Dear Old Friend

“The day we stop dreaming is the day we start dying. When imagination is sacrificed on the altar of logic, God is robbed of the glory that rightfully belongs to Him. In fact, the death of a dream is often a subtle form of idolatry. We lose faith in the God who gave us the big dream and settle for a small dream that we can accomplish without His help. We go after dreams that don’t require divine intervention. We go after dreams that don’t require prayer. And the God who is able to do immeasurably more than all our right brain can imagine is supplanted by a god- lowercase g- who fits within the logical constraints we have left for him to inhabit.”- Pastor Mark Batterson from The Circle Maker

Dear Dreams and Imagination,

It’s been awhile since we’ve spoken. Like really spoken. We’ve had casual conversations over the years, but the last time that I really listened to you? I can’t remember when. It’s just that I’m so busy, you know? Now we have 5 kids and we have gone through struggles and this adulting thing is just so hard! If you didn’t know, I’m in school now…again! Trying to become a school administrator. Yep! It’s hard trying to balance that with family life with work life with church work life, but in order for us to get anywhere close to where we need to be, I have to keep pressing for higher positions. 5 kids aren’t gonna feed themselves.

What’s that you say? Joy? In what I do, you mean? Yeah, I love what I get to do. The students are all amazing, even if they can’t see it yet. I have the usual jerks and turds in my classes, but nothing that keeps me down for long. In my schooling, I’m learning to much about school leadership that it is causing me to look at my own building leaders differently. The things that we do at church are good things. I just wish we had more time to devote to it all. And I love my family. You know that intimately. I never imagined a family like this, but I always did imagine that I would have a family to love and call my own.

Do you remember, Imagination, all of those dreams that we used to have about music? Like, before all of this? Where I would major in music and move to Nashville and become this big music sensation? Or even the dreams of trying out for the Voice or American Idol or America’s Got Talent? Man, I can still feel the lights and hear the crowd getting into the music that we created together! Or what about the dreams where I owned a white tiger and lived in a big house and had no worries at all, except for what we were gonna do that day? Those were good times. Oh! How about the dreams where I was a young pastor, and my wife and I were doing so many great things in our church that it grew because people felt loved and accepted?

You know? Sometimes, some of those dreams haunt me. Like, I can see them so clearly in my head that I wonder what I’m actually doing with my life. Sometimes I feel so sad when I think about them. It’s like I let you down. Like I let me down. I don’t know, man. I mean, now I want to write music that gets performed in churches. I don’t have to make millions off of them, but, dude, I KNOW that I can write some good, important music that can lift God higher. And while that’s a shift to a dream that we had together, I think the impact of it goes much deeper than the type of songs that I wanted to sing in my youth. Maybe I should have listened to you, though. But I listened to the fear. Yeah, the same fear that has been my companion since the time I discovered you. And yeah, I’ve quit writing music so many times over my life, because I’ve been so frustrated with lack of opportunities to use it, or get it heard. I’ve thought, who cares?

But now I know God cares. You care. And so I care.

And now, I think you’re talking to me again. Something about writing books? You’ve spoken to a few people for me about this very thing. God must speak to you, and then you speak to me. Is that how it works? But man, I don’t know even what to write a book about! Now I have this desire. I won’t doubt it. I’ll just go along with it and believe in it. That will make God happy. That will make you happy. And generally, when I follow after where you two lead me, I end up pretty happy as well.

I guess what I’m trying to say to you is that I’m sorry. I’m 37 years old and I’ve watched life pass me by. I haven’t yet gone after anything that we have discussed in life. I don’t know how to even begin, but I promise you that I will find a way to start. Don’t quit talking to me this time. I promise to listen because I’m learning that when I don’t trust what God tells you to tell me, I rob Him of the opportunity to be God and do God-sized things.

And I desperately need to see God-sized things in my life. I crave it. And sometimes I feel I’m so close to them. And GOSH, I want the kind of things that scare me, but not in the fear-sense. I want things to big that looking at them drives me to my knees out of total reliance on God to accomplish them. That is the stuff worth living for! Can we get there?

It’s been good talking to you again, my old friend. Now, let’s get some things done. I love you, bro.

Sincerely,

J

 

…….Through

Through – moving into one side and out of the other.

