A Hard Day

 So today was a really rough day. I am at the lake taking a breather and I have my headphones in because sound travels really well on the water and I really don’t want to tell the whole lake my story. So it was a really rough day. Five years ago I was five years ago I had gone to a new dentist for a root canal.

I had a crown that had gone bad it just got old and I didn’t know it. And, I mean, I had been warned that it was aging and that someday it would need to be replaced. But I, that was like two years prior and I, in that time I never had any pain or anything until one day I had pain. And it was not throbbing, anything like you would expect normal tooth pain to be.

It was like, it feels like stinging.

That would come around, so finally it was to here. And so, then you realize, yeah something’s wrong. And somewhere in there, I couldn’t chew. So I go, I go, I’m living in a new town. At that time, and I go to a new dentist. And was covered by my insurance. I guess well rated, that’s why I went there. And as soon as I walked in the building I thought, this is not the right dentist for me.

But I was already there, I had the appointment, and I was in pain. You know, so what are you going to do? You hope for the best. So I go and I sit down in the chair. And as I’m waiting, you know, the lady’s getting her stuff ready the dentist, I think, comes in and says hello. Somewhere at that point, I realize that there is an angel standing at the foot of the, the, the bed, the chair, the dentist chair.

And some of you might think that’s really cool, but my first thought was, oh crap. Because, why… First off, I’d never had that happen before. I know when there’s angels in the room typically the way I see them is like, when my eyes are closed it’s like if you had been looking at a bright light, and then now that bright light is kind of…

Floating around or zooming around. That’s how I see angels. I don’t see them with my eyes open. Very few people do. It does happen to people. But very few people see them with their physical eyes. Otherwise you just see them with the eyes of your spirit. And so… I knew there was an angel standing at the foot of the chair because I could sense the overwhelming love of God.

The overwhelming sense of God’s presence. And oh, mother’s love if you had a good mother. Then, those three things, those, that, that, well, those two things. The sense of home. Mother’s love. And the just overwhelming love. So I guess that is three things. That’s how you know when God’s presence is near and specifically when an angel is nearby.

And I even train people just as a matter for training for you. I teach people, there’s a particular park called the coming King sculpture prayer garden and It has a lot of angelic activity there. It is it’s a group of people that love the Lord, love Jesus Christ, and have sought to make it their life’s ambition to honor the Lord hasten his coming, and to honor him specifically through art and through this garden.

And because there’s been so much, you know, sacrifice and giving and honoring of the Lord, God, for some reason, has chosen to make it a place of angelic activity and miracles. So, I send people there who are trying to learn to walk by, in more of the Spirit, and I just tell them, if you want to learn how to recognize when there is an angel present, go out and close your eyes.

So that your physical eyes don’t get in the way. And walk around the garden if you can. You know, maybe, maybe, you know, you kind of look, you kind of close your eyes, you kind of look so you don’t fall. You don’t, you close your eyes. And see if you can sense a place in the garden that you feel that. The mother’s love, the sense of home, God’s presence.

And if it’s localized, if it’s localized, then it is an angel. You have literally just walked. Near or through an angel. And, I don’t really care if you think that’s crazy or not because it is a very effective technique to learning to walk by the spirit and not by the logic because we really like to walk by logic.

It’s much more comfortable. That said, there was an angel standing at the foot of the bed and there was no doubt, there was no doubt. It was, the Lord’s presence was extremely strong and I just had that knowing in my mind and in my spirit that there was an angel there. And knowing that that isn’t a very unusual thing for me, that’s why my response was, Oh crap, why do I need an angel?

for this doctor’s appointment. And I began dialoguing with the Lord. I didn’t dialogue with the angel. I believe that’s okay, but I kind of began dialoguing with the Lord and the Holy Spirit. And I said, okay, why is there an angel at the foot of the bed? And instantly, a story was downloaded into my mind.

And in this story it’s a missionary in Africa. This is a true story. Missionary family in Africa and they had become ill. They go to bed in the middle of the night. Then a door opens and a man comes in the house.

The dad sees the man, wakes up, sees the man come in the house and is not afraid. Senses the Lord’s presence and understands that this is something unusual and important. The man has a bowl. And he goes from family member to family member and feeds them something from the bowl. Comes to the father, does the same thing.

