Today as I was praying, the first English words that came into my tongues were: “The Beast.” Have you seen him lately? I sure have… He’s the Adamic man and oh, does he love to rise from the dead… Yielded to the devil and to the world, he is the cause of all of our problems.

So tell me, how do we handle the beast within? Some of us keep him in a cage and think we’re doing fine… That is, until he breaks out of the cage which is not all that strong for a King Kong creature or for a poisonous spider that can slide through the bars or for a skunk whose spray can reach past its enclosure. As long as we haven’t haven’t offered our bodies as a living sacrifice and recognized ourselves dead to sin, we are going to not only see one form or another of the Beast, we are going to be taken over by him.

How are you doing in your personal relationships? As long as everyone is in agreement with us, we do fine, don’t we? But God has a way of sending us people whose beasts are not caged and somehow before we know it, our beasts get loose… especially the bulls of anger, the squawking crows, and the skunks that can raise a stink.

“Conflict”: What would we do without it? – Maybe live in our own little self-protected worlds never growing at all. I heard a message last night about the difference between peacekeepers and peacemakers. Peacemakers welcome conflict because they know that conflict is a bridge to newness of sight and newness of life, but peacekeepers play it safe avoiding the bridge. They won’t risk being real as they sweep transparency under the rug thinking they are doing the kingdom a service and are pleasing God. They have forgotten the words of Jesus: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

How many of us come with a sword, but don’t use it constructively? How many of us realize that the sword is the only means for change and that most of us will remain in our souls filled with complacency until we’re poked by a sword from someone who loves us? The world is in the shape it’s in because we haven’t spoken up in love. We’ve played it safe… We pet our beasts and tell them to “Be good and stay put” but the “Beast” doesn’t listen to us because it can’t be tamed by our own will. 

I am hearing our Lord’s Prayer beating so loudly in my heart and mind now that I can’t hear any other sound….”How can we answer His prayer?”.., Again I ask:”How?” because I don’t think many are asking the question: “HOW can we be ONE??” much less doing anything but staying in our own little comfortable worlds, going our own way, not caring that divisions have robbed us.

I kept having visions of someone who I have cared very deeply about who is a peacekeeper… In one of them I saw him as a bandit with a black bandanna around his head telling me that he had come to steal from me. I didn’t have any idea of how that could be until I realized if you withhold truth from people, you are stealing from them.Your truth can be the very thing that could set them free, but in withholding it, you are robbing them of the opportunity to come into wholeness. How can any of us come into the kingdom without each other?… without seeing our need to change our minds and hearts…. without repentance????

I am presently writing to a prisoner who recently received the Lord as his savior this past year and oh my, what a sweet, enjoyable, precious relationship we are experiencing together. I am amazed at God’s manifested wisdom in one so young… At the time I received his last Email, James hadn’t known that I had been given a vision showing two rook pieces in a chess game. It takes skill to win a chess game and it takes skill to speak the truth in love to win another person to a mind and heart change. There has to be a divine checking of all thoughts, words and actions. Unfortunately we usually are very cognizant of another person’s beast that acts up, but often don’t recognize ours for what it is.

A rook is not only a chess piece, but is also a bird which is symbolic of a thought. Thoughts that are not God’s thoughts must be taken captive in order to make the individual moves as in a chess game that can win the victory of becoming in one accord. Sadly instead of unity, our relationships often end in a stalemate instead.

I heard the word “squawking destiny” and realized that the beast that rose up out of me in this particular relationship was a “squawking bird” instead of a dove. It costs us not to keep our thoughts and words in check, so here I am with a stalemate destiny concerning someone I would have rather had had still in my life. I’m not squawking now but taking authority over that nasty bird and am planning by the grace of God to coo love songs with truth in them whenever conflict comes again. Can you see me singing and whistling a happy tune as I cross over my next bridge?

This is what James wrote to me: “It’s never about what’s lost. What matters is what you learn from the ordeal and not make the same mistakes again. I am an avid chess player and never lost one game. I don’t mean that literally… I’ve lost plenty of games, but as long as I learn one new thing, then it’s never a real loss because I made my game just a little better. I want to fully adopt this as far as application to lives, challenges and hurts go.”

I believe that this wise, new believer has a peacemaking destiny ahead of him giving great advice to squawkers like “you know who was one.” I previously asked: “HOW can we come into unity?” – This repentant squawker has learned that it’s by taking every thought captive and by becoming a beast-slayer with the sword of God, even with the Word of God in my mouth, wisdom in my mind and love in my heart.

Thank you Jesus, that you lead us into the path of righteousness!