I think for the impact of this course correction and the profoundness it weighed on me to be understood with any chance of it helping another, I will have to expound on the background of the setting.  I apologize if it’s too detailed, but to leave out some may cause the effect to be lost, and then what’s the point?

The background is that I spend untold of hours as a watchman on the wall, scanning the landscape for threat or even hints of threat coming off the horizon.  In the process of operating at my post, I am compelled to evaluate perceived threats for their seriousness.  To do that, I must look past the surface and superficial, and really look at the nuts and bolts of something to the best of my abilities.  A headline, for instance, is not enough information to warrant a warning.  A whole article is not usually enough. 

There’s more to that, but the point of it is that I spend a lot of hours in dark holes of malicious intent and nefarious connections and roots.  The past few years have been heavy, and the past several months have worn me down considerably.   After awhile I realized I have not heard from God personally in quite some time – longer than usual.  In fact, the darkness of the hole I was in had swallowed the light and I have been scanning to see and hear God.  I have been desperate for some sort of balance to the dismal future I see before humanity.

From my journal entry:  I have been crying out to God for weeks upon weeks now.  I have not been able to see, hear, or perceive Him.  I have been in a shadow, a place I couldn’t understand or discern rightly.  I have been looking for God – straining to hear Him.  The blackness of this world – the corrupt state of our nation – the seeming lostness of my children – all of it has taken its toll and I have been in a dismal, dark place.  I have been looking, looking, looking for Him.  Where is He right now?  What is He doing?  What is He thinking?  How can I join Him if I don’t know where He is?  What He’s doing?  Has my soul become polluted from the cesspools I’ve been mortified by?  Has my heart gotten hardened by the depravity of our society and the growing cynicism in my heart?  Is He upset with me because my faith is so weak right now?  I have been watching and reporting on the darkness for so long now, have I become unable to see what He, the Light, is doing?  These have been some of the questions haunting me that I have been echoing to my God.

And sentiments like this have been my continual prayer before God for weeks upon weeks now, in between tasks, when I lie down at night and rise in the morning. 

I have the gift of faith, so faith comes easy for me.  I usually have enough faith for me and whatever community is around me.  I have no problem believing God.  Yet in November I confided to a couple of my best friends that I had never known my faith to be so weak.  I set myself to see what was the root.  I set myself before God.

I’ve been waiting.  And waiting. 

It got better as I set myself to read His Word more consistently, to set aside time to meditate and just be before Him.  But I still hadn’t heard from Him.  I’ve learned over the years how to posture myself to see and/or hear God when I need to.  I’m used to seasons of silence.  It doesn’t bother me, because I’ve learned He speaks and moves faithfully.  I’ve learned how to wait upon Him and wait for Him.  This was different.  This time was not like the rest.  It was nothingness.  Not a silence as in He wasn’t speaking, but a nothingness as in is He even there? 

Then Friday night, I was going to be alone again because Bill had to work late again.  I threw some leftovers in the oven and sat by the fire to eat them around 8:30pm.  As usual, I am talking to God on the in-betweens of thoughts and actions.  I sat down cross-legged in my chair before the fire, the plate on my lap, continued the last thought I had before Him, and as I picked up my fork to take a bite He said, “I’m right here, Michelle.”

He interrupted me, and I stopped, fork mid-air.  It’s been quite awhile that I’ve been looking for Him so I wondered if my mind was playing tricks on me, if maybe I said it to myself to comfort myself….  (Though I wouldn’t say it like that, and it interrupted my own thoughts enough to startle me.)

The next morning was Christmas Eve morning, and I awoke at 5:58am with the following dream (see excerpt). 

I got out of bed, went to the living room and built a fire.  I sat there silently.  Everything faded.  Every other person in my life faded so far in the background I couldn’t see them anymore (though I knew they were there), and it was just me and God.  [Almost like it used to be but also like it is now and should be.]

I was cognizant at that moment of just me and God.

There were no real thoughts at that time.  No words.  No prayers.  I half-expected Him to speak but thought that He probably wouldn’t.  This morning as I sat by the early fire and all the world faded to the background, I heard it again, “I’m right here, Michelle.”

He’s right here…..

I began talking with Him about the dream, and He began showing me some things.  [It would take the next three days to unpack different parts of it and what they meant, which I’ll share in a minute.]  I was at that place where it was still me and God – that “I’m right here, Michelle” place.  And I saw the landscape of the dream (and I use dream lightly here), and thought how I needed that place of the dream, that place unscathed by man, and Psalm 91 came to me…

 “He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty…”

Abide.  Abide.  Abide.

                The key.

       I must abide, dwell, live in the secret place….

In the dream, Bill symbolized Christ and we were walking and talking in the spiritual domain, in the spiritual terrain.  It was untouched by man for as far as I could see.  It was peace and safety and rest.  I was telling Bill/Christ the burdens of my heart, the questions I had, the weight I was carrying.  But it couldn’t touch me there.  I was safe there.  I was at peace there.  I was happy there.

Abide.  Abide.  Abide.  This is where I must abide, the secret place.  The place untouched by man.

I was so happy there that I had the conscious thought of building a reprieve there.  I knew I couldn’t live there because it was detached from my responsible life, but I knew I could go there.  I thought about how we would build it and with what. 

As I sat there with the Lord, the whole Psalm unfolded before me. 

