When God Reaches Down

The fears we live with made their initial appearance when we chose to listen to their lies. In moments of fearful uncertainty, is where hell can speak its deceptive script in the most effective ways. These lies will always contradict God's truth about our redeemed past and the hopefulness we should have about our future.  God is not locked in time like we are wondering what will happen next. 

Scripture tells us “Sing to the one who rides across the ancient heavens, his mighty voice thundering from the sky” (Psalm 68:33). God rides back and forth across history – across the ancient heavens - without the limitations of time and physical space. He sees history as a whole, not in part. He sees time outside the bookmarks of our earthly beginning and end. He is the all-knowing God of all things.

If you want to know the way forward or where to place your foot for the next step in your journey, the answer will not found by examining your past, present, or future. It will be discovered in our heart. “For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His” (II Chronicles 16:9). 

This God is the One who rides back and forth across the heavens looking for hearts that are completely His. When He finds such a heart, He reaches down to touch the carrier with the intent to release things not possible for those whose hearts are compromised by fear and unbelief. The evidence that we have experienced the perfect love of God is seen most clearly when love's presence in our life is actively expelling the very things that compromise the full expression of love.  

Examine your heart. If your heart is entirely His above all else, the God of Heaven will find you. He will reach down and touch you to let you know you are not alone. By that touch, you will know you are being supported by the God of all time and eternity.  That touch will heal the sorrow of your past and give you great confidence and hope as you move forward into the future. You will move forward with new freedom because in your heart you now carry a new level of faith in the unfailing love of God.

Retreat Into Your Future

There will be times when people invite you to advance with them – to move forward into something new. Advance, accelerate, and breakthrough are some of the words typically used to craft this kind of appeal. 

In some instances, when you receive these invitations, in your spiritual gut, you will know your assignment is not to move forward but to retreat into a place of isolated intimacy with God. When faced with that decision, always choose the retreat. 

The anxious crowd who issue these advancing invitations believe the best is always ahead of them, never in the present moment.  It will take courage to say no and let them move on without you. When you make the decision to retreat, you will discover a place of rested revelation not available to those who equate constant motion with a healthy and vibrant faith. As the prophet Isaiah said, “In quietness and trust is your strength.” 

Retreat to that quiet place, and you will be refreshed and empowered for a journey only the rested ones can make. A soul that has rested in a place of retreat with God has gained the strength and endurance required to move forward into a future not seen by weary eyes.

Where the Real Battle for a Nation's Soul is Fought

On Saturday, the eyes of the nation were focused on the protests in Portland, Oregon between the anarchist group Antifa and several opposing factions. The possibility of chaos and destruction was significant. 

My friend, Ty Bottler and a team from The Father’s House in Portland gathered in the middle of the protests to worship and pray with a mission to shift the atmosphere. If you don't think witchcraft is in play as an attempt to steer the destiny of our nation, please read the following excerpt from Ty’s Facebook wall where he gave a detailed report of the event.

“As I watched Antifa initially come into the Square, a small group of them sat down in a circle just off to the side and started performing their witchcraft. This was their attempt at shifting the atmosphere so that the whole group would come under the spirit of chaos. Because of the Kingdom atmosphere that we had already established through our prayer and worship, the witchcraft had no seed of chaos to grab hold of. And because of this, after about 15 minutes of aimlessly walking around, Antifa left the Square for different ground.”

It is too easy to dismiss the real spiritual conflict that is taking place on Earth as the overactive imaginations of religious zealots. This is just where the enemy of our soul wants the Church to park her thinking. We are in a spiritual war with dark forces. While voting and being active in civic and social issues is important, those are only responses to the real battle. 

Something shifted in the spiritual atmosphere in Portland, Oregon on Saturday. As that shift continues to expand and transform the spiritual atmosphere of our nation, I pray it will also awaken the Church to the spiritual reality of this critical moment in our history. 

