LIVING FROM HEAVEN - by Susan Fochler


I can recall what life was like after I first became a Christian, but before I had encountered the Holy Spirit.  God was just an idea to me, not a person to have a relationship with.  I thought I needed to try harder and work, unsuccessfully, to overcome feelings of unworthiness in order to experience His presence.  My soul believed a bunch of lies, and was running the show.  Everything changed after an encounter with the Holy Spirit; literally overnight.

I became aware of God’s presence, and knew He wanted to connect with me, as much as I wanted to connect with Him.  I felt more fully alive, invigorated, joyful, hopeful, and, somehow more expansive with potential.  I was awakened to the reality that I was a spiritual being with a direct connection to the spiritual realm.  The world around me suddenly seemed different-like I’d arrived in Oz and was no longer in Kansas.  I can look back and see that what changed was that my spirit-man had arisen and come to the forefront, and could now see and experience my world from a more heavenly perspective.

We are encouraged to walk by faith, not by sight (2 Cor 5:7).  To live present in the temporal, but resourced from the eternal.  In order to do this we need our spirit to be engaged and in the lead, aware of our union with Christ- our ”heavenly abode”-even as we go about our daily, natural lies.

How do we best position ourselves for this?  In the prologue to The Interior Castle by St Theresa of Avila, Mirabai Starr helps us understand how much God wants to fully indwell us, here and now-in our hearts, His resting place.  The Kingdom of Heaven, after all, dwells within each one of us (Luke 17:21):

When you have grown still on purpose while everything around you is asking for your chaos, you will find the doors between every room of this interior castle thrown open, the path home to your true love unobstructed after all.  No one else controls this perfect place.  Give yourself your own unconditional permission to go there.  Believe the incredible truth that the Beloved has chosen for His dwelling place the core of your own being because that is the single most beautiful place in all of creation.  Waste no time. 
Enter the center of your soul.

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