Getting Free of Offense

I’m becoming convinced that one of the most dangerous things that stands against the growth of a Christian is the ability to take offense. As the Lord has been stripping things out of my life to make room for a stronger and more consistent experience of his Presence, one of the notable things that is being removed is the offense I’ve taken at people, political figures, and other Christians. 

I’ve become painfully aware of the ways in which I’ve taken offense and nursed judgments against people based on my ignorance. Worst of all, I’ve put my offense in the category of “righteous indignation” believing that God was somehow pleased by my courage in “holding the line”, resisting evil, speaking truth. Televangelists, politicians, conservatives, liberals, denominations I dislike or disagree with, cultural or religious groups: enemies. 

I’m aware today of how very self-deceived I’ve become, how ignorant I’ve been. I’ve been lured in by other people’s offense and spread my own offense on blogs and social media like the highly contagious disease it is. For all that, I now repent.

Yesterday, God told me to read a passage in staff meeting. Matthew 5:21… “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister, will be subject to judgment.”

At the time I didn’t apply it to myself, but one of my teammates said “that’s the passage we read in our bible study this morning. God must be speaking to you!” So we spent time in prayer inviting God to search our hearts and then went on with the meeting. Later that day I found myself in a prayer meeting with 2 pastors from a local church. They were there to pray over me and my teammate before we go to India next week. When these 2 pastors began to pray, this issue of offense began to rise up in my heart.

When I had moved to the south 6 years ago, I had formed strong judgments about that church based on a few experiences and a lot of assumptions. I even wrote an incendiary blog post about one of the experience I had at one of their events.

But in that prayer meeting Jesus walked into the room as these men prayed. The presence of God was so thick as they blessed us with prayers for safety, protection, and anointing on our trip. I realized then that these men, and their church had never done anything but bless me, even though in my heart I had been cursing them all this time. Yet I recognized in them kindred hearts; brothers on their own unique journey with Jesus who lives in me and also in them. I felt convictions rising in me and wrestled with the reality that I would have to talk to them about this. As I wrestled with wanting to confess and apologize to them for my offense but also not wanting to be vulnerable, I heard the Holy Spirit in my heart.

“Child, do you know what your heart is without offense?”

“No Lord. What?”

“Free.”

That settled it. Pulling them aside after prayer, I shared the story. I repented for my hard and bitter hard. I asked for their forgiveness as representatives of their community. With great tenderness and compassion they accepted my confession and one of the pastors put his hand on me to pray for me. As he did, I wept: something I rarely do in front of others. I walked away lighter, joyful, free from that barb of offense that had been lodged in my heart for years.

So I wonder… who has offended you? 

And what will you do about it now?

Demystifying Mystery

I’d like to say something about mystery which has long been a tension point in my heart and is just now beginning to get resolved. In the context of this “life in the Spirit” I’ve been enjoying, I can almost feel the veil lifting off my eyes and I can see what was clearly there the whole time. That’s why I’m writing this: because when I say these things you might shrug your shoulders and say “sure sounds biblical enough” but if you ask yourself if you really believe this in your heart you may feel a bit fuzzier… maybe because it doesn’t “ring true” with your experience. But I’d encourage you to search the scriptures on this. You may find as you do, your belief changes; and then over time, your experience.

I’d like to propose that many of us have misunderstood the tension of mystery and revelation in the bible. Many Christians feel it is an expression of humility to confess “how little I really know” when it comes to ultimate truth and reality. This matches with common wisdom: “The older I get, the more I know how little I know.” And why shouldn’t this be true of God? God is so great and we are so small, that our ability to really fathom His attributes and will must be small indeed! 

But I think this is a mistake. Taken to the extreme, you might think some Christians have embraced a strange agnosticism. We believe it is virtue to stand in the tension of unsearchable mystery and never aspire to levels of revelation which are considered unattainable. The tragedy is that in our devotional zeal, we apply this “embrace of tension and mystery” to our understanding of God’s love and His will in Christ. It makes its way into our songs and liturgies: “I’ll never know how much it cost to see my sin upon that cross.” May I suggest that our embracing such an attitude bears itself out in apathy more often than real devotion? What we understand defines what we do. And if we embrace a lack of understanding, our actions won’t be much different than folks who may not know Christ at all.

In the Old Testament, a reverential embrace of mystery was more appropriate. The will of God was mysterious to the Jews. Why? Because it had not yet been revealed in Christ. In some who walked by faith, the realities revealed in the new covenant were pointed to, but not fully understood. “They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance” (Heb 11:13).  So Solomon (who lived under tremendous revelation) would say things like, “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing; But the glory of kings is to search out a matter” (Pr 2:2). In other words, only people of certain wisdom and anointing could search out the deep things of God. But even in the old covenant, Moses understood that revelation was required for obedience. So, “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.”

I recently studied the occurrence of the word “mystery” in the New Testament. Here’s what I found: there is still mystery which we live under, even now. But, in the New Testament any mention of ongoing mysteries generally refer to things which have not yet occurred: primarily the “Day of the Lord”. Those things remain hidden for the time being. However, I would argue that every other passage pertaining to mystery in the New Testament (there are about 35) discusses it in the context of what has been revealed to everyone who is in Christ and who knows him through His Spirit who lives in us. God doesn’t want us to revel in the mystery of his unknowability. He wants us to know Him!

Exhibit A:

“With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment —to sum up all things in heaven and on earth under Christ” (Eph 1:9)

So there was a mystery surrounding his will in Christ. But this mystery has been revealed. To who? To us! To regular old believers. What is this great revealed will? The summing up of all things in Christ. Jesus wants all things, all wills subjected under his perfect will. “And when all things have been subjected to Him, then the Son Himself will be made subject to Him who put all things under Him, so that God may be all in all” (1 For 15:28). In this great truth we see a picture of the goodness and grace of God’s sovereign will that “even angels longed to look into” (1 Pet 1:12). What incredible revelation we have! What amazing truth is available to us! We don’t need to be brilliant to grasp these truths. Quite the opposite, we must approach them as little children! But to say they are unknowable (or only partially knowable) is like saying that the storyline of “Breaking Bad” is unknowable just because I haven’t taken the time to go binge watch all 6 seasons on Netflix.

I’m not saying this revelation has been equally grasped by every believer. I AM saying that true revelation is available to every believer and so much more of it that than most of us have dreamed possible! I’ve been rereading the bible in the last couple years and I’m blown away by one single fact: for the most part, it actually makes sense to me! 

