Thursday night was Fascinate. It was quite a different experience than usual. Very personal. Oftentimes God will speak to us as a group or give several of us the same verse or similar visions, but last night He spoke to us each on a highly individual level. It was quite peaceful.
...For the most part, anyway.
Okay. Here goes. But before I tell you what I saw, I have to say this: PLEASE read everything I'm about to say before you judge, question, or raise an eyebrow! At first, I was quite taken aback by the whole thing, but it really came around in the end, so hear me out. :)
Towards the beginning of the night, I was communing with the Lord. Hadn't really seen anything in the spirit yet; just been getting into worship. As I went deeper, I had a sudden vision that really unsettled me. I saw the Lord standing before me. He had a staff in His hands. Out of nowhere, he started hitting me with it! There I was just chilling and Jesus starts beating me with this staff! I was literally shaking and jumping with every blow. The interesting thing is that every time he hit me, I heard the verse, "spare the rod, spoil the child." In shock, I opened my eyes to the physical world around me and tried to shake it off. A moment later I returned to that same vision, but to see Jesus putting down the staff. He came over to me and loved on me; He petted my hair and wiped my tears. Then I saw Him wrap me up tightly in white cloth from my neck to my feet. Amazingly enough, I didn't feel constricted. The action was healing and comforting.
When the vision ended, I was definitely unsettled. God is Love, right? I know that He tests us and burns away the dross and all that stuff, but that was a little far for me. Not something I like to think about. Every time I've seen Jesus in the spirit, it's always been positive and revolved around His loving nature... So this was weird. The bad thing on my part was that even though I had the feeling that the vision was from God, I wanted to pass it off as being an attack from the enemy or just some wacky thing I made up in my head. Basically, I had zero understanding and chose to ignore God-- which is a very unwise thing to do, by the way.
Worship continued and I had more visions. Good, nice, love filled visions. Now He was speaking my language! I forgot all about the first one, deliberately deciding it was "nothing."
However, right before we were going to leave later that evening, a friend in the group said something (I wish I remembered what) that acted as a confirmation that the vision was from God. I shared, hoping for direction and understanding. What I got was a bible verse that was pretty ridiculously accurate and explanatory. Here's what Job 5.17-18 says:
"How happy is the one whom God reproves; therefore do not despise the discipline of the Almighty. For He wounds, but He binds up; He strikes, but His hands heal."
Wow. Light bulb. The Lord wasn't showing me mindless violence, but discipline. He is our Father, after all. And what do fathers do? They discipline in love. They discipline so as to make their children grow up in a right way. When a parent spanks their child in love, the point is guidance, not punishment alone. He wounded me, but then he bound me up-- literally; from neck to toe. Even Christ was called into obedience through his sufferings (Hebrews 5.8). If Jesus, who was God physically walking on earth, had to endure suffering to become obedient, why shouldn't I have to endure the same?
The bottom line is this (something I think I'd grasped but maybe hadn't understood so clearly before): We should not mourn in our sufferings, but rejoice in God's discipline. If not for His discipline and loving guidance, how could we grow in His ways? I don't know about you, but no matter what it takes, I want to be like Jesus. I want to be continually cleansed and purified--even if by fire--so that my body is an acceptable dwelling place for the Holy Spirit. His ways are not my ways, but I want them to be. That's the cry of my heart, and how else but through discipline?
Lord, I offer myself to you. Take all of my brokenness and make me new. Search my heart for anything that is not of you and break me of it however you choose to. I welcome your discipline. With all my heart; with all I am, I beseech you... Make me more like Christ.
Amen.
Peace, Love, and Christ
Kharis
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Only God could come up with this stuff...
So I'm reading this book called The Modern Seer. Great book, by the way. In the second or third chapter (I don't remember which) the author (Jim Driscoll) explains thinking metaphorically and the concept of understanding the things God is showing you. Often, we discount the things He shows us because we don't initially understand it. Driscoll suggests an exercise to kind of bulk up your understanding of How God speaks:
First ask God to show you something you don't understand. Then when He does, ask Him to explain it to you.
Well of course I did it!
Before we go into that, let me preface it with this: I've been realizing lately that while the Lord often drops random visions in my head, He also works with my own imagination a lot. I am a very visual thinker and a lot of times if I am thinking of someone, the Lord will use the mental image I have already created and then lead it into something else. For example, I once was thinking of a friend, Rebekah. In my head, she was just standing there. Then all of a sudden she began to do something else randomly and the Lord began to speak with me about her. The vision and words that He gave me turned out to be right on for what she was experiencing at the time.
