The Whisper That Tried to Undo Me

I’m going to break every wall down here and share how my walk with God, my greatest Love, plays out.

The humanity behind the mysticism. The thinker behind the thoughts, if you will, in an ongoing effort to ground myself in humility before the Beloved.

I admit I’m brazen about it, openly flaunting the fact that I’m doing it because I want a commensurate reward in the form of extra Time with Him in heaven.

Maybe even hit up the heavenly equivalent of Starbucks?

Eternity, it would seem, is never enough for such a lecherous glutton as myself when it concerns spending quality time with You.

Today I woke up around 4:30 a.m. and got up, did my morning routine. I’ll spare you the details so you won’t get bogged down in the minutiae. I got into the car and drove down to the nearest Circle K, entered my discount card and payment, and started to pump the day’s gas. It was a little more expensive than normal, but hey, 2.71 isn’t terrible.

I gassed up, headed back to the house, parked in the driveway, and turned on the rideshare app.

I still had my other phone on me for texting when stopped, and my iPad for writing during the slow times. I took a few hits off my vape to focus my mind.

Then I had a stray thought.

And the entire day became ensnared on that one stray thought:

What if my loneliness is a product of spiritual distance between me and You?

Had I drifted?

The thought destroyed me, in that cold, sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach kind of way.

I spiraled, friends. From that thought began scriptural analyzation coupled with prayer—intense, soul-deep prayer—all while driving. If I had prayed any harder, I may have sweat more than water.

It went on for about three or four hours before You broke through.

You grabbed me by the shoulders and hushed me for a moment with that stillness between rides. Stilling my anxiety enough to actually breathe and hear You. Almost like You handed me a spiritual inhaler to steady me.

When the tears dripped onto my shoulders, I considered that today might be the day I was finally broken in a way that could not be unbroken.

Without You, I do not merely die—I never truly existed.

If I am not in You, then all my sorrow is just suffering without purpose, and my heart cannot fathom that kind of reality. It cannot. That would be too much for any soul to bear.

There must be purpose in my pain. I hold it sacred, Beloved, my faith rooted in You.

I have branded it upon my own flesh three times, Beloved—two times tattooed, one carved—and thrice more, plus one, to glorify Your great Name.

That even in death my autopsy will bear witness to You.

You stopped me. Dead stop. My racing heart stilled as I felt overshadowed within—and a ghostly sensation almost where I wear my sorrow, around my shoulders—of arms and hands settling within the sorrow silently.

You sat there in my midnight, just bearing it with me for a moment in shared empathy, mourning.

You spoke then and hushed my frenzied thoughts, reminding me how the enemy works and what the fruits are.

You reminded me that by their fruits shall you know them.

Then You spoke to me of my heart—the parts You see when no one else is looking, even the parts I cannot face.

You hold all the shattered pieces of me in Your hand, knowing my form from before creation.

It was then, after You spoke to me and my tailspin was resolved, that I realized something:

If the enemy cannot accuse us in heaven to Your face anymore, then is it possible he’s down here accusing us to our own?

Misrepresenting Your true nature and mercy?

Is it possible it is he—or they—who whisper:

You are steeped in sin.

How dare you go before the Majesty?

He will surely smite you.

Fork-tongued serpent, who lies as his native language.

Take the thoughts captive and bind them in Yeshua’s Name.

So a day like today—starting early and working hard—nearly turned into a destructive dive into self-loathing and misery by nothing other than a spoken whisper from an unseen enemy.

I, who write about unity with the Beloved, self-named Dust, was shaken by what I intrinsically understood spiritually.

If I, who pray and fast, can be so shaken—what must it be like for the truly newborn in Spirit?

I pray for them, Beloved. Spread Your tent over them. Shelter them in the surety of Your embrace.

After the fact, I learned a potent lesson: how many opportunities to pray while driving had I squandered by internalizing my own condemnation?

Who went without their much-needed intercession?

Why? Because it is possible to have our heads buried so deeply in the sand that we lose touch with the world around us, and our ability to relate to it, even as we fade slowly over time.

Think on this—blessed is the one who does not condemn themselves by what they approve.

Amen.

Dust