THE SAME... BUT NOT

SUNFLOWER FARM ~ MY FAVE!! 🌻🌻 - MAUI 2023

The other day, I was searching for a branch amidst the trees nestling the gazebo to re-hang my wind chime. Sometime in my two-month absence, the crew of tiny Tagalogan gardeners who descended upon the surrounding property had unceremoniously relocated it during one of their bi-weekly visits.

Even before I headed out to the same area that had previously hosted my zen-inducing chime, I knew I wouldn’t find a place there. Instinctually, I knew the song couldn’t and wouldn’t be coming from the same direction as it had before my recent European travels. Everything was different. 

I didn’t know what ‘everything’ was but that didn’t matter. It was just different. The direction of the chime’s song - much like the direction of God’s presence, interaction, and reintroduction of Himself - would come from a new place. This I knew. 

THE GAZEEBS 😌

As I walked around the mini-forest that is my backyard (nearly breaking my neck several times because, you know, the slopes 😅 #citygirl ), I saw that many of the trees were very dry and brittle. Some were even dying. Several seemingly sturdy-looking branches detached at almost the hint of my touch. They could bear no weight though they appeared ready. Willing. Capable. 

And that got me thinking: How often has that been true about me? Showing all signs that I was ready for something to happen but, at the same time, was kiiinda delusional in my self-assessment? 

How many of us, if we’re really honest, are like that? Knowing deep in our hearts that we’re not REALLY ready to receive that for which we’ve been pining and straining. Praying for. Secretly accusing God of withholding? 

I could see the shadow of old, convenient, conversation-shifting patterns I used to employ to obscure the truth that I hadn’t done the one or few things I heard within ‘back then’ to prepare. I could feel the receding silt deposits of old anger I had harbored against God in past seasons and the obstinate justifications it provided.

AFTERNOONS IN THE PETRIFIED FOREST ~ MAUI 2023

Justifications to ignore new and updated info and instructions sent to help me despite my intractable stance. Because His love and commitment to care for me isn’t predicated on my good or bad attitudes.

Justifications to despise yet another opportunity.

How many of us, if we’re brave enough to peek deep deep down where no one else can see, know we still aren’t willing to do the one or few things we heard or felt to do ‘back then’? For a myriad or just one reason. Preferring, perhaps, the serenade and comfort of our claims of ‘readiness’ over our claims of the prize?

The prize. What prize? What’s the prize?

The prize is what you prayed for. The prize is getting what you want. 

Oh yes… God most certainly does answer asks. In a big way. BIG. He especially looooves coming through in a pinch! Irritatingly so it seems sometimes 😅 Like, can’t we have this handled before it gets to urgent status? Lol! 

I have found that sometimes the ‘delay’ in seeing the help or answer I seek from heaven is due to a carpe diem moment - an opportunity to exercise and faith-train for the obstacles, battles and giants ahead.

A CARPE DIEM MOMENT 😄

At other times, I find that it’s due to me. 

I cause the delay. I am the one that must shift ever so slightly for those answered desires to fall like new rain on a simmering day. I am the one that misses out (or almost!) on getting what I want because I’m not ready. And that can be discouraging. Seriously. And it can make you want to give up and not even try again.

Sound familiar?

How many of us have given up on apprehending the “thing” we’ve wanted so badly? That thing, that dream, that “AAAAHHHH I gotta have it!!” that still won’t go away no matter how much you try? The thing that requires us to actually do what we heard in our spirit or felt in our gut? That thing we have to stretch just outside of our comfort zones to gain? 

That thing the enchantresses called Wisdom and Understanding whispered to you all those days, months… years ago?

“I’ve got a sweet message for you: It’s not too late. ”

How many of us are even now giving up our prize because we don’t want to do what we were told?

…something to think about.

For those who would be persuaded to shift, I’ve got a sweet message for you: It’s not too late. 

WOOHOO!! Now that’s some gooood news lol!

If you’re a take-charge person - either innately or because life doesn’t give you a choice in the matter (where my people at 🙋🏽‍♀️) - by now, you have probably concocted a foolproof strategy to address the hole left open by your missing prize.

A percentage of us, I would daresay, have already begun seeing the cracks in our plans. Still others are dealing with and cleaning up aftermath scenarios.



What’s the last thing you heard God tell you to do? What clarity of direction did you get when you spent time quietly with yourself and was honest about what you wanted? If you don’t remember - Get Quiet. Get in the Spirit. And ask to be reminded. 

🔑🔑 Whatever you build

in your own strength,

you must maintain

in your own strength.

Whatever you allow

The Creator - who loves you -

to build, He/She/They

will maintain with Theirs 💞💞

Perhaps new insights will come if it’s been a while. Maybe the old, forgotten ones will come surging back with purpose and fire; distant but never gone. Ready and with more power and focus than before. Maybe you’ll get both new and renewed vision! We ARE in that overflow season, honey!!

Whatever way it comes, one thing is certain to appear - water in those dry creek beds. Flow where there has only been obstacle. An apprehending of the true prize 🏆 and a forever knowledge that the Holy Creative Spirit within you will save you from yourself (your best efforts gone bad, questionable decisions, and probably terrible outcomes) if you allow it. 

