Consumers or contributers

The Lord gave me a dream the other night that I’m going to share with you. It’s a fairly intense dream, but it holds both caution and exhortation, so even though it is personal and actually fairly emotional for me to share, I’m going to do it anyway.

The dream had two parts.

First, my family and I were on vacation in the mountains, and while we were there, we bumped into a whole bunch of tourists who were raving about tours you could go on where you could visit bears in their caves; guides would bring you through a series of caves where you could stand in the middle of mama bears and their cubs and interact with the cubs. To enter the tours, you had to go to the other side of the mountain, but there was a cave nearby, so I ventured in to see what it was all about. Inside there were mama bears and cubs of various sizes, the guides would have everyone walk quietly and move slowly, and the cubs walked among the people and let them stroke their fur. The mama bears mostly slept and laid nearby while these interactions took place, and the guides were on the lookout with bear spray and other tools to ensure that they didn’t hurt anyone if they rose up to protect their young. Both the mama bears and the cubs were not growing or functioning as bears should; they weren’t allowed to leave the cave and experience the world, nor were they allowed to interact with each other naturally. The bears were reduced to a tourist attraction, a spectacle to be consumed by the curiosities of humans.

In the second part of the dream, we arrived back at our rental home, it was tucked up in the forest and everything was covered in a blanket of pure white snow. As I was getting out of the car, I looked up and saw Nathan standing in awe with his hand on the back of a beautiful baby animal. It looked like it was glowing slightly, as it stood out against the white snow. It had just recently been born, and a short distance past it, not yet standing, was its twin. Jane and Sia was so excited, they ran up to the standing animal and began playing too roughly with it in their toddler joy. I looked around and saw the mother a few trees away; she had just given birth and was laying in a pool of blood, resting and trying to recover from a hard labor. I was moved with compassion for this weary mama, and was also suddenly struck by the danger of the situation: Not only was the baby too young to be handled, but a mother protects her young, and what if the mama woke up? I called for Jane and Sia to step back, and Nathan, recognizing what was going on, tried to help. In spite of our best efforts, the mama woke up. She snorted and lunged toward her baby, and Nathan sprinted to get Jane and Sia. But the mama was too weak; she lurched forward, staggering…and suddenly, in the chaos of this moment, a large crowd of people burst out of the woods beyond them excited to see the new baby animals. There were tourists, a photographer wanting to get the perfect shot, and guides telling the people to move quietly and stay back. The weak mother began to panic, staggering between the trees and babies like a trapped animal. I begged the photograph to leave and to make everyone go away; I told him that the babies weren’t ready to be handled, that the mama hadn’t healed yet and she hadn’t been able to tend to them as they needed to be tended to so they could grow into what they had the potential to be. And finally, as he reluctantly agreed to leave, I looked around at the pure white snow and saw that it was stained with bright red blood; pools and streaks and splatters covered the ground. And in the emotional pain of the moment, I woke up.

When I woke up and considered this vivid, detailed dream, I realized that I had been thinking that these animals were deer (a doe and two fawns), but I realized as I looked at them that they were not deer, they were camels. The mom had a hump and a long neck, and the baby stood taller than Nathan. This startled me, because camels don’t live in snowy mountains, they live in deserts. These were unique and different creatures to be found in this place; they were not the usual bears that the people were used to seeing and using for their own pleasure and purposes. These babies were not to be used, not touched or even looked upon until the right time: first, the one who birthed them needed to heal, to adjust to her new environment, and to take the time necessary to raise up the babies to their full beauty and strength. Until then, they were all much too vulnerable.

There are many things in this dream that were just for me, but here is the caution and the exhortation for others:

The tourists in this dream are those in the Body of Christ who walk out their faith as consumers. They go from person to person, place to place, soaking in and taking part in the work that God does in other people’s lives. They observe and delight in the faith journeys of others, hunting down the thoughts and efforts of other believers so as to take what they can for their own pleasure and encouragement. They are like the 5 foolish virgins in Matthew 25, wanting to borrow the hard-earned oil from their neighbors’ lamps.