God's Prophetic Fire Hose

We had a massive forest fire just north of our area. It has been contained and the remaining crews are in the mop-up stage. It was called the Milepost 97 Fire referring to milepost 97 on the I-5 freeway in Oregon. I read an article posted by a weather agency that stated the fire crews had just finished rolling up all the fire hose used to fight the fire. If all the hose sections were put together, it would stretch out for 39 miles. That is a lot of hose!

Reading about all the sections of hose made me think of how the gift of prophecy can work. Many times people try to attach value to a prophetic word by the amount of drama and uniqueness contained in its content and delivery. While that can be true at times, much of prophecy is not. The words we deliver are merely a section of a much broader word the Lord is laying out piece by piece to get to a specific person or place in time. When all the sections of a word are finally connected, the content of that word can be delivered to extinguish a work of hell that just a single, isolated word might not accomplish.

If you are feeling like the words God gives you lack a place on a glossy magazine cover or an invitation to prophesy from the platform at a prophetic conference, please take heart. God doesn’t see the delivery of prophetic words like we see them. He is only focused on who is available and willing to speak in His name no matter if its one section of the prophetic hose or the whole thing. 

Remain faithful in what God asks you to speak no matter how large or small. If you are willing to be that kind of prophetic servant, you will find Him sending you into cultural hot zones to be part of a larger effort whose mission is to prevent death and destruction. The Lord will do this because He can trust you to connect your section of prophetic hose to the flow of the larger word He wants to deliver. 

A Reversal of Misfortune

Today was one of those days when I had nothing planned to write. I sat in my writing chair empty of content and prayed, “Lord, is there something you want me to write.” It would be fine with me to not write anything if He had nothing for me to say. As soon as I prayed that simple prayer, an image came to mind. It was an image I have seen several times in the last week. I knew at that moment what I was to write.

Earlier this week, I saw the image of a massive wave approaching a populated landmass. The wave was higher than the tallest buildings along the shore. As the wave approached, it was obvious the wave would overwhelm the area and bring great destruction and death. I prepared to run but realized that trying to run away would be a futile effort, so I turned around and faced the approaching wave. As soon as I turned around, the wave reversed course and began to return in the direction from which it came and then the image was finished.

Interpreting what I saw, I understood it on two levels. The first was that something significant was approaching us on a cultural level, and the other would take place personally for some of you reading these words. Even though they are different in scope, both will have the same outcome, and both will be remedied in the same way. 

What seemed impossible to turn back, as represented in the wave, will suddenly reverse course when we turn around and face the wave. At that moment, our stance of faith will become a testimony to the world that  God is our only source of deliverance. When the wave reverses course, it will return to its point of origin and decimate what caused the wave to initially mount up and begin to move forward on its destructive journey. 

There are some things in life that we cannot pray away or teach away. These are things that can only be reversed when we have no hope apart from the intervention of God. This is where the greatest miracles and reversals take place. In these situations, all we can do is turn around, face our fear in faith, and trust God with the outcome. 

There are things approaching our culture and our personal lives that are so immense in their destructive power that only an intervention by God can save the day. When these things approach don’t turn and run away in fear. Turn around and in defiance to the wave of fear hold your ground and watch God do something amazing and awe-inspiring.

A Revival of Scripture

The only trusted way to know how to interpret this life is to bring our opinions to Scripture and let God’s truth evaluate the quality of our understanding. If we bring Scripture to our opinion and allow our opinion to override and reinterpret what truth is, we will open our lives up to error and deception. This is not new in Church history. It has taken place historically just before a revival or reformation when the truth about an aspect of our faith is rediscovered.

I am beginning to see more pastors and teachers returning to the simple preaching of God’s Word in public gatherings. This is not a robotic form of teaching without creativity or the ability to adapt the delivery of the message to a changing culture. This kind of teaching creates a stable platform upon which to build our lives. It also helps us disciple our emotions and opinions under the instruction of God’s Word.  

For several decades increasing numbers of people within the Church have allowed human opinion to supplant Scriptural truth, and the by-product has been everyone doing what is right in their own eyes. We are about to experience a revival of Scripture. That revival may be one of the most significant revivals in our lifetime.

