I am leaving for India April 1^st with Rev. Linda Miller. We are still in need of funds. Please consider what God might have you do. I have just recently returned from Ohio, where some of the ministry and battles were off the scale. It was absolutely amazing. But I don’t feel I am to clutter these words with those details at this time. I love you and covet your prayers.

 

This is a two-part word. Please read both parts.

Once upon a time, long, long ago; in a far away land, their lived a princess. She was very tiny and frail and though she was 7 she looked more like a 4 year old. She had very delicate features and long beautiful hair that curled on the ends. Her eyes were big and soft. She was also considered to be very smart. When you are 7 and you look like you are 4 people think you are smarter than you are but she really was smart.

 

She had every thing a child could ever want. She was a princess, she was adored, and she had every toy she desired and more. She had money and position. She had it all, all except one thing, her parent’s love. She would have gladly traded all her beauty, money and power for only a little of their love and attention. No amount of toys or devoted servants could substitute for a parents love.

 

Her mother had been small and delicate like her and not long after she was born, due to complications, her mother passed away. Her dad had wanted a big strong boy that he could train to take his place one day and didn’t quite know what to do with a delicate little girl, so he avoided her. Also she reminded him of her mother and that was painful. So unsure of how to deal with her, he simply left her alone. But indeed he did love her; he just didn’t know how to show her.

 

She determined she would earn his love and attention one way or another. She took up sewing and art, determined to be the best. This was the normal thing girls learned in those days. She became quite good but he paid no attention. Then she decided she would become an excellent musician. Surely that would capture his attention. She excelled at several instruments but he never showed up for her recitals.

 

Then she heard one of the servants saying that it was because she was not a boy. That he had desired a son to train to take his place. Then she determined to be better than any son. She practiced night and day working with the javelin and sword and though it took her much longer than others, she had a special sword made that was not too heavy for her and became quite good. She became an expert with horses and fearless in war games. She earned the respect of everyone, everyone that is except her father, who frowned when he saw such things.

 

By now she was 12 and was old enough to be much bolder. She requested an audience with her father and it was granted. She stood defiant, indignant. “What must be done to earn your love?” She asked. “I have excelled at everything and yet nothing pleases you. Please just tell me what I must do to earn your love and I will do it? I have learned if I try hard enough I can do anything. What must I do?”

 

Tears streamed down the kings face as he looked at this delicate girl. “There is nothing you can do to earn my love.” He said sighing, “Because you cannot earn what you already have. You think I do not love you and that I do not show my love to you. But the truth is you do not let me love you. You feel you must earn it to receive it. But this is the first time you have come to me with how you feel. Do you know why? Because you do not believe I will love you if you are not good enough to be loved. You think you have to earn it. But then, you want it as though I owe it to you and I will not give such love. I tell you again, you cannot earn what you have freely given to you.”

 

“Did you know when you see me coming you hide or run away? It is because you do not believe I love you. You think if you ‘do’ more to earn my love, then you will able to face me, but until that time you run away. But you have not seen me, come into your room in the middle of the night, to watch you sleep and brush the hair away from your face as I pray over you. You have not seen me watching from my window, wondering when you would realize all you have to do is come to me and receive my love and not run away. You have not seen the times I have wept because you are all I have and my heart is full of you, but I will not make you love me or push myself on you. I will wait until you can receive my love and believe my love and then I have so much love to pour out on you. For I have kept it all for you.”

 

She looked at him amazed, tears on her cheek. She never once considered that he loved her so much but was waiting for her. She thought she had been waiting for him… waiting to prove to him. He was right. She had wanted to prove she deserved his love before she would let him give it, if only she had understood it was always hers for the asking.

 

“Now,” She said, “I am more determined than anything I have ever set my hand to do, to do this. I will learn to let you love me and learn to receive your love. Because now I see you need my love as much as I need yours. I’m sorry…” she said softly. “I was so busy hurting I never thought of how you might feel.”

 

The king looked at her and spoke the words that speak love more than any other, “Forgiven.” He said. “Never speak of it again.”

 

“It is a good thing I am small,” she said, “because now you can carry me with you wherever you go, because I will not leave your side again. I must stay with you and learn to let you love me and believe in your love.”

