Unusual imagery for me. Typically any time I've seen, had a dream about, thought about, etc. a lion, it has been in a positive light. Aslan, Lion of Judea, sometimes related to ministry, sometimes to other things, but not the past couple of days. It started with a song's refrain echoing through my mind that I'm hesitant to quote because if you know the rest of the song you may attribute inaccurate meaning around it. Well, maybe not now that I said that :) It's from a song by Bruce Springstein called Lion's Den, with the lines being, "I'm like Daniel waiting in the lion's den. Daniel waiting for that lion to come. Daniel waiting in the lion's den, dum dum de da dum de dum dum dum". However, the imagery and thoughts surrounding it would be far more akin to Benaiah (I admit, I did have to look that name up :P) from Second Samuel 23:20 who did a little more lion fighting than Daniel ever had to.

It's a curious thing. I've prayed and prayed for God to reveal where battle is going to take place before it does. That there would be battle has never been a question. I am a soldier in the Lord's army, and soldiers fight. That the battle belongs to the Lord there can be no doubt, for every time this soldier has fought on his own strength he has fallen. But I digress, sorta. Back to the curious thing.

I find myself in a strange place today. As I suspect you know, God is faithful. Like, completely. It's awesome. A lie that I'd been believing for a while now came out of a song by Bebo Norman called Where the Angels Sing. The line is, "Not further ahead, just further along," and I had pretty much owned that as a defining statement. Not a good thing, but there it was.

Then Friday happened. Oy Friday. Not a fan of that day :) If you'd have seen me in the parking lot at a friend's apartment a half hour before some festivities started, you would have seen me "sitting" in a fetal position in the driver seat of my car staring in horror at either my radio or the notebook in my lap (well, side of my thigh; I was fetal...). Take a couple of friends' good intentions, add some pretty foolish thoughts written down moments before a storm broke as I watched the clouds come rolling in, stir in a fear of failure and of operating outside of or contrary to God's will with a dash of Fatherly misconception and you have a bucket of paranoia on your hands. Thankfully, one friend's reply to the situation after I told him about the paranoia on Monday which consisted of, as I read it, "seriously, did you hear what you just said" snapped me out of the dementia and caused me to pour out the contents of the pot down the sewer where it belonged, but the recipe for disaster did have a present effect (really straining to press the metaphor, so I'm gonna drop it).

There was a weird reflection on where I was a year ago, namely when Torch began vs. today. I say weird because I already used "curious" and because there seemed to be clarity that often gets lost in my mind. To make an already long story less long, I can't say, "not farther ahead, just farther along" with any honesty. I can absolutely say that it has not been by my power, and maintain that every time I've moved ahead in battle on my own strength I've fallen, but God has done some amazing things. He has transformed me radically from an isolated loner looking longingly to a world seemingly filled with love but with none to spare for him to someone who both loves and is loved. Kinda blew my knickers off :) Not literally.

Which brings us to this lion. It is something that's come to steal and kill and destroy, and it feels like there's more to this than what I've witnessed so far. Today I went to the doc, and I didn't like what he had to say. Yet I found myself preparing to face this on my own. It's hard to explain how I found that to be, but just to say that I was getting ready to fight another battle, but on my own strength. However, earlier tonight I started to reread Piercing The Darkness (awesome book!). Just stopping long enough to do so was an unexpected challenge, and now I remember one of the reasons I love the book so much: the emphasis on the prayers of the saints. As soon as it was mentioned, I set the book down and composed a short email that was going to go to some fellow soldiers, those whom I consider commandos (Yes, I seriously think like this all the flippin time lately! War! War! War! Anyway...), an elite group of friends for whom I would bleed and they for I. I wrote, and I hesitated over the "Send" button. Doubt and fear came roaring in; no one in this group had ever sent out a prayer request like this except myself once weeks ago; what would they think? Was this a wise thing to do? God is Faithful, though, and He saved the day, as He does so often. I can articulate the thought now, but then it was just a sort of snarl and click right after copying the text of the email which was immediately sent out to another prayer group I'd been a part of that had been dead for nearly 6 months, and then to another amazing sister.