But here is the thing, you can’t borrow another’s faith and think you can stand on it when you face the righteous Judge…while there is nothing wrong with delighting in and finding encouragement in the work of God in each other’s lives—we SHOULD be testifying, bearing witness to and encouraging each other, that is the mandate of walking in fellowship—we must be very careful to ensure that we aren’t ONLY consuming the fruit of the faithful lives around us.

Are you bringing what God has given you to share with others? I’m not talking necessarily about service…I am talking about contributions of your faith journey. All that any of us really have to bring to the Body is whatever the Lord places in our hands…but it is our responsibility to seek Him, to wrestle with Him for blessing, to taste and see and declare, to contribute what He has given us to hold, to speak the truth of who He is and what He has done in and for us in love…to bring to the table a basket full of the spiritual fruit of our labor of faith. The Body needs these individual baskets so that it can be completely edified and come to full fruition.

Are you contributing? Because when we walk in fellowship as mere consumers, we actually threaten the well-being of those who are growing around us, because we are taking from their spiritual lives continually without replenishing them with our own.

Through the cross

There’s something that keeps bubbling up to the surface of my heart and wanting to be shouted from the rooftops, so here I am…buckle up. :)

One of the greatest deficits I see in the Body of Christ in America, is this odd phenomenon of people accepting Jesus as Savior in word, but in action denying Him as Lord. Meaning, one claims salvation, but this decision for Christ has no bearing on how they live their life or what they do with their heart moving forward. Because I accepted Christ in my early 20s and with it came a complete transformation of my life and heartbeat, I have always struggled to understand how encountering Jesus can leave someone unchanged. I also recognize that we each have our own stories, so that is not a statement made out of judgement, but genuine curiosity.

I wanted to share with you an image that the Lord gave me during worship a few months ago. In this image, Jesus hung upon the cross with his arms stretched out wide. One end of the nails protruded from his hands and the other stuck into the wood; and as your eyes followed the course of where the nail was pointing out the other side of the beam, it found a second set of hands. Standing behind the hanging body of Jesus with His arms outstretched, His hands upon the bleeding hands of His Son, was the Father. With this image came this call: Run through the outstretched arms of the Son, and you will find yourself in the arms of the Father.

But how many of us lay down our lives at the foot of the cross, and forget to pick up the life Jesus died to give us? Jesus isn’t ON the cross anymore. On the other side of the cross is the empty tomb and the torn veil; past the foot of the cross is the invitation to lay ourselves down at the foot of the throne; through the death of the cross is eternal life for us to live out now and forever. Are you coming to the cross and observing the price of salvation in the bloodstained wood…only to turn around and walk home without receiving what was paid for?

1 Corinthians 15:17,19 “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins…If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.”

If to us the work of salvation is simply Jesus dying for our sins, we are hopeless; we will simply turn and sin again. Salvation is a two part thing, we die with Him and we are raised with Him: His death is our death, His resurrected life is our life. But if we never step through the extended arms on the cross, we will miss the extended arms of the Father…because Jesus didn’t primarily die to save us FROM hell, He died to save us FOR Himself and FOR an eternal, forever and for always freedom, joy, peace and life in His presence.

I think one of the biggest reasons the Body of Christ has been left unchanged is because we have missed the Father. We want to separate the Triune God and singularly choose the Godhead who demands nothing from us but gave all for us. The cross is approachable…on it hung a man like us; it’s where the serpent “crushed the heel”…where the “weakness of God” proved itself stronger that the power of man…we can wrap our heads around something weak and crushed and human…we can put into words what we find at the cross. But what we find through the torn veil…that is something altogether other…for who would even approach the Holy throne of the Living God but the one who by faith trusts the arms of the One who sits upon it. Yahweh is too glorious for human eyes to look upon, His Spirit moves in mysterious and miraculous ways…in His presence words fail…and hearts soar! It is there, in robes of white with new breath in our lungs, laid down a second time at the foot of the throne that we learn a whole new delight, not just that He is our Savior and also that we get to have Him as our Lord.

There is no better way to live.

And in truth, there is no other way to live forever.

The Saints on the Battlefield

I wanted to share with you a vision the Lord gave me several months ago, I wasn't sure what to do with it at the time, but feel like it is time to share. 

