Yes, it has been a month since I have posted anything on my blog.
My life has been pretty crazy lately and I haven’t really had the time to do so.
So here goes…
A lot has happened…where to start?
Ahh yes, the beginning…
Ok…hmm…
“In the Beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth” –The Bible
Ok…mabey not THAT far back…
In a previous blog I mentioned that I had gone to Winnipeg to visit my inlaws who have really been there for me and still love me as a son in spite of the mess with the separation from my wife.
I had a vision before I left, a while before Christmas of a mountain.
I had prayed with a friend of mine who is one of my accountability partners about possibly going to Lloydminster, Saskatchewan & Alberta (town straddles the border – long story lookit up on Wikipedia…) to help a friend set up a biker church.
The vision I had of the mountain was forgiveness for my wife who had left me high and dry financially, emotionally, and physically and had relocated to another city, namely Calgary, Alberta with another guy.
This mountain was so high I could not see the top of it, clouds obscured the summit and it seemed impossible that I could ever scale it.
On my way back from Manitoba God spoke to my heart and said “Do you want Marianne back in your life or Back in my Kingdom”
I cried out to God I want her back in Your kingdom, if that is the choice I have to make I choose your kingdom.
God then told me that if that is what is in my heart that I would have to let Him help me to forgive Marianne.
I felt something break in my heart and in the coming days I could see that He had given me His heart for Marianne.
This heart was not Phileo (Friendship Love) or Eros (Sexual Love) but He had put His heart of Agape (Unconditional God Love) in my heart.
He gave me a burden for my wife to come back to Him and to see her redeemed from her bondage to her mental sickness, alcoholism, and adultery. He gave me a burden to pray that she would forgive herself and God gave me a mission to love her unconditionally with the love that He has for her.
I wish I could say it has all been easy, but it has not. However, God has been pouring in and building in me peace, joy, and faith ever since.
I cannot explain how much freedom comes with that forgiveness, it is truly amazing the power of God that was released with I released Marianne to Him.
I know that God is working in Marianne’s life and I know that God has been speaking to her heart, in that still small voice calling her back to Himself.
It is now up to her to listen.
God has shown me that as her husband I was beating myself up for failing as the Priest in our home and as the head of the house I felt that I failed because my wife fell away from the Lord.
He has since shown me that I am responsible for my actions now. Marianne has joined herself to another and I am no longer the covering for her. She has divorced me in her heart. She has rejected me as the head of our house and has joined herself to another.
I have taken responsibility for my actions and now she must take responsibility for hers, but that is not my responsibility to change her it is now in God’s hands and in her will.
By releasing her to God and forgiving Marianne, I have inadvertently now given God the freedom to do something in her life. When I was in Unforgiveness, Bitterness, Pain and Anger he could not. I was literally stopping God’s hand.
I prayed with a pastor friend of mine about Marianne and after not hearing from her for months she called me. It was quite amazing actually.
She is getting some treatment for her mental disability, and has been calling regularily ever since.
God has since shown me another vision of me standing on a plain, looking back at the mountain of forgiveness From the Other Side.
By forgiving and releasing Marianne to God, it seems that God has been able to release me from my bondages of anger, pain, bitterness and Unforgiveness.
It is truly remarkable actually.
So where am I now…
Well…in the wake of all this God has not shown me if I am to get back with Marianne or not.
In fact, God has been quite silent on the issue.
He has been illuminating my path of faith just a foot in front of my feet it seems, just enough to follow, but not enough to see where I am going…
I guess that is what is called walking in faith…
God has not given me any direction but to follow His light and trust that His plans for me are for good and not for evil and are to give me a future and a hope.
So this is where I walk.
God has also told me to stand in faith and dig in as I march.
There is a movie I love to watch, it is not a Christian movie by any stretch of the imagination, but has a lot of cool analogies in it.
The movie is called The Thirteenth Warrior and stars Antonio Banderas an outcast from the middle east who is exiled to be an ambassador in other countries.
Antonio’s character encounters a group of Vikings who get called upon to protect a village on the outskirts of Norseland that is being ravaged by a warring barbarian tribe.
I was asking the Lord one day what is my purpose in my life? What am I to do now that Marianne and I am not together, that it looks like she is going to go ahead with the divorce in April, and that financially everything looks a mess.
His exact words were to stand.
When you have done all to stand, stand therefore, submit to God, resist the devil and he shall flee from you.
He gave me this image in my mind from the Thirteenth Warrior of the Viking King in the movie, after the Calvary had broke through the walls and was stampeding through the village, how the Viking King grabbed a large sharpened pole, jammed it into the ground and stomped his foot on it and how he called another Viking to do the same and Antonio Banderas’ character to do the same.
Antonio you can tell is nervous, 3 guys standing with sharpened poles facing off against a stampeding horse calvary barreling down on them, but something happens…
He looks at the Viking King who stands so brave and courageous and does not flinch and is such an example that Antonio gets inspired that he can actually do this, as crazy as it sounds, this will work because the Viking King is being the example, he is doing it first, and he is unflinching, stoic, and there is no doubt. This will work.
Antonio gets courage from his leader and in doing so these 3 men avert an entire calvary.
God explained it to me this way.
I am like the Viking King. Stand. Watch. Take Courage for I am with you. Look to me. Take your courage from me. I know what I am doing and even though everything looks crazy in the natural, I am with you. Let me strengthen you. Stand with me and this army that flies against you will fall. Do not look with eyes of fear and the flesh, look with MY eyes of strength and Spirit for your strength and power will come from me. Look to me. I will win the battle. Stand and I will deliver you.
Do not be afraid or be discouraged, go out and face the foe tomorrow, for I AM your God. I will be with you, do not be dismayed. You will not have to fight this battle, stand firm and see the deliverance I will bring you my child I love. Look with my eyes of faith, not with your own. See what I see, look to what I look. Walk on the water with me and I will be with you.
A lot of things have been swirling around me, a lot of things in the natural right now and in the flesh look hopeless, but God has not called me to look to those things, He has called me to look AT HIM. To follow Him and to obey Him. He is building faith in me that could not be built any other way.
Though He slay me yet will I serve Him. I am a Bondslave who wishes not to leave His master and chooses to love Him no matter what.
How am I doing?
In the words of Ernest Shackleton:
Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922), the invincible Antarctic explorer whose fame came from his expeditions -- none of them successful -- to reach the South Pole.
"MEN WANTED FOR HAZARDOUS JOURNEY. SMALL WAGES,
BITTER COLD, LONG MONTHS OF COMPLETE DARKNESS,
CONSTANT DANGER, SAFE RETURN DOUBTFUL. HONOR AND
RECOGNITION IN CASE OF SUCCESS."
I am walking by faith…it is all I can do…
God Bless,
Moose
