So about a week-and-a-half ago, maybe two – after spending time with The Lord in the wee hours of the morning, as I made my way back to bed, He clearly spoke to my spirit go downstairs and run around the living room. Whaa??? – – of course I was like… Lord I couldn’t have heard you correctly; You didn’t really just tell me to … I mean, I know you’re honing my obedience in the moment and all, but this takes the cake… He was emphatic. So I tiptoed over and closed the bedroom door so as not to awaken my sleeping husband who might’ve witnessed this “inexplicably outlandish” behavior and called for the guys in the white jackets. Actually, If I had been operating in perfect/perfectionist(?) obedience, I would’ve skipped closing the door and just bolted for the stairs, but Thanks be to God for His grace.

Well there I was circa 5:45 in the morning rounding the circumference of my living room. Immediately following the 3^rd round, I heard not audibly, but “Stop!” No, I wasn’t out of breath, but I stopped, and the only natural thing to do then was to go to my knees. I was there for a short while just taking in what had just happened and trying to gain all The Lord was communicating through it about obedience, acceleration and advancement even though it may seem like running in circles at times, when I checked the time. The 6:00am Abundant Life Family Worship Center (ALFWC) Prayer Call had already begun – Pastor Mary Seawright was speaking, and what was her encouragement? “Moving Forward.” Well it only crystalized for me why I was running around my living room like a crazy person. The Lord had been speaking to me so loudly, consistently and lovingly, and revealing Himself so rapidly and so clearly over the past several weeks about recalibration, rest, reconstitution, and renewal that for me, this was just another special encouragement through The Holy Spirit that He was moving quickly and that I should respond likewise, and move hastily as He directs, toward Him and toward the things He’s called me to – without relenting (even if it may seem at times that I’m going in circles) – into this new season He has prepared for me (only having me stop long enough to hear in this case, The Pastor confirm His instruction.  But I sense that the Moving Forward move isn’t merely for me; running the good race seems to be a central theme for all His Church in this moment.

And acceleration is a thing in this hour. Activity in the atmosphere is at a fever pitch, and while He is the same God yesterday, today and tomorrow – He is far from stationary – He’s the wheel within the Wheel … perpetual, uninterrupted energy.

“… This was the appearance and structure of the wheels: They sparkled like topaz, and all four looked alike. Each appeared to be made like a wheel intersecting a wheel.” Ezekiel 1;16

Seriously – Think about it. What kind of speed does it take to be both The Beginning AND The End? My sense is that The Church is being prompted and quickened to move quickly today.

In any event as I rounded the room over and over, I had silly thoughts like “there’s the sofa again, and there’s the ottoman again, and the chair again …”

Well one morning about a week prior to this, I remember The Lord showing me how this is His season for making me more impermeable, in ways that allows me to maneuver quickly past certain fiery darts – if I allow Him. Like many of us perhaps, I’m fairly impervious when it comes to certain slings and arrows, but there are those one or two that when targeted just right, will pierce that vulnerable place in my heart and soul. Their goal of course is to disrupt my peace or happiness, pace and progress, to distract, and ultimately steal my joy. Thing is, those reactions are not easily provoked. They don’t live on the surface, so it takes diabolical scheming for probing enemy scud-like missiles to seek them out for attack.

But The Lord was showing me that whether darts, arrows or scud missiles, those projectiles really have nothing to do with me. What I mean by that is, for example, they are so trivial that they don’t really have the power to penetrate and disrupt. They’re like a gnat on the back of an elephant. Or they can be like pebbles thrown against impenetrable amour They have no real power, it’s fake, counterfeit – having no more ability than what I/we give them. And that’s because of whose we are – because of what He’s made us, what we truly are – – each of us: a redeemed creation belonging the King, made of fortified Kingdom stuff. The fiery darts, pebbles, words, tactics, decisions, activity lobbed against us belong to that “attacker” – or worse yet to contrary forces and principalities of darkness inspiring their behavior, but they don’t belong to us. So while an experience may be upsetting or disappointing, just like we wouldn’t cozy up to and some sickness or disease and claim it as our own; why carry, caress and tenderly nurse other darts like suckling babes, unless we want the abundant life sucked of us.

As Children of The king, whose citizenry is Heaven – not earth, we occupy a higher station from which we can dismiss even dismantle attack, or persecution and respond in grace and even with compassion to the “attacker.” If we can remember our true home, our true redeemed constitution (make up), and our station in The Kingdom – sons or daughters of The Most High, belonging to a privileged Royal Priesthood (despite our flaws).

From our position in Christ Jesus, which comes with the authority of His name, the grace of The Kingdom, and the unfailing love of our Father (The King), we can remain essentially undisturbed – not allowing ourselves to be derailed by targeted, personalized darts intended for our individual or collective harm.

When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him. Isaiah 59:19

When we embrace and confess this truth more and more for example, we consciously and then subconsciously carry it with us (and are shielded by it), as we move deftly past slings and arrows, fears, phantoms, painful experiences, haunting regrets and ridiculous choices. Perhaps more slowly at first, kneeling long enough to yield each contemptable thing to The Christ. But in this season as we move forward in anointed partnership with The Holy Spirit, we are graced with both momentum and respite. We can enjoy that sweet promised rest even as we ascend and accelerate from glory to glory.

Closing the metaphor of that living room sprint, even as we endeavor to run with haste from glory to glory, guided by The Holy Spirit, as we might expect, a thorny or fiery thing may appear again and again (the sofa, the ottoman, the chair). The very things which would’ve threatened to hurt, frighten and disrupt the past (The enemy isn’t very creative. It’s a predictable playbook.) – now, we’re reminded that we needn’t be distracted much less disturbed. They will always be pelted yet inert pebbles against impenetrable armor (weapons formed without prospering. Isaiah 54:17).  Lacking even the ability to wound. They will always be former things casting shadows, and lacking power to impede our trajectory. Like fixed stars, God has cast them so far from us, they remain stationary, as we travel past them on our way simultaneously forward and upward. Why not, we belong to Our Father, The trans-dimensional God, existing beyond space and time.

“Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” Isaiah 43:18-19