Video 4 - Breath of Life (Genesis 2:7)

Video 3 - Humility (Genesis 2:7)

Video 2 - Sabbath Rest (Genesis 2:2)

Man Wisdom Video #1

"The Dreams that will Never Die"

I am submitting this short fiction story to the Faith and Culture Writer's Conference. I wanted you, my friends, to enjoy it first.

“The Dreams that will Never Die”

Do you believe in dreams?

I don’t mean the common type that come and go from our conscious as though they never existed. I’m asking if you believe in compelling dreams - the type that really matter. Dreams so powerful, so impressionable, that they could change your inmost being; even alter the direction of life itself.

I was once uncertain of such dreams, but not anymore. I myself was persuaded by a vision first hand.

In my dream, I laid upon an open grass field on a dark summer night. Without a cloud in sight, I admiringly looked up toward the shining stars. While considering their beauty, the feelings of jealousy, envy – even resentment, came upon me. Why? Because I wanted to be like those stars. I wanted to shine as they did.

No sooner than had the thought come from my mind, I was suddenly pulled up toward the night sky that I had gazed upon. I traveled at what felt like the speed of light from the earth’s atmosphere; pulled out passed the moon – passed the stars I had just envied.

I travelled at this speed for only seconds. And then, without a moments warning, I saw Him - the Master of all creation. As I drew closer, my speed began to slow as His face came into view. I was struck by His somber and earnest appearance. I was speechless, not just because of His beauty, but simply because my lips had been sealed by Him. A part of me wanted to speak, but it couldn’t. The Lord had silenced me and caused a calm to come over me. As I looked upon Him, my eyes began to tear. I wish I could tell you what I saw in Him, but it is impossible to define what love looks like after you have seen it in its fullness.

I glided gently towards the Lord until He placed me by His side. Without a word, He placed His arm around me with embrace. When His hand touched my shoulder, I felt something like a light enter into my body. I was ready to let Him hold me forever, but I sensed that He had brought me to Him to talk about something incomprehensibly important. With His arm still around me, we hovered back toward the earth, back through the stars that surrounded human creation.

It wasn’t until the earth was in clear view that we stopped. He looked at me and somehow I knew that my eyes were not to look back at Him. The Lord wanted me to keep my gaze pinned on the earth. As I looked upon His creation, He asked me, “What do you see?” I peered toward the earth and noticed something peculiar. There were millions of little lights that were shining, like the stars of the night, only jumbled throughout the circle of the earth. Some lights were dim, very dim, others shined brightly. Some lights stood still in one place, others moved to and fro throughout creation, and every once in a while one would shoot up straight towards heaven. As I continued to look, I also noticed another type of light shrouded in black and gray. They could hardly be called a light, they looked more like a dark glow, and it troubled my spirit when I looked upon them. Even more alarming, sometimes these dark lights consumed themselves.

After looking, I was able to open my mouth and speak. I answered the Lord saying, “I see lights, lots of them. Some make me feel troubled when I look upon them, others inspire me.

The Lord opened His mouth and spoke again, “The lights that you see are dreams.”

“Dreams?” I questioned. “Lord, is this what You see when looking upon the earth?”

“It is one of many important things that I see.” He said to me.

As I continued to look upon the lights I became more concerned with the dark lights on the earth as I watched them consume themselves. “What are those lights of darkness?” I asked the Lord.

“I call them, the dark dreamers. Those are the people of the earth who have dreams, but their dreams have nothing to do with Me. They dream dreams that neither help the earth or anyone in the earth. They only dream self-absorbed dreams. Dreams that not only consume others, but will also, in the end, consume themselves. They are dreams that will die, and yet, are already dead.”

“Could their dreams ever come alive?” I asked.

“Only if I would touch them, but those dreamers are not interested My touch, for all that they dream, all that they scheme, is for the purpose of building up only a kingdom that they want to see.”

After His explanation, all the other lights instantly made sense to me. I turned my head to Him and said “Lord, I think I understand the other lights. All those who shine are dreamers that want to build up Your kingdom. Matter of fact, they already are Your Kingdom.”

He grinned at me and said, “That’s right.” He waited for me to go on.

I turned my gaze back to the earth and continued, “The brighter lights, their dreams have been realized, but theirs has not yet moved because they have kept their dream only to themselves. Those who share their dreams with others are the ones that move to and fro about the earth, and the dreams that shoot up to heaven, those are special.”

God smiled and laughed with joy when I called them special dreams. “Most special”, He said, “Because those are the dreams released into the hands of the Holy Spirit and taken to my throne. The angels look and wait for such dreams to enter My kingdom, and they rejoice because the angels know that I am about to bless that dream and their dreamer.”

“It’s wonderful Lord!” My spirit nearly burst out in praise and singing but the Lord spoke again before I could.

“You know, there is one type of light that you left out.” A deep chord struck within me when He said this. I turned my eyes once again to the earth and was surprised to see that only the dim lights remained.

“Why are you showing me these lights Lord?”

“Because these are the dreams that I want you to help awaken. They are dreams that I have placed in My people, but they don’t believe that they have what it takes to make that dream come alive. They are afraid - afraid to fail, afraid to be judged, afraid that they don’t have what it takes to make the dream shine on the earth.”

My heart broke when He said this to me. So much potential lay before my eyes, and it was all but fear that kept that potential from bringing glory, and honor, and blessing to God.

“Lord” I said, “What would you have me do?”

“I want you to remind them about this.” He waved His hand over the surface of the earth and it became formless and void with nothing but darkness sweeping over it.

“Well, this is depressing” I said.

