A Happy 5th Rebirthday!

 Today is a special day: my 5th rebirth day! 5 years ago today, I stepped into a healing experience that forever rewired my belief system about God’s availability. Since then my spiritual life has gone from a rollercoaster of mountains and valleys to a steady upward climb into His heart. Man, Jesus is way better than I ever thought. I haven’t missed a day in the last 5 years of physically sensing His presence. Just now, I closed my eyes, and felt warmth go down my head and legs as though love were a liquid substance. The voice behind me says to my mind, “I never left you. You just didn’t know that I was here.” Sometimes the words are wild and uncomfortable. But usually he just says, “I love you. Don’t be afraid.” Sometimes he just sits there, knowing me. But always, always He is there.

Now I’ve done some thinking and listening about this strange experience and I’ve realized it is not all that strange if you talk to right people. Many people have tapped into a tangible interactive friendship with a God. Once they taste it they never want to go back. But many people DO go back to the dry trudging of spiritual aloneness. They do this for a million reasons. But the reasons all boil down to an attack on our willingness to be known in this way. It honestly gets uncomfortable, life gets stressful, we believe so many lies about ourselves and God. We drift away. In the process of drifting, we assign meaning to our deserts: Maybe God is teaching us something by pulling back our ability to experience Him. I don’t think so.

Here is my 5-year assessment of what this experience is, what it means, and what it doesn’t mean...

In my layman’s definition, we experience God’s presence when through a combination of environmental factors, true knowledge, and the practice of our will, our bodies and minds experience the resonance of alignment with our spirts which are connected to Jesus. This alignment might be called surrender. I like the less militant term, “willingness”. When I become sufficiently willing for God to be there (which usually involves the significant removal of false belief systems through emotional healing), I automatically experience him. Worship, which is just the practice of intentionally appreciating God through beauty, often creates a perfect environment for God’s Presence to be felt. The assertion of true facts about God does the job too. Brother Lawrence, the 17th century Carmelite monk who first coined the term “The Practice of the Presence of God” had the simplest practice of thinking about God as often as possible. This constant meditation on the person of God brought him (and countless others) into profound and consistent ecstasies. Maybe you’ve felt it before: someone says something so true it literally gives you chills. You can feel the resonance on the word. God loves that stuff and He wants to give you a life full of it. When I speak warmly about him, I’m sometimes so moved by Him that I physically shake.

I’ve known I can have this experience for a long time. What I didn’t know is that I could intentionally apply my will through specific habits that cause me to experience God pretty any time I want. Well I guess I did know that. What I DIDN’T know is just how simple and rewarding these habits could be. Let me give you a couple examples of easiest exercises that take almost no time but now consistently yield results.

*Taking a deep breath and imagining I am breathing in God.

*Picturing Jesus sitting across from me and sometimes seeing something in His hands for me or just watching how He interacts with me.

*Saying true things like, “I know I can’t get to you in my power, but I bet you would love to be here with me right now. You love me. Your power is perfect in my weakness, etc…”

*Looking, hearing, smelling, touching, and tasting beautiful things and and then mentally appreciating God for them.

*Picturing my mind as a chasm into which God’s thoughts fall gently

*Reading and thinking about the Bible.

*Walking slowly down a hallway or down my street.

*Imaging God’s thoughts towards a person while they are talking.

Of course I do the harder stuff too and I love it. But my bread and butter is the moment-by-moment experience of God’s loving Presence. This, I firmly believe, is not a gift to certain individuals, but a birthright to every person who trusts Jesus with their lives.

What this DOESN’T mean is that the circumstances of life become easy. Some do: for instance, I’ve probably been sick a total of 5 days in the last year. My mental clarity is better. My diet has improved. I don’t entertain grudges or pity parties. So naturally I’m not as susceptible to the things that plague many people. But in the last 5 years I have experienced death, loss of relationship, betrayal, money stress, busy schedules, boredom, distraction, and the pain of raising 3 kids. Some of these things have stretched my capacity, but I’ve never missed a day of experiencing God at least once and sometimes for hours at a time. And in the hardest parts of the dry and painful season, I would describe my life as deeply happy.