I was reading in Psalm 102 where the Psalmist speaks of Zion (the dwelling place of God), just going through my reading in the usual way, when I read a verse and suddenly found myself bawling—tears streaming out of my eyes. I was startled, and reread what I had just passed: Verse 14 says “For Your servants hold her stones dear and have pity on her dust.”

Suddenly I found myself standing on a huge battlefield, it stretched endlessly for as far as the eye could see in every direction. It was covered in rolling hills (similar to the end of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe), and sprinkled across these hills were saints (anyone washed by the blood of the Lamb). Every single one of them was holding in their arms a gigantic boulder; a rock so heavy it required all their strength and left no room in their hands for any other weapons. They were standing, looking out across the battlefield, which was covered with piles of rubble, and they were weeping. Not just “crying,” but weeping with the desperation and sorrow of ones who had just watched their loved ones be completely destroyed.

The battlefield was the Church. And the saints who remained standing at the end of the war were the ones who had not set down the boulders in their arms; the stones of Truth revealed to us in the Word of God. The piles of rubble were the fallen saints who had compromised and disregarded the Truth of the Bible.

Followers of Jesus, to survive the battle that is coming, you will only remain standing if you are rooted deeply in the Truth of the Word of God. You must consider the foundational truths found in the Bible of Who God is, what He is like, what He says is right and wrong to be dear…so dear that you are unwilling to lay them down for any reason to appease any person, including, for the ease of your own life, yourself. You must also remember who your enemies truly are (not each other or other people) and fight this spiritual battle not with physical weapons, but with prayer.

The Chasm and the Blood of Peace

I was in prayer the other night for our country, and my heart was drawn to the painful present overview of the response to the pandemic. As I prayed, I watched the land be split in two and the space grow between the 2 pieces of ground until a vast, bottomless chasm was left. In prayer, I saw on one side of the expanse the “haves”…the rich, the powerful, adults. And on the other, the “have nots”…the poor, the weak, children. As I watched the divide grow between the people, I looked at what was tearing them apart and separating them in such a grotesque way. Huge principalities of “fear,” “greed,” “pride” and “hatred” propelled the sides outward, and a call echoed throughout the divide, “Every man for himself!”

And as I looked upon the devastation of the “have nots” with even less, and the “haves” who had gathered more, I sat and wept before the Lord.

Eventually, I quietly, humbly asked Him, “What can heal such a divide?”

And He said, “The blood is the bridge.”
And He brought to mind this verse:

Colossians 1:19-20 (21-23)
“For in [Christ] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross.”

There are ones who can bridge the divide…who can walk across the chasm as if on solid ground. They are the ones redeemed by the blood of Jesus.

Why the redeemed?
Two reasons:
1) They are at peace with the LORD.

I told Nathan the other day that the least appreciated piece of the armor of God we have received in Ephesians 6 are the shoes of readiness. They way I understand these shoes is different than I’ve ever heard anyone explain them, so I will try to articulate how I see them. Ephesians 6:15 says, “and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.” The readiness given by the gospel of peace: What is this peace the gospel has given us? It has justified us before our righteous Judge; it has given us peace with the Father, through the work of Jesus so we can enter into the very presence of God, just as Adam and Eve did before the fall in the Garden of Eden. Because of the blood of Jesus, we are at peace with our Maker. Do you know how powerful a position that is? I hope you do. It’s like the apostle Paul is wrestling with in Philippians 1 where he’s setting life and death before him and stating simply, hey, both have their benefits for me, where God takes me doesn’t matter because for me, “To live is Christ, to die is gain.” When we are at peace the the Lord, the demands of life, the opinions of people, and the dividing factors of fear, greed, pride and hatred lose their power over us. By the grace of God, we redeemed sinners carry with us the call to die to self and live out the love of Jesus in the world around us…come what may. Romans 16:20 says, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.” OUR feet.

Which leads us nicely into the second reason:

2) The redeemed carry with them the power of the blood to make whole.

Remember in Luke 4 when Jesus stood in the synagogue and read from the scroll of Isaiah (chapter 61), He read verses 1-2a and stopped abruptly with the declaration that Him standing there that very moment was a fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy.

