Fast and pray

Dear friends,

I have come to a new season where I have feasted hungrily on revelations that God has brought to my attention, and as I serve in ministry, and serve in various prayer, healing and ministry settings, I have come to realise that I am indeed close to God's heart, and through the last few years have drawn close enough to see visions and hear His voice, and manifest healing, and all in all, this experience is wonderful, but it is not nearly enough! I have only just tasted and seen that the Lord is good!

And so, this past week, as I needed to clear my head and make some decisions in life, I had spent it fasting and praying. I had fasted from meat, from people, from entertainment, from electronic communication and social media, and during the time that I fasted, I spent time praying, soaking, pouring over my Bible, and meditating on all of it, and had done nothing else but to draw close to God. Answers and revelations came easily, and I was able to recenter my life on God, as well as discover several wonderful ways of connecting deeper into the Word. Namely, soaking while reading aloud and going over the same scripture over and over again. As well as personalising the Word, by writing my interpretation of it, visualising it happening, and turning some of it into personal prayers to pray over myself. All of which has helped me grow in my intimacy with God and Jesus. Which is amazing! So amazing, in fact, that I have decided to continue this fast, though I will be eating meat again, but I have now lost interest in much of the ways that I spent my idle or resting time, and am going to dive into the Word whenever I can. Especially having received the message in Mark 4. That every Word I take and plant in my heart will manifest thirty, sixty or a hundred times over! I can't wait to be so firmly rooted in the Word that God himself manifests in my life!

And so, I'm going to spend a lot of time pouring over Scripture and it will help me grow, and at the same time, I will continue to seek to grow in practical ways as I continue my work in ministry.

Much love and blessings,

James

Majesty (Just Love)

by James Fung, 10/31/2016

Eat your fill, fill your heart.

Rest, my child. Next to me

Rest.

I lay my head on His lap

Looking up at His Glorious Face

Ten thousand stars, shining and all

All within those eyes

Uncomparable... undeniable.

Gentle. I can't..

Can't even describe

This feeling of majesty

Of indescribable peace and love

So majestic..

Yet, so simple

Your love, Lord

Breaches all barriers

Bridges all gaps

A million miles in the blink of an eye

Your eyes, Lord

Your love, Lord

I can see.. so crystal clear

Your voice, your love, your desire

For my life.

So clearly spoken..

In the silence; in the vacuum called Space

The twinkle of the stars; the twinkle in your eyes

Show me more, Lord.

Show me more.. show me all.

I only want Your best

Your best you will give.

Daddy, thank you.

Thank you for giving me

Your best love

Bite size love

Fill my heart slowly

Overflow slowly..

Grow my heart more, Lord

I don’t want to spill

I don’t.

It’s okay, my Child

Let it spill. Let it spill.

I will give you more than you’ll ever need

In every

Single

Drop.

So drink, my child.

Fill your heart.

Rest in my presence.

And just Love.

Growth

Dear friends,

I have grown so much in the past month that I cannot just cover in a short update. As I mentioned before, I have started working full time in the ministry setting, and I am being so blessed by it. My supervisor is very keen on pruning me, and as a result, I am being renewed every week and making changes in my life with thorns that have plagued me for a long time. As I prayed with more direction, discernment, as well as more faith, small miracles are happening in my life.

A few of the miracles I've experienced so far are:

Increased productivity
i) my reading speed has quadrupled, as I have been able to read faster and focus for longer
ii) my time awareness and management has improved, as I recognise that I am a steward of God's resources and that includes time. I have started to plan on the go, and to do a constant rundown of each day and each task, to ensure and repeat success.

Better relationships
iii) I have acquired more of a human touch, such that even strangers around me are warming up to me in a very short time, and people that I've known for longer are also yielding the way to their hearts.

Better discipline/Self-control
iv) I have gain discipline over the fear of hunger, as well as the sin of gluttony, as I have learnt that hunger without fear, pride or insecurity, is just a physical symptom, and while fasting, I can fully rely on God and His provision for my health and my needs. As a result of fasting, I have cut down my meals to healthy amounts with nutrition as a focus, rather than fullness.
v) I have also been shown that I have taken in certain destructive lies of the enemy, such as being transparent with emotions is equivalent to honesty, while it is just grounds for the enemy to reap destruction. So, in seeking to manifest more self-control in this domain, I'm working towards even more productivity and better relationships.

