Onward TwentyTwo, I Have Watched the End.
Today is one I shall never forget.
Handed death but today, I choose life.
A number means little to me. Items have lost their appeal. A numb taste remains in my mouth and just as the very first day of my life, today I feel as though I have resolved to a new beginning.
In the past few years, I have allowed myself a luxury that turned out to be a lie. For I have allowed my mind to wander aimlessly. I have visited horrible places there. I have seen horrible things there, done horrible things there, meant horrible things in there. All with the reasoning that it is my life and I do what I want.
While this may be true, life and death have at it in the very core of myself. My mind is part of that core, isn’t it?
The mind is a powerful place, isn’t it? The mind is ultimately where I will win or lose. The mind is ultimately where I will find refuge and rest or demise and defeat. I haven’t guarded it well enough. Much like my heart, my mind has been exposed and violated. Moreover, I have pimped it out to such things.
If it is my life, if I am seeking what I want, how foolish I am to set up my life for defeat. How foolish I am to entertain things in my mind that would result in the very things I hate.
Just because everyone else thinks a certain way does not now, nor does it EVER mean that I have to.
Just because everyone else finds something so important, it does not mean that I have to, nor does it mean that it truly is important.
One may silence my mouth. They may limit my strength. They may exhaust my resources… but as long as I still have the will and rule of my heart/mind/soul there is not a thing that stands in my way.
For my soul… my mind; rather than renew it, rather than clean it, I have layered more inside of it. I have brought more damage and reduced the security to the minimal standards I have seen set before me.
Complaints, negativity and reckless abandonment: All things that are no longer strange to be understood as “conversation, realism and truly living”. We have such freedom and we waste it with this? A depressing conversation… A defeated outlook of life… A stature so free of self-control we can’t even reign our minds in to focus.
I’m tired of being so lax. I’m weary of my sleep!
Oh death, where is your sting? Where is your power? Where is your voice when those who “sleep” wake to access their choice to live?
I enter the gates of this present year as the same person by design. But I end the former by the renewing of my mind.
I don’t want the same things anymore. Today, there was one last shot at my heart. One last shot at my pride. One last shot at my image and factors that for reasons beyond me no longer matter. A clean shot. One direct to the very center. The kill… and with it, the enemy only wounded itself. With it, he only wounded himself. With it, the army only killed their own soldiers… with it, a deathly kingdom attacked their own man. For what is the purpose of killing a man who has decide to give up his own life?
When my choice is to be murdered as a cowardly master seeking fame or give my life for a purpose as a servant, I would be a perfect fool to choose to be anything but the servant.
I have a revelation today. And that, my friends is the greatest gift I could ever receive. Greater than sweets, cards, perfumes, jewelry, “i love you” or anything I could imagine.
Why? Because it is a gift that exists in the safest place I’ve ever known. A place where it may never leave me or be taken. A place where it may only be rejected or pushed away at my choosing.
“‘They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended.And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor Me. But now I go My way to Him that sent Me; and none of you asketh Me, Whither goest thou? But these things have I told you, that when the time shall come, ye may remember that I told you of them. And these things I said not unto you at the beginning, because I was with you.But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you.And when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:Of sin, because they believe not on Me; Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see Me no more;Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will shew you things to come.He shall glorify Me: for He shall receive of Mine, and shall shew it unto you. All things that the Father hath are Mine: therefore said I, that He shall take of Mine, and shall shew it unto you.A little while, and ye shall not see Me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see Me, because I go to the Father.’
…’Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you. And in that day ye shall ask Me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name, He will give it you.Hitherto have ye asked nothing in My name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of the Father. At that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you:For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God. I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.’
‘…These things I have spoken unto you, that in Me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.’” -John 16.1-16,20-28,33
Today I choose life. Tomorrow, it will worry about itself, but I will never know which way it will go if I don’t live my life today in the here and now.
No pity or envy, I share this realization for all our sake. Take from it and together, we will go beyond a growing pain to see a fulfilled pattern of growth. Together, we will see…
Revival Begin.