It’s one of everyone’s favorite verses to quote, but they stop too soon. So Isaiah 61:1-4 says:
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,
    because the Lord has anointed Me
to bring good news to the poor;
    He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
    and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, 

This is where Jesus stopped…declaring this portion was fulfilled in Him.

    and the day of vengeance of our God;
    to comfort all who mourn;
to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
    to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
    the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
    the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.

If you have been redeemed and raised up by the finished work of Jesus—brought from death to life—He has planted you as an oak of righteousness for His glory….and He has done it with PURPOSE!

We find that purpose in verse 4:

They shall build up the ancient ruins;
    they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
    the devastations of many generations.

At this moment, we stand in verse 4. Right now, through the Church AT THIS TIME, this verse is to be fulfilled.

We are to BUILD and RAISE UP and REPAIR. Looking out over this chasm, it is not the result of just the Pandemic…it is the result of ancient ruins and generations of devastation. We look upon the culmination of years of ruin and devastation; wickedness has taken it’s filthy hands and ripped apart the fabric of society and civility and dignity, it has celebrated the violence and violation of humanity because we are marked by the image of God, whom it detests.

The redeemed must rebuild upon the divide, because we carry the healing properties of the blood of Christ upon the white robes that cover our sin scarred bodies. Every place our feet tread should leave the mark of hope…the promise of possibility because we are the ones who KNOW the power of the blood…we’ve received the good news, our broken hearts have been bound up, we’ve been freed from the captivity of our side and released from our prison chains, we’ve been comforted, we’ve seen the Lord bring beauty from ashes, and praise from our fainting spirits…and we’ve known the utter glory and wonder of being made righteous by God Himself poured out for us.

And so, He says, Build up…raise up…repair. Because contrary to the call echoing across this charm of “every man for himself,” we do not seek self, we seek the eternal good of those around us, no matter which side of the divide they stand upon. We don’t have to bow to fear because He is with us; we don’t have to be consumed by greed when the One who provides for us has called us to pour ourselves out; we can humbly bear up under the disapproval of others because we’re at peace with the One who sees us clearly; we don’t have permission to hate because we are called to love with the greater love of Jesus that we have mercifully received.

The blood is the bridge. And if you are covered in the blood, you carry the materials for the bridge. So RISE UP, Church! Rise up and stand in the power of the God of Peace who will crush Satan under your feet.

The greater pain.

I spent a couple of hours weeping today...hour drives to and from allow time for that. I’ve been confronted with some deep wounds this season and am reminding myself continually that the Lord’s intention of revealing is always to bring healing. So I brace myself; letting the waves of pain crash over me instead of bolting away in fear.


Throughout my entire childhood, I was hurt by men claiming to bear the name of Jesus but displaying none of His goodness, and I am afraid that I blocked out things then that I don’t want to see today. These men have left marks across the core of my womanhood in such a way that as I stand back to look at them with new eyes, I see that there are parts of me that are truly mangled. I feel raw and vulnerable, and I ache in such a way that sometimes I feel like my shoulders are physically pulled down and inward.


It’s a different pain...a greater pain...than the pain inflicted on me by men outside of the Body of Christ. That pain is far more bearable than this, because this pain is twisted in such a way that the men who wielded their weapons wore masks labeled “God” so as to create confusion about who was causing my pain. And the hammers used to pound me down did not just land upon my body or my soul but also upon my spirit.


In my mind, I look upon a little girl alone in a desert. So small and so confused about her worth, her position and her pain. Silent tears slide down her face, over lips pressed together, no longer willing to cry out. Barren landscapes on every side show there is no escape, no end in sight. She stands still, facing the first colors of a sunrise, daring to hope that light is coming.


And one of the reasons I wept is because of those rays beginning to peek over the horizon. God is so gentle and wonderfully kind; in this season of revealed wounds, He has surrounded me with good, godly men to take part in healing the pieces of me that have been broken by their own. And I am grateful for this, because I have known wholeness to melt away the pain of what has been twisted simply by being present. And sometimes when past pain feels so physical, visible strength and presence make for the best environment to not just heal, but to cause the redeemed heart to flourish.


----


"The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble bind on strength." 1 Samuel 2:4

PICTURE: The wall of stones

This is the picture the Lord gave me during a time of prayer surrounding the verse from Matthew 16:18, “I will build My Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

In the picture, there was a wall of a building made of many stone bricks. The stones were in rows, one atop of another. As I looked closer, I saw that many of the stones were out of place; some were slightly askew, while others were mostly dislodged.

