Our Pursuing God

While pursuing God is of utmost value after we become aware of His presence and give our lives to Him, we need to remember it was His pursuit of us that initiated our relationship with Him in the first place. 

Scripture is filled with examples of God’s pursuit of people. Jesus met Paul on the Damascus Road. The Lord called out to young Samuel in the night. Moses heard his calling spoken from within a burning bush. Jesus asked 12 unlikely men to leave behind what was known to follow Him into an undefined future. 

What if the politician we have been told to hate or the violent rioter for whom we might have deep disgust, all of a sudden, were met by our pursuing God? Would we have the capacity in our faith to believe, or would we struggle as the Early Church did with Paul’s conversion?  Our problem is exacerbated when we continually listen to or read opinions from voices that do not believe in redemption, only condemnation. The sights and sounds coming through our computers, smartphones, and televisions are continually confirming and validating our limited understanding of God's love, especially as we move deeper into the current Presidential election cycle and the possible confirmation of a new Supreme Court Justice.

 

God pursued all of us who now know Him. Without His pursuit, we would not have a relationship with Him. The Lord is actively pursuing all those we gave up on and those we might now call enemies of the good. Dismissal, in any form, is never the heart of God. It shuts the door on the possibility of hope and reveals that we do not fully understand the transforming power of God’s love. 

Only God has the final say on what is taking place in the heart of another person, no matter what the evidence of their life might display. His pursuing love is always greater than the dismissals and negative proclamations we issue when someone does not measure up to our standard of what is right.

Disarming Verbal Snipers

Beginning in late May, someone has been shooting at vehicles traveling on Interstate 5, the main north-south freeway that travels along the west coast. The shootings are taking place on a 70 mile stretch of freeway in the area where Jan and I live. The shootings have only been bullet strikes to vehicles until yesterday when the sniper’s bullet struck a woman in her shoulder. We would appreciate your prayers. This person needs to be brought to justice sooner than later.  

Like all forms of violence, escalation is always possible because violence seeks to increase its presence when not confronted. Just as the freeway sniper has now escalated the deadly potential of his/her acts of violence, so it is with anything in life. Restraint, not the freedom to do whatever an evil desire demands, is the mark of an emotionally and spiritually healthy person.

While a freeway sniper is a real concern for the safety for those of us who live in southern Oregon, so are the contributing words and actions we might add as kindling to the burning fires of emotion now aflame in our culture. Like the progression of the mindset of a sniper firing at innocent motorists, so it is with us when we respond to cultural stimuli without the restraint of the Spirit’s presence.

I understand much of the frustration happening in this emotionally charged pandemic-election cycle-economic downturn social distancing-wear your mask culture. We want to fire off our disgust at someone. We may start by taking aim at the nearest moving vehicle of dissent, but at some point, our unrestrained words can escalate and become a deadly projectile that creates an outcome of harm, not healing. Words do matter. They can be as fatal as a bullet.

 

Today, take a break from what riles you. Walk away from your computer, TV, or smartphone screen and breathe. Bend down and smell a rose, or