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.

When Prayer Finds Its Mark

In every spiritual conflict, there will be a single prayer that will be used by God to bring down the plans of hell. While many will be praying, one prayer from among the many will work its way through all the dark defenses and strike a fatal blow.

The death of Ahab, husband of Jezebel, reveals this principle. Ahab was a wicked king of Israel, and his death had been recently prophesied. Ahab disguised himself when going into battle in hopes of blending in with the other troops and not be a recognizable target. He had another man wear his royal robes into battle as a diversion. 

In the heat of battle, “An Aramean soldier, however, randomly shot an arrow at the Israelite troops and hit the king of Israel between the joints of his armor” (I Kings 22:34). The arrow was shot at the mass of enemy troops, but it found an intended target, a disguised target.

As we pray against dark agendas and evil strategies, we may not know how to pray with specificity. God understands that we don’t always have a clear understanding of what is taking place. He simply asks us to pray. We think our generic prayers are less significant than specific prayers. God is the one who directs our prayers, specific or not. He will be faithful to guide the flight of our prayers and help them find their intended mark. 

When that single Aramean soldier fired his arrow into the troops amassed before him, he was not aiming between the joints of Ahab’s armor. He was firing into a battle unaware of Ahab's presence. God guided the flight of the Aramean's arrow to find its distinct target just as He is guiding each prayer we fire today into our spiritual battles. 

Spiritual Crop Dusters

While there are many practical things we can do to minimize our contact with the deadly virus running rampant through our country, we can ignore the deadlier spiritual virus of fear that is also running rampant. The latter has a greater potential for death because it kills the soul of a people.

Jan and I are increasingly aware of the power of intercessory prayer at this time in our nation’s history. One thing we have been doing of late is prayer drives. We drive through our community, praying as the Spirit leads. These prayers are multi-faceted. Some are warfare prayers pulling down the strongholds that hold our region in the grip of things that are not God’s best. We also pray in tongues knowing the Spirit is strategically releasing an interpretation of our prayers into individuals, groups, and institutions.

This weekend on one of our drives, I saw our car turn into a crop duster aircraft. I saw our prayers being sprayed out over our valley like an insecticide would be sprayed over a field by a crop duster to kill an insect infestation. The spray from our prayers was empowered by faith, not fear, and they were having a devastating effect on things not seen with the natural eye. 

The most significant virus now affecting our nation is fear. Our faith has only one vulnerability to an infestation of fear– our will. What we choose to believe and speak has a tremendous impact on the spiritual environment where we live. We cannot place our hope in the discovery of an immunization against the Coronavirus as wonderful as that would be.  By the time we are injected with a new immunization, the virus will have mutated, and fear will come once again. We cannot place our faith in a nervous and overreactive financial market. We should all try to walk in wisdom and do all we can to hold off the expansion of a deadly disease. While those practical measures are being embraced, as believers,  we must also be spraying words of hope and faith across our nation, putting to death the rising infestation of hopelessness and fear.

Prophecy, Critics, and Comfort Zones

A prophecy was delivered by the late Bob Jones, noting that when the Kansas City Chiefs win the Super Bowl, it will mark the beginning of a revival. For some, prophetic words spark a negative knee-jerk response. No matter how accurate a prophet might be, there will always be those who are determined to find something they do not like about either the prophet or the message they deliver.  

The world and, unfortunately, some in the Church have adopted a spirit a denial choosing as their first response to discredit a prophet or prophetic word that does not align with their narrow interpretation of life. Don’t be one of those people. These nit-picking responses are disguised under a false label called “discernment” or a dismissive wait-and-see attitude that is a form religion-speak used to reject anything outside the critic’s narrow interpretation of spiritual reality. 

The Bereans noted in Acts 17 are frequently cited by these critics as their motivation for rejection. In their defense, they quote, “They (Bereans) searched the Scriptures day after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth.” These critics fail to mention the first part of that same verse that says, “And the people of Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, and they listened eagerly to Paul’s message.” 

An open mind and the wise use of Scripture is a healthy combination if we are at least willing to listen to the message bearer before rejecting what they speak. The Bereans "listened eagerly," and so should we.

