Nov. 19, 2023 4;30am I woke up to my brain going overtime First about my son’s birds being allowed to all be free range and how predators are going to begin picking them off when cold weather hits if he doesn’t start locking them up again soon and he should get grass seed planted in their pen now. Then I asked the Lord why I was really awake and what He wanted to tell me. As I prayed He took my mind to illustrations for my poems. I thought of my poem ‘Where were you?’ Which asks where people were when it was time to take a stand as babies are being murdered by abortions. What kind of picture could I paint to tell that story? First I thought of a baby being broken into bits, then I thought “No, too graphic!” then the Holy Spirit showed me. God likes to knit, that’s right, I said knit. I saw in the Spirit, Our Father in Heaven with each child on His lap with a darning needle knitting each precious baby together differently to His prefect design then breathing His breath of life into each of us. That will be my painting for this poem. Before you were born, I knit you together in your mother’s womb. Psalm 139:13-16 You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14) I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15) You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. 16)Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

Then too, I thought about how God does not make mistakes and while man sees the outward, God sees the inward. He gives to each parent what He sees that they need. To the proud and arrogant parent He may choose to create a Downs or Autistic child, to teach humility, to the impatient such as myself he chose to give me a particular child who would try my every patience as He us now doing with one of her children to teach her. To the constantly busy who refuses to slow down, He may give a premature baby who forces us to take time away from life’s busyness to tend to that baby, to reflect on life and our relationship with our Creator who wants an intimate relationship with us. Then I was taken to the scripture where Jesus healed the lame man at the pool of Siloam in front of a group of bystander Pharisees so that His glory would be displayed. John 5:1-23 The Pool of Bethesda 1Some time later there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool with five covered colonnades, which in Hebrew is called Bethesda. 3On these walkways lay a great number of the sick, the blind, the lame, and the paralyzed. 5One man there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6When Jesus saw him lying there and realized that he had spent a long time in this condition, He asked him, “Do you want to get well?” 7“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am on my way, someone else goes in before me.” 8Then Jesus told him, “Get up, pick up your mat, and walk.” 9Immediately the man was made well, and he picked up his mat and began to walk. Now this happened on the Sabbath day, 10so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “This is the Sabbath! It is unlawful for you to carry your mat.” 11But he answered, “The man who made me well told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’” 12“Who is this man who told you to pick it up and walk?” they asked. 13But the man who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away while the crowd was there. 14Afterward, Jesus found the man at the temple and said to him, “See, you have been made well. Stop sinning, or something worse may happen to you.” 15And the man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. The Father and the Son 16Now because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews began to persecute Him. 17But Jesus answered them, “To this very day My Father is at His work, and I too am working.” 18Because of this, the Jews tried all the harder to kill Him. Not only was He breaking the Sabbath, but He was even calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God. 19So Jesus replied, “Truly, truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing by Himself, unless He sees the Father doing it. For whatever the Father does, the Son also does. 20The Father loves the Son and shows Him all He does. And to your amazement, He will show Him even greater works than these. 21For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom He wishes. 22Furthermore, the Father judges no one, but has assigned all judgment to the Son, 23so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.

Jesus did this on the Sabbath and healed another paralyzed man during a Sabbath gathering, He also performed many of His miracles on the Sabbath, many in full view of the Pharisees who were strict in their rules and laws of the Torah, thus breaking all their rules and the mold they had put God into of who He was. God doesn’t fit into a box, so throw it away, cast it aside! Let God be in charge.

Isaiah 55:8,9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. 9) “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

God wants our focus to be on Him and He will do what it takes on His time and in His own way, to get our attention and turn our focus to where He wants us, back to our personal relationship with Him. It’s up to us to listen and pay attention and learn the lessons along the way. Pay attention when He speaks and how He speaks and throw away the box because there isn’t one big enough, He doesn’t fit in one. God created the universe and He created you to have a personal relationship with you, listen to hear His voice, He speaks in many ways. God says in Hebrews 6:1-6 and 13-17 A Call to Maturity 1Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith in God, 2instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3And this we will do, if God permits. 4It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age— 6and then have fallen away—to be restored to repentance, because they themselves are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting Him to open shame. Vs13-17 God’s Unchangeable Promise 13When God made His promise to Abraham, since He had no one greater to swear by, He swore by Himself, 14saying, “I will surely bless you and multiply your descendants.” 15And so Abraham, after waiting patiently, obtained the promise. 16Men swear by someone greater than themselves, and their oath serves as a confirmation to end all argument. 17So when God wanted to make the unchanging nature of His purpose very clear to the heirs of the promise, He guaranteed it with an oath. God is unchanging and He will continue to speak in the same ways as He always has and in His timing, as He always has. Get rid of religious legalism and rules and listen for the Holy Spirit’s voice, whom Jesus said would come after His ascent to Heaven. John 16:7 & 13-15 7) I tell you the truth, it is for your benefit that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. 13-15 13However, when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. For He will not speak on His own, but He will speak what He hears, and He will declare to you what is to come. 14He will glorify Me by taking from what is Mine and disclosing it to you. 15Everything that belongs to the Father is Mine. That is why I said that the Spirit will take from what is Mine and disclose it to you.

When Jesus spoke to the woman at the well, He told her in John 4:23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.

The Lord has taught me many a difficult lesson in my life but my thick skull took a while to wake up and hear His voice. Now I hear Him in many ways. For me, God has chosen to take someone of lowly position, allow many trials and hardships for me to learn and grow through to prepare me for a much greater plan that He has revealed to me and I am waiting on Him to say “begin NOW!” I wait, because He is still working on my patience and honing my listening skills. Not all of those skills are with my ears. I wait as Abraham waited, I wait as Noah waited, I wait as Moses waited, hoping He doesn’t let me wander aimlessly in the desert for 40 years . God waited on me to fully listen like to father for His prodigal son to return to Him. God has been waiting on me to fully surrender my will to Him before He grants what He has promised and that is where He wants each of us. He is always speaking, Are you listening? jWinters