“Stop praying for it and start praising for it. True faith doesn’t just celebrate after the miracle has already happened; true faith celebrates BEFORE the miracle happens as if the miracle has already happened because you know that you know that God is going to deliver on His promise.”

“After you pray through, you need to praise through. You need to quit asking God to do something and start praising Him for what He has already done. Prayer and praise are both expressions of faith, but praise is a higher dimension of faith. Prayer is asking God to do something, future tense, but praise is believing that God has already done it, past tense.”

-Both excerpts from The Circle Maker by Pastor Mark Batterson (embellishments my own)

Praying through. In the book, Mark is talking about how many of us never see the miracles that we are believing for because we stop short. We pray right up to the finish line instead of through it. For example, those who run track are always told not to pull up as they cross the finish line. They are told to run through the line so that the effort is there. It is a horrible thing to watch a race and see the frontrunner let up just as they are almost about to cross the line, only to watch someone else take the win that should have been theirs. Or, I think of the Super Bowl when the Cowboys were playing against the Bills. Leon Lett had recovered a fumble and was rumbling (football speak for a big guy running with the ball) toward a certain touchdown. He would have easily scores, but before he crossed the goal line, he started celebrating and held the ball out. Someone came up behind him and knocked the ball away. Now, that didn’t impact the final result of the game, but it did cause him to miss out on an opportunity to score a defensive touchdown in the Super Bowl.

How many of us stop short? We spend so much time praying and believing for God to do something, only to stop because we don’t see any forward motion; not knowing that in the spiritual realm, we are right at the end? What if the Israelites had walked around the walls of Jericho only 6 days and took the 7th off because they were tired? Or what if on the 7th time around they did not yell, but only mumbled? They would not have received the victory the way that God had provided.

We have to learn to pray through!

And praise through.

We hear this so much, that we have to praise God before we see the manifestation of what we are believing for. Check this out:

“Now the gates of Jericho were securely barred because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in. Then the Lord said to Joshua, “See, I HAVE DELIVERED Jericho into your hands.”

This engages my imagination to an intense degree. I can imagine the Israelites walking around the walls of Jericho in silence for six days. Everyday knowing that they had already received the victory. Did they get tired? Probably. Was it boring? I honestly don’t know how it could have been. How could they remain so quiet when they knew what God had already done? Every time around, were they thinking about what life would be like after this victory? How they would tell their children about this day? Every day closer to that seventh day, I know that they could hardly stand it; the excitement building and crescendoing to a fevered pitch, so much that on the 7th day, they probably needed no encouragement to scream. They’d had 6 days to reflect on what God had done, even while they hadn’t seen it yet. By FAITH, they had prayed through, and now their walking around Jericho had become moments of praising through, and they had been forced to contain themselves until God said “LOOSE THE PRAISE!”

And what they loosed on that day was 6 days worth of pent up private praise. One voice joined another voice, which joined a group of voices, until a cacophony of noise registered high enough on the decibel meter to reduce a fortified, awe-inducing wall to dust!

Talk about a holy moment!!!

I bet the air was supercharged, and their spirits were at an all-time high! They received the promise before they saw the promise, and so they praised through the promise like they had already seen it with their own eyes!

What about you? I know personally, I sometimes pull up before crossing the line. Sometimes I pray and pray, but never praise. But I’m convinced now of the following equation:

Praying Through + Praising Through= BreakTHROUGH

It’s time to circle your Jericho in the faith of what God has already done in your life, and what you’ve been praying about that has already been done by God. Receive it that promise! Praise God now for it! Then watch as the walls surrounding that promise fall and are disintegrated!

And no…this isn’t name it, claim it. This is built on standing on the promises of God, which are never null and never void. They are powerful and true, and they work! Every time!!!

Be Blessed, fam!!

 

What Do You Want?

So, I’m trying to get on the whole audiobook bandwagon (yes, I know I’m like 5 years too late), but I don’t know if it is working for me. I’m listening/reading “The Circlemaker” by Mark Batterson. He is the one author that I absolutely LOVE, but the problem with listening to his books is that I want to mark poignant quotes and line the margins with thoughts, but an audiobook affords me no margins or highlighters. It was free with Audible, so I’m not out of any money, but I will probably have to just purchase the book really soon. Dude is just so full of good passages. He constantly blows my mind.

