"You may have killed one Dragon, but in reality; you just injured the real threat a little. He has more."
"Adalyn, I'm trying. Are you not proud of me?"
"You're making progress. Here, young Steward, please take a sip off the top of this blackberry water."
"Mmmmm. Blackberry!! My favorite!!
Here. You can have it back."
"As you can all clearly see; here let me hold it up for you; Young Steward here has taken a sip of water off of the top. I also want to remind you of what he said. 'Mmmmm. Blackberry!! My favorite!!
"Here you go, Summer. Eat up."
"The Bible says that we are all born with sin, but also that we love it. I mean, who doesn't love Blackberry? They only way we can know what a sin is is if we know what to judge the sin on. We judge the sin using THE TRUTH. I could stand up here now before you and say that everytime you take a sip of this unclean water, you are further going deeper and deeper into darkness, but that is now what I want to use this water for. See, the Steward said that he loved blackberries. He didn't say that he loved the water. Why is that?
He was trying to push away all the water so that he could get to the source of what it is he truly loved.... THE BLACKBERRIES!! We are all trying to get to the source, but don't know how. What can we use to help keep us motivated to drink and dive deeper? That word….is hope!! Without it, Star would not have had the strength to keep pressing forward.
Jesus says Heaven is like a pearl. Now we know the process it takes to get a pearl. You don't go and find a new, already opened clean clam. No! You painstakingly wipe away all the guck and seaweed around the top of a clam and then try your hardest to pry deeper and deeper into the clam so that you can get to the source….the pearl!!"
"How'd she get all of that from me just taking a small drink of water? I was thirsty, that's all."
"I'm telling you, they're from the future!!"
"Hope is a great thing, as Star has shown. To keep fighting, you hope that at the end of the rainbow, a pot of gold will lie, but in order to sustain that hope…. you need love. Why would I put my hope in the gold at the end of the rainbow if I personally did not love gold?"
"Hoping that gold is at the end of the rainbow even though I personally have never seen it is good, but love will spur me to tell others about it and get them on board. Whenever you meet someone and they are all comfy and warm, you can't help but tell others about them even if they don't know the person. Love for that person is your gateway to tell others what that person is like. Just like love spurs you to keep walking, love also spurs you to tell others about God even though people think you are weird."
"Or hate you so much for this invisible love you have, that since they can't force you to stop; they have to eliminate you all together."
"Well yea. That's a true statement as well. But that tells you it's working. To kill the enemy, you have to make it seem like they are killing themselves. Let me speak. Someone walks from a dark room into a light room. It doesn't matter how powerful or big they are; you get hit by light; you cave. The more light/love you push on someone, they are going to hate you so much for it, they will have no choice but to shield their eyes and give in as they bow down to it and give in."
"Bow down to you?"
"No! Bow down to God. The reason that they are 'bowing' to us is because they see God in us so since they physically can't interact with Him, they bow down to his image/us, to show that they submit."
"I said this to myself a year ago I think, 'But why wouldn't you submit? If you are showing people a loving Father/a lovely pot of gold, of course they would want to follow you. But what about the people that already walked on the rainbow prior and fell off. How do we help them get back on?"
"The same way we first motivated them to walk. Love will make us want to keep pushing them forward."
"Will you lose a lot?"
"If the Bible says you will…. then get ready to lose it all, because Heaven is worth that much more. It says that all that has been lost on the earth will be made new in Heaven. So, if you lose someone down here, who knows? You may reconnect with them later on."
"Here you go, Steward. Please take a big gulp!!"
"Will do. Thank you!!
Here you go!!"
"The only way he could have taken a big gulp like that is if he really really really wanted to get to that blackberry spot on the bottom. You have hope that you can make it using God's help. To sustain that hope, you love. It's your love for blackberry that you want others to experience the same love you feel.
Please, Steward. Pass the cup around so that others may have a drink."
".... It's almost empty. I can start to see the powder where you first poured it!! But how? Shouldn't it be dissolved?"
"Why? God never shook the cup so that it would be hard to find the center again. We shook the cup on purpose so that it would be hard for others to find the original packet. Through your hope that the blackberry would still be down there, you continued drinking. You only saw the packet once, when I poured it, but after that, you never saw it again. You just kept drinking. In order to keep drinking, it was your love for blackberries that kept you going.
