Sunflowers are really cool: flowers made with a message. I passed fields and fields of them in Transylvania; several million I’d bet if you could tally them up. And invariably they had their faces full open to the sun. Morning pose: bowed to the east. Noontime posture: erect and looking up. Evening position: nodding to the west. It’s a great parable for me right now.
I’m back in Sarajevo and feeling grateful and rested, but troubled. Been seeing some things, and reading up on other worrisome trends in the church: teachers, healers, “prophets”, “miracle workers”… many of them quite quirky. It weirds me out completely, (and embarrasses me for unbelievers), to watch some of the antics on YouTube that we so quickly attribute to the Holy Spirit.
For several days now I’ve been asking God to sort out some of this stuff for me. Been reading lots of scripture about discernment, false teachers, sound doctrine, and deceptive spirits. It just feels like we’re blithely embracing just about any happy-clappy thing that comes down spiritual pipeline these days. A friend reminded me this morning: “You just gotta keep your eyes focused on the simplicity of Christ”, (like those sunflowers seem to do). When Jesus walks onto the scene, whether in the face of a stranger, in a revival meeting, or at the end of the age, I want to be looking in the right direction and recognize the genuine lover of my soul. Don’t wanna fall for some cheap counterfeit.
Dispatches from the Shadowlands 
Yup.
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I was thinking about the one thing you said yesterday ( you also wrote it here in this note). I also watched some of those fantastic charismatic worships on ” you tube ”, with strong and powerful celebrity priestes, pastors… Then, I went to my room and prayed in silency and I felt how magnificent God is. There in silency, without any kind of spectacle.
God is everywhere. Borders of His kindom are not limited by our acts or presence. Probably, Spirit of God is very presented in some of those charismatic worships, but He is presented in my silency too!
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I was also thinking about our friends, 2 guys who disappointed you and 2 who encourrage you. ”I know that God is testing us to show us that we are merely animals ”( Ecclesiastes 3, 18 ). People are somethimes doing such things… We can’t understand that. Only God can give an answer, but are we ready for that ? ” And who but the Lord can count the raindrops or the days in eternity or the sand on the seashore? And who else can measure the height of heaven or the width of the earth or the depth of the sea? ”( Sirach 1, 2-3 ).
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You remain passionate to know Him….You will be looking in His direction like those sunflowers. I think many whose lives you have touched see your example and will turn to see what you are looking at.
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Leviticus 10:1-3 Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, which he had not commanded them. And fire came out from before the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD. Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the LORD has said, ‘Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.'” And Aaron held his peace.
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