Jesus Has a Great Sense of Humor

This is Waffles

Another Miracle in CommunionFire

 Lately I have found myself reading about humorous and outlandish animal stories. I’ve seen all kinds of videos and pictures that are cute and sometimes disturbing. I think Communion has a way of cultivating our senses so the Lord can help us get His perspective on just about anything.

Five times in John 14-16 the Lord says, “These things I have spoken unto you...” The second time He says, “…that my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full!”

One thing we get comments on by people we know who are having Communion on a daily or regular basis is that Jesus always seems to be happy and pleasant. He is kind, gentle and peaceful.

He smiles a lot. But this time was unusual because as Dean said last night, “It’s like the comic who sets up the audience to deliver a punch line!” Jesus set me up at 8am for something that would be His punch line 12 hours later!

Here's what happened.

Yesterday morning Camille and I had Communion and in a most unusual way it connected to a CommunionFire gathering in Socastee last night.

I’ve always enjoyed animals and I love animals but Jesus did something that defied my earth-bound attitude to give me heaven’s perspective of how animals are also connected to Him.

Yesterday morning when having Communion with my dear wife in the bread I saw ‘warfare’ so I went and hid behind Jesus. As usual the setting was on the beach and it really does look like by the Garden City Pier area in South Carolina. Jesus turned and whispered to me, “Come stand by my side.” I was like a little kid who just got picked to be on the ‘cool guys’ baseball team! I stood next to Jesus feeling the honor that comes with being in His presence.

Then in the cup – as I drank the wine it was as if over my right shoulder I saw an eye of a cat. How I knew it was an eye of a cat was because the Holy Spirit said so. Reluctantly, when Camille and I exchanged sharing about our encounters I was almost tempted to say nothing happened. It was so bizarre and made no sense to me. Really Lord? A cat’s eye? But I have learned to be simple, honest and forthright when it comes to what we encounter in CommunionFire.

I said, “When drinking the wine, over my right shoulder I saw a cat’s eye.” It sounded weird so I kind of understated it.” Camille’s reaction was, “Well He’ll give understanding when its time. Like Jesus said, He sent the Holy Spirit to sometimes show us things to come.” (I thought ‘yeah’ but a cat’s eye?’

I wrote it down in the journal anyway (see picture) and that night we were invited to come and share about CommunionFire with a gathering in Socastee.

Our friends the Narvels hosted. Now I knew Jack and Jan love their 2 new ‘children’ Waffles and Muffin (cats) and because Jack regularly posts pictures and invents the most wonderful little stories around his buddies with pictures on Facebook, I made a point of ‘memorizing’ their names before going to their house. Jack and Jan have the warmest and most wonderful sense of humor and we just love them as our brother and sister in Christ and that includes Waffles and Muffin.

So When Camille and I were escorted to the meeting area on the sun porch, Camille went straight for the Love Seat and patted the seat next to her for me to sit beside her. I guess because the Lord was in the seating arrangements somehow, I chose to sit ‘catty-corner’ on the sofa next to her instead of on the love seat. Later she disclosed that she felt she ‘was supposed to sit on the love seat’. (It seems trivial but the Lord is in the details.)  

As I was wrapping up orientation, we prepared to do the “Consider the Lilies” exercise. It was amazing. Most amazing was that when I said, “Close your eyes” and just as I said the word, “Flower” the Carol, seated next to me, blurted out, “I saw a yellow tulip before you said the word, ‘Flower!’” Dean shared that he saw a field of sunflowers and pieced together the image as Son Flowers. After everyone shared what they saw, I decided to share an example of what Camille and I had encountered that morning.

Now mind you this was 12 hours later and Camille pointed out how comfortable ‘Waffles” the cat was, sitting behind me on the back of the sofa directly behind my head as I shared. I read from the journal about Camille’s encounter that morning and I felt Waffles paw tapping me on the head. I turned to my right and looked to see Waffles was looking right at me almost with a silly grin. Then (having completely forgotten what my encounter was I read about the bread and how Jesus told me to stand with Him. Then I read, “I looked over to my right and saw a cat’s eye!”

Are you kidding? I thought the Lord set me up for the punchline! We talked about how amazing this was. There is no way you can cover 12 hours and then sit in the right chair, have the cat sit behind me (not somebody else), pat’s my head with her paw as if to get my attention and then to have Waffles looking right at me and I had to turn - to my right - to see Waffles looking at me! Bam! You can’t invent this stuff.

The temperature of faith in the room sky rocketed as I passed my journal around as documentation to everyone there that I had written this 12 hours earlier!

From there we shared Communion and the CommunionFire encounters were powerful as was the overflow when we each shared. It was a wonderful evening and one where Jesus worked with Waffles to astound all of us and to bring meaning to what the Holy Spirit showed me 12 hours earlier. The Lord has a wonderful sense of humor and what a wonderful way to release His joy to all of us. When He did, our joy was full!

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