The Lord answered me: Write down this vision; clearly inscribe it on tablets so one may easily read it. (‭Habakkuk‬ ‭2‬:‭2‬ HCSB)

I love empty pages, notebooks, new pencils or blinking cursors! They can scare me, but mostly because they challenge me! This great expectance they reflect as if they impatiently wait to be of help in making visible the still so very invisible. Although I know that Solomon, the all wise writer, once wrote that there comes no end to the writing and even (in a deep blue moment) questioned the value of it, I hold fast to the words in Habakkuk where even the Lord urged him to write down what he ‘saw’!

Two Words
The two words stood out for me after a great time of Daniel fast for the past three weeks: Empty and Ready! The boys (me and my sons-in-law) sat together last week, just to reflect and connect as we all had the same experience in this fasting time: Empty, no really big experience! One of my daughters mentioned her feelings, that it seemed as if it felt very much about food and less about God!

The Daniel fast for me was much about appetite and less about hunger and in that way I felt it much more difficult than a total (water and whatever) fast! Hunger is a constant feeling during the day that can (in a times of fasting) only be filled by focussing, but the ‘no meat no sweet’ weeks were very much about detoxing and in that way being confronted by our tendency to add so much to the food that we elevate it beyond the real purpose!

Too much Sugar
It was about detoxing, emptying our system and getting back to the real and healthy food (without being freaky and too much alternative) and as I was meditating on the ‘more about food then about God’ statement of my daughter I really felt (after reading Daniel 10) that was not so much a time of hearing but about waiting through emptying, getting ready, ‘buying the new notebooks and the empty pencils’ for the weeks/times to come!
I realised that even in our sabbatical year that we entered last July, redrawing from the things we loved so much,the gatherings with the ‘multitudes’, the worshipping in the gatherings, it becomes a detoxing to understand what is real ‘food for our spirit and what is appetite and extra flavour! Not about what is right and what is wrong, but mostly about what is first (The Kingdom and His Righteousness) and what is the rest, the other things (Matthew 6:33)! Read How first is first…

Words, Vision and Sounds
And… the wonderful thing is that the cursor did not blink in vain and the empty pages started to be filled and… somehow I saw a smile, a thankful smile through the growing lines on my notebook! A vision started to be downloaded and my spirit started to rejoice with a ‘Sound of Significance’ mingling with and encouraged by the beautiful sounds of the new record of Bethel Music called: We Will Not Be Shaken!