Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
I hope your new year is off to a good start. I was blessed over the weekend with a prophetic worship night on Friday at Alife and a great service yesterday in Mt. Vernon, with Everyone’s church. I am expectant of God doing good things in this new year.
Last week I wrote concerning finding the desirable place in our lives. I presented that in the creation of mankind, God put man in a garden named Eden – meaning desirable place. That desirable place was a garden in the east. The east is the place of new days and new beginnings. It is a birthing place for new sunrises. What made Eden a desirable place? There were limitless options of life and direction in Eden, but the source of life for all of those options was a personal relationship with God, who gives life.
While on my morning run, one day this past week, God presented to me a concept of eternal life. We know that Jesus said that eternal life is to know God our Father and Jesus Christ His son (Jn. 17:3). This is not merely knowing that they are but knowing who they are. That knowledge is not informational, it is transformational. Knowing God transforms our world in a life-giving way. This is through the fellowship of Holy Spirit in our hearts. Our spirit-to-Spirit connection to God gives us life. We can always find that life because it is eternal. It is true in every season of our lives, even in the day that we finally physically sleep from this world. God gives life, breath, and all things. He is life and He is a giver of that life to all who join themselves to Him. No matter what the circumstance is in our lives, when we join our inner being to the manifest presence of God, we discover life. This is true even on difficult days and in difficult situations. Our perspective must always be to choose life and to find life in all things and at all times. That life is not separate from God but is the testimony of being joined to Him. When we choose to take steps to find Him, we find Eden – the desirable place.
Sometimes God uses practical things in my life to manifest spiritual realities as a prophetic influence for the sake of the body of Christ. Time brings about natural changes. Natural conditions in our lives change, but what do we do when the natural conditions of our lives change? I have lived in my present house for twenty years. When I purchased this house, I enjoyed a spacious yard with an open view of trees and a connection to nature in a wonderful way. Even though my house is in the city limits, the feeling has been one of living close to the city but a part of the country. My house in the natural has proven to be a desirable place for me. Over the years there have been changes that are now affecting my property in a big way. My backyard is filled with fruit trees, berry bushes, grapes, garden spaces, a pond with a waterfall, and a place where I have experienced God in a wonderful way. This past year, the neighbor behind me built a large Additional Dwelling Unity just a few feet from my backyard fence. This dwelling has windows and a second story deck that looks directly into my backyard and to my house. At the front of my house, a new development of town houses is projected to be built in the next year. The circumstance of my dwelling place is being affected radically.
In considering my circumstances, I have considered selling my property and moving to a more suitable environment outside of the city. This option would require a lot of money and a lot of change that is not what I feel God is saying to me at this time. So, what do I do? God told be to “up the Eden factor”. In other words, take your present circumstances and do practical things that will transform it into a desirable place today. You see, we can’t return to a past circumstance in a present time of our world. Whatever the present circumstance of our lives is, we must look for ways to return to our first love. This is ultimately our love for God, but it includes our love for one another and even our love for our present world. We cannot return to a past circumstance. We cannot return to a first experience. We can return to our first love and find new first experiences in our lives today.
As a prophetic statement to my present world, I am planting a couple of trees to change my view of my back yard and my front. I am taking practical steps to change how I see my yard to inspire the attitude of my heart to find God in the garden of my today. I am looking to make positive changes for my world today and choosing to look for the positives of my now situation. The time is NOW, and the day is TODAY. I cannot live in yesterday, nor can I waste time longing for a tomorrow. Today is the day to find the desirable place of life. This is true in our relationships with one another and our practical roles in life. We cannot return to the past or even escape our present, but we can find God in our world today. We must never see the garden as more important than finding God in our garden. When we find God in the garden of today, we find new vision for our dwelling place in life. This will empower our steps for tomorrow.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
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House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
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