One wonderful expression of God’s wonderful knowability is Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians: that they “may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Eph 3:18-19)

Why would Paul pray that the Ephesians might understand the full dimensions of Christ’s love if such knowledge was unattainable? Why not pray “that you may worship God for his love which is deeper than you can ever really grasp?” And what would happen if we DID grasp the full measure of His love? Well, Paul says, then we would be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God! I want that. I want the fullness of God, don’t you? Even though Paul freely confesses that this love “surpasses knowledge” he doesn’t say it can’t be grasped on a deeper level.

So how do we come by this Spirit of Revelation so that we might go deep in our understanding of God’s love, his attributes, his will, and his heart for us? It turns out, the answer is right under our noses. 

“These are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.”

Praise God! He has made himself understandable! He renews our minds and our whole lives follow suit! Can you taste it? Real transformation, real love, real understanding. It’s there, and God is eager for His people to lay hold of the revelation that is freely theirs in Christ! Woohoo!

I’m convinced that the great battle is not a battle for our circumstances, our emotions, or even our spirits, but rather a battle for our minds. What we think (read: believe) shapes everything. The good news is that when we start connecting with Jesus, our thinking changes. Sure does! And when our thinking changes, our experience of God soon follows suit. And on it goes.

I wish I could communicate what a joy it has been to bask in the truth of God’s zealous passion for self-disclosure, His absolute consuming desire to be truly known. It’s so good.

Here are a couple recommendations for you if the bible feels dull or confusing or if the Christian life feels unapproachable or overwhelming.

1. Consider that God is not grading you on your discipline, your sincerity, or your effort. He loves you. Period. And any desire on His part to draw you deeper into the life of Christ is purely a desire to give you a gift which will grow into enduring delight and rich fruit to be enjoyed by the whole world. He doesn’t want to “use” you. He wants live in you, to put heaven into your heart now, and to do wonderful things through you by giving you the very mind of Christ.

2. I’m enjoying a wonderful old book right now called “The Christian’s Secret to a Happy Life” by Hannah Whitall Smith. Her perspective is simple, refreshing, and colored by an obviously deep friendship with Jesus through the Holy Spirit. https://smile.amazon.com/Christians-Secret-Happy-Reflect-Classics/dp/1433649993/ref=sr_1_sc_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1535591551&sr=8-2-spell&keywords=secret+to+a+happay+life

3. Consider that the source of false belief and unbelief is often rooted in emotional (not rational) beliefs acquired through emotionally painful experiences. Such things are received experientially. Healing is also experiential: Through counseling, through community, through worship, through prayer, etc. I’m particularly fond of two programs/approaches. To uncover, understand, and address childhood pain (emphasis on grieving and forgiveness): http://restoringyourheart.com/ …And to address specific traumatic memories with the (extremely effective) help of the real presence of Jesus: https://www.immanuelapproach.com/

God bless you on the journey!

How to Get Ruined by Jesus' Love

Song of Solomon is one of those books I’ve never quite known what to do with. In my tattered and underlined old bible, the pages of this wisdom book are surprisingly clean. Though I knew on some level that Song of Solomon is an prophetic allegory for Christ’s relationship with the Church and with individual believers more specifically, it always makes me a bit queasy saying things like “let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth” in regards to my relationship with Jesus.

But recently I’ve started meditating on Song of Solomon line by line, placing myself in the character of beloved. I’m asking the Spirit of Christ to illuminate each phrase in regard to my relationship with Him. As I do, I’m finding two realities that move cross-current against evangelical sensibilities.

1. Jesus is far more in love with His people than we ever imagined. Listen to what he speaks over his bride

“You have stolen my heart, my sister my bride. How delightful is your love , my sister, my bride! How much more pleasing is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your perfume more than any spice!”

“How beautiful you are, my darling! Oh, how beautiful! Your eyes are doves.”

“You are altogether beautiful, my darling; there is no flaw in you.”

Though Jesus, allegorically cast in the character of Solomon rides majestically up from dessert surrounded by columns of smoke and 60 fierce warriors, when he reaches his beloved, he can barely keep his composure. Uncomfortable as it is for us confess, you and I make Jesus’s heart race and his knees quiver.

But we think that’s all too close, too intimate for Jesus to relate to us in that way. Jesus loves us, of course. But He is also mighty and exalted isn’t he? Sure He loves us a lot, but is it really appropriate to say that Jesus is our lover, ruined by his romantic affection for broken sinners like us? Like Peter, we don’t want to see Jesus coming down to our level to wash our feet, to wash us with his loving words. We distance ourselves from his affection in the name of protecting his dignity. But Jesus won’t have his bride any other way. So Jesus says to his friend, “except I wash you, you can have no part/share/inheritance in me.”

2. We are more beautiful than we ever imagined. All through the book, you see the bridegroom speaking his pleasure over his beloved, praising her beauty. And the bride struggles to embrace her identity. Yet the things she says of herself might be considered vain if they were not simply agreeing with the words of the lover: “Dark am I yet lovely,” she says in a half-hearted attempted to agree with what He says about her. Yet when she can begin to embrace her identity and beauty in the eyes of her lover (and many of the things he adores in her are actually things he himself gave her) she can say confidently, “Why should I be like a veiled woman beside the flocks of your friends?”

In other words, she knows she’s the Shephard’s beloved and that it is her right to connect with Him directly. She’s not a prostitute or concubine who can only connect with her lover in some distant or second-hand way like through a priest or lesser shepherd. “I am my beloved’s and He is mine.” She knows they belong together in direct and unninterupted union because she has begun to receive His words of affection for her.

In the church, we’ve become so strong in our teaching of original sin, that we’ve started to actually deny the heart of Jesus for us. We’ve developed “worm” theology that is more interested in how bad we are than how good God is! Of course God knows the darkness and pervasive nature of sin and death that works corrosively in all human beings. That’s why He sent his son to die and rise and ascend and deploy the Holy Spirit to indwell us! But God also sees the glory of His image reflected in us and it makes his heart long for us, broken as we are. 

And for those of us who are in Christ, he sees the flawless beauty of the gift of his grace at work in us as well. To be clear, it is all grace. But even when we struggle, he looks at us and sees us perfect in Him. God, standing sovereignly outside of time always sees our matured and perfected selves standing clothed in Christ before him. This may not be our present experienced reality. But it is God’s reality. 

So in this sense, there really can be “no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” because the sin that lived in our flesh was condemned and executed on the cross. What is left is a ravishing, resurrected bride who is seen as “altogether lovely”. Jesus didn’t die for a worm. He died for a priceless bride who has stolen his heart. Of course this is hard for us to believe. But when we do, we come into the inheritance of uninterrupted joyful union with Him and that makes all the difference.