Last night I was listening to the book while getting ready for bed and he said something that I posted on Facebook. It was simply this,

“Too often we don’t get what we want because we don’t know what we want. We also don’t get what we want because we give up too soon.”

Over the course of the night and this morning, one troubling thing began to occur to me. I pray. But I pray in generalities.

But Justin, why do you pray in generalities? Because I have not settled what I actually want God to do. Maybe I’m a victim of too much thinking. Wanting too much? Rationalizing too much?

Or maybe I just have become used to living by the moment, because, in many ways, that has been my life for the longest. At any rate, what is it that I want? This is the all-important question because Mark Batterson writes extensively that we only achieve the results that we want when we know what we want. Which coincides with a recent meeting I had with a life coach where she told me essentially the same thing.

What do I want? I’m thinking about this earnestly for the first time in a long time. There are some things that I know that I want. Here’s a short list…

• One day I want to plant a church with my wife (for all of my friends at Exponential, we will get there one day!!)
• I want to write a book
• I want to record an album

Not to mention all of the things that I want for my family and other areas. Those are things that I have always known that I have wanted, yet how have I prayed for these things? The reality is that I haven’t. But why wouldn’t I, if I really want to accomplish these things in my lifetime?

I don’t know. Lazy? Fear? Do I think that my list is too extensive for God to take seriously? Shoot, most times I don’t even take myself seriously. There are probably too many reasons to mention. I just know that as I am reading this book I feel like I need to make a list and hang it up. I need to circle those items and pray BIG prayers around them just like the Israelites prayed around the walls of Jericho. Sometimes I am sure that I am living in a season of change. It is no coincidence that I’m reading this book at this present moment. God is trying to wake me up.

Is God trying to wake you up too? What do you want?

Echoing in my ears right now?

“You don’t have these things because you have not really asked for these things.” James 4:2-3

Be blessed, fam.

 

All We Do is WIN!!

Jacob as a sympathetic figure? Most of us aren’t likely to really believe that. However, if we look closer at his story, we find that he went through a season where it really felt like he was reaping what he had sown in deception. Where was the blessing? Good ole Dad had blessed him instead of his brother by some well-formed trickeration. In our minds, Jacob should have been good, right? Cause the blessing would immediately reveal itself and Jacob would be in the money. However, we find him working for his uncle, Laban, who is as much a “Jacob” as Jacob is. Some might say that he invented the “Jacob”. I mean, guys, how would you feel if your future father-in-law switched daughters with you on your wedding night? And then made you work off the debt doubly? What a season. Absolutely horrible.

But what we learn from the life of Jacob in this difficult season is that even in seasons where we feel lost and forgotten, seasons where we think that God has surely forgotten us, that His promises have fallen by the wayside, there are still opportunities for us to realize His faithfulness.

I imagine Jacob tilling the rocky soil at Laban’s singing Elevation Church’s song “Do it Again”, almost bemoaning his fate here. I’m sure that he was thinking about how his life had lead to this point. 2 wives, when he really only wanted one. Laban has him doing all kinds of work, and I’m sure that Laban was just waiting on Jacob to fail so that he could heap even more work on him, but Jacob was smart. And he believed God. And even during these difficult times, God proved faithful time and time again. In the midst of a hard season, Jacob grew from a boy into a man. I believe it was this time in his life that prepared him to meet Esau after leaving Laban. Jacob prospered. He prospered Laban, and God prospered Jacob. Jacob worked hard, and God honored his efforts.

What is the lesson for us?

It’s simple. Quit embracing the escape mentality. No matter what season you are in, quit running. if you keep trying to run from one season into a better season, you won’t be able to handle that comes your way in that season! We go through seasons for a purpose. We have to have the perspective to grow in the season. it is not enough to promise to grow after that season is already done because then we will have missed the entire point of what we found ourselves in. And that is a major problem. We have to steward the environment we find ourselves in. There is always a silver lining. There is always a test to be passed. A challenge to be overcome. And when we start embracing those challenges instead of allowing them to whip us into submission, then no matter what season we go through, we are equipped to thrive! And that is God’s intention. It’s not simply that we find success when the situation is amenable to success. It is that we find success and conquer because that is who we are at our core. It is who God created us to be!

