The Bursting Bubble

The tension, angst, and increasing frustration swirling around in the hearts and minds of many people is like the tension expressed in a bubble just before it bursts. This is not a financial or political bubble. It is a spiritual bubble that once it breaks will prepare the way for a great move of God's Spirit. 

These moves of the Spirit have taken place historically when all the things we put our hope in apart from God finally proved to be nothing more than shallow substitutes. 

If you are feeling overwhelmed with the increasing levels of tension, angst, and frustration currently taking place in our culture, invite the presence of God to come and reorder your emotions to align with a passion for more of Him. When you do this, the negative feelings will begin to lift. You will discover, and in some cases rediscover, freedom and peace amidst the turmoil. You will also find your place in the coming move of God. That discovery would not have taken place had you been focusing on the wrong things.

Amazed

When the sound of God’s voice entered the formless and empty void of nothingness and said, “Let there be light”, a creative expansion began to take place. The sound of God’s voice penetrated the nothingness releasing the supernatural forward motion of creation. Out at the collapsing edge of nothingness is where a newly created order is being established and advanced. The ever-advancing sound of God’s voice is actively creating new worlds and realms as it overcomes nothingness. 

The effect of God’s voice is an expanding frontier of light.  Ahead of that expanding light and continually welcoming its arrival is the presence of God that has always filled all things in all dimensions. 

When you speak in the name of God, you tap into the same incomprehensibly profound expansion that was released in the original creation. Never lessen the impact of a spoken word by allowing disbelief to silence your voice. As a child of God, your voice has been assigned to create with the same creative potential as your Heavenly Father. The resulting effect and expansion of a word released in faith are always beyond any measurement of human logic and reasoning. You serve an awe-inspiring God.

A Purpose for Numbers

For the last 5 years, Jan and I have been seeing the number, “9:19”, everywhere. We see it on the digital clock in our bedroom, on our microwave oven, our computers, smartphones and all places digital. It has been quite amazing how many times we have seen that number. Jan researched every Scripture with the reference of 9:19. There are some trends, but no, “Thus saith the Lord.”

There are other times when I see numbers that may not repeat with the frequency of 9:19, but they capture my attention because of the people involved or the history they carry. For example, “4:27” reminds me of the powerful motor my childhood friend put in his classic 1955 T-Bird. When I saw that number, I prayed for my friend. Once I saw, “3:57” and thought of the caliber of the revolver I carried as a cop and remembered a rookie I trained and prayed for him. Another time I saw “3:37” and thought of a professional pilot I know who used to fly a Cessna 337 Skymaster. The number “3:36” reminded me of a classic Marlin Model 336 30-30 rifle owned by a friend during my first pastorate in Montana. He loved to hunt. That number took me back 35 years and ignited a prayer.

We Christians like to find cryptic meaning in numbers. If it is done right, there is nothing wrong with that kind of inquiry. Some of those searches for numerical meaning can get a bit strange and squirrely if not leashed to wisdom.

Here is what I have come away with regarding numbers. In my life, I have found the recognition of a particular number can be a Spirit-led connection to a person or a past event. The number captures my attention long enough to pause and pray for someone or an event. For most of these prayers, I have no idea why I am praying. There have been times the prayers contained a specific revelation, but most of the time I simply prayed for God to provide what was needed for His will to be accomplished in a life or circumstance in that moment.

God can use a variety of ways to gain the attention of His Church to pray for people and circumstances we might otherwise miss in the busyness of our lives. These memories become spiritual speed bumps that slow us down. Maybe the answer to why a particular number gained our attention was not as mysterious as we first imagined. It could be as simple as God extending an invitation for us to pray or prophesy.

When an unusual reminder comes the next time, like a number that gains your attention, stop. Stop and listen to the Spirit and pray for the person or circumstance connected to the number. At that moment, you may get something personally insightful. You receive an assignment to pray, give or serve that will actually open the door to the meaning of the number that first captured your attention.

Dropping the List

Years ago, I said to the Lord, “I can’t wait to see you face-to-face and ask you some questions.” At that time, early in my journey of faith, I wanted the Lord to give me those answers to prove my points of preferred theology and win debates with anyone who held an opposing position.

The Lord’s response took me by surprise. He said, “You won’t ask Me any of those questions because your inquiry and list were sourced in pride. Once you stand in My presence, all your questions will have been answered in love, without the stain of your pride. The questions you have been asking will no longer be necessary.”