----
1 Peter 2:4–6
“As you come to Him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
----

The wall was part of the “physical” Church we who believe are being built into. As stones, we are to align with our “cornerstone” (Christ). As I prayed, about this picture, the Lord pressed upon me how the stones would realign (and/or remain aligned) with their foundational first stone: Scripture.

As a whole in this country, those who profess Christ have neglected the Bible. Why is that? The Word is where God is revealed; His heart, His desires, His Truth. We are to align our lives with Him; if we are separated from scripture (His revealed Word), how can we do that accurately? We can’t; without the knowledge of Him revealed through Scripture, we won’t really know WHO He is, what He is like, what He desires, how He loves, etc....we can only guess or assume, and when we do that, we end up worshiping a god we have created instead of the one true, living Yahweh. As I was reminded in a sermon recently, “If your spiritual experiences aren’t pushing you into the Word, there is a disconnect.” This should be a red flag for us; if we “want Jesus” but aren’t growing in our desire for the Word of God, we need to question if the former is actually true of us.

Read the Word of God, know the Word of God, align with the Word of God. Because without scripture to guide us, we as stones will become “slightly askew;” and if already slightly askew, we will become “mostly dislodged;” and if already mostly dislodged, we will become completely separated from Jesus.

Picture: Leaving the wilderness

I am standing in the desert looking ahead at green on the horizon, the welcome shore to an endless sea of sand and dry and heat. Stretching forward across the expanse of green are many roads and far away over many hills stands the Cross against a backdrop of blue. As I stand, unable to discern which path leads to the Cross, satan shoots arrows at me. 

Because here is the truth, he does not want me to leave this wilderness because God cannot use me here; and if I do succeed in leaving, he wants me to leave wounded so that the full effect of God’s purpose for my time here would not come to fruition but would instead leave me crippled.

And yet, as disconcerting as this uncertainty feels, as intimidating as these arrows may appear, this I know: It does not matter if I can discern which road before me leads to the Cross...I need only fix my eyes on Jesus and walk straight toward Him.

2 Chronicles 20:12b “We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on You.”

Picture: Bound in the presence of freeing Light

This is the picture that the Lord gave me during a time of intercession: A person stood before me, bound from neck to foot in chains; at their feet were heaps of stones, making the ground difficult to navigate; also within arms reach were walls of brick and mortar, unfinished and serving as shoddy, incomplete protective barriers. Around this person shone beautiful, vivid Light; surrounding them, warming them, pouring upon them with all the power to burst apart these bonds. And as I took in this picture, I heard these lamenting words, “Why? Oh why do you stand bound in the presence of freeing Light?!”

----

Your chains clink against each other
grinding in your restricted movements
refusing to go unnoticed.

Around your feet in crumbling heaps
of teetering uncertainty
stones remain
left behind as memorials of ruins.

Carefully laid bricks serve as your harrowing backdrop
shoddy walls with rows of sloppy mortar
patched and decaying with age
revealing fria’bility.

You are a sight to behold
bound from neck to foot
with only your defeated head
limply moving from side to side.

Open your eyes.

Open your eyes!

OPEN YOUR EYES!

You stand in the center
of freeing Light!
Light that shatters chains that bind
crumbles stones of stumbling
shields with immovable perfection where bricks will always fail.

All is provided
surrounding
waiting
shining...

Why?
Oh why do you stay bound
in the presence of freeing Light?

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John 8:12,31-32,36 When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life...If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free...So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

Picture: The iron lantern

During worship today in the sanctuary, I was praying to the Lord that I would be wholly given over to Him, that He would open my ears to hear His voice and that I would be forever changed because of it.

As I prayed, I felt my heart leap inside of me and my hand instantly raise to cover it, as if it were going to come out of my chest. Then, without pain, I had the feeling of my heart being gently moved from my chest to my hand. I felt my hand holding my heart and I consciously lifted it up to Him in offering. With my hand upraised, He took the heart from my hand and lowered a lantern over it. The lantern was made of iron with windows on each of its four sides, each of the sides were flipped up like the petals of a flower, leaving it open on the bottom. After it encased my heart, the sides flipped down, closing over it, sort of in the shape of an acorn.

