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    Speak to the Void
    Speak to the Void
    Speak to the Void
    Ebook140 pages2 hours

    Speak to the Void

    By Rick Thomas

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    About this ebook

    After the biggest battle Heaven had ever seen,
    God had to deal with a void—a barren wasteland,
    an inky darkness, a universe in chaos.
    What did He do to bring life out of the void
    and what can you do to bring life out of yours?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateFeb 5, 2017
    ISBN9780988609778
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      Speak to the Void - Rick Thomas

      project.

      INTRODUCTION

      It was a little after ten-thirty on a typical South Florida Sunday morning. I was a young associate pastor sitting on the platform next to Pastor George Miller in Oakland Park Assembly of God. The worship time was about to come to an end and I expected Pastor Miller to get up soon and begin to preach. Little did I know that this was about to be an extraordinary Sunday morning.

      Leaning over toward me Pastor Miller said, The Lord is going to do a great work this morning. Come with me.

      I followed Pastor Miller as he stepped down off the platform into the center aisle and walked over to a visitor—a young mother who was sitting next to a small, dark-haired boy. The boy looked to be about seven years old, and he had an eye patch over one eye.

      What happened to your son? Pastor Miller asked the mother.

      She answered, When he was just learning how to walk, he tripped and fell into a yucca plant, and the sharp tip of the leaf was like a knife. It put out his eye. The doctors weren’t able to save it. He has no eye now—just an empty socket.

      May I? Pastor Miller gently asked the boy, indicating that he was going to lift the eye patch. The boy nodded. The empty, scarred eye socket was revealed. Pastor Miller said, Son, I am going to pray for you and Jesus is going to give you a new eye today. Do you believe it?

      The boy looked up at him and, very gravely, nodded again. Even at his young age, he sensed the importance of this moment.

      Pastor Miller laid his hand over the child’s eye and began to pray in the Spirit. Suddenly, something happened that I had never seen before nor have I ever seen it again. A little cloud of mist formed around the boy’s face, hovering right over the empty eye socket. When the cloud dissolved, Pastor Miller took his hand away.

      Where there had been no eye, a normal, healthy eye was looking back at us!

      Son, can you see? Pastor Miller asked. With a huge smile, the boy said, I see you! Mama, I can see!

      Growing up in the church I had seen sight restored to the blind before, but this was different—a miracle of re-creation. Where there had been a void—an eye socket with no eye, just a blank, scarred, empty space with its purpose thwarted by the accident, there was now fulfillment of the wholeness with which God had originally created the child.

      THE VOID IN YOUR LIFE

      During the course of our lives each one of us will experience voids. A void is a barren place of purposelessness and turmoil. It may appear suddenly as when the child fell on the yucca plant, or it may be something which we have slowly drifted into. It can leave us dazed, questioning, How did I get here? What’s going on?

      A void can come about through outside circumstances such as the death of a loved one, an accident, a company closing its doors, or a doctor’s prognosis. Or, it can be revealed because of mistakes we make in relationships or wrong decisions. Voids can arise because you grew up in a dysfunctional family—or no family at all.

      A feeling of emptiness and despair may begin to surface. Turmoil and chaos can cause grief, sleepless nights, even physical pain. You may have learned to live with it, and tried to cover up your emotions so other people would not see how you felt. But, underneath everything, it is still there, gnawing at your bones.

      It has been over 30 years since I witnessed the recreation of that child’s eye. Since then I have counseled thousands of men and women who have sought after every worldly and human way to fill that vacuum: workaholism, alcoholism, shopaholism, sex, drugs, food, money, egotism, power, fame. Not one of these things will calm the chaos or bring peace to the soul.

      People might feel as if they have satisfied that inner longing, but it always proves to be temporary and not enough. They are driven to rush out and seek something to fill the void over and over again, trying to numb the pain with distractions. But, it is never enough.

      You might say, Well, if I had $10 million, that would fill my void. Believe me, it wouldn’t. I have counseled multimillionaires. When they have acquired $10 million, they want 20, and when they have 20, they crave 50, or 100. There is only one thing that will bring absolute peace and fulfillment to your life: Jesus Christ.

