FAITHINGFORTY #29

During a time of fasting, leading up to Easter, my friend Paul Lanier is publishing a word for each day. This year, all of them have been a word into my life; #29 especially so. Paul allows me to post his words to the blog, and he wonderfully articulates something here that I have never been able to communicate so clearly. Read on, and be blessed!

Your brother in Christ,

Dave

FAITHINGFORTY #29

Paul Francis Lanier
April 8, 2014

I realize that I'm very early with this one, and that it's very long. But I believe it is a word that can truly speak to our lives. It comes from many years of Ministry, and in particular, from Ministering to precious people pursuing the Presence of God in this Great Fast.

Words are so powerful. Extraordinarily powerful. Supernaturally powerful. By words God created the Heavens and the earth. And words continue to create worlds and destroy them. I think it is important for all of us to step back and personally examine our own process of communication. Let me share with you what can happen in a conversation every day.

Much of my counseling has to do with peoples' reactions to words or events that were never truly spoken or never occurred the way they perceived it. They are bound to a stronghold of Perception that has owned and directed their lives for years.

So often a sentence is spoken and it is experienced on a myriad of levels. Of course there is the level of specific words that are actually spoken at a particular time and place. But then the tone, the inflection, how those words sound when spoken, have their own meaning. Was it spoken enthusiastically? Disparagingly? Sincerely?

Where I am emotionally or spiritually can be a determining factor in what I hear, whether that word is actually spoken or not. Then when the words or unwords are repeated by myself or another, my initial perception can be altered or multiplied. So the truest content can be completely lost by what I think I heard. And what I think I heard then is experienced on the deeper level of feelings. Each time repeated, it becomes more real and more entrenched within me. My emotions become involved. I become surprised. Excited. Disappointed. Outraged. Once those words have been charged by emotion they take root in my heart and mind at a completely different and deeper level. From that moment on, when another person tries to converse with me about those words, it is a wholly other experience. The conversation is no longer about specific words spoken on a particular day, at an undeniable location. My emotions are now dictate. They bring the color and the intensity. They provide the interpretation to me. My emotions now tell me how I feel about what I think I heard. My emotions tell me how I will react to you or anyone else because of what I think I heard. So you are no longer having a conversation with me about facts… You are conversing with my feelings. And there lies the disconnect. So you might be able to logically prove that, indeed, the sky is blue or that the bus is yellow or that a dollar bill equals 100 pennies. But that's not the deeper point for me. You've only addressed the skeleton of the issue… But there are also vital organs and skin and mind and perception and experience. So you can confront my misunderstanding and walk away thinking the problem is resolved. But it is not resolved. It is nowhere near resolved. Because this is not about an explanation, but an experience. You had a conversation on one level of reality, but I am living my life on a completely different level of reality. My reality might not be true. It might be detrimental. But regardless, it has become my reality.

Some experiences can be addressed by a meaningful and thoughtful, discerning conversation that removes layer after layer of misunderstanding and misperception. Others must be directly addressed supernaturally, because hell has successfully taken a word never spoken and created a wound from it. It actually requires a spiritual experience upon the Word of God that Delivers us from a wound and a memory that could be based upon something that never even occurred, or was spoken. Indeed, many of the real prisons of our life are built upon a foundation of words or acts that actually never happened. But we perceived they were spoken. We perceived that conversation. We perceived that event and we created a lifelong reaction… While hell laughs.

Speak, "Enough" to your heart and life! Dethrone your memories. Take back the crown from that wound and return it to the Lover of your soul. Determine that you will bow your knee to no pain. No lie. No word-spoken or not. No event-true or imagined. Ground your life only in the True Word that He Speaks.… And Live.+