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The Institute for Living
| I Lit a Candle Series |
| In this section we will share revelations that we receive during our special prayer time. The title comes from the fact that I light a candle when I sit before the Lord because it helps me focus. The candle has no special powers; it’s just a conveyor to the spiritual realm for me. |
| The revelations come raw and unedited. If you are left with questions after reading them, please seek the answer by going to “source.” In other words, although you may certainly contact us, and we welcome you to do so, you will be richly blessed when you seek answers directly through your own prayer and meditation. Our intent here is to help stimulate your personal communion with God |
| Please visit this section on a regular basis, because we will be adding to it continuously… as new revelations come; we share them. |
Recently I have been working on prayer
and have learned that prayer is more
about listening than talking (see Romans
8:26), so I simply lit a candle and sat
quietly before the Lord.
and have learned that prayer is more
about listening than talking (see Romans
8:26), so I simply lit a candle and sat
quietly before the Lord.
| I went before the Lord because of the passing of a family member. While the other relatives were attending the funeral (or “Homegoing Celebration,” as I prefer to call it), I was in my prayer room listening to spirit. The word that Spirit spoke to me that morning is “reconnection.” What that means in this context is that we are all spirit. Our true essence is spirit. We are for a time wrapped in flesh. We have a material existence, but we never lose our true spiritual essence (for reference see I Corinthians 15). God was saying that it was time for our loved ones to “reconnect.” Although we connect to our spirit while in the flesh, when we make our transition our connection becomes complete and unfettered. |
| Furthermore, prayer is really “reconnecting” with God as opposed to talking with God as we have customarily come to believe. And through our reconnecting with the Spirit of God we reconnect with the Spirits of the departed. God is spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. (St. John 4:24) |
| Recently I had an ordeal with my son that hurt me profoundly. The gift that it brought to my spirit was that it caused me to probe the depths of my love for him. I envisioned the night (some twenty years ago) when I sat up all night with his mother in labor, awaiting his arrival into the world. When he was finally born – at 9:30 the next morning—I was the first one to hold him. As I flashed back to that memory, three revelations came to me: (1) there is nothing that he can do that change his last name – he will always be my son; (2) although I may not like what he does, it simply cannot break my love for him; (3) this is a metaphor for God’s love toward us – it cannot be broken despite our behavior. This morning I took communion. Although I have been taking communion for years, I finally realized that it is the blood that binds us all together in an unbreakable bond of love. It is our heritage through Christ. It is impossible for our behaviors to break the love that binds us in oneness with God. When we take the broken bread, it symbolizes the broken pieces of our lives that get fused together by the blood. As we become whole, we become less suspicious and judgmental of those around us. Just as our brokenness finds chaos, our wholeness finds light. |
| The Institute for Living |
Be sure to read our recently released book: The Making of a Preacher: Naked in the Pulpit |