I wonder how differently we would relate to each other if we allowed the Spirit to convict people of truth and offered to God, daily, every remnant of our pride. Like the stones that were released and fell to the ground from the clenched fists of the men who wanted to stone a woman caught in adultery, so it would be with our lists of what we consider to be the only acceptable version of the truth.

The longer I walk with God, the less I realize I know about Him. It is a perspective thing. My knowledge base is not shrinking, it is actually growing. God has become a lot larger and more majestic in the passing years. My meager portion of revelation grows smaller in relationship to my ever-increasing understanding of God. His revelation increases at a far greater rate than my ability to process and store information about Him. 

That expanding revelation has lovingly confronted the stupidity of my pride, my assumptions and every list I prepared and packed for this journey of faith. None of my lists and debate points were as important as the people they would challenge. At that point, I discovered an aspect of God's heart not on my list. That was the turning point that caused me to drop my list and simply walk with people in love trusting that God would be faithful to make Himself known to them when the time was right. In a few of those instances, it was me, not the other person, who needed to change.

A New Spiritual Language

Some of us need to learn how to speak a new language. We need to learn how to speak the truth in love using the language of our culture and the heart of God to craft our dialogue. Those who will have the most significant impact in the reformation currently taking place in our culture will sound different than those still trapped in the narrow language skills offered by reactionary religious-speak.

When a company has a product or service that is offered outside their borders, they will many times hire a multinational advertising agency to promote their services to customers who do not speak their native language. For example, this morning, I saw a photo of a pastor I know who is traveling to Africa. He was standing in an airport waiting for his flight. Behind him was a sign depicting a smiling flight attendant from Turkish Airlines with the words printed across the ad, “Happy to have you on board.” Those same words translated into Turkish (thanks, Google Translate) would read, “Gemide olduğun için Mutlu.”  Sounds a little different, right?

When Jesus traveled through Samaria, he met a woman at a well. He did not react with a sense of shock like His disciples did when they arrived later and saw Jesus talking with a woman or like most of Israel who was taught that Samaritans were lower class people calling them “Samaritan dogs.” The language Jesus used in His conversation with the woman who had an obvious laundry list of active sins, did not express shock or disgust. He talked in a way that made it easy for her to hear and understand the message of love being offered. As a result of Jesus’ message, the woman ran back to her village and told everyone what had taken place. Her passion for God set off a revival in Samaria.

Hand your language skills over to Jesus. Allow Him access to your words and their presentation. He runs the most successful spiritual ad agency ever known. He will hand you back a new language that can translate more effectively His heart to the culture. When that work is accomplished, your voice will have the same supernatural potential that Jesus modeled with the woman at the well. Some revivals are simply waiting for someone to speak about God in a new way.

Your Invitation is Coming

An invitation is coming your way that will change everything. The fatigue, the unhealthy expectations and the ruts of routine will be displaced by what this invitation will release. The arrival of your invitation will announce the beginning of a new season.

Ten years ago, I was a typical pastor in the United States. After returning from Europe in 1999 where Jan and I saw God move in wonderful and usual ways, we settled back into the routine of pastoring a local church in America with its weekly meetings, programs, and yearly calendar. I stepped into the rut of pastoral ministry and started to jog forward at the pace set by the needs and demands of a local church. It was not a negative experience. It merely had limited Kingdom impact.

At that time, Jan handed me a book written by David Crone, the Senior Leader of The Mission in Vacaville, California. Referencing the book, Decisions That Define Us, Jan said, “You need to read this. He is saying the same things you and I have been saying.”  

After reading David’s book, I set up a time for Jan and me to meet David and his wife in Vacaville. After lunch, David prayed for me and invited me to something called a Leader’s Advance at Bethel Church in Redding, California. I knew nothing of the ministry of Bethel or a Leader’s Advance. The Advance was only a few days off, so I assumed registration was already closed. David said to call the church and tell them he was the one extending the invitation and to help me register. I called, and a place was made for me.

During my visit to Bethel, several critical things took place. When I walked through the church doors, I felt honor. At that time in my life, I had never heard of something described as a culture of honor. I actually sensed the presence of honor permeating the church campus. When I heard Bill Johnson speak for the first time, I heard the substance of a voice I had not heard in years. Bill sounded like my pastor, Roy Hicks, Jr. I was listening to the voice of apostolic leadership. 