Have the resolve that you will overcome any season not by running away from it. Stand up. Turn around. Face your challenges. Stare your bad season in the face and embrace what it is trying to teach you. Embrace what God wishes to do for you in that season. Commit to growing IN the season, and now when you come out of it.

I’m convinced that this is important stuff. I’m also convinced that it is for me as well as anyone who reads this.

The mark of a mature Christian is that he or she has the foresight and perspective to win, no matter the circumstances! No matter the season. No matter the obstacles. In Christ, all we do is WIN, because Christ WON!

And when we get this accurate view of ourselves, well….

watch what happens next.

Sermons I’d Love to Preach: Concealed Carry

I’m starting a new category on my blog called Sermons I’d Love to Preach. I figure that I’m always getting ideas for messages, but I never write them down. If I blog a bit about them, when I am asked to preach, I can always come back to my blog to see what I thought about the subject then. and what I think about the subject now. I call that being a good steward.

A good friend of mine and I were talking a few weeks ago about the trip to Vegas that he took with his wife. AS we talked, he told me that his favorite part of that entire experience was getting a chance to just talk with various guys about stuff that they don’t talk about often. it is no surprise that men are secretive. We struggle with sin and the shame that accompanies it more often than we would like to let on, which is why those things tend to hold us back as long as we allow them to. He talked about this whole idea of conceal and carry. Now, I’m no gun owner….yet (my daughter is about to be 13, so I have my application ready), so I don’t know the ins and outs of gun legislation. But just from the name, I know that when licensed, a gun owner can carry their weapon in a concealed manner. Some say it is for safety. Some think it makes them tough. Others just are fulfilling their Wyatt Earp fantasies from childhood. Whatever the reason, concealed carried weapons are legal, and within the right of every citizen.

Where the Kingdom of Heaven is concerned, concealing and carrying is almost like a self- imposed death sentence. The very things that we hold inside can keep us from truly living life on the terms provided by God. Sure, we have the right to carry our own burdens. but we can not make the excuse that we are protecting ourselves. In fact, what we are doing is neglecting to allow people that God has put in our lives to help us, to do their jobs. There is no shame in having sin in your life and telling someone. There is no shame is someone helping us to carry a burden that has been killing us for a long time. There is no shame in being weak and vulnerable before trusted friends. In this way, God heals us. When we are open about our faults and struggles, our needs and desperate pleas, God can use people to bless us in ways that can’t get to us when we choose to conceal and carry our own burdens.

In 1 Peter 5:7, Peter writes,

“Casting all your cares upon Him, for He cares for you…”

Casting here is in a present tense. That means that while we might admit out sin at salvation, we should never stop talking to God about those things that ail us. Of course, He knows, but he also knows that the things that ail us most, are the things that we sometimes don’t want to discuss. Yet, when we trust Him, and the people that He has placed around us, we are able to experience His love and faithfulness in a whole new way.  When we open ourselves up to the possibility that God really DOES love and care for us, our future and present become open to the fullness of God.

I’m not the best at open carry. I tend to conceal some things deeper than others. I concealed my porn addiction for years before opening up to a few trusted people about it. The shame that accompanies those hidden things is overwhelming and unnecessary. God accepts us. He already has chosen us. He already loves us. There is nothing more to be gained from God. He has given us all things to enjoy. We have to trust Him and open up. He cares and has placed people around us who care.

While concealing and carrying might be our legal right, it is not in our best interest. I dare you to find trusted people to be honest and open with. Who knows, you just might get set free!

One last thing. While self-defense might be a human right, a Christian knows that God is our true defense. We have to trust Him with our hearts and our hurts.

Be blessed!

Hope

I don’t normally post the same thing on two different blogs, but I had more to say on this than I originally thought.

I know that I’m going to come back to this topic later on, but I want to spend just a few sentences this morning addressing Charlottesville. The topic that I want to focus on is hope. As in, even in the midst of this crisis of perspective, there is hope.

When I first saw the news coverage as the protesting by white “nationalists” had just begun, I didn’t pay it much attention. It disgusted me, so I didn’t want to give my energy and attention to it. As thing began to escalate however, I couldn’t resist looking to read the horrors and view the pictures. I began reading articles posted by Shaun King, an activist that I really reading. I looked at social media posts from many of my FB friends who are very active in the struggle for equality. I looked at the reprehensible pictures. All of these things informed me, but none more than what I looked around and saw with my own eyes. I saw people, white people, standing up and saying, “This isn’t who we are. This isn’t right!” I dear friend of mine who adopted a child of color made multiple posts on the responsibility of other cultures to stand up for people of color in this fight. I could hear the distaste in the mouths of people that I know, people who would fight for our family if we ever found ourselves in a situation like this.