In the last five years, I’ve also been dealing with significant areas where I am not yet fully submitted to Jesus. Some of these areas have been profoundly healed. Others he is still chipping away at. At the forefront: I still hate looking stupid and I still hate talking to strangers. Chip, chip. I also struggle with the idea that God’s acceptance of me is truly unconditional. Chip, chip. Could God really love all of me? Is he really as good as I’ve seen Him to be? Am I deceiving myself? Chip, chip. He uses friends and family to bring me along. This week, one of my friends has been hammering away at me, exposing lies, and helping me find new layers of profound growth and healing. But I no longer feel I’m a broken mess waiting to be made whole one day. I AM whole, and there will always be new and increasingly beautiful layers of wholeness when I partner with Him. This doesn’t preclude humility. In fact it takes humility to embrace the reality of what He thinks of us, because none of us did a darn thing to deserve it. The picture I get is of me stepping into the front door of Father’s house. I’d be happy to sit in the security and beauty of His front entryway for the rest of my life. But there are so many hidden little rooms and interesting things to do here if I want to explore.

These last few weeks, God has been tearing down pride and old mindsets in my life. Like shedding scales from my eyes, I find myself thinking in a way I never thought I could think. I’ve cried a lot, felt the deep value for other people (especially the women in my life), loved more than I thought I could… I’m embracing tenderness but can also feel intense power flowing through me when I interact with people. The work is more intense (I almost want to say savage) than usual, as though someone is tossing up my brain like a tossed salad. God is giving me step-by-step instructions throughout my day. He is giving me intense prophetic words through people I’ve never met. People are having dreams about me and waking up in the night to pray. It all points to a really good future in which the healing I’ve experienced these last 5 years will be powerfully used for the healing of many many people. I’m excited! But I’ve learned the strength of a ministry is largely determined by how deep the person in ministry is willing to go in their own personal formation. I’m submitted to the process, because it is far more joyful than painful and I’m so curious about where this is all going.

I think the next five years will be as much outward as the last five were inward. I’m grateful for a lot of space to do my own work, but now I think I’ll find more opportunity to share this gift with others. God will keep doing his thing, challenging my definition of a “normal” life. But every step of the journey will be good because I am certain that I will sense Him right next to me, loving me, carrying me.

Prophets, Presidents, and the Post-Election Reckoning

In November I cast my vote in the Presidential election. My vote was based on a mashup of values and opinions about what is wrong with the world and who was better equipped to address the greatest number of problems while doing the least harm in other areas. But throughout the election season right up to moment I put my finger on the touchscreen to cast my vote, I had nagging thought that bothered me. I wonder what God thinks about all this. I wasn’t asking myself this because nobody had an answer to that question but because everybody seemed to have an answer to that question. On the conservative side, countless high-profile prophets came out of the woodwork to declare the inevitable reelection of Donald Trump. For them, God’s choice was clear and they were willing to stake their reputations on the outcome of this election. It turns out it was a bad gamble.

Over the last month, some of these prophets have dug in or pivoted. Others have apologized. Perhaps the best-known of these prophets was Kris Vallotton of Bethel Church, who publicly apologized on social media saying, “I was completely wrong… there’s no excuse for it. I think it doesn’t make me a false prophet but I think it does create a credibility gap.” Likewise prophetess Kim Mass apologized after prophesying Trump’s reelection in a public letter saying, “When all the prophets began to prophesy a Trump re-election, I allowed their voices to be my confirmation. Not God. That is what I truly and humbly repent for.”

So on January 25, Dr. Randy Clark hosted a public conversation with Vallotton and Maas along with others to discuss not only the failure of so many prophets to accurately predict the election but the future and credibility of all prophetic ministry in the light of such a high-profile failure. I tuned in and found it valuable for many reasons. If you’ve scratched your head with me about the operation of Christian prophesy in this election, I highly recommend you check it out. It is relatively unfiltered and very educational.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhs0Fol-oX8&feature=youtu.be

Here are a couple things I took away from the conversation...

1. Prophetic involvement in a national election is serious business. The influence of these prophets can not be understated. Because I respect some of these people’s ministries, I was admittedly influenced by their prophesies. Other friends were entirely swayed by them. In some ways I think the fevered pitch of manifest destiny this created contributed to the January 6 capital insurrection. So Vallotton is right when he says this creates a credibility gap. This should not be glossed over.