It was a minor skirmish, and the lion's still there (I'm still marveling at this visual; usually...Well, let's just say usually it ain't a lion. If anyone has any insight into that and what it might mean, please, please share, as most of my knowledge regarding that animal, as I mentioned above, has been positive). As I said, there's more to this thing, and there's a bit I left out since, well, I've been writing for an hour and need sleep, not to mention some other reasons. However, I hope it's significant. I pray it's significant. I pray it causes those elite to start asking for prayer more than twice a month when we all get together of us all. I pray it reopens the old prayer group I've been a part of for over 3 years now. I pray it serves as a reminder for me the next time I hesitate in stepping out from the norm and go first into the unknown.

Oh, yeah, and I pray that I be healed :)

I will say this in closing this rather all over the place entry. A brother called me a little while after I sent that email out, told me he was praying for me, and then we prayed on the phone as well. A question I've struggled with recently has been regarding letting folks know you're praying for them. I've tentatively done so with those I get together with bimonthly, but there's still been the question of necessity, since God knows and it is He to whom we speak. After getting that call, though, and the amount of encouragement that came through just knowing that at least two saints were praying, as well as the increase in faith in myself that God is going to move has left no doubt in my mind about that.

I've been studying First Samuel a lot lately. It all started with First Samuel 16, where Samuel anoints David as king of Israel and then David goes back to the farm, and then spends years trying not to be killed by Saul. It struck me as odd that God would reveal that to him when He did.

However, I want to start in First Samuel 3, because there's something in this that caught me by surprise. In this, three times the Lord calls to Samuel, "Samuel, Samuel!" That's all. Just his name, twice. All three times, he goes to Eli, the priest of the temple who is essentially Samuel's father, and says, "here I am; you called me."

Side note: I'd like to know what Eli's face looked like to warrant Samuel saying, "you called me." We don't have any record of Eli responding, yet Samuel feels obliged to state what he considers the obvious, three times, "uh, you called me. That's why I'm here."

On the fourth time, Eli had told Samuel to say, "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening." When Samuel did this the next time the Lord called out, "Samuel, Samuel!" God proceeded to tell Samuel His message.

This is astounding to me. There are a few things that jump out. First, verse one talks about the voice of the Lord being rare, with few visions taking place in those days. Yet, somehow Eli knew what was going on. It took him a little while to put it together, but he was able to do so. The Hebrew word used seems to indicate it was of his own understanding, but I don't know Hebrew, so I could be totally off (it's Strong's number 0995, biyn transliterated).

So Samuel's father, mentor, and priest, though not a prophet himself, was able to guide Samuel in the ways of the prophetic. Very interesting! I often assume the people to teach regarding something are those experienced in it, but this is not necessarily true.

What's more, it wasn't until Samuel responded to God, uttering a prayer (what is prayer, but conversation with God?), petitioning Him to speak and stating that he (Samuel) was listening that God chose to speak more. It is more reinforcement regarding the passage in Revelation 3:20, where Christ stands at the door and knocks. He waits for us to open it. One must wonder, what would have happened had Samuel not responded? Would God have continued to knock, or would He have called someone else?

Probably the most convicting part of the passage for me, though, comes after this exchange with the Lord, in verse 19. "The Lord was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of his words fall to the ground." It's not completely clear to me who the "he" is in the second part of the verse, but I suspect it is Samuel. He let none of his words fall to the ground. As I'm reading that, it's that Samuel let none of the Lord's words fall to the ground, as in nothing God communicated to Samuel was forgotten or unused.

And here am I, realizing there is a lot God has communicated with me, in my spirit, through experiences, and especially through His Word that I have let fall to the ground. How could we, or at least I, be so flippant with what God provides us? I pray that He would make His revelation far more sacred to me, that I not just think, "hey, thanks, God! That was sweet!" but instead cherish it as manna from Heaven, but unlike manna, preserve it! Last time I wrote something down God showed me, worms didn't get all over in it the next day...