God laughed, “Well, what isn’t depressing if I haven’t placed My hand on it yet? What I am showing you is your world, before I touched it. Your world was once blank, BUT, I came to cover the earth with beauty; I made it go from blank to beautiful.” He then waved His hand over the earth again, and it teemed with inexpressible life and beauty.

“This was My dream, from the beginning.” God said, “And just as I dreamed and created beauty, so also should the whole of human creation, because I made them in My image. Go and tell them, tell them to bear My image and create as I did. Remind them, those dreamers who fear, that they were made to create - because I create. And when they create, I see them as even more than the stars that shine, for they are my lights that will shine for all eternity. They are, and they carry within themselves, the dreams that will never die.”

Miracles Abounding

Do you believe the statement above? 

Here are a few definitions of the word as you consider your answer:

Googles definition of a miracle, "A surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency."

Here is Einstein, "There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle."

And also a Pastor friend defined the word recently saying, "A 'miracle' can only be labeled as such if it was evidently supernatural, recorded and confirmed by witnesses."

The purpose of this blog is not to define what the word miracle means. Personally, our family has never taken the time to nail down our definition. But, now that we have you thinking about the word, we would like to share a couple recent events that we believe to be God's interceding over our lives. We will put the events in sequential order:

August 24 - With just over a month left on military orders, we applied for a Family Pastor position at Church of God in Lacey, WA. We applied for three other ministerial positions within the last month and none expressed any interest. If nothing happened with the Church of God application, our family planned to move home and have Josh finish Seminary.

September 4 - While attending Twin Rocks Family Camp in Rockaway Beach, OR we meet a woman named Diane Moore who traveled from Portland, OR. In totality, we were seven hours distance from one another and we believe God caused our paths to cross. We sat down for lunch with Diane, having no idea who she was. Diane asked what our family was up to. After telling her that we were applying for the Family Pastor position at Church of God in Lacey, she was blown away stating, "You're kidding me! I got a call from that Church asking if I would be a candidate for that position!" She went on to tell us that she was invested into other ministerial commitments but considered the Church of God to be one of the best churches anyone could work for. 

September 7: Diane calls the Church of God Pastor and tells him about our meeting. At this point the Pastor is now interested in meeting with Josh to see if God is up to something.

September 10: Josh and Pastor Matt Klaus sit down for coffee and talk about the Family Pastor position. At the end of the meeting, Pastor Matt asks Josh if he knows Erik Farstad. Erik is on the hiring board with the Church of God and additionally the leader of "Trail Life" (A Christian Boy Scout organization). Josh just happens to be the Chaplain of the Trail Life group and knows Erik personally. Erik gives Josh a shining reference to the Pastor.

September 15-20: Joanne travels around the community of Lacey taking Christian and Alex to school, the store etc. and begins to "run in" to numerous wives of leaders within the Church of God. We additionally find out the the Youth Pastor at the Church is from Gresham, OR, the same place our family came from :)

September 20 - mid October: Josh and Matt continue to sit down and get to know one another and find out if our family would be a good fit for the church and vice versa. We can honestly say that this is the kind of church we would dream of being at.

October 26: Joshua is now being considered by the Church of God in Lacey, WA as the Family Pastor Candidate. He has been approved by the Pastor and the board members of the Church. We now await his being ratified by the church body on November 9.

And here is another miracle we experienced with our little Alex over the last week:

October 22: Our family travels to Oregon to meet with Dr. Chessnut. Alex's vitals are checked and found to have a low blood oxygenation level at 81 (DANGEROUSLY low). His vitals were checked three times to confirm an accurate baseline reading. The device was working, Josh tested his own oxygenation level to assure a right reading. A prayer chain begins to be established for Alex.

October 23: Likely due to the severity of Alex's condition, Dr. Chessnut tries to schedule a surgery within the next week, but an angiogram must first be accomplished to ensure Alex's brain surgery in July was a success.

October 27: Alex goes in for his angiogram. The doctor confirms that all of the AVM in the right frontal lobe is removed. The surgery was a success. Additionally, Alex's oxygenation level is checked again reads at a 96! While Alex is resting from the angiogram, his oxygenation level climbs and holds at a steady 100! No surgeries were performed to increase his oxygenation level. We consider this to be an act of God.

Picture of Alex's Vitals (Center number is Alex's oxygenation level)

And in case you haven't already read the story, we consider Alexander's brain surgery, to be a miracle of the greatest kind. You can read the conclusion here:

 http://alexanderthebraveone.blogspot.com/2014/09/miracles-do-happen.html

The purpose of this blog is simply to affirm that miracles indeed happen! Do you believe in miracles? Our family is convinced that God's operation is all around us. Truly He cares for us, and the beauty of it all is that He cares for you too. 

Do you believe that? That God cares for you too? And that there are moments when He profoundly steps in to reveal His love and care for you? If you haven't seen a miracle lately, I invite you to consider the words below.

Open your eyes and ears today with the expectation of seeing God intervene and work a miracle in your life and then go on living with the same expectation every day after.

Participation: Have a miracle worth sharing? Please post it in the comments section below or share it on Facebook and tag Joshua Zarzana into the post. Blessings on your journey as you chase the Father.

Interested in receiving Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior? Here is a video link where five minutes could change the rest of your life - life in the present and life eternal: 

http://www.intouch.org/you/all-things-are-new/content/topic/how_do_i_accept_jesus_as_my_savior_all_things

Want to read more from the author of this blog? You can do so by purchasing "The Son Who Chases the Father" at chasethefather.com 

Joshua Zarzana can be found on Facebook, Twitter and Google +.

Thank you for reading.