The God Who Speaks — Part 1: The Lion and the Wave
Tuning Our Ears to the Cornerstone’s Frequency
In the far-left corner of my bedroom hangs a lion with headphones. He is not pacing. He is not roaring. He is simply still, listening, tuned into something deeper than noise. Every time I glance up, the Spirit presses the same question into my heart:
“Are you tuned into the wave? Can you hear My Spirit’s frequency through the noise?”
That corner is not mere decoration—it is a foundation stone for my heart, a visual sermon that Christ is the true Cornerstone (Psalm 118:22). All of Scripture, all of history, and all of my small Donkey Waffles—those ordinary breadcrumbs of His presence—circle back to Him. Every whispered lesson points not to me, not to my effort, but to Yahweh, the Way.
The world celebrates the wide road—flashy, noisy, full of distraction. But Jesus says: “Narrow is the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matt. 7:14). The narrow way is not about applause or performance; it is posture. A bending of the heart. A bow of the soul. Not just walking toward the Way, but knowing Christ Himself is the Way (John 14:6). He isn’t only the voice you strain to hear in the static—He is the frequency itself.
🎵 Steffany Gretzinger — “The Narrow Way”
“There is nothing in this life worth the cost of losing You…
You’re the Treasure, You’re the Prize—Jesus, only You.”
📖 Dust and Frequency
But how easily we tune to static instead. Phones buzz. Screens glow. And sometimes, our Bibles sit unopened—edges gathering dust while our feeds stay fresh.
🎵 Josiah Queen — Dusty Bibles
“We got dust on our Bibles, brand-new iPhones,
No wonder why we feel this way.
We walk with our eyes closed, blind leading blind folks,
I’m done with those idols and dusty Bibles.”
That lyric convicts me. Because the narrow road isn’t only about resisting sin—it’s about resisting distraction. Dust doesn’t fall just on pages; it settles on hearts that forget their first love. And like sheep wandering from their Shepherd, we drift when His Word lies closed.
But the Lion of Judah waits in the corner, headphones on, whispering still: Tune into My wave. Come back to My voice.
🌻 Donkey Waffles and the Hidden Frequency
This lion painting is more than wall art—it has become a metronome for my spirit. It beats under every layer of my life lately:
Roof shingles stacked like promises of covenant covering ([Covered Again]).
Hidden rot exposed, sour turned into sweet, restoration multiplied three-for-one ([Sour Turns to Sweet]).
Cicadas droning resurrection songs over grief in a hospital waiting room ([Attention, Attention]).
Sunflowers bowing under heavy seed, teaching me again how labor bends before harvest ([Speak Lord, I’m Listening] and [The Quiet Trickles That Hold Us]).
Each Donkey Waffle—the overlooked square of daily life catching syrup—preaches in its own way: ordinary things humming with the extraordinary voice of God.
🌆 Capitol Lessons: Yellow Bricks and Green Domes
Monday after the girls’ allergy appointment, we wandered up Jackson Street toward the Kansas Capitol. I teased them, saying: “They missed their chance—this should have been painted yellow like Dorothy’s brick road.” They groaned, but I couldn’t let it go. Because as we walked, my spirit whispered: this road doesn’t end in Oz. It bends toward Zion. It points to the Cornerstone.
The dome itself preaches. In 2014, its old copper had to be replaced—weathered, cracked, weakened after 120+ years of storms and coal smoke. When the new copper was laid, it gleamed bright as a penny. Now, a decade later, it’s nearly black. But in decades still to come, it will green again, like Kansas summer fields.
At first glance, that darkening feels like loss. But the truth is, the process is mercy. The patina forms slowly, protecting, preserving, covering with a beauty that only time can reveal. Pollution once sped the change—acid rain forcing domes into green too quickly. Now, with cleaner skies, the transformation is steady and sure.
Isn’t that our story, too? We begin shiny, full of first-love fire. Then trials press in, shadows gather, and the gleam seems to fade. Yet over time, the Spirit lays down holiness like a slow patina—an endurance-glory that shields and covers.
