Stirring up Trouble

I have some continued thoughts on what I posted in Maturity Leading to Corporate Unity. When God delivers us out of bondage to the enemy, whether it be the initial salvation experience or through an area of ongoing, personal growth, we rejoice: God has removed us from our troubles and taken out of the situation that caused us distress. God has a bigger plan though that neither our spiritual enemy nor the natural mind of man anticipates.

In Judges 14, God began to move in the background of Samson’s life. His actions did not make sense to his parents, and the Bible says, “But his father and mother did not know that it was of the Lord—that He was seeking an occasion to move against the Philistines. For at that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel”. Different translations replace “to move” with “to confront” or “for assailing” the enemy. God is still looking for an occasion to attack the enemy.

God delivers us from trouble, but he is at work in us and through us to stir up trouble. He desires to raise up a people who will assail the enemy. It is my prayer that God will use his people to give our spiritual enemy an enema. God will cause the enemy to poop his pants when he sees us coming. The enemy has the capacity to create misery through his dominion over the people of God, therefore, God is continually seeking an occasion to confront the enemy.

Get ready for battle against an enemy that cannot be seen with your natural eyes and who hides behind naïve people who do not understand that they are being manipulated! The Bible says that the whole world lies under the power of the wicked one. It also says that he who is in us, we who are in Christ, is greater than he who is in the world. Jesus is our refuge, and he is also the head of Heaven’s armies. We have the supply line of Heaven’s resources, the reinforcements of the angelic, the supernatural gifts and fruit of the Holy Spirit, and love of the Father to steady us.

Your spiritual enemy hates you and seeks to maintain his rule over the people of God. God wants to lead you into trouble, but this time, he desires to terrify the enemy through your life. Are you ready and willing for God to use you to stir up trouble?

Epic Lives

Some of the classic movies are epic films. When I search online for a definition for “epic film”, I find a range of possible meanings, but it can carry the concept of “journeys of heroes upon which the fate of a large number of people depend”. When I think of epic films, movies that come to mind are Gone with the Wind, Titanic, and Stranger than Fiction. In the case of some characters, the fate of only one person hinged on the hero’s or heroine’s life, and yet, this reflected even greater worth on the life being enriched.

If we were to see the sequence of our days from God’s eyes, it would appear much differently than how it looks in the morning mirror or in the eyes of those we rub shoulders with. We are each actors in a grand production. It is both scripted and ad hoc in its development. We are not victims, but we are all potential heroes. I once saw a prophetic picture of someone’s life. She walked across a piano. Each footstep pressed a set of keys. Taken by themselves, some of sounds produced were really dismal. From God’s perceptive though, the end result will be an amazing song when played from start to finish.

Your life is amazing. It might not seem that way to you though. In fact, it probably has regrets, pain, boredom, and even some anxiety of about lies ahead of you. Ask God to show you the events of your life through his eyes. He deeply loves you. He has felt every cringe of pain and every thrill of joy that you have ever experienced. He treasures you. He can take what seems like a sad, meaningless life and turn it into an epic story. Trust in him to. Expect him to. Let him…

The Faithfulness of God

I dreamed last night of God’s faithfulness. In the dream, I was given an explanation of what his faithfulness looks like: He covers us fully in our life and in our being. He is the fully sufficient God. In certain areas though that will differ over the course of our lives, he will choose to not reveal himself in that area. It is with the intent that we would trust him by faith and not by sight. It is always temporary because he intends to reveal himself to us in that area too.

Here is a practical application of this principle: Identify the area of your life in which it seems as though God has not covered you and in which he has not revealed himself. Then, look over the rest of your life and identify where he has provided for you and revealed his nature. See that he has encircled the exposed area with his faithfulness. He is holding that area tightly. You cannot comprehend what he is doing there at the moment, but he has surrounded that area with his favor and his kindness. Trust him to increase your faith in his nature.

Spoiled Things

One morning this week, I woke up thinking about the people that I need to continue forgiving. I have always had perfectionist standards for myself and for other people. It has led me to be disappointed and angry with myself, God, and many people whom I have walked with in my life. Forgiveness has been a struggle because to forgive meant accepting that things had not worked as I had hoped.

When I got out of bed, I found that our refrigerator door had opened up during the night. The fridge had been full of large dishes, and it could not quite contain its contents. I had to toss some food because it was above a safe temperature. It felt like a lesson from the Lord about forgiveness. God desires to use our daily lives to enable us for heavenly living. He has given us all things needed for life and godliness through the full and intimate knowledge of Jesus Christ.

This particular lesson allowed me to see forgiveness in a new light. In order to forgive, it is necessary to accept an important truth: Life events and relationship that we expected to nourish us and to delight us went bad. They simply spoiled. When I threw out food from the fridge, it was tempting to believe that the food might actually be OK and to keep it for consumption. To do so might have made me and my family sick. When we are unable to forgive, we are holding on to spoiled things because we are determined to keep living off those things. It is a refusal to accept that something went bad and that it is time to just let it go.

