Seasons & Timing

    As this year slowly comes to a close, and as I learn more about myself, about my cycle of years, my time, and how God designed me to interact with time I'm met with a lot of discovery and awe. Some people get "end of year" words, I ask for them when I hear this preaching start to come up, but it never really felt like the right 'time' to be getting a word for the year. Personally, the new year has always felt to be around March or April and seeing the pattern and cyclic lifecycle of each year as it has happened, I can point to many big things that took place in April and March in my life. 

    I can look back to April of 2016. I had graduated high school the year before and was about to turn 19 in July. Yet my life was in a disarray, I didn't like many parts of it, and I found that fewer and fewer of my interactions with people were truly meaningful or deep. Neither did I feel like I was living in a meaningful way as this was really the year I had partied, and illicitly exploited myself and others to immorality. I was beginning to learn what the power of persuasion was, but I didn't know what I was meant for or what I was put on this planet in the first place. In fact, I had a hard time believing Jesus as a true historical figure and really only had thoughts of God as being a master craftsman and intelligent designer, but never someone who was present and caring. That April lots of things took place to shift my life, and an opportunity came up where when I said "universe, is this what I'm supposed to be doing?" I felt a "yes" impression. This "yes" took me to Nashville, and I began to establish a life there as a salesperson for a pest control company, and eventually was found by Jesus through one of my customers. 

    Unfortunately, the illicit sin didn't stop there. The next April was the next big shift in my life, though I had been hired to do contracting work at Dell in November, I had to go through a 4-month internship/training program to see if I could land a real job at Dell. I landed a job at a position making more money than I had ever made in my life by almost quadruple. The Lord blessed me with this job as I was still looking for what I wanted to do, and had asked him "what if I did something like sales and computers combined?". That year was the year I truly started praying and submitting my life to God and decided that I wanted to live for the work that He would have me do, and not just the work that I would have me do. Though it was still a long process I eventually applied to do a DTS that started near the end of March of 2019. I felt the call to sacrifice, and to live a life wholly unto the Lord, consecrated to Him alone. 

    The next April that came around was special as the shift happened a couple months earlier as I was lead to make roots here at Ywam-Cevennes in the south of France. Though I don't know about timing and the sovereignty of God where this lines up, I do know that the shift in mood, in how God interacted with me, and what He started addressing within me changed a lot from submission and ideas of submission to living it out. So I did, and my life cleaned up significantly especially as I worked with a pastoral figure in my life to confess, repent, and renounce old ways. I think I was brought a little earlier because the Lord knew confinement was going to happen, and that He wanted me here for it. 

    As I look forward I don't know where this next April will take me. I do know that I want to continue to be wholly submitted to the Lord, and I know what I'd like to invest in. I pray that the investment and intensity of relationships in my life jumps a level as that is something that I know I was like to develop. I pray that I will be given new revelation about my design, and walk further into the way that God created me to be, and that I would fully claim my office. Yet these are multi-year projects, and I'm excited to see what God decides to say about this coming year, I'll just be getting my word in April where everyone else is getting theirs in January. However, I do hope that you pray about timeline patterns in your own life and that you take the time with the Lord to see where your new year is. I believe each person has their own unique new year, and it's probably accurate down to the hour. Yet you'll never know it if you don't ask. 

Vanity

    Falling backward, sand pulsing against your skin, surrounding you with a rhythm like that of a breathing giant. Your head lulls as blood rushes to your skull, gravity acting against you, against your wasted life. Water rushes behind your neck, tapping your shoulder, beckoning you closer... deeper. You've begun sliding, the sand that was holding you up seems to be the gravity pulling you deeper into reality with yourself. You are falling deeper as an impression is created in the depths of your soul. The impression that has always been there, weighing you down. 

    Looking up you see color beginning to fade, the waves brushing your arm, ever so slightly inviting you deeper, cold upon your neck, her icy breath whispering for you to allow your body to come into her bosom. You feel your body lift by the next wave that comes in on the full moon tide. You close your eyes, understanding that what you've always wanted is found in the denial of everything you cared about. You knew you were going to be hurt. You knew you'd get betrayed, that people might never be trustworthy, that the beauty of letting go would finally arrest your worries and anxiety. You feel yourself being pulled backward, the backstabbing seeming to fall away as the weightlessness of the water numbs you. The black waters assuaging your wounds, carrying them away as the weightlessness of your life dissolves like the sand washing away from your skin. The waters enter your mouth, forcing you to swallow bitterness and regrets. You can feel your lungs on fire yet you don't struggle. This torture was just as meaningless as the loveless world you were apart of. The acrid water continues melting your brain, as your body begs and convulses, waiting for oxygen to return to you. Yet everything you decided had led up to this. You deny your deep need for connection One. More. Time.

Black.

.

.

    "The pain was real you know." you hear someone say. "We're going to have to go back though."

Gray.

