Beloved,
I invite your spirit forward in the name of Yeshua.
Spirit, listen to the word of El Shaddai for you for today
He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters.
Psalm 23:2
Spirit,
There is a place in the letter to the Laodiceans that gets overlooked as a blessing.
“I wish that you were hot OR COLD.”
Cold refers to a cup of cold water given to the little ones, and it signifies usefulness. A resource that can still be used and used well.
Cold water is refreshing on a plush lawn on a hot summer day, and even in the cool north, hot summer days happen.
And the balance necessary for green pastures is not just the sunshine, but also the coolness of evening and night, the rhythm of days that creates the right circumstances to help the grasses and plants grow.
And Father wishes to set you in a meadow of verdance. That was watered by cool water and saw the cool of the night.
There are going to be times when you need a plush lawn to set your bare feet upon, and it takes the right calibration of atmosphere and climate to bring that grass to reality.
Likewise, with well-calibrated human relationships that come from the Shepherd’s own hand, it take the right circumstances.
I don’t imagine much research has been done covering the effects of night time rhythms on foliage, but those breaks between sunshines I feel are needed.
And the grass is needed to create cushion, and food for the sheep. It’s a marker of provision, even though grasses are fleeting.
And the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint, says G-d called into existence, specifically, “pastures of grass”.
So, spirit, because I want no nuance of the biblical text overlooked, I want to bless you accordingly.
I, Penelope, bless you deeply not just with green pasture from the Shepherd’s own hand, but also the conditions necessary that will bring those pastures into being.
I bless you with love and Mercy, and the sense of being hugged even in your mother’s womb. I bless you with the feel of my homeland, the Giver land known as Florida, with its plush carpets of St. Augustine Grass that underfoot are thick and hardy and broad with ample cushioning for bare feet, so that as you run, you can feel the grass blades between your toes. I bless you to know the sounds of Katydids and grasshoppers that use those grasses for homes. And I bless you with seasons. Many warm summers, breezy springs, cooling and colorful autumns, and the crisping winters that produce not only the snowdrifts of New England, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island, but also the cold snaps that force the citrus of Florida into a place of discomfort, without which, no orange would move from sourness to sweetness.
I bless you with the bees of orange blossom honey, and the wafting sweet scents of the Northern Lilacs and the Confederate Jasmine.
I bless you in the spirit with a deep place of peace, a meadow full of His wildflowers and protective woolen fences as needed, when you need a refuge from the Egyptian fires of this age that would seek to destroy all you hold dear.
I bless you with the Shepherd King’s protective and prevailing pillar of affection by night and by day.
I bless you to know true intimacy with Him, and the continual reality of being being filled from your mother’s womb.
I bless you to be filled with the Holy Spirit, who is the manifestation of all that is Truest about the Three-In-One.
I bless you with deep and prevailing reminders of the King’s shalom to quiet you when much around you may become disquieting. So that your anchor may hold within the veil.