Greater understanding of God's Word
vi) From reading, memorizing and meditating on the Word, as instructed in Joshua 1:8, I have gained more insights on what the Word says, as well as opened new ways to gaining more truths. I'll share more about that in another update.
vii) I have been rereading God's promises and reciting those Scriptures to myself to keep myself in a constant state of joy and hope, which is exactly what God intends for us. Rather than focusing on the darkness that is happening, we are the salt and the light, we should focus on the God of hope and be brimming with joy and peace at all times (Romans 15:13).

Additional benefits
viii) As additional gains from the above blessings, I have more time, better relationships, and better health than ever before, and as a result of this, I am able to pick up a few hobbies that I didn't have time before. I now hit the gym once a week (will work up to twice a week when possible), picking up a new instrument, the Ukelele, for personal worship, reading and memorizing more of the Bible (something that I am adamant about now), and also reading the occasional book to invest into the future that God has planned for me.

As you can see, God is leading me to higher grounds and it's been an amazing adventure so far. I've also been doing a bit more writing on Facebook, just short devotions for my friends to share in my discernment. Not sure if God is calling me towards writing more, but I'll be writing my lengthy updates here and focusing on snippets of God's Word on Facebook.

Much love,

James

Fiction writing

Lately, I had been inspired by a friend to do a bit of fiction writing. So, here's an idea that I was playing with this morning. Enjoy.

Altar Call
by James Fung (July 4, 2016)

“Come on! Hurry up!”

I opened my eyes and looked around. What is this place? It’s so bright. Before I could figure it out, a hand grabbed my robe and dragged me along. Robe? I looked down, I was wearing a white robe with little specks of gold dust. Woah, that’s awesome!

“Leett uerr go!” I twisted around. “I can walk by myself.”

I was greeted with a weird smirk. “Walk, James? We’re flying.” And true to his word, we were indeed flying. I instinctively looked around his robe to where a name tag would normally be, and the letters P-e-t-e-r appeared in gold dust and quickly disappeared again. Oh, right. We’re in heaven again. Wait, does my robe do that too?

“Yeah,” answered Peter.  I laughed.  Seeing that I didn’t know how to fly, I let him lead me through the pearly white lanes and into a building. Not unlike Peter Pan at all. Pun not intended. Peter laughed too.

***

As soon as we entered the building, Peter nudged me towards a line of angels who were lining up to enter the Throne Room. I resisted the urge to glance at their robes, because I knew the gold dust would respond to my thoughts. I got to experiment a bit on the “ride” here. Made a little gold dust car go honk honk around my robe, and a gold dust shark do a little ballet with a seal. Such good fun.

So I lined up behind the last angel, and waited in line. The hall was massive, even for angels. The ceiling was far higher than most cathedrals that I have visited on earth, but I could still see it in details because I was in my heavenly body. So, I watched as clusters of busy bodied angels go on with their daily business, not unlike an office on earth. That is, if they all had wings.

The queue was moving quickly, and when I got to the head of the queue, an angel asked me, “Which flavour?”

“Uh…” I wasn’t sure what to say. “What flavours are there?”

The angel sighed. “Blueberry, strawberry, mango, grape, orange, and lime.”

“Oh, right. Blueberry please.” He pushed what looked like a blue tube into my hand, and the next one gave me a box of cards and directed me a seat.

Wow! It was like… a Bingo hall! No, it wasn’t “like” a Bingo hall. IT WAS A BINGO HALL. I laughed so hard. The angel next to me nudged me, “You better get ready. It’s going to start soon.” He gave me a serious look.

“Oh, right. Well, I don’t gamble. Aah….” I glanced at his robe. J-o-s-e-p-h. “..Joseph. So what should I do?”

He smiled. “Oh, right. You must be the new guy. Here, open up your box and let me show you what we are actually doing.”

