God's Amazing and Unexpected Ways

I’m index finger typing these words on my iPhone because we lost power last night and our house Internet connection is down. Last night someone was fleeing from the police and took down a power pole.

At 4:00 am, I walked several blocks to the crash scene and spoke with the flagger who was monitoring the closed street. He said of all the poles to hit this was the one with all the neighborhood connections on it. A new pole is being installed. It will take several more hours for our power to return.

Walking back from the crash scene it was pitch black. When I got to our house, I turned off my flashlight, turned the bill of my baseball cap around, and looked up into the night sky. It was brilliant with stars. I stood there for several moments praying and taking in the beauty. Then a shooting star crossed the sky.

I made a wish that was more of a prayerful declaration. I said, “May the glory of the Lord fill the Earth today in amazing and unexpected ways.”

After an estimated 75,000-100,000 believers gathered in Washington DC yesterday to pray and worship, I am living in a greater expectation that those amazing and unexpected ways of God are closer to becoming a reality than we can imagine. This is a day to believe that God is about to do something beyond our wildest imaginations and most heartfelt prayers. The heavens are declaring His glory.

Sheltering in Place

At some point, in this over-heated social atmosphere, we have to bar the door and shelter in place. It is a sheltering just like teachers are advised to do when an active shooter is roaming through the halls of a school looking for victims. The sheltering in place is emotional and spiritual. 

Conflict, confrontation, and division are the current shooters roaming the halls of our culture looking for their next victim. They are armed with weapons designed to rip through the fabric of our being and destroy our soul if we offer them a target. 

Today, bar the door to your life and let nothing in that is not offered by God. Press close to those you love and embrace each of them. That shared embrace is the only safe place while the world is under assault. While pain and sorrow are rampant may our hope remain intact.

 

The Lord Has Released A Promise

Today, I needed to get away from human input and opinion. I went to a place called Lower Table Rock. Lower Table Rock is an immense rock plateau in southern Oregon that rises above our valley. For thousands of years, from native groups to the present day, people have climbed its summit to seek a place of peace, solitude, and reflection. That is why I went to the summit.

The issues taking place in our culture have brought us to a critical intersection. "Divine Direction" and "Dark Deception" are the street signs marking this intersection. False solutions have been offered, each inspired by a dark agenda, but something deeper is taking place inspired by God's Spirit. A distraction intent on keeping us from seeing the deeper work of God is being offered to us in well-crafted packages. These distractions pull on our emotions, and those parts of our mind not yet fully renewed. These distractions are blinding many to Heaven's plan and will lead them to make critical errors in judgment.

Once atop the plateau, I hiked toward the cliff edge that overlooks the Rogue Valley and the city of Medford. In the Spirit, I saw the image of a hand unfolding. I immediately knew I was seeing the hand of God. From within the Lord’s opened hand, a butterfly rose and began to fly away. 

I asked the Lord to help me understand what that image meant. He said promises are being released that will join with other promises. Their fulfillment would reveal the plan of God and give people a sense of direction. No one promise could accomplish what God had planned nor provide clarity all on its own. The only safe way forward is to follow the unique promise God has provided for each of us individually. It is our spiritual GPS calibrated to Heaven's direction. 

The cruel and heated events taking place in the world of recent date has caused the Lord to reach out and capture promises and hold them safely in His hand for this time of strategic release. While these promises were captured, protected and out of sight, some wrongly assumed God had abandoned them and their dreams. He was holding them safely in His hand for the right moment of release. The promise you thought was lost has been kept alive. It was never crushed, only out of sight. When released, follow its leading.  The promise will direct your steps through all the cultural carnage and relational havoc, and keep you safe from deception as you pass through this critical intersection.

Your Future is Hope

In the last hour, I was thinking about a couple of good friends who are making a significant change in their lives. The Lord gave me a word for them. While it was a specific word of encouragement, the Lord said, “This word is for others. It has a wider application.” So, with that instruction, I want to share the word with you if it applies to your circumstance. Be well. God has you covered. Hope is your future.

“You just came to mind, and when you did, I felt the Lord nudge me to share something with you. I know significant change is on your horizon. In the coming days, God will reveal a new level of His faithfulness to you. The honor and love you have carried and displayed to many of us while you were near will go before you in our absence. It will open doors for the many wonderful things God has planned in the new place. Go expecting joy to greet you upon your arrival.”

