Tweets - August 17th - Persevere

If you find yourself resting in the Garden of God and you want to split an unsplittable stone, then persevere - keep moving forward - and don't grow tired of moving forward. The outcome will astonish you every time, and you'll be eager to share what you've accomplished.

How amazing the kindness and honesty of God in all these things. God required my forward movement and not my worry; and the same effort in movement is required for the upbuilding of the Garden and the salvation of our race. But at the moment, I'm completely exhausted.

Aim higher, aim for the perfect outcome. There's no need to settle for "good enough" because of fear, worry, or exhaustion.

Sometimes you'll feel like you're taking a 10-mile uphill walk on the edge of a cliff a thousand feet in the air; you'll feel it all in your stomach, and that's OK. Just keep walking, you won't be destroyed nor will you destroy.

Not entirely true. You might destroy (incidentally) in order to further repair; and you might be destroyed in order to be further saved according to a Higher standard. None of these things are in your control - thankfully.

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You made your decision, and you could only ever make the decision you made. Free will... does God even have free will? I don't know. I suppose if God is able to un-change all that changes in the universe.

As for you, if you lived the same life a thousand times, with the all things being as they are - environment, culture, coin flips and all - you'd make the exact same decision a thousand times. So you can only move forward or stay in one place.

"What if" was always an impossibility for you. I've found it best to accept my position, where I am, and move forward.

Tweets - August 12th - Scared Flower

There was a flower thriving in a dry place. The flower was afraid of the drying Earth; afraid that it would whither up and be no more, so it cried out to God.

There was a friendly passerby who saw the flower; she uprooted the flower, walked down a few hills, and planted it beside an ever-flowing stream. You see then, that God is glorified through the flower, the friend, the hills, and the water.

The day came when the heat of the sun became so hellish that birds fell out of the sky. The flower said to itself, "I am ruined! For not even the birds can survive this heat!".

As the flower waited, it realized the humidity from the stream and the shade of the hills were keeping the air moist and cool - so not even a single petal was burned.

The winds came, and they became so strong that even steel beams bent under their forces. The flower said to God, "I am nothing! For even the strongest buildings cannot stand!".

As the flower waited, it realized that its stem became strong from the nutrient-rich waters, and the hills were positioned in such a way that the winds moved around the flower - so not even a single petal was lost to the winds.

Tweets - August 9th - Acid Reflux

Yesterday evening and night (before I went to bed), I had acid reflux. Before my diet change 5 or so years ago, it was pretty common to have acid reflux while in bed depending on what I ate.

A heavy or tomato/fatty/rich meal would mean sitting up all night in bed. But I haven't had acid reflux like that in years, and yesterday's came out of the blue while it was still light outside.

I did have acid reflux, maybe last year when I ate a lot of fat-free dairy alongside something acidic, but it was nothing like yesterday. I don't eat rich meals any more - not for years.

For dinner I made Dominican rice and peas and had a leftover chickpea and kidney bean burger that I made the day before; dessert was a raspberry sorbet.

I have a fairly simple solution that I've used for years for both indigestion and acid reflux, and that was to take an antacid. Now, I have these 2 large containers of antacids that I purchased many years ago to replace the antacids I had previously consumed.

Since I don't have acid reflux much anymore - the containers are nearly full and expired. On the rare occasion I've needed them, I've taken them.

I was outside talking to heaven about this world and the Garden, then I felt the acid reflux bubbling up in my esophagus, and I reminded myself that I would take some antacids before going to bed (as it was close to my bedtime).

Thinking about what could have caused it, a spacecraft became very luminous and shone very brightly for a few seconds. How weird and unexpected. But seeing the spacecraft inspired me to change my thinking and so I thought to myself, "discuss it with God".

I told God that I wasn't sure what caused the indigestion and acid reflux (as to be sure that I would never cause it to happen again), and I asked God to take it away so that I wouldn't need to take antacids anymore - so that I could sleep peacefully.

Instantaneously, the bubbling stopped. The reflux went away. I sat outside amazed.

Now that the reflux was gone, I still felt some mild indigestion in my stomach. At this point, it was just a matter of waiting for God to complete what God began.

I knew God would complete what God began - but I still had these small thoughts of doubt (not that God wouldn't complete it, but that God wouldn't complete it before I fell asleep).

To be granted something so quick and so soon, because I am dependent on it, has been a very uncommon thing for me, and I wasn't too sure what to expect. But I went to bed last night and slept peacefully throughout the night (as God's mercy has never been dependent on my faith).

Tweets - August 8th - Gift Giving

The Garden of God is gift-giving; gift-giving with honesty, gift-giving with integrity, gift-giving with effort and care. Even the Garden's systems and structures are founded on efforts of gift-giving. In this, we imitate God - treating one another the way that God treats us.

Yes, there is exchange and trade between persons and peoples and races; not as a means to provide what another lacks for survival - exchanging labor, struggle and information for basic necessities like food and shelter (this is the vile godless foolishness of this exiled world); but rather a means to share in our unique excesses and creations, and to offload what we no longer require or desire (and for other reasons, I'm sure).

God will have a Garden in the Earth, and it is going to be both beautiful and devastating to watch God change the stubbornly warped hearts of man. We will be like the psalmist who rested safely and securely in the midst of a city under attack (Psalms 31).

Tweets - August 8th

You are who you are. Apologizing because you're caught red-handed means little. You have not changed. Your apologies may mean something to you, and to those who love you, and to those who love what you do - so as to believe everything you skillfully say - but they mean nothing to those who seek out what is true, and they certainly mean nothing to God. Repentance, true repentance, is through deed first and foremost. You are who you truly are, and you have not yet changed.

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One important thing to note about God's lessons is that you never have to worry about them or fear their arrival. You never see them coming and you never have any idea of what to expect. If you can expect them, then they are not lessons - not from God anyway.

The exception to this, of course, is when you have destructive behavioral patterns or maintain and repair destructive systems. Your lessons would then be the consequences of your own actions - which you would see coming, even years in advance.

The point: "For God spoke to me with God's power, and told me not to walk in the way of this people, saying: 'Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. It is God whom you are to regard as holy.'" ~ Isaiah 8

If I could be so bold to add to Isaiah's message: If they find out that you do not fear what they fear, in the same manner that they fear it, you will be ridiculed, judged, persecuted, and condemned.