The Fifth Dimension

Bring Me your mind for rest and renewal.  Let Me infuse My Presence into your thoughts.  As your mind stops racing, your body relaxes and you regain awareness of Me.  This awareness is vital to your spiritual well-being; it is your lifeline, spiritually speaking.

There are actually more than four dimensions in the world.  In addition to the three dimensions of space and the one of time, there is the dimension of openness to My Presence.  This dimension transcends the others, giving you glimpses of heaven while you still reside on earth.  This was part of My original design for mankind.  Adam and Eve used to walk with Me in the garden, before their expulsion from Eden.  I want you to walk with Me in the garden of your heart, where I have taken up permanent residence.  --- Jesus Calling, May 24

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In all thy ways, acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths (Proverbs 3:6)

The common condition of mankind seems to be belief that God is not interested -- or that He is interested, but unable to communicate with us.  Even if we say that He is "able" to direct us, we do not really believe that He will.  We believe that He is occupied daily with ".more important things" than our affairs; even if He were waiting to direct our ways, we seriously doubt that we have the capacity to hear His direction. 

"I never hear anything; God does not speak to me," we say.  "I have never heard the Voice of God."  And yet Jesus said, "My sheep know My voice."  Surely that must mean that we have heard Him and that we recognize His Voice.  I think the common experience is that we indeed have heard God speaking to us, but we just cannot believe the experience; we imagine that we have "made it up," that we are talking to ourselves.  And we are afraid to believe.

I heard a priest on the radio telling that his people always say that God does not speak to them.  One day while he was praying, the Lord said to him:  If you have a mother and father who speak only to one another and never to their children, what kind of parents would they be?  They would be terrible parents.  What kind of God do you think I am that I never speak to my children?

The Bible is filled, filled with stories of those who heard God's voice and obeyed:  Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Gideon, all the prophets, John the Baptist, Mary, Paul, and so on.  The "fifth dimension" of openness to the Divine Presence changes our world on a daily basis.  All we have to do to be convinced is to read a publication like Guideposts, stories of ordinary men and women whose lives are directed by an inner Voice, often saving their lives from a great danger.

One man, who has learned to be directed from within, told the story about his wife saying that God never speaks to her.  So one morning, while lying in bed praying before getting up, he asked God to direct her to wake up, put her arms around him, and tell him that she loved him very much.  Then, as he said, "I folded my arms behind my head and just waited."  Of course, she did exactly what he had asked in prayer.  Laughing, he pointed out to her that she had indeed "heard the voice of God," though there were no words involved.

The passage from Proverbs above says to "acknowledge" God in all our ways, and He will direct our paths.  But in the Hebrew, the word is "Know" God, and "knowing" in Hebrew means to be intimate with, to know from the inside out, the way we know our spouses.  If we know Him in all our ways, if we are open to His direction, we can be very sure that He will not disappoint us.  One of the Psalms says, "Direct my feet into the way of peace."  We do not have to hear a voice; we do not have to understand with our minds, to know that we are being directed. 

Psalm 23 says, He leads me in right paths for His Name's sake."  And Is. 30:  Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, "This is the way; walk in it."  Is. 33: He will be the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge; the fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure (v.6).

I wish we could all believe that God will direct our paths; when the fifth dimension becomes a reality to us, our small worlds will change forever, and those worlds will impact the whole world.