Perfection

You can always do a transition better. No transition will ever be perfect. “Perfect” is not the goal. 

We have an unrealistic tendency to want our life transitions to be perfect. We need to revisit our definition of reality. In retrospect, each one of my transitions could have been done better, but people were involved. The human element changes everything. 

If a “perfect” response to the plan is your goal, you will actually miss the heart of God in the plan. Whenever God relates to human beings, he builds into his plan recourse for human error. He understands your weaknesses. God can actually do more through your weakness than through your strength. His love doesn’t operate through our inflated ego. God has chosen to work through the place of human weakness where the only thing we can bring to him is our humility. 

“Perfect” is a strict, non-human attribute. Only God is perfect. If we require perfection as the goal of our transition, we will lose friends in the process because people will be people and end up failing us at some point. Because perfection is the person of God, not a goal, we can call upon him, the perfect one, to help us when we stumble. 

 (An excerpt from the book, A Good Place)

Spiritual Parenting

Spiritual fathers and mothers get angered by the same things that incense a young believer. What a spiritual parent has learned to do with the help of God is to temper their initial angry response. This is done to offer their spiritual offspring the time needed to process their decision, not having the added weight of stumbling over a parent's undisciplined knee-jerk response. Spiritual maturity is a process for both parents and children. The mature love of a spiritual parent is longsuffering and able to endure the most foolish of responses patiently waiting for their children to come back to their senses and make the right choice

Today in Portland, Oregon

Today, two extremes of the ideological/political spectrum will confront each other in demonstrations in the streets of Portland, Oregon. Hopefully, the event will be peaceful. Many hold no hope for that outcome. As these two groups gather and confront each other, in the clash you will see the failure of each spectrum, especially if it takes a violent turn as these events have done in the past. 

I have friends who will be gathering to pray and worship in the midst of, and in the face of these protests. Not only is this a brave and daring thing to do, but it will also become a visible demonstration of another spectrum – the Heaven to Earth spectrum. This is what Jesus introduced to His disciples when He taught them to pray on Earth as it is in Heaven. It is a calling to stand in the cultural seams of discontent and reveal the heart of God.

In the United States, we are free to express our opinion peacefully in the public square. If Heaven does not take precedence in our thinking, in times of social intransigence, we will be left with frustrating and futile options like those that will be on display today in the streets of Portland, Oregon. As followers of Jesus Christ, we have been called by God to bring from Heaven to Earth the solutions and options not seen on either side of our heated social debate. Before you engage socially, ask God to reveal His plans and directives. These are the ones that are not always seen on our TV and computer screens by a news media who live by the motto “If it bleeds, it leads.” 

Today, the path of two distinctly different bloodlines will be revealed. One bloodline will follow a trail of blood left behind by misdirected and angry people who have no ability to change the culture for the better. The other bloodline will reveal a path of blood left behind by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ as humankind's only hope. You will see that bloodline being demonstrated today in prayer and worship by those who get their marching orders from above, not from the spectrum of human opinion. What cannot be seen today by the natural eye are the angelic hosts that will descend upon the streets of Portland, Oregon in answer to those prayers and worship.

Our Response

There are times when I scroll through Facebook posts that I see someone depicted in a less than noble booking photo or view the image of a person who has committed a horrible act. Lately, I find myself reaching out to my computer screen and touching their image. When I touch them, I pray for God to reveal His love in their brokenness. The other options are to become one of the condemning, and demeaning comments logged in the comment section or dismiss the person with an "I'm sure glad I am not like that person" thought. If we are to represent the Lord in the arena of culture, our response to human brokenness must be radically different than an unredeemed culture or the Pharisaical expressions of God-less religion.

What's Happening?

In the last month, I have been speaking to people who work in high-impact Kingdom positions. Change is coming in many of these assignments. I have noticed several consistent themes in some of these transitions.