And then, to my surprise, He gave it back to me and it returned to its place inside me.

I did not know what it meant. I did not know why He gave it back.

As I sat confused, in my mind came Revelation 2:25.
I looked it up and it said, “Only hold on to what you have until I come.”
I think there is more to this picture, I look forward to its full explanation.

picture: the Spirit dances

Today in the sanctuary, the Lord let me watch the Spirit dance over us as we worshiped Him. I watched a wind blow about in beautiful swirls, slowly taking on the form of a dancer. He danced with such an incredible fluidity and grace that I was left breathless. He didn’t need a floor to spring from, or another’s strength to lift Him, He simple danced effortlessly over His people with perfect precision and sync with the song, the power of His movements crescendoing and decrescendoing perfectly. I wish I could put into words the beauty of this dance, but there are none that could do it justice. I know only that it was a privilege to share in.

You dance over us
©7-31-11 hannah mclean

music flows to Your praise
in the beauty of worship
You open my eyes to behold You

You surround us in a twisting wind
fluidly You sweep around and through Your people
light and glorious and sweet
and as You move above our heads
You take on the form of a dancer
in and out and with the wind
You dance to the melodious music
brought to You

You dance over us
with a fluidity and grace
such as i have never imagined
weightless in purity
You need no ground beneath You
Your springs and leaps
empowered by a strength from within
as if hands unseen
lift, twirl and throw You about the air
effortlessly majestic

moved by You movement
with stunned tears
i simply take You in

Picture: Living water from the hands of God

This morning I walked into the sanctuary, and the heaviness I felt as I entered was too great to stand. During the praise and worship time, I made my way up to the altar, where I rested my head on the wooden ledge and allowed the choir’s worship and the Lord to wash over me. And as my head rested on the cool surface of the altar, it soften and I saw myself instead with my head against the Savior’s knee. And as I sat, still at His feet with my hands folded in my lap, water poured down on me. I looked, but there was no pitcher or vessel. Instead, it streamed in a continuous, un-ending flow from His hands. It washed over me, restoring my peace, and pooled on the floor below me.

I tried to create a glimpse of what I saw. Alas, my artistic abilities fall so very short, but perhaps your mind can fill in the details of my simple expression:

Picture: The Crown of Praise

During a time of prayer recently with my friend, the Lord put a song on my heart. And as a line of the song played acknowledging Jesus’ crown of praise, He gave me this picture:

Christ hung upon the cross, His head bowed, His arms outstretched. Upon His head sat a twisted crown of thorns, pressed deep into His skull. The picture was dark and lit only by a vibrant, vivid light that poured down from heaven and filled the crown of thorns until it shown with light, streaming from the point of every thorn as if light was shining into a diamond and refracting. And the Lord said, “THIS is the Crown of Praise.”

And after He had shown me this glorious and humbling thing, my friend began to read Psalm 8, and my heart leapt at verse five, “Yet You have made Him a little lower than the Heavenly being and crowned Him with glory and honor.” That is what the Lord had just shown me. When I have considered the crown of my King, I have always imagined beauty, splendor, jewels and fine metals...but this crown was given when He was in a humbled state. The twisted crown formed amid the mockery of men was made glorious on the head of my Lord as He glorified His Father in Heaven.

Wow.
May the light the shines from the piercing thorns penetrate you.
Jesus alone is worthy of our praise.

picture: a Light wind

This is the picture that the Lord gave me: I am watching a person approach the Throne, where Light shines so brightly, it is accompanied by a physical wind. A wind that loosens up the dirt that covers the person, leaving it as a cloud of dust behind them. The person is literally stepping out of their covering of dirt, pure and clean as they face and walk into the Light.

purifying Light
© 5-28-11 hannah mclean

our God is a consuming fire
burning away the filth of us
that we may stand before Him
refined by the intensity of His light

must we scrub our skin raw
till it bleeds beneath the stains of our sinful humanity?

no.

for no matter the washing
nor the scraping of our nails upon our dirty flesh
though we be torn open
scoured to our very bones
we will find only the filth of our core
defiled by the heart
and unchangeable by human means

no!

oh Hope
You do not leave us as we are
oh Light
You shine on that which is unfit to be seen
and with our eyes upon You
stumbling toward the promise of true Life
we are made clean

Wind and Fire
consume us as we are
and let us stand anew before You
without blemish, stain or fault
made pure not by our breath
but by Yours

Psalm 36:9 “For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light do we see light.”