I know there are many facets to the truths and promises in this Psalm, but a couple things struck me:  “NO EVIL SHALL BEFALL YOU….no plague come near your tent.”

The promise of THAT alone, the surety and assuredness in it are overwhelming.  If God is my dwelling place – the place where I live, where I abide – evil cannot befall me.  The plague cannot enter my home.

Our love for God, for Christ, puts us in a position that safeguards our vulnerability.  For so  long now, decades, I have felt secure and not afraid for my life – almost assured nothing could touch me apart from the will of God.  I couldn’t tell you why I was sure harm (in the form of evil kind of harm) could not touch me.  I just knew it – felt it in my bones.  In some ways it felt like an invincible sort of spirit.  I didn’t tempt evil to come get me by putting myself in deliberately precarious positions, I just didn’t fear evil.

It’s not that I was safe or impervious to struggle or hardship or pain or any number of situations that happen just from being a human and living on this earth.  I’m not talking about being spared from such like that.  There are various kinds of harm, hurts, and pains.  I want to be clear here.  I have just always felt certain forms of evil I was immune to – like they couldn’t touch me – only would I see the evil around me, but not personally on me.

This Psalm explains that which I’ve felt as my reality.  It may be happening all around me; I may see it with my own two eyes, but it will not touch me. 

And this matters.  This matters a great deal to me.  Because I spend a significant portion of my waking hours studying the works of evil in our society and in our world.  I have been disturbed by the implications of human cloning, transhumanism, and Artificial Intelligence.  The impact and capabilities of the new technologies to control human thought and action through nanoparticles injected (or even swallowed in food, water or air) and using cellular, wireless and Bluetooth technology to employ such, has mortified me.  What chance does humanity have over these schemes?  People can be infected unwillingly and unwittingly.  What precaution or shield do we have for THAT??

As I sat before the Lord and this Psalm came back to me, I marveled at the provision of God.  God is able.  God is willing.  All of this destruction – weather modification, bioengineered pandemics, transhumanism, mind control – is not outside the sphere of God’s sovereignty.  And He will protect WHOM from it??  He who sets his love upon God.

Selah

We will see and know the SALVATION – saving from harm or destruction – of the Almighty.

What a promise!  What a glorious, glorious promise! 

“I’m right here, Michelle.”

I’m not a god far off.  I’m right here.

The Spirit helped me understand the other pieces of the dream after this.  Anytime Ken Ellis is mentioned in my dreams, it’s how God signals that it’s a direct word from God.  [long personal story, but there’s a reason for this – also, his name means “royal oath, mouthpiece of God” – another way God underscores for me to pay attention]

In the dream I’m told of an account Ken told about a date in the 1800s where apparently the world was in a state of despair.  As he was telling me in the dream I could actually see (like watching a movie) a sidewalk scene where there were people in 1800s period clothing walking.  The countenance of the people were lifted in a noticeable and measurable way when they encountered someone who smiled and was happy.  Bill (Christ) said, “Maybe we’re missing it, Michelle.”  This was my course correction.

Be in the moment with those you’re with.  The despair and heaviness in the earth for those who endeavor righteousness is tangible.  There’s a growing despair over the wickedness of the days of Lot we’re in.  [actually read and contemplate 2 Peter 2:4-10]  My stiletto moment in the dream was this moment:  “Maybe we’re missing it Michelle”.  I can’t recapture the whole monologue Bill (Christ) told of the Ken Ellis message of a century or two ago, but its essence has stayed with me plainly.  We carry the hope of Christ within us.  The joy of the Lord is our strength.  This is our weapon in the midst of depravity and its ensuing despair.

We are kept by abiding in the secret place of the Most High, under the shadow of the Almighty.  Because we love God and have set our hearts upon Him, He delivers us from the wickedness around us.  The bioengineered weapons the enemy is using, the nanoparticles of control the enemy is deploying, the technology that invades our spheres, these are not pervious if we are abiding in the secret place.  It can’t get to us, and we are filled with joy and gratitude for the provision of our King for our defense.  That joy manifests in our peace in a world of conflict and turmoil.  That joy can be passed to those around us in despair.  Our attitudes, our spirits, can help those around us.

The only thing I saw in the scenery of my dream that was man-made was an unmarked rancher’s arch that was broken at the top right.  In the dream I marveled at how it was still standing and why it hadn’t fallen because of its brokenness.  The Spirit told me it represented the institutions of man and its infrastructure.  Just like I know today that the institutions of man are broken and I cannot understand how they are still standing.

God is a personal God.  He speaks to us where we are.  That was in my dream to show me God knows my heart, has heard my questions.  Maybe I’ll get the answer and maybe I won’t.  But He has heard and He spoke my heart back to me. 

There were other things He spoke to me about through that dream, but that was the essence I wanted to share publicly (and there are other parts of the dream I didn’t share).  I thought there may be others who fight despair, who have wondered where God is, who have questions, who are seeking….  Maybe it will help someone else.  He’s right here. 

If He’s silent on the battlefront right now, He’s not absent.  I think He’s calling His children to abide in the secret place, to secure the protections and provisions that come from that intimate relationship with our Creator and Father.  I think He’s telling us to carry the hope of Christ to those around us, to smile, to share our joy and our hope, our faith and our peace, to lift others out of that place of heaviness and despair, of fear and doubt, even though the world may be in darkness.  We are not, and we represent the One who saves.