Father, they all go back to sleep. The man, man leaves somewhere in there. The father, they all go back, the dad goes back to sleep. And the next morning he’s expecting to wake up and be healed. But that’s not what happens. Eventually over time the, the other family members get well. But the father… becomes more and more ill and eventually over a period of six months ends up in something like three countries and hospitals in three countries.

He ends up with I believe malaria and yellow fever and nearly kills him. Eventually he does recover. After this whole thing, he is dialoguing with the Lord in prayer. All that means is you’re, you’re asking the Lord questions in prayer and you’re stopping to listen for an answer. And again, you don’t hear it with your physical ears.

You, some people have a knowing, some people see pictures. It kind of depends on your personality type and the way that God made you. But this man, The Holy Spirit downloaded to him that the angel did not feed him healing like the man expected and wanted. The angel fed him faith, the whole family, fed the whole family faith.

And it was God’s will then for them to go through that illness, as difficult as it was, but that somehow it was important to the kingdom and it was increasing their faith. And that’s the story that the angel… downloaded to me at the foot of the dentist’s chair. And so, I, I can’t say that I was afraid. You can’t, you’re not afraid in God’s presence like, like terror.

Of course I wasn’t real pleased with the story, but I simply asked I did, I did ask the angel that. I’m like, well, can you touch me? I, I want, you know, it’s like, can you, can you at least touch my foot, is what I was thinking so that I will feel even more of God’s presence. And the angel answered, no, you’ll start laughing.

Okay, yeah, I shouldn’t be laughing at the spirit, with the spirit, in the middle of my dentist visit, that would be difficult. I said, well, can you come closer? And so he did, and I, I, I felt even more, more joy. The dentist goes on with the root canal. And he. Ends up drilling into my sinus cavities. So he drills into my sinus cavity and says, Oops!

And shortly thereafter he steps out of the room, probably to calm himself, and fin I think he partially finishes the root canal, then he has me come back another day to finish the root apologizes,

I knew, I, I, I think I knew he had done that. First off, there’s an angel standing there, but then secondly, when he did that, then my mouth, the, all the liquid, it wasn’t mucus, but all the liquid starts running out of my sinuses into my mouth. And you know, so the, the nurse is all suctioning that up, trying to compensate.

And he sends me home. No antibiotics, no explanation, no pain medicine. And I end up. In about six months of severe pain, while that healed, and I don’t know if it got infected, inflammation, I don’t know, but it was an extremely painful thing to happen an extremely long thing to happen for a good, solid, solid year, maybe two years, but I know a year constant pain, everyday pain, laying on that side pain They did a different, so I went to a different dentist to have the crown done, and they did the crown, and it was a Russian lady, and man, she was so proud of herself.

She was training somebody, and she was like, man, I really can pack these crowns, and she, she packed for a good solid five minutes. I don’t know what she was packing or where she was packing it, but she was Stabbing whatever the packing material is for the crown down into, or up into my jaw for a good five minutes and just bragging about it.

And I think that was probably more of the long term pain than the drilling into the sinus cavity was. I’m really not certain. But I think

I’ve been mostly pain free for a couple of years. But I’m back in pain again. And again, you know, the pain, the pain’s back around to the front. I I, today I’ve driven basically 400 miles, 3, 3 86 to the dentist that I used to see before all of that debauchery. And I just don’t think that anybody will ever touch me again.

In San Antonio, at least. So, anyway, I’ve driven 400 miles and there’s no infection on x ray. They can’t see anything wrong. And I have prayed so many times over these years, five years, six years, I don’t know for God to heal that tooth. for God to replace that tooth with a gold tooth. I actually have a friend, a prophetic lady, anointed, anointed prophet that got a gold tooth standing in her bathroom and all of a sudden, she was just standing there worshiping the Lord, brushing her teeth, and all of a sudden she felt this funny.

She’s like, whoa, what was that? She opens her mouth, there’s a gold tooth. I think she had a missing tooth. So, I began praying, God, I want a gold tooth. I want the gold tooth. Give me the gold tooth. Heal this stupid thing. Make this pain go away and give me a gold tooth. Please give me a gold tooth. Five years, six years, no gold tooth.

I, I will admit readily that I overanalyze everything. I overanalyze the works of the Lord and He has specifically told me to quit it. He has given me a prophetic word from somebody that says that God will not tell me His plans because He does not want me to overanalyze. He does not want His plans to be analyzed by man.