    A star, a flash of lightning. Red, blue, sirens wailing. Voices scream someone is yelling. CRASH! Why are they yelling so loud? You wonder. SLAP! Another thunderclap, making your ears ring, realization dawns, you awaken, the burning in your lungs forces itself up your throat and you're leaning over a railing, retching mucus and bile you'd been carrying, over someone's feet. Someone pats your back, rubbing away the deep-seated scars those you loved had left there. Anger wells up "why am I back?!" You yell out. "I thought I was done!"

    "Vanity" you hear "Doesn't mean your life was meaningless to me."

    "Who said that?" You ask looking at the honest eyes of the nice people in blue suits, who had drawn you from the water.

    "Vanity" you hear again "Doesn't mean I don't suffer with you." You shake your head.

    Scrunching your eyebrows you ask "what does that mean?" The eyes stared back at you as you questioned them. The one whose feet were covered in your bile combs your hair out of your eyes. "You're beautiful you know." You're taken aback. Had you EVER heard that before? Would you even have believed it except from a guy whose feet were covered by what almost got you killed?

    Maybe... "Who are you? Why did you save me tonight? You ask.

    "I'm a follower, and Jesus is trying to tell you about His plan for your life. Since you don't want it, He gave it back and died so that you may live. So go, and live your life for He who saved it, for He will live within you, and be with you all of your days."

    

    You stumble out of the white room, back to your old house, stumbling down your old driveway, walking into your old bedroom, with your old posters and books covering the walls, an old plate that had your old dinner half-eaten. Yet you walked in as a new person, someone who knew they were loved, who had a life that was new.

(Disclaimer: if you or a loved one you know struggle with the desire to commit suicide, or need help in this specific area call the hotline 1-800-273-8255 or chat with them online. https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ there is people to help you in your time of need. Don't be afraid to get help.)

When wounds surface

    Depending on your childhood, or your early adulthood, you may have many wounds. If you're much like me, these wounds may have hampered your emotional growth via acceleration of what you felt like you must grow into. Often times I forget that I'm only 23, and that I have a lot of time to figure things out and be a young adult. I especially feel the call for maturity because I've felt that very same call since I was young, since I felt the call to protect myself from my siblings or family members. Since I felt the call to provide for myself, and to be thinking about consequences by my actions. It has only been recently that I've been realizing that this call was never one God intended for us, because it created a sick wound where I would try to take the consequences on for the actions of others. I would try to absorb the consequences of my siblings, or of my parents so that they didn't have to fight, or lie. Maybe it was a righteous effort, maybe it was something that was just inside of me, in any case it was born out of woundedness and iniquity. One of the most important things we learn about ourselves and our identities is what makes us us, and what makes them them. Doesn't matter who the "them" is, we all have a "them". Jesus made us to have a community, and if you don't feel like you have a "them" then I would suggest that you find one. My them right now is a community founded on prayer. These are people who have been in the area a long time, who have been spiritual for an even longer time, and who have been doing the work of the Lord for as long as they can remember. I still have much to discover about the depths of this "them" just as I am still discovering the depths of myself. 

    

    Some people believe that they can read other's thoughts or hearts. Other's believe that they have a power or control over other people's thoughts. I think these people are quite the opposite of empathetic, and are believing in lies. I used to be one of these people though, and the more I read, the more I was convinced. There is connection, and pedantically speaking there's a lot more to interpersonal interaction than we can tell or measure at this point in time, but nobody truly has control over the perception of others, nor do we have control over the actions of others, or their desires. I know for me that this caused a lot of grief in my life, and continues to do so, and that is because I was trying to take too much responsibility. The more I realize that I wanted to take all the responsibility for everything because of my desire for control, my need to express control over something in my life, the more I realize that I really had no control, nor will I truly ever have control over the external circumstances in my life. Rather, I will only be able to monitor what goes on internally and ask myself questions. This isn't the same as just accepting our external circumstances and not reacting, or acting out authority and dominion over our time and space, it is realizing the limits of how far your authority and dominion go. In other words, authority and dominion don't often mean control, but influence. YHWH spoke the world into existence, and speaks into it today in such a way that He influences it. Just as He spoke into my life, challenged me to submit EVERYTHING, and lead me, has been an exertion of influence, not of control. So do we have the power to influence the world around us, and it is responsibility to know how to influence and persuade. But we can never control. We can only control HOW we go about influencing and persuading. Some may read that as a permission to manipulate, however that is certainly not what I'm expressing. Respect the "no" and the "yes" of others, learn what makes those decisions, but learn more about how to empower a person to make those decisions for themselves. Rarely are we taught how to say "no" or "yes", and I know for me that this is a big wound, and something I'm learning now. I am reminded of the sovereignty of God, and may spend a blog post or two expressing the sovereignty of the Lord in my life as of late, as it is relevant and awesome what He's been up to. 

