"People of Manjipor your beloved queen is dead. This is a time of great sadness for our world but it also a time of Renewal. Though the queen is gone the royal tradition will continue. Many years ago a princess was born. To keep this baby safe she was sent far from this world but now the time has come for the royal princess to return home.
A girl of Wisdom,
A girl of Power,
A girl who is destined for Greatness."
Hey =) Guess what I was up to last weekend? (I started writing this on 10/14/13)Well as you know I've been couch-surfing #JonahStatus (that's another story lol). I was at Rahel's for the past week and a half and I had my own room! coz the other RA quit or something. That was perfect coz I got sick with a cold and it was nice having my own space. So anyway, last weekend I was really overwhelmed with stuff I had to do and I was having a hard time just resting in God so I decided to watch a movie to take my mind off stuff. I went on netflix and picked "The Elephant Princess" but it turned out to be a show and not a movie. So what did I end up doing for most of the weekend? I ended up watching the whole thing! :o 2 seasons (like 26 episodes each). I don't usually follow any tv shows these days and I barely watch any tv when I'm at school, just movies once in a while so that was unheard of for me... I guess I really got into it but also I was procrastinating, so yeah... Anyway I learnt stuff through it and it was encouraging and insightful! (If you are new to my posts: My writing style is... well I'm a story-teller so yeah I'll just share my observations first then give the interpretation/explanation later so just hang in there. For corporate application please read the last section: A CALL FOR UNITY! The Emergence of the Real Enemies and especially the SB Application portion)
Here's the wikipedia summary of the show: "Alex Wilson thinks she is an average suburban girl living in Melbourne, until her 16th birthday when exotic visitor, Kuru, shows up in her backyard with a magical elephant, Anala. He informs her she is the heir to the throne of the magical kingdom of Manjipoor. With his help, the reluctant princess will master her magic powers and defend her royal inheritance against her devious cousin, Vashan, whilst balancing the pull of both worlds to find her true destiny. In the second season Alex and her family have moved to the Gold Coast. Her friend Amanda has followed her there, where they plan to find a new drummer for their band. Meanwhile in Manjipoor, Diva has returned to take over Manjipoor and learn the secrets of The Book."
"Do not despise these small beginnings, for the LORD rejoices to see the work begin." (Zechariah 4:10)
Here's the wikipedia summary of the show: "Alex Wilson thinks she is an average suburban girl living in Melbourne, until her 16th birthday when exotic visitor, Kuru, shows up in her backyard with a magical elephant, Anala. He informs her she is the heir to the throne of the magical kingdom of Manjipoor. With his help, the reluctant princess will master her magic powers and defend her royal inheritance against her devious cousin, Vashan, whilst balancing the pull of both worlds to find her true destiny. In the second season Alex and her family have moved to the Gold Coast. Her friend Amanda has followed her there, where they plan to find a new drummer for their band. Meanwhile in Manjipoor, Diva has returned to take over Manjipoor and learn the secrets of The Book."
"Even the greatest tree in the forest must start it's life as a seedling."-Omar.
So the quote I posted is from the beginning of the first episode, "Coming of Age" whereby the destiny of the princess is revealed to her and she's in denial. (Some of the episodes are on youtube and all of them are on netflix) So Kuru and Anala the elephant leave Manjipoor the magical kingodm, enter into Alex's world to train her and remind her of her real identity, a princess! It's funny I just realized this but her name, Alexandra means "defender of man" or "protector of man". The name was one of the titles ("epithets") given to the Greek goddess Hera and as such is usually taken to mean "one who comes to save warriors"(wikipedia). So the first season is Alex going in between two worlds, she's trying as best as she can to maintain her normal life and the priorities she had (friends, her music band, family, boyfriend) but she is slowly learning the ways of a princess. It's a long process but Kuru and Omar as well as the rest of the advisors back in Manjipoor, as much as they would like her to accept her identity and take on the resposibliities of a princess, they are patient with her. "In time you will embrace your destiny and you will learn not to be afraid of your powers."- Kuru."Do not despise these small beginnings, for the LORD rejoices to see the work begin." (Zechariah 4:10)
***Time to Commit***
But not everyone is cheering her on in her journey to accepting her identity. She has opposition from her cousin, Vashan who doesn't want her to assume her responsibilities so that he, the only other member of the royal family, would take the throne and rule Manjipoor. That reminds me of this verse: "a man's enemies will be the members of his own household." (Matthew 10:36) But it's not really the opposition that's keeping Alex from her destiny coz she did show Vashan that she had the power to take him on, it's her priorities. Her band is a huge priority for her and in episode 21 Anala the magical elephant steals her guitar to teach her a lesson. Alex goes searching for Anala and the guitar and she's really pissed coz that was the day of their big recording gig. Anala teleported her to this random alley which frustrated her but when she stopped whinning, memories from her childhood came back to her. She remembered how when she was a little girl she ran away from home one day and was about to get hit by a truck but Anala saved her and teleported her to the Manjipoor forest for a while before returning her home safely. This touched Alex knowing that Anala had always been watching over her all her life.