Joy to the World

Yesterday, while on a hike, I found myself singing Christmas carols. It was an out-of-the-blue kind of experience. While I sang the carols, I began to feel lighter and emotionally free. It was a pleasant sensation.

This morning, Jan shared with me a couple of articles written just this week by prophetic voices regarding the topic of Christmas. The Spirit is saying something.  In this season of isolation where increasing levels of frustration and anger are manifesting, we don’t have to let the negativity of the season affect the moment. We can import experiences of joy, like singing Christmas carols in April, into a season filled with despair and literally shift our attitude and hopefully, the environment and relationships around us.

If this sounds too simplistic or like an attempt to ignore reality, you are missing the point. Faith is supposed to overcome the restrictions of this life that want to rob us of our joy or tell us something cannot be done. There is nothing simplistic about it. It is a spiritual act empowered by faith. The sanest thing I did yesterday was to sing Christmas carols in April on a mountain trail out in the middle of nowhere.

Jingle your bells!

Surrounded by Angels

I debated whether to share the following experience, not because of any fear or doubt. I wanted to make sure I had permission from the Lord to make it public or keep it private as a personal experience. The Lord just gave me permission to share.

Last Wednesday morning, I was on a prayer walk through the woodlands near our home. I saw just a few people hiking on the trails. I was in one section of trail where I rarely encountered another person even during normal times. All of a sudden, I felt a presence behind me. I turned around in preparation to step aside and allow someone to pass by, but no one was there. At that moment, I knew an angel was walking behind me. I could not see the angel, but the sense of his presence was as real as if a flesh and blood human was behind me. I said out loud, “I sense your presence.” When I turned back around to continue walking, I sensed another angelic presence in front of me. All three of us were walking together. 

I inquired of the Lord what this encounter meant, and He said, “I have dispatched angels to walk as rear guards to follow my people and way-maker angels to walk in front of them as they follow the path of their faith.” A beautiful and powerful peace enveloped me as I continued to hike. 

You and I are not, nor have we ever been alone as we step forward in faith. God has positioned the resources of Heaven to walk with us through valleys of dry bones and through fields of plenty. We are always accompanied. The great assault taking place in this moment of history is an assault of fear, not a virus. This fear has been released in an attempt to immobilize our faith by making us believe we are naked, alone, and abandoned. Don’t accept the invitation to this fear. You are not alone. You are surrounded by angels on assignment who carry the glory of God. They are walking with you at this moment, and they have you covered on all sides. Keep moving. Faith, not fear, is the way forward. 

Increase in Decrease

The Lord is doing a work of increase in this time of decrease. While the garment of your patience has become frayed and threadbare, and you feel naked and exposed, the Lord has been crafting something new to clothe your thoughts and emotions. He will not waste your sorrow. As you come to Him in this strange and unfamiliar time and cry out in your pain and confusion, the Lord will create a new and stronger garment from the sacrifice of your praise and worship. It will become an insulating shield between your vulnerability and the raw elements of this exposed and separated time. He promised to never leave you or forsake you. The Lord is about to confirm that truth to you in a very personal way. What God has promised will not return empty of fulfillment. 

The Love That Never Disappoints

You have most likely heard the phrase, “If the election were held today…” Those words are typically followed by predictions based on data obtained at a given moment in time. This way of looking at life is not predictive. It is short-sighted and spiritually myopic. This short-sightedness takes place not only in the arena of politics but in every area of life where premature judgment calls are made based on what is, not on what could be. 

God is vastly different in how He sees and creates outcomes. He does not rely on polling research or what the status quo is saying. The Lord relies only on His love when He evaluates our life and our future. The love of God sees our future in an expansive redeemed view unrestricted by human fear or faithlessness.  He sees a future where intersecting events are destined to come together to release a miracle of transformation that has been determined by His will to take place. 

The self-described pundits that surround your life can only evaluate your life based on raw, unredeemed data available at the moment. God sees something beyond the moment - something only visible with the eyes of faith. 

God is not done with you or those you love even if the evidence supports your feelings of discouragement and disillusionment. It does not matter if your “election” was held today or tomorrow or next week. What matters is what God has planned for your life. That is where you should place your hope. His love will never disappoint you.

Through the Veil of Impossibility

God will deliver you into a destination you did not plan, one you could not even imagine. This will be an expression of His love and mercy extended to you through the veil of what you considered an impossibility. Your arrival will become a living testimony that confronts and disempowers the lies that have held you back from living in the fullness of God’s goodness. 