Having said that, I will tell you that in the exercise, I purposely pictured my husband. I asked the Lord to show me something I didn't understand about Jordan. I'm not gonna lie, I was confused. I saw Jordan with a scared look on his face and his hands around his neck like he was choking. On his chest were some really big, colorful, pretty butterfly wings. Weird, yes?
I inquired about it and heard the Lord say, "He's afraid to fly." I told Jordan, who then asked me to ask the Lord why he was afraid to fly. I asked and then heard, "I'd be afraid too if my wings were in the wrong place!"
Oooookay? What? I then closed my eyes and asked Him where the wings were supposed to be. I saw Jordan tear the wings off of his chest, throw them in the trash, and then lift off the ground and fly. Still confused.
Finally I asked the Lord straight up, "God, what are the wings?"
He said back, "Religion." Jordan and I talked about it and wanted to test it just to make sure I heard right and that it really was God saying it. We exchanged comments about how we couldn't wait to see what kind of metaphor He used this time. I asked my final question, "God, does religion belong in the garbage?" To which he replied...
"Duh."
I laughed like crazy.
After everything was said and done, the wacky picture He gave me made a lot of sense, especially considering some of the struggles Jordan has had with religious habits and spirits of religiousness. In the end, religion is something that we put on because it looks good outwardly and because we think it will help us draw closer to God (butterfly wings are pretty and seemingly would help you to fly). However, the truth is that all it does is cause fear (of what others think, of condemnation, etc.) and keeps you from true fellowship with the Lord. Once you put religion where it belongs (in the trash!) you can really go higher in your relationship with God. Who'd have thought that some backwards butterfly wings would mean all of that?
Only God is crazy enough to come up with this stuff.
Try this exercise for yourselves! We all have spiritual eyes, even if we all don't see in the same way. You might be surprised what He shows you. :)
Peace, Love, and Christ
Kharis
First ask God to show you something you don't understand. Then when He does, ask Him to explain it to you.
Well of course I did it!
Before we go into that, let me preface it with this: I've been realizing lately that while the Lord often drops random visions in my head, He also works with my own imagination a lot. I am a very visual thinker and a lot of times if I am thinking of someone, the Lord will use the mental image I have already created and then lead it into something else. For example, I once was thinking of a friend, Rebekah. In my head, she was just standing there. Then all of a sudden she began to do something else randomly and the Lord began to speak with me about her. The vision and words that He gave me turned out to be right on for what she was experiencing at the time.
Having said that, I will tell you that in the exercise, I purposely pictured my husband. I asked the Lord to show me something I didn't understand about Jordan. I'm not gonna lie, I was confused. I saw Jordan with a scared look on his face and his hands around his neck like he was choking. On his chest were some really big, colorful, pretty butterfly wings. Weird, yes?
I inquired about it and heard the Lord say, "He's afraid to fly." I told Jordan, who then asked me to ask the Lord why he was afraid to fly. I asked and then heard, "I'd be afraid too if my wings were in the wrong place!"
Oooookay? What? I then closed my eyes and asked Him where the wings were supposed to be. I saw Jordan tear the wings off of his chest, throw them in the trash, and then lift off the ground and fly. Still confused.
Finally I asked the Lord straight up, "God, what are the wings?"
He said back, "Religion." Jordan and I talked about it and wanted to test it just to make sure I heard right and that it really was God saying it. We exchanged comments about how we couldn't wait to see what kind of metaphor He used this time. I asked my final question, "God, does religion belong in the garbage?" To which he replied...
"Duh."
I laughed like crazy.
After everything was said and done, the wacky picture He gave me made a lot of sense, especially considering some of the struggles Jordan has had with religious habits and spirits of religiousness. In the end, religion is something that we put on because it looks good outwardly and because we think it will help us draw closer to God (butterfly wings are pretty and seemingly would help you to fly). However, the truth is that all it does is cause fear (of what others think, of condemnation, etc.) and keeps you from true fellowship with the Lord. Once you put religion where it belongs (in the trash!) you can really go higher in your relationship with God. Who'd have thought that some backwards butterfly wings would mean all of that?
Only God is crazy enough to come up with this stuff.
