----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, July 18, 2005 6:19 PM
Subject: children's ranch update and tim's musings
Dear friends,
Yeah yeah, I know it's been awhile since the last email.
I've had several people remind me of this now. But no worries, I'm still here,
still alive, still moving forward. :-)
I've had several fairly direct undeniable answers to prayer
recently. It's been kinda cool actually. *soft smile*. Read on.
But first things first. My tektralox@peoplepc.com and my tbenedict@bigskytel.net, have both
either gone away already, or are in process of going away. My new email address
for all future correspondence is timbenedict@peoplepc.com
.
And next, a ranch status update.
The grant paperwork has come back to me from the grant
consulting company (on Friday), and out of the 8 major sections of the business
plan and paperwork associated with applying for grants, I have met 5 of the
section requirements and still need to flesh out the remaining 3. So that is
one of this week's projects, incorporating all their instructions and critique
stuff into the last 3 sections so that I can resubmit. If the consultants then
deem it satisfactory (typically 7~10 business days to review), then they send
me the list of grants from their exhaustive database that this ranch
qualifies for, and I go to work photocopying, writing cover letters, and
mailing grant app packages. Kinda cool. It is slowly happening *grin*. It's
only a matter of time now. This is a huge God fingerprint :-)
How about me? I have had some very good days and some very
bad (humanly speaking) days since my last letter. An aunt died of breast
cancer. My single mom best friend (that was healed in March), has had lumps
reappear in a new area (pray for her, she is under heavy attack). I have made
some awesome ranch related contacts. I have been able to counsel several people
seeking Godly advice, (which God gave me to pass on to them). I have been able
to help out several different people with needs that they had. I
have had some almost good weeks financially, and still lots of very dry
ones. Have had some serious conflicts with my ex over custody of my daughter,
and conflict with members of my church (humbling, all of it). Interviewed for a
fulltime job in Boise just because my debts are weighing so heavily on my mind,
but they have not called back, so apparently, I am not getting that job. But I
have also been extremely busy with various odd jobs for people, doing
everything from painting, to construction, to fence building, to computer and
appliance repair, evaluating and critiquing manuscripts for a literary agency,
etc and so forth. In all of it, I have found God to be faithful in the little
things. I have not had lack of food. I have always had gas in my car (except
for one weekend where God had something else in mind). I have had lots of
friends call and check in on me and tell me that they are praying for me (very
cool, and very much appreciated). There has always been people to minister to
(something that is simply just a part of me, I need to minister every bit as
much as I need to breathe). And there has always been someone there to minister
to me right when I most needed it too. So God is cool, and I very much
appreciate Him.
So, now for some more of the God-fingerprints I have seen
recently..... :-)
Several weeks ago, me and my Australian single mom
friend were praying together on the phone early on a Sunday morning, and I was
asking God for direction and where my focus should be. Several
hours later, after Sunday morning church, a friend walked up to me and asked,
"Can you receive a words from the Lord, Tim?" I said sure, and this
is what he said.
He said, "It just feels like God is telling me to tell
you that you just need to "keep your focus"." That spoke to me.
On several levels as I thought about it and shared it with a friend. On the
first level, God was reminding me to keep my focus on Him, and not let it drift
to "it's all about me" or something else like that. And on the second
level, it just felt like an answer to my prayer earlier that morning, about
where I should be focusing my time and efforts. And it just felt to me like He
was telling me to keep working on the ranch, and not lose that focus. It was
kinda cool.
Let' see. I could also tell you about the single mother
in Nampa desperately crying out to God for His touch in her life, who God,
through an amazing set of "coincidences" provided an almost made to
order hide-a-bed for. Or I could tell you about a man that is giving valuable
ranch input now, that I met through an extraordinary set or coincidences
involving a lost delivery driver and a package from Australia *chuckle*. I
could tell you about the additions that several people up here have begun on
their homes so that they can either take in foster kids or minister more
effectively through the ranch. I could tell you about the dream of a new church
being planted in Boise County. I could tell you about the people that have come
to the ranch seeking and finding spiritual healing. I could talk about my time
on the local volunteer fire department and local water board (where I was
recently elected president). There are so many things that I could talk about
that it makes me smile just thinking about it. Ask me if you want to hear some
of them!