The Pleasure of God

We will never be able to learn enough or work hard enough to please God. His pleasure is not sourced in our doing, but in our being.  At the end of all our striving and repeated failure, we will eventually meet the mercy of God. Knowing God is merciful beyond our wildest imagination is what will release joy, hope, and peace in our restless hearts.  

The Hope of Resurrection

One thing I hate about this life is death - the death of a family member, a faithful friend or pet. Death in any form is the enemy of life. This is why the hope of resurrection is so critical to living a life of joy amidst sorrow and loss. Without the hope of resurrection life can offer us no joy only the fearful dread of ending.  

"Moreover, if the dead are not raised, that would mean that we are false witnesses who are misrepresenting God. And that would mean that we have preached a lie, stating that God raised him from the dead if, in reality, he didn’t. If the dead aren’t raised up, that would mean that Christ has not been raised up either. And if Christ is not alive, you are still lost in your sins and your faith is a fantasy" (I Corinthians 15:15-17).

The Fire of God is Announcing a Change of Seasons

When the fire of God’s Spirit begins to burn to announce a new season, the first response by those not aware of how the Spirit works might be less than joyful. In fact, some may consider it distasteful and even unpleasant, but there is a reason for that response.

This morning, I turned on our gas stove for the first time. It is a stove that looks like a log burning stove except that it runs on gas. It happens each fall, a musty, kind of funky smell fills the room the first hour of burning after several months of inactivity. The smell comes because of dust that gets in the stove’s system over the summer and is burned off with the first fire of fall.

As believers, we can accumulate the dust of spiritual inactivity when we live for long seasons of time without a personal encounter with God’s Spirit. These encounters heat up our life, relationships, and the environment in which we live.  The accumulated dust of our inactivity can create an unpleasant disruption and reaction until the Spirit can fully have His way in those situations. 

Don’t run when the Spirit's fire begins to burn. Stay put until the Lord says otherwise. Choose to look beyond what is taking place in the natural realm. When the fire comes, it will burn away the inactivity of the previous season, preparing us for something new, warm, and inviting. This will be our announcement that a new season has arrived. Whoever runs from these encounters will end up out in the cold spiritually. Those who remain have learned the burning and our resulting reaction will always take place as an announcement that a new season in the Spirit has arrived. 

The Thieves of Our Rest

Many people think of Sabbath as a day to not do any labor. While that can be true and needed, the essence of Sabbath in this Covenant is much more. It is actually the person of Jesus Christ - the One we carry with us throughout the week. He is our Sabbath rest.

Those who live in that reality have come to understand Sabbath is not just the absence of doing. It is choosing to do less of what is not important. It is allowing God's Spirit to reveal those rest-less feelings we all have that surface in a place of rest.

These feelings reveal the unchallenged addictions we have that demand we always live in motion and productivity to prove our worth. These are the things God is after when we make room for a day or an hour of rest. They are thieves assigned to steal our joy of living and will always float to the surface and become visible when we choose to rest. 

Micro Sabbath Moments

Last week, I pulled into the parking lot of a local supermarket to do some grocery shopping. When I entered the parking lot, the song “What A Wonderful World” came on the radio. It was a very tasteful jazz rendition of Louis Armstrong’s classic song. I had a to-do list tugging on my time yet felt compelled to sit in my car in the parking to slow down and listen to the song. As I sat there, a deepening peace came over me with each note being played, and with each word the artist sang. In fact, at points in the song, I felt emotions rise into my consciousness traveling past the demands of my to-do list and my daily schedule. I was being emotionally washed in the pause. After the song ended, I let out a long sigh, got out of my car, and entered the store.

As I pushed my shopping cart through the store aisles, I processed the song, the pause, and my reaction with the Lord. He began to share with me another component of a Sabbath lifestyle. Jan and I have come to believe the Sabbath concept is a 24/7 way of thinking and living that is missing in so many lives. Sabbath is not something we calendar. It is something we carry. It is living and ministering out of rest. 

Walking through the supermarket, I realized how important it is for each of us to experience Sabbath moments throughout the day. I call them Micro Sabbaths. These are the moments when we sense the Spirit asking us to stay in our car and linger with Him just a little longer listening to a beautiful song. It’s stopping along a sidewalk and looking up from the cement at a beautiful sunset being painted across the canvas of an evening sky. It is lingering in an embrace with someone you love without hurrying the release.