The 180-degree turn of repentance doesn’t start with a change in lifestyle but a change in belief. Reading Song of Solomon is forcing me to repent of my unbelief in the love of Christ. Yes, I’ve been embracing the love of Christ in deeper and deeper ways the last few years, but this goes even deeper than I ever imagined. I’m hopeful that meditating on Solomon’s prophetic love song will draw me into “the King’s chambers” where I can be ruined by the pervasiveness and stability of his affection for me.

I hope we can change our minds about God’s love for us. I hope we can change our minds about who we are before him. As I look back on my life, I realize that the pivot points in my spiritual journey have been those small moments where I changed my mind about something and before long, started discovering the truthfulness of my new belief being validated in my experience.

A couple years ago, I decided that I no longer believe that God withdraws from people periodically  to “strengthen their faith”. The belief no longer fit with my reading of scripture or my understanding of my relationship with God. I decided to start believing that God is actually always present and available to connect with us in a way that we can understand and experience. I remember the moment I started embracing this new belief because for the first time in my life, I started experiencing what I was believing for: the limitless availability of God’s abiding presence in me, which has not subsided in the last two years. New belief, new reality.

I wonder… if we can repent of our old beliefs about ourselves and about Jesus… and if we can begin believing for the depth of Christ’s love painted in the Song of Solomon, what new reality might we be ushered into?

Let Him Author You

One phrase from the bible has meant a lot to me the last several months. It bounces around in my mind throughout the day and sometimes just reciting the words, savoring them in my heart connects me immediately to the presence of God. The phrase is this: “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith; who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the father” (Heb 12:2).

There are sermons upon sermons packed in that one phrase. But one thought struck me today. We have a bible full of stories: people whose lives which encourage, instruct, and warn us. We have teachings and doctrines we can discern from the pages of scripture. But at the end of the day, it is Jesus himself who is authoring the story of our faith. He is the writer of this epic, this journey we now are on with God. He’s also the Perfecter, the one responsible to develop the climax and bring the story to a good conclusion, to resolve the tension, to develop the characters, and to assign meaning to a narrative arch that often feels chaotic and meaningless.

As much as we may appreciate and learn from the writings of Moses, David, Job, Ezekiel, or Paul, it is Jesus who is writing us. And it is Jesus who makes sure the words of our life breathe like God-inspired literature.

And where is this crazy story leading us in the end? Love and suffering and finally the ultimate goal: sitting down with the Father, participating in the divine relational intimacy the flows through the Trinity. The goal is “that where I am you may also be” (John 14:3). The great joy of the Author is being with God. It’s not being spiritually enlightened, or saving souls, or fighting God’s battles, or starting a movement, or leaving a legacy. It’s stepping back into the place of perfect intimacy and connection with God.

So what’s your goal in life? Is it the same goal as the one who authored and is perfecting you? Is it friendship, intimacy, and connection with God? Is it resting in vital connection like a branch attaches to a vine? Or is it something else? Is your deepest motivating joy to simply be with the Lord? Or is being with him some means to a different end?

I encourage you to let the author write his story on the notepad of your life. As you do, consider that the best conclusion to your story will be like the conclusion of his own: death and resurrection yes. But even beyond that, intimate connection and union with God.

Secure Connection and the Witch of Endor

Today I’m in 1 Samuel 28, which provides an eerie but insightful peek into another spiritual ecosystem: that of witchcraft. In this scene, King Saul consults a spiritist in a desperate attempt to gain direction and insight on the eve of a terrifying battle against the Philistines. In this passage we see the irony of Saul who had in his zeal for the spiritual purity of his people expelled spiritists from Israel now seeking the guidance of a witch. I can imagine the shadowy room in a hovel lit by a couple smoking lanterns. Saul, weak from fasting but frantic sits across from the disheveled woman awakened in the middle of the night. After assuring her she would not bear the consequences of channeling the dead, he asks her to bring up his former mentor, Samuel. Only the woman could see the shadowy figure of Samuel coming up from the ground and she channeled his voice. 

After confirming the woman was really seeing Samuel by asking her about his appearance, Saul explained his desperate plight to Samuel: “I am in great distress,” Saul said. “The Philistines are fighting against me, and God has departed from me. He no longer answers me, either by prophets or by dreams. So I have called on you to tell me what to do.”

Samuel has no encouragement for Saul and assures him that “tomorrow, you will be here with me.” Saul collapses with grief and exhaustion. It is only with the insistence of his companions that Saul is willing to receive the kindness of the spiritist in feeding him what may have been Saul’s last meal. The next day, both Saul and his sons were killed in battle.

What strikes me in this passage is the contrast of Saul in chapter 10 and the one we find 18 chapters later. In 1 Samuel 10, Samuel gives Saul the blessing of kingship with the anointing of oil and a kiss saying, “Has not the Lord anointed you ruler over his inheritance?” Then Samuel gives an unusually descriptive prediction of events to come that would assure Saul that God was working and anointing him for this task. All this things were fulfilled with divine precision, including a supernatural overriding of Saul’s natural will in an Acts-like visitation of the Holy Spirit, Saul’s prophesying, and transformation into “a different person.”

I love what Samuel says to Saul by way of instruction: “Once these signs are fulfilled, do whatever your hand finds to do, for God is with you.” Don’t you love that? When God is with us, transforming your essential character, we can essentially do what comes to us, trusting the security of our position in God’s presence and the transformation of our person.

So what went wrong with Saul?

As I think about the episode in chapter 28, I can see the ways in which Saul’s earlier spiritual journey was consistent with his final conclusion. I believe Saul found himself dabbling in witchcraft because of a series of choices, but none of these choices were inconsistent with Saul’s basic desires and natural inclinations. And in some ways, the episode in chapter 10 flows naturally into chapter 28. Think of the things Saul would may have quietly understood from his unusual spiritual encounter in chapter 10

1. God speaks to me primarily through someone else.
2. The pursuit of spiritual power is connected to my security and blessing in my calling.
3. God’s power is separate from the free exercise of my will.

What we see its a rapid amplification of destiny affirmed by a dramatic encounter with God but not accompanied by the slow formation of character through a consistent personal relationship with God. Is is any wonder that when Samuel dies, Saul seems desperate to connect to God in the only way he knows how: through somebody else? In contrast, our early images of King David are of a young shepherd cultivating a love relationship with God in private and channeling the power of God through the exercise of his will (i.e. his willingness to go against Goliath).

Although Saul did not have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in a New Testament sense, I think we can draw many parallels to the ways in which we process our relationship with God as Christians. 