The Glove of Faith

Yesterday, I was walking through a sporting goods store and saw some baseball gloves, aka mitts. It had been years since I held a glove. I picked one up and put it on. As soon as my hand slipped into the glove, I sensed the Lord speaking. He said, “Give Me something to throw.” In other words, the Lord is asking us to give Him a target of faith so He can release something that will be a game-changer.  For some issues in our personal lives and within the larger culture, we are living in a "bottom of the 9^th" moment. What happens next in our prayer life has the potential to create critical outcomes. 

Raising our glove of faith will require that we go beyond the normal prayers we issue that sound like “God change this” or “change so and so.” We are being asked to craft very specific prayers from the vocabulary of God’s heart, not from our anger, disgust, or a preferred outcome. Our mandate is to pray for His heart to be revealed in the lives of individuals and nations. The encounters with God that will come from these prayers will produce game-changing moments that will be recorded in history.  We cannot even imagine the outcomes of goodness God has in mind if we would pray by His rules. 

At this moment, a runner from hell is sprinting toward first base assured of victory. The Lord is ready to fire an answer to prayer into your glove of faith and when that happens, the game will be over. Raise your glove and pray for the Father’s heart to be revealed. Nothing is over until God throws the final answer. The resulting sting you feel in the palm of your glove will be a sweet confirmation that your prayers have been answered.

The Clean-Up and Set-Up

In a dream, I saw a large conference center. It was just used to host a gathering of hundreds of people. When the event was finally over, and all the attendees had departed, a stillness settled over the facility. Looking around the room, I could see it needed straightening up, the trashcans emptied, and the floor vacuumed. The structure was architecturally sound, and its design appealing and inviting. Nothing had changed in those areas. It merely looked used and in need of refreshment. Before the next group arrives, the facility will need a thorough clean up from the past and a fresh set up for the future.

I know the dream had to do in part with the busy season Jan and I experienced in the last couple of years. It has a broader application for some of you who have been running hard. Like us, I invite you to not let the busyness you experienced in the past or the emotional debris that still clutters your thoughts to get in the way of the new events that are approaching your life. God wants to use this time to prepare you to be ready to receive the next gathering He is bringing your way. 

At the end of the image, I saw a lone janitor quietly working through the empty meeting room. He was enjoying the quiet space and the alone time as he picked up trash, straightened chairs, and swept the floor. He was singing a song as he worked, its melody echoing throughout the emptiness. His song was a prayer. 

The last season was filled with the execution of essential plans and activities that will produce significant fruit. This time of quiet work and reflection has equal significance. In this interlude of clean up and set up, God will whisper to you what He has planned for the next season.  He enjoys this alone time with you as much as He enjoys the events themselves.  

A Moment in Time from The Jesus Movement

A request was sent out over social media by Wheaton College requesting stories from anyone involved in the Jesus Movement. Wheaton is conducting a research project about that time in history. I copied a chapter from my book, The Prophetic Voice, and sent it to the researchers for their review. It is about the first encounter I had with someone speaking in tongues over me during a conference a Bethel Bible College in Scotts Valley, California. I believe the interpretation of that prayer has been used by God to bring me to this current season in my life.

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DECLARING THE MYSTERIES OF HEAVEN

As a nineteen-year-old in the middle of the Jesus Movement, I was like so many other young people of that era: we were all searching for something.

The summer of 1969 was an unusual time in the culture of the United States. Everything was changing. God was reaching out and touching thousands of young men and women, and I was one of them.

I was living in the San Francisco Bay Area at the time. I couldn’t get enough of the Bible and fellowship. I attended Bible studies in coffee houses and church services at places like the Peninsula Bible Church. I sat with hundreds of other young people in standing room only crowds listening to Ray Stedman preach. One of these journeys took me to Bethany Bible College in Scotts Valley, California. Bethany was hosting a conference open to the public. A friend and I got into my VW bug and made the drive to Scotts Valley from my home in Los Gatos.

When we stepped into the auditorium, it was packed wall to wall. Young people with long hair and sandals stood around the perimeter of the main seating area. We found an available place to stand in the very back of the auditorium.

I grew up in a very conservative church. I had never experienced the Holy Spirit moving during worship in the ways I was seeing. It was strange and uncomfortable, but it was also right and good. Despite the strangeness, nothing was out of order. For the first time in my life, I felt the manifest presence of God being welcomed in a public gathering. I was drawn to this new and unfamiliar work of the Spirit.

The people conducting the service sat in rows of chairs on the platform. I don’t recall who they were, but they looked important to my nineteen-year-old self.