See, I live in Missouri, the same state that the NAACP issued a travel advisory for. Missouri has it’s issues, but to be painted with such a wide brush is disheartening to me. When we first moved here, the family that introduced themselves to us were white. They made us comfortable. The first church that I visited, Destiny Church, a Hispanic pastor shook my hands and welcomed me. Multiple white people hugged me and made me feel at home. They have loved our family! They have helped us grow. We worship together and pray together. I work in a district that is predominantly white among faculty and staff. Have I ever felt singled out? Not at all. I have only felt welcomed.

So to see so much rhetoric about “white people this” and “black people this” makes me think that we are missing the point of this entire thing. God didn’t create the spectrum of colors and cultures so that one could feel superior to any other. He expressed His love and creativity through the colors on our skin, hoping that we would see beyond any of that into what binds us all together. Our humanity and His Spirit.

Racism is a spirit. It is demonic. It is afflictive. It is still very rampant. The conversations cannot stop about this. We have to speak up! It doesn’t matter what we look like…the human race is threatened so long as we continue to allow ourselves to be divided.

But there is hope. I have hope when I have a discussion with my friend about what it will be like to have a black son in this world. It frightens him as much as it sometimes frightens me. I have hope when I have students who look at me as just another person and not their “Black Teacher”. I have hope when I can laugh and joke with my best friend, who happens to be a white male. I have hope when I know the hearts of those who love our own children and know that they would give their lives for them if necessary.

See, all of this “alt-right” nonsense is designed to get our eyes off of the prize. What is that prize? It is the glorious calling of Jesus Christ! In Him, there is no black, white or Hispanic. There is no Gentile or Jew. He looks through the eyes of love at each one of us and loves us with an unfailing love. That is my hope. Some might say that I’m taking the easy way out by relying on faith. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still speaking out. I will fight as God shows me. But my hope is in none of these things.

Ultimate Hope.

I won’t take my cues from what a President says or does not say. I never have. I won’t start now. I won’t take my cues from liberals or conservatives. I won’t take my cues from Fox News or CNN.

I will take my cues from what I see around me every day, and what my Bible tells me is the truth. I won’t trust in facts because sometimes facts aren’t the truth. The world around me tells me that everything is going to hell.

But I have HOPE.

The Most Beautiful Thing

I’m presently sitting outside on a bench just taking in another beautiful day in Holland, Michigan. It is no irony that I’m here. Every morning and evening, I have an opportunity to listen to messages that scrape away the calloused places of my heart. I get to watch worship from youngsters that force me to confront just how sincere my own worship is. I walk 20k steps per day to serve wherever I am needed, and I laugh so much that my stomach hurts. I walk the campus at night to make sure students are where they should be, but it’s so cool, because I also get to minister to students. 

God had to have me away from what was familiar into what is foreign, to give me a reboot. It’s funny that I have fought Him, but His relentless pursuit of our hearts, of my heart, has astounded me. He has made me  pay attention. I have wanted to collapse into tears so many times this week as He has told me who I am to Him, and what my place in Him is. I have made connections that don’t have to be regular, yet mean so much in this season of life. The more God has loved on me, the more I have loved my wife and kids, even in the sparse moments that I get to spend with them. 

I see my  imperfections. I see my failures. I see my trust issues. I see my feelings of  inadequacy.

But I also see His grace. I see His love. I hear Him calling me, like Peter, to feed His sheep. He never asked me to be perfect. He has only asked me to be willing to step out into the adventure of His will. 

And it’s the most beautiful thing, because see, like Peter, I have failed Him. I do fail Him, yet He never focuses on my failure, and points me continually toward faithfulness in who He is, and how He loves me. 

So yeah. It’s beautiful. 

The Sound of Silence

“Hello darkness my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again..”

No, not THAT sound of silence, although I absolutely love that song by Simon and Garfunkel. A thought came to me over the weekend that I want to talk about for a few minutes this morning. We fear silence.