Today, as you go about your life, become aware of what God is revealing in each moment of the day.  We can miss these moments when we think spirituality is always about moving and doing, not resting and being. The moment you encounter may be a sound, an image, or a feeling you pushed aside as you continued to move forward toward a goal. Follow these impressions. They will lead you to a place where the pause has an assignment to release a refreshing peace in your soul. That moment will become a place of visitation and revelation that would have been missed had you not taken advantage of a Micro Sabbath.

Our Secluded Place

Jan and I have entered a time in our lives where we have chosen to spend extended seasons of time in seclusion apart from many of the things we have been doing for years. We didn't arrive at this place early on in our life journey. It became our reality as we matured and grew older wanting to finish well. 

This seclusion is not about becoming spiritual hermits. It is making a conscious and calendared choice to step away from the constant demand to produce and be visibly active.  It's a place where only God knows our exact location. If He needs us, He knows where to find us and bring us out for specific Spirit-directed assignments. When those assignments are completed, we will withdraw once again to our secluded place, a spiritual garden seeded by rest, reflection, and purposed reserve. 

Too much of a life of faith can become a counterfeit of the real thing. It can look good on the surface, but down deep in the human soul, it dismantles the very things we need to live a good and prosperous life. A failure to engage seasons of seclusion will leave us weary, always driven to be industrious at the expense of a true and lasting Kingdom impact. 

Delayed Detonation

Prophetic words spoken long ago and forgotten by many will soon come to pass. God has not forgotten these words. They have been resting without ignition for this moment in history. When they are released, they will have explosive results.

I was prompted by the Lord to deliver this word by something I read this week. Near Frankfurt, Germany a 500-bomb dropped in the 1940s during World War II finally exploded. When the bomb was originally released it sank deep into the middle of a barley field without exploding. On June 23 the bomb finally detonated creating a large crater 33 feet wide and 13 feet deep. The bomb’s ignition system was a spinning fin on the tail of the bomb that drove a steel rod through a glass plate as the bomb fell to earth releasing corrosive acetone. The acetone dissolved celluloid discs to ignite the bomb. This bomb did not land at the correct angle. The steel rod was not able to penetrate the discs. It took over 70 years for the acetone to finally eat its way through the discs creating the explosion. The story of this bomb is a powerful metaphor for what we will see taking in the coming days, weeks, and months.

Prophetic words delivered in the past and have remained unfulfilled because the circumstance for their release had not yet appeared. Some of those words made no sense when they were initially delivered. Those who released those words were mocked because a context was not yet present to receive their instruction and direction.

Today, listen for the delayed detonations God will bring about to fulfill prophetic promise over your life, your family, and your nation. God can deliver the payload of a prophetic word at a future date. In some cases long after the person who spoke the word has passed.  Some of those words had a moment of fulfillment at a specific time in the distant future. 

Not all things are immediate in God’s Kingdom. A prophetic promise will many times lie buried for decades or even centuries before they make themselves known. When these delayed detonations take place, you will be in awe at the goodness of God and His impeccable timing.

The Detour

Telling God where you will go or not go is the beginning of a detour you might not return from. 

When we begin to demand that God show us what our future and its provision will look like, we begin taking a dangerous detour. This is a road paved with fear. This road is protected by the sentinel of self and closes off the voice of God that says, “Trust me.” 

These demands on God about our future are sourced in the fear that he will not come through for us. A detour begins when we push trust aside and the responsibility of personal provision and direction falls upon our shoulders. We begin to carry burdens that are not ours to bear. 

As the process of your life transition deepens, you will need to focus more intentionally on God’s voice. This is a time to lean in and strain your ear to hear his whispers. His voice is your only reliable source of direction. 

 (An excerpt from the book, A Good Place)

Flying High in the Wings of God's Presence

You know how it is when you wake up a bit too early in the morning and look at the illuminated clock on your nightstand. You hope you can go back to sleep.  This morning, the clock read 3:12 AM here in Oregon. In that waking moment, I saw an interesting image.