How many of us have had an experience of God through another person, whether a friend or a public figure… and then believed that the best manifestation of God’s presence would only come through the intervention or guidance of a specific mentor, friend, or spiritual figure? While I think Christians are supposed to act as bridges (priests) to connect others to the heart and presence of God, I also see friends getting stuck in the emotional belief that they are somehow unqualified or not “anointed” enough to receive a strong connection with God through their private relationship with him. Maybe the most common manifestation of this is that the role of praying, whether for a meal, a church service, or a sick person often falls to the pastor because people assume that a pastor’s prayers are more likely to be answered that that of “ordinary” people. I’ve been guilty of this myself at times and while I do think we can receive specific blessings attached to the anointing and faith of certain people, we should be careful about placing the weight of our spiritual wellbeing on the shoulders of a “more spiritual” person.

I’m also mindful that the pursuit of the miraculous as a source of encouragement and security in our calling and destiny is a strong temptation for many of us. We all experience disconnection and discouragement in our journey at time. But instead of pressing into the discomfort of those emotions and talking with God about it, we often go hunting for a sign or a demonstration of power to assure us that we are still blessed, chosen, anointed, even saved. We end up quietly testing God to see if really is there with us. In one sense this is natural. We all look for signs in our relationships that we are safe, favored, and accepted. If those signs are never there, our relationship has a problems. But often we look for assurance only in the ways in which we are conditioned to receive them. 

I think about my relationship with my oldest daughter Annabel. There is nothing I want more than for her to rest in my secure affection and love for her. I want her to know that I’ll bend over backwards to care for, protect, and provide for her. But she is hardwired to receive love through gifts. But if that becomes the only way for her to know my favor and affection, then she’ll only feel loved a few times a year. As a dad, when I see my daughter testing my love, feeling insecure in my affection for her, I feel an intense love-anger; a jealousy for her to know that I like her, that I’m on her side. I imagine God feels that towards me as well. But as long as I’m testing our connection through my experience of the overwhelmingly supernatural, any hope of an actually secure connection is ill-fated.

Finally, I think we have a common misconception that a genuine God encounter should override my will. For instance, I prayed for a long time that God would strike me with the gift of tongues. I was sympathetic towards spiritual gifts though I hadn’t experienced much myself. I think I assumed that anything supernatural would have to come through the overriding of my will. Certainly I spoke with some folks who described their experiences in this way. I figured if God wanted me operating in the supernatural, he knows where I live and he knows how to get ahold of me. But the more I began to operate in the supernatural, the more I found out what a unique dance it is between our decisions and God’s power. Without God’s power, our efforts quickly become manipulation. But somehow, God has wired us to channel his power more often than not through the mechanism of our choices. So I pray for people even when I don’t “feel the Spirit” and often the Spirit shows up! I make decisions based on my best understanding of God’s heart and often discover “random coincidences” that affirm God’s presence in that decision. While I try to stay pliable to God totally changing my schedule, often when I ask him what he wants me to do that day, he’ll simply say, “You’re plan is good. Go for it.”

I think we often want God to show up without the exercise of discipline. We hear crazy stories of people encountering God in amazing ways. What we don’t hear about is the months and years of faithful Christian discipline that many of these people went through in pursuit of a deeper life with God. The exercise of discipline is not our way of manipulating God. It’s our way of “knocking” as we trust that the door will opened to us. As I think over the tremendous growth both in my internal reality and the anointing on my life I’ve experienced the last couple years, I realize that it has been accompanied by the greatest exercise of personal discipline I’ve ever practiced. It started small, but the more God responded, the greater my discipline became. The secret is that at the time, it didn’t feel like discipline. My brain actually processed it as delight. And in the end what I have is a wonderfully secure friendship with God.

We say we want God to take over, to override our faculties, and in the short term that may feel good. But I think God knows that to build a close, secure relationship with us, it needs to be reciprocal and private in a long-term relationship that slowly loses its conditionality and takes us deep into the language relational delight. In that space, we flow freely in his power and security of our sanctification as we walk with Him.

Spirit-Led Discipleship: What's in a Name?

Friends, today I continued a conversation with God I've been having for some time which I believe will become a book He and I will write together. It's a book on making disciples under the leadership of the Holy Spirit. I hope to paint a vivid picture of Christ's disciple-building ministry as an essentially Spirit-driven affair. Chapter 1 is all about identity and the significance of the gospel records giving us the names of the 12  disciples (Mark 3:16-19). I hope to discuss some of treasures buried in the biblical concept of naming and its significance for the discipleship as well as disciple building. I hope to also paint a picture of the ways in which the names of the disciples defined their greatest points of struggle and redemption. But to get there, I found I had to dig back into the Genesis account. Here is what I've come up with so far. If this topic is of interest to you, I'd value your feedback and ideas!

It begins with identity, with calling: calling by name.

Naming is no small affair. Naming was one of the first jobs given to the first human: “Now look here Adam. I’ve made all these animals. Now I want you to name them.” You might say that naming was an act of co-creation with God. After all, in Genesis we see that after forming the animals from dust, God brought them to the man “to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name” (Gen. 2:19). God, who formed man from dust and breathed the life of His own Spirit into the man’s nostrils is waiting on the edge of his seat to see what identity this dust-and-spirit man would assign to each of his creatures. So Adam, resting in the creative power of God’s life reverberating through his bones calls out each creature: giraffe, vole, hippopotamus, egret.

This act of will, this assigning of identity became a prophetic act. As Adam’s mind comingled naturally with the mind of His Father[1], out came a name. And the name stuck. God honored the identity given by the man and caused that identity to weave itself in and through the individual stories of each creature. Eugene Peterson eloquently writes:

The first use of language in the Garden is naming animals and birds... Naming identifies. Naming, when done well, captures something of the essence of the life so named.[2]

This is truer still of the names we give each other: Helen, Jason, Ichabod, Harold. Names are powerful things. Names are relational. Names tie our journey to another person’s destiny. That’s why so many names in the bible relate to the mother’s story or the circumstances surrounding the child’s birth. Consider for instance, the ways in which the children of Leah are named in relationship to her ongoing quest to win the affection of her husband. Reuben: the Lord has seen my misery. Simeon: the Lord heard that I am not loved. Levi: my husband will become attached to me.[3]

The first words spoken about a human by another human are relational. They are words of intimate recognition and delight:

“This is now bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh;

she shall be called ‘woman,’

for she was taken out of man” (Gen 2:23)

Man’s first recorded words are poetry, “our basic intimacy language—the language used by gurgling and cooing infants, by lovers, by pray-ers.”[4] In this exultant love sonnet, Adam finds himself in the emerging story of his partner. He identifies her in relational terms. He first recognizes her according to her position toward himself: she has his bones. Eve Bonewoman, the perfect complement to Adam Dustman.

She is ezer k’negdo, the beautiful “opposite-yet-alongside helper-and-deliverer.” She is a “life-saver!”[5] She completes the man in fully expressing the image of God through intimate relationship. Sex and companionship in reciprocal unity of will and purpose become the enduring word picture of God’s relationship with His people.