2. Nevertheless, the willingness of Vallotton, Maas, Shawn Bolz and others to publicly apologize is healing to some degree and is a significant step towards repairing the credibility gap.

3. Wrong prophesies don’t equal false prophets. We should judge prophesies. But when we judge prophets on the merits of one prophesy we are in dangerous waters. Not only do we miss the blessings of legitimate prophetic ministries, we risk the judgment of Matthew 5 associated with quick condemnation. I don’t know these people personally, but I follow their ministries closely enough to appreciate their hearts. I may disagree with their politics but I can still learn from them.

4. Prophets are human. Go figure. Many of them are feelers. And often they run in a pack. We should honor prophetic gifts but we should not put prophets on a pedestal of infallibility.

5. Wrong prophesies don’t equal NO prophesy. Paul commands the church not to despise prophesy (1 Thes 5:20). Prophesy is a legitimate gift. Many people steward this well. It is designed to build up the church. Dealing well with false prophesy is part of the job description of the church. We don’t do this by shutting down prophesy altogether. We do this by weighing each word carefully against scripture, circumstance, and corporate discernment (1 Cor 14:29). This is only difficult if nobody in the church has a robust knowledge of scripture, the character of God, and what His voice sounds like. If this is the case, then you have a much bigger problem.

6. Fear is a killer. Kim Maas observed that she found herself feeling a little scared about the trouble she believed our nation would be in if we did NOT reelect Trump. She allowed this fear to inform what she thought God was saying. This helps me understand how so MANY prophets got it wrong. Fear has been the soup d’jour for a long time. We’ve been dogged with countless conspiracy theories and worst-case scenarios designed to make us afraid. If millions of conservatives sincerely believe that Biden = some version of doomsday, then it makes sense that their prophetic barometer would be thrown off by the fear in the air. In my own conversations with the Lord, I found it very difficult to hear from him accurately about this election for this very reason.

 
7. Operate in your own discernment. This is what Maas regretted most in her experience. She let other people confirm what she thought God was going to do instead of God himself. This is the very reason I didn’t base my vote solely on other people’s prophesies. I considered them but then I had my own conversations with God. While God never told me who was going to win, I DID hear him say, “I will never ask you to go against your own conscience.” He assured me he had a plan. He helped me understand His values (which as it turns out are a bit different than mine) but at the end of the day he was gentle and encouraged me to vote my conscience. So I did. I suppose this is a bigger lesson on discernment for all of us. It’s not bad to ask others to help us listen to God. But God’s goal is to have a personal conversational relationship with every one of His kids and not to constantly have to speak to them through others. When we trust-fall into the prophetic words of other human beings, we shouldn’t be surprised when we hit the ground sometimes.

8. It’s okay to swim in your lane. Maas reflected that she had never given a political word like this before. Her calling was to strengthen the gifting of other believers, not to divine elections. This is also the observation my mentor gave me in 2016 when I began dabbling in political commentary on Facebook. On reflection, I might have been spot on in my observations but it didn’t really matter because I was operating outside of my calling. My calling is to promote Jesus and strengthen believers through discipleship and healing. But at some point I was more interested in being right and speaking truth than I was in doing what God told me to do. I had to course correct. I hope many many prophets are doing the same thing right now.

Kudos to Randy Clark, Kim Maas, Kris Vallotton and others for hosting the conversation. As Randy observed, this a critical moment for reflection, even reformation within the prophet movement. All prophets need accountability. They need best practices. They need to work in community while not just relying on the discernment of others. They need to recognize together that Jesus’ Kingdom is not of this world. I am certain that God cares deeply about politics and I do think Christians should participate in government. But we need to guard against the temptation of Christian nationalism and Christian dominionism which make the world the servant of the Church instead of the other way around.

Say yes to Love

Today I pictured Jesus standing at God’s throne and He seemed to be the very embodiment of Love. I heard Him gently inviting me today to “say yes to love.” I sat quietly for 30 minutes or so: not praying or reading the bible, but just sitting completely still and trying to mentally hold Him in my gaze, feeling His love coming at me in waves. It melted me. It always does.

