![\"\"](\"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/cedar-point-450x450.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A week in northern Minnesota where the trees a<\/span>re ta<\/span>ll and the lakes are deep and clear does something supernatural to the soul.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The grandeur and the majesty of these places seems to call to a particular part of me. There is a peace, a warmth, like being inside some work of art created by God Himself for His glory and out of His boundless and eternal love.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n It’s like being invited into the throne room.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n On two separate occasions I had personal encou<\/span>nters with some very large fish. In both instances, I had maneuvered the boat to within about 30 feet of the reed line and was casting a lure up into the reeds. The water in these areas was clear and less than three feet deep, so I could easily see all that was unfolding. In the first instance, it was a northern pike about three feet long. The second time, it was a muskellunge somewhere between three and four feet long. Both times, the fish simply appeared. I did not see where either of them had come from, but each of them leisurely swam toward my lure for just a brief second as if to positively identify it, then effortlessly turned a few degrees and silently went on its way as if to say, “I see you have thrown something into my lake. It is of no interest to me.”<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The sentinels of the throne room were undisturbed, indeed unconcerned, with my presence.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The sun rose in the mornings among mist and fog and the rose glow of a new day. It set in glorious splendor, lighting the clouds from below with a calm but fiery brilliance of pink and blue and red and gold. The loons swam and fished and called to each other –all without me worrying about it or orchestrating it or checking my watch or my emails.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n And the pines towered over all of it, stretching their praises to the One who made it all.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n In this place, time makes its own pace. In this place, time is its own master. The eons roll on.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n It took several days for the peace to really soak in. The s<\/span>triving and the busyness of life in the work-a-day world infects me and I don’t even realize it owns me, controls me, until its been gone long enough to remember what silence sounds like.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n A third of the angels whose natural home was Heaven its<\/span>elf, who existed with God outside of time in His throne room forever, had chosen to rebel against Him and join with the enemy of our souls in a war with God.\u00a0 Those whom He created as His messengers, as the warriors of His angel armies, chose<\/em> eternal exclusion and eventual destruction over eternity with the King of all that is, was, and ever will be.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n They chose to live outside of His grace.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n So great was their fall from that grace, so irredeemable their rebellion, that they will never be allowed back into the throne room. They are outside of grace forever.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Jesus did not die for them.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death\u2014that is, the devil\u2014\u00a0and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.\u00a0For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham\u2019s descendants. Hebrews 2:14-16 (NIV)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Something inside me wants me to have empathy for angels who chose to become demons, to have sympathy for the devil, but something else tells me not to concern myself with biting things that I can clearly see have hooks in them.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Today’s Praise<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living beings. And they fell before the throne with their faces to the ground and worshiped God.\u00a0They sang,<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAmen! Blessing and glory and wisdom<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n and thanksgiving and honor<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n and power and strength belong to our God<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n forever and ever! Amen.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Revelation 7: 11&12 (NLT)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Photo courtesy of Cedar Point Resort and Campground, Marcell, MN.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A week in northern Minnesota where the trees are tall and the lakes are deep and clear does something supernatural to the soul. The grandeur and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":33525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[83,1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-14 18:26:23","action":"delete","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33524"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}I didn’t appreciate the true fullness of the blessing I had received until I began the drive home through the dappled forest of green and red and yellow. And, for some reason, (maybe it was because\u00a0Revelation<\/i>\u00a0Song<\/i>\u00a0was playing) I began to think about the actual throne room and the songs and the praises of the angels that rise\u00a0continually from them before the LORD our God.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nClothed in rainbows of living color<\/em><\/span>
\nFlashes of lightning rolls of thunder<\/em><\/span>
\nBlessing and honor strength and glory and power be<\/em><\/span>
\nTo You the only one who’s King\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n(Partial lyrics from\u00a0Revelation Song,<\/i>\u00a0written by Jennie Lee Riddle, sung by Kari Jobe.)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nAnd it occurred to me that some of those angels had fallen away. Fully a third of them had rebelled against God, and now they were without the glorious, amazing hope and promise He had given me and all of humanity.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n