THE COURAGE TO SWIM UPSTREAM

My sister Phyllis, shared something a while back and I sense to share it here in her words.

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Salmon have a fascinating journey……

Born in a fresh water stream, salmon start their life’s journey swimming downstream like everyone else; following the easy way where not much effort is required to ride the current or should I say let the current (the patterns of the world, the acceptable norms) carry you downstream.

As they head downstream, a genetic mechanism allows their body to change to enable them leave fresh water and commit to living in the ocean (sort of like how we change to find it, to be acceptable, to be loved).

They spend 2-4 years in salty ocean water which is a time to mature (this suggest that God allows that time of trying to fit in to teach us lessons, to refine us and thus the reason all things work for good for those who love the Lord and are called according to purpose) and prepare them for the final and most difficult journey of their lives.

While living in salty water they somehow retain an amazing ability that is required for their final journey home. This is the ability to smell a drop of their home river in 2 billion gallons of sea water. for me this is that sense in each one of us for something more, that hunger in your spirit that causes you yo seek your purpose, to seek to know God, to go back to who you were created to be and what your life represent, home=back to God and his plan)

They also have that impressive ability to leap up waterfalls. The impossible becoming possible right here; The ability to live outside of the rules of the world.

Swimming upstream isn’t the only difficult part, there are obstacles, pollution, predators, raging currents and yet the salmon persists eating nothing (man shall not live by bread alone, need I say more) until finally those who survive reach the river they were born in years earlier and lay their eggs.

The salmon’s journey requires dedication, perseverance, reliance on an internal radar system and a deep hunger to do what they were born to do at whatever cost; even death.

MANIFESTATION will require a deeper cooperation with God, a desire that my life will be about nothing else but to fulfill that which I was born to be and do, whatever the cost…even death. A willingness to die daily as described in Luke 9:23;

Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily,[a] and follow Me.”

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Where are you on this journey? Where am I?

  • Are we gliding downstream?
  • Are we adapting to live in this new environment?
  • Are we in the salty ocean?
  • Are we preparing to swim upstream after tasting water from home?
  • Are we swimming upstream, battling the challenges on the way?
  • Have we arrived to lay seed for the next generation?

We are all somewhere in the process and need to find it and course correct if we are off track or keep going if we are on track. Remember that because God ordained our steps we cannot fail if we hold onto Him and obey His instructions.

Walk in understanding that you may attain the calling established for you before the foundations of the earth. Shalom.

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