What looks darkened is not ruin. It is a hidden promise: green glory is coming—an echo of the emerald rainbow circling His throne forever (Rev. 4:3).
And here’s the deeper promise: the God who covers also restores. What storms weaken, He strengthens. What years corrode, He renews. What sin scatters, He gathers. Just as copper cannot choose its covering, neither can sheep rescue themselves from wandering. But the Shepherd restores souls (Ps. 23:3), binding wounds, guarding through storms, and leading us toward glory revealed.
“We are being transformed into His image with ever-increasing glory” (2 Cor. 3:18).
🎥 The Prince of Egypt — The Burning Bush
Moses stood trembling, barefoot, hearing “I AM.” His wilderness-darkened heart awaited the glow of God’s glory—just as our own domes wait for the slow unveiling of holiness.
And I cannot forget the day we climbed those 296 steps inside that dome. My lungs burned, my knees trembled, and yet every spiral felt like a sermon. I wrote about it in The Skies Are Not Cloudy All Day: affliction first, horizon after. Every step costly, every glance upward a covenant reminder. When we reached the top, the Kansas horizon stretched wide—fields green and golden under an endless sky. The narrow way may be steep, but it ends in a view no shortcut can buy.
🌻 The Cornerstone and the Declaration
Even our nation once confessed this truth:
“All men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”
Not Congress. Not kings. Creator. Life and liberty do not flow from signatures on parchment but from the hand of Yahweh—the One who split seas, crowned fields with grain, and raised His Son from the grave.
Our yellow brick roads do not end in man-made emerald cities. They lead toward a Kingdom that cannot be shaken, a City whose architect is God, all foundations anchored on Christ the Cornerstone. Every brick beneath our feet—even the cracked sidewalks of ordinary days—becomes another step toward Him. And above that City shines not a wizard’s illusion but the true emerald rainbow around His throne (Rev. 4:3)—a covenant arc of mercy that will never fade.
🎵 “Deliver Us” — The Prince of Egypt
Israel groaned under Pharaoh’s whip. America groaned once under tyranny. And my own heart still groans. But freedom never comes from men—it comes from Yahweh alone.
🦁 Roars That Imitate, Roars That Redeem
Scripture warns us: “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Pet. 5:8). That roar is counterfeit—growling accusation, intimidation, distraction. A hollow sound meant to scatter sheep.
But the true Lion—“Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed” (Rev. 5:5)—roars resurrection. His roar does not terrify; it tenderly restores. His roar does not rattle nerves; it shatters graves.
On our own, we are sheep—fragile, wandering, prone to stray (Isa. 53:6). Yet in Him, we are bold as lions (Prov. 28:1). Not because we ceased being sheep, but because the Shepherd carried our iniquity on Himself.
We don’t devour; we declare.
We don’t terrify; we testify.
We are not the Lion, but we are lifted in His roar.
Sheep by nature.
Warriors by adoption.
Bold by alignment.
🌻 The Pen in His Hand
This lesson has reached even my writing. In The Skies Are Not Cloudy All Day, I wrote about lavender blooming along Jackson Street—only to realize later it was catmint. A small correction, but it preached loud: don’t rush to call something finished before the Shepherd says it is.
Sometimes He makes me wait three days before releasing a post. Sometimes He redirects the story entirely. Sometimes what feels like failure is really His tuning fork, aligning my ear to His frequency.
🎥 Frozen II — “The Next Right Thing”
Anna, trapped in the cave, whispers her way forward: “Just do the next right thing.” That’s the hidden crown of 1 Peter 3:4—the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. Not performance. Posture. Presence.
“Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Ps. 119:105). A lamp doesn’t light the whole road—just the next few steps. And that is enough.
Henri Nouwen once said: “The great spiritual task facing us is to trust that the treasure we search for is hidden in the ground on which we stand.” Even the catmint correction, even the waiting three days, even the missteps and small rewrites—each is a breadcrumb, a Donkey Waffle, leading deeper into His presence.