You then realized that you couldn't drink it all yourself and needed others to help drink. You loved blackberries and had unconditional hope that it was still down there that you passed it off to others and said, 'I believe blackberries are down there. Would you like some? If so, please help me drink.
Some looked at you and thought you a crazo because the packet would have already dissolved making all remnants of the berries gone, but you still had hope they were there. In the midst of all the swirling water, you had hope that what you saw…a.k.a the blackberries, were still in there…. somewhere. You just wanted to help others see that blackberries were in there. Although they, like you, had not seen the berries, you all still drank, holding onto the belief that berries were in there."
"Most people didn't share your enthusiasm for finding the berries and decided to leave, but you knew better. Up till this point, you and your other followers were just drinking water not knowing if berries indeed were still on the bottom or not. Not only were the berries on the bottom, but so were you."
"Thankfully, God saw your determination and when the water got low enough, as you tipped the water to get a drink, He gave you the eyes to see the small patch of blackberries that were still stuck to the other side of the cup. That….is called Faith. Hope is belief in anything visible or otherwise, but faith…ha. Faith is more of a certainty that what you believe is real because you claim to have 'seen' it."
"At this point, the water is low enough to where everytime it is tipped, you will see the berries on bottom, but also not low enough to where you can just look through the water and see them. You still have to drink.
So with this newfound faith of yours, you have gotten so low/close to the Truth that you have seen the berries, but since the water is still covering them, people don't believe you."
"You have climbed to the highest part of the rainbow, looked down, and saw the pot of gold. But then you had to walk down in order to get it so as you are walking down, the gold disappears. That was just enough though, because you saw it even if nobody else might have glimpsed it; you glimpsed it."
"With this newfound foresight, your hope is restored, your love is restored, and you now have fresh faith in what you preach, because you saw the blackberry. Jesus says, 'If you love me, you'll keep my commandments."
"Keeping His commandments means to stay walking on the straight and narrow. Stay walking the rainbow. Stay drinking the water. Others may look at your sideways, but instead of pushing them aside, the Bible says to try your hardest to open their eyes and help them get on the road with you."
"Here we get to the word associate!!"
"Associate'' means to do what you see the other person doing. You see them eating a blue candy, you also eat a blue candy. Jesus says, 'if it is sin, don't associate with them.' That means don't eat the blue candy. What it doesn't mean is don't say hi to them. Don't ask them how their day is. Don't hug them and show them they're loved. Act like they don't even exist. No. Jesus says ``still hang out with them and make them feel loved, just don't eat the blue candy with them whenever you see them eat it."
"Help them walk straight."
"Help them onto the road of the rainbow."
"Give them a sip of the glass."
"Just don't push them aside."
"I SEE WHAT YOU'RE PASSING OUT, BUT WHAT IF PEOPLE DON'T WANT TO EXPERIENCE THAT WITH YOU? WHAT THEN?"
"We work!! We become servants!! We seek the lost!! We save all we can. We leave no stone unturned. 'Faith without work is dead.' That means, if I walk on the rainbow, but don't feel like letting others walk on the rainbow, then there is no point."
"Be a light to all men. Don't take a candle and hide it under a bush!!"
"You can know everything about everything, and be the bestest of students, but what good does that do if you're the only student in the class?"
"WHAT IF WE FALTER? WHAT IF WE FORGET THAT WE LOE BLACKBERRIES AND TURN TO LOVING THE WATER INSTEAD OF WHAT FIRST CAUSED US TO LIKE THE WATER IN THE FIRST PLACE. THE BLACKBERRIES?"
"If you falter…. then just ask for forgiveness, get back up on the rainbow if you fall off, and keep walking. You might forget your true love from time to time and turn to others, but all that matters…is you coming back.
Thank you, Timmy, for coming back."
"..........MAY I HAVE A DRINK?"
"ME TOO!!"
"I'M THIRSTY!!"
"WHERE'S THE CUP?"
"Uh…Adalyn. I think we need a bigger cup."
"TO Baptism!!!
Our water bottle may be small, but the lakes are not.
Hey kid. You got an extra blackberry packet?
Kid?"
Kid?"
"One minute. I'm drinking the rest of this. I want every drop I can get."
"I'll let you finish."
"Thank you. Here's the packet."
"WHO'S READY TO DRINK….AND NEVER THIRST…AGAIN!!!!"
"YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH"