The Parable of the Pine Tree

Several, if not many, of you who read this blog have much better insight into the spiritual realm than I do. I would appreciate any comments you might have on the content of this post. I understand part of it, but surely not all of it. Having said that, I do not question that it is from the Holy Spirit. I saw the picture described here twice in the same night. It often takes a couple repetitions to get things through to me. It was shown to me to encourage me and others who know we are fighting a religious spirit in the Santa Maria valley. Let me explain what I saw and as much as I know of what it means.

I was playing around by myself, throwing small balls at a huge pine tree. The tree easily stood sixty feet high and the branches probably spread out the same distance from tip to tip. I did notice the tree was out of proportion as the top of the tree was almost the same size as the bottom. The balls I was throwing were the size of golf balls. Most of the time the balls would get caught in the branches of the huge tree and not fall to the ground. This went on for some period of time. I do not know how long.

At one point I walked under the lowest branches of the tree to retrieve a ball that had fallen through the branches to the ground. I backed away from the tree to throw the ball up higher into the branches and noticed a very large limb near the top of the tree that had been severed and was hanging over sideways. It was resting on the branches below it. I began to look more closely and saw that the main trunk of the tree was in the same condition maybe ten or twelve feet from the top. A portion of the trunk was hanging in the opposite direction from the first limb I had seen, but this one did not appear to have any support. The really odd thing about the scene was that each of those limbs appeared to be about three feet in diameter and had obviously been cut as with a chainsaw.

My first thought upon seeing the main trunk hanging over was that it could fall and someone could get hurt. It looked almost as though the bark was the only thing holding it up. I felt as though it was my responsibility to make sure no one got hurt when it fell. I knew I could not climb the tree and take care of the situation so I began to count the cost of hiring someone else to do it. No sooner had that thought occurred to me than I felt peace that it was not my responsibility to make sure the fall of that piece of the trunk did not hurt anyone. All I am responsible for is to warn people. The only ones who will be hurt by the fall of the religious spirit are those who are in league with it. Deception, denial, or ignorance will not be valid excuses. I did feel some assurance in my spirit the top of the trunk was not going to fall immediately. Of course there are elements of good and not so good in the trunk not falling at this time. It means there is more time for confession and repentance, but also more work to be done.

My understanding of what I saw is that those who understand the spiritual battle in this valley have been sending prayers up to God against the religious spirit. The spirit has been around for a long time, so long in fact that most of the people in the valley, including most of The Church, believes the way things are is normal. In fact it has become the normal condition in this valley to not expect God to do too much. Some people, however, understand the battle we are engaged in against this spirit. They have been praying for years and not seeing a lot of results. I do not think I told you about the woman I met at the bank a few weeks ago. I am not sure how it came up, but I mentioned the blog and the religious spirit. I commented that many people do not even believe there is a religious spirit over this valley. She surprised me by responding, with a very serious look on her face, that there is unquestionably a religious spirit here. She did promise to read some of the blog. There are more people than we know reading this blog and praying for the removal of the religious spirit.

I am writing this to tell you that your prayers are working, or to warn you the prayers of others are working. As those prayers have gone up, God has sent angels with chainsaws to cut away at the top of that tree. The limbs will begin to fall. It is only a matter of time, and more prayer. God is doing the work. It may seem as though those golf ball sized prayers are having no affect, but be assured they are. Keep praying, keep contending and keep believing.