Being in a place of acceptance even if this is just a spiritual place, and not just the passing social/economical moments of our lives, can and always seems to leave us in a position of vulnerability that pulls at the very strings of our mind and sole. That feeling of uncertainty, accountability, openness, trends us to question our own stability in an already unstable world.

It is no wonder why everyone hates crisis, not to mention the usual resulting manifesting conflicts that always seem to fill us with dread, fear, and a deep feeling of insignificance, makes us stand back and look at ourselves often with resulting realization of how small we really are. This of course, plays havoc with our self esteem and/or the lack there of, making us just cherish every moment we live in crisis (I was being facetious), bringing to mind the scripture “consider yourself glad when you are being persecuted”! This is a very difficult situation and concept to wrap our arms around. How can we possibly count ourselves glad when we are in crisis? The answer; knowing that there is an opportunity for change and through this change we can become a better person.

I am no stranger to crisis, and if anyone knows me they also realize that crisis has been my middle name over the course of the last seventeen or so months. Thank God for this crisis, for it is through these many crisis situations that Jesus has truly done a work in my life. A great line from the movie “Shawshank Redemption” the narrating character remembers a quote from his friend “you can get started living, or you can get on started dying”, I believe in any true crisis, we find ourselves at one pivotal point where we must choose to “get busy living, or get busy dying”, this choice, whether we want to admit it or not, often manifests’ itself in the active drawing close to God or a departure from him. Death is what waits for us if we depart from Him! But now that is a very different story for a later time.

I’d like to think that I have chosen wisely, and I am drawing closer to Him then away, but at the same time, realizing that He is all around us and in us; it is myself that will somehow on a spiritual level draws closer or moves away. Now that presents itself with a difficult dilemma, how do we move away from something that completely and utterly surrounds and comprises every aspect of the world we live in, including us! That would be like jumping in a pool and then just by a pure act of will, or choice, decide we don’t want to be wet! I’d like to think I ponder, on a regular basis such philosophical thoughts, but to be honest I have a hard time contemplating whether or not the SUNS should keep Nash next year, let alone my place in universe in reference to God.

It is for this reason that I believe God gives us visions, if He had to wait around for us meager Humans to ponder a deep thought, especially in this age where we are being bombarded with every aspect of mind numbing, psycho-distractions, I believe He’d be waiting until He was blue in the face, which He could be right now, who really knows the face of God? My point is in the muck and mire I call my life at this moment, God in his infinite grace gave me a vision. And while the interpretation eluded me, and may still elude me to its full extent, I feel God wants me at least to write it down.

This is the full account of the “Prayer Vision” and how it was discerned to me, or at least what it has meant to me;

Amazing, or at least as it is in the case of my life, whenever I feel I don’t want to do something, (most of the time, thing’s that I eventually realize will probably be good for me), is the particular thing I’m supposed to do, then it turns out, it would seem that God has something very good in store for me, if I decide to do it anyway!

So was the case of a particular invitation to a men’s prayer meeting 6:30 am on a Tuesday morning. It was my first of such prayer meetings, and I didn’t feel particularly at home, or did I get anything too significant out of it. I have never been much of a prayer, having never being taught, (Catholic school upbringing), and if I was, I certainly was either not paying attention, or didn’t remember.
As it began to draw down the men decided, or maybe this is a regular occurrence, to close with prayer. In typical fashion I closed my eyes, and maybe even started to agree with the prayers of the leader or other men that chimed in.

At a particular moment a different man spoke and for some unknown reason I turned my head without opening my eyes to look at the man speaking. This was a bit unusual for me, because it wasn’t like I was expecting to see anything in the dark of my closed eyes. But to my amazement I did see something; coming from the direction of the man I was looking at, I could see in my closed eyed darkness a distinct wave action emanating from his direction.

Pulsating from a distinct point, his point, and radiating up and out, almost in a wave like fashion of a pond or something, except still dark, I almost had the impression I was looking into a dark pool on a clear dark night, and someone was throwing stones into the pond. Waves moving out, but mostly up. This wave created an almost uniform undulation in the blackness of my eyes sight, or lack there of, creating only slight shades of black with very dark grays.