About halfway through worship, one of the men sitting on the platform raised his head and looked out past the platform lighting and across the audience. I watched him as he scanned the crowd. He stopped and looked in our direction. I thought nothing of it, thinking he could be looking at a hundred other people who were standing along the back wall.

I watched as the man stood from his chair and walked through the worship team and down onto the main floor. He began walking in my direction. It was still impossible to think he was walking toward me, but he continued in my direction until it became more and more obvious that he was. When he was about ten feet away, he locked eyes with mine as he closed the remaining steps between us.

The man looked to be in his late seventies. He was wearing a suit and tie and carried a blend of authority and gentleness. He came and stood directly in front of me. Then he did something that made me really uncomfortable. He put his arms on my shoulders and pulled me close. He began to speak into my ear in a language I had never heard before. I would later come to know this heavenly language of the Spirit in a very personal way. On that day, the foreign language the man spoke into my ear was as strange as the meeting that was taking place.

The man only spoke briefly. He then pulled away and looked into my eyes for another second, turned, and made his way back to the front. I knew something holy had just taken place, but I was not sure what it was. At the close of the meeting later that evening, I drove back to my parent’s home in Los Gatos, still pondering what had taken place.

I parked that experience in the back of my mind and forgot about it. Ten years later, Jesus would visit me in the middle of the night, supernaturally transforming my life forever. Within weeks of that visit, the Lord took me back to that time when I was nineteen and attending the conference at Bethany. The Lord said, “I am bringing the interpretation of the words the man spoke into your ear. Your life will be a living interpretation of what was spoken to you that day by my Spirit.”

These experiences are mysterious. We can forget we are interacting with the God of Heaven who spoke galaxies into existence by just a word. Much of what God does remains in the realm of mystery until we find ourselves living out a new reality we never imagined was possible.

When the elderly man made his way toward me, he did not have the full picture of what would take place in my life. He was simply responding to the Spirit. When he prayed by the unction of the Holy Spirit in his spiritual language, he did not know what he was saying. He did not give me the interpretation. Like the Apostle Paul said in I Corinthians 14:14: For if I pray in tongues, my spirit is praying, but I don’t understand what I am saying. Like Paul, the man who prayed into my ear only knew he was praying a message from the Holy Spirit.

You will need to become comfortable with the mysterious part of prophetic ministry. Much of prophecy is straightforward and simple to understand, but it will carry a dimension of mystery you want to leave alone and not try to explain. God is the only one who can accurately unpack the mysteries of Heaven.

Remain open to the nudges of the Spirit. Like the elderly gentleman, you will sometimes go to a person being highlighted—maybe someone you have never met before. Speak what the Spirit gives you and trust Him with the outcome. As you release the mysterious and wonderful words of the Spirit, they will help direct the course of someone in ways you could never have imagined. 

Available To God

Jesus loved people, but there were times when he needed to get away to process life alone with the Father. Some answers only come in times of separation. The deeper you get into this transition, the more you will need to make yourself available to God. 

When Moses went to the mountaintop, he was enveloped in the cloud of God’s presence. We are told the people heard him talking to God, and they were able to trust him because of that dialogue. People trust us more when they know we have been with God. 

Look again at your schedule. Make room for time away with God so he can make those subtle adjustments with you when he has your undivided attention. 

 (An excerpt from the book, A Good Place)

The Embalming Fluid of the Spirit

I had a funny thing happen last night. Jan and I were asked to be part of a prayer team to pray over pastors at a conference in Bend, Oregon. Each of us on the prayer team was handed a small tin of anointing balm infused with frankincense and myrrh. The balm was a solid paste-like substance more convenient than oil that can be a bit messy when applying it to someone’s forehead. For any legalists reading this, the balm is actually an oil, just a solid version.

Jan and I had already prayed for several individuals when I said to the next person in line waiting to receive prayer, “I want to anoint you with this embalming fluid.” I had no idea what I said. The woman looked at me with a wry smile, and then I realized what I had said. We all broke out in laughter at my slip of the tongue. Then Jan said, “Where there is death, there is a resurrection.” 

That evening a lot of resurrection life was taking place during worship, from the conference speakers and in the prayer lines that wrapped around the front of the stage. There was a fourth Person with us when I tripped over my language. He was laughing with us. There are times when laughter is evidence that healing is taking place.