And an unshakable certainty that He’ll utterly fulfill your true ask with no sorrow added. 

NOW THAT’S A FLOW ~ THE SACRED POOLS - MAUI 2023

From my afternoon wind-chime exercise, I can tell you that it was not an unwillingness on my part (the new-song bestower) to withhold the tune a ready branch would unlock. I wanted to hang my Corinthian chime ( #iykyk ) but it was difficult to find a branch that really was ready. 

Believe me, I wanted to reveal the beauty of that chime. I wanted to hear and be one of the first to revel in the new joy and purpose of its song. 

After a while and because I was undeterred, I wandered to the opposite side of the garden where I had earlier spotted a stand of bright-green, young and adolescent palm trees that were bursting with life. Surely, I would be able to find a branch to hang on one of those. Everyone knows newer is better, right? Well, sometimes, yes it is. But not always. 

Though these palms were adorned with youth and beauty - as, indeed, all the surrounding trees had been in their season - all of the branches were tender, reaching for fullness of identity, and strengthened for that purpose. 

MORE SEASONS TO COME. KEEP DOING YOU 🌴🌴

None of them had yet weathered enough storms to develop the strong, craggy branches that are just perfect for the adorning of a new wind-song. They had a song of their own to sing. That other, weathered song would come later. But not yet. 

I went a little further to the back of the gazebo and found a tree with a branch that looked weathered but still tender somehow. ‘Was this another mirage?’ was my first thought. 

I reached out to it and it stayed attached to the trunk. It hadn’t crumbled in my hand. It was connected still to the origin of its health; the original and evolving plan laid out by its roots. It had life. 

Both the tree and branches had been through some things (well, a lot honestly) but they had managed to retain a little green on the inside. They had drunk enough water and ingested enough light to be fresh. Just fresh enough that when it came time for that tired branch to do what it had never done before, it was ready. 

AT LAST… 🎐🎐

And a new song was born. 




FINAL GEMS 💎💎

There’s this concept that great thinkers everywhere say must be adopted to spring from stuck-ness: Forget everything you think you know. Start as if nothing has come before. Theologians recognize this thought as ‘repentance of dead works’ and it relates to the non-life-giving efforts that we pursue and engage in trying to fill those prize holes.

It’s not about whether the things that we are doing are good or bad. That’s an outdated, misrepresentative, and child-view relationship with God that He never wanted to have in the first place. We are beloved children of our Father and we are seen through the eyes of Love and love only.

No, it’s not about good and bad. It’s that they aren’t getting us any closer to what we ACTUALLY want. They aren’t producing the life we’re pining, straining, praying for and sometimes accusing God of withholding.

They are dead. And God would give us life.

When I came to my aha moment where I realized that I was making one poor decision after the other and getting further and further from the life that I didn’t know how to create, my cry was simple. “Lord, I’m stupid. I keep doing different things and ending up in the same place and I don’t know how to get out of this cycle. Help me not be stupid. Give me wisdom. Please!!” 😂 (seriously… this was a conversation one night as I drove home).

“I’ve got a sweet message for you: It’s not too late. ”

The Bible says, if anyone lacks wisdom, let them ask of God who gives to everyone generously and who won’t give a hard time about it, and they’ll receive it (James 1:5-6). I can tell you, I haven’t exhausted my pursuit of wisdom because she is a bottomless well, but I definitely am not that ineffective, unwise version anymore.

That’s because that honest assessment of myself - my inability to be ready to receive my IT despite my efforts - was all that I was missing.

And God filled the holes. Still does 😌

And I get the prizes.

So can you 🏆🏆

My prayer for you and for us all is that we would find a space today - within our environment and within our own souls - where we can become quiet. Still. And that in that space, we would begin to think on those things we don’t think on anymore. Those prizes we’ve abandoned in our hearts because they’re too far away. Too unattainable. And now, maybe, too painful.

In this space of quiet stillness - indeed, one of healing - is another invitation to again rest in Wisdom’s garden; to find joy in Understanding’s benevolence. An invitation to let go of what’s not working - not getting you closer to what you want - and get something that does. A plan. A script. One that was written for you before you ever made your appearance.

What was the last good, true thing you heard or felt about your prize? What was the one step (maybe two) needed to get it? What area needed a tiny shift to get back on track?

Are you ready to move forward now? If so (or whenever you are), my suggestion:

Don’t overthink it.

Keep it simple.

Commit to forgetting everything you think you know, and start fresh. Ask for Wisdom and Understanding to join you and speak to you. Get quiet. Get still. Listen to the truth coming from that Divine mind inside you. The one that challenges you. The one that asks you to change.

Take a deep breath. Invite Courage, Humility, and Faith to hop in for the ride too.

Now… as Israel Houghton sang: Say what you heard so you can see what you said.

Be brave.

Follow the plan 👑 Watch what happens.

ALOOOOHA for now 🌿🌿 Ttys..

~ Love, Samantha

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“God has spoken once; Twice have I heard this; That power belongs to God.” ~ Psalm 62:11

🎼

I'm not a man
I cannot lie
I know the plans
For your life
I'm asking you
To dream again
To believe again
And take the limits off of me

"Take The Limits Off" ~ Israel & New Breed

🎼