I sat there and stared for quite a moment, which seemed like a long moment. Thankfully the man leading the prayer was a bit long winded, because I had time to turn my head to the direction of the other men, those next to the one I first noticed, the others to my other side, and even the leader in front of me, realizing that each was creating his own sets of waves. They were each on their own pulsating tempo, and with their own strengths, and as I sat in amazement, I began to realize that all of the wave patterns were slowly starting to assimilate into one, a single greater and very directed large wave, and this wave was pulsating at such an intensity that I could almost physically feel the pulses in my body, especially as I became aware that they were coming. Kind of like the soft reverberations a person feels from the base during a concert.

The wave continued and that was the only thing I could see in the vast darkness of my closed eyed vision, but suddenly the enormous wave began to loose strength and eventually dissipated to nothing, only moments shortly prior to the conclusion of the prayer. I later shared the sight, vision, whatever, with my then mentor and very close friend Robert, but the meaning of the experience was not clearly brought to me until much later, ever days and weeks.

God spoke to me through many words including verbal confirmations, spoken words, written words, preached, taught, every sort of very Godly people and friends in my life, and even the “still soft voice” that I should listen to the most, but which admittedly, I ignore more then hear.

In clarifying the vision, He basically said; “all that you see, all that you touch, all that you hear, taste, smell, feel, is not really the real world, but the things you don’t see, feel, touch, hear, or taste are really the real things”. And as I pondered this He spoke to many other examples and how they play into the spiritual battles that are constantly waging around us unseen! “For we do not battle against flesh and bone, but against principalities and forces unseen…”

“For example; we are created in the image of God, and with that, unfortunately, come a responsibility of being a creator ourselves. That one fact being “creator” sets us apart from all other creations. The entire universe was set into creation with the spoken word! We confess our salvation before man with the spoken word. We will be accountable for every “word” that is uttered out of our mouth. And many more examples of where the word; “word” is mentioned as a powerful and creative force.”

Now scientists will tell us that energy can not be created or destroyed, and if that is the case, what happens to all of those spoken words that we have ever uttered? Do they just disappear, or as scientists may state with energy, and maybe even God verifies (as if he needs to verify anything a man should speculate), that it just keeps going, ever half-ing an effect, weaker and weaker as they dissipate, or precipitate an influence on the things around them, yet half of even a very small amount is still half!

Never quite gone, always having some effect on the world around us, our family, friends, this chair, ourselves, forever accountable! So maybe like the prayer, our words are real things, animate, real creations in an unseen world, but because we don’t see the effect on the in-animate, on that rock or on that wall, we assume they have no effect. But the effect, like the real action in the unseen world, is a real effect in the unseen world.

How significant in our real or seen world is the effects of things that are unseen; the effect of love, hate, slander, radiation, poisonous gas, phobia’s, to much sun, a flirting glance from a beautiful woman, a judgmental look from a boss or teacher, the poker face or lack there of, a smile, a babies breath, a lover’s scent, your stupid, your pretty, your fat, your a genius, being told you have cancer, or that someone is proud of you? Many of these types of unseen entities can have life changing effect, much more then permanent then even a baseball bat to same head.

Well if that be the case, maybe we can take it one step further, and when we sin, is it possible that it’s not just an arbitrary event. Often believing that if we don’t hurt anyone, or nobody sees the harm in it, that it doesn’t have a lasting and permanent effect?

But just maybe, we are creating entities in the spiritual world, real anomalies that just kind of gather around us, almost like spiritual dark balloons, or bricks, or something maybe even more dark, sinister, and not so desirable, that over time, and with enough accumulations, these things have the ability to isolate us from all who we love; God, our spouses, our children, everything good in the world even ourselves. We become dark!