1.  A sense of unease that worried some of the individuals who are entering a time of transition was not a warning from God about something wrong with them emotionally or spiritually. It was actually the Spirit wanting to gain their attention to show them something new so that in the future they would be ready to let go and move forward.

2.  Some who are being transitioned will not change location. They will change hats. New assignments, not new geography, is taking place. The Lord is trying to heal organizations and churches that always thought a change in leadership would require a change in geography to protect the transition.

3.  What was at first thought to be a negative option as a future assignment is being reconsidered. Now, under the influence and revelation of the Spirit, that original option has been transformed into the desire of the person’s heart. God is assigning passion to what was first rejected and dismissed. That passion will allow them to fully embrace the coming change with joy and expectancy. 

4.  Those in charge of these transitions will be given a greater grace and favor to make challenging decisions about personnel placement. God will touch the anointing of these individuals in such a way that unpopular decisions will become widely accepted as a wise choice.

These four points do not only apply to people in leadership roles. There will be a trickle-down effect that will touch a wide variety of people at each level of an association or organization. 

Review these four points and ask the Lord how they might apply to you, especially if you have been sensing a change coming in your current assignment. In all of this, God’s got your back…and your front and your side. You are filled and encircled by His presence. You are not uncovered and adrift. God will bring all of this together for an expression of His goodness to those who are watching your transition. Your job is to trust God and allow Him to reveal the outcome.

Moving with the Wind of the Spirit

When I read the book of Acts, I discover a group of people who did not slavishly follow a plan or remain in a single direction without frequent course corrections. I read about people who followed the Spirit at all costs. They arose each day and allowed the Spirit to set the course for their lives.

Back in my 20s, I used to crew on a sailboat in the San Francisco Bay. The boat was a flat deck Cal 25 owned by a friend of mine. The boat was equipped with a spinnaker rigging. A spinnaker is a large billowy sail that hangs off the front of a sailboat to catch as much wind as possible. It is a sail hoisted when a vessel runs before the wind. In other words, when you are sailing downwind. It increases the speed of the sailboat. What I always liked about running before the wind was the sense of calm that came with that rigging. The crew could talk in a normal voice and not have to yell like it was when sailing into the wind. Sailing with the wind was different. It was quiet, fast, and powerful. 

Perhaps one of the most important things each of us should do each day is to ask ourselves, “What direction is the wind of the Spirit blowing today?” To the planners and those trapped in slavish human logic following the wind of the Spirit can be considered a form of intellectual compromise or flippancy. The planners want us to stick to the plan at all costs. The logical ones have no place in their thinking for anything as whimsical as following a wind. Throughout the history of the Church, the decision to follow the wind of the Spirit has faithfully led believers to supernatural outcomes not possible when plans and logic demanded an unchallenged allegiance to their direction.

Which way is the wind of the Spirit blowing in your life today? Turn the course of your life to align with the Spirit's flow and set your spiritual spinnaker to catch the wind. Your choice will accelerate your effort, and you will enter a beautiful place of calm that only comes when the wind of the Spirit is leading the way.

God is Re-writing the Map of Our Nation

I was in a historic bank building in Jacksonville, Oregon conducting some personal business. The building has housed a bank since the mid-1800s. The interior of the bank looks a lot like it did 160 years ago. It has been preserved as a historic landmark. The room contains artifacts from that era. On the wall is a map of Oregon circa 1850. I walked over and stood in front of the map. Something immediately stood out to me. Most of the cities we know today are not on the map. Even Medford, Oregon, the largest community in southern Oregon did not yet exist. The Portland area was vacant of many of the cities we know today.

Yesterday, the image of the map came to mind. When it did, the Lord began to speak to me. He said, “I am about to put certain cities on the map. Cities that have lived out of the national spotlight will be highlighted by a work of My Spirit. That highlighting will illuminate something I will do in their midst that will come unexpectedly to those who have not been sensitive to My Spirit. To the watchmen, men and women in tune with My heart, this will not be a surprise. It will be an answer to years of faithful prayer. I am rewriting the map of your nation.”