I opened my box, and stared into a stack of bingo cards. Unimpressed, I took them out and laid them out in front of me. Then I took my “blueberry” dabber and planted it in the middle.

Grinning, Joseph took up his own “grape” dabber, and opened it from the top end, and took a sip. What? He took a sip? I looked around the hall, and surely enough, there were quite a few angels sipping from their dabbers. “Waiittt… what is that?”

“This… is a fruit juice dispenser. It comes in any form that you like.” He demonstrated by turning it into an icy and then into a lollipop. “But don’t eat from the other end, that side is really a dabber.”

Excited, I held the strange contraption in my hand. The power to mark and the power to slurp! I pictured a frozen jelly snack in the shape of a dolphin, and just as Joseph explained, it was there. Oh, and the taste is beyond heavenly!

Joseph cleared his throat. I didn’t know that you can do that in heaven.. clearing throats, but I turned my attention back to him. “The reason they designed these is so that we can have something to re-energize us as we do these all nighters.”

All nighters?! What? “Let me explain. They’re about to have an altar call at Sacred Heart Emmanuel Church at their annual rally in Indonesia, and when that happens, God is going to write down a bunch of numbers, and the archangels will be in charge of disseminating them to us. Our job is pretty easy.. as you probably can guess already.”

“We.. find those numbers and dab them with our dabbers!” Still high from the energy frosty.

“Yes, good boy. But make sure to only dab the number in your column, and to pass them in order down to the checkers.”

“What do they do with these numbers?”

“They pass them onto the spinner and tailor angels, and they prepare the robes and heavenly bodies for each saved soul that comes forward.”

Dumbfounded, I blinked.

***

When I opened my eyes again, I had returned back to my body on earth.

Let

Lord, may we never be numbed by the news.

Let us mourn for every life that is lost, and every person affected. Let us mourn for the hearts of those who committed the crime. Let us mourn, Lord. Let us surrender and seek Your heart in these matters, and let us surrender and come to You in prayer. For only You know the things that are unseen, only You know the plans you have for this world, for us. For only You know what brings You greatest glory, and what brings home your children. Let us mourn, Lord, but let us also pray. Let us move this nation in intercession, and into intercession. Let us move. This mountain. Together. With You. For we are your children. We are your children in name and in form; in our image, and in our spirit. We are your children. So as we hold our hands together, or raise our palms to You, Hold our hands together, Your mighty hands over ours. And impart upon us, Your wisdom, Your love, Your courage, Your peace. Your impartation upon us, into us, over us. Let us pray, let us rise, let us walk, let us fight. Knowing that You alone are our shepherd, our God. That You alone have saved us from death, And in You alone we have life. Joy. Peace. Victory. Let us walk. And walk with us to see Your kingdom here.

Prophesying Adventures

As I was saying, I received the green light to pray constantly for people and God is showing me visions as I do that. I've been having a really great time, just going back and forth with Him to get more details and more visions, and He's come through 100% of the time. A lot of the time, the visions show what the person is going through, which basically means, God knows your struggles, and He is here for you. Sometimes, it carries instructions, which is pretty amazing, and other times, it shows afflictions, which depending on the situation, I'm not allowed to share, and instead, I pray in intercession. It's pretty amazing. And now that I'm constantly receiving, I am able to discern what I should be sharing, and what I shouldn't, so He has lifted the rule that He gave me, and gave me more flexibility in discernment.

Over the past 2 weeks, I have had constant visions of the people around me, whether I know them or not, and it is because I have been constantly seeking Him in prayer for intercession. It's a bit like doing my homework, now that I have been taught a new skill, and so, as I continued to do this, I have worked out with God, or rather, He has taught me the way it will work now. First, I will approach Him and ask for what He may want to say about a person, then He would show me a series of visions (at request), as sometimes I won't understand them until He illustrates them with more variations. Then after He's told me the general idea of it, I would either seek Him for more details, again depending on the situation, and He would answer my questions in epiphany (sudden knowledge). After that, I would either pray for the person, or approach the person to share the vision, and offer to pray for them. As I do that, God will speak through me to reveal even more secrets. I've repeated this process on average 5-10 times a day, every day for the past 2 weeks. And just when I thought I got this, as everyone (100%!) I approached confirmed the accuracy of these visions. He went a step further, by giving me very detailed visions about people's lives, and it's only happened to two people so far, one each day of the weekend past, but I know how He is training me, and so I am excited once more for more teachings. This will be an amazing journey, indeed.

