Our Heavenly Host

Last night a friend was talking to me about a training programme where children are blindfolded and able to see through their ‘third eye.’ As I listened I found myself thinking, wow, we have these amazing capabilities. It must seem crazy not to explore them, unlock them and see what the human mind is capable of.

And yet in my own life I have closed up the doors of perception, shut any open portals and ‘restricted’ my spirituality to a single point of focus. Why would I do that?

It made me think of the book I was reading when I became pregnant with my daughter, it was about unlocking our psychic potential. Before she was conceived I felt her spirit with me while I was walking in the forest (or that was how I perceived it at the time), and before I knew I was pregnant I dreamed of a little girl in a picture. I had a vision in my mind of the new moon and concluded that she would be born on the new moon, which she was.

Last night I wondered to myself, why give up, the opening up, the potential for exciting psychic insights and unlocking the spiritual realms. Why did I stop seeking it? This morning I thought of Paul in the Bible. Paul is given a vision of heaven, and hell, he sees Jesus, and has direct communication with God. After the experience he is also given a ‘thorn in his side’, a metaphorical thorn which some people have interpreted as a chronic illness, or some kind of spiritual or emotional struggle.

Paul explains the purpose of the thorn is ‘’To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations.”

I suspect that when we seek heaven and the expansion of our consciousness there may be an equal and opposite reaction, something that happens in our lives that humbles us, that brings us back down to earth. This opposite reaction may not be what we have wished or sought. By its nature it might be the complete opposite.

After the flood in Genesis, God told the people to ‘increase in number and fill the earth’ but instead they decided ‘’Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”

At this point in time everyone on earth spoke one language but because the people didn’t listen to God, he responded by confusing their languages so they had to scatter over the whole earth in groups with a common language.

Christianity takes a different approach to spiritual seeking. We have a ‘heavenly host’ who has great gifts to give us. And yet when we are the guests at someone’s house we do not help ourselves. We trust that our host is gracious and will offer us what we need and if there’s something we really need or want that they do not offer us then we can ask. And that host can respond with yes or no.

More than anything God wants to be in personal relationship with us, and when we are rummaging around in the cupboards, helping ourselves while ignoring the host this personal relationship is shattering.

The gifts are here and they are coming. The Bible says that ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your young men shall see visions, Your old men shall dream dreams.’

When we wait to be offered, when we cultivate a relationship with the host the gifts come, without the chaos of the opposite reaction, without a credit card repayment and ever increasing interest.

Yes we’ve all been ransacking the house, and many haven’t met the host. But he is there, and he is overflowing with generosity.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.’