On 9/14/09 I met Yoda. Her real name will be kept anonymous because she wants it that way. Yes, Yoda, like in Star Wars. I was sitting in Panera Bread and she came in with her stuff, just like me and plopped it down on a table in front of me. She was like we are when we come into a different space; looking around, fiddling, trying to get her spirit to come into the place with her body.

Finally she settled down and got her lunch, covered it and oddly enough brought out paperwork, pencil cases, highlighters and got to work…Who was this person? Someone just like me, her manner, not her look – protecting herself, careful, watchful. I smiled at her and she smiled back – especially after I noticed two senior citizen Caucasian women starring at her set up. I don’t know what it was about, but they weren’t being friendly. Was it her long graying dreadlocks?

After quite some time I went and got lunch. As I sat down, pushed my laptop away and concentrated on my lunch, Yoda said, “What are you studying over there?” All of a sudden, out-of-the-blue, without a please ma’am or thank you, with no hello (as a Nigerian would say). Used to the blunt manner of Americans and without missing a beat, I answered “I’m a writer”.

And that was the beginning of our intense, amazing, magical, conversation.I got a lot from her and it tickles me what she said she got from me and how she kept pulling out paper to write it down.
• That’s what you need to blog, she would say – a stranger at a party giving me $100; strangers who were pastor and his wife, letting me live with them in Georgia; Gloria feeding and taking care of me and then taking me to Virginia Beach;
• You need to blog! And I know I do. Some guy she read about, sad about his high powered job, quit and started writing and then started blogging, only his mother and wife as readers, but eventually had 7,000 followers. I told her about Stanice Anderson who wrote e-mails to people for 2 years and Walk Worthy gave her a contract to turn that into a book.
• God wants me not to look down on anyone. Everyone is loved by him, whether they are New Age or Buddhist or anything else. And God talks to everyone.
• Why don’t we like our names? Why do we have so many problems with these given names from parents or husbands? She wants to be called Yoda. I don’t know what I should be known as.
• People are acting like her and I and many of the friends I have and opting out of the ‘normal’ 9-5 work, for a salary the regular way, for pension and health insurance. Someone has studied this and put it together in a course about living your life thriving, letting go. What these courses miss is the spirit, the Holy Spirit, the supernatural, the magic… that which cannot be explained. Her and I began to talk and complained about the coldness of the air in the restaurant. As we talked it got warmer. When it was time to go, the cold air blew in again. This, cannot be taught in college. This is the supernatural that can only come from the Father.
• Yoda found a wonderful place in busy New York called Zen, run by a woman who charges $50. Can you believe it? And all she asks is that you leave her property nice and she has plenty of rules so you know what she’s talking about.
• Yoda also found communes of the kind I was thinking would be good for me. She said you write to them and tell them what you can do to contribute to the commune and you need to live there for 3 months or whatever. That’s what I was thinking about and as I was telling her that, I realized and said that God really wanted me to go through this time without relying on anyone but Him. He would put me in the home he had ordained and it would be obvious and other doors would be closed except the ‘door’ to the place He wanted me.

We talked about stepping out on faith and what was the reason that so many of us are doing that and that many of us are over 45, and could be thinking retirement plans. I talked about being in my third widow’s home, after stepping out in faith from my job in March 2008. Yoda asked, looking under the restaurant table, are you walking on the ground or on air. “You really are walking by faith.”

The importance of the walk I’m on is to see that I’m not writing to bring people to me so that I can eat, I am writing because God asked me to do it, so that I could show people Him.

It’s not about me. It’s about Him.

Yoda asked what is happening that we are all choosing this way. I said I thought it was because things are coming to an end. That was disingenuous. I know very well that things are coming to an end. Time is drawing to a close. The Bible has shown us and we can see it. I said things are getting wrapped up and cleaned up. So we have to shed all weights and things that encumber us.

Appropriate God's Promises by Rejoicing

This was a word from a prophet of the Lord, MARY ELLEN GILLILAND, on February 24, 2009, and it was very encouraging to me.

Appropriate God's Promises by Rejoicing

Go in peace I have it all in hand. I am calling upon you to rejoice in what I am doing, although it is behind the scenes. You can't see it but it will manifest - if you receive it by faith and rejoice. All I have told you and promised you -

"Heaven on Earth, Here And Now"
the appearing of Christ, The Messiah
filling the temple with glory
the arising and shining, living on a new plane, or level, in the kingdom
the claiming of the victory, and
healing -

all these are to appropriate by faith, and that faith expresses itself at the highest level by rejoicing. Mary appropriated the promise of a Savior coming through her womb by the Magnificat. If you want to know the moment, the instant she conceived, it is the moment of that prayer of praise. So rejoice! I will count it to you as righteousness. I will call it high faith and I will act upon the praises of My people. I will inhabit the praises of My people, for these joy-filled praises are the highest expression of their faith.