Funny side note, the people in my fellowship has started noticing my "Seeing" face, and it gives them the giggles, which is hilarious! Basically, I just space out and talk to the air a lot now. And as I continued to learn, I am also passing what I learn onto those around me. God is raising up a very powerful army of prayer warriors and intercessors.

Final reminders, as said in Ephesians 6:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Growth of a Sunflower: Fulfilment of prophecy

If you cast your mind back to October, I mentioned that I had a vision of Sunflowers on a Soccer Pitch at around March, and it was that I was staring at all these tall sunflowers and wondering whether I'd ever grow to be like them. People that were in my fellowship that have been there forever and had ministered to everyone in the group. Reliable, gifted in love, ministry, prayer and prophecy. And God had replied, I'll grow you as tall as these, and that was very encouraging.

Looking back now, I once again see myself on that soccer pitch, and as He had promised in slightly more than a year ago, I had grown to be one of the core flowers on the pitch. 

Recently, He's been growing me as a healer, something that I had also been praying for since I stepped foot into the Vine Church. One morning, I woke to His voice saying: "There, you're a healer now." And I understood His meaning, as I had taken up a new view of my gift in prayer and prophecy and had acted upon it. 

It is this: having realised that I am gifted in prayer and prophecy, I knew the only thing to do is to walk it in my life, and that means to pray whether I have something to share or not. It isn't the prophecy that requires me to pray or approach people, it is the need that people have for prayer. And since anyone can pray for anyone else, I had walked that into my walk, and when I do have prophetic visions or knowledge, I ease into it as part of my gifting. Our practice in faith, our presence, our faith and discipleship in God, is what makes us the Gift worth giving, not simply what we can offer in prophetic vision or knowledge that comes only from God. We ourselves are renewed and also from God, and we are also His hands and feet. If we don't do, and we don't walk, then it is just idle faith. Anyone can have those. Take courage, be strong, go forth as the Lord has already gone ahead of us.

So as I started to pray for people simply because I observe the need for prayer, whether there are physical issues, emotional issues, or spiritual, I offer to pray for people, and in response to that faithfulness, God had started pouring out an overflow of accurate visions for me to share with the people that I pray for. And it's been over a week since the day, Jesus said to me: "Go ahead, I'll do the work from now on, the visions will come as you open your heart and open your mouth."

And so, I'm very excited about what I'm experiencing right now, as He is indeed blessing me through this gifting to heal not only physical, but also emotional and spiritual issues. For it is not me at all, but Him who gives me the visions, then gives both myself and the recipient the decoder to apply it to their lives, and sometimes my own. I have long learnt to listen in when God is speaking through me, because of the hidden treasures that only He can reveal. It is such exciting times!

He has also been expanding my reach, not only have I grown in capacity to walk with my brothers and sisters in the Young adults fellowship, but He is also leading me to start to minister to members of the rest of the church. 

That's the update for now! Thanks for reading!

My Hug, His Embrace

A poem I wrote when my sleeplessness broke.

Praised be the LORD forever!

He is the giver of my peace

He knows just what I need

Halleluyah, Halleluyah!

Praise be to my King!

He rests me by the river

And leads me back to pastures green

He fills my cup with heavenly dew

It refills my soul, making me whole.

Forever, I am whole!

Forever I am HIS!

Forever I am Loved

Forever in His arms.

Hundred and eighty degrees I turn

I reached out to give him a hug

I embraced the air tightly

Knowing You are there

I close my eyes, and sigh

In your snug embrace

Around my shoulders

In my heart, in my soul

Clothe me with Your fragrance!

