“For you did not receive a spirit
that makes you a slave again to fear,
but you received the Spirit of sonship.
And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”
The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit
that we are God’s children.
Now if we are children then we are heirs—
heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ…”
Romans 8: 15-17
Below is a long introduction to a revelation that God
recently provided for me. The astounding
“reality shift” I am about to share
with you was revealed over time through different sources –and this in itself
is a God-thing for that is exactly how God works, teaches and reaches us. This account begins richly within the
storyline of my family nucleus…and comes full circle to the fact that we have a
heavenly family that provides the same
devotion and love that we share with our earthly family. The scriptural statement that we are "heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ” is purposed and significant. It has been specifically used so that we can “relate” to our invisible God. The concise wording of "heir" serves to validate our family lineage and remind us of our rights as Children of God. I hope that this writing gives you a small
understanding of the true feelings we can establish toward God, the Father and
Jesus, His Son! I honestly hope that you deeply perceive this revelation as
profoundly as I:
To begin, I’ll say that sometimes tragedy brings to light
things that we don’t expect. In the
midst of pain we find we face emotions and knowledge we didn’t know we
had. We can quickly and profoundly bump
into truths that were tucked out of sight-deep within. The August-2016 flood
that hit south Louisiana was a catastrophic event that was literally a “once every 1000 years” flood. That’s astounding in the light of our
lifetime. As God would have it, eight of
my family members where affected by this epic flood… and even more profound was
the fact that I happened to be in Louisiana helping my eldest daughter begin
her college career at LSU when the rain began.
The rain started on Thursday and literally 2 days later my hometown was
under water. (If you wonder about the
flood of Noah and how that happened…I can tell you that water rises faster than
you could ever imagine).
Early in the day that Saturday, my dad was pacing. He began to say out loud what none of us
could fathom; “That water is coming in this house.” I kept following him around, or perhaps just
pacing myself, thinking and actually saying out loud…. “No, it’s not.” Their home has never flooded and is not even in a
floodplain but, upon my father’s instructions, my family moved into action elevating
all the furniture. That shocked me and I
began shaking with an inner fear that can only be explained by facing something
you actually can’t believe is happening. Yes, we were just elevating furniture
but my fear was also rising and this disturbed me. Gratefully, I have not been in this position many
times in my lifetime but I can tell you, now, that it’s a weird state-of-mind
to process. Unfortunately, some tragedies
happen suddenly! This one slowly rose
into reality as we all watched.
The water indeed came into my parents homestead and affected
7 other family members. After the water
seeped off we became overwhelmed with physical exhaustion from the vast amount
of manual labor that sat before us day after day. Mental exhaustion was also a constant feeling
during those days; as we were all caught in the midst of a flood of different
sorts than the actual water that rose to consume the homes of our loved ones. With extreme fatigue as our companion and
pain sitting on the surface of our hearts and minds my emotions became
tempestuous. My thoughts whirled, not knowing what to tackle first. During our clean up efforts I found myself standing literally face-to-face
with my brother, John, as we bumped heads, or strategies, on how to proceed
with helping each of our family members whose homes, along with all their
belongings, were sitting water-logged in dissipated river water. It was a tense few moments as we both flashed
our strong personalities… but that unspoken loyalty that binds our entire
family together quickly rose to correct the emotions that were consuming us as
forgiveness graciously resolved the problem and we continued to persevere in
our work. I only meant to seek help for
my sister but stirred frustration in my brother. He, on the other hand, was being torn in two
mentally and emotionally with the burden of stepping into the role of foreman
for several different family homes that needed immediate help, including his. On top of that, his son’s recently purchased home was beyond help
at that time, being that it was still filled to the ceiling with water and was
literally unreachable, except by boat. Stop right now and just imagine your home and all you own completely consumed with water! Talk
about tumultuous.
There are many
different stories and different levels of needs that go with each of our 8 families
mentioned but, in this writing, I want to show you a truth that my Father, God
taught me through that one encounter
with my brother and through the process of sincere prayer during the weeks that
followed. I truly hope that this
chronicle becomes a perfect example for you of how God takes things that were
meant to harm and works them out for our good!
I’m in total AWE of this profound truth that, to the world, seems so
unlikely BUT…. I am here to tell you that good can be found in all things IF we
peer deep enough into spiritual realm as we live here, earth-bound.
After that headstrong encounter with my brother during cleanup, God immediately began to compassionately tug at my heart
revealing the need to pray for mercy, for him and for myself as well. I accepted that God was going to do some sort
of work in my heart and I really wanted to get to the truth of it; so, I begin
to look for the life-lesson, consciously and especially spiritually. One
day, for some in-depth reason, God seemed to believe I needed a reminder of who
my brother was to me and in a quiet way profoundly poured a revelation into my
heart that yielded an overflow of deep, brotherly love that was
unexplainable, unexpected and deeply moving. Through the filter of precious childhood memories God
exponentially heightened my understanding of love using sweet, fleeting memories that I hold of my brother,
John. I knew in that moment that I was
being divinely gifted with a rare
reminder of what true love is, but more specifically, what it feels
like! I truly can’t tell you all the
emotions that ran through me in those few notable moments but one emotion that
I remember distinctly was gratefulness! I experienced this mind-bending feeling
of gratefulness
for my brother. My emotions
overwhelmed me and tears fell.
