Thursday 21 September 2023
Wide awake at 4, prayed with intercessors from 5-6, and then was out with Luke, seeking the Lord. I was feeling stressed, overwhelmed, lost and frustrated, and I said out loud, “Lord, you’re squeezing the hell out of me!” He replied,
That’s right, child. I am squeezing it out of you, for I want none of it in you.
The late afternoon was sunny and dry, and I started to mow the grass. I had not gotten very far when thoughts and images came flooding into me, visions and words.
I was thinking of words from President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address:
“…Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this…”
I was thinking of this because in my spirit I could hear guns being fired. I could smell the smoke, and I could hear the screaming of the wounded and dying. The images were horrific, and I couldn’t shake them.
Lincoln’s speech was so powerful, and these lines seem imprinted on my forehead:
“…It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain…”
The highlighting is mine, because my vision was full of carnage, of dead and dying soldiers, and of their blood everywhere. Suddenly the scene shifted forward in time to more battles, this time in the Pacific during World War II. There were explosions and gunfire and dead men everywhere. I have a vision of a warship exploding, and clouds of fire and smoke. It was so overwhelming that I had to stop everything, stop moving, and breathe into the present, until the visions pass.
I could not even seem to render any tears, but I know with all certainty that my freedom to even be here at this moment was bought and paid for by that last full measure of devotion. Then I was instantly taken to the deeper place of humbling realization that it is Jesus who gave that full measure of devotion, for me, and for all of us.
Now my mind is racing with thoughts, and I am flooded with emotions. “How do I thank you, Lord? How do I, how do we, any of us, honor you and honor all those who gave themselves up? I don’t feel humble enough at all. I don’t feel enough reverence for all that sacrifice, and what would be enough? I know you’ve shown me this …”
I could hear my heart beating and the sound of my breathing seems very loud. There is a pause, which He speaks into.
I show you this to remind you of the blood covenant in which you live. The war you are in and the battles you are fighting are unlike those except for the dead and dying all around you, for what else is the objective of your enemies – of the enemy that hates me so much that he will kill and maim you without remorse?
Oh yes, child, it is insidious that you are being killed by chemicals and poisons and your so-called pharmaceuticals. It is so insidious that many around you do not recognize the dead and wounded because there are not furious physical battle scenes as I just showed you. They do not, they will not, recognize or acknowledge because to do so would require their admission, and they are afraid.
Why do I show you such scenes? Why do I have you write a Letter of Condolence? Yes, it is necessary to be a war correspondent as well as a fighter. Allow your pain and heartache to come to Me, and I create something beautiful from it. As all my warriors know, you must look beyond the dead and dying, even if sometimes it seems disrespectful, because you are still in a fight. Because I want you to remain clear-eyed, with faces forward, hard as flint.
As the battles rage and bodies fall, you know this deeper truth: he wants your souls, and you know I will not relent, and I will not let him have them.
Now go, live in this moment, not the past, and live for the vision of the future which you surely know I AM BRINGING.
So much do I love you.