O heavenly dew of lavender and mint

And freshly trimmed grass 

A hint of the sweet, sweet fruit

O kiss me with the kisses of Your lips

Hug me and never let go

Whisper your words of love to me

My heart pounds with love and exhilaration

Your are my LORD, my LORD!

You are all I need. 

Your Grace is enough for me.

Your Grace is enough. Enough!

I thank You for this Grace

From the depth of your Embrace

I am beside myself with peace

Peace everlasting, ever calming.

Your hand on mine, I in yours

Holding my heart, holding my soul

I sigh.. sigh.. sigh

I am complete, 

Completed by you.

Completed in this hug

Completed, in Your Embrace.

The Power of Yes

Right now, the turns of events in my life completely affirms everything I've said about Free Will and How Prayer Works. Basically, when you love the Lord and the Lord loves you, His desires are your desires and when you bring them back to Him, He Will ALWAYS Say YES! This is the partnership that we have, this is the Will of God. This is how He envisioned our involvement in His work.

As you know, I have been job hunting. And for my job hunt, my criteria are simple. Either 1 of the following: i) the curriculum taught at the school should be outside mainstream, it should be something special that I can take with me when I go and open my own school (a desire that God has driven deep into my heart, to give not just AN education to his orphaned children, but THE BEST education), ii) the school should be close to my home, I want to spend more time with my parents, and iii) the school should be a REAL Christian school, not just a school based on "Christian values". Now, each of these respond to a core value that God has put into my heart, and so I would be okay to have just 1 of the 3 criteria to begin with, and will slowly work towards my two goals: i) my calling and ii) happy parents who are saturated with my love, and are willing to let me go on my calling.

Yesterday, I received a call from the Principal of a school that would fulfil all 3 criteria and more. It is a school that works with children that cannot fit into mainstream, and it is a school that pursues a curriculum that is the first of its kind in Hong Kong. A school not only focused on holistically healthy children, but also spiritually healthy children. A school that believes in inner healing and includes that in the education. For children to have inner healing and spiritual fortitude at such a young age, I am beside myself with tears and laughter. I couldn't stop crying even at the fact that they were considering me. Now, I knew they were a good school, but I didn't know about the inner healing bit until they called me. They wanted to know if my faith in God with similar to theirs, so they sent me a sermon to respond to. In the words of my friend, "even the selection process is Godly."

There is so much power when we say YES to God, because ultimately, it will lead to God saying YES to us. As I answered my phone, and the principal's voice came up with "Hi, this is Grace Christian Academy..", God spoke almost audibly into my other ear, "I affirm you for your faith." I could but stop myself from falling into tears. As I reflected on this today, I also looked back at some of the big answers to prayer that I have been receiving. The gift of singleness is something that I used to pray for as a teenager, and I received it again, almost audibly a couple of months ago at a seminar on Hearing God. A story for another time, but since then, I have had immense peace in this area of my life, and no longer have any wavering in my heart when it comes down to loving my sisters. I start to think of prayers that I have been praying for a long time coming, and at the very top of that list, I can remember prayers all the way up to i) the beginning of my faith journey, and ii) even before I became Christian. It doesn't matter, see, whether you were Christian when you started those prayers, what matters is if they were in line with what God has placed in your heart. The former is a prayer for my parents to accept Christ into their lives, and the latter is simply a repeated birthday wish since as young as my parents can remember (age 3-4), to have a happy family.

So when God asked me just now, "Do you believe in me?" I said, "Yes, I do, with all my heart." I want to see my parents filled with the same abundant joy and love that I have in my life and I want to see the same harmony that my parents have pursued to maintain in our family, but immeasurably more. Basically, I want God's harmony and love and peace and joy and hope and beauty to be so eminent in my home that it will overflow into every relationship from my home outwards. From me, to my parents, to my brother, to our relatives.. To the ends of the earth. Our lives are still young, there is still a lot of road ahead. So I dare to ask and imagine, and I dare to believe in the promises and the words spoken in Ephesians 3:20-21 and Acts 1:8.

