///Will You Still Worship When Your Usual Way of Connecting With God is Cut Off?///

The key that opens the door into God's presence is intimacy; It's a singular action that later turns into a plural activity. To have an intimate relationship of any kind there first has to be a connection, that bridge that allows communication between two Spirits. (John 4:24) tells us that "God is Spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth." When we feed our Spirit then our flesh, weak or strong, has to submit under the authority of Jesus. The case for me this week was weak flesh and a strong Spirit. I know when you first read that last sentence it sounds a bit bizarre or maybe a bit uppity but the Lord knows the details of my week and these days have truly stripped my flesh off to only reveal my Spirit. In past seasons I've had to battle through my flesh getting in the way of my Spirit's purpose and I continue to struggle with this of course but God had something new to teach me this week. The battle that I had to face required me to solely depend on the strength of my Spirit Man: I had been feeding Him with word, music, preachings...etc. and now came the time to see the fruit of that. I have seen the fruit and the words that were declared did not return void.

Sunday night, the Lord gave me a dream: I saw myself at a party of some kind. For some reason I was there helping out and I went outside and started walking toward my Mom's SUV. When I was about to open the door I felt someone following me so I turned around and saw a young man walking up behind me. I locked the car and asked the guy if I could help him with anything and before I knew it he pulled out a gun and shot me. He just walked away after this and disappeared behind a wall. I felt myself fall to the ground and land on grass but I didn't feel the bullet penetrate me. I was shocked by this but instead of panicking I began to declare, "I cover myself with the blood of Jesus...The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want He makes me lie down by green pastures and leads me beside still waters..." And then the guy comes back, pulls out his gun, and shoots me over and over again. The more I declared The Word the angrier he got and the angrier he got the more he shot. The bullets couldn't touch me. There was like a force field blocking the bullets. The word of God became my faithful shield. I didn't know it then but God was preparing me for what was going to come and clearly He showed me that I was going to have to declare His Word through this spiritual warfare.

My voice was just gone for almost the whole week and if you express your worship to God through singing like I do then you know how horrible, horrible, that really feels. How impotent I felt when the guitar was being played. Every chord made my heart leap and my lips quiver with anxiousness. Day after day I drove in my car with only my hand raised up and my mouth tightly sealed. The Holy Spirit was there in that moment and saw my heart. It even began to drizzle so all I could do was smile. I felt in my Spirit so strongly that the enemy was not going to hear one complaint, nor one reproach, and he especially was not going to cause confusion as to why this was happening to me. My worship was not going to be defined by what I lacked, but rather, what I had. God loves it when I sing to Him but He loves me so much more. That's it right there! He wants us so so so much more than anything else we can offer Him. The way I was approaching and confronting this situation wasn't something I was doing with the intention of just receiving healing...it was about all my love being offered in the palm of my hand to my good and faithful God in the midst of difficult circumstances. I desperately wanted Him to know that I would worship and love Him no matter what I was going through...I wanted Him to just love my heart...I wanted to make Him smile.

 I didn't even have to memorize this scripture because once I read it, it was engraved in my Spirit. Spending the night on the couch far from my room could have provoked my frustration but instead I took my pillow, blanket, my Declaration Scriptures Notebook, and Bible and read until my eyes couldn't read another word. I declared (Jeremiah 17:14) after The Lord showed me this scripture as I was reading my Bible. What is used to harm us God can use to benefit us. It will work for your good if you're called to God's purposes. Will you still worship?

Make another connection and if that one is taken away make another and then another. If your voice is gone use your hands and if your hands are gone get down on your knees. If you can't dance pray and if you can't pray then converse in your mind with your God. Make a connection. In the natural you may not be able to sing so let your life be your song or maybe you can't physically bow down so let your every step be in full surrender to God. Don't let anything steal your worship because while you see it's tangible form, God see's its spiritual form. Will you still worship?

