Apart From Me, You Can Do Nothing

John 15:5 says, 5"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

We live in a society, a modern world where independence means a great deal and most people stive for this who are "successful". I am no exception, at least for most of my life. It's the way I was taught. Be independent so you don't have to rely on others. We work our whole lives for this, and often, in the end, we end up relying on others because we are too old to do it on our own or some other things happens.

At one point or another, when we become adults, we end up relying on others.

Over the past months, if there is any one single verse that sticks out to me, it's John 15:5 and the part that says, "Apart from me, you can do nothing." Do you have the argument of, "Oh yes, I can . . . XXXXXX. . . You just wait and see." And, so off we trot to our "independent actions"?

Truly without God, I cannot even take a breath. God breathed life into man. It is God that gives us our breath. How often do we really think about this, as it's an autonomic (sp?) response? We just don't unless you have asthma or something that steals your breath away.

Apart from God, I can do NOTHING! Think about it.

God provides the opportunities in my life to learn, to grow, to be refined, to help others, to show love.

When I attempt to do things on my own, not even consider God, I'm in the wrong. Too bad this isn't a rare occurrence, but it's a lifelong bad habit of mine that now after 4 decades, I'm learning about. My driving, the things I eat, the things I think about, people in my life, my dreams, and a host of things -- they cannot be improved & changed without God. God wants to be involved.

Of course, this doesn't mean we sit back and do nothing, rather it just means that God wants to be in the driver's seat, have control, while we are active participants. It can be a wonderful marriage, if we allow it to be.

Muscle Testing

God is such an incredible God. As I ponder how our bodies work, it's truly remarkable that so many systems have to work together in order for me to be well and alive and to do it in perfect order. If there was one more element added to air, it would no longer be air and I would not be able to breathe and live. Our bodies are also designed to self-heal, so as long as we provide it with the right conditions to heal, rather than hinder it.

That brings me to the topic of muscle testing. It's a way to ask our bodies if it likes something we are eating, exposed to or doing or not. You can do self-muscle testing or have someone else do the testing with you.

A couple days ago, my kids and I attended a little hour long class about how our fear responses system is developed as an infant, as well as the reflexes for this. After the class, somehow I asked a question that led to the naturopath sharing muscle testing, which the one he used, I already knew but didn't ever think to employ it in my life.

How often do we have a valuable tool right at our fingertips and we fail to utilize it to benefit our lives? One of them would be the Bible. Another would be our brain. And, still another, is the intuitive side God gives us, which operates on a subconscious level.

As we sat their, the naturopath tested my daughter on the foods she was eating. We happened to be at Jack In The Box (yes, odd place to have a health class), but not eating any of their foods, rather we bought healthier foods at the store to eat (it was a late dinner). He tested the veggies, the ranch dressing, the fruit and the water. It turned out, for my daughter, her body loved the veggies and water, but not the fruit cup nor the water bottle. Odd, eh? Goes to show that those plastic water bottles that you toss are not that good for you.

Earlier this morning when we were at a friend's house swimming, we tested her on which foods she could eat. She was disappointed that she should not eat certain things, like the pastries & chips, but her body was totally okay with her eating fresh, raw fruit, hummus, and pita. Yay!!

This afternoon, she suggested we use muscle testing to see which movies on DVD she could watch. She was the one that suggested this and I would've never thought to do this, but it was a great idea. So we would not be influenced by the movie, she did not tell me the movie and I just did the muscle testing on each movie. She was disappointed she could not watch certain movies, but accepted it.

Everything has energy - all matter is made up of energy and everything has a vibrational frequency. No, this is not New Age stuff, rather just something I learned as a child in science class. Later in life, this idea was further expounded on in more complicated ways, which I will not go further into.

Each DVD has a vibrational frequency that is different than another DVD. Somehow it translates a message to each person's body and if you listen to your body, it will tell you what it wants and what it doesn't want.

For example, we've all had to go #2 and you can tell, right? Your body gives you the signals that it wants you to go to #2 and if you ignore it long enough, you'll find this is not a very pleasant thing. Yes, a drastic scenario, but hope it gets the point across.

I've also heard of people who were lactose intolerant who take Lactaid. Now, their bodies are telling them they do NOT want dairy, yet giving the Lactaid is overriding the body's system so YOU can have what you WANT. Not good. This does bad stuff to the body if you continuouslly do this.

Those with small children, what do you do when your child says they need to go to the bathroom. YOU TAKE THEM TO THE BATHROOM IMMEDIATELY!! Why? Because they know how to listen to their bodies and to act quickly. How we as adults can learn from little children.

