Twenty Two

For those of you who prayed for us to have a safe journey back to the U.S. in early February, Thank you. Your prayers bore fruit in more ways than one. The three day drive took me from Merida, through Villahemosa, through Queretero and back to the U.S.. Day three of the drive was the final leg from Queretero back up to San Antonio, TX where I reunited with the family. It was on that day that something interesting happened.

About 5 hours into my drive on Sunday I looked down at my odometer and noticed that I had traveled 307 miles since I left the hotel in Queretero that morning. I also noticed that I still had a half of a tank of gas. That is not normal. A 2001 Ford F150 Supercab only gets, at best, 19 mpg on the highway (See Here). I have tracked my gas mileage in the past so I know these figures are accurate.

I had gassed up that morning in Queretero and reset my odometer for the day's driving so my fuel gauge should have shown me sitting on roughly a quarter of a tank after 300 miles. Plus, the truck was filled with miscellaneous items we were bringing back (clothes, a bunk bed frame, books, file boxes, toys, a dog)....just enough stuff to weigh the truck down a little bit. This added cargo combined with all of the mountain driving on the interior highway routes in Mexico should have had a negative impact on my fuel efficiency. Plus I was driving at speeds of 75 MPH or higher because I was taking one toll road after another with no posted speed limits. 75MPH was driving slow. All three factors combined should have have drastically lowered the fuel efficiency on the truck. But it didn't.

Shortly after noticing this I found a gas station and refilled my tank. I looked at how many gallons I had put in the truck, noted the odometers reading, called Christine and asked her to pull out a calculator. After plugging in the numbers I realized I was getting a whopping 22.5 mpg...with all of the added weight, with all of the high-speed driving, with all of the downshifting in the mountains I was still getting 22+ miles per gallon.

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We grew close to several families while in Mexico. One of those couples, Andres and Talia, became friends of ours last summer. Andres was one of Josephs teachers at Calvary Christian Academy and Talia was Christine's hairdresser. This couple had legally immigrated to the U.S. back in the late 80's and after over two decades, God led them back to their hometown of Merida. In November I asked Talia how long they lived in the U.S. and she told me 22 years.

On December 27th Christine and I were taking a walk at the park in our neighborhood in Merida and while doing so I smelled a scent on the breeze that really stood out to me. It was the exact smell of the laundry room at the dorms in Midwestern State University where I had first attended college 22 years earlier. I left home in January, 1990 and the one scent that stood out in the dorms the most was the scent of the laundry room. It was very noticeable as I had smelled that aroma for the first time 22 years earlier.

The day before we started making the trip back to the U.S. I helped deliver our washer and dryer to the house of the lady that had purchased them from us in Merida. When heading over to her place we found ourselves driving through the Colonia Nora Quintana. The main road that cuts through this Colonia (Subdivision) is Calle 22. Calle 22 cuts through the heart of other adjoining subdivisions in that area of the city. Nora is my grandmothers name. Quintana is of Spanish and Greek origin and means "country home." We are renting my grandmother Nora's home from her in a country town outside of Ft. Worth.

Coincidences? Not at all. Supernatural gas mileage. Moving back to the area where I grew up in our home state 22 years after I left the area and went on a long journey that has taken me/us through several cities (Wichita Falls, Dallas, McKinney, Midland, Albuquerque, San Antonio, Merida). Christine moving away from her family for the first time and heading to Taos, NM in 1990, 22 years ago. Calle 22 in the heart of Nora Quintana. The unique aroma that first entered my senses exactly 22 years earlier.

One of the meanings of the number 22 in scripture is "flesh-cutting." Two of the most wicked kings in all of the history of Judah and Israel were cut off and removed after reigning 22 years.

"Jeroboam reigned for twenty-two years and then rested with his fathers." 1 Kings 14:20

"...Ahab son of Omri became king of Israel, and he reigned in Samaria over Israel twenty-two years. Ahab son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him." 1 Kings 16:29,30

Jeroboam took over the ten northern tribes after the breakup of  Israel in the Post-Solomon era. His faithless heart led him to introduce golden-calf worship in Dan and Bethel. Ahab's greatest sin was introducing Baal worship in Israel after marrying Jezebel daughter of Ethbal king of the Sidonians. Both of these men were cut off in their wickedness after 22 year reigns.

The number 22 denotes the cutting off of wickedness and that which is of the flesh. The purpose of these last 22 years for Christine and I has been flesh-cutting. Deep flesh cutting. No, we are not yet made perfect. As the apostle Paul says...

"Not that I have already obtained all of this, or have already been made perfect, bit I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.....All of us who are mature should take such a view on things." Philippians 3:12-15

But this has been a purposeful 22 years of discipline, of distress and development. In July 1996 I received a word that I had a tremendous amount of spiritual discipline ahead of me.  In October, 1996 I received a prophetic word that the Lord had me hanging on a cross, undergoing a process of cruxificion. I was told to stay on the cross until the Lord took me down. Less than a year later in May of 1997 I received another prophetic word while in Midland, TX that the Lord had me undergoing a process of deep humbling.