The Most Important Thing

The way forward in God's Kingdom is paved and empowered by our understanding of the Father’s heart. Without that understanding, our efforts will lead to a stale religious experience framed by a cold and distant image of God.

Ten years ago, when I began writing, the Lord directed my first efforts to the subject of prayer. As a result of that leading, the book, Prayers from the Throne of God was created. Leading up to the writing of that first book, I had been seeing and reading about thrones literally everywhere. The Lord was trying to get my attention. In the process of that season of revelation, I discovered the reality of praying from our position in heaven seated with Jesus at the right hand of the Father. This was not as some positional theological point, but our current reality. Paul said we are seated with Christ, not that we will someday be seated with Him. We are dual citizens carrying rights and authority from two realms.

The Lord began to instruct me how this Heaven to Earth kind of prayer works in the form of declarations, decrees, and prophecy.  We DECLARE the Father’s heart for a preferred future that our circumstance might contradict as a possibility. We DECREE the victory of Jesus Christ in His death, resurrection, and enthronement above all powers. And finally, we wait and allow the Spirit to download prophetically the unique insight and wisdom of God. We then PROPHESY those prophetic instructions into our world working with God to make His heart for the object of our prayer a reality.

In this three-part process of prayer, the most critical element is to know the Father’s heart. Nothing moves forward without this understanding. We cannot declare His will if we do not know His heart. Knowing the Father’s heart is not a guarantee at the moment of salvation. A lot of believers have stepped over the threshold of a salvation experience, but sadly spend the rest of their lives living like slaves, not as a beloved child of God. As it is with prayer, everything of value and significance in God’s Kingdom is sourced from a healthy and accurate understanding of the Father’s heart. 

Today, if you are trying to discover your next step forward seek first to know the Father’s heart. That is your way forward. If a relationship is stalled, try to find out how God sees the two of you and work together to make that image your shared reality. If you are experiencing financial difficulty, somewhere along the way you missed the Father’s heart for your wellbeing. A healthy and balanced understanding of prosperity is discovered when we know God's love for us. It is never too late to experience something new when we know the Father’s heart and allow that understanding to lead the way.

https://www.amazon.com/Prayers-Throne-God-Garris-Elkins/dp/0615455778/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=garris+elkins&qid=1568894245&sr=8-2

Engaging Multiple Targets in Prayer

I’ve had an aggressive and warlike kind of prayer on my mind for the last few days. This is the kind of prayer that that brings down spiritual strongholds and dark power structures like those described by Paul in Ephesians 6.

Forty years ago, SWAT teams were still a new idea. Large metropolitan police departments had teams, but the smaller departments were just considering the concept. At the time, I had left a large urban sheriff’s department in California, where I had trained for several years on a SWAT team. Each month, along with our in-house training, we also trained with FBI special operations teams. When I arrived in Oregon, I was done with that season in my life but offered to help my new smaller department set up what would become the foundation of their own SWAT team.

Part of that development process was getting to meet with arms dealers representing some of the most exotic weapon systems in the world. Many of the weapons were out of our budget and outside of the parameters of our concept. One system was a multi-rifle sniper weapon. The triggers on each of the sniper rifles were electronically linked together. The rifles were designed to fire at the same time when all targets were engaged and all triggers pressed. This enabled a SWAT team to take out multiple terrorists at the same instant.  A sniper might press his personal trigger many times throughout a hostage incident before his weapon finally fired in unison with the other snipers connected to the same weapon system. When the moment to fire finally came, all the targets would be eliminated at the same time.  It took patience, but the results were dramatic and devastating.

Some of you who are part of prayer networks are functioning in prayer like the weapon system I just described. You have been praying and “pressing the trigger” in prayer for a long time wondering why certain cultural scenarios have not changed or why some strongholds still remain in place. What you don’t realize is that you are part of a global strategy of prayer. There are other networks of prayer around the world praying with you working in concert to bring down evil forces that are the equivalent of a group cultural hostage-takers. 

Continue to press your assigned prayer trigger. Be patient and faithful. Keep your assigned target in view and follow its movements making sure it remains in the crosshairs of your prayer effort. God has commissioned you to take part in a moment of history when the world will be amazed at how rapidly righteous change will take place on the world stage. Those who benefit from your expertise and faithfulness in prayer will most likely never see you or even know you were there behind the scene because you were deployed in a secret place known only to those whose calling is intercession.

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.