A single glimpse of porn may not lead to a divorce, but coupled with many visitations to internet porn sites, might later facilitate a justification of dabbling in chat, and even later maybe a secret meeting with some other lonely darkened sole looking for companionship or something, sitting in the same dilemma not knowing where to look or at what. We might just find ourselves completely surrounded and engulfed in these dark bricks or dark balloons to the point where we can hardly breath, divorce not only becomes a viable option, but the only choice!
We can find examples of this in all forms of short lived gratification; drugs, hate, sexual promiscuity, homosexuality, all forms and kinds of sin, perpetrated against ourselves, creating around us an atmosphere of darkness and seclusion such as murmuring, blaspheming, pride, even suicide, and the ultimate act of self hatred! When all is dark, why continue? How sad that in most cases it was our own hand that built every dark brick, bit of straw and mud, one piece at a time.

But praise Jesus when he says “if you ask for forgiveness, I will place that sin as far away as the east is from the west”! Why, does he have to move it away if it doesn’t exist, if it is just some insignificant, invisible event in the past? Is he actually picking up something real and moving it!

“But if one is true, could the opposite be true also, we should also examine the other side of the coin; Love! When we love our neighbor as ourselves, when we do a kind unselfish things for our neighbor, our spouse, our children, strangers, our enemies, maybe we are creating something substantial in the heavenly realm, something that has a lasting effect on the entire universe, something that can’t be taken from us, something that we may even take with us in death!
Acts of obedience, when done for the Heavenly Father all have to be acts of love! Maybe we are building that spiritual temple that mansion that we, as created in the image of God, may possess also. “For all the commandments, the greatest of these is love” When we speak of Jesus, we minister or witness, is it not said that this can only be done through the Holy Spirit, which is Love in us. And is it also said that “Love can only come from God!”

Maybe this is what is meant by; “storing your treasures up in heaven, where there is no rust, no worm to eat, or no thief to steal. For where your treasure there your heart will be also.”

What a wonderful thought; to think that with each loving, kind and good word spoken from our mouths, or the very actions of our lives we are creating something total and indestructible, indestructible in the unseen but real universe.

If the spoken word has such creative power, and love has its own creative manifestations, what about the combination of the two, resulting in praise and worship? What a powerful effect that the combination of these two creative powers manifests, and it is no wonder why the Lord basks in the praises of His people! Did he not say that even the angels stop and take notice, and God himself turns His face towards the praises of His people!

He created us in his image and then so desires for us to express ourselves in a way that demonstrates our true master design.

It becomes a bit scary to think that with every action, that might not be particularly of God, we can be creating the negative influence in the universe as well.

This manifested is a bit of release from me also, in the realization that as a person creates a significant amount of black balloons around themselves, they begin then to become trapped in their private dark hell they have created, that it becomes impossible for them to find love or have a loving act in that secluded place. As if the darkness blocks the light from getting in.

It also became understandable how flesh, or the desire for darkness, would dominate in such a situation, and the spirit would be weak or nearly non-existent.  I often wondered how some Christians could confess Christ, and still act so dark towards each other.

I say a release for me, because when I think about a person engulfed in a quagmire or dark slime, built up with many layers of bricks, mortar, and filth, that has accumulated over years, months, days, or even a moment, it takes away the personal aspect of their attack, and kind of shows me where the real blame for this poor sole rests, making it much easier to hate the sin but love the sinner! To forgive!

Forgiveness an act of love, and the very act of placing away from us, in the same way God places away from himself sin; it is so comprehensible how the effect of the sin looses its hold on our immediate world. And while we often feel at the time, we are doing someone else such a service or a self sacrificing act, in reality we are doing something for ourselves that not only benefits us directly, but also the world immediately surrounding us.

In this way we also set down a hedge of protection around our family and friends and everyone we pray for, forgive and love. We build fortresses around all of the people we love, making it possible for them to experience love much easier then without our efforts. All of this through the miraculous gift of mercy, forgiveness, grace, and love; the greatest gift of God!

By Peter Colla

“Jesus let my actions, my words, my very thoughts be that of good, of light, of You, and forgive me for any and all darkness I have created. Give me the wisdom the very weapon to see the enemies lies and the ability to share this wisdom to others, with your Words and actions, each and every day of my life.”