"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen." - Ephesians 3:20-21

"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem [home], and in all Judea and Samaria [neighboring countries], and to the ends of the earth." - Acts 1:8

Free Will

Often as a Christian, I am asked “How does a God that has a plan for you factor in free will?” and I wouldn’t know the answer to that, but today, as I was contemplating something else, the answer donned on me.

Currently, I am in the process of job hunting, and as you would expect, I am “leaving much of it up to God”. Now how does one go about doing that? Personally, I have sought God’s will for me over the years, and I know it is to provide the best education for the least privileged, and it’s been a desire that He’s put on my heart for quite some time. So I would do my best in doing my job search and application process, guided by this desire. And then, when I receive offers, I will pray about it, and if there is peace in my heart at the end of the praying process, I would accept the offer.

This is pretty much the process I take when making every life decision, for example, what type of girl would I date, whether to date at all, where should I go to study, etc. At different times, God gives us a different desire to guide us through life. You can fight this desire and choose to do things your way, but  Scripture has promised, only those who are willing to listen will hear. (Mark 4:9) So, if you persist in choosing your own path, you will gradually hear less of God’s voice, and hence lose the desire to do things His way. But He’ll be there when you choose to come back.

In essence, God’s will and free will work together under 3 premises:

1. He gives you a desire to do what He knows is good for you.

2. He allows your choice in the matter, and allows preferences.

3. He does not force your hand, as He does not micro-manage (with the exception of when you’ve asked for intervention)

What’s amazing is the simplicity of the matter. By giving us a grand, persistent desire to do good, He doesn’t need to micromanage, and no matter what we choose in response to this desire would be good enough for Him to work with. This desire is as strong and weak as we allow it to be, and we have complete free will to desire the opposite of what He desires.

I am still working out the implications of this in my life, but I am fully confident to see where this desire leads me, with peace knowing that I won’t accidentally step off the path if I’m not careful. 

How prayers work

When miracles happen, I love tracing back to when I first prayed for them, and see how God works with prayers. Often times, I find that the time that God started working on it is even before I got the idea to pray for it, and the answer tends to come in such a way that makes me think that He said "Yes" to every single prayer I made on the subject, and with each the blessing multiplied. 

Which is why when you look at prayer on the macro-scale, everything you see happening in ministry now is rolled back to prayers being made 50-100 years ago, and it’s just starting to take effect. And the extent of His planning and careful ministry is incredible to make it all work. Starting with the desires that He puts in our hearts, to the prayers that we pray and the visions that He calls to us to intercede with, to the faith that we gain as we watch Him fulfil His promises. 

This is why, when people ask me “Why is God not putting me into the field right now?” that I can calmly say to them, “Be still and know that [He] is God. He has an extensive plan for each and every one of us, and while we are picking up the skills for Him to fully use us in ministry, there are people that He has already prepared going the ways that our desires are bursting towards. We will, in turn, continue that wave, but at His will, in His ways, at His timing.”

Calling and Direction (part 3)

God has a way of lining up my past, and my mistakes and regrets with His calling for me in the future. He's just redeeming every part of my life as we go along, and it's the beauty of having a loving and omniscient God.

One of the biggest mistakes that I feel that I've done in my past is something that led me to fall away from God altogether, and that was the time that I went on my own power to serve at a Christian home for the differently abled, namely the reason I had started this blog in the first place. Funny how things come around, and how He works. I can just laugh over all the salvage that He has done in my life. All those times where I went on a limb and did something I would regret for as long as I live. So in my memory of hurt, I had come on my own terms, served on my own strength, dabbled in work politics and work romance which led to my demise and early dismissal. Then it led to cohabitation and my leaving my faith altogether. If there was ever a place to use the words "crash and burn", this was it.

Well, I've come to healing over this whole episode this week, as I was led back to visit under unexpected circumstances. And now that I have prayed for healing, cutting ties, and had grown over these last few years, I can see what a blessing this place is to me. It modelled everything I know and believe in in terms of working in ministry, and everything I would want for what I am called to do in the future. It is my belief that God is calling me to set up a shelter/school somewhere and serve in providing for, loving, protecting and teaching children in bad places. And in view of this task, I had always wondered where I would go to learn all the logistics of doing so, since my training is mostly in teaching.