Try this exercise for yourselves! We all have spiritual eyes, even if we all don't see in the same way. You might be surprised what He shows you. :)
Peace, Love, and Christ
Kharis
God thinks ahead!
The very first vision the Lord ever gave me went like this:
I was laying in bed several months ago talking to Jordan on the phone. All of a sudden, with my eyes closed I saw a box kind of etched out with some scratchy looking writing on the inside. There were several words, but it happened so quickly that the only thing I could make out was the number "7" and the word "door."
Well, I went to sleep thinking about it and woke up thinking about it. I decided to go to the best source-- the word of God! I flipped open to the concordance in the back of my new bible and searched the pages until I found the word, "door." Hey, what do you know. The first verse listed was Matthew 7, verse 7. Coincidence? Nah. No such thing.
So Matthew 7.7 says this: "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you."
Ever since I got that verse, I've been waiting on Him to tell me why He gave it to me. In my limited experience, God doesn't really show you things for no reason. Even if the purpose is only to bless you, there's still a purpose behind it. Well, up until a week ago He left me in the dark about that one.
I was at a weekly meeting Jordan and I attend. It's called Fascinate, and the purpose is multifaceted, but it really boils down to seeking the Lord's face, releasing His glory, and ultimately physically being with God. Some really cool stuff has happened at these meetings and you'll probably notice the name "Fascinate" quite often in my writings. Anyway, last week I opened my notebook, wrote "Fascinate" at the top of the page and then proceeded to record the date. Guess what it was! 7/7!
Of course as soon as I wrote "7/7" I thought of the verse God had given me. I asked if He wanted me to share and got a "yes" so I did. Matthew 7.7 was exactly on target for that particular gathering. As the Lord has done before with others in the group, He gave me a verse that flowed with the direction that meeting was going. Later I asked Him, "God, did you give me that verse so many months ago just so I could share it tonight?"
The answer was yes. Our God sure does think ahead-- way ahead!
This same night some cool, yet kind of scary things happened. I got a word from our friend Mike about blessing in persecution. The Lord impressed it upon him to remind me that blessed are those who are persecuted in the name of Christ. Mike told me that when someone persecutes me, to take it as a blessing and then give a blessing. He gave me this verse. 1 Peter 3.9.
"Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing."
The point was that sometimes the blessing we inherit is the persecution. So take it as a blessing and don't pay back with further evil, but rather with more blessings! Only God could think this stuff up, right?
I hadn't experienced anything recently that made Mike's word resonate to me, but during worship I got something from the Lord that makes me believe He is preparing me to handle such persecution. I had a vision of Christ being beaten and whipped. It was very vivid and very brutal. I saw this go on for a few minutes, and as it was playing out before me, my friend Will began to pray out loud. He was speaking to the Lord about wanting Him. At one point He said, "God, we want you. We want all of you. We want everything you have!"
In agreement I cried out, "Yes, Lord!"
At this point I was still seeing Christ being beaten. Immediately after I spoke, I heard the Lord say, "Remember-- that means you want my suffering too."
Ha. Of course at this point, I was like, "AH! Wait! What did I just agree to again?"
Ha. Of course at this point, I was like, "AH! Wait! What did I just agree to again?"
So that's that. From my perspective, God must be preparing me for something. I don't know what yet, but I'd like your prayers. Don't get me wrong; I don't necessarily want to be spared the persecution. My flesh is fearful, but I would rather suffer for Christ and The Father's will than live a life of complete and total ease while going my own way. No, the prayers that I'll be depending upon now are those that beseech the Lord to be with me and comfort me through whatever I go through. I pray that whatever I encounter, He would give me the strength to handle it with grace and always, always act loving towards others, no matter what their actions. Scary, but whatever it takes for His glory.
Thanks for the thoughts and prayers. Love you all.
Peace, Love, and Christ
Kharis
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Manifestations of His presence
I've been trying to figure out where to start. Beginning this whole thing almost a year after it started happening means I've got a lot of stories built up.... So do I talk about my personal favorite? My husband's favorite? The most epic instance? Where do you begin with something like this that has gone on for so long and is so incredible?
Not a clue. So I prayed about it. I sat down and asked the Lord, "God, what should I write? What would you have me do?"
And as He usually does, He answered with His own question: "What have I been doing?"