I saw a huge eagle flying at a very high altitude. It was scanning side to side gliding among thermals its wings strong and stationary. In the next moment, the eagle’s wing turned from feathers to clear glass. I saw inside the wing a person. They were lying down. Their head was positioned at the leading edge of the wing and their feet at the trailing edge. I got the impression the person was in this position because the eagle wanted them to see what the eagle was seeing. In the next moment, the feathered wing became clear like glass. The person was now able to see the terrain below just like the eagle. The look on the person's face was wonderment.

Some of you are experiencing significant times of transition. You know you are being “flown” somewhere, but you cannot yet see the destination. For you, it is like the Scripture says, “they will mount up with wings like eagles” (Isaiah 40:31). Soon, you will be able to see where the Lord has been taking you. Some of this journey required that you simply trust the Lord and not know all the details. He did not let you see everything you had to fly over. He has brought you over huge obstacles impossible to transit without God's help. You were protected from those daunting images like the person flying inside a feathered wing just before it became glass. 

The feathers surrounding you are about to morph and become like clear glass. At that moment, you will be able to see how far God has brought you. Imagine what it will be like when that clarity comes! It will be like you are flying blind and in the next moment, you will realize you are literally flying thousands of feet above the surrounding terrain in a place of great clarity. When this happens, you will experience tremendous joy and awe. Your awe will come from the panoramic view you will have because everything will make sense when seen from a heavenly perspective. Your joy will come because early in the journey you did all you could and then you chose to rest in the wings of God's presence even though you did not understand all that was taking place. Resting in His presence and trusting in God’s goodness became the vehicle of passage for your journey of faith. 

The Journey Marker

Clarity and confirmation are coming. A significant marker that will guide you through this last challenging leg of your journey will soon appear. Its presence will pilot you into a new place, one that has remained hidden until this moment of time. God will reveal this affirming marker to confirm your direction and bring clarity and validation to your original vision.

Near the border between California and Oregon just south of Ashland, Oregon stands a rock formation created during a time of volcanic activity thousands of years ago. The rock formation is called Pilot Rock. It rises 540 above the surrounding terrain and thousands of feet above the valley below. It can be seen for over 40 miles. Early settlers called the rock Boundary Rock. It was a noticeable boundary marker between Spanish California and the Oregon Territory. The primary use of Pilot Rock was as a navigation marker for early pioneers making the arduous wagon trek into the settlements of Oregon during the 1840s and 50s. 

Early wagon trains would not know Pilot Rock existed until they got within range to see it. The rock became a source of encouragement letting pioneers know the promised destinations they dreamed about would soon appear. After a long and challenging journey, the appearance of Pilot Rock affirmed the faith of many.

God will be providing a final piloting marker for your journey of faith if you continue to move forward and not give up and turn around. The marker is not yet visible. Your personal Pilot Rock will soon appear on the horizon and give you the hope needed to finish the last leg of the journey. Just as Pilot Rock in southern Oregon became a prominent natural feature in our local history, so it will be with you in your journey of faith. Keep your eye on the horizon of your calling and continue to move forward in faith. Your Pilot Rock is about to appear.

Preparing a Place for the Fruit

When I was a kid, I grew up in the Silicon Valley of California before the high tech companies arrived. Our valley was a continuous expanse of fruit orchards. My first real job was at age 9 picking prunes. 

The ease of picking prunes would depend on how the orchardist prepared the orchard floor for the falling fruit. If the orchard floor was well-groomed and flat it was easy to gather up the prunes and fill the wooden boxes. I was paid .35 cents per box. If an orchardist did not prepare his orchard floor a picker would have to push aside the weeds to get to a single prune. Working in an unprepared orchard made it difficult and time-consuming to fill a box. I watched my Mexican friends who came to work the orchards. They were wise. They only worked for orchardists who rightly prepared the orchard floor for the time of harvest.

As this memory came to mind, I thought of our lives. Our life is like an orchard floor. We can prepare for the arrival of the fruit of God’s presence or we can neglect the preparation because we grew impatient with the process. When the time comes for the fruit to fall it can disappear into the weedy frustrations of life or a lack of discipline that crept in when we dismissed the possibility of something good coming our way. 

Today, God has planned to deliver the beautiful fruit of His presence onto the soil of your life. In faith, prepare for its arrival. Pull the weeds of disbelief. Smooth over the rough edges of a negative attitude. Offer God a prepared place for the fruit to land. The fruit is not just for you. It is for all who will enter the orchard of your life to pick the fruit and taste the goodness of God. Make it easy for them to take part in the harvest.