In the next episode, everyone is on Alex's case for not being responsible and not being able to commit. Her parents complain about her slacking off her responsibilities at home, her teachers complain about her school work, Marcus and the band dump her and at the end of the day she asks Kuru: "Am I self-centered? Am I irresponsible? Everyone seems to think that I lack commitment!"And Kuru is like duh! coz he has been waiting for her to take on her responsibilities as princess all that time. Later that night, Alex has a disturbing dream that Vashan is arguing with Omar, he wants to take up the throne but Omar defends her," The princess will fulfill her destiny when the time comes."So first thing in the morning she hurries over to Manjipoor, interrupts Vashan and Omar's argument (just like she saw in the dream) and says, "I am ready to take over as ruler of Manjipoor... I mean now."
So she finally commits to her destiny but things don't get any easier. Vashan commits to making her royal life difficult so that she will miss how things were before and leave Manjipoor. But some information is revealed that really hurts her... Alex finds out that she was lied to about the identity of her real father (who happens to be Omar) so she abdicates the throne and swears off magic forever. Kuru tells her that he is leaving to go back to Manjipoor and she will need to sign papers to give owenership of the throne and Anala to Vashan. "So signing these papers will get Manjipoor off my back? Fine! I'll sign them. Anything to be normal again." It's in episode 23 that she goes back and doesn't give Omar the time of day to explain anything, quickly signs off all the papers to Vashan and storms out of the room with tears in her eyes.
***Hold up! So how does all that relate to me? Process. Journey. I really like how the first season shows the process that Alex goes through before accepting her identity, all the setbacks, opposition and challenges she faces. This just reminds me of my own process and that we are human, we make lots of mistakes but there's room to bloom (post: BLOOM). The last scene I talked about reminds me of my summer experience (actually this whole past year... and my whole life lol), I came back to SB #EstherMode (another story in my drafts) finally seeing the bigger picture (more of my identity and calling and the previous obstacles that I fell for). Things were difficult for me coz of depression and doing things with my own strength and when it came time to operate in my calling I would simply give up, not give my all hence not obey God. So I'd keep bailing out on the vision -pretty much reject myself- and leave and it was so painful to do and unsatisfying especially because my goal shifted from pleasing God and following my heart's desire to "get through with this." But yeah God is so gracious He didn't give up on me even when I disobeyed Him by giving up on myself so many times. This quarter (Fall) I went to prayer and prophecy and the words they spoke over me reminded me of this post. They said that God is patient with me, He is waiting for me to obey and He already knows how long it will take for me to obey and yes to the calling on my life. (You can listen to the rest below).
In the next episode, everyone is on Alex's case for not being responsible and not being able to commit. Her parents complain about her slacking off her responsibilities at home, her teachers complain about her school work, Marcus and the band dump her and at the end of the day she asks Kuru: "Am I self-centered? Am I irresponsible? Everyone seems to think that I lack commitment!"And Kuru is like duh! coz he has been waiting for her to take on her responsibilities as princess all that time. Later that night, Alex has a disturbing dream that Vashan is arguing with Omar, he wants to take up the throne but Omar defends her," The princess will fulfill her destiny when the time comes."So first thing in the morning she hurries over to Manjipoor, interrupts Vashan and Omar's argument (just like she saw in the dream) and says, "I am ready to take over as ruler of Manjipoor... I mean now."