So I take that as "this blog starts with right now." And what God has really been doing most recently is giving us manifestations of His presence and signs of His anointing. For those of you who don't know what that means, it means that at some time (whether in prayer or worship or what-have-you) God showed up, and there was physical evidence of His being there. In layman's terms, He came and "stuff" appeared. In terms of the anointing, basically there were physical signs of God entering in and preparing us to do something. Pretty awesome.
So here's what happened.
Jordan (my husband) and I lead worship at our life group every other Sunday night. Usually we practice on Sundays between about 3 and 5. So almost two weeks ago, we left our little cottage and headed over to Highland Coffees to take advantage of the free internet and look up some guitar tabs. Before we began, we prayed that the Lord would come and be with us as we practiced and that He would prepare us for our worship that night. Now one thing you need to understand about God-- He sure does deliver. He doesn't seem to take those kinds of requests lightly! We practiced and what do you know, God shows up. As we sat outside playing our hearts out beneath the intense Louisiana sun, I definitely felt His presence. Entering into a time with the Lord was awesome, as usual. But when it got too hot for us and we decided to leave in search of air conditioning, He did something a lot of people would think pretty unusual.
All we did was pick up our guitars and walk to the car. I didn't touch anything but the car door and my instrument. I didn't walk under anything but the open sky. It was a short trip from the table at which we sat to our little Nissan, with no opportunities to come in physical contact with anything, really. And yet, as I sat next to my guitar, I noticed something. There was, out of nowhere, a puddle of oil on the head of the guitar. Not kidding. Oil! Definitely a sign of the anointing if there ever was one. And it gets better. Upon investigation, I touched the oil with my fingertips. And when I looked at my fingers I realized that my hands were covered in sparkly gold dust. Ordinarily I would have been like, "What the heck did I get on my hands?" But I had recently heard of God causing gold dust to miraculously appear in other places (watch Finger of God by Darren Wilson. It'll change your world!) and had in fact been praying that He would bless me with the privilege of witnessing something similar. This coupled with my absolute surety that I had touched nothing since the last time I looked at my hands led me to the only possible conclusion: GOD IS AWESOME.
Of course I got attacked by some doubt and unbelief. I got thoughts like, "What if you did touch something and don't remember? What if somehow oil was on something else and dripped on your guitar?" even though I knew that in the circumstances either of those explanations were pretty much impossible.
Thankfully, God did something else to totally shut those speculations down.
July 4th, I was sick. I had a terrible and horribly painful infection. My husband, being the wonderful, godly, and faithful creature he is, led us in prayer together. For about 15 minutes we prayed deeply in the spirit that God would bring His healing power into my body and cast out any spirits of infirmity that may have attached themselves to me. It was very powerful. When we had said our final "In Jesus' name, amen," I looked up at Jordan and he told me that I had sparkles appear under my eyes. I've experienced this many times before, I think as an indication of the seeing gift. Anyway, so then in excitement he suggested, "let's check our hands!"
Unfortunately there wasn't a single thing on our hands. Not even a glimmer. I just kind of thought, "Oh well," and was ready to move on. Jordan though, kept staring at his palms and said, "Lord, give us gold dust!" I kid you not, AS SOON as he said that, gold dust began to appear on both of our hands! We stared in amazement as it went from nothing to a few little clusters to a fine dusting all over our palms and fingers. Then, as if that wasn't enough, oil began to seep out of our fingertips. Soon our entire hands were covered by a thin layer of oil. We could see the shine. We could feel it when we rubbed our fingers together. There was no room for doubt or unbelief in this circumstance because we watched the whole thing happen! From nothing to something in a few measly seconds. It was hands down one of the most awe-inspiring experiences of my entire life.
One last thing I feel God wants me to share. A few days before the last instance, I was sitting in the shower praying. Basically I just wanted to be with the Lord; I was asking Jesus, "Hey, you can just let me come visit you in Heaven right now if you want!" Sadly, that didn't quite happen, but He did give me a vision. I saw a view of the brightest, crispest, greenest grass you could ever see and then a lovely sky above. The perspective was as if I was laying on my stomach in the grass and looking only straight ahead, not upwards. I saw the feet of a man walking forward through the grass right in front of me. Internally I knew that the man was Christ. He walked gracefully and his robes fluttered a little in the slight breeze. That was all. Very simple, very calming. But immediately after that I began to smell cinnamon or some kind of sweet spice like that. In my bathroom. Weird? Yes. My nose became desensitized to it after a while, but after I left to go get dressed and came back, I could smell it again. Every time I got within two feet of my bathroom I could smell that delicious, lingering, spicy aroma. Even if I didn't get to visit heaven, it sure smelled like heaven.
