The Sandbox…

Last October, in a season of rest, I received many messages from the Lord. I was in a season of change that followed a very trying time for me both in the obstacles of everyday life but also in my own health – a battle that I strongly believe was influenced by the spirit of fear. And on the other side of this (during a time of rest from all this stuff that was bringing me down), He started talking to me about the three unclean spirits – what they are and where they reside…. I’ll save this for later.

So one morning the Lord told me to build a sandbox. I didn’t have any real understanding of “why” other than this box would have an actual function for me and in building it I would need to create a way for this sandbox to hold letters; notes – paper. Having learned to be obedient immediately and without question when the Lord lays instruction on my heart, I went to work building a box made of wood. I decorated it with lights, made a slit or hole in the wood for inserting letters, (I didn’t have any sand so I simply wrote “Sandbox” on it), and I attached a scripture referencing the one “who holds the key of David” and I thought it was cute but had no idea then what to do with it – nor did I know why I chose that reference, other than I presumed this sandbox has something to do with the bride as it is words that Jesus spoke to the church of Philadelphia.

The next day the Lord told me “Moses wrote in stone, Jesus writes in the sand.”  This was huge, and I immediately went to the scriptures to study these occasions of the law, given by written commandments in stone and the mystery of Jesus writing in the sand as the woman accused of adultery was placed before him by her accusers.  So the first amazing thing I see is that the Pharisees immediately referenced MOSES when they approached Jesus, saying: “Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?” (John 8)…   So they are telling Jesus that according to the law of Moses, (the one who wrote in stone), the woman should be killed by stones – stoned to death – it’s the rules and its the law…  And Jesus says nothing to them in response, but instead he bends down and writes in the sand.  The exact phrase the Lord gave me is literally demonstrated IN CONTRAST of the old and new covenant as this woman is brought before Jesus.  And I don’t know how to articulate this other than to just say this phrase….

The pharisees are the stones and the woman is the sand.

You see their conscious was made in stone.  And stone can not be altered – shaped, molded into something new.  Jesus couldn’t write on their hearts, their stoney hearts that seeked to kill Jesus and kill that woman too.  But he could write on her heart, because she had surrendered herself… as sand.  The stories of the new testament never show favor *in the world* towards the body of Christ.  His disciples, apostles and namely himself were all treated horribly – they were accused and jailed and hated and beaten and killed in horrific ways.  But in their deaths, they were made new.  That’s a literal and spiritual reality of the walk we all will walk if we seek to follow Christ.

Finding the Lord is never an act of power, intellect, idea, or physical manifestation of acts that we do with our bodies.  We can not create him, achieve him, learn him or earn him in our lives.  We can die in surrender.  That’s the only path to Christ that ever is or ever was.

Jesus said “He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.” – Mathew 10:39

So what is this sandbox Lord?  It’s the remnant of stones that have been broken into pieces and delivered to the Lord who IS The author.  Jesus Christ is the author and finisher of our faith.  HE’S THE WRITER – not ever us.  The seed that was spoken of by the FATHER in promise to Abraham is described as stars and sand.  God said this, “That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.”  That SEED IS CHRIST (HE is the blessing that God gave) and the multiplication of HIS SEED is as the stars of the heaven and the sand upon the sea shore.

Now the Pharisees challenged Jesus by boasting to him about their bloodline.  They told him they were the children (or seed) of Abraham – the children of the promise.  And Jesus didn’t argue about their bloodline from a genealogy standpoint. However, he plainly stated to them that their father is the devil based on what was in their hearts – the desire to kill him.

This temporary season that we call life on earth is our walk in the sand – if we allow ourselves to be made into sand.  And the only way to do that is to surrender.  Jesus said this, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”  Well, Jesus carried his cross through a place called Golgatha, which means “skull” – as we know, this is the bone that protects the brain.  It’s interesting that in the book of Ephesians, Paul says that Jesus “abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances.” Enmity is described as the carnal mind – Romans 8:7 says, “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.”  Both of these scriptures also reference the law of God or law of commandments.  What CAN’T be subject to the law of God?  The human mind.  And where did Jesus carry that cross?  Through a place called “skull” – the housing of the human brain or carnal mind, which is the enmity of God that Jesus ABOLISHED.

Jesus overcame the carnal mind by doing the WILL OF HIS FATHER and having no will of his own instructing his path.  In doing the will of his Father he was sinless.  He showed surrender in the purest and most beautiful form of the fallen-language idea of this word.

The human mind when controlled by “self” is a judge of good and evil, harnessing all spirits of torment in fear, worry, stress, desire, lust, pride, self-exaltation and creationism by the hands of man.  The brain is a TREE of connections of thought energy that is continually branching new connections and in this confusion of man’s duality – in the fallen state of seeing both good and evil, man can not overcome HIMSELF.  Thus, Christ was given.

This woman was at her ending.  I’ve been there too.  Defeated – overwhelmed by the weight of this world and the battle to keep treading water as the waves have become too tall for me to withstand. But in that place, she was delivered to the feet of Jesus...the author of our stories and the finisher of our faith. She was there forgiven and set free. I can’t find one place in the bible where Jesus wrote anything, except here, when this woman was at his feet facing her end. As they waited for him to condemn her and sentence her to the death she deserved, he said nothing – He bent down and with his finger, He wrote in the sand. Our Lord Jesus wrote in the sand – the very element our bodies are made of.. dust, tossed around with the might of the wind and washed away by the waves that crash along the shore. This life is fleeting and temporary as James called it – like a vapor; a substance that doesn’t even take form, it just lingers for a moment and then disappears as if it never existed at all – like the sand pouring through the hour-glass one grain at a time. When the last speck of dust that is called me settles at the bottom of that glass and time is no more, my only hope is that every last fiber of me is fully surrendered in the hands of the one who writes in the sand. The one who has the power to erase, create and set free each fiber of me that I’m willing to surrender to Him.

And so I do surrender.. sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.  I ask the Lord to crush each stone that’s been formed inside of me.  Make me the sand that carries the seed of the promise of Abraham, which IS the life of Christ.  I ask the Lord to help me surrender to the Father’s will and demolish MY-SELF will.  When something is weighting my heart, whether it’s a tough decision or a battle I’m losing, I write it down and put it in the sandbox. But only when I’m ready to surrender it fully to the Lord, with the understanding that I CAN NOT take back what I’ve given to Him. I place it in His hands and fully surrender it asking Him to author it, shape it, mold it and take the weight of it off my shoulders. Even if it hurts, even if I don’t understand what He’s doing, even if the outcome is me laying at his feet with the whole world chanting “stone her!”, if it’s in the sandbox, it’s no longer my fight. I give the battle to Him and understand that the REASON that I’m made weak is so that HE can be strong.