When I first stood in front of the old map in the bank, my assumption of what should be on the map is what caught my attention. I approached the map expecting to see familiar cities noted, but their place in history had not yet begun. I am sensing the same thing today in the realm of the Spirit. While many of you are looking to Washington, D.C., or a major urban center as the next place of national significance, God has other plans. He is calling forth cities without national significance to become ground zero for the transformation of our nation. The national map is changing.

Free-Falling Into God's Peace

A couple of months ago, I took one of those at home tests called Cologuard that people use in place of a colonoscopy. I had a colonoscopy 17 years ago and got a clean bill of health at that time, so I thought instead of going through the process of a colonoscopy, I would do the easy thing.

When the results of the Cologuard test came back, it was positive. I wasn’t expecting that result. I was shocked. At that moment, a whole host of fears lined up telling me horrible tales about my future, my eventual death and Jan having to live her remaining years alone. I took the test results seriously because I have good friends and relatives who have battled the c-word. Some are in the middle of that battle as I write. 

From past experience, I knew I needed to do something before I told Jan what happened. I invited Jesus into the scary Cologuard positive test result and asked Him to show me how to respond. What happened next was amazing. The Lord said, “Stand on the ledge of your fear. Now step off. Step off into My peace.”

I could actually feel the trembling fear under my feet. It was a shaky and weak sensation. In the next moment, I made the choice to step off the ledge trusting in the word the Lord had spoken. After I took the step, I began to literally free-fall into what I can best describe as a syrupy slow-motion sensation where the atmosphere was thicker than usual. I was free-falling into the peace of God. There were no bumps or borders. It was an infinite sensation of peace without depth or ending. I was falling into God.

After several moments of that beautiful experience, I found Jan and told her about the Cologuard positive result. We prayed. We also worshipped. We were not worshipping from a place of fear, but of peace. Stepping off the ledge held something dark back from our thinking of how we would process the next few weeks until a colonoscopy provided an accurate reading on what was happening inside my body. I continued to free-fall for the next month until my colonoscopy took place. The free-fall continued after the procedure for the next week while I waited for the lab results.

A few days ago, the gastroenterologist sent me a letter regarding the lab test results for the small polyp he removed during the procedure. The report stated, “benign polyp - no cancer potential.” He recommended that I have another colonoscopy in ten years, which is a normal cycle for these kinds of procedures.

When I read the doctor’s report, and before sharing the good news with Jan, I got down on my knees and thanked the Lord. I spent a few moments in worship. I got up from my knees and walked into our living and shared the results with Jan. We worshipped together and thanked God for His goodness.

Life will present each of us with a ledge of fear somewhere along the way. Fear is no place for any of us to stand because lies and hopelessness speak loudly in that place. Stepping off the ledge of fear into the peace of God is our only spiritually healthy option. The peace of God that surrounds us at that moment of free-falling is able to guard our hearts no matter what life brings our way. 

Letting Go

Letting go will be harder than you think. Start letting go today, no matter how far in the future your transition may be. 

In our grasping at life, we are trying to find a sense of security. Our grasping says: “As long as I can hold onto this present situation or relationship, I will be secure.” This kind of security is an illusion. Nothing in this life is secure. The only secure things are what we place in the hands of God. 

Letting go is not just a physical act—it is an emotional and spiritual one. This release must begin long before the date of your transition is a reality. Walk through all the phases of your coming transition with an open hand, grasping at nothing. 

In our first major life transition, my wife, Jan, and I made plans to sell our dream home. Jan loved our home. During this time of transition, she would walk by the special kitchen sink and custom fireplace and release these items. She did this with our personal possessions and with our close friends we would soon leave. She did this for two years. In the end, when it came time to sell our home, Jan was free to move forward and not look back in regret. She never felt a sense of loss. 

Try to disassemble this transition into its various parts and let go of one part at a time until there is nothing left for you to grasp. You want to approach the day of your transition empty-handed. 

What part of your plan can you begin to let go of today? 

(An excerpt from the book, A Good Place.) 