Here's the kicker verse (which I had only been introduced to a few days prior). Psalms 45.7-8 says, "Therefore God, your God, has annointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions; your robes are all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia."
Robes? Myrrh? Yeah.
So there's even more physical signs of the Lord's presence; not through sight, but through smell. My original conclusion stands. GOD IS AWESOME.
Be blessed until next time!
Peace, Love, and Christ
Kharis
Not a clue. So I prayed about it. I sat down and asked the Lord, "God, what should I write? What would you have me do?"
And as He usually does, He answered with His own question: "What have I been doing?"
So I take that as "this blog starts with right now." And what God has really been doing most recently is giving us manifestations of His presence and signs of His anointing. For those of you who don't know what that means, it means that at some time (whether in prayer or worship or what-have-you) God showed up, and there was physical evidence of His being there. In layman's terms, He came and "stuff" appeared. In terms of the anointing, basically there were physical signs of God entering in and preparing us to do something. Pretty awesome.
So here's what happened.
Jordan (my husband) and I lead worship at our life group every other Sunday night. Usually we practice on Sundays between about 3 and 5. So almost two weeks ago, we left our little cottage and headed over to Highland Coffees to take advantage of the free internet and look up some guitar tabs. Before we began, we prayed that the Lord would come and be with us as we practiced and that He would prepare us for our worship that night. Now one thing you need to understand about God-- He sure does deliver. He doesn't seem to take those kinds of requests lightly! We practiced and what do you know, God shows up. As we sat outside playing our hearts out beneath the intense Louisiana sun, I definitely felt His presence. Entering into a time with the Lord was awesome, as usual. But when it got too hot for us and we decided to leave in search of air conditioning, He did something a lot of people would think pretty unusual.
All we did was pick up our guitars and walk to the car. I didn't touch anything but the car door and my instrument. I didn't walk under anything but the open sky. It was a short trip from the table at which we sat to our little Nissan, with no opportunities to come in physical contact with anything, really. And yet, as I sat next to my guitar, I noticed something. There was, out of nowhere, a puddle of oil on the head of the guitar. Not kidding. Oil! Definitely a sign of the anointing if there ever was one. And it gets better. Upon investigation, I touched the oil with my fingertips. And when I looked at my fingers I realized that my hands were covered in sparkly gold dust. Ordinarily I would have been like, "What the heck did I get on my hands?" But I had recently heard of God causing gold dust to miraculously appear in other places (watch Finger of God by Darren Wilson. It'll change your world!) and had in fact been praying that He would bless me with the privilege of witnessing something similar. This coupled with my absolute surety that I had touched nothing since the last time I looked at my hands led me to the only possible conclusion: GOD IS AWESOME.
Of course I got attacked by some doubt and unbelief. I got thoughts like, "What if you did touch something and don't remember? What if somehow oil was on something else and dripped on your guitar?" even though I knew that in the circumstances either of those explanations were pretty much impossible.
Thankfully, God did something else to totally shut those speculations down.
July 4th, I was sick. I had a terrible and horribly painful infection. My husband, being the wonderful, godly, and faithful creature he is, led us in prayer together. For about 15 minutes we prayed deeply in the spirit that God would bring His healing power into my body and cast out any spirits of infirmity that may have attached themselves to me. It was very powerful. When we had said our final "In Jesus' name, amen," I looked up at Jordan and he told me that I had sparkles appear under my eyes. I've experienced this many times before, I think as an indication of the seeing gift. Anyway, so then in excitement he suggested, "let's check our hands!"
Unfortunately there wasn't a single thing on our hands. Not even a glimmer. I just kind of thought, "Oh well," and was ready to move on. Jordan though, kept staring at his palms and said, "Lord, give us gold dust!" I kid you not, AS SOON as he said that, gold dust began to appear on both of our hands! We stared in amazement as it went from nothing to a few little clusters to a fine dusting all over our palms and fingers. Then, as if that wasn't enough, oil began to seep out of our fingertips. Soon our entire hands were covered by a thin layer of oil. We could see the shine. We could feel it when we rubbed our fingers together. There was no room for doubt or unbelief in this circumstance because we watched the whole thing happen! From nothing to something in a few measly seconds. It was hands down one of the most awe-inspiring experiences of my entire life.