Dreams {I Lay Them At Your Feet}

I've received God's word for me this year and suddenly all these dreams have been born in me. Desires that I am surrendering to God and praying for. One of my dreams, that I just can't shake off because I have been asking the Holy Spirit to reveal to me the desires of my Father's heart for me, is attending the "Bethel School of Worship". It's like I shake that dream loose and then, like a boomerang, it just keeps flying back to me through other blogs, articles, songs, and random sorts of events. The truth is, we can't run from what God has called us to do and in this case, trust, I would love nothing more than to jump on a plane and fly off to Redding, California. But... the Lord's timing is perfect. In the mean time my preparation continues. My Spring Semester starts on Monday and Psalmist School two weeks after. I'm soaking up everything I can and making the most of every teaching that The Holy Spirit is providing me with. It's amazing though, how God keeps confirming my dream. Yesterday, a woman from the financial-aide office called me in the morning to tell me that after checking my fafsa she thought their might be some errors that I could fix so that I could be given a Pell Grant in addition to the grants that I already have. You see, ever since I started attending the University I never had to pay anything out of pocket, my God has opened every door and has overflowed His blessings on me by leaving me with ridiculously surprising amounts of refunds. I call it our love relationship: I give Him the glory and He makes a way for me. Well...being notified of this blessing of course my heart became too full of thanks to handle because, "there we go" I thought, more confirmation. I was saying a few days back about attending BSW, "God, this is expensive for me and I don't have this kind of cash lying around." Bam! He answered me. It's like He's always telling me, "Deya, what more do you need? What more can I do for you?" And I'm like, "No, no, God...What can I do for You?" I'm going to continue to save up and set an amount of money aside for whatever the Lord has in mind for me. God has an amazing way of doing things a gagillion times infinity times better than me, but since I'm a planner at heart (it comes from Him, I know it) I'll share my plans.

• I plan to continue faithfully leading worship at church when University life is not all too hectic. 
• I plan to enter my rehab program and rock that to bring glory to my God.
• I plan to Graduate from Levi School of Psalmists (Levi Escuela de Salmistas), completing my six semesters in December 2013!!!
• And...I plan to apply and God willing attend Bethel Scchool of Worship in the Summer of 2014.

Even to me, as I re-read these little bullets I think, "Dang, that's so far away!" But, I truly know that God will guide me and keep preparing me. If He told me to begin reading the bible from beginning to end in the beginning of 2012 and it is now 2013 then time will continue to go by in the blink of an eye. God's timing has always been perfect and I see now how he's worked everything out. Getting into the word of God sparked by hunger, the 21 day fast led to breaking unhealthy chains and getting healthy by seeing a naturopathic doctor, I mean God holds everything in His hand. I even think, how could I have hike me some mountains in California if God wouldn't have pushed me to change and to start getting healthy. ALL things work together for our good. I'm going to enjoy the now so that even when the later comes my past and present will have warm greetings when embracing my future. So...let God's amazing plans begin. My prayers start now. Anyone who wants to pray for this with me, please feel more than welcome because it is so deeply appreciated.

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(Psalm 37:4-5) Delight thyself also in the Lord: and he shall give 

thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord; 

trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass. KJV

(Psalm 32:8) I will instruct you and teach you in the way you 

should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you. NIV

Dream The Dream But...Act On It!

Ten? Twenty? A Gazillion???...How many dreams have you dreamt? How many have you accomplished or tackled  How many of your dreams have just died off? Our Psalmist class had a rude awakening yesterday when Joel literally bounced a water bottle off the table as he was trying to tell us, "Why is it that little girls are buying the Alicia Keys Biography, the Hannah Montana wig, or the Justin Bieber everything????" When he said that something in me snapped...this is so true? Our own generation is drifting away and it's almost as if we're just standing around and letting it happen! Most of us seclude ourselves in the comfort of our church's when we forget that the church isn't four walls...it's the body of Christ. Ouch! Maybe that hurt some of us and maybe it didn't but some things are too important to go unnoticed. We all have to wake up! I have to wake up! Joel told me, "Deyanira you have a beautiful voice, so why aren't you out there? Why aren't little girls saying they want to read your biography or dress like you? But instead, who are their role models." He's right. He's so right that it hurts. My dream is to glorify the Lord with my voice and life and touch the hearts of those who need the loving touch of Jesus. The world need Jesus! But where are we? In our churches. Where am I? Not out reaching out. All I can say is that it's time to shake the dust off and not just be a dreamer but be a doer. Faith without works is dead and there's a world out their that can't afford actless faith. People need to believe again, or at least start believing for the first time. Joseph himself dreamed and dreamed, and continued to dream but what made him special was that being the youngest brother, hurt, betrayed, and broken-hearted, he acted on his dreams. He didn't just stay locked up in a cell after they wrongly accused him...he interpreted others dreams and worked his way to the top! God placed doors before Joseph but Joseph had to walk up and turn the knob. The doors are there...we just have to act on it and do what's possible so that God can do the impossible!

So...what's your dream? Clothes your eyes and picture it...pray about it...write down what you have to do to get there.