In that moment, I had no idea why I was inundated with these profound feelings and laughed as I cried-attributing this to the flood
and all the deep-seated emotions that were pulled to the surface because of my
family struggles. So, with gratefulness
as the catalyst and God stirring my heart, I texted my brother and
sister-in-law telling them how much I loved them and, in turn, they texted back
and in typical family fashion kindly reciprocated my feelings. I moved along
with my day sending up a quick prayer “OK,
Lord. Thank you for reminding me to be
grateful for my brother. I am so
appreciative of my family.” I really
felt I had just received a cherished blessing and tucked those intangible
emotions into the place where I store all things dear…..BUT, God was NOT done!!!
The very next day, God took this lesson on brotherly love one step
further and brought me to a video in which the
speaker was teaching that our heavenly Father is also called Abba Father and
that in the original context this translates to Daddy. (Don't overlook the irony of this timing-for this is how God teaches us). I had heard of this translation
before and immediately my mind shifted to my earthly father and how I love him
and how he loves me! But, truthfully, it
has always been a hard switch to
mentally envision God, the Father, as “Daddy”!
Even with this to ponder- I chose to
skim over it and quickly honed in on the logical next step of surmising that if
God is “Daddy” then….. Jesus is my
brother. Here is where my mind shifted!!!
“Jesus is my brother”! I had never connected this spiritual reality
before. I had only understood Jesus as
my savior, part of the Trinity and God’s son….but NOT MY BROTHER! Yeah, I know that this is Christianity 101 but
bear with me and I literally piece together this transition of truth:
Just the day
before I had been weeping, no less, over the gratefulness and love I have for
my earthly brother. Through this spiritual lesson a spiritual link became obvious and I made a HUGE leap in understanding of how I could and should love Jesus. I literally experienced and “got” the connection.
I now had real emotions, or familial love, to associate with Jesus. I had always focused my spiritual relationship
on God, the Father using reverence as
my mechanism to worship and pray so THIS
hit me like a ton of bricks. I now had a
true emotional link to real feelings
on how to love my brother, Jesus. To make the connection I logically
concluded that if I can and do love my earthly brother with such genuine depth
of emotions then surely I could and should have this same kind of deep
emotional connection with Jesus. Wow!
Wow! Wow! 53 years on earth…. church attendance all
my life….and I never grasped this till NOW. Evidently, God believed it was time to genuinely move my heart for Jesus and He opened that
floodgate wide. He used the flood that
consumed my family, the experiential love between "family members" and those real emotions to change the way I could spiritually pursue my relationship with Jesus, my
brother.
I still haven’t
totally grasped this new connection I have with Jesus, BUT I know the authenticity of these loving feelings VERY well. Reality shifts don’t happen often and this was one for me!!! The profound gift in this entire experience is not
just being able to “SAY” I am a Christian and believe IN Jesus…. but through the life-time of deep brotherly love I've shared with my earthly brother I now have a deeper understanding of how to love my heavenly brother as well.
What an amazing God we serve. He IS God, the creator; God, our provider;
God our Father AND Abba, Daddy!!! He is JESUS the son-who is our BROTHER and co-heir to all the Lord has promised those who love Him. Jesus, our brother, became our Savior because of His profound familial love for us and His willingness to lay down his life for each of us out of sheer loyalty!!! I knew all this scripturally…but I didn’t actually connect to it emotionally or spiritually, till now and I have my brother, John, to thank for that. Talk about a brother in Christ!!!
Come hail or literal high water
I belong in the loyal family of Christ. With
this emotional connection still fresh in my heart and mind I can only say it
was an amazing epiphany. I’m confident
that my Heavenly Daddy wanted to remind me to feel gratefulness and
appreciation not only of my earthly brother but my heavenly one as well. Now, through REAL life-experience and a new
spiritual understanding I can truly pray….
“Jesus, I’m so grateful you’re my brother.
Thank you for laying your life down for me and for loving me…
as only a deeply loyal brother would!
Even when my strong personality rises against you,
even when my fear causes me to falter….
and even when I forget who you are to me…you gently remind me.”
For that I am eternally grateful!
John Abrams:
I could use the same humble words over you:
During the flood, you laid your life down for our family
and worked tirelessly for others because of loyalty and sheer love.
Even when my strong personality rose against you...
even when my fear caused me to falter...
and even when I forgot who you have always been to me...
you gently reminded me....through your actions.
With a grateful, humbled heart I am moved to say "Thank you"!
Becky
Epiphany-defined
by Bing:
“Sudden realization of something; an appearance of God”
Revelation-defined by Bing:
”…revelation is the revealing or disclosing of
some form of truth or knowledge
through communication with a deity or supernatural entity.”
Scriptural References:
“And we know that in all things God works for the good
of those who love him,
who have been called according to his purpose.
For those God foreknew he also
predestined
to be conformed to the likeness of his
Son,
that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.”
Romans 8: 28-29
“Though you have not seen him you love him;
and even though you do not see him now,
you believe in him
and are filled with an inexpressible and
glorious joy,
for you are receiving the goal of your faith,
the salvation of your souls.”
1 Peter 1: 8-9
Song Recommendation:
Broken Vessels
(Amazing Grace)
By: Hillsong United
Song Recommendation:
No Other Name-Where
my Feet May Fell
By: Hillsong United