One last thing I feel God wants me to share. A few days before the last instance, I was sitting in the shower praying. Basically I just wanted to be with the Lord; I was asking Jesus, "Hey, you can just let me come visit you in Heaven right now if you want!" Sadly, that didn't quite happen, but He did give me a vision. I saw a view of the brightest, crispest, greenest grass you could ever see and then a lovely sky above. The perspective was as if I was laying on my stomach in the grass and looking only straight ahead, not upwards. I saw the feet of a man walking forward through the grass right in front of me. Internally I knew that the man was Christ. He walked gracefully and his robes fluttered a little in the slight breeze. That was all. Very simple, very calming. But immediately after that I began to smell cinnamon or some kind of sweet spice like that. In my bathroom. Weird? Yes. My nose became desensitized to it after a while, but after I left to go get dressed and came back, I could smell it again. Every time I got within two feet of my bathroom I could smell that delicious, lingering, spicy aroma. Even if I didn't get to visit heaven, it sure smelled like heaven.
Here's the kicker verse (which I had only been introduced to a few days prior). Psalms 45.7-8 says, "Therefore God, your God, has annointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions; your robes are all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia."
Robes? Myrrh? Yeah.
So there's even more physical signs of the Lord's presence; not through sight, but through smell. My original conclusion stands. GOD IS AWESOME.
Be blessed until next time!
Peace, Love, and Christ
Kharis
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
And by the way. my name means "Grace..."
The simplest and clearest way to explain the whole purpose of my writing is something like this:
Everything I write is meant to spread the news of what God is doing in my life and the lives of those I know; to encourage and bless others; and most of all to give all the glory to My heavenly Father. Simple.
To understand the rest of it you'll have to understand God's work over the course of my life. I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior when I was 16 years old (praise the Lord!). Before that I was... Lost. Dead. Completely and utterly suffocated by sin. Even in that state, God had a plan for my life. He had special gifts for me that He would eventually teach me how to use to serve Him. He threw those gifts in as a part of me during my creation, and I was born with them. The thing is, gifts like that in the wrong hands can only be used against us. And whose hands are we in when we're not with God? Yeah... Those would be the devil's. Really bad hands.
So what's the gift? Seeing. That includes having visions and being able to actually physically see spiritual things and beings, among other things. How did that go wrong? Honestly, Satan used those gifts to terrify and torment me. I can remember at an early age being in my room at night and seeing horrible things right there next to me. There would be strange men hovering over my bed; gruesome looking creatures staring at me as I tried to go to sleep... Anything and everything that would possibly scare a kid, pretty much. Then sometimes I would close my eyes and have visions of my family being tortured or my house burning down or someone shooting me repeatedly. This probably began to happen when I was around 7 or so. In the morning, it was easy to convince myself that it was all my imagination. I knew well enough then that no matter how real everything seemed, only "crazy people" saw things. So I went through my childhood years struggling with immense fear and honestly, wondering if I was nuts. I was so afraid that I crawled into bed with my parents almost every night until I was at least 13 and even after that I still repeated this embarrassing behavior occasionally. I was terrified.
Fast forward to 20 years old (almost a year ago). From 16 to this point, I had stopped seeing things. No more visions. No more spirits. Nothing. Everything from my childhood I just chalked up to my being a huge scaredy cat and an active imagination. However, the truth was this: that when I became a Christian I no longer belonged to the devil. He could not choose to use my gift against me anymore. What I didn't realize during that time was that none of those things had gone away; they were just dormant until God, the true ruler of my life, chose to activate them.
When He did, I wanted to check myself into a loony bin. When you're an adult, you can tell the difference between real and imaginary. First the Lord began to give me visions. This I could have confused as being "just me" except for the fact that he was showing me events and actions that would not occur until a few minutes, an hour, or a day later than when I saw them. Cool. The Lord was giving me a little flair for the prophetic. I didn't mind. Up until a couple months before this, I had been pretty closed off to the Holy Spirit. I didn't really believe in spiritual gifts or anything like that. The prophetic thing was honestly a little bit of a shock to me. So imagine the first time I saw a spiritual being in broad daylight. I thought I was whacked out. Luckily, through the help of God, my then fiance (now husband), and many other brothers and sisters in Christ, I was able to get through it and gain understanding of what the Lord was beginning to do in my life.
