Coming Out of The Fog - Part I

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My husband and I were flying to our home airport in Norfolk, VA, 1/10/21, when the airline announced a ground stop* for the region controlled by Air Traffic Control, ATC, Washington DC. We fly often and my husband also happens to be a private pilot so we are familiar with ground stops. In fact, earlier that week, on the way to Florida, the FAA had issued a ground stop for the region controlled by ATC Jacksonville, Florida which delayed our arrival by several hours.

When we finally boarded the plane heading back to Norfolk, the captain announced that there had been a COVID issue in the Washington DC, ATC and the area needed to be sanitized. With that completed, hundreds of flights were now free to resume travel. This story is not very compelling or interesting, just an ordinary travel day, but the mundane and truthful details of this day did become important as the day progressed. After we landed in Norfolk, VA I received the following text from an acquaintance:

“got word all commercial flights in and out of Reagan International are cancelled. Air space over DC is being kept free from civilian flights for military. Military in DC taking over voter fraud.”

I had just been in that very airspace and nothing of the sort was happening. It was just a basic ground stop and now it was over; that airspace was open and operating freely without restriction. I called the person that sent me the text and I assured them that there was no military takeover and that they had received a bogus message. On the same day, over the next couple of hours we received the following messages:

While most of us do not have access to the resources that would allow us to verify where any of the aforementioned individuals were the day/night before or what their activities may have been; my husband works for the government and he was able to verify, in short order, that the supposed message from the (now former) Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo was fraudulent. The realization that someone was intentionally masquerading as the SecState and attempting to give directive information to American citizens was disturbing. Messages like these have been abundant over the last 11 days.

I want to clarify that I am not saying that there is not some measure of truth woven in with these messages. What I am saying is that these messages were clearly engineered to spread misinformation. My husband, also retired military, noted that the messages had the ear marks of military psyops and mis-information campaigns regularly utilized in warfare.

A familiar, layman’s definition for wickedness is: taking the truth and twisting it for evil purposes. My husband and I were amazed that each of the messages contained a thread of truth that was twisted and then embedded with lies to intentionally perpetrate a deception. Last Wednesday night, hours after President Trump became a private citizen and President Biden had been inaugurated as the 46th president, I received this startling message:

“I'll share again my conclusions based on all available information to date since the group size doubled over the last few hours. Zero hour / D-Day is likely tomorrow. Avoid capitols, especially DC. Top off preps today, and have what you will need for grid down scenario lasting for days to weeks, depending on location. See https://poweroutage.us/. Keep an eye on live TV broadcasts and cell phones for Emergency Alert System (EAS) messages. If you're not sure who to listen to or trust, then follow Trump's lead. I expect a chaotic operating environment to remain in place through at least the end of March...the reality of what is happening will not become self-evident to the masses until tomorrow at the earliest. I expect that "it" will START to go down on the 20th...and will continue to go down through at least the end of March. Pay attention to what Trump says and what the military does.

Trust God.

Peace be with you”

I found it alarming that even after the inauguration and President Trump had become a private citizen, this same rhetoric was continuing!

PROCEED WITH WISDOM

This has been a crazy season with prophetic words-a-plenty, legitimate information & revelation, illegitimate information & revelation, media manipulation, and conspiracy theories galore. I have seen so many messages on social media with the speakers indicating they have “inside information” from government informants. I’m sure many of you have also received similar messages with the same chaotic rhetoric! As we move forward, let's be intentional not to fall into the traps of those intending on utilizing military-style psyops and mis-information campaigns to distract us! I don’t know who is behind these messages or what their motivations might be for facilitating these exaggerated and imaginary scenarios, but it makes my heart sad to see them manipulating sincere individuals who have a genuine love and concern for our country and our future as a nation!

One of the qualities of wisdom is using sound judgement. It is my prayer that we can move forward in this new political season partnering with wisdom to filter out the “noise.” We have the best inside, government informant of all, the Holy Spirit! Let’s invite the Holy Spirit to examine afresh what we have accepted as factual from this last season. He is the one that searches the inward parts for truth! Psalm 51:6

I know, from personal experience, that focusing on conspiracy theories and the secret works of darkness can be a slippery slope! It can generate a sense of false legitimacy that you are “in the know” or you are somehow special because of what you know. For some, it creates a narrative of intrigue and exhilaration that would rival a spy novel and they feel empowered by the energy and excitement. Unfortunately, these well-meaning individuals can get swallowed up in the all-consuming details of the conspiracy. For others it creates a heavy yoke, they become distracted from legitimate Kingdom work, burdened for the things they have no control over, weighed down with false responsibility and increasing their anxious thoughts wondering if they are praying enough or if they are declaring enough, worried about how righteousness will prevail, how God will win, and how the people will be set free?! We serve a God that has NEVER lost, His yoke is easy and His burden is light. Matt 11:28-30. Peace is our portion, and the battle is the Lords; He has got this, our nation, and us!

At our best, we are peaceful, light/not weighed down, joyful, and full of hope. Every, single day of life is a gift, a new day filled with the expectation of His goodness, loving Him and being loved by Him, worshipping Him, walking in spirit and in truth, caring for our neighbors and enjoying opportunities to advance His Kingdom; being salt and light! Let’s be our best and pray for our nation, while being about the Kingdom business of winning the lost in 2021!!

Many Blessings,

Joanne

* A ground stop is an air traffic control measure that slows or halts the flow of aircraft inbound to a given airport. In other words, a ground stop is the halting of departing aircraft destined for one particular airport or for a specific geographic area.