Avalon Chronicles #115: The Gift of Joy and Rest

      Today on the first day of this New Year in the ninth decade of my life (and that sounds so old) Linda and I discussed "The Joy of the Lord." She and I are both reading the words, thoughts and teachings of Derek Prince in separate works. She wrote this, imparted to her from today's meditation and study. 

     "Joy is the energy source from and given by the Holy Spirit. As Jesus said, 'The wind blows where it pleases and no one can see where it comes from or where it is going.' So it is with the 'energy' the 'joy' given by Jesus by way of the Holy Spirit. Joy lifts up, gives strength and creativity and brings healing. Joy is the energy source of the Lord. His joy is imparted to the spirit of man."

    The flesh can know pleasure. The soul can know happiness. The spirit can know the "Joy of the Lord"

                                                                        Derek Prince

     In his book Through the Psalms by Derek Prince he writes about David, who faced
"...tremendous pressures, surrounded by enemies on every side, his very life threatened." In Psalm 4:6-7 it is written by David, but God: "You have filled my heart with greater joy than when their grain and new wine abound."

     David amidst all his travails and circumstances knew "...the blessedness of untroubled , restful sleep." With all his stressors he was renewed with a joy and peace that came "...not on circumstances, or on material provisions, or on the fragile promises of men, but, on the eternal, unchanging promises of God's Word." Prince wrote David was able to sleep peacefully and "...he could awake without anxiety, without fear, without the torment of sleeplessness."

     One of the major scriptures I recollect and attempt to live by to impart my needed joy and bring on restful sleep is I John 3:22: "And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we obey his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight." This relates to confession of sins, obedience and discipline in our daily lives. God listens to my prayers and addresses my needs, but not necessarily my wants. This is the spiritual formula to achieve joy and sleep peacefully.

     

     

Avalon Chronicles #114: 2023 Looking Back and Forward

      For my Christmas greeting this past year I began to say, "May your Advent season be blessed." Christmas has become so secularized and defined as a rushed time to send cards, buy and wrap gifts and attend end of year social gatherings. We have focused so much on Santa Claus and do not even recognize or know anything about the true origin of Santa. William J. Bennett wrote The True Saint Nicholas Why He Matters to Christmas. The secular Santa Claus is based on a true historical figure, Saint Nicholas, a Christian bishop from Myra, Turkey. Interestingly enough is the story of the original Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in Lower Manhattan. It was destroyed on September 11, 2001, when the South Tower fell. The church is in the process of being rebuilt today. It is up from the ashes of that horrendous day in our nation's history. Christmas has evolved so far from its true meaning 

     Much of earth's history is that of ashes. In Genesis 3:19 the Bible expresses the phrase "dust to dust." In the 1662 version of the Book of Common Prayer for the English Burial Service the Priest shall say, "...we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust;" This past Advent (Christmas Day) I reflected on my blessings for the year in my safe and secure and warm home. I thought about the trouble and turmoil experienced by the people in Ukraine and having been a wounded soldier myself, I was immeasurably cognizant of the suffering of the combatants on both sides of the war zone. I realized how many have been and will be committed in burial services to the dust and ashes of the earth.

     I opened my 1828 original Noah Webster Dictionary and read the definition of Advent, "A coming; appropriately the coming of our Savior,...It is intended as a season of devotion, with the coming of Christ in the flesh, and his second coming to judge the world." Jesus was sent in the flesh by his Father God to be an example of how lives should and could be lived as expressed so elegantly and wonderfully in the New Testament. The Old Testament is a history of pain and sorrow and suffering and misery of mankind. It saddened me to think of our world today and how little has changed even after 2000 years since the Advent. Christianity came upon the world and millions have followed Christ's teaching, but, today the evil one, Satan, has his hooks on so much of the world and so many people. I question why we have not made better progress in putting an end to the horrors of our history. The enemy has been relentless. Our faith has not always been so relentless!

    It is for me only to play my own small part as a member of the earth's cast, but I am secure in my conviction that the end of the play will be a great crescendo of the orchestra to announce the conclusion, "Jesus the Christ will prevail" and as Webster said and we learn there will be a second coming for the Judgment. I will seek to be proven not guilty of denying the eternal truth that the person of Jesus, who was birthed 2000 years ago, was a true and believable event for a person that we, who now know, must proclaim until our own remains become ashes.