The Perilous Journey of a Prophetic Word

When we speak in the name of God our words are supposed to originate in our spirit, pass through our soul and then be delivered by a spoken word, a creative work of art, a prophetic act or some other physical manifestation. The problem is when the word passes through our soul. The soul is where our emotions and personality live. It's where an undisciplined emotion or a fractured part of our personality is waiting to hijack the intent of what God wants us to speak. In this place, we can wrap a word with our bias, unforgiveness, or an unresolved wound prior to delivery. At that point, the word is no longer the truth spoken in love.

In our soul is where an immature emotional response lies in wait. It’s where our anger looks for something to shout out before thinking. This is the part of our lives that carries unresolved childhood wounds into adulthood. When these issues are left free to roam in our soul without Spirit-directed control the message they form no longer represents God’s original intent, yet they are still transmitted as a “thus saith the Lord.”

This can happen to anyone whether a person is young in the gift of prophecy or mature.  Just this morning, I started to write something, but it had too much of my emotion on a particular subject entwined in the text so I deleted the content before publishing the word. 

For those of you who know you are called to speak for God prophetically, be careful in this agitated spiritual atmosphere. Our souls are very vulnerable parts of our being. In our soul,  God has placed a filter called discernment. It must be used each time we speak as representatives of God.  If that discerning filter is not cleaned from time-to-time, even the most powerful and poignant words of prophecy will be polluted in our soul and miss the mark in their delivery. 

“God, I invite your searching gaze into my heart. Examine me through and through; find out everything that may be hidden within me. Put me to the test and sift through all my anxious cares" (Psalm 139:24 TPT). 

A New Day - A New Image

Today, a large maple tree will be removed from our property. The tree finally died after several years of progressive disease, so we hired an arborist to come and cut it down. The tree fills the view from the window just outside where my writing chair sits. It has been there for the last 17 years. About midday today, the image outside my window will radically change forever. 

At the start of each day, I stand by the window, look out, and pray into the dark predawn hours. This morning, as it has been each day before, I saw the image of the tree silhouetted against the faint light coming from the town in the valley below. In the darkness, one would almost think a living tree was standing there until the light of dawn revealed the image of its death.

The image of the dead tree could be a metaphor of sorts for what is taking place in your life. Something has filled your view of life for many years. It was once alive, vibrant and beautiful, but over time became diseased and died. It could be a relationship, a job or way of seeing the world around you. The time has come to remove the dead image. God has something new He wants to show you.

The removal of what has died will change how you see a significant part of your life. You have been looking at the progressive death of something that once was alive just like the tree outside my window. And like me, you are finally ready for your dead tree to be gone. You no longer want to look outside your window and see death.

I am looking forward to a change of scenery when I look out my window. In the future, I will see an image of a clear blue sky where pealing bark, dripping black sap, and dry, crispy leaves once stood.

The anticipation of something new came to visit my thinking this morning. Tomorrow morning, when I rise and stand in front of the window to pray, I will see new stars in the night sky not visible before the tree was removed and later in the day when the sun rises, I will see an expanse of clear blue sky. 

Engaging Our Spiritual Transmission

If a car is put in neutral, it will eventually come to a stop. The engine can be revved, and the car can be a premium grade having all the added options, but without the transmission being in gear, it will go nowhere. The vehicle will eventually lose its ability to make forward progress because of its neutrality.

In a culture filled with so many impassioned and angry voices, in our frustration, it is too easy to seek a voiceless place of neutrality thinking that is a spiritual place to live. Some followers of Jesus who want to appear informed and balanced must be careful they do not put the transmission of their faith into a form of intellectual and spiritual neutral. This can cause the impact of their lives to gradually slow and become stationary without having any real Kingdom influence on the surrounding culture and within the Church.

The only gear that will give you the right kind of engagement is the heart of God. Some good people have come to a standstill because they have wanted to distance themselves from all the trash-talk. In the long run, that choice doesn’t work because it leaves the cultural conversation without the sound of God's heart.