Isaiah 60:1-2 Arise ! Shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you! For behold, darkness shall cover the earth and dense darkness the peoples but the Lord shall arise upon you and His glory shall be seen on you.

This reminds me of another prophecy where the Lord was saying He is asking us to praise Him for the promises not yet seen. My dancing has commenced!!!



For an explanation of "Heaven On Earth, Here And Now," go to zoebooks.com

The Need for Plenty of Room

I love my dog Lucky. Well, he’s mine for now, since I moved in with my sister Rose. He’s the best pal, and most loyal. At 94 dog-years he is mostly blind and deaf. Walks and bones are the joy of his life, besides us of course. We are Nigerians and we cook a great spinach & melon soup called ‘egusi soup’. I cooked one the other day, with chicken. You know the fresh, tough ones that you have to boil for awhile before anyone can chew it.
The soup now, two days old, it’s even more delicious. I warmed up some and paired it with pounded yam (that’s another recipe story), sat on the couch and ate. Lucky was sleeping somewhere in the house and I don’t know if it was just naptime-over or he smelled that soup, but after I had finished eating he arrived. Now I was kinda lazy, so I perched the empty plate of chicken bones, on the back of the couch. Lucky came sniffing around. I knew he was allowed to have bones, but I texted my sister to ask her if he could have any bones:
“Can Lucky have any kind of bones’ ‘Cos he’s smellin’ my egusiJ”
She answered: “Ha ha ha. Yes he can. I usually rinse it off, and Manny always gave him bones from his soup. He is a greedy dog!” Manny was her late husband and he cooked a mean egusi soup too.
Well, Lucky may be greedy, but he’s smart. I didn’t rinse it off just picked up a nice clean bone from my plate and put it in front of the dog’s nose. He can hardly see and he can’t hear “over here Lucky”, so you have to help him get to the bone without losing a finger. Finally he got it and chopped down, mumbling to himself as he enjoyed the bone.
Suddenly, he was frantic and I realized he had dropped it and couldn’t see where it was, but I could hear it being shoved up under the couch. As you can see Lucky is a pug/corgi mix and has no snout to fish out a little arrant bone. But, somehow, miraculously, he got the bone back from the brink of no return, without my help. He grabbed that bone and escaped to the dining room where he had plenty of room and no low furniture to contend with.
It was as if he said “Let me get me some room. There is too much going over there by the couch – her shoes, the rug, the couch. I need some room, so I can really enjoy this bone and not lose it.”
As my family would say, “There’s a sermon in there somewhere”, but immediately I thought of the verse that says something to the effect, He is bringing us out into a wide open space. That’s how I feel right about now – “I need some space, Lord! I’m ready for You to bring me out to a clear open space, so I can get the work done that You have commissioned me to do.”
The waiting continues.

Believe

Keresimesi Odun de O (Yoruba for Merry Christmas!)

At this time the Lord wants us Christians to trust Him. I was reading my poem, "The Lord is Good", (published now on www.ezraweb.com) and it had me crying with joy all over again. Many of us are in muddy waters or it seems so. We have disastrous things happening to us and really there is nowhere else to look but at our situations. But the Lord wants us, especially at these times to look full in His wonderful face and trust Him. Even if the eviction notice is on the door, even if the tow truck man is ready to repossess your car. Trust the Lord.

He has allowed this situation to see if you know where to look. To see if you know where to put your faith.Trust Him. Trust Him. Trust Him. Where else can you look? Some of you are between a rock and a hard place, especially financially and you've been tricked or feel tricked economically. Most black folks laugh, that these economic down turns don't bother us, because we don't have anything anyway. But this time it is touching everyone. Those it hasn't touched yet, it will.

The Father God wants to see us crawl up in His 'lap' and relax. Trust Him. He will tell you what to do.If you trust Him, you won't have to run around hoping that this or that will work. He will direct you. But if you're flailing your arms around desperate, He won't be able to help you because you won't listen to Him. If you've ever tried to save someone who is drowning, as I have, you know they are very cumbersome, because they are trying to save themselves. Sometimes you have to knock them out and make them unconscious so you can tow them in.

Some of you are in a 'tow in' situation. That is, you've made a mess and the Lord is 'towing' you in. Others are in the will of the Lord. You knew it once, but now you're doubting. He's not 'towing' you in, He's carrying you higher. Relax and let Him. The odd feeling you're having, is you, changing to a new spiritual altitude. Obedience is very important here. Do exactly what the Master says do. More importantly - relax!The Lord loves you and is moving you along.