The Night Before Disaster

On this night 18 years ago, we all went to bed unaware of what would take place the next morning in New York. The only ones aware were the terrorists. We never know what tomorrow will bring. Tonight, pick up your phone or go to your keyboard and tell someone you love them. If something in your life is not right, make it right before sleep takes you into the night. Like all disasters in life, they come unannounced and without warning. Keeping our life-slate as clean as possible will keep us free from the cold and sorrowful embrace of regret.

Where the Real Battle for a Nation's Soul is Fought

On Saturday, the eyes of the nation were focused on the protests in Portland, Oregon between the anarchist group Antifa and several opposing factions. The possibility of chaos and destruction was significant. 

My friend, Ty Bottler and a team from The Father’s House in Portland gathered in the middle of the protests to worship and pray with a mission to shift the atmosphere. If you don't think witchcraft is in play as an attempt to steer the destiny of our nation, please read the following excerpt from Ty’s Facebook wall where he gave a detailed report of the event.

“As I watched Antifa initially come into the Square, a small group of them sat down in a circle just off to the side and started performing their witchcraft. This was their attempt at shifting the atmosphere so that the whole group would come under the spirit of chaos. Because of the Kingdom atmosphere that we had already established through our prayer and worship, the witchcraft had no seed of chaos to grab hold of. And because of this, after about 15 minutes of aimlessly walking around, Antifa left the Square for different ground.”

It is too easy to dismiss the real spiritual conflict that is taking place on Earth as the overactive imaginations of religious zealots. This is just where the enemy of our soul wants the Church to park her thinking. We are in a spiritual war with dark forces. While voting and being active in civic and social issues is important, those are only responses to the real battle. 

Something shifted in the spiritual atmosphere in Portland, Oregon on Saturday. As that shift continues to expand and transform the spiritual atmosphere of our nation, I pray it will also awaken the Church to the spiritual reality of this critical moment in our history. 

Navigating the Transitional Space of Life

Everyone will make a passage across what is called “transitional space” several times in a lifetime. Transitional space is created whenever we move between seasons of life, relationships or life-assignments. Transitional space requires vigilance because the movement created in the transition exposes us and can make us vulnerable to new and unimagined threats to our well being. 

If you are between relationships, job assignments or seasons of life, be vigilant. Like a cop or a soldier in a combat scenario moving through a transition space from one place of secure cover to another puts them at risk of exposure to hostile gunfire. The timing and execution of this movement must be calculated and carried out with wisdom and proper timing or unnecessary casualties can occur.

If you are about to enter a transition space in your life you will need the Spirit to help guide your every movement. To successfully make your move and survive the transition may require that you reject the impulse of an undisciplined emotion, a prideful over-estimation of your abilities or the unwise opinions offered by other people. Each of these issues can expose you to emotional or spiritual injury in a transitional space. Wait for the Lord to tell you how and when to make your move. Only His voice will guarantee your safe passage. Listen before you act.

Critics at the Doorway of Your Future

Your loudest critics have been positioned at the doorway of your future. Many have stalled at this noisy threshold not because they weren't gifted to function in the future. They stalled because they were unable to handle their critics with wisdom and grace. The presence of a critic is an indicator you are about to enter new territory. Press through these critical encounters with integrity and watch what God will accomplish.

Moving On

The Church is not a structure, physically or organizationally. It is organic, incarnational, spiritual, God-breathed, and always open to mobility. 

The photo depicts one of the structures on the property where our church met for more than 50 years. Over the years, thousands of people coursed through the doors of our buildings and many began a relationship with God in those structures. 

I remember the day 14 years ago while holding construction plans for a new facility on our almost 7 acres of land when the Lord said to not build. People expected us to build. It made sense, but God had another plan. The answer to why we were not supposed to build would come after Ryan and Kate Rhoden became the new pastors of Living Waters Church in Medford, Oregon.  

I took the photo almost two years after the sale of our old property. The congregation has since moved into a larger campus in the heart of the city. I call the events surrounding the move the "Miracle in Medford." The church is flourishing. The move was a God-thing. The old building once filled with such life and history now looks sad, boarded up, weed-infested and lifeless. The building looks that way because its source of life has moved on.  Living Waters Church has been moved to a new place to release something new God wants to do in the heart of our city. 

The structures we occupy as communities of faith have seasons and purposes assigned to their temporary use. When God asks us to move toward something new, we need to follow His voice and be willing to leave some things behind. We can always take the memories and relationships with us. The most important things in life are never in jeopardy by physical change. They are held safe and secure in our heart.

