I have come to learn that what seems to be obvious to me may not be obvious to others.  And no doubt the reverse is true as well.  You may well see things clearly about me that I can't see at all, or is not on my radar.  I am not talking about critical spirits, judgments and such, but the good things that we could benefit from if it were as obvious to us as it is to others.  Or, as obvious to you as it is to me. 

Recently, I had a problem.  Ever had one of those?  It wasn't a big problem, but it was my problem.  I was working in the yard and using our brush shredder to shred up the pruned trees and shrubs from earlier this year.  Everything was working well.  Then I attacked the pile of weeds and pruned plants, and though I thought there would be no problem there was a problem.  A mass of that stuff stopped the shredder cold in it's tracks with a huge clunk, that sounded like something major broke inside the machine.  My first problem was to clear out the portion that stopped the blades, which w

Today I have been thinking about the small things.  The small things that can make a huge difference.  The beginning of small things that end up being big things.  And the small things that are all part of the building block of great lives and great ministries.  Not only is God the God of the big picture, the overview, the life view, the vision view, but He is the God of details and specifics.

Recently we were in Alabama, experiencing a new place and new grace to do it.  On the morning of our departure, after a very wonderfully intense 5 days, I awoke early.  I wondered if the alarm would go off in time, so I kept checking the clock from time to time to make sure I didn't miss my awake hour.  Sure enough it went off on time.  While I was waiting for it, I began to rehearse all the things I needed to do to make this day work out:  get up, take my shower, pack the rest of my things, spend time with our friends with our friends before leaving them, driving back to Huntsville, finding out where to return to car rental.....about that time the Lord said to me,  "Stop".  That got my attention.  Then He changed my vision perspective. 

I think we have some choices to make about how we are going to relate to bad news.  By now there is probably no one left in America, or the rest of the world for that matter, that hasn't at least heard some bad news recently.  But what do we do with all this bad news?  Do we have any good news that would help us with this bad news.  I believe we do. 

Recently I had a dream about reading Psalm 23.  I was standing in front of many people to read it, but couldn't find it in my Bible.  So I just spoke out a portion of the psalm.  "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want."  It started a night long repeat of that portion of scripture.  Every dream, all my night thoughts and even when I awoke in the night were filled with saying, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want"  I finally got up and I was refreshed and encouraged in a soul restoring way.

This morning I was reading an article concerning Billy Graham.  A part of the article reported the following perspective. "He has had the ear of Presidents for five decades, but except for his public disavowal of racial segregation, Billy Graham, 86, has stuck to soul saving and left the political proselytizing to others. He explained his self-imposed separation of church and state in the language of a Gospel preacher: "It's not what I was called to do."

In Spring of 2007 the Lord showed me the following vision. I have been encouraged by several folks to post it here for the greater good of the body of Christ. I believe it is primarily for the believers in the New England region (that is where I was when I had the vision), but the application is far reaching wherever the need may be. I present the vision here, and a bit of follow-up discussion in hopes that you or those you know will be encouraged to believe what the Lord is saying and respond to it in faith.

So here we are again in the NE.  And partakers of the fifth season of the year:  Mud Season.  The time when the water soaked frozen ground begins to thaw and turn to jelly.  And I was close up and personal with it in my back yard last week, sinking into the mud on what looked like solid ground.  And once again the Lord used this phenomena to show me something and this time it is about seasonal transitions.

God gives dreams to those that He knows can fulfill them.  On the surface this might look like a "no brainer" statement but lets consider a couple of things before we go running off with "I know that, so what?"  If we have the capacity to dream a dream, to have God given vision, and revelations that concern what we are called to do, then we need to understand that we have been created with the God given capacity to fulfill those same dreams, visions and revelations.  God doesn't make mistakes.  He didn't give your dream to someone else, He gave it to you, a chosen vessel set apart for His purpose.