When God speaks, He will use
common reference points in our every day life in order
to help us make quickened connections with what He is
saying. Finding common reference points is like drawing
a picture by connecting dots. Soon when enough
connections are made, His overall picture emerges.
In learning a new language, a
common reference point is something we already know.
When we hear something new, our minds search for a point
of reference in which to categorize the new word. For
example, a child already knows the shade of red in his
old crayon box. This shade is his reference point. In
his new box he needs to identify and sort more shades of
red. Learning a new language is just like sorting new
crayons together with older similar colors.
HUMOROUS
EXAMPLES OF COMMON REFERENCE POINTS!
I found the following humorous
entries on the Internet. I thought they were too cute
to pass by. To understand them, is to understand what
the Lord goes through in communicating with us!
“My youngest son once thought
that God was a turtle. (God is eternal)”
“After Sunday School, my friend
asked her five year old daughter what she did in class
that day. Susie replied, “We gave Jesus a bath!”
Susie’s mother asked, “What do you mean - you gave Jesus
a bath?” Susie replied, “Our teacher said, “Warsh up
the Lord.”
“My five year old is learning
the song that teaches the books of the Bible. “Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John, Axe the Opposums.”
“We remind our kids each year
that Easter is a remembrance of Jesus’ death on the
cross and His raising from the grave. My five year old
with big eyes asked this year, “How many times does
Jesus have to die?”
“My five year old son and I
like to listen to Steve Green, a Christian music artist,
while driving in the car. One of his songs has a
rousing chorus of “Jesus Christ is Lord.” My son,
obviously moved by the music, joined in with his own
rousing version, “Jesus Christ is bored!!”
“My grandmother said that when
she was a little child, after church she would look
around the altar for the hole. I asked her what she
meant and she replied, “You know, the pastor talked
about ‘The Father, the Son, in the hole he goes.’ She
never could figure out what He was doing in that hole.”
When I read
these, I thought what perfect examples they are of what
it is like to learn a new language. New words are
understood by connecting common reference points of
things we already understand. And sometimes like these
children, when we learn a new spiritual language, our
reference points are not exactly what the Lord
intended! He must chuckle at some of the things we
think He is saying!
What the children above did not
have, was a solid reference point in which to understand
words like, “eternal, worship, Acts, Apostles, keeping
in remembrance, Lord and Holy Ghost.” These new words
were not connected with common reference points in their
every day vocabulary and thus their precious minds heard
the closest reference point they could find!
I
know a gal who was praying over
her husband and saw a picture-vision of a bellows.
She didn’t know what a bellows was and had no common
reference point to understand the picture. Later
she saw a bellows on someone’s fireplace hearth, and
remembering her vision, she asked what it was.
When she found out that it blew air onto embers to flame
up a fire, she knew the Lord was saying He would be
blowing upon her husband, stirring and rekindling his
life back into passion with the Lord.
To begin finding common
reference points, the best foundation is connecting what
the Lord is saying to you with the Bible. This enables
you to draw spiritual connections in how the unknown
Word applies to your spiritual life. Once you begin to
make these connections, with the help of the Holy
Spirit’s quickening power, you will understand that the
same kind of spiritual connections can take place
outside the Bible, because the Lord uses anything in our
lives to speak to us, if we will listen. When this
happens, those new interpreted words will cross
reference and interconnect with the Bible.
As we search for common reference points, we will begin
to connect each of the isolated, questionable pieces of
rhema. We find common denominators of patterns which are
reference points with His Word; we use concordances, we
include our personal life in the places where He has
given us understanding before, etc and connect it all
with the parts that we do not understand.
INTERPRETATION
GAME
Someone sent me the following
and I am totally amazed. I read the whole thing fluently
without even pausing!!!!
This is a powerful teaching tool about the language in
which God speaks, and the ability to make connections
with His Spirit in interpretation. He gives us stopping
places, like pillars or signposts. Those are places of
understanding where we connect with God and we know that
we have connected in understanding. And then we build
bridges that span between those places, and those
bridges are interpretations woven in our mesh of faith.
HERE IT IS:
I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht
I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid.
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it
deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are,
the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat
ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl
mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs
is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by
istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I
awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt.
~~~~~~~
FUNNY RESPONSE FROM READER:
"Amen sister. Bad spellers of the world, Untie!"
:o)
~~~~~~~
WORD TO PONDER: COMING TO
CONCLUSIONS
You are the one I love
to talk to. I have spoken secret treasures in the dark. This is the
mysteries of dark speech. I have given you much strong meat and it
has required a thorough chewing to understand and interpret. This
has been your joy and also your wrestling. Trust Me that I AM
building within you exactly what you need. Now work towards drawing
summaries and conclusions to what I have shared and bring closure to
some of these things.
You can do this through keeping My Word by recording what you see
and hear, and then begin to connect the dots with reference points
of understanding. You will soon discover that it is really I Who
have spoken to you and each morsel is carefully placed by My loving
hand. There will come a day when you are proficient in
interpretation and it will not be your independence, but your
training through leaning upon Me, your divine Teacher.
“Let those who are wise listen to these proverbs and become even
wiser. And let those who understand receive guidance by exploring
the depth of meaning in these proverbs, parables, wise sayings, and
riddles.” (Prov 1:5-6 NLT)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Words from the The Quickened Word are excerpts from the journals of Sandy Warner.
To
better understand how God speaks, read Sandy’s book, “101+ Ways God
Speaks, And How to Hear Him.”
Website:
www.thequickenedword.com Email:
swauthor@usa.net
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