Our spiritual life is a migration, not a settlement. Make sure the way you define the health of a local congregation is not by its physical trappings and programs, but by its heart. The heart of Living Waters Church is alive and well. Someday in the distant future, the congregation may move again. On that day, I am confident our future leaders, whoever they may be, will be open to the thing new God wants to do at that moment in their unfolding history. 

A Place Beyond

We have a lot of interesting comments, quips, and quotes that we toss around in the community of faith. Some of these are well-meaning, but not always fully true.  We can comment, quip and quote ourselves into strange corners if we take everything we hear or read at face value without seeing it through the broader lens of Scripture and history.

John Wesley said, “God does nothing but in answer to prayer.” While that is an admirable-sounding comment and we should all pray more, it is thankfully not accurate. Groups of faithful intercessors have been created and labored under the burden of that misconception. Paul said in Ephesians 3:20, ^“Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.” Some of the greatest works God does are not answers to our prayers but a merciful expression of His heart in a place beyond the content of our most ardent prayers - beyond what we “might ask or think."

Another famous phrase tossed around is “God will never give you more than you can handle.” Again, Paul helps us see a deeper spiritual reality. In describing the challenges he experienced in Asia, Paul said, “We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it. In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1: 8-9). 

This “beyond our ability to endure” seems to be the place where miracles of deliverance and supernatural intervention have appeared throughout the history of the Church. The most profound and awe-inspiring things God does will exceed our ability to imagine or produce. This is the resurrection component of our faith. God raises people and situations that look dead and abandoned and gives them new life and another chance.

I don’t write this to rag on anyone. I have been guilty of parroting half-truths in my own ignorance and I'm sure it will happen again somewhere in the future. God is larger than our quips, comments, and familiar quotes. Because He is bigger than we can imagine we need to be willing to challenge and adjust the smallness of our current revelation.

The Vanishing Remnants of a Painful Season

I walked out into our front yard and saw the remnant of a major snowstorm that hit our area last week. The storm was so severe and impacting that the governor of Oregon declared parts of western Oregon a disaster area. Tens of thousands of people were left without power. Many still have no electricity. Roads were closed because of downed trees and power lines. For a time, Interstate 5, the major north-south freeway connecting the west coast was shut down. It was a mess. As I stood over the last sliver of evidence from that storm in bright warmth of a spring day, it looked small, insignificant and melting. Later in the day, it was completely gone. 

A storm of a relationship or an exhausting season of life can be like the snowstorm. It was not planned and struck your life leaving devastation in its wake.  The remains of the trauma are still around even though the initial storm has passed. The Lord wants to remind you that like the sliver of snow on my front lawn, under the power and warmth of God’s presence even the remnants of what was such a devastating experience will soon be gone.

The physical evidence of your painful season will become only a memory if God is allowed to lead you out of the destructive aftermath. You might be standing knee deep in the snow of a personal storm. You are cold and it feels like the power to sustain your life has been cut off. You need to know this storm was a season, not a life sentence. Spring is coming. Your spiritual climate will change in the coming days.

As you experience this change of seasons, God will be faithful to melt the remaining painful evidence left behind by the storm. There will soon come a day when, in the Spirit, you will stand over the last remaining remnant of your life-storm. It will be for you like it was for me standing over the last remnant of our storm. You will see the remnant melting before your eyes. On that day the Lord will say, “Spiritual spring has come. Your winter is over. I have removed the last remnant of your devastation. A new season has arrived.”

Remembering Where We Were Going

Perhaps it's because I am writing this on Sunday evening knowing Monday is coming that I sense a somber, tender sorrow of sorts. Monday is that day when the routine of life is re-engaged, again. These routines become so circular and repetitive that we can forget where we were going. 

A dream can succumb to the demands of a routine. Relationships can become derailed and fall to the wayside because the routine demanded all our attention. A child can reach out to a parent who is physically present but emotionally distant thinking only about the routine. Routines must live in submission to the dream destination or we will lose our way.

Tonight, try to remember where you were going before the routine created its detour. When you go to bed tonight, kneel at your bedside and pray. Ask God to show you where you were going, but forget because the demands of your life-routine erased your dream map. When you awake tomorrow morning, take steps to engage the dream once again and you will rediscover where you were going.