In chapter 3, Adam assigns his wife her proper name on the heels of God’s prophetic word about their destiny after the fall. She would be Eve, “because she would become the mother of all the living” (Gen. 3:20). It is a present designation pointing to a future reality. Eve would become the mother of the living, but the way in which she would actualize her name would be a grand milieu of pain and redemption.

A Name is a Battleground

Adam Dustman was a gardener, a master groundskeeper. In the context of unashamed union with his Father, he could tend any garden with ease. A seed fallen to the ground would spring from the earth in a tender shoot, impossibly green and delighted to grow as it breathed in the life of God swimming through all creation. Adam knew when to water, prune, harvest, and replant. Large firm tomatoes jostled each other as they ripened on the vine, eager to be plucked and enjoyed for their sweetness. Crisp apples virtually rained down from overhead, wanting nothing but to nourish God’s creatures and recreate themselves in a hundred new plants. Adam was good at this. But one day, God’s groundskeeper bit into the wrong fruit with a disobedient heart massaged by complacency. Connection ended. Shame entered the world. When it did, his assigned name (Adam: “Red”, as in “Man of the Red Earth”) became a battleground. Now the earth from which he was formed and which had so eagerly yielded itself to him became an adversary and an obstacle to him. Just as his heart hardened against God in disobedience, the soil itself hardened against the man. “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”[6]

For her part, the woman ate the fruit hungering to be something she believed she could never be: like God, knowing good and evil.[7] Yet Eve was like God in the sense of bearing his image. Yet in striving to achieve through works what was essentially hers by grace, connection with both God and her husband was lost. Now striving and pain would become the battlefield of her identity. “With painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”[8]

Yet God would redeem their names. The woman would indeed become the “mother of all the living”. And though she would bear the pain of childbirth, we see a glimpse of God’s redemptive purposes in her joyful surprise at the birth of Cain: “With the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man.” In this exclamation she properly ascribes to God his role in the creative act and she rejoices in the miracle of life being brought fort from life. Ultimately one of her own decedents would require to help of the Lord to “bring forth” the Man, who would redeem all things including her own sin. Adam too would find a reminder of his original earthy identity in every bite of food his family enjoyed. The image of God within him was marred but not lost entirely. One day, a descendant of Adam named “The Last Adam” would come as an imperishable seed of God’s final redemption, planted in Golgotha’s red earth in a newly-dug tomb surrounded by (of all things) a garden,[9] and springing defiantly to life after 3 days in order to bear life-giving “spirit fruit”. As Paul says, “’The first man Adam became a living being;’ the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.”[10] Names are God’s idea. Names are beautiful. Names carve out the spaces in which our identities come under the greatest attack and find the greatest restoration.

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[1] I use Father instead of creator in keeping with Adam’s designation as “the son of God” in the geneology of Christ (Lk 3:38)

[2] Eugene H. Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places. (Grand Rapids: Eerdsman, 2005), p. 80.

[3] Gen 29:31-35

[4] Peterson, p. 81.

[5] http://www.ransomedheart.com/daily-reading/ezer-kenegdo

[6] Gen 3:19

[7] Gen 3:6

[8] Gen 3:16

[9] John 19:41

[10] 1 Cor 15:45

Connection is the Content: Dynamics of Conversation with God

Okay, this post may come off as mystical bordering on nutty. I’m writing it hoping that it sparks something deep in a handful of people… Bear with me friends. I’ll do my best to get this across to you.

God is teaching me something today about listening to him. But it is hard to put in words. Because the way he taught me this lesson was through a string of seemingly random but eerily “rhyming” passages of scripture deposited gently in my brain in the midst of an unusually strong connection with him. Jesus and I had a long conversation this morning as I mentally saw him sitting across from me and the connection between us hummed almost electrically. The conversation seemed at first to take a number of detours, but by the end, a few central themes were communicated with crystal clarity in a way my mind was able to grasp.

1. I’m teaching you how I wired your mind to hear from me. This is how it works. No exceptions. No shortcuts. “For the Lord Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart him” (Isaiah 14:27)
2. As you are sanctified, my mind increasingly works in conjunction with your mind. “We have the mind of Christ,” says Paul. Joshua heard and exercised my will in a lot of ways: angelic visitations, a “sounds like” about Gilgal, an oath-in-faith against the rebuilding of Jericho which I honored, and the plain exercise of his redeemed will against 5 enemy kings which became a tremendous symbol pointing my death and resurrection (Josh 10:27).
3. I rarely do things the same way twice. So listen carefully each time and obey (Josh 8:27).
4. Yes, I care about accuracy. And as you grow, your listening will become more accurate. BUT, there is a way to miss out on complete accuracy yet still feel as connected or even MORE connected to my presence than before. To hear better you have to pay attention and press in. It’s not safe to make assumptions. This is a paradox because you will need to trust the intuition I placed in you, but never make assumptions. My presence with Joshua mattered more than the perfect accuracy of His hearing (Josh 6:27).
5. Pay attention to your impressions, to the coincidences of the play you’ve been acting in even before you became aware of it. Watch how the funny little things that happened earlier this week, even this morning are woven into the story I’m writing in and through you when you are finally paying attention.
6. Therefore don’t be afraid and don’t let your heart be troubled. I’ve given you the peace of my Presence. That peace will overwhelm the anxiety of whether you are perfectly understanding me or not. Don’t worry (John 14:27). You are circling in on the truth of the matter. That the thing is this: I do not dispense truth. I AM Truth. True connection and true ideas…. sometimes the line will be fuzzier than you like. But over the course of a life time these will come together quite beautifully.

To explain all of this well would take a very long post, but the end result is I’m learning these lessons very well through a communication style the Holy Spirit often uses with me that feels simultaneously rambling and random, yet also profoundly succinct and effective. Just another fun paradox to wrestle with.

Jesus has been leading me to “27” verses lately… especially Colossians 1:27. And actually, as I review it now I realize, this ties in perfectly to what I’m learning too! “To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” You see? The content of Paul’s proclamation was a single mystery made known to the gentiles: Christ in the believer. The believer as the tabernacle of God’s Presence. The hope of glory as the outward sign of that mysterious truth doing its work. Our positional connection through Christ as those in whom God himself dwells sums up the content of God’s “gloriously rich mystery now revealed.” The connection is the content. Get it? Is your brain sizzling yet?

So anyway. 27. Right. I resist anything that smacks of superstition. So when God led me to John 14:27, I thought it was a bit too obvious. But in fact, it was dead on. I’m feeling anxious about this whole listening exercise after all… but I should remember he has given me his peace through connection with Him. And that connection trumps the anxiety about going off the deep end spiritually, about hearing wrong.

