of Enoch and of John the Baptist represents what ours should be. Far more than we do, we need to study the lives of these men,—he who was translated to heaven without seeing death; and he who, before Christ’s first advent, was called to prepare the way of the Lord, to make His paths straight.

Gospel Workers 51

The Ambulance Down in the Valley

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Have you ever read this little poem? Somehow I missed it when Teddy first posted it, but upon reading it today, I was really struck by the potency of the concepts it sets forth. There are a number of applications; in healthcare, in education, in the political arena, in humanitarian work, and perhaps most importantly in the spiritual realm.

God's prohibitions are fences. We often look at the Law as a constraint, as if there was a plethora of delights kept just out of reach on the other side of the fence, when in reality, it's meant to keep us from plunging off a dangerous cliff. More than that, I think we too easily succumb to a false feeling of claustrophobia, adopting the spurious notion that God's Law locks us into a narrowly enclosed pasture to keep us "safe." If we could just climb above the fog of the world, I think the view would look a little more like a vast garden, with a fence around one of the trees. . .

Excelsior