I felt sad for how limited my capacity to love is. I hear about people in serious need and my heart goes numb. I know that a few dollars, an encouraging word, or a loving prayer on their behalf could actually make a world of difference. I thought of the two cute orphan kids in Bangladesh my friend showed me pictures of yesterday whom he was trying to help with a little food and clothing. My heart softened and I said “yes” to them. But too often in the past I’ve said “no” because of the messiness of getting involved. I don’t want to feel manipulated into something and I just don’t have the emotional of physical resources to care about all the hurting people out there. Where would I draw the line? But maybe it’s not about the line. Maybe it’s just about the direction the heart is pointing. Somehow in the Presence of Jesus my capacity grows a little. Sure. I can say yes to one more person. After all this is family. I feel a simplicity in His invitation to say yes to love. It doesn’t have to be complicated. He loves me. What’s the worst that can happen?

After this, I had the most amazing string of personal phone calls: Kenya, Gambia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India. I heard amazing stories from my friends: a dream of a new counseling center, a marriage frustratingly delayed by Covid, an illness caught from a goat, a new leadership class starting in January, a pastor friend falsely accused of being a muslim terrorist and held for 23 days last month in a tiny cell where 15 of his cell mates gave their lives to Jesus. I got to share in people’s lives for a few minutes, mostly listen, pray for them, help some of them. I could do this every day, but most of the time I just feel apathetic and I make lame excuses. I’m too tired, too poor, out of cope, wary of being misused, just not interested…

They say the opposite of love isn’t hate. It is apathy. So I might as well say it bluntly: Apathy is sin. It is the polar opposite of God’s nature. I’m really not that busy or important. I can give you what I have when you need it more than me. But where can I find more when I run out? I know where. I find it in the smile-creased face of a man who loved me with every resource at His disposal and is still tangibly with me through the Holy Spirit. Somehow when I look at Him, I find I can say “yes” one more time.

To Be Found

  Boy oh boy, our world is falling apart. Disease, division, divorce. Alternative facts and the overturning of our concept of reality. The net effect is that so many people just feel lost. And this lostness crosses every boundary. White people feel lost. Black and brown people feel lost. Old people feel lost. Kids feel lost. Religious people feel lost. Irreligious people feel lost. We comfort ourselves with hopeful platitudes but on Wednesday morning, we wake up feeling foggy about everything. What is certain in the world? We look for health and find sickness. We look for truth and find lies. We look for freedom and find a cage. We hunt for light and find darkness.

I hate feeling lost. Once as a teenager I visited Kenya and decided to take a walk into the hills near the college where I was staying. Walking several miles, I sat on a rocky peak looking at a beautiful golden sunset. As I climbed down, I realized what I had done. On the equator, the sun sets and then everything goes black at an alarming rate. I tried to hurry back to the college but there was no trail to follow and I had no light. The gray haze quickly gave way to total darkness. As I marched through the tall grass I started to wonder what wild safari animals might live out in this tall grass. I wondered if I would have to spend the night on the ground. Then a thought hit me: if I could find the lights of Nairobi in the distance, I could orient myself. Seeing a bit of light over the next ridge I hurried towards it. But when I reached the vista my heart sank. They were only a couple farms far down in the valley. I began trekking aimlessly for what seemed like hours in near pitch darkness. I was probably walking in circles. As I was about ready to lie down and wait for sunrise, I found a little four-wheel road and followed it, feeling tremendous relief when the college came back into view. I stumbled back into the guesthouse where my dad and sister waited worriedly for me and I enjoyed the comfort of that bright little house with its four comforting walls and soft bed.

    I’m glad I didn’t have to spend my night in the open. But it would not have been the first time. When I was 16, I ran away from home and spent a night on a cold Minnesota beach with a girl who was not my girlfriend. I was trying to break away from the restrictive environment of my home and religious upbringing. To hell with it all. I was doing what I wanted and living my life. I expected to feel a sense of liberation and pleasure. What I felt was very very cold. I was only wearing shorts and a t-shirt and the night air was frigid. We hardly slept on that cold gritty sand. Eventually the black horizon turned pale and the golden rim of the sun streamed across the water. As we walked along the shore, half asleep, the light of the sunrise hit the broad edge of a thousand-foot ore boat in harbor and began radiating a rich copper glow. The scene was stunning. But I couldn’t enjoy the beauty or the warmth of the sun. I felt caged in by my self-imposed homelessness, by the bitterness I felt towards my brother and parents, by the shame I felt about so many things. So much for freedom. That night I wandered around the town and spent another night on the hard wooden planks of a boarded up hockey rink penalty box. I was lost.

