Their conversation about testing the spirits had gradually settled into contemplative silence. Lin had explained how discernment wasn’t merely about distinguishing true from false, but about recognizing the source behind each spiritual influence. The fire had burned lower, casting the cabin in amber shadows as they each pondered the implications. Sarah had been absorbing these ideas, connecting them with other questions that had long occupied her scientific mind—questions that extended beyond Earth itself. As she watched the embers pulse with hidden life, the boundary between spiritual discernment and cosmic understanding began to blur in her thoughts.

The night had deepened around the cabin, and Sarah had moved from the wooden chair to sit cross-legged on the floor near the hearth. The dancing flames cast shadows that seemed to emphasize the cosmic questions forming in her mind—questions that had haunted her long before Margaret’s network had ever targeted her.

“What about aliens?” she asked suddenly, her voice breaking the comfortable silence that had settled between them. “Interdimensionals? The Bible doesn’t address any of that—at least not directly.”

Lin looked up from her notebook, unsurprised by the shift in conversation. She’d been waiting for these questions, understanding that Sarah’s scientific mind wouldn’t settle until she’d mapped how biblical wisdom intersected with her broader cosmic awareness.

“You know,” Sarah continued, “I’ve had encounters—experiences I can’t explain through conventional science. Visitations. Moments where reality seemed to thin, and something else pressed through.” The firelight reflected in her eyes as she spoke, illuminating the genuine wonder these experiences had sparked. “Why doesn’t Christianity talk about these things? They’re real.”

Lin nodded slowly. “The irony is, it is in the Bible,” she replied. “The Nephilim. The sons of God coming down to the daughters of men. Strange beings that don’t fit neatly into our categories.” She closed her notebook. “But it’s hard to fit infinity into one book.”

Sarah leaned forward, surprised. “So you believe in these things? In encounters and interdimensional beings?”

Lin considered the question with the careful attention she gave to everything. “Everything does exist,” she said simply. “How long do you want to be here?” The question hung in the air between them, its implications expanding like ripples in still water.

Sarah’s brow furrowed.”What do you mean?”

“I mean that acknowledging the existence of these beings—these dimensions—isn’t the same as making them our focus,” Lin explained. “When we are strong in Christ, there is a better chance to bypass this experience entirely or deal with it from a place of understanding that we are not alone.”

She reached for a metaphor Sarah might understand. “We can go into a garden and pick up a grasshopper. We don’t necessarily care about this insect—we’re mildly curious, and if it suits our needs, we may keep it, alter it, study it, or put it back down. This may change the grasshopper’s life forever. It may spend all the rest of its days trying to understand why that happened.”

Sarah sat with this, recognizing herself in the metaphor—the scientist consumed with understanding an experience that might be, from another perspective, incidental.

“There are waters that will guide you,” Lin continued, her voice gentle but firm, “deep and steady through all the unknowns of space-time.” She wasn’t negating Sarah’s visions or the knowledge they had brought. Instead, she was suggesting a different way of moving through reality—not by mastering its mechanics, but by submitting to deeper currents.

“To believe,” she explained, “isn’t about negating other realities. It’s about choosing which energies to align with, which frequencies to tune to. While the universe might contain every possibility imaginable—aliens, visions, cosmic patterns—the critical question isn’t what exists, but what waters you choose to navigate by.”

Sarah spoke of her visions with a physicist’s precision—describing alien encounters and cosmic mechanics like someone mapping constellations. Each revelation had built her understanding of how the universe functioned, layer upon intricate layer. Yet beneath her certainty lay an unspoken fear: that choosing spiritual guidance meant abandoning intellectual understanding.

Lin saw this tension in her. “Everything does exist,” she said quietly, acknowledging the truth in Sarah’s cosmic knowledge. “But there’s a different way to carry it.”