Then he pointed me back to what I read in Joshua 5 this morning and I shrugged… “I don’t know Lord.” But that whole thing about Gilgal really stood out when I read it again. I tried to put on Joshua’s shoes. What does the word Gilgal (Hebrew for “rolling”) have to do with God rolling away the reproach of Egypt? Did Joshua actually hear an audible voice say, “Because I’ve rolled away the reproach of Egypt?” Or did he get a mental image of a rolling stone and hear the words as a soft impression in His mind? I don’t know. But if it was something inside his head, then God is making a word play, a “sounds like” and Joshua has to make to connection between the word “rolling” and the rolling away of shame and the reproach of the Egyptian slavery period. 

By the way… this repealing of the shame of slavery happens on the other side of the Jordan. The first generation that was free of slavery (and showing some signs of regenerated existence in things like sandals that didn’t wear out and 2 million people with “not one feeble person among their tribes”) but still slaves in their minds had finally died away and the new generation was circumcised after crossing the Jordan on dry ground. The shame of slavery was at last rolled away and from that moment forward, Israel started winning all their battles and claiming their inheritance. Can you see the parallels to the kingdom in which we now live as Jesus people? The yoke of our sin-slavery was broken by Jesus. That’s just true. 

But much of our heart still wandered out the desert as though we were still slaves to sin. When those rebellious, mentally-enslaved bits of us finally fully die out (sanctification), we cross the Jordan and circumcise our hearts to God as we begin to walk by the Spirit into the reality of our inheritance. We’re not perfect, but Christ is perfect in us. And from that moment forward, we begin winning our battles and claiming our inheritance in the Kingdom as children born of the Spirit in lockstep with the Spirit (Romans 8). This is the reality of life in the Spirit and Joshua symbolizes it beautifully. When you live in the Spirit, you stop asking whether that was God or bad tacos. You trust the connection. You know you’ll get it wrong sometimes but that’s part of the journey. You stay humble. But ultimately you trust the friendship. I think it is interesting that sometimes when I hear God wrong these days, I feel the connection with God gets stronger or at least is not diminished. I don’t need to evaluate or judge what went wrong like I used to. And I feel him still very close to me. What’s up with that? I think it has to do with me having the mind of Christ: his mind getting all mixed up in mine as “Christ is formed” in me. It’s about union, connection. And I think it has something to do with the rhyming thing.

“But seriously God. What’s up with the 27 thing?” I asked puzzled. 

“I like to rhyme with myself,” he responded. “It’s a game I like to play.”

“Okay then. What’s next?”

“14:27.”

“Joshua 14:27?? Uh oh. No such verse Lord.”

“Isaiah 14:27 silly. Not Joshua. Pay attention.”

There’s a funny story from one of John Wimber’s meeting. Someone on his ministry team saw an image of a green hose. He got up and said, “somebody in this room tripped over a garden hose and got injured. Come up to the front God wants to heal you.” Though he shared the word several times nobody got up. The man was confused. He was sure God showed him a green hose. After the meeting, a man from the audience came up and said, “I tripped over a green air hose at work and hurt myself. But you said “garden hose” so I assumed the word wasn’t for me! The man with the word should have said, “Someone tripped over a green hose” and not assumed it was a garden hose.

I was reading in Joshua. I was on a roll. God said “14:27” and I barely noticed that he didn’t say “Joshua 14:27”. Only when I stopped and asked did he say “Isaiah”. I’ve got to pay attention and I’ve got to press in. The other thing he used to illustrate this was Joshua 8:(you guessed it)27… Which just shows Israel carrying off plunder from Ai, which was the OPPOSITE of what God told them to do in Jericho. “I rarely do the same thing twice. Pay attention.” And sure enough, we hear God speak in all kinds of different ways. Joshua sure did. And what he tells us to do often stands in contrast to what he told us to do yesterday. This is why it is said that many new movements of God’s Spirit in the world are persecuted most severely by the proponents of God’s movement in the previous generation. We get stuck on how God worked before, and we totally miss how God is working NOW.

One last aside: Look at the parallels between the Joshua 10 and the passion/resurrection narrative: http://validambiguity.com/2017/01/21/jesus-the-gentile-king/

The point is, Jesus goes into the cave with our enemies, the “principalities and powers” and there, “having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (Col 2:15). Jesus and the 5 kings were hung on poles, which carried a curse under the law. They all died by sunset. They all were buried in a tomb. But those kings aren’t coming out once the stone is rolled over the mouth of the cave. But when Jesus comes out, he “rolls away” the reproach of our slavery, emerging alive and well while the enemies of our inheritance stay in the grave permenantly. Again, just a thought.

Wrapping up my conversation, I was still a bit confused about all the seemingly random and spastic bits of revelation, though the theme was emerging regarding the primacy of right connection as the only pathway to right truth (Jesus being the truth and all that). The Spirit’s final word to me was to point out the book on my desk. It was Eugene Peterson’s Christ Plays in a Thousand Places. I found it in the basement this morning and thought I would pull it out to read later. I hardly remember why I was down there, but I found the book buried in a random box and decided to bring it upstairs with me. Jesus said, “flip to page 237.” Okay… 2… (3)… 7… In one paragraph, Peterson elegantly sums up what I was just learning this morning about holding conversation with the Holy Spirit. Peterson is talking about Christ’s conversation with God in John 17. He says:

“The conversation is rambling and unsystematic. This is not what we ordinarily think of as good teaching. But Jesus is not making things clear, smoothing out ambiguities; he is making them vivid, pulsing. There is no outline and there are no transitions. Definitions are lacking. What the conversation does is immerse us in the presence of another, the presence of Jesus readying us for the Spirit. We are soon listening more to who he is than what he says; we are drawn into this seamless web of relational attentiveness, leaving and sending, sensing within ourselves the pervasive, soul-permeating continuity between the absent Jesus and the present Spirit.”

Yes indeed. This is the dynamic of conversation with God as I’m experiencing it today: He is not making things clear in the sense of smoothing out ambiguities and giving me a pithy 3-point takeaway complete with PowerPoint slides. But in my Spirit I sense connection to Truth as something “vivid, pulsing.” And I find that at the end of the day, whether I’m hearing God exactly right every moment…. “We are soon listening more to who he is than what he says.”

Gentleness: The Feather and the Hammer

I was thinking about gentleness today. This is a value taught all across the New Testament. But among many followers of Jesus today, gentleness has been replaced by confidant assertiveness and aggression in the name of “taking a stand”. But in Colossians, gentleness is listed among the virtues that make up the patchwork garment of love that “binds them all together in perfect unity.” Check it out:

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. (Colossians 3:11-13 NIV)

So why gentleness? I think gentleness is an expression of both humilty and faith: humility that we can’t really change or control a person or situation in a satisfactory way... and faith that if we press into the weakness of a gentle posture, God can do much more through us than we could ever ask or imagine. Gentleness isn’t weakness. It’s recognizing our limitations while also recognizing God’s limitless power at work in us.