Today I’m thinking of many friends and family who feel some version of that feeling. You medicate it with family, or work, or substances, or political outrage, or religion. There were some things that happened to you way back when or maybe just yesterday that you couldn't quite worked through and part of you got stuck in that place. There are some things happening now that totally baffle you and it’s hard to know which way is up. You try to be kind and understanding but the cruelty and stupidity of people beggars belief. Isolation makes it easy to believe the worst in people and sometimes you hardly recognize yourself. I want to reach in and speak to that feeling.

There is, I think, a universal answer to this lost feeling, a home to return to, a path back to joy. But the answer is not a long solo trek out of the dark jungle of your own thoughts. The answer is a single warm touch from a loving friend who knows the way. Restored connection puts pain and confusion in a new light. A relational encounter with someone who is both caring and wise provides the context by which darkness peels back like a curtain. It provides the perspective to see that all the things which disqualify or disconnect you are just a smokescreen covering the radiant solidity of love and the sense of Home. Love is the realest thing. But not many people know how to receive it, much less live in it.

To mention the name of Jesus here risks evoking a familiarity which can breed contempt. You’ve tried all that and it doesn’t work, right? Besides, have you seen how the people who use that name behave? Anything that smacks of religion evokes pain, or apathy, or contempt. And I’m not suggesting a religious solution, though I am suggesting a relational one. If Jesus is real (in the sense of being a living embodiment of love and wisdom as the bible describes him), then he would be the best kind of friend and guide for the lost. Didn’t he say, "the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost?” One touch from him could change the context of our persistently overwhelming daily reality.

Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep… I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.” What would it be like if Jesus was your shepherd and your best friend? What if you could ask him all your questions, if he could keep you company during lonely nights, and advise you in all your relationships? If he walked into the room right now, would you feel scared that He might condemn you, or mess up your life, or expose you, or make you forgive people you don’t like? What if you felt totally assured that he would never condemn you and that anything He asks of you will only lead to your happiness? I can’t talk you into it, but I can invite you into it. I’m so sure that Jesus is real that I’m willing to bet that if you ask Him to show Himself to you, He will. Why not say something like this: “Jesus if you are real, I’d like to know you. Please show yourself to me.” What do you have to lose?

Jesus is sitting in the yellow chair across from me and His face is kinder and more intense than I could have ever imagined. He kind of reminds me of that ore boat, blazing and warming in the light of the sun. It feels like he completely accepts me. There is not a wisp of disappointment or condemnation to be found on his face. I’m fairly certain He feels the same way towards you too. When I go back to the night on the beach, I can see him there too. He is wearing a crinkled, concerned face and trying to lay a blanket over me to keep me warm. That’s the first thing on His mind. The second thing on his mind is the goodness of relationship and covenant. Morality and ethics are about number 27 on his list. I can also see him in the dark boarded-up penalty box holding an old camping lantern. He quotes a scripture: “The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, rich ABOUNDING in love!” He grins as he emphasizes the word “ABOUNDING” and bright purple flowers seem to explode from his belly and cover the room.

I haven’t felt truly lost in a long time. Life still confuses me sometimes, but my best friend is always there to talk me through it. At this point I just trust him. I know he won’t break me when I’m bruised or snuff me out when I’m smoldering. He’s not like my parents or my teachers or my friends. Those relationships are shadows, but He is the truest relationship. Mother, father, brother, shepherd, gate, light, bread, power, word, sacrifice, lover, rest, home, hero, friend. He is the highest form of the best gifts life has to offer. He is all good things in every good way. He is out to get you in the best way possible. He is looking over your fence, peeking through your window, knocking on the door. His heart is not to invade your privacy or rearrange your furniture but to simply come in and share a meal with you. Maybe then you’d like to invite him to move in. It’s up to you. In the mean time a simple expressed desire to know what He is really like is all the invitation He needs.