Once I disposed of the items that were questionable, it allowed me to move on and to focus on what was still good and what needed to be restocked. Forgiveness allows us to do the same thing. It does not make those things OK, but it allows us to move past what happened. Unforgiveness will make us emotionally sick because we are consuming things that have gone bad. It does not mean that we instantly forget what happened. It does mean that we can begin to replace our memories of what went bad with new things that nourish our hearts.

Deepest Desires

Last night, I dreamed of a church gathering. The theme given by the Holy Spirit was for people to write down the deepest desires of their heart. There was a group on stage who was praying with people about what they had written down. Someone asked if the desires could include things that we wanted God to change in our lives. The answer provided was to write down our heart desires in a honest fashion, just to tell God what was on our hearts. Initially, the leader intended to share each person's desires with the group as a whole. Due to possible discomfort within the group, they changed their mind and said that we would come back in the summer to share what we had written down.

The time was short and not everyone made it on stage, but I understood that I could continue the process after the service. As I contemplated the deepest desires of my heart and worked to put them on paper, a woman in the group stood up. She shared that God had spoke a word to her spirit when she had been at the airport. Then she began to sing a song to the Lord. As she sang, there was a clear sense that God was calling us to move from a focus on our desires to a focus of praising him. Everyone stood and joined the woman in the song of praise to God.

Afterwards, a man came to me to let me know of someone who had recently spent time in a mental institution. Apparently, I had spoken a word over them that they were at risk for paranoia and they had not followed through with a response that would have prevented such an incident.

I believe that God is probing our hearts and wants us to be honest with him about what we deeply desire. As we place our desires before him, he will turn our hearts to praise him. He is worthy of our focus. It does not mean that our desires are not important, but it does mean that we must worship Father in spirit and in truth. In this time, the alternative is a deep fear that "dreams" of all the ways that we could be not taken care of, not protected, and not provided for. It is time for us to dream of the hopeful future that God has placed within our hearts and to praise him for what he has done our behalf and for who he is.

Like the woman in the airport, we are waiting on God to propel us further than we could ever go in our strength. As our hearts are open before him and as we praise him, we will find that he fulfils godly heart desires in the proper season.

Performance Tracking?

I am still thinking about a dream that I had earlier this week. I dreamed of a roller coaster. On it, drove a small car that raced up and down its tracks. It seemed as though it must be breaking speed records, but then I wondered, “How would I know if it is actually going as fast as I think it is?”. The answer came in the form of a small jet plane. It cruised right along with the car. No matter how fast the car went or which turns it took, the plane stayed faithfully with it. The nose of the plane stayed within inches of the car as it zoomed along. It appeared to be the perfect answer to the question of performance tracking. As the dreamed ended, one important piece of information was revealed: The plane was named "Shame”.

Performance is very much like a roller coaster. I have days where I am looking over the landscape of my life and other days where I cannot see beyond the dirt under my chin. It is the natural flow of my life. I cannot maintain a high level of performance, but thankfully, I never stay in the valley indefinitely.

I am learning that the need to measure my performance is based out of my humanity and my desire to save myself. Any time that I think that I might be performing well, it seems helpful to ask myself, “Do I feel acceptable now?”. I suspect shame and perfectionism are closely connected because the answer will always be, “No, not acceptable yet. You need to perform at a higher level, but you can proud of how you much you are doing to perfect yourself!”. It leads to comparing myself with others who seem to perform at a much higher level which in turn leads to envy, self-loathing, and finally, a more intensive effort to perform. Yikes, that was exhausting just to write about!

I am in the middle of walking this out. I believe that Jesus will not abandon me. I know that God will bring me to a place where I do not equate intense labor with acceptability. Recently, I dreamed of being in the workplace. It was a familiar setting, but I was different inside. As I quietly worked, I noted that straining in my work was no longer a requirement to feel that my contribution was effective. There is a time coming for me when I will be able to enjoy life and to enjoy relationship without being self-centered in my perspective. I am continually praying for the grace of God to keep moving in that direction.

Yielding

I have always, always struggled in my relationship with God. That is not to say that I have struggled to live a moral life, but I have struggled to relate to God properly. I can understand the older brother’s perspective in Jesus’ parable about the prodigal son. During my teen years, I received a couple of prophetic words that instructed me to stop striving, to stop laboring. It never made sense to me. What does “not striving” look like, practically speaking?

Over the years, I have learned to rest a little more in God, but it is still a largely unresolved area for me. Last week, God gave me a picture of what he is looking for. I was asking him how to better align with him or something to that affect. Immediately, I saw a mental picture of a railroad.