 

“Yes,” He said, “You must never leave my side again. Now, this My desire and yours are the same and I will teach you.”   Amen

“When a rose, full bloom, is crushed, its fragrance rises. I capture that fragrance.” The Lord said, “It is the offering of love sacrificed. It is precious to Me and I will always respond to help that one and bless them. But even the slightest bitterness, resentment, self-will, or self-pity, pull that fragrance back to the rose and crushes it more than the original crushing. Then there is nothing I can do, for by their bitterness and resentment, their heart sufferings returned to itself. Since I never received it, it cannot move Me to action on their behalf. Suffering is a strange thing, given up as an offering it can move the hand of God in a mighty way but returned to its own heart of origin it will crush it and do more damage than any other thing can. Suffering offered up becomes a temporary pipe for Me to flow through. Suffering kept becomes a pipe bomb, causing great damage to the heart.”

 

“People never see the suffering as the source.” the Lord said, “They see the original person or situation as the source because of the greater, deeper pain. Because of their wrong handling of suffering they blame the person or situation even more, in relation to the amount of pain they feel. This creates a deeper chasm of bitterness and resentment, preparing their heart for the next intrusion. Soon all pain, bitterness and resentment that comes moves with the pain they have kept and then even little things cause illogical traumas.”

 

“The answer is not just to remove the roots of bitterness and resentment through repentance and forgiving but now all the accumulated suffering and pain must be sanctified by the fire of the Holy Spirit and offered up to God as a sacrifice, so healing can begin. It is not an end – it is the beginning of a process and a life pattern change that we must establish.”

 

“You must picture suffering and pain as objects that are very damaging and easily accumulated against you. Then it is easy to see how you must keep these objects removed and not allow them and their painful, explosive barbs and images to accumulate against you. But something wonderful happens when we offer it up, especially if we didn’t deserve it or if it was unjustified against us. As we offer them up, these ugly objects that look like round bombs lined with fishhooks, are transformed into golden sacrifices from a loving, trusting heart.

 

Can you trust God with your pain? It speaks love and trust to Him when you do and it moves His hand on your behalf.”

 

John the Apostle: History tells us that they tried to boil him in oil and when that didn’t work they exiled him, without food, to starve to death on the isle of Patmos, but John said, “I will call it a fast unto the Lord.” He took the suffering and with a good attitude, trusting God’s love and goodness beyond what he could see and feel, gave God his pain and suffering as a sacrifice of love. We know the result was the book of Revelations and we also know from history that the Lord delivered John from that island.

 

Cornelius in Acts 10:4, The angel said to him, “Your prayers and your alms (giving) have come up for a memorial before God.” He had nothing in his heart to return it to himself, so it went up and moved God. As a result he became the first gentile Christian and set a president for all Christianity. Let your offerings and sacrifices go up with a pure heart, so they can become a pipeline that God moves through. Bitterness, resentment, and self-pity return even our greatest offerings to ourselves.

 

Our pain holds things like a magnet. As the pain accumulates and the magnet grows in size and power, it will begin to draw in more and more people and situations to hurt us. Now we see how very urgent it is to let go of this pain and make it a sacrifice.

 

You may say, “But I can’t because it grips me at my very heart.” Don’t you think God knows that? You just determine to do it, as an act of your will, and give it to Him in prayer and He will begin a process for a season, until you know you are free. He may at first take chunks. Give Him whatever He causes to arise. He causes it to arise so you will be aware of it and release it to Him. Continue the process through the days until it is all gone. Then you will have a big hole. Proclaim God’s will in it and ask the Lord to scar it over with the scars of Jesus, for only the scars of Jesus connect us to Him. Our scars become walls.

 

Let Him begin to fill it in and heal it. As Jesus said, “Not My will God, but Yours be done.” When we allow our heart to be cleansed and healed in this way and learn to give all pain and suffering to the Lord right away, not allowing any to return on itself and accumulate; our temporary pipeline will gain the constancy that it needs to become permanent. Because of this two things will happen. We will have true rich fellowship with God, we will learn His voice, His will, His ways and His blessings will have free passage to us. Secondly, we will no longer be vulnerable to the devil’s fear and pain tactics to hold our heart captive only to ourselves. Which leads us to blame God as though He Himself had kept His goodness from us.

 

It is a life change; so don’t be in a hurry. Be very diligent and allow God to do this great work in you that will release His hand to you, as He desires to bless you. Let the work be deep so the change will be permanent.

 

Daily I pray giving the Lord my scars, holes, pain, sufferings, tears and wounds. I ask Him to remove what needs to be removed, to cleanse, heal and restore and to scar it over with His scars that connect me to Him. Then I give Him all my cares, worries and weights. I picture myself like a hot air balloon throwing off ballast so I can rise to Him. I encourage you to incorporate this into your daily prayers and allow the Lord to show you areas that you may have accumulated pain. Then watch His blessing be piped in, for He is a good and loving Father.