Or woman, as the case may be. So, Somewhere along the way, as I was analyzing my problem, I wondered if perhaps I had prayed a wrong prayer by praying for the gold tooth. Maybe you can only get a gold tooth if there’s a hole there, and there’s no hole there because there’s a crown there. I’m telling you, it’s stupid.

I am telling you it’s stupid. You just have to wait for God’s purposes to play out. You can look for a scapegoat, but there’s not always one. You can think you’re doing it wrong. That’s not always the case. And, here we are. So, I have had the one dentist appointment today to find out there is no infection.

Nothing wrong with that tooth. It just hurts like crazy. And, I have an appointment with an endodontist tomorrow. Now, this appointment was supposed to be for a root canal. There is a third root to that tooth. I’ve heard older dentists say you’re supposed to leave the third root so the tooth doesn’t die and I’ve heard younger dentists say you’re supposed to take the third root so you’re not in pain all the time.

Nevertheless, I am desperate. I am desperate to be out of pain and just to be honest, I, I, I’ve had so much anger at the Lord over this. I know he leaves people in pain. I know he that that is his will for different vessels to have different purposes, but it, it doesn’t make it easier even knowing that there was an angel standing at the foot of the damn bed.

It, it hurts. And I’m, I’m, I, I want so desperately, I mean, if, if I thought I had the courage to pull the tooth myself, I would do it. But, you know, the endodontist even called today to try to, to cancel, he actually did cancel the appointment. He canceled the appointment and, and then you’re, you’re, you’re back around the bush with God again.

God, why? Why? Why? Why? I thought, I thought somebody was going to help me. I thought somebody was finally going to help me and help me get out of this pain and now he’s cancelled the appointment that I drove 386 miles for because I had the one with my dentist and the one with the endodontist and why would I have driven 386 freaking miles if I had not had both appointments?

So, it puts you to the question, do you trust God? Do you trust God when it hurts? Do you trust God when you’re angry? And What else are you going to do? You have to trust God. There’s no other remedy and there’s no other answer. So that’s just where I’m at today. I begged my way into the appointment tomorrow.

They’re actually opening early. The reason they cancelled the appointment was because I, they haven’t seen me in over a year. This, this doctor has seen me before. They’ve taken the CT scans of this tooth and Here we are, the same tooth, the same x rays look the same, so I’m expecting the CT scan to look the same.

But, they won’t do the root canal until they do the exam. Well, I don’t live here, so I need somebody to do the frickin root canal. So, they’re gonna do the exam at 7. 15 in the morning, and that is an answer to prayer. So, it was in, when I started driving, I only had. The appointment with the endodontist, and I was coming on faith that the Lord would get me in with my regular dentist, because I trust him, I trust his opinion, and I wanted him to see me first.

And the Lord did. The Lord got me sorry, the Lord got me the appointment with my doctor. And I didn’t have it when I left. And yet, when the entodontist canceled the appointment, I freaked out. And, even on the way down here, as I was driving, all day, I kept seeing doubles and triplicates of numbers. 1 1 1, 16 16.

I’ve never even seen that one before. But I knew that God was telling me that He was putting things in order. So, give yourself permission to have faith and emotions at the same time. So, I know God orchestrated today. I know. That He has a purpose in all of this. And maybe it is only to grow my faith.

Maybe it is so you’ll hear this story and find some sort of hope and courage that God has a plan. And I do not know, and frankly I don’t really care, why there is an eternal purpose in our suffering because I don’t want to suffer. I am human but I know that God cares and that’s enough for me. I get to complain, and he’s big enough to take it.

I get to move forward in faith, and he’s big enough to give me the faith to do it. And the grace. So, I hope you’re encouraged. That your God has a plan. And that he’s going to hold your hand through the tough times. That he’s going to work all things together for good. And I cannot wait to tell you what the end of this story looks like.

Maybe I’ll get that gold tooth. Maybe they’re going to pull the tooth and then I’ll get the gold tooth. Probably not. That’s a little far fetched. But we have a far fetched kind of God. And I like to dream big. So, dream big with me today. And let’s see what kind of great fun the Lord can take us on.

Because He’s got to make this right. He promises that He makes this right. He promises that he works all things together for good and if we don’t have that hope, then we have nothing. So thank you for listening. Bye bye.