On that visit, a prophetic word came alive that was given to me ten years earlier by the prophet, Jean Darnall. Jean said to me, “You will write for God”. That word lay dormant in my life until it was ignited during worship at the Leader’s Advance.  Since that first visit to Bethel ten years ago, I have written 7 books and written over 1,500 blog articles. A significant portion of my time is now devoted to writing.

In ways similar to my experience, invitations are being released that will align some of you with an acceleration of your gifts and calling. Time is compressing as a significant breakthrough is approaching your personal life and calling.  Attached to these invitations will be the fulfillment of prophetic words spoken over you that have lain dormant and untapped in their potential. As the invitation from David Crone was nowhere on my radar, so it will be for you. When an unexpected invitation comes, walk through the door it opens. You will be amazed at what God can do when we accept an invitation to something new.

Exposing Dark Agendas

A small discovery is about to lead to a massive shift in our culture. An uncovering is taking place. As events begin to unfold, look deeper than what is being offered to you as the assumed final word on any subject. If you have trained your eyes to see with the sight of the Spirit, the Lord will reveal to you what is not being seen by those who are watching these events unfold with the limitations of natural sight and human logic.

When I was a cop, we had a unique armed robber hitting convenience stores in our city. He was dubbed the Band-Aid Bandit because he wore a bright-colored children’s Band-Aid across the bridge of his nose when he committed a robbery. During a robbery, people were so focused on the colorful Band-Aid and the cartoon characters it depicted, that we had a hard time getting a decent description of the suspect. In the end, he was arrested when an alert street cop pulled him over for a minor traffic violation. The officer noticed a box of children’s Band-Aids on the floor in the back seat. One thing led to another, and an arrest was made. A minor violation led to a major arrest.

That one simple and creative tactic, putting a bright-colored Band-Aid on the bridge of the robber's nose, delayed the arrest of an aggressive armed criminal. The enemy of good wants you as a follower of Jesus Christ to focus on the shallow, first level of facts that natural sight and logic is presenting. This is a thin revelation that will only lead you to a prepared conclusion and not the identity of the real suspect.

Ask the Lord to help you see beneath these shallow offerings to what is really taking place in the realm of the Spirit. When you do, you will see the true suspect and he is not any of the faces being shown on the news outlets. He is the puppet master of a dark agenda. His greatest trick is to have you look only at the Band-Aids of deception he is offering instead of looking past the charade to see something deeper that is taking place. Wisdom will guide your eyes and enlighten your mind to help you uncover his true identity.

This thief has one mission. He has come to steal, kill and destroy. His current reign of deception will come to light in 2018. This exposure will reveal an evil work and the puppets he used to accomplish an evil agenda, but that is not all that will take place. God will use this exposure to train and mature a sometimes naive Church who too easily try to interpret a spiritual reality through the filter of human emotion and the lens of natural sight. In the end, we will be wiser and more insightful when the Band-Aid of deception is finally removed and we see what was actually taking place. When the next deception comes, we will be prepared to engage the real suspect earlier in the investigative process.

Finding Purpose In Finality

We can never fully appreciate the impact made by another person’s life until that life is finally gone. What arrives in these times of loss are the unique and tender memories of their presence.  When a parent, a spouse, a child or a good friend make the final crossing ahead of us, we find ourselves left with a stunning and unfamiliar clarity created by their absence. We think we still see and hear them in the familiar places of our shared routine of life, but they are gone, now just a vapor-like memory of what was. These memories have a purpose. They are the spiritual ink and paper we will use to craft an epitaph of remembrance.

Sorrow pulls hard on our hearts in these times because our childlike thinking wanted us to believe the presence of a loved one would last forever. In the moment of realized loss, our childlikeness is starkly and quickly matured when we have to face the finality of death. We are like the first disciples approaching the tomb having heard, but not yet realizing what Jesus meant when He spoke of His future life beyond the Cross and Tomb. 

Our melancholy in death is not meant to be the station for our grief because a resurrection is always waiting for us just ahead on the path to the tomb. The feelings we are left with after a treasured life disappears will eventually be transformed by time, faith and the love of God to become the engine driving the wheels of our recovery. The fuel for this engine is our thankfulness for all the goodness of life we were privileged to share with the ones we loved. 