Over the last year, the Lord has shown me many things and taken that gift to entirely new levels. I am seeing the power of God demonstrated daily. It's a blessing to be present in places that He is working. Overall, I feel extremely humbled and grateful to be used and to have the ability to encourage others.
I started this blog as an answer to Satan's lies-- That I have nothing valuable to say. That people won't want to hear it or won't believe me. That people are going to think I'm crazy. The mere fact that he attacks me in these areas gives me confidence that I am meant to speak out about what God is doing. Silencing the Lord's people is all part of stealing God's glory; and that's really what the devil wants. Recording the visions the Lord gives me here is a decision not to give in to that. I will not be silenced.
So there's the backstory for you. Hopefully you'll check in every once in a while to see some of the cool things God is up to. :)
Peace, Love, and Christ
Kharis
Everything I write is meant to spread the news of what God is doing in my life and the lives of those I know; to encourage and bless others; and most of all to give all the glory to My heavenly Father. Simple.
To understand the rest of it you'll have to understand God's work over the course of my life. I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior when I was 16 years old (praise the Lord!). Before that I was... Lost. Dead. Completely and utterly suffocated by sin. Even in that state, God had a plan for my life. He had special gifts for me that He would eventually teach me how to use to serve Him. He threw those gifts in as a part of me during my creation, and I was born with them. The thing is, gifts like that in the wrong hands can only be used against us. And whose hands are we in when we're not with God? Yeah... Those would be the devil's. Really bad hands.
So what's the gift? Seeing. That includes having visions and being able to actually physically see spiritual things and beings, among other things. How did that go wrong? Honestly, Satan used those gifts to terrify and torment me. I can remember at an early age being in my room at night and seeing horrible things right there next to me. There would be strange men hovering over my bed; gruesome looking creatures staring at me as I tried to go to sleep... Anything and everything that would possibly scare a kid, pretty much. Then sometimes I would close my eyes and have visions of my family being tortured or my house burning down or someone shooting me repeatedly. This probably began to happen when I was around 7 or so. In the morning, it was easy to convince myself that it was all my imagination. I knew well enough then that no matter how real everything seemed, only "crazy people" saw things. So I went through my childhood years struggling with immense fear and honestly, wondering if I was nuts. I was so afraid that I crawled into bed with my parents almost every night until I was at least 13 and even after that I still repeated this embarrassing behavior occasionally. I was terrified.
Fast forward to 20 years old (almost a year ago). From 16 to this point, I had stopped seeing things. No more visions. No more spirits. Nothing. Everything from my childhood I just chalked up to my being a huge scaredy cat and an active imagination. However, the truth was this: that when I became a Christian I no longer belonged to the devil. He could not choose to use my gift against me anymore. What I didn't realize during that time was that none of those things had gone away; they were just dormant until God, the true ruler of my life, chose to activate them.
When He did, I wanted to check myself into a loony bin. When you're an adult, you can tell the difference between real and imaginary. First the Lord began to give me visions. This I could have confused as being "just me" except for the fact that he was showing me events and actions that would not occur until a few minutes, an hour, or a day later than when I saw them. Cool. The Lord was giving me a little flair for the prophetic. I didn't mind. Up until a couple months before this, I had been pretty closed off to the Holy Spirit. I didn't really believe in spiritual gifts or anything like that. The prophetic thing was honestly a little bit of a shock to me. So imagine the first time I saw a spiritual being in broad daylight. I thought I was whacked out. Luckily, through the help of God, my then fiance (now husband), and many other brothers and sisters in Christ, I was able to get through it and gain understanding of what the Lord was beginning to do in my life.
Over the last year, the Lord has shown me many things and taken that gift to entirely new levels. I am seeing the power of God demonstrated daily. It's a blessing to be present in places that He is working. Overall, I feel extremely humbled and grateful to be used and to have the ability to encourage others.
I started this blog as an answer to Satan's lies-- That I have nothing valuable to say. That people won't want to hear it or won't believe me. That people are going to think I'm crazy. The mere fact that he attacks me in these areas gives me confidence that I am meant to speak out about what God is doing. Silencing the Lord's people is all part of stealing God's glory; and that's really what the devil wants. Recording the visions the Lord gives me here is a decision not to give in to that. I will not be silenced.
So there's the backstory for you. Hopefully you'll check in every once in a while to see some of the cool things God is up to. :)
Peace, Love, and Christ
Kharis
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