      The Son of God tells us,

      The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy, I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

      John 10:10 NKJV

      Only the Lord God can bring true satisfaction. Only He can fill the barrenness and emptiness of your soul. When you receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit fills you.

      Does this mean you will never again experience problems? I wish that were true, but even Christians go through periods when it seems everything is in a state of upheaval. If I were to walk down the aisle of our church and ask people seated on the left and right, Is your life complete? I would probably hear:

      •No, I am not happy.

      •My ministry is at a standstill.

      •I need finances.

      •My husband is sick and can’t find work.

      •Pastor, my child is on drugs.

      We all deal with bleak and desolate situations, believers and unbelievers alike. But there is a distinct difference when we are filled with Christ: now we have the power of the Kingdom of God working in us, through us and for us.

      You may be facing a tough challenge right now where Satan, the enemy of God and of our souls, has come in to destroy and create havoc. As a believer, however, you have something the world doesn’t possess. You can invite Jesus into your circumstance. He can solve whatever has gone wrong.

      But me He caught—reached all the way from sky to sea; He pulled me out of that ocean of hate, that enemy chaos, the void in which I was drowning.

      Psalm 18:16, 17 (MSG)

      Receiving Christ into your heart is just the beginning. What you need to understand about that seemingly barren place is that it is not empty. Everything you need for life and Godliness is already present within you.

      You see, even before you chose Christ, He chose you. God knew you before the foundations of the world were laid (See Ephesians 1:4; 2 Timothy 1:9.), and He created you with purpose and to fulfill destiny. You were in God’s Son eternally—and eternity has no beginning or end. You were hidden in Christ before you were that twinkle in your parents’ eyes.

      And, just as you were hidden in Christ, He has placed gifts and powers within you. However, you cannot see them. You have not let the light of the Word of God shine on these gifts until you receive the revelation of the power and authority you have to manifest what God has prepared for you. Everything necessary for you to be successful in life is already there!

      In the early 1990s I was enamored with the design of a sleek, good-looking car, the Mazda 929, and I bought one. It was a great automobile. I loved driving it; but, after I had owned it for a few weeks, I thought it needed an alarm system. I returned to the dealer, and said, I’d like to have an alarm system installed.

      The dealer looked at me with a grin, and replied, You must not have read the instruction manual.

      I sensed I was being set up. What do you mean?

      Pastor, there’s a factory-installed alarm system already in this car.

      The dealer was right. I had not read the owner’s manual. What I needed was already available to me, but until I knew that fact, I could not activate the alarm. Once the dealer shed light on the matter and showed me how to operate it, I was able to use the alarm for the purpose for which it had been created.

      To help you comprehend how God works so you can ultimately address the voids in your life, let’s look to the account of creation in Genesis, with the understanding that the Old Testament stands as a type and shadow of the New Testament.

      TYPE AND SHADOW

      The scriptures in the Old Testament offer a corollary to the scriptures in the New Testament. What this means is that the divinely inspired words in the early books of the Bible point the way to the reconciliation of man with God through His Son Jesus Christ. Jesus is fully revealed in the New Testament, but again and again, the Old Testament prophesies His birth, His life, His Kingdom, His nature, His relationship with His heavenly Father, His redemptive power, and His resurrection.

      The New Testament reveals the substance of the shadows, or prophecies, of the Old Testament. Jesus pointed this out when He said:

      For if you believed and relied on Moses, you would believe and rely on Me, for he wrote about Me [personally]. But if you do not believe and trust his writings, how then will you believe and trust My teachings? [How shall you cleave to and rely on My words?]

      John 5:46, 47 AMPC

      The Bible also provides a pattern for living a successful life. We were formed in the image and likeness of God. Then, because our intelligence and our spirits are created to be like God’s, He gave us authority and dominionship over the earth and its creatures that once were solely under the authority and dominionship of the Almighty. Therefore, it makes sense that we should look to God’s Word to understand how to rule in the same manner as He; that is, by following the same blueprint He sets forth in His Word.

      God’s Word is truth.

      The operation of God’s Word is principle.

      Everything God created for us is governed by laws and principles. We all know and have

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