She explained how letting the heart lead didn’t mean the mind would wither. Instead, when they allowed divine waters to flow through the heart first, it actually enhanced mental clarity. Like a cooling stream through fevered terrain, this flow soothed the brain’s frantic gathering of knowledge, bathed the body’s hormonal systems, moved down into the stomach where anxiety lived.

“You won’t become some mindless zealot,” Lin said, smiling at the unspoken fear. “God’s will isn’t what you think—it’s not about losing yourself. It’s more like finding a frequency that harmonizes everything you already know.”

“That sounds similar to what some spiritual teachers say,” Sarah observed.

Lin nodded. “Many spiritual paths recognize this truth. But Christianity offers something more—practical tools that actually build the heart.” She leaned forward, her eyes intent. “Many paths can identify the harmony, but few provide the concrete practices that strengthen you to maintain it in the face of real opposition.”

“Like Margaret’s network,” Sarah said quietly.

“Exactly. What we’re facing isn’t just conceptual—it’s an actual battle that requires actual strength.” Lin touched the Bible beside her. “And even though many spiritual communities teach about harmonizing with higher frequencies, the toolset in Christianity is far more applicable for building heart-strength in this realm. The more you build here, the more true resilience you develop.”

“What do you mean by ‘building the heart’?” Sarah asked.

“I mean developing spiritual muscles that don’t collapse under pressure,” Lin explained. “Forgiveness isn’t just a concept—it’s a practice that transforms neurological pathways. Prayer isn’t just meditation—it’s active communication with the source of reality. Submission to God’s will isn’t passive—it’s strategic alignment with the most powerful force in existence.”

Sarah considered this. “So the difference is in application, not just theory.”

“And in results,” Lin added. “When we practice what Jesus taught—not just believe it, but actually do it—we develop a kind of strength that makes us unmanipulable by the very forces that want to control us. That’s what Margaret’s network fears most—people whose hearts are too strong to be corrupted.”

Sarah felt something shift in her understanding. All her cosmic knowledge remained valid, but now it could rest in deeper waters. She didn’t have to stand guard over her intelligence or defend her visions. There was a way to know and not be exhausted by knowing, to understand and not be burdened by understanding.

“The waters that guide us,” Lin explained, “they don’t erase what we know. They just show us how to carry it differently. Sometimes submitting to their flow brings more insight than struggling to map every current.”

The fire crackled, sending sparks up the chimney into the night sky—the same sky that had witnessed Sarah’s cosmic encounters, the same vast darkness that had sparked her questions about existence beyond Earth.

“So Christianity doesn’t deny these other beings exist,” Sarah said slowly, processing.

“Not at all,” Lin replied. “But it recognizes them as part of creation, not as objects of worship or focus. The Bible contains references to beings beyond our understanding—angels, nephilim, principalities, powers. But it consistently directs our attention back to the Creator rather than the created.”

“And when encounters happen?”

“When encounters happen, we face them from a position of spiritual authority, not fear or fascination,” Lin explained. “Understanding our place in the spiritual hierarchy matters more than cataloging every being in that hierarchy.”

Sarah nodded slowly, her physicist’s mind finding an unexpected resonance with this perspective. “Like understanding fundamental forces rather than mapping every particle they affect.”

“Precisely,” Lin smiled. “The waters I’m talking about—they’re the fundamental force. Everything else, no matter how fascinating, is just a manifestation.”

Sarah gazed into the fire, letting these ideas settle. Her cosmic knowledge wasn’t being invalidated—it was being re-contextualized, given a place to rest within a larger framework of understanding.

“So I don’t have to choose between my experiences and faith,” she said finally.

“What you have to choose is which waters will guide you through those experiences,” Lin corrected gently. “Which current you’ll trust when the cosmic tides grow confusing.”

Outside, the night continued its patient witness, stars wheeling overhead in patterns that testified to both mathematical precision and unfathomable mystery. Inside, two women continued their conversation about how to navigate reality—not by denying its complexity, but by finding the deeper waters that could carry them through it with both wonder and wisdom intact.