Reclaimed Farmland.

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭16:19‬

Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭18:18

Not too many topics get repeated, nearly verbatim, in a single gospel. Jesus is reiterating a fundamental Kung Fu move of the Spirit here; and Matthew is making sure the world learns it: something made true via prayer on earth, draws on an everlasting truth from heaven, and creates a new reality, or re-newed reality, back on earth. Demolish the blight, rebuild with the lasting.

...Your kingdom come.

Your will be done

On earth as it is in heaven.

Matthew 6:10-11

These keys of binding and loosing are the keys to more than just salvation - we can bring the kingdom reality to earth, and not just spiritually, but in the natural realm as well - for instance, when physical healings happen - although spiritual stuff, being everlasting, is even more real than the natural, temporal stuff.

I've been driving back and forth to LA for work from Bakersfield every day, and I've been driving past the area where the Onion Field incident occurred. After a lifetime of giving the whole thing as little thought as possible, I've been wanting to go to the exact spot for a few weeks now, but I didn't ever have knowledge of precisely where. Sunday night I found out the location, thanks to the detective work of some retired cops who wanted to honor Ian Campbell by playing the pipes where he was killed.

I didn't have a game plan for what I wanted to do or see or accomplish, just a nagging notion lately that I should get there, that something would happen. So I made a pilgrimage.

A policeman was murdered here. My father's life was destroyed here. So much harm done, so much pain for so many for so many years from what occurred on this spot. God, what do we want to do in this place?

I reached for the key of binding. I cataloged all the fallout in my father's life and family's life - all the self-blame, and shame, and guilt, and condemnation, and second-guessing, and anxiety, and isolation, abandonment, broken dreams, broken psyche, broken relationships ... the list went on. I cut all of those things off from myself, from falling downhill into my children's lives. I broke off all the fallout from what happened in this place from the Hettinger family line. I wanted it all gone. I expanded the circle and cleared it all from the Campbells. And, - the Father's heart in this - I cut off any curse and brokenness from the Powell and Smith lines as well.

I started to say, I take it all, gather all the darkness and return it to this place where it all came from; I just bury it back here where it started - but I stopped. That didn't seem fair to this ground. So, I reached for the key of loosing. I released restoration and reconciliation, redemption for this land. I erased the blood-stained curse that started here, calling down instead Jesus' blood on all the lives effected, and the land itself, that there could be a superimposition of this location as it is in heaven, as it was in the Garden before the fall. A return it to its original state. Any evil echoes that have gone out from this place ... gone.

If this all seems ooey-wooey and weerd - yeah, I suppose it is. But something happened. Time will tell what, exactly. I know for my part, that clearing everything from the event and everyone involved in it and associated with it, then replacing it with a re-created pristine cleanliness did my heart good. 

Driving home, I wondered at all the crimes and evils, all the places and people in ruins because dark curses have been created though wrongdoing. So much territory to reclaim. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done... On earth as it is in heaven.