And so the solution is simple. I would come back to this home for a second chance, and I would serve and learn there whenever I can over the next few years. But this time, on God's strength, at God's time, in God's way. This will be a blessing, I just know it!

--

Praise the LORD, all you nations; extol him, all you peoples. For great is his love toward us, and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever. Praise the LORD. - Psalm 117

Dreams, Dialogue & stewardship

Being secure in identity can sometimes lead you in the wrong direction. I wouldn't say wrong, but not right at the time. Lately, it led me to think that "maybe its time to meet someone". So I started meeting people from other churches with the intent of finding someone "special". Long story short, God sent some very clear messages about that, and redirected me once more to the gift of singleness. Which, I gladly take, just needed that extra confirmation that "it's not time yet, so focus". The message came in two prophetic exercises that I was doing in a course called The Art of Hearing God and in a very vivid dream. The two impressions I received through separate people were a stop sign and a red light.

The dream was so vivid that I woke up crying my eyes out this morning, and it was about buying a dog for charity. One of my closest friends tried everything her power to make me buy this dog, because she's crazy about dogs, and this was for a good cause. And, no matter how hard I tried to not get the dog, I ended up getting it, and it was the worst feeling in the world. It wasn't because I didn't want a dog, it was just because it was the wrong dog. I wanted the large breed poodle, and my friend forced me to get an Old English Sheepdog! And the whole process of how she did everything possible to make it happen was a frame-for-frame mimicry of what I have been doing to find a girlfriend, including all the reasoning involved, and as clear as day, the message was "it'll all end in tears". What a horrible friend, right? No, she's a nice gal in real life, it's just the dream depiction that made her horrible.

So God's message came with other revelation. I am in my early 30s, and while I had taken a participant role in the young adults community here at the Vine for a while, God was prompting me to be more. 1 Cor 13:11 comes to mind, "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me." I have reached the end of my 20s, and I have experienced what it was like, and it's time to look after those who are just entering theirs. Which comes very natural to me, so I have no problems with being intentional about it, and with taking care of community, but it does spell out some changes in attitude and perspective within my own life. A call to no longer reason like a child and to make defining choices about life. For example, I have recently decided to choose joy and life, over pain and suffering as the focus of each day. It was very natural to not want to be happy or motivated when you're constantly under pain, but making this choice now releases me to live despite of pain. A while ago this would not have been possible. So some personal growth is happening, and that is good.

I mentioned that God has been teaching me about prayer, and that He had given me a rule on when I can share about what He speaks to me about, and that was only if a person is already telling me about it. At first, it was difficult, because I was always in a hurry to "use the gift" but I was definitely using it the wrong way. Running off to prove myself useful after hearing the first words. The sort of mistake every intern or apprentice makes, right? Well, after a few months now, it's become a good routine where I just slowly listen, and ask God for clarity every now and then, and in all its ways, it's become an actual Dialogue with God. Which is really amazing, especially since God is answering all my questions, but at His pace and His own timing. Generally, He's very generous with the details when He speaks about others, because He wants my participation, He wants to partner with me in prayerful intercession. It's a new stage of spirituality and I'm loving it. Just to be by His side, no need to rush off, and listen, and respond, ask questions, and listen some more. I feel like I'm at the temple and just listening to my rabbi like any other. It's a new, exciting and yet very calm and wonderful experience. I have learnt much more about practicing my spiritual gifting in this way. On top of which, I've been given the opportunity to finally take the Art of Hearing God course, and it's so rich in helpful information that I need to be taking it more than once. Its basically a course on how to use our gifts for good and not end up hurting and alienating our people. It's a 3-day course, I am still processing it, so I may be back with more insights later.

And that's mostly it. I am job hunting at the moment, looking for opportunities in full-time teaching, or full-time learning since I will be learning for the sake of my calling.

Much love, and blessings.

James

I've also had a good lesson on stewardship recently, and it's simply this: Save so that I can bless. The privilege to bless far outshines the privilege to spend on oneself. So, budget, then wait for a chance to bless. There will be plenty.