In our worship services, sometimes when silence is called for, to reverence the presence of God and allow Him space, we fill it with words or music. Even the sermon. WE are so quick to shout of yell, that sometimes when that moment of silence is called for, to process what is happening in our midsts, we don’t know what to do. We freeze and thus don’t give God the chance that He wants. Sometimes.

When we pray, we rarely pause our words and give into the silence. If prayer is a conversation, 90% of Christians are conversation hogs. It’s like the old song used to say

“I say you talk too much. Oh boy, you never shut up..”

I wonder how often God is thinking this with a big grin on his face.

Or how about when we are just alone with our thoughts? Very rarely do I have a silent mind. I’m either pondering something, or worried about something. I’m facing my fears or being accused by my past. Either my sins are assaulting me, or I’m condemned by the weight of my imperfections. Silence can be so loud. It’s a truly harrowing prospect to be alone in the silence. Which is why we turn on the radio, or the television to fill the space. I think we are afraid of what can happen in silence. So we fill the void with what we think we need in order to not take the risk that something good might actually come from it.

Psalm 46:10 says “Be still and know that I am God.”

The Message translation says it like this, “Step out of traffic! Take a long loving look at me, your High God, above politics, above everything.”

Whoa. I’ve always read this verse and thought of the blessedness of silence, but reading the Message version really drives it home for me that God desires us to not fear silence, but to recognize that it is in the silence where He can really commune with us. It is in the silence where we can truly hear His voice. It is in the silence that He can perform heart transplants, giving us hearts of clay in exchange for our stony hearts.

He won’t force us to, though. If we choose to not embrace the silence, nothing in our lives will change. I believe that silence during worship can be just as impactful and life-changing as the most eloquently delivered sermon, or the most powerful worship song. I believe that silence in prayer can result in breakthroughs that we have not experience till now.

Because the sound of silence is the sound of deliverance. It is the sound of God’s Holiness. It is the sound of healing. It is the sound of redemption. It is the sound of God being God in the face of whatever odds and obstacles life wants to throw in our lives.

There is safety in silence with God. There is provision in the silence with God. There are unlocked gifts in silence with God. It is in the silence that we hear God telling us that he has not condemned us, but rather we are forgiven and redeemed. Loved. Called. Anointed. Promised to Him. Blessed with every blessing possible through Christ. Silence changes us. Creativity is born out of silence.

We have nothing to fear in the silence.

So today, step out of the traffic lanes of life for a few moments. Take a deep breath and push every thought and worry aside. I am assured that when we purposefully make room for God in the silent space, he will give us a strength to live our life out loud in a way that glorifies Him and further establishes His Kingdom upon the earth.

This is the sound of silence.

Be blessed today!

A Father’s Love III: The Holy Translator

Communication is such an interesting thing. We prefer words, but sometimes gestures and sounds can be just as communicative as the words that we hold so dearly. First, thank all of you for your prayers for Zyla. The tonsillectomy went well. The aftermath has been a challenge, though. In spite of a few ups, she has been pretty pitiful, preferring to be held and cuddled to getting down and dancing as is her usual. It all makes sense. She’s in pain. The discomfort makes it hard for her to communicate. So when she is hurting, we have to be able to translate her crying and motioning.

In her mind, she is telling us what she needs, but to our ears, it is gibberish.

Until we are able to translate her communication.

I was thinking about this last night, and a bible verse came to me.

“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.” (Romans 8:26)

It is funny how being a father makes so many things about God plain to me. When Zyla cries, I’m instinctively able to translate her groans, because I know her. Or even when she says one thing, but means another, I know what she means. And what she needs. Sometimes she needs what she doesn’t know how to ask for.

That’s me. That’s you. We pray and ask for things, but what we are asking for are often not what we really need. God knows this. He’s our Father.

So because we don’t know how to pray as we should, and ask for what we really need, the Holy Spirit steps in as a translator, taking what we say and putting it into a form that is better for us. When we cry out in pain, and with groans, the Holy Spirit knows what those mean, and can give those things to the Father in a way that makes better sense and lines up with His will for our lives.

There is incredible comfort in this for me.

Thank you, Father, 

For always knowing what I need, even when I don’t know. Thank you for always knowing my true prayer, even when I don’t know how to put it into words. Thank you for translating my groans and moans. You love us so much, God, and today I worship you for knowing me better than I know myself. I thank you for knowing me better than I know myself. I love you, Abba. 