Death is never the end, for you or for those you loved because of the Resurrected One. In Him, what appears to be a finality is only the beginning of something new and unimaginably beautiful. 

Always The First Time

I remember the first time I kissed Jan. It was 47 years ago. We drove from Multnomah School of the Bible (now known as Multnomah University) in Portland, Oregon to the Eagle Creek trailhead in the Columbia Gorge. I had to borrow a car to make the trip. After a long hike we returned to the parking lot. Just before starting the car, it happened. I can still remember that first kiss. I have been kissing Jan’s lips several times each day ever since. Kissing Jan is always special like it was the first time. As I recalled that first kiss, the Lord began to speak to me about worship.

Over the years, I have found myself critical of some forms of worship. Pick the judgment. I have done it. I have judged worship as out of date, too flashy, not sincere enough, too controlled, sloppy, corny or too professional with lights and smoke rising. You name it I found something I did not like about how people worshipped when my heart was not in a healthy alignment with the heart of God. Finally, God said to stop it. It was an intimate experience between Jesus and His bride, and it was none of my business. It would be akin to someone peering through the window of the car I borrowed 47 years ago and saying to me as I kissed Jan for the first time, “Dude, somebody needs to show you how to kiss that girl.”

What I did not understand in those times of judgment was this one fact, for God, every time He engages with someone in worship, no matter the style, method or skill level, for Him, it is always the first time. It is like the first time two people in love experience the first kiss. For God, worship is always a tender and passionate experience. It takes His breath away. It never becomes routine.

Maybe the next time we get together with others believers, we should listen for the breath of God being taken away instead of any words of judgment or criticism being offered.

For many of us who have been in the Church for a long time and think we know it all, it would be good to go back and rediscover the first blush of our passion for God. It can be lost. It can also be rediscovered. Those first attempts were a beautifully clumsy and exploratory kind of love so filled with passion we did not care if we did it right.

The Church can become predictable week in and week out meeting with the same people doing the same form of worship. Ministry came become an industry of continually promoting the product of self. Our most intimate relationships can become drained of feeling. When worship and life in the Spirit become void of innocence and tenderness, we lose something beautiful. Only the passion of first love has the power to interrupt predictability, self-promotion and the absence of the emotion of love and replace it with the newness of a young love.

The next time you gather to worship, ask God to help you taste the first kiss of worship once again. If you do, you will be so taken with the lover of your soul that nothing else taking place in the room will matter. That is what passionate worship is looks like to those who are in love with God.

Stumbling Around in the Light

In the middle of the night (for me), I drove to the airport to pick up my daughter, Anna, who was returning home from a trip to Mexico. If you follow my writing, you know Jan, and I hit the rack early and get up early – real early, each morning. It is our best time to write, reflect and pray.

Well, this morning, I slept in late, several hours late, and got up at 7:00 am. It was a strange feeling. All my regular morning routines normally done in darkness were now being done with daylight inside the house. Turning on the coffee maker, walking through the house toward my writing chair, standing before our living room window and welcoming the new day with prayer, were normally accomplished in surrounding darkness. Doing these things seemed strange and otherworldly with so much light.

I was experiencing a living metaphor of John 1:5, where John writes, “The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.” The Lord was showing me what it should be like for a follower of Jesus 24/7. We are never in a place of darkness because it is impossible for darkness to overwhelm light. Yet at times, the level of fear and frustration I hear coming from our mouths would indicate that some of us are living like people who are stumbling through the darkness instead of people who are walking in the brilliant light of God’s presence.

Fear will always darken the spiritual environment of our lives and the words that come out of our mouths. Faith can seem fake and plastic to people, believers and non-believers alike, who have chosen to only see darkness. A religious spirit can turn off the light of hope and make everything dark and reasonable to people who no longer live in the light of faith. Just because something sounds religious does not make it wise or sourced from God's Spirit.

You and I are not supposed to live like people stumbling through dark places unsure of our spiritual footing. Wisdom invites us to employ the fruit of self-control and begin to retrain how we think and speak. Like someone walking through every room in their home at night and flipping on each light switch, it will change how we see this life. Those choices of faith will begin to illuminate each room of making your way sure and confident. It may seem strange at first like it was for me this morning when I awakened and saw everything illuminated, but after awhile, it will become your new normal. At that moment, you will begin to see this life with the eyes of God.