So she finally commits to her destiny but things don't get any easier. Vashan commits to making her royal life difficult so that she will miss how things were before and leave Manjipoor. But some information is revealed that really hurts her... Alex finds out that she was lied to about the identity of her real father (who happens to be Omar) so she abdicates the throne and swears off magic forever. Kuru tells her that he is leaving to go back to Manjipoor and she will need to sign papers to give owenership of the throne and Anala to Vashan. "So signing these papers will get Manjipoor off my back? Fine! I'll sign them. Anything to be normal again." It's in episode 23 that she goes back and doesn't give Omar the time of day to explain anything, quickly signs off all the papers to Vashan and storms out of the room with tears in her eyes.
***Hold up! So how does all that relate to me? Process. Journey. I really like how the first season shows the process that Alex goes through before accepting her identity, all the setbacks, opposition and challenges she faces. This just reminds me of my own process and that we are human, we make lots of mistakes but there's room to bloom (post: BLOOM). The last scene I talked about reminds me of my summer experience (actually this whole past year... and my whole life lol), I came back to SB #EstherMode (another story in my drafts) finally seeing the bigger picture (more of my identity and calling and the previous obstacles that I fell for). Things were difficult for me coz of depression and doing things with my own strength and when it came time to operate in my calling I would simply give up, not give my all hence not obey God. So I'd keep bailing out on the vision -pretty much reject myself- and leave and it was so painful to do and unsatisfying especially because my goal shifted from pleasing God and following my heart's desire to "get through with this." But yeah God is so gracious He didn't give up on me even when I disobeyed Him by giving up on myself so many times. This quarter (Fall) I went to prayer and prophecy and the words they spoke over me reminded me of this post. They said that God is patient with me, He is waiting for me to obey and He already knows how long it will take for me to obey and yes to the calling on my life. (You can listen to the rest below).
How does this apply to US? I'll tie it all together in a little bit bear with me please :)
A CALL FOR UNITY: EMERGENCE OF THE REAL ENEMIES
So anyway, Alex hears about all the madness, goes back to try and protect her kingdom from Diva but she also ends up locked up in the dungeon with Vashan. So they are in the dungeon together, both powerless (Diva drained all their powers from them and added them to her own) and it is then that Vashan decides to help Alex out since they were fighting a common enemy. Vashan taught her the destroy spell - the magic spell that could destroy Diva. Since Alex is powerless she has to rely on Kuru and her loyal subjects to stop Diva's coronation. Kuru got her out of the dungeon, she got hooked up with a magic carpet from the palace and went off to face Diva, got into a heated battle and it seemed like Alex was going to loose but just in the nick of time Anala appears and restores Alex's powers then Alex quickly uses the destroy symbol to get rid of Diva. Yay teamwork! Well it was really Anala who saved the day, if she didn't show up and restore Alex's powers all that team effort would have been futile. So at the end of all that drama Alex goes through coronation ceremony is officially the ruler of Manjipoor.
Opps! sorry for too much summary... so in the SWORD of the Spirit post, I talked about the visions people had at the InterVarsity's Pre-Fall Leaders Retreat don't read the second half of that post (just rantings) what I wanted to highlight that the analogy of the role of Macbeth waging war and that paving the way for a new era of peace. And at the retreat those were the main themes of the many visions people got, there would be conflict and disunity in SB and even in the body of Christ (In InterVarsity) then there would be unity in the body of Christ at SB (unity between different groups) and then revival would happen after that (post: Let there be light). So this whole post is simply a call for unity. Yeah it's mostly about me coz this is my blog but I'm sharing coz we all have different gifts to be used for the building up of the body of Christ and it's good to get to know each other's gifts. I now know my gift is apostolic thanks to friends at Prayer and Prophecy, here's another video about how with the apostolic gift I'm meant to be like an eagle to fly above the city and have aerial view: Fly!