Just as our bodies tell us things to do and not to do, so does the Holy Spirit. For those who are Christians, the Holy Spirit speaks to our own spirit, guiding us into making right decisions. Do we listen? Sometimes it just seems like a little hint or a voice that speaks so quietly. We do need to know how to listen to the Holy Spirit when it says we should or should not do something.

Anyway, I thought this was a great thing my kids and I learned this week and a fun thing, too.

There are sites that if you google it, you'll come up with all sorts of things on muscle testing. Some of them are pretty bizarre and I would not get into. Use wisdom in the sites you go to and ask God for discernment. I was interested in some self muscle testing and googled that and came up with some far out New Age stuff that gave me the creeps. Decided the Holy Spirit was giving me a warning to not go there and so I moved onto some other sites that were okay.

Also, what may be okay for one person may not be for another -- it really depends upon your relationship with God and where you are spiritually. When my daughter did the muscle testing for me on the movies, my group of movies were much bigger than hers, however, there were certain movies (mainly those that had romantic love stories) my body told me that I ought not watch. That was hilarious because that was also done blindly and we looked at the list of movies after all the muscle testing was done and it turned out those love stories were things for me NOT to watch. My body knows better.

Dreams

For most of my life, that I can recall, I've always had lots of dreams - many of them recurring. Earlier this month, I began a Dream Interpretation class at my church. Finished 3 weeks of it so far (each class meets once a week for 1.5 hrs). Next week is the last week.

It's so very interesting the things I'm learning and I would suggest everyone take a sound Biblically based Dream Interpretation class. Some great resources are:

• John Paul Jackson
• James Goll
• Jim Driscoll
• Bob Jones
• Mike Bickle
• Doug Addison
• Barbie Breathitt
• Bill Johnson

These are just some of the ones I trust. Learning so much and it's too much to share here.

Have gotten back into documenting my dreams, which I'm doing this in a private blog. Haven't really interpretted any of the dreams yet, as I'm overwhelmed as to where to start. Though, my classes have been teaching me how to do this. There is this hesitation to do this, as I could be wrong. However, when you do dream interpretation, it's not to be done in our own strength, but through the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Yes, you can use a 'Dream Dictionary', but it's used as a guide rather than a set thing that says it MUST mean this.

God speaks to use through dreams. The enemy also interjects dreams (nightmares) also, and some are caused by medications/things we subject ourselves to/pregnancy. Those are the 3 categories of which dreams come from. Not all dreams come from God, however, I'm comforted that God knows about all our dreams, whether they are from Him or not. So, even if the enemy wants to frighten me, I do not have to let him.

In many of my dreams, there are vehicles -- often they are trucks, trains or large vehicles. But, most recently, I've had bicycles and motorcycles. Many dreams I'm able to fly. There are large buildings and warehouses in many dreams or that I will be back as I am at the present age back in the home or town that I grew up in. Often there are very specific people in my dreams, some I haven't thought of in years.

Most nights I look forward to going to sleep, wondering what the Lord will allow me to dream, how He will speak to me. It's through my dreams that I can focus on Him, as sometimes I am all over the place when I'm awake from doing things with my children to my businesses to idle stuff to church to who knows what other distractions.

I encourage you to keep a dream journal. Sometimes there are patterns to them. I look forward to sharing with you more on Dreams.

New Perspective

There are a lot of things that's caused me to change my perspective on things. One of them is the generation of wealth. The other is eating. Another is men, parenting, relationships. For me, I never really considered the generation of wealth that I would have to do sales & marketing, much less MLM type businesses, yet, I've jumped into this.

For eating, raw seemed so boring and unappealing, yet I sit here tonight contemplating it strongly as the appeal for the foods my kids and I have been consuming and seeing others consuming foods has become unappealing. There is a need for change, a restlessness, rather to get down and out into a raw state of mind, maybe raw foods.

A friend of mine, when asked, gave me a different perspective to view men, especially Christian men -- view them as my brothers, spiritual brothers. If it helps to view them as physical brothers, perhaps that will cool my own hormonal jets? It's worth seeing if it will break the bondage and hold on me with my relationships with men so that I can have intimate, deep relationships with men that do not involve anything that would displease God.

My paradigms of parenting began to change when I learned about "Parenting From The Heart". How could one do that? Yet, over the past 2+ years that I've been doing this, God has transformed my relationship with my children. It's a work in progress and there are moments of frustration, but parenting is truly a joy despite those moments.

Relationships, allowing people to get into that deeper part of me, to know me can be scary, but that is the fear of man acting, and not God. However, there ought to be a good balance and wisdom should be used.

God is working to align me with Him. Apart from Him, I can do nothing.