July 21st, 2011 by Zach Mapes
So often in the past my garden has suffered from a lack of watering. Recently however my basil and other herbs have started to turn yellow on me despite the fact I often water them. After a quick search around the internet I discovered this is often due to over watering. What happens is the plant gets too much water in relation to the nutrients that it is able to absorb from the soil it is planted in.
This made me think about how our focus on developing spiritual gifting can sometimes cause us not to absorb enough of the other things that are around us, or the same in reverse.
Initially everything God created was created to be in balance. We have to eat or we starve, yet over eating can lead to numerous ailments and suffering.
How do we find a balance?
I think a balance comes from taking nutrients in from many sources. As with plants, some stress, like pruning, can be essential in generating continued growth.
The short lesson I learned from my garden is that too much of a good thing is not always the best thing for it. The garden provides such a wealth of insight into the gifts that God gives us. The key to balance is to develop these gifts but at the same time to make certain we do not lose touch with the other crucial parts of our lives such as friends, family, and work. With out these elements we actually lose purpose for the gifts.
Keep a broad focus and grow!
Posted in Prophetic Concepts | No Comments »
July 13th, 2011 by Zach Mapes
In Dreams; a Biblical Model of Interpretation Jim and I introduced the idea of the Dream Cycle. This is the constantly map of how far we have gone with our dreams. This cycle has many steps starting with the process of preparing to dream, and ends with seeing the fulfillment of the dream come to pass. Obliviously this means that you could have dozens and dozens of dreams at some stage within the Dream Cycle. The question is how many dreams that you have had had stopped somewhere in the middle of this process? Common sticking points are working through a difficult interpretation, or simply forgetting the promises that are held within the dream.
Often when we see a decline in dreams it is because we have to much of a backlog of uncompleted cycles. Here are some questions to help get you restarted.
Here are some important questions to ask to help get you dreaming again.
Do you have dreams that haven’t been interpreted?
Do you have dreams that have been interpreted, but you no longer have expectation?
Is it difficult to prepare for sleep?
Have you left the interpretations unspoken?
These are just a few questions that can be asked to help restart your dream life if it ever gets stalled.
Posted in Exercise | 5 Comments »
July 6th, 2011 by Zach Mapes
I think there is a wealth of as yet undiscovered understanding and maturity to be gained from within the realm of dreams from God. To my mind each and every person can have a slightly different, or hugely different, private vocabulary with God. This means that while there are some basics and fundamentals to understanding dreams that carry across all languages, cultures and dare I say denominations, once you have moved past the fundamentals into interpreting metaphors, similes and puns within dreams, the finer essence of a dream is often a code between the dreamer and God.
This is why dreams can’t be interpreted as well using a dream dictionary. Each and every symbol can have dozens of meanings, based on a person’s individual relationship with the environment around them and with God.
So what are we to do as people who aspire to help find answers through looking at the dreams God gives us? First I think we can only give the answers that we have. The worst thing an interpreter can do is try to build an interpretation on the basic understanding they have without revelation from God. The second thing, and equally important, is not to assume. So often we see a parent, car, or some other common element show up in a dream and assume that we have an understanding of what that element means based on past or present experience. While we do become more experienced, each dream we face is a blank slate, a fresh start, a chance to learn something new rather than churn out what we already know.
Dream interpretation is not a science. The danger is when we try to see the gift turned into something that we simply ‘get’. We may have interpreted thousands of dreams and so we feel we have it figured out. The truth is, in my experience, that the number of dreams and often increasing complexity of dreams interpreted can be viewed as a milestone not as a result of volume or accuracy in the interpretation. Rather I find I am increasing learning the questions to ask and hold my own ‘wisdom’ more and more loosely. As an interpreter, my role is to act as a conduit for God, not a display model for practice makes perfect.
As we investigate we learn something that every fan of Bones, CSI or Sherlock Holmes already knows. Let the evidence speak for itself. Don’t assume, and the more experience you have the more you know things can, and will surprise you. When we maintain humility God uses us powerfully. If we stay humble he doesn’t have to remind us who is really doing the heavy lifting.
Tags: dreams, interpretation, science, sherlock holmes
Posted in Back to the Fundamentals, Prophetic Concepts | 3 Comments »
June 29th, 2011 by Zach Mapes
If you attend a church conference you will often hear talk of prophetic seasons, prophetic timing and other such terminology. But, what does that mean? Are all seasons prophetic? The answer might well depend on who you talk to, and when you talk to them. But, we can learn to develop our own sense of prophetic timing – through humility and perseverance.
It is important in the quest to develop a better sense of timing that you keep a journal. Otherwise you risk being one of those people that said “it” would happen at a certain time, and inadvertently change that timing to fit the eventual outcome.
Step 1 Ask the Lord to show you something that is going to take place locally.
Step 2 Ask the Lord to show you something that is going to take place regionally.
Step 3 Ask the Lord to show you something that is going to take place nationally.
Step 4 Ask the Lord to show you something that is going to take place internationally.
Step 5 Ask the Lord to show what the timing of each of these events taking place is.
Don’t worry if you aren’t right on from the start. Just keep practicing.
Tags: exercises, journal, timing
Posted in What I See | 2 Comments »
June 23rd, 2011 by Zach Mapes
Have you ever noticed that many of the foods that we think of as delicacies are actually the result of spoilage? Imagine the first guy that had a jug of milk go off and after a couple days of rotting and turning sour he decided to give it a taste. That is more or less the process has brought us sour cream, yogurt, cheese, buttermilk and my favorite a nice creamy gorgonzola. Just think about the time that someone cut into their forgotten wheel of cheese around 1200 years ago and discovered that it had all these blue veins because somehow a little bit of penicillium mold had made its way in. I think that they would have had to be pretty hungry to give it a try. But now, over a 1000 years later it is one of the most popular varieties the world over. Something that was smelly, and at first appearance rotten is now special and very expensive costing up to 40 dollars or more a pound.
One of the often unspoken rules of the prophetic is that the greater the word, the greater the test. This test can come in the form of timing, obstacles, and even in some cases total disillusionment. Much like great cheese you can’t see what is going on below the surface. This all came up for me as I was talking with an old friend that was in town visiting about prophetic words that we have received from various well known prophetic voices. He was talking about how all three words from one person who I think of as a spiritual grandfather had come to pass, and been great. For my part I have received maybe 10 words from this same amazing man – going back about 25 years. To be honest not a single one of the words that he has given me has come to pass at this time.
The most common parmesan cheese in America is sold by Kraft, it comes in a green plastic bottle is pre-grated and often lacks the full punch and texture of one of the most loved cheese varieties in the USA. But it fills the role that most people use it for on pizza, spaghetti or making a béchamel sauce. But, in my opinion it is nothing like‘real’ parmesan aged for around 2 years and sometimes longer. The grainy, gritty texture is untouchable by anything that comes in a bottle. Yet, I use the bottle, and I suspect that you do as well. It is cheaper, keeps longer in the fridge and is hassle free. Very similar to the way we prefer our prophetic words. I would prefer to have more history with the prophetic that was quick, relatively satisfying and hassle free. But sadly as fate or destiny would have it I have a lot of unfulfilled prophetic words, and I have many friends that do as well.
Sometimes our inclination with promises that we have held for a long time is treat them as though they are the cheese in the back of the cave that has turned blue. The key is to be hungry enough to have a taste and see what you discover. This is going to be a good year to pull old prophetic words out from the back of the cave. They might be a little moldy or cracked but the truth is they are delicacies.
Tags: cheese, Prophetic, timing
Posted in Prophetic Concepts | 7 Comments »