If you find yourself wanting to walk away from all the drama, consider withdrawing to a place of solitude with God for a season. Read the Psalms. Meditate on God’s goodness. Detoxify your soul. Fast. Do whatever you need to do to discover what your voice sounds like when you choose to speak the truth of God's heart in love. 

Seek the heart of God, and once you encounter His heart, you will be able to engage your spiritual gears once again and find your way forward along the noisy and congested cultural highway. Stay engaged and in gear with the heart of God. It is the only gear that will give you the traction needed to move forward and make a difference.

God's Plural Plans for Our Lives

When a life plan falls apart it and a feeling of discouragement arrives, it is too easy to believe a lie that says God has only one plan for our life. In those painful experiences, we can give up because we don't see a new way forward, thinking we serve a one-shot God. God has more than one plan for each life and He can make each one of them work no matter what kind of derailment has taken place.

During a lunch conversation with my daughter, Anna, she mentioned the plural usage of the word “plans” in Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” I looked up the verse just to read it again with fresh eyes and contemplate what the Lord was saying. As I read the verse, I realized the beauty of God’s creative ability when it comes to the failed plans in our lives. He is the infinite God of all things, including the revelation of a new way forward when we think our failed plan was the end of our road.

If a plan for your life did not work out, come to God in prayer and worship and ask Him to reveal another plan. These other plans are not second rate or lesser in value or quality than the original plan. God’s plans are all created in love and filled with excellence. He is waiting to hear from people whose plan was painfully dismantled. 

The Lord wants us to believe He has more goodness in store for our lives beyond the pain of what fell apart. God's goodness is always ready to reveal a new way forward with a new plan that will lead us into a future filled with hope.

When Life Wears Well

Yesterday, I had to take off my wedding band. My ring had left a deep indentation in the flesh of my ring finger from continually wearing it for the last 46 years. I noticed there was no remaining design on the ring. The last hint of the original design was long gone. When we bought our rings those many years ago, a serrated design graced the ring. Today, after decades of wear, the ring is now only a smooth gold circle.

I don’t like it when I have had to take off my ring for some occasions, like a medical procedure that does not allow jewelry to be worn or when I have to wash a lot of grease from my hands. It never feels right. 

I have noticed the appearance of the ring has changed, but its original substance has remained. It had worn over time creating a different image from what it looked like when Jan and I visited a jewelry store in a mall in San Jose, California in the summer of 1973 as a young couple in love and recently engaged.

The ring makes me think of life and relationships. Everything will change over time if it is healthy. Nothing remains the same. Our marriage has changed over the years, just like our rings. Through our failures and successes, God has polished our relationships under His loving touch.  The initial impressions of marriage we had have worn off in the process of maturing in our love. 

Some people try to keep things the same, and in that futile attempt do not become the person or the relationship God intended them to become. I like the worn look and feel of my ring. It reminds me of a faithful and forgiving God. I love the beautifully familiar nature of my relationship with Jan. It is a reflection of oneness we share that makes me feel strange when we are apart. 

Every healthy relationship will wear and change over time. To not appreciate and welcome the beauty of change will rob us of a sense of gratitude. That gratitude will make us want to put a ring back on our finger or wait at a door for the return of someone we love because we are not complete without them.  Embrace the beauty of change. The gratitude you experience in that embrace will help the relationships God has given you to wear well over time.

Prophetic Placement

The most significant prophetic words are not always spoken from behind a podium in a church service, or by a speaker at a conference. The most significant prophetic words are many times spoken in closed doors gatherings with world-changers whose target is the transformation of a culture or in a private office meeting with a political figure who governs a nation. Sometimes these words are delivered in what the world would describe as a "chance" meeting on the street. The significance of the word is not defined by the venue of its delivery.

The people who carry and deliver this level of prophetic ministry know they were positioned for the delivery of the word solely by the hand of God. It is too easy to spend our lives making a way for our gift instead of allowing God to make the way. That desire can limit the scope of our gift and our ability to be used by God in a more significant and powerful way.

