In my area of the country, we've recently had torrential rain.  It caused a lot of damage but the thing I noticed the most was when I saw huge, mature, fully-leafed-out, seemingly strong trees were uprooted. How could this happen?  Those trees looked so solid and mature?! Then I looked closer.  They were hollow inside. Rot happened internally.  Disease happened internally.  That brought weakness. Holy Spirit then whispered His teaching. "People are like these trees." "How?" I

Twice in my life, God has used the story of Elisha to show me a particular way to live. The first time, He used the story of when Elijah, his predecessor, was taken up in the clouds to be with the Lord (rather than simply dying).  After Elijah was carried away, Elisha took off his cloak, ripped it to shreds, and retrieved Elijah's cloak.  This was, in essence, the equivalent of taking someone's nameplate off their office door and putting yours up.  The story is found in 2 Kin

Again my chickens presented a parallel to our current events in America. Tonight, I went to check on my chickens and found they were without water.  How 6 chickens could go through a gallon and a half of water in 8 hours is beyond me, and something to explore at a later time. I filled their water and carried it back into their yard. Oh, the ruckus they raised!  They flew at each other, gathered tightly around my feet, pecking and squawking at one another.  They were thirsty!!