Amen. 

Extra+Ordinary Life

Ok family, I need to be real with you today. I have a problem. It’s a problem that I’ve had since birth probably, but over the last couple of years I have really been thinking about it a lot. My problem is that I think that I’m supposed to have an extraordinary life. I think that my life is supposed to be special. I think that I’m supposed to accomplish something that will change people’s lives all over. Inversely, that problem manifests itself in the fact that as I look at my life right now, I see not a single, solitary trace of greatness. Life is ordinary, and that irks me like an itchy sweater. Life doesn’t feel comfortable. It feels foreign, because I don’t think that this is all that there is to my life. Anybody out there feel me? Since I was young, my mom always told me that I was special. So now, as a 36 year old man, what has happened to rob me of that feeling of destiny? The simple, unabridged answer is…Nothing. Nothing has happened to date to make me feel like I’m called for anything spectacular or extraordinary. Now, DON’T get me wrong…my life is amazing. My wife and kids are what makes my life! But, why can’t I shake the feeling that my extraordinary life is just around the corner? Why? Because God has created me to be extraordinary! You too! God has planted real, tangible seeds of the divine inside of all of us. I think the problem is that life has robbed us the nutrients that those seeds need to grow. Satan has been successful at keeping us from discovering our divine nature and identity. He has been on the attack, not to kill us, but to keep us in a constant state of confusion regarding our identity in Christ. See, God implants us with dreams. These dreams contain pieces and bits of His divine purpose for our lives. What happens too many times, and what I realize has happened to me, is that I have stopped dreaming and stopped setting goals. I’ve been vegging through life. A lot of my problem has been fear. I’m afraid to go out on a limb and try. Maybe I’m afraid that I’ll fail, or even more, perhaps I’m afraid that I’ll succeed, and then what? I’ve been paralyzed by fear my whole life. But, I’m tired of being afraid! The Bible says that Satan comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but Christ has come that we might have an abundant life. An abundant life isn’t only a life of wealth. It’s a life that is fulfilled because it is filled with the exact things that God has ordained for it. This morning I was thinking about that, and it came to me that Satan has come to steal our hope and kill our dreams. If he can do that, then he can destroy our lives, not by physically destroying us, but by rendering us incapable of fulfilling the extraordinary life that God so passionately desires for our lives. How do I know this? Well, because it’s in the Bible…duh! Check this out:

“This is what the Scriptures mean when they say, ‘No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind can imagine what God has prepared for those who love Him. But we know these things because God has revealed them to us by His Spirit, and His Spirit searches out everything and shows us even God’s deep secrets. (1 Cor. 2:9-10)’”

 

“’For I know the plans that I have for you,’ says the Lord. ‘They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.’ (Jeremiah 29:11)”