I was thinking about a revival meeting I attended a couple months ago. At the time, I had never been to such a meeting, but I was so hungry for God’s love and power to more fully invade me, I was more open than ever before. I was the 6’3 Norwegian in the front row of a large African American church in Memphis, worshipping with new freedom and probably looking quite foolish... but for once, not caring one bit! I could feel God’s presence like a bright light in my body.

The second night at the altar call, the visiting preacher called up anyone feeling God’s presence. Well that was me. I jumped into line at the last minute. When the preacher came to me, he gently put his hand on my forehead and prayed a very sincere prayer for God to fill me in a new way. I felt something liquid like a bright light flow through my body all the way into my arms and legs. I felt like my whole body was illuminated! After his prayer, I crumpled like a rag doll and spent 45 minutes on the floor, my hands shaking, my whole body feeling the euphoria of God’s love and power on a new level. I could have gotten up if I had to but I didn’t want to! The feeling was incredible. One of the sweet things that happened on the floor was that a lady came up to me and lovingly stroked my back while praying quietly for me under her breath. It was very tender and though I never opened my eyes to look at her, I felt God’s love through her prayer. God started saying new things to me there on the floor that continue to shape my journey today.

The third night, something different happened. I was feeling the Lord’s Presence when the preacher called people up. But this time, when the preacher came to me, he called to the pastor sitting on stage to come pray for me. I saw the pastor leap up from his seat and run to the edge of the stage. He shouted “FIRE!!!” and literally shoved me backwards. I went to the floor and lay there for some time, but God’s Presence dissipated immediately. That liquid feeling of light was gone, although I did feel peaceful. I wasn’t offended by what the pastor did, but I recognized that the spirit was different.

I think one dynamic the Lord was showing me through that experience was this:

When we touch a person or situation with gentleness (whether physically or metaphorically), the Lord is able to touch that person or situation with real power. But when we touch people or situations aggressively, we don’t leave room for the Spirit’s work and we open the door for confusion. Was that God? Or was is just human manipulation? What we touch with a feather, the Lord touches with a hammer.

Gentleness is not tentativeness or timidity. Gentleness is very different from those things! I’m talking about a radical boldness and courage that doesn’t need to exert itself to get things done. This is because we know deep inside that the power to get stuff done doesn’t lie in us! It lies in the Father. And He gives us the power for all things, whether it is getting through the slog of our workday or praying for a friend with cancer. And when we see God swinging his hammer through our gentle touch, it makes us so joyful! Suddenly there’s no pressure in the Christian life. We don’t have to exert or strain or perform for Jesus. All we need to do is rest in intimacy with the Father, seek His heart and direction, walk in gentle humility.... and see God change the world through us!

Connection before Correction

I’ve been a bit muddy spiritually the last few days. For days after India, the Presence of God was so electrifying that I felt heat on the front of my face, electricity in my spine and arms, and an intense sensation in my upper abdomen for hours at a time. It felt good, but at times it was so intense I was physically shaking. God was speaking to me with more clarity and accuracy than usual both through “random” scripture references and directly in prayer. But by Saturday it had gotten so intense, I took one mental step away from the Lord’s presence. I’m really not sure why, but I immediately felt the difference. Anxiety and impatience started to creep in. I could still feel God there with me, but the edges and contours of my connection with him were blunted and blurred.

This morning I started rummaging through my spiritual/emotional/relational toolbox to find the right tool for reestablishing a strong connection with Jesus. At some point I pulled out the tool called “teachability”. I started earnestly asking God to change and correct whatever action or attitude might be blocking my relationship with him. I asked him to be honest with me, to correct me, to grow my character. I promised him that even if it was painful, I would cooperate with any lessons he may be trying to teach me.

Almost as soon as I admitted to him that I was struggling, the fog cleared a bit and I could see Jesus in my mental imagery standing just outside my car on the gravel parking lot of the bird sanctuary where I was parked. He looked peaceful, accepting, and a little mischievous as though he was laughing at me.

When I walked out by the lake, I could feel his Presence quietly standing just behind me, his arms wrapped around me as we both enjoyed the sun poking through the tall Georgia pines, streaming across the cold marsh. I started exercising my “teachability tool”  to strengthen the connection with my standard “teach me something and don’t spare me the hard stuff” prayer. I could almost hear him chuckling in my ear. “No child. That’s not what you need right now. For now let me just be with you. All that other stuff comes later.”

I could feel the goodness of his gentle rebuke. I know this stuff. Connection always has to come before correction. Don’t we all know that “truth” is best delivered in a context of safe relational connection (truth spoken in love)? In a deeper sense, Jesus’ claim in John 14 to BE “the truth” means that truth is not a set of principles outside of God that are best delivered relationally, but truth itself IS relational and intrinsically wrapped up in a divine personality.

In my recent work in trauma healing, I’ve learned that one of the hallmarks of trauma is the brain’s tendency to disconnect from an unsafe person or situation to protect itself in the midst of a trauma. Unfortunately although this mechanism protects the person in the short term, this disconnection also results in wrong assessments of the existential meaning of the trauma and all kinds of wrong beliefs about self, the world, and God result. That part of the brain that was traumatize remains disconnected and the wrong conclusions of improperly-processed trauma continue to snowball over time. To heal trauma a person has to reintegrate their minds and reestablish safe relational connection (ideally with God) in the context of the traumatic memory. From there, correct existential meaning can be discerned and right beliefs about self, the world, and God can be established. We are able to metabolize the pain of the trauma in healthy ways without it permanently damaging us. (credit to Dr. Karl Lehman’s “Pain Processing Pathway” for this: www.immanuelapproach.com)

Sorry if that’s a bit heady. For me, the “connection before correction” dynamic just means that my personal connection with God always has to come before the hard work of acquiring new lessons, skills, or maturity; not because I don’t want to learn and grow, but because learning and growth are made possible by connection. The “lessons” rarely lead to effective connection. But connection almost always leads to new “lessons”. It sounds like this:

“My child, I love you. Feel my presence with you right now. I accept you. I care for you. I understand what you are going through and I’m going to take care of everything. I really enjoy being with you. Let me just be your friend right now... can that be enough for you? Good. Now... let’s get to work. There are some things I need you to understand and some things I want you to do.”

Does that make sense?

I suppose then the question remains: how do I establish a reliable connection with the Lord from which everything else can spring naturally?