"Morning's Coming but also the Night": Real Enemies Emerging
So yeah the message is simple, unity.... then what's with all the urgency?? So in The Elephant Princess , Season 1 concludes with Unity (Alex functioning in her calling and so everyone is using their gifts --> equality leads to unity) and at the start of season 2 (a new season and also the last one) everything is new... You can tell Alex is more mature (she graduated high school) she moved out of her parent's house to a new town by the beach, she left some old friends behind and makes new ones... but something that's not new is... her enemy, Diva resurfaces (she was not totally destroyed like Alex thought, she was just bound but was able to escape and she was after dark magic to give her stronger powers... and yeah she was able to get a hold of it and she shared it with some of her followers... so in a sense she was building an army and sent them to attack Alex and her friends. And another thing about that is they are sent after "The Book" which is full of secrets that could help them retrieve more dark magic.K what am I trying to say? So I have a seer gift, I wasn't trying to learn anything when I was watching this show, God was just showing me stuff through it... and yeah in the same way that God is preparing an army - people united and equipped by and with love (post: BootCamp!)... the devil, who has strong influence over the kingdom of the world is also preparing his army yup the darkness is getting darker (post: The Beast and the Big Boys). So that's why there's an urgency to this unity message... coz the devil aint slacking off at his game, lots of evil stuff is already in the mix and on the roll as we speak... I'll give you an update to that post later. But yeah this is not a call to fear but a call to love. A call to unite. I heard this song the other day not just with my ears but with my spirit.... ♫ When the night has come and the land is dark... Oh I won't be afraid as long as you stand by me... ♫ It reminded me of the time we're living in and that this earth is going into and also Psalm 46.
"
For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God."(Romans 8:19)
"So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him." (Isaiah 59:19)
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SB APPLICATION: SING A NEW SONG!! :D
So yeah in season 2 things got tough when Diva and her crew got their hands on dark magic... with that power Diva was planning to destroy the barrier between Manjipoor, the magical kingdom and Alex's world, the real world which would then destroy Alex's world bringing everything and everyone under submission to Diva. Oh yeah, another thing to note is, Alex is a singer and musician and in season 1 music-- the powerful soundwaves-- helped her cross the barrier to the magical land to save her friends who got stuck there. So music is one of the powerful weapons that helped Alex fight the dark forces. Another is the power from Anala and her own magical power that she discovered she has and strengthens through practice. And in season 2 what really saved the day was sacrificial Love. Towards the end of season 2 Alex realized the reason why she was sent away from Manjipoor to grow up in the real world... she had fought her double identities for a long time but in the end everything made sense... she grew up in the real world so that she could care about it, so she could care about both worlds, both people groups... so she could love them enough to want to sacrifice her life to protect and save them... and in this season it's all about teamwork, Alex wouldn't have gotten this far without the help from her friends.
And how does this apply to the body of Christ in SB? ... Everything happens for a reason... You are where you are for a reason. The people you have in your life and around you are there for a reason. The experiences you went through happened for a reason. Your life is so full of purpose. You are unique and there is a destiny you were called to fulfill. And now is the time. It's time to unite and fight for Love. Yes it's time to come together and worship God as One Body. It's also time to love each other deeply from the heart and sacrificially. Coz in the end, it's only Love that changes the world.
It's time to sing a new song! Let us prepare the way for the LORD. Let's unite and ask Him to build His Kingdom here =)
ONE Body (United for Christ) is planning a unity night called ONE VOICE on Saturday May 17th at 7pm. You'll hear more details about it, we're still in the planning phase and we'll need all the help we can get. But yeah we don't want this to be just another event but a time of worship and renewal... coming together with love, thankfulness but also needy-ness coz we do need an explosion of God's glory in this urgent hour. Yeah we don't need to wait for an event to go to God with repentant hearts and in intercession - yes let's keep that up - but there is power in corporate application if you look through Scripture... God is the same God who worked those wonders back then in the times of King Asa, King Jehoshephat, Prophet Samuel and Queen Esther. We are ordinary people but we serve an POWERFUL SUPERNATURAL GOD who is ready to show us His wonders. K for summary we need to:
- Put on the Full Armor of God - We need to be in His Word and abide in His Spirit. Rest in Him. We also need to serve each with all the spiritual gifts God has given each of us. Check out the Book of Nehemiah it's all about teamwork and rebuilding and it reminded me of this post.
- Praise the LORD- Praise is a weapon against the enemy. Sing and make music. Rejoice in the Lord =)
- Love each deeply from the heart with actions and in truth. Practice hospitality. Forgive and reconcile.
- Come together and seek God together: fasting, praying, praising.
Sorry I started off this post last Fall so usually when I wait too long before posting it dampens the excitement from the new revelation... but yeah, I am really excited for God bringing us thus far and all He is doing and about to do in SB and around the world. Glory to God!!! May Your Kingdom come and Your will be done!! Please help us yield to Your Spirit! Please mend our hearts and heal our land. Yay Jesus! :D
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