And like sheep nudged back onto the path, every correction is a mercy. The Shepherd guides one step at a time—never the whole map, but always the next right thing.
🕯️ The Whisper Behind the Roar
Noise rises. The counterfeit lion prowls. The dome looks dark and unfinished. But when everything shakes, I remember Elijah’s lesson: God wasn’t in the fire, nor the earthquake, nor the storm. He was in the whisper.
🎵 Amanda Cook & Brandon Lake — So Close
“Heaven’s closer than it’s ever been,
I can feel You so close, so, so close.
You can turn this cave to a holy place,
You won’t let a tear here hit the ground.”
This is the Cornerstone’s frequency.
This is the lion with headphones.
This is the whisper behind the roar.
And this is the Shepherd’s voice—calling His sheep by name, steadying trembling hearts, gathering the scattered back to Himself (John 10:3–4).
So close.
🌿 Believe on Jesus
The whisper always points back to the simplest command: Believe.
Not strive. Not prove. Not perform. Just believe. Every dusty Bible, every cracked dome, every trembling sheep heart—it all narrows here: to the Name above every name.
Because at the edge of the narrow way, the Spirit strips us down to this one call: Believe on Jesus, and live.
✨ The Needle’s Eye
Jesus once said: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God” (Matt. 19:24). His disciples were stunned. The camel was the largest animal they knew, and the needle’s eye the tiniest opening. It was a picture of impossibility.
In Jewish culture, later rabbis used the needle’s eye as a proverb for the absurd—the Babylonian Talmud even imagines an elephant passing through one. Some also spoke of “needle gates” in Jerusalem’s walls—narrow doors where a camel could only pass if stripped of its load and forced to kneel.
Whether proverb or gate, the meaning is clear: to enter God’s Kingdom, the weight must come off. Pride, possessions, performance—they won’t fit. Only surrender can pass through.
And here’s the gospel: what no camel can do, Christ did carrying the Cross. He bent low, stripped of glory, and pressed through the narrowest place—death itself. He passed through the impossible needle, so that on the other side, every burden could fall and every captive could rise.
✨ The camel couldn’t.
✨ The rich young ruler wouldn’t.
✨ But Jesus did.
“With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matt. 19:26).
🌻 Patina & Passage
Isn’t that what the Capitol dome preaches too? Shiny copper couldn’t stay gleaming. It had to endure years of weathering, darkening, waiting—only then could the green glory come.
And that’s glory’s story in us.
Christ already came, full of glory—“The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory” (John 1:14). The Spirit already burns within us—“Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). His glory is not far-off; it lives here, now, in every whispered prayer and every broken jar blazing light.
Yet glory is also still unfolding. “We are being transformed into His image with ever-increasing glory” (2 Cor. 3:18). The green patina is forming even when we can’t see it. And one day, the emerald rainbow around His throne (Rev. 4:3) will blaze in fullness, covering earth as the waters cover the sea.
The camel at the gate, stripped to kneel.
The copper, darkened to be covered.
The Savior, bowed under the Cross.
All the same sermon: surrender precedes glory. Already here, yet still coming. The needle’s eye isn’t just a wall—it’s a way. Narrow, yes. Impossible for us, yes. But in Him, the patina of holiness forms. In Him, the impossible opens. In Him, even through the smallest eye, we are carried into a Kingdom that cannot be shaken.
✨ Prophetic Blessing
I bless you to see His glory already resting on your life—in the cracks, the waiting, and the hidden places. I bless you to trust the patina of holiness He is forming, slow but steady. And I bless you to hope in the emerald rainbow yet to come, when His glory fills every horizon.
✨ With love and grace,
Elizabeth 🌻🦎
https://linktr.ee/catscradleblog
✨ Coming Next (Part 2): Cora’s verses, Allie’s anime prophecies, Gideon’s jars, and how every crumb becomes crown.
👉 Read it now: The God Who Speaks — Part 2: Anchored in Word, Balanced by Grace