"I'm Fighting for You While You Sleep"

DISCLAIMER: This is not "thus saith the Lord."

As I sat down this morning to spend some time in prayer, worship, and the scriptures, I took a deep breath and immediately saw a picture in my mind. It was of me sleeping and the Father standing over me while I slept in the darkness. And in my spirit, I heard these words,

"My son, I'm fighting for you while you sleep."

I opened my journal and began to write what I thought the Father might be saying to me when I woke in the morning. And I kept writing.

"My son,

I'm fighting for you. While you sleep, I'm working, warring, dispatching angels, moving pieces, preparing places.

And I'm smiling over you.

My Spirit is hovering, breathing, searching you while you rest without resistance. I can heal while you slumber. And I am. I am reaching into your mind, your brain, your heart, your deepest locked-away recesses and gently, lovingly removing and reshaping.

You do hard work with me all day in your mind. Let me do it for you in the night.

Wake up refreshed and renewed.

When you open your eyes, know that you've been with me and I'm still here, still abiding. Feel the shift that happened in the night. Receive the peace. My peace. You're covered in it. Guarded by it.

Now wake, my son, and walk in it.

Rise. Slowly. Confidently.

You've been changed by me since you last stood.

Breathe in the morning air of my love for you, my new mercies, my victories in the night.

The light that dawns is from me. I made that! Walk in my light today. Even in the darkness of your sleep, my Light kept Darkness at bay.

So shine!

Today you stand empowered, even if you feel weak. You've been with me, even if you feel distant. You've been protected, even if you feel exposed.

You've been seen, gazed upon, celebrated, fought for, sung over, delighted in.

Because you are my son and I love you.

Really. I do.

I'm proud of you.

I'm not worried about where we're headed together because I know you're listening and I'm good at leading.

So, good morning son! Let's enjoy this day together.

No fear. No anxiety.

My abundant life is churning deep within you, effervescently flowing out of you.

Live courageously hopeful in its fullness today -- my fullness.

This is one of those days I promised you. Where I'd be with you and where I've actually already overcome the world. There's nothing you'll face today, or feel today, or think today that I'm not prepared for.

You don't need to do the big things of business or religion or progress today. Instead, do the great things of faithfulness, of neighborliness, of loving-kindness.

Yes, steward your duties well, but don't miss my beauty because you're infatuated with the world's false promises and mechanisms. Don't mistake what they call "grand" for what I call "good."

Oh sure, I do have big things for you, but they might look different than you expect. They might glisten less...but they mean more.

Seek first my kingdom and all of these things will be brought into that reality and conformed to my purposes,

or,

left outside on purpose. (Resist the urge to run after a system and way that's bereft of my unbridled newness and bankrupt of my better abundance.)

Remember, the rule of my good governance looks different than the rules of rigidity you've erected in your mind and are painfully striving to maintain. That guilt, shame, and regret gnawing incessantly at your sense of shalom are not from me. They're devouring your gratitude and dissecting your satisfaction in the simplicity of my new gospel paradigm in Jesus.

Unshackle the burden of your self-made regulations.

Take off the armor of your self-sufficient standards, tools, constructs, gifts, and performance. Child-like faith requires none of that. (I have better armor for you anyway).

Yieldedness.

Surrender.

Openness.

A humble, receptive vessel.

That's what I desire.

You know the emptiness of self-fulfillment. That's not what I have for you today.

Today, you can be open and I'll do the filling and fulfilling.

Today, you can discard your faćade of strength, live in the honesty of weakness, and receive my true strength instead. I have more than enough for the both of us.

Today, you can quit fretting over your feeble ideas and the despair of your unrealized dreams.

Today, you can be like Mary and whisper, "Be it unto me according to your word."

Don't you know that my word does not return back to me empty, void, unaccomplished?

Don't you know that I am able to do exceedingly, abundantly, above all you ask or imagine?

And that I'm doing it even now, working today, whether or not you see it?

Release your delusions of grandeur and step meekly into the devotions of love.

My love.

My love for you.

My love in you.

That's your agenda for today. Everything in my love.

Now brush your teeth and get dressed. I'm getting a coffee."

-Abba Father