Picture: No more will he move us.

Today during corporate prayer, I was praying in the Spirit with my face lifted toward heaven. As the prayer topic shifted to the Harvest of the Lord, praying for those who did not yet believe, suddenly my neck was pulled upwards so that my head hung down. As it hung limp for a little while, suddenly my body felt completely limp and sagged into the sofa I was sitting on. Here is the picture that went with this:

A puppet on strings being moved by a puppeteer. Suddenly the hand of the puppeteer stopped working and the puppet hung limp. Then, the strings were cut and it fell to the ground in a heap.

The devil was the puppeteer and the title of this image is
“The dance of the puppeteer has ended.”

What a lovely promise.

picture: surrender

Here is the picture God gave me: I am up on Your throne. Finding myself the size of an infant, I crawl backwards off Your throne and backwards until I am in my rightful place–bowing before it.

surrender
©9-17-10 hannah mclean

who am i–
self-exalted
sitting without authority
upon Your throne?

looking around
my eyes open to reality
why am i where only You belong?
i tremble at my smallness
dwarfed by the enormity of Your reign

i crawl backwards
off Your throne
my feet hit the ground
with a deafening thud
my hands and knees follow

i crawl backwards
to behold Your throne
rising immense before me
grateful to be where i belong–
bowing before You

who am i–
surrendered
basking in Your mercy?
i know that while You should cast me away
instead You accept my surrender
and my worship

who am i?
i am blessed
blessed to bow to You, my King

picture: the eagle's pride

Here is the picture that the Lord gave me: It looked like a political cartoon, there is a beautiful city abounding with blessing and the Lord is at the center. But the people push Him away from this place, and as they shove Him to remove Him, the picture crumbles and dispels behind them so they cannot go back because there is nothing to return to.

the eagle’s pride
©5-27-10 hannah mclean

stars and stripes,
how you have soared at heights like the eagle
a nation once abounding with blessing
centered on the Lord
but the pride of your heart has deceived you
for you push away
the Blesser, the Giver, the Keeper, the King

this land of rich blessing
crumbles behind you
as you show your Savior the door

do not be surprised
to find when you seek to return
that you cannot go back
to find that blessing no more abounds
amid stars and stripes
to find that your wings grow tired
and heights become depths
for such is the ruin that comes
when you remove
the Blesser, the Giver, the Keeper, the King

o Lord, have mercy
may the removers fail to
move You

picture: prisoners

Here is the picture God gave me: I saw chains, so many chains. Some were buried, some were painted so they looked pretty, some were set aside, some were covered, some were twisted into other shapes, some stiff and rusted. So many chains and none of them were loosed.

prisoners
©3-19-10 hannah mclean

chains surround me
heaps and piles
thick and heavy
iron and steel

i see the chains
i see the ones that have been buried
bumping from beneath the dirt
i see the ones that have been painted
rainbows and butterflies to beautify
i see the ones that have been ignored
pushed aside so as to not block the view
i see the ones that have been covered
outlined beneath silky fabrics
i see the ones that have been modified
with links arranged into something new
i see the chains

buried
disguised
ignored
covered
modified
but never loosed

i lift my voice and shout
“you are not free”

i whisper as i weep
“you are not free”

o Jesus
break the chains
only You can free these
prisoners

picture: as He heals

Here is the picture God gave me: There is a person whose body is covered in cracks. Out of the cracks pour shining beams of bright light. The light wraps around the body, and heals it, making it whole. And the light now pours from their mouth.

as He heals
©3-19-10 hannah mclean

sometimes there are
no words
and Your redemption
pours not from my lips
but from my wounds

Your mercies spill
from the cracks of this broken vessel
with shining radiance

Your light surrounds me
binding
healing
making new

and when the words
do come
they capture your beauty
and ring with power
as they testify of Your work