In ancient Israel servants were to be set free after six years of servitude. If the slave wanted to stay with his master at the time he was to be set "Free" he was to first be taken before the city judges to publicly confirm his desire. Then he was to go with his master to the doorway of his master's home where he would have an awl pushed through his earlobe into the door frame. See Exodus 21 and Deuteronomy 15.

In October the Lord spoke the word "Free" to me and my wife four times in less than 48 hours. I believe in effect that the Lord was telling me that I was allowed to go free if I so chose, that I was no longer bound to follow him but that I was Free to choose to follow or not follow him.

Coincidentally, in January, about two weeks before we moved back to the U.S., I was outside changing a light bulb next to an outdoor closet on our back porch. I thought I had turned off the light switch so I wouldn't be electrocuted. The glass portion of the bulb had broken out of it's metal threaded base and I had to get a pair of metal needle-nose pliers to pry the sleeve out of the socket where you screw in the light bulb. When I touched the pliers to the bulb area on the wall about a foot above my head I received an electric shock. When I drew back my hand I dropped the pliers as my arm was extended above my head.

He chooses us that we might choose Him.

On the way down the pliers landed with the handle pressed into my collarbone area and the needle nose end coincidentally extended into the back of my right earlobe, piercing part of the skin on my lower earlobe and drawing blood. This happened with me standing next to the doorway of the backporches outside closet.

That very same morning, before all of this happened, I had just been reading in Deuteronomy 15 about freed slaves choosing to go back and serve their masters for life, having their ears pierced to the door.

In Psalm 40:6, the Spirit of Christ speaking through David said:

"Sacrifice and offerings you did not desire, but my ears you have pierced;..."

Have you had your ear pierced yet? I know all of this seems intricate, but we serve an intricate God who counts the numbers of hairs on our heads. The Lord can and does speak intricately at times. He speaks in proverbs and riddles, in prophetic symbols and similitudes (Hosea 12:10).  This isn't just for the prophets but for a prophetic church as well.

Ask the Lord to bring you into this flow of prophetic symbolism in your life if he hasn't already. And if he has, ask for a double portion of what you already know and have learned and experienced.

Blessings
J.E.

Riddles

When Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses the Lord quickly called the three of them before him and said the following:

"When a prophet of the Lord is among you, I reveal myself to him in visions, I speak to him in dreams. But this is not true of my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house. With him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles; he sees the form of the Lord." Numbers 12:6-8

"Clearly and not in riddles." Moses had ascended to a measure of constant, clear speech from the Lord. But the prophets who were working their way towards Moses' level of humility found their paths littered with riddles. This is much the same for God's people today. As we walk towards greater intimacy with the Lord we find many of God's leadings at various points in our lives emerging in "riddle" form.

The Hebrew word for riddle in the previous passage is Chiydah. It means a puzzle, a hard question, a proverb or a riddle. A proverb or a riddle. What does the scriptures say about proverbs and riddles? It says they must be understood, not just heard.

"...for understanding proverbs and parables, the sayings and riddles (Chiydah) of the wise." Proverbs 1:6

Why does the Lord do this among his people? I believe it is to simply give us things to focus on and draw us away from the world into a humble and dependent state. As we tarry with the Lord in prayer and throughout our day we find our minds more easily set on him when we are searching out a matter.

"It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, to search out a matter is the glory of kings."  Proverbs 25:2

Peter experienced this in Acts 9 when he saw a sheet let down by it's four corners full of all types of unclean animals. It wasn't until he was at Cornelius's house in Acts 10 that he understood what the vision applied to. He wrestled with this riddle for 3 days. Seeing this vision/riddle and not immediately understanding it put him in a humble state of mind to seek the Lord. Through this he was prepared to be a conduit for the grace of God. He was in a suspended state of humility simply due to the fact that he did not understand the vision. In this stance of meakness and searching out the matter he was ready to serve God before Cornelius' household.

Waiting for and ultimately receiving answers to the prophetic riddles we receive from Jesus is simply a way of walking out the glorious path that has been set before us. It helps to keep us occupied in our thought-life so that we can more easily pull away from the impure distractions of the world. It is part of the process of overcoming (See 1 John).


Stand Firm - Ephesians 6:13

In my walk over the past 17 years I have found many riddles set before me by the Lord. The red cardinal, the ram, the hawk, "Durango", the #15, the #9, dry eyes, a shoulder stinger, the Spanish word Mariposa ...All of these things and more have been shown to our family, either in outward physical form or within the happenings of our own physical bodies. This has been for the purpose of both our our own relationships with the Lord and, at times, what the Lord was doing in the lives of people and circumstances around us.

At the beginning of October, 2011, the Lord began to show us that we would be returning to the United States. Truthfully, this caught us somewhat off guard. We were under the impression that we might never return. Part of this unveiling process included a few riddles. In the next post I would like to share a three-sided riddle that the Lord set before me in the following sequence of numbers: #17, #22, and the #40. Each number had a somewhat distinct yet slightly overlapping meaning in relation to the others.

In sharing this I hope it bears witness with the process that others find themselves in. I am specifically referring to the process of cleansing, discipline and preparation and how prophetic riddles guide us through all of that. I will share more on this in the next post.

God Bless,
J.E. and family