As I wrestle with that question, I’m tempted to point you to a variety of tools that have helped me. But the reality is that the tools themselves don’t guarantee connection though they can be helpful. What we are really after is not a “connect with Jesus” program that we can put on our computer and run whenever we need it. What we’re after is a whole new operating system that can naturally host a whole suite of new programs that move us toward our natural state of a relationally connected life in Christ.

Someone asked me this morning how I get this consistent connection with Jesus I keep talking about. I asked Jesus how to respond to this friend and instead of giving me words, he showed me a picture. It wasn’t a picture of a lesson, a tool, or a principle. Rather it was a picture of an invitation. In this picture, Jesus was standing in front of my friend with a lighthearted smile on his face, looking into my friend’s eyes. He was beckoning with his hand for her to come with Him. With a conspiratorial smile, He asked her if she wanted to come with him on a new adventure. It was a very tender image.

If you are reading this and it is hitting a nerve, I wonder: can you feel the invitation of Jesus to a deeper connection, even now as you are reading this? No matter how many years you’ve been trying to connect with Him, no matter how much anxiety you have, no matter what your situation is, no matter what your history is, Jesus is meeting you exactly where you are without judgment, trepidation, disgust, or prerequisites. He’s meeting you with right where you are with love and delight, and he’s inviting you on an adventure. Can you feel it?

That’s where it all started for me. One morning two years ago, I heard Jesus say in my mind, “I really like our morning walks together!” and that started changing the way I saw my relationship with Him, knowing that he liked being with me even more than I liked being with Him!”

If you can, in the quiet places of your mind, hear the invitation of Christ to come with Him on a new adventure of connecting and abiding in Him... then let me simply encourage you to go with Him and see where He leads you! From there, we can talk about tools and techniques. But for now, I pray you can feel his invitation to a deeper life with Him.

India in the Presence

I’ve been in India this last week with a group of pastors, ministry leaders, and theology students doing my discipleship thing. We all stayed together in a verdant Catholic retreat center in Vellore eating mostly spicy vegetarian food and sitting in the corridors joking around with the Anglican archbishop, our “gang leader” who organized the seminar.

I collected a number of stories from people who encountered God in a life changing way that week. 17 of our students said they felt they would never be the same after.  I took everyone through simple Immanuel exercises designed to build and maintain a connection with God through memory and deliberate appreciation thinking at minimum it would help attune them to what God might want to say to them through the seminar. Everyone said they were able to physically feel the presence of Jesus in the room (heat, electricity, peace, a sense of being elevated, etc) and most could hear Him speak. One woman confessed after the first day, “I’ve been running so hard for Jesus but now I know I need to be running with Jesus!

I took 5 students individually through the Immanuel Approach for healing traumatic memories and everyone had a profound experience. One person saw Jesus heal a 3 significant memories of traumatic abuse and then say, “if you ever need to know anything else [read: if you need resources] you can always come back to this place and I’ll explain everything to you.” The next day he said his feelings about the traumas had permanently changed. Another person felt so overwhelmed by the loving presence of God he said he could sit up anymore and had to lay down.

Other fun adventures included:

*Endless games of connect four with my friend Emmanuel’s 3 kids who called me “Nate Uncle”.

*Learning to make chapatti and chicken curry from some Indian ladies

*A visit to a nearby gypsy camp to distribute clothing

*A couple women getting healed of moderate to severe back pain

*A day trip through monkey-full mountains to the archbishop’s home for biriyani.

*A surprise ordination service with 3 bishops in which I became a priest in the Anglican Episcopal Church International. I’ve technically joined a monastic order modeled after the order of Saint Francis!

*Watching my friend Emmanuel teach several sessions in our seminar. I’m ready to call him a fully equipped trainer!

I’ve been trying to boil down the experience to a few salient reflections. I started seeing things come out of me naturally this week that show me I’m growing. I came into this week wanting to put all the intimacy I’ve enjoyed with Jesus the last 18 months to the test. If Jesus is present with me throughout the day in Fayetteville, leading me in tender and clear ways, can I trust him to lead me through a training seminar, a healing prayer session, a sermon, or a casual conversation in India? My conclusion? Far more than I ever imagined.

One morning Jesus showed me that the pace of his Presence is much slower than the pace of our brains and if I slowed my mind down enough to attend to Him, He would lead me in wonderful ways. This required a level of comfort with silence and potential awkwardness in the group. But after that, I made an effort to walk slower, talk slower, think slower, and invite Jesus into every situation. I would feel electricity in my body that was so intense at times I would be shaking. One student said he could see Jesus standing at my side whispering directions to me.

I also made it my ambition to stay with him during preaching. He actually told me before I left home that I should NOT prepare for these sermons, except to reflect on the passages he gave me for my own application. I realized how quickly I can get into my own clever thoughts and applications but totally miss what the spirit is doing. I wouldn’t say I totally succeeded in this faith experiment, but I could see Jesus in the back of the room and not having notes allowed me to keep my eyes on him and also to cultivate a new empathy and tenderness toward the people in the congregation. I tried to preach directly to the kids in the front row. I don’t think the content or delivery suffered for my lack of prep. If anything, I felt greater clarity, peacefulness, and conviction than I typically do.

But it wasn’t just during teaching and preaching that I felt God’s Presence. I felt Him there during tea breaks, sitting cross-legged on the bed with my friend Emmanuel, or joking with the other students in the hallways. Several times God showed me an image or word for someone, which seemed to fit them well. The only times his presence faded was when we were traveling, meeting new people, or when I felt some pressure to perform. But on the whole, He has been with me. He sharpened my intellect, increased my emotional capacity, turned on my relational circuits, gave me insight, and made me completely peaceful with virtually no feelings of doubt or intimidation which I’d expect given all the PhD’s, bishops, and ministry leaders in the room.

Here’s the cool thing though. I clearly heard Jesus say, “This is only the beginning.” As fun as this week was, I believe that much better things are coming down the road.

Much of my spiritual journey has felt a series of expansions and consolidations. This week felt like a hugely stretching and growing experience, although in some ways, it’s only an outward expression of the intimacy I’ve been enjoying privately for the last several months. Every time I have a growing experience like this, I have a choice: I can press into the growth by cultivating a quiet season of growth and intimacy... or I can lose the gains through pride, ministry strategizing, and overworking and grow at a much slower pace. I hope to take some extended time this week just enjoying my friendship with Him.

In one short month I’ll be in West Africa doing this among people who are working among the least reached. I’ll be meeting with Muslim leaders and looking for the presence of Jesus there as well. I wonder what the Lord can do if I slow down enough to let Him do His thing? I wonder what the Lord could do through you?

Here are a few snapshot for you to enjoy!