A Declaration

When you don’t know the next step, declare the heart of God into the unknown. Declarations of God’s heart will make a way when no way forward is visible. 

Declarations uttered in faith are like spiritual bulldozers; they have the power to push aside walls of unbelief. These declarations call into being those things not yet visible to the natural eye. 

God has made a way for you. Let your words express the joy that awaits you. Sing songs of deliverance before you are delivered. Worship before you have a reason to worship. Trust before your circumstances tell you trust is possible. 

You are traveling on a new and unexplored course. You will not arrive at your final destination through human power or intellect. Your arrival at God’s preferred future will come because at some point you stood where no trail was visible and called forth a pathway by declaring the heart of God. 

 (An excerpt from the book, A Good Place.)

A Trustworthy Chain of Events

There are only two things in this life we can stand upon and be secure. Those two things are the love of God and Scripture. Nothing else can provide us with the secure footing required to navigate through the challenging seasons of life. 

Scripture tells us that the perfect love of God casts out our fear. This casting out is not something we do alone as an exercise of our faith while God watches from a distance as we struggle in our pain. When a dark season arrives, we are invited to follow God’s lead in confronting our fear. 

We have a part to play in the expulsion of fear. We are called to partner with God in faith facing the things in our life that cause our concern, but it is His love that does the casting out. Our faith links us to His power and authority over fear. We can shout at the fear as loud as we want, but it is the power and authority of Jesus Christ that makes fear tremble and depart, not our zealous shout of faith. Once we are aware that God’s love is at work in our lives and hell’s lies are being dislodged, a peace comes that Scripture tells us is beyond our ability to comprehend.

If we are not aware of God’s love, and if we are not consuming His word as part of our regular spiritual diet, we will suffer the consequence of feeling adrift, alone and without stability when life throws a challenge our way. Our realization of the love of God brings us peace because we know He will never leave us or forsake us in the depths of our worst trials. Scripture gives us something stable to stand upon when life becomes shaky, and nothing is making sense. 

This is a chain of events. Once we know God loves us, and we allow His word to affirm that reality, a crazy, unexplainable peace begins to enter our mind. That peace has a traveling companion called hope. Hope arrives with a mission to carry us through our personal valleys that are shadowed by death and despair to deliver us to outcomes we never thought possible when the challenge first appeared. This all works together as a heavenly chain of events – our trust in God’s love and His Word, and the arrival of hope. 

Thought Police

Some mainstream social media platforms and search engines are demonstrating a level of control and censorship not imagined just a few years ago. Consideration of an opposing opinion is being denied and in some extreme cases defined as domestic terrorism. 

As frustrating as this can be, God is not muzzled. His prophets are taking note. Get ready to hear new levels of Spirit-inspired revelation that will reveal the wisdom of Heaven. This revelation will dismantle hell's attempt to control the culture.  Rome tried to censor the first believers in an attempt to maintain control. That attempt proved ineffective and futile. Truth expressed in love can never be silenced.

These forms of cultural censorship must be evaluated spiritually. If not, our frustration level will increase to such a degree that we could begin to mistakingly think God's agenda could be thwarted by human restraint. God is about to shout the sound of freedom upon the Earth. It will be a sound that no attempt at human censorship will be able to withstand. 

Discovering Your New Assignment

Jan and I are processing the next season of our lives. This is not about the next few months or even a year or two. We are processing decades. Amid this spiritual exercise, the Lord spoke, “You will find a new assignment within your current assignment.” What I understood the Lord to be saying to us was that we would not be changing geography or relationships, but we would discover adjustments in our current assignment that would uncover and reveal something new.

As you seek the Lord for the details of your future, do not limit yourself to seeking something new in another place or relationship. God is taking many of us into the unexplored areas of our current assignment to discover something new. He is giving us the ability to see what we did not see the first time around.

Some of you will be surprised at the freedom and the depths of refreshment that will come to your life once this new assignment is realized. That freedom and refreshment will come not because you took on something new. It will come because you discovered something that had remained unseen in an unexplored area of your current assignment.