Another God fingerprint also happened several weeks ago, and
this is what I will wrap up this newsletter with. I had a dream, that disturbed
me so much that it woke me up. This is highly unusual for me, to have vivid
disturbing dreams that are so strong that they wake me up. And I did not
understand the dream, even though it felt almost prophetic, or from the Lord.
So I shared the dream several days later with a number of close friends, and
asked them each to pray that God would give me an interpretation. And He did,
through another dream given to one of my friends. I shared the interpretation
with several other friends, and each agreed that it seemed to fit, so I have
accepted it. And I want to share it with you, because the interpretation of the
dream is something relevant to each one of us that know and have asked Jesus to
be their Lord and to forgive for everything wrong we have ever done.
This was my dream.
I was standing at the edge of a large Olympic size indoor
swimming pool (the pool here at the ranch is not that big). And
as I stand there, the water is smooth, the sun is shining in a bright blue sky
outside the wall of windows to my left, and the school building to my right,
adjoining this natatorium, is quiet and empty. And as I stand there, it
begins to get very dark outside. Like midnight dark. At the same time, the
water in the pool becomes very agitated, with waves racing across it back and
forth, several feet high. And then flames engulf the adjoining school, and cast
a weird dancing orange light through the windows and across the water. And then
the water begins to turn to blood at the far end of the pool, and spread
towards me. And then bodies begin to appear in the water.
At this point, I woke up, very deeply disturbed, because the
dream was very vivid and very real. Like I said, it almost felt prophetic.
And this was the interpretation that God gave my friend to
share with me.
In the New Testament in the Bible, it talks about a special
pool of water in Jerusalem, where occasionally, an angel would come down and
stir the waters, and the first person that made it into the stirred water,
would be healed of whatever ailed them. The pool of Siloam, if I remember
right.....
Anyway. For each of us that know and serve God in a personal
way, our lives are like those pools of water. Our spheres of influence. And all
around us, things are either very peaceful, or at other times, very
chaotic. And when the external lives of people around us go up in flames
(while attending the school of life?), God stirs the water of our own souls,
and then these spiritually dead people around us are thrown into the waters of
our lives, where they can find healing from God, who has stirred the waters of
our lives specifically for them.
Does this make sense?
It's GOD that stirs the waters and provides the healing for
people around us that need Him and His touch. It's NOT us. We are just the
vessel. The pool of water that He can stir, and immerse people in.
But there are a lot more implications too, if you work with
the analogy some more.
Among other things, it would seem to imply that
the greatest healing to those around us, comes when God stirs things up things in
our own lives. Which means that I should be thankful for the tough times in my
life (which IS Biblical), because potentially, that is when God can use me the
most or the best, to touch those people around me..... It means that I don't
need to be afraid when things go wrong, but rather I should maybe have the
attitude of: "Who does God want to bring healing to through this hardship
that I myself am going through?"
Of course, it could also simply be the stirring and
prompting of the Holy Spirit to minister to certain people that cross our daily
paths.
And it would also imply that spiritually dead people
will most often be thrown into our lives and across our paths when their
own lives are in flames. Which means that we need to embrace them in that
moment and not run the other way in fear. They need God, just like we do,
because it is only Him that can give a person new life. *soft smile*
So that leaves me with just 3 questions for you. Do
you know Jesus yet personally or are you still one of the dead people whose
lives are in flames? If you know Jesus already, have you allowed Him to stir
your heart yet to bring healing to your world? And if you don't know Jesus yet,
are you ready to try something new yet, and escape the flames? Talk to me :-)
Sincerely,
-Tim Benedict