This is what it meant to me: I get to wait on God in the same way that I would wait on a train. He is stronger than me, and he wants to carry the loads of my life. He has promised me things, and like the rail cars that seem to stretch out into the distant horizon, what he has promised will move forward and come to past in his timing.

Seasonal Visions

There was a season in which my family met with a small Sunday morning church group. We utilized a projector for our worship service. Eventually, the church shrunk and dispersed. We inherited the projector to use for both soaking worship and entertainment. The projector bulb burned out after many hours of use. Last night, I dreamed about the projector.

In my dream, someone came looking for the projector. They wanted to use it again for church services. I explained that the bulb had died. When I searched for the unit itself, it was found to have been recalled and removed from our reach.

“Moses My servant is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them—the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you, as I said to Moses...” – Joshua 1:2-3

The gifts and callings of God are without recall, but God releases and later recalls seasonal visions. Visions provide the strategy for parts of the journey, and as such, they are transient. My dream reminded me of visions that have served their purpose and then burned out. The vision of God did not fail, but rather, it fulfilled its intended purpose. When a vision has reached its end of life, we are left waiting for the next step to take. It can be tempting to put the old vision back into service, but we cannot go back. Each vision is a foundation for the upcoming vision.

My desire is to trust God to impart the vision for this next season. My heart wants to go back and find comfort in what used to work, but that vision is dead now. It is time to arise and cross into a new land. The promises of God are ahead of me, and he will be faithful to continue what he has begun in my life.

God is the Strength of My Heart

At the end of high school, I participated in a 10 week bible training course. I received hours of teaching, but I remember little of what was taught. I am confident that each of the teachers had great truths to impart. It was the very best of what the institutional church had to offer me. The problem is that most of what is taught in the Church and to the Church springs from human wisdom. The truths that are most distinct in my memory are from those times in which the Holy Spirit spoke to me directly.

"My flesh and my heart fail; But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever" - Psalms 73:26 (NKJV)

There was a particular day during those 10 weeks in which I was feeling overwhelmed. In the years previous, I had received several prophetic words about the calling that God had placed on my life. I had been thinking about the long road ahead, and I felt quite discouraged. I was trying to figure out how I would find the necessary courage and motivation to carry me through. At the end of one of the teaching sessions, the minister prayed for each of us individually. As he laid hands on me, I fell under the power of the Holy Spirit. As I made my way to the floor, I began to hear a song playing in my heart. I had sung it many times before in that church, “God is the strength of my heart. God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever”. The Holy Spirit was reminding me that God would be my courage and my motivation.

It is my practice to remember, to mediate on, and to pray back to God the prophetic words that have been spoken over me. This is how I encourage myself in the Lord. I have many days where I find deep discouragement to be a temptation. Discouragement promises a false rest that comes from believing that God’s plans for my life are impossible and that I can give up on them. A couple of years ago, a friend spoke a prophetic word over me. She said that I looked at what God had called me to do and felt that it was impossible. The encouragement was that God calls me to do what I do not know how to do and that he would train me. Most importantly, my eyes had to remain on God instead of what he had called me to do.

I believe that God knows what he is doing. I am his work of art, and he values me! My greatest encouragement has been found in admitting that I cannot do what God wants me to do. I cannot perform at a high enough level to qualify for knowing him and experiencing him and being used by him. Thankfully, this whole life is about the goodness and kindness of God. The more that I am aware of my unworthiness, the more that I can rest in who God is for me. He is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Graduation in the Kingdom

Graduation in this world’s system is a big deal. High school students and collegians intensively prepare for and then celebrate their passage of graduation. It is the epitome of success. Cards are sent, gift certificates are given, and new opportunities await the graduate. Graduation in the Kingdom of God is a time of celebration too, but it can look like failure in its gloomiest form.

I woke up early this morning from a dream about graduation. In the dream, I remembered God telling me a week or so previous that I was about to graduate to the next level. I made a choice in the dream to honor God regardless of how it would appear to others. I chose not to fear people, but I did not realize the cost. By the end of the dream, it appeared that I would pay the price of being alone, misunderstood, and rejected for my choice. There would be no one to congratulate me, and I would have to walk through a time of the unknown.

There is a difference between the act of graduation and the ceremony of graduation. You can graduate without being honored for it. You can grow to the next level and not have an audience to cheer for you. The process of graduation for Jesus was being rejected by men and living as a man of sorrows. His final graduation found him exposed, brutalized, and dying a very painful death. What a dark hour!

“My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” – James 1:1-4 (NKJV)

Graduation in the Kingdom is often misunderstood. I have a couple of friends who are in the process of graduation. To many, it would appear that they are failures, but they are graduating! According to the dictionary, one of the early meanings of the word graduation was that of “refining of something to a certain degree”. The goal of the trials that God allows is that we would be perfected and completed. We are graduating into a place with God where we will trust him more, where we will love him with a more intentional devotion, and where we will fellowship with him in both his sufferings and his resurrection life.