Let’s look at that first verse. How many times have you heard that verse? Preachers preach on it. Teachers teach on it. Evangelists evangelize on it. Prophets prophesy it. Apostles build on it. But if it’s being taught correctly, don’t you think that more people would walk in a level of freedom knowing that there is something greater? Maybe the issue is not that we don’t believe it. Perhaps the issue is that we aren’t looking in the right place for those greater things. God isn’t talking about waiting until we get to Heaven to see those unimaginable things. He’s talking about the here and now. He’s saying that in THIS life, here on THIS earth, during YOUR appointed years, the things that you see, hear and imagine don’t even come close to the things that God has prepared. Let that sink in for just a moment. In a nutshell, folks, you weren’t created for normalcy. Your imagination is NOT wild! You were not created for the mundane. God created you for abundant living, for extraordinary living that supersedes even your wildest fantasy! Now see, I’ve read this verse in the past. I can quote it for you verbatim, but I have never allowed it to really sink into my heart. I’ve kept it on the fringes in false hope, thinking that it might be true for me, but never really believing that it could ever happen. We internalize disappointments and shortcomings and perceived failures so much that it creates a hardened shell around our hearts. Our expectations for life never go beyond wife, kids, and job. We quit thinking that there is anything special about us, and become content with what we have around us. Now, don’t get me wrong, God wants us to be content with where He places us, but also, we are not to be content with anything until we are directly in the will of God, pressing for greater and building His kingdom. This verse though, I don’t know family; I think I’m finally getting it. It’s a liberating thought for me that my desires for greatness are not just my own. They are God’s thoughts toward me and for me! Those flashes of greatness that you get from time to time; I believe that God is trying to breakthrough the mundane areas of our lives and get us to see that there is greater for us! I think that God is trying to shake us from our hibernation. We’ve walked through life in a slumber and daze for too long. Sound the alarms. Blow the trumpets. Bang the cymbals. Wake up people of God! We are a people of extraordinary design, destined for an extraordinary life, which is the offshoot of serving an extraordinary God! If our Father is extraordinary and Supernatural, how can we be created to be anything besides that? I mean, family, this stuff is written in our spiritual DNA. It’s as much a part of our makeup as brown eyes or pale skin. What God designed to be a dominant gene though, has been made recessive through our inability to shake ourselves from our funks and otherwise. Understand, a husband does not look for a wife who is below his status. He looks for a wife who is his equal in every way. In that same fashion, Jesus Christ, the extraordinary, supernatural Groom, is not coming back for a plain Jane, normal, ho hum Bride. He’s coming back for a wife whose very nature lies in the fact that she is just as extraordinary as He is! We’ve got work to do, because for the most part, the Church has become content to fade into the background. We haven’t adorned ourselves with anything to make ourselves look particularly appealing to non believers or Christ. But if we can’t even imagine how good God’s plans are for us, then we should be in a constant state of excitement over what’s coming down the pipeline. We should be continually at the ready, knowing that when the extraordinary things of God come down the pipeline, we will be right where we should be.

Furthermore, God confirms in Jeremiah that He has plans for us. Our existence is already mapped out by God. Check out this verse in Psalm 139:

“You saw me before I was born. Everyday of my life was recorded in Your book. Every moment of my life was laid out before a single day had passed. (v16)”

 

“For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things He planned for us long ago. (Ephesians 2:10)”

To me, it’s comforting that every day of my life is already recorded in God’s book. Because I am saved, my sins have already been covered. The challenge then is to move past self condemnation, and work towards pleasing God by accomplishing His goals for my life. The same thing goes for you. One of the keys to extraordinary living is moving past Satan’s and self’s accusations and moving towards God’s expectations (thanks, Bo!) God has greatness in store for you. This is exciting! In our church, we are starting a new series by John Bevere called “Extraordinary”. That is where all of this is coming from. People, for so long, I’ve felt like a failure in every area of life, because I have never felt like I was operating in the way that God has called me to. I am looking forward to discovering God’s plans for my life over this next 12 weeks, and as I blog about what I’m finding out about myself and God’s plans for us all, I pray that your heart would be set ablaze again and begin to believe, hope, and dream again. God has planned out an extraordinary life for you and me. It’s our job to discover God’s pathway to greatness and walk that road.

So, this is my pledge. Over the next 12 weeks, I am making a promise to myself to consider anything. I want to believe that anything is truly possible for those who believe. If God has planned an extraordinary life for me, then I don’t want to hinder it at all! If God has abundant living in store for me, then I want it! I want everything that God has in this life for me, so that I can give it all away for His glory! Not that I can be seen on a world stage, but that God might be glorified through the extraordinary living that I do on a daily basis. How about you? Will you come on this journey with me? You know its there…the longing for more. Maybe you’ve turned a deaf ear to it, but I promise you that something inside of you is raging against normalcy and mundane living. Something inside of you is crying out for more. Something inside of you is begging for dreams and visions of greatness. Something inside of you is telling you to believe again, to hope again!

The omnipotent God, who has numbered our days and written out every page of our lives, has destined us for the extraordinary and the supernatural. Who are we to stand in the way?

“God, my prayer is that you will help us to dream again. I pray that you would resurrect the desires that you have placed within us. I pray that we would no longer be afraid, but would recognize that our dreams are in fact, Your dreams. Give us the wisdom to know the difference. We need a revelation of who we are that can only be found in You. I believe that once we know who You created us to be, the freedom to achieve the supernatural will be reawakened within us as well. God, I pray for freedom to be extraordinary in everything that we do. I pray that the newness and abundance of life that You sent Christ for, will rise within us like an untamed fire! For Your glory, and for Your praise, Amen!”

Until next time, fam, be blessed!