Emotions pt. 6 (Anger)

     I carry a core belief that I'm slowly working on getting rid of that is about anger. We feel it most often when there's an overstepping of our boundaries, said or unsaid. It can often be a violent emotion and is a powerful catalyst for battle. My core belief is that it is mostly useless nowadays, and if we were only just better at communicating interpersonally then we wouldn't have to be angry with one another. Yet, I have only ever seen a righteous expression of anger from a few select people, and the first person I think of is Jesus. Sure we can point to what he did at the temple and the turning over of tables, but my mind first goes to chapters like Ezekiel 17-18, 22, 23, Exodus 34. These are times when God was angry, and when He expressed His anger who had not listened to His precepts, nor followed their own word to walk in accordance with His law. Yet, He worked out His anger through the precepts and law that He had given them. He warned them of EVERY consequence that they might receive should they betray Him and overstep His boundaries. 

    This wasn't a principle or a universal law that at some level every human must take accountability for, these were the codes and guides that the LORD had given to His people because He wanted to make them a nation of priests, and to be a glory in all the earth. At this very same level each consequence HAD  to be communicated by God Himself so that when the more harsh consequences came about, His people would recognize that they were being reprimanded and disciplined with an iron rod. Those that believed God was unjust were also normally the ones that received the worst treatment. Not only was the iron rod slashed on their back, but it was also heated up before, meant to leave blisters and wounds that may bleed profusely for days at a time. There is ALWAYS healing for that, and that's not really what I'm getting at. I'm getting at the fact that God showed anger in many different ways, but mostly as His people Israel. There are cases all throughout the History of God showing His anger through other nations and empires, and of course, we can find where God's hand was in every story; if we look. 

    I have been experiencing a form of frustration as of late mostly because I have desires that aren't being met. I have a desire to communicate and to be communicated with. To walk in unity with my base leaders, and their vision and the reason for the frustration is that what they want from me, and for me, and what my heart wants, feel like totally diametric oppositions. This is a challenge I'm dealing with right now, and having grown from a place where I would default to; that is: go into a form of hopelessness and isolation because I believed nobody will hear my complaint or my frustration. Now my challenge is actually addressing these thoughts and emotions rooted in anger, whether it be angry at the unjust way I was raised or perceptibly bad boundaries that have been laid out. I need to be able to handle the confrontation and communicate from my heart where I'm at with everything. 

    The fears that are associated with this expression of emotions is that I will be rejected for showing them, that I will be misunderstood, and that it will be too much for the people around me to handle. 'Course these are not realities, and can easily be combated. The true task is being lucid and congruent enough with myself that I say what's on my heart concise and accurately, and for that I look to the most congruent man on Earth, Jesus. 

Fire of Worship

     This past week we've had a teacher on base who was teaching on worship. She's a French native and so the first big hurdle was to get over the "into English" translation as most of the teachers here have been translated into French. It brought a different dynamic into play, but so did her experience and wisdom in the realm of worship. She has worked at prayer houses in the French-speaking world, given advice all over the world, and helped teams grow into something that she calls "the house of David."

    Now, I had originally started this blog post back in July, but I didn't write anything besides the title, more so it was a placeholder and I was waiting for the revelation to come on what to write about. In general, worship is a huge topic and should be studied -by all who consider themselves believers- deeply. I'm not talking about the music, though that is one format of worship, I'm talking about the way God expresses Himself to the world, and how the world expresses herself to Him.  This week specifically I've experienced another dimension of worship especially in the music realm, but we were talking about David's Tent. You can go read the story in 1 Chronicles 20-28 or so. As far as stories go there is a LOT of text dedicated to this tabernacle. In retrospect, it's still very little compared to the texts Jeremiah and Baruch wrote, but that's not the point. 

    One of the details we see about David bringing the ark into the tabernacle was that the Kingdoms most skilled musicians, 288 of them, all made their way to be standing in the temple day and night. This is on a whole other level of priesthood, and there were not just sacrifices being made, there was music, there was dancing. I believe that correlating with the vision of Ezekiel, and in parts of Revelation, that this is what the main throne room of YHWH looks like, sounds like, smells like, and feels like. Suddenly Aaron's command to burn incense in the morning and at twilight (Exo 30:8) was fulfilled throughout the day, and not just twice a day. 

    It was a very special experience to be with her this week, and I'm excited about what we can do as a team and base to continue to grow in this style of Worship and Prayer. This burning desire to see Abba honored and adored is growing ever hotter in me, and the Joy with which it comes is beginning to really take roots into my being. There are a few cardinal truths that I am beginning to realize fit deep within me. As I continue to grow in congruence with my spirit, soul, body in subordination to the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ, I begin to see how deep these truths really are. To be a worshiper of the Lord is to lift Him up. To see Him take precedence in your life, and in the lives of those around you. To become His servant, and to be made low. This is what the Kingdom of the Lord is about. I am privileged that I get to be a part of it.