During high school, my parents homeschooled me. We operated under a homeschool group that held quarterly meetings. In one particular meeting, they conducted a semi-formal graduation of students who had finished 12th grade. On this occasion, an 11th grader found out shortly before the meeting that she had enough credits to graduate earlier. It was a surprise graduation for her! There is an encouragement to be received: Do not give up. Your trials will not last forever. You will be refined, and you will graduate from your current place of adversity.

“Now to Him Who is able to keep you without stumbling or slipping or falling, and to present [you] unblemished (blameless and faultless) before the presence of His glory in triumphant joy and exultation [with unspeakable, ecstatic delight]—” - Jude 1:24 (AMP)

In spite of graduation celebration, there is the issue of disappointment. Perhaps, we expected to accomplish such and such before we thought of ourselves as graduates, but God is the one who decides when we are done with a trial. Maybe, we thought we would graduate with a particular group of people, but God is the Potter. He knows what he is trying to accomplish in us. We can trust him to be faithful to us in the trial, to bring us through to its end, and to perfect us according to his design.

Does not Envy

Love does not envy, yet I have always struggled with envy inwardly. The form of Christianity that I have lived out most of my life made it shameful to be incomplete or immature. To be holy was to hide my flaws by putting on a perfect performance. It was to present my righteous acts as though they were the whole of me. Of course, the Bible says that all of our righteous works are like filthy rags in God's sight.

"But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness." - Ephesians 4:20-24 (NKJV)

In our age of intellectualism, we have studied the Bible with a microscope until we have lost the heart of what was being communicated. Ephesians 4 instructs us to put off fleshly acts, to renew our mind, and to put on godliness. Paul follows this with a list of things that the reader needs to put off. It is too easy for us to extract verses and to depersonalize them. Paul was addressing stuff that was actually happening in the Ephesian church. The first three chapters of his letter deal with our identity in Christ. It is those truths that we must renew our minds with. Paul exposed the sin, and he did so in the light of our identity in Christ.

"Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things. And do you think this, O man, you who judge those practicing such things, and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God?" - Romans 2:1-3 (NKJV)

I am slowly learning that God is not ashamed of my weaknesses and flaws. It is the introduction to intimacy when I come into the light of his truth. His light exposes both the flaws and reveals his love for me. As painful as it is to admit my sins and shortcomings, it frees me from a greater bondage: self-righteousness. If I am honest about my struggles before God, it makes it harder for me to ascend a throne of judgement, a throne that positions me higher than my brother and my sister. Instead, I can sit with them in their struggles, not because I can fix them but because I can love them in their weakness.

"You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy, at Your right hand there are pleasures forevermore." - Psalm 16:11 (AMP)

Love does not envy, and though it is my struggle for today, God's process will lead me to a more complete intimacy with Jesus and with other believers. It is an ultimate revenge against sin when the very thing that caused me to hide from God in shame becomes the thing that leads to intimacy with God. By confronting a sense of inner lack, I begin to enter into the presence of the only One who can deeply satisfy me.

Clay Pots with a Choice

God is the process of forming us into the likeness of Jesus. It is a collaboration though. We can actually chose to work against what God wants to accomplish. When that happens, he decides on a different outcome for us and begins to shape our lives accordingly.

“Woe to him who strives with his Maker!

Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth!

Shall the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’

Or shall your handiwork say, ‘He has no hands’?

Woe to him who says to his father, ‘What are you begetting?’

Or to the woman, ‘What have you brought forth?’” - Isaiah 45:9-10

From my perspective as a clay pot, I do not understand what God is forming me into it. Many times, I have been angry and discouraged because I felt that my life was less than what I had hoped for. Yet, I am a clay pot in process. I cannot see the final product. Galatians 6 tells me that I will reap a good harvest but only if I do not lose heart. This process requires patience.

A few years, I dreamed of a small vegetable garden. I had been tending this garden of mine for a period of time. It was my custom to identify defects on the plants and to remove those defects. This particular time, I noticed that I had missed cutting away some defects on a plant. To my surprise, I saw that I now had fruit growing on that plant! All along, I had been cutting away immature fruit because I believed that it was a defect that I needed to rid myself of.

As I looked for Bible verses that speak about the relationship between the Potter and the clay, I was reminded of how crucial it is that we respond quickly to God. He works in us “to will and to do”. Oftentimes, he will work in us in a way that does not seem "spiritual", and he will lead us on a path that we would not have picked for ourselves. He can be trusted, but he will not demand that we trust him. God is amazing in the way that he has chosen us to be his workmanship and yet given us the ability to effectively decline him and to cause him to take an alternate path. I want to be sensitive to his heart, so I can work humbly with the Potter.