Ephphatha!

Dear Friends,

As I write, Thanksgiving has concluded and Black Friday has begun early. After a wonderful family time, Deanna and her sister have discovered a local outlet mall that started sales 30 minutes ago and they are on there way to do some damage.

There have been a whole series of snafus over the purchase of this house, so that I am wondering if God means us to be there. This latest involves a dispute between several contracts and addendums in which the seller now expects us to pay about $2K of costs which they previously agreed they would pay. There is a good chance the deal will fall through entirely. I'm okay with this if it is God's will. I've already picked out the next candidate house to look over. We will likely do a drive by tomorrow. There is a verse that says something like "Better to live in a tent with the Lord than in a mansion without him." Proverbs I think, not sure.

Blood checks went fine Wednesday. They let me off till Monday. Monday will be pretty tough. Blood check, doctor's appointment, followed by double chemo, followed by either a house closing or a deal cancellation (hopefully before the chemo side effects begin to set in).

Well, I have had another dream, or vision, or chemo-induced hallucination, whatever you choose to call it that I would like to share with you. I waited for a while because I didn't understand it, and I wasn't sure if it was meant for me to share it. But now I can share it with at least partial understanding, and in a way that glorifies Yeshua, showing his great power, love, and mercy.

With something like this, one struggles mightily as Job did between what the Bible says is God's will for us, and what happens in reality. We were designed to live forever, yet children suffer and die every day. Christians who serve God faithfully become sick and destitute. So many truly terrible things happen to so many people. Our church prayer list has so many suffering people, most from cancer. I am just one of them.

I found myself in the throne room of heaven. I saw the white throne, but I could not see God Himself. Yeshua was standing at the left side of the throne. I had a sense there were many more people (or angels or whatever) in the room, but I was not permitted to see them. I walked to Yeshua and kneeled. He put His hands on my shoulders and began to speak. I wasn't permitted to hear all of it, just bits and pieces. It was not in English. It sounded middle eastern, but not Hebrew, Arabic, nor Farsi. Something else. Aramaic maybe? I don't speak any of these, but I have a pretty good ear to differentiate between them after a career focused mostly on region. I can usually tell the difference.

I had a sense that some sort of ceremony was being conducted-like being commissioned in the military. And I had a funny feeling in my chest, like some energy was tingling around the places where the cancer is. Even though no English was spoken, at the end of it, there was a thought in my head. It was "Be opened". Then it was over.

I had to think about that long and hard. What was he talking about? Open up my esophagus to food? (The first and most obvious thought.) Open my mind to some new teaching? OK, maybe. Open my heart to something that it was too hardened to see the way God sees it? Maybe. Wasn't really sure so I just sat on it and meditated for a while.

Then I did some surfing and learned a little more about Aramaic. A lot of scholars believe that Aramaic was actually the language Yeshua used almost all the time. Apparently it was the day-to-day language of the whole Holy Land during His earthly ministry. Even though the old testament is in Hebrew, they think this may be sort of like the way many catholic churches use the Latin Bible today. They teach in English, but read the Bible in Latin. These scholars think Jesus may have taught in Aramaic, but read the Bible in Hebrew when he was teaching from the old testament. Later, his followers wrote the new testament in Greek so it could be used to spread the gospel to a wider audience throughout the former Alexandrian empire. I was sort of hoping to find an idiot's guide to Aramaic so I could look over some words and see if I recognized any of them. Eventually, I got around to my favorite Bible search engine.

I popped in "Be Opened" and was amazed at how many hits I got. In the Bible, "open" can refer to physical healing of the blind and deaf. It can refer to softening hearts. It can refer to opening minds to new wisdom. It can refer to God making a way for someone where there was only blocking before. It can refer to getting new blessings from God. "open" is a powerful word in the Bible.

But the most amazing hit was Mark 7:31-36, where Yeshua heals a deaf man by saying to him "Be Opened" in, no less, Aramaic. I had forgotten the details of this one:

"Mark 7:31-36 (New International Version)

The Healing of a Deaf and Mute Man

31Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis.[a] 32There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man.
33After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man's ears. Then he spit and touched the man's tongue. 34He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, "Ephphatha!" (which means, "Be opened!" ). 35At this, the man's ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.
36Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it.
Footnotes:
Mark 7:31 That is, the Ten Cities"

Here is a hotlink: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+7%3A31-36&version=NIV

I'm honestly not sure if I heard "Ephphata!" or not in my vision. You can hear it here if you press the right arrow next to the phonetic spelling: http://www.studylight.org/lex/grk/view.cgi?number=2188

Wow. I was pretty blown away. But I kept it to myself. I was still wrestling with it. I still am wrestling with it.

The truth is, I have been struggling to keep my heart in the right attitude. There have been a series of unfair and tragic deaths around me. Two children. My last scans showed active cancer metabolism and tumor growth in some places, even though some tumors dissappeared. This house thing is not going well. Concurrent receipt failed, and the HAP program turned us down, decreasing our income significantly. Many set backs on many fronts. I've been irritable, downtrodden, and even snapped at my beloved a few times.