Reminders of Love in a Place of Loss

In the two months since my dog, Abby, died, our cat, named Mister, has assumed some of Abby’s duties. Both Abby and Mister have no tails. Mister is a Manx (he looks like a little bobcat), and Abby was an Australian Shepherd (Aussie). Aussies are called velcro dogs. They stick close to your side at all times. Wherever I went, Abby was always near me for all of her 15 years of life.

As I write, Mister is lying at my feet just like Abby used to do. He now follows me throughout our home. Until Abby’s death, Mister never did any of this. He did cat things. Mister has also taken over Abby’s old place of vigilance on our kitchen floor. From this vantage point, Abby could view four of the rooms in our home where her humans spent most of their time throughout the day. This position allowed Abby to make sure we were all safe. Since Abby died, I now find Mister laying in Abby’s old spot of canine vigilance.

Mister is teaching me something about God. We all know the verse where God promises never to leave us or forsake us. In times of loss, that has become the go-to verse for many of us. The fulfillment of the promise in that verse is not limited to a warm and reassuring feeling. It can have a tangible expression.

In all the years I have followed the Lord I have noticed something. To help us not feel alone or abandoned, God will fill our void with an expression of His love that was not anticipated. Mister is now filling a role once held by my beloved Abby. Some people who lose a spouse could never imagine that void of sorrow being filled with another person until that person walked into their life. Jan’s parents faithfully served as missionaries for over 30 years, and 5 years before their retirement, the missions agency retirement program went bust. In the remaining years, God not only replenished the damaged retirement account of my in-laws but took them past their original investment into a new place of unexpected blessing. God never leaves our life vacant of an expression of His love.

Today, look with the eyes of faith at your empty place. It takes faith to interpret loss healthily because endless sorrow and unbridled despair are also vying for that place in your life. As you take that second look, you might see something lying on the floor in front of you just like Mister is doing. Someday, if we get another dog, Mister will go back to being a cat. Right now, he is doing his best trying to be a dog-cat on assignment from God. That loving performance brings a smile to my face and a sense of hope in my heart. Both of those feelings affirm for me that our God will never leave us alone in our most painful empty place without a reassuring expression of His love.

The Greatest Blessings

In my life, the greatest blessings I received were not the result of a well-crafted human plan. I could not create the blessings I have been given. I could not predict them or see them coming. These blessings simply arrived out of the goodness of God's heart and in faith, I was given the honor to steward their presence in my life. 

When these blessings arrived, they were an Ephesians 3:20 experience that came from a place beyond what I could dare to hope or even imagine. If the goodness we experience in this life is only something we can produce, a childlike joy and anticipation will be absent. 

Each day, I look toward the "beyond" waiting to see what will walk through the separating veil between this realm and the realm of Heaven. Anticipating goodness changes everything.

A Dangerous Theology

It can make some theologians nervous to say that good theology is formed from experience. The pages of Scripture are a story of God interacting with people, not a hard and cold set of impersonal facts about God.

I formed my theology about God’s goodness at 2:00 am several years ago when my world was falling apart after a significant injury and a resulting surgery. I arrived at a hopeless place where despair wanted to overcome my life. At that moment, I cried out to God, and He met me as I began to fall into a bottomless pit of despair where a lie waited to consume my life.

I asked God what was going on. He said He did not create the despair I was going through, but He would use my experience to reveal His goodness to me. I will never forget His words, “If you can understand my goodness here in this dark and painful place, that definition will work anywhere and at any time in the future.” At that moment, my interaction with God created and affirmed a personal theology that God is always good even when I find myself overwhelmed by pain and suffering. My theology followed my experience – an experience confirmed in Scripture and by the life experiences of those who went before me on this journey of faith.

A theologian is similar to an anthropologist who studies culture as people live and interact with the world around them and with each other. Where some theologians get in trouble is when they place acts of faith in submission to their theology. Theology does not take the lead over faith in importance. Scripture tells us it is impossible to please God without faith. It does not say we please God with a well-crafted theological statement.

Faith requires an experience where it can be exercised. In the experience of our faith is where we discover the personal understanding of our theology. When God created the Earth and the humans who would walk on its surface we developed our theology defining a creative God. When the Church was empowered on the Day of Pentecost, we created an aspect of our theology about a person called Holy Spirit. An experience where faith is exercised in response to God is the laboratory where our theology is discovered and defined.