And then, I was in the throne hall again. But I was full of angst this time. Yeshua stood off to the side, and I addressed the throne alone. He seemed to want me to stand before the Father by myself. I told God about all these rotten things and, it was not pretty. It was not as respectful as it should have been. I asked Him why His word says that we are to have life overflowing-but not for me. I asked him why his word says "By his stripes we are healed." but not for me. I asked Him when He was going to fulfil his promises to me and my family. We have done everything His word says we are supposed to do, so where is the fulfillment of His promises to us?

And then, I really went out on a limb. In the word, it says we should not test God. But there is one exception. God himself accused the Israelites of cheating Him out of the tithe, and then says something like "Go ahead and test me in this, and see if I will not open up the floodgates of Heaven and pour out so much blessing that you won't be able to contain it!" So I did it. I looked at God's throne and said something like. "OK. Just like your word says, I'm testing you right now. Where is my blessing? Where is my blessing that is so much I won't be able to contain it? We have done everything on our part. We have brought in the tithe, served you as best we can, asked forgiveness for ourselves and freely given forgiveness to others, fought with faith healing, fought with conventional medicine, and even unconventional medicine. So where is it God? Where is my healing and my blessing?"

There was silence in response. After a pause, I added

"I don't mean to be blasphemous or disrespectful. But we suffer so much. We need You! We need your promises and blessings, and we need them now."

More silence. And then it was over. I was back. I thought to myself..."Well, you've done it now. You were privileged to see the throne hall in Heaven and you talked bad to God in His own house. You have definitely had it. You'll be lucky if he lets you in ever again, and you can probably forget about any blessing or healing." I kept this one to myself as well for a while, and then shared it just with Deanna while we were out shopping. I remember thinking to myself, maybe Jesus got more than he really wanted when he said Be Opened. A lot of stuff came out that maybe should have stayed in. More on that later.

When we got home, there was a note from the government. Uh -oh, I thought, here it is. Gotta be something bad. A letter about an audit on my disability payments from social security. But no-the letter said they had miscalculated my payment and it was too low. They are increasing it by about $50 per month and-get this-giving me a lump some back payment for the months prior! What a blessing! It may not be the Lotto, but every bit helps. And I felt pretty stupid about what I said to God. While I was ranting to Him, He already, literally, had arranged for the check to be in the mail.

And the blessings did not stop there. Deanna's Uncle Dick passed recently, and tonight we learned that the family had discovered some things he had written that showed ample evidence that he had a saving knowledge of Christ. So we can rejoice that we will see him again in heaven.

There was another blessing tonight too. I haven't eaten much by mouth in a long time. The last time I tried, it was just a tiny bite of mashed potato and it came back up. Weeks ago.

My sweet Deanna wanted me to be able to share in the Thanksgiving meal. So she took some turkey and stuffing and ran it through the turbo grinder to liquify it, and also some mashed potato and gravy. So I had two little bowls of liquid on my plate at the table. They went down okay.

After dinner, everyone broke up into groups and I was sort of on my own by the tv. There was so much wonderful food, I went poking around the left overs. I put a little of everything on my plate. Just one small morsel of each type of food. Turkey, dressing, corn casserole, spinich casserole, green bean caserole, sweet potato casserole, a bit of lettuce/tomatoe salad, apple pie, bannana pie...the whole thing.

I sat down and thought, this is crazy. You're just going to make yourself sick and miserable. The doc refused to stretch you anymore and your esophagus hasn't been stretched in a long time.

I made sure the bathroom was available in case I needed to be sick. And then, I began to nibble.

I started with the softest foods and worked my way up, chewing for a long time, very thoroughly, before swallowing.

And you know what? Everything went down and stayed down-even the turkey!

Yaweh be praised, thank You Yeshua. They have given me a Thanksgiving meal tonight!

Reference my earlier thought about Yeshua getting more than he bargained for after opening me up in the throne room. Maybe, just maybe, Yeshua knew exactly what He was doing when he said be opened. Maybe He knew that I had to release all that angst during the second time in the throne hall. Maybe he meant Be Opened on many levels-in my heart, in my mind, and even in my cancer shriveled esophagus. The depth of His wisdom is amazing.

A year ago I went into the hospital with a staph infection. I was there till almost Christmas. Many people expected me to die there. But by God's grace I lived. And this holiday season, so far, I am at home. Thank You Yeshua, thank You.

I don't fully understand all this yet. I'm still processing it. It's apparent that many blessings and much healing have occurred, but there is still much more to go. But I feel better about holding onto His hope and promises now. And there sure isn't anything held back between me and God now. All the cards are on the table.

I know this is a super long blog, but I hope it will bless you and amaze you with God's power and grace.

Yours in Christ,
-Mike