The revelation of God is always expanding. As someone wisely said, “All of the Bible is God, but not all of God is in the Bible.” As that expansion and its accompanying revelation continue to unfold, we should always be learning new aspects of God. He is not changing in the expansion. We are merely discovering something new about an unchanging, yet unimaginably expansive God. The cutting edge of that expansion is where a nervous theologian fears to tread. An increase in our understanding of a particular truth can appear to some to be an attack on one specific version of orthodoxy a theologian subscribes to and lives to defend. At this juncture, we must relate to each other with wisdom and mercy.

All our experiences should be studied in light of Scripture and in consideration of Church history, whether we like a particular piece of our shared history or not. Add to that study the guiding hand of God’s Spirit in our current experience and we can make a safe theological journey. In that process, we can be led to a new frontier of faith where we will experience something previously unexplored that will require us to expand our current understanding of theology without ever violating the essence of truth.

A Global Reset

You know the feeling you get when you hear words in your heart that are not typical in your normal vocabulary. The words get your attention because you know its God speaking and not your imagination. I heard two words like that a few days ago. The words were, “Global Reset.”

When I heard those words, I understood them to mean an experience of such magnitude that it would produce wonder and absolute awe in each culture on Earth. Its magnificence would focus worldwide attention on the one thing that was taking place. Across the globe, people would be willing to put aside their petty issues, division and their limited understanding of reality in exchange for what the reset promised.

The reset is so huge in its scope that it's not on our radar as a possibility. It would be akin to the promise of Ephesians 3:20 as something, “…abundantly beyond all that we ask or think.”

This Global Reset will be a worldwide move of God so profound in its dimension that none of us will have a historical reference point for what takes place. This release of Heaven on Earth would literally begin to shift the sound the Earth is making from its current state of groaning to the sounds of celebration in anticipation of what is being released through the people of God. (Romans 8:20-22)

This reset will exceed what has taken place in the awakenings, revivals, and reformations in the past. It will be unimaginable because it is beyond any human ability to produce even with the best of our collective labor, creativity, and sacrifice. It will be God showing up in such transformative power that it would be akin to an alien invasion of Earth where all eyes are focused on what is transpiring. A reset of this magnitude will be the beginning of something utterly new on Earth. When the Global Reset finally takes place, it will change everyone and everything.

Stirring Your Passion

When I awakened this morning, I began to think of what would happen if the masses of people who follow Jesus Christ became an active part of the reformation currently taking place in our culture. Today, many believers feel distant from the subject. They think discussions about reformation take place in the rarified air breathed only by theologians.

When I wrote the book, The Sound of Reformation, I did not write an academic treatise on the subject. I wrote a concept book. Many excellent works on the subject of reformation already exist. What was not present was a simple publication that could be approached by the everyday man and woman who has stood at a distance from what appeared to be such a heady subject. I wrote it for the busy church leader who has considered the topic too complicated to take on amidst an already strenuous ministerial calendar.

This morning, I received a kind and affirming email from a man in Europe who picked up a copy of my book from our European distributor. He wrote, “The Sound of Reformation, which I have just finished, touched so many areas of my life that God has been speaking into. It has stirred a passion in me, and it is already swirling around with excitement for my part to play.”

My newfound European friend expressed precisely my desire for anything I write, but especially the goal I wanted to accomplish in writing The Sound of Reformation. Much of what we have tried to convey about reformation has been too complicated and unapproachable by the masses. As a result, many in the Church have not had their passion stirred and have yet to discover their unique part to play in the reformation taking place in each culture on Earth.

This is your time to discover and engage your part. You have amazing things to do with God. Discovering that calling and engaging its possibilities will stir a passion you did not know you had.

A Courageous Example

Martin Luther King, Jr. has always been a man I admired both as a statesman and a fellow pastor. He was a man of courage who made choices many of us would hesitate to make. I want to pause and remember his life and sacrifice on this day when we as a nation honor his life and ministry.

The following is an excerpt from a speech titled, I Have Been To The Mountaintop. King gave this speech the day before he was assassinated. The words have always struck a deep place in my soul. His speech was prophetic of the tragic events that would unfold the next day on our family's black and white TV.

"Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!

And so I’m happy, tonight.

I’m not worried about anything.

I’m not fearing any man.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

On this day when we remember a great man and a brother in Christ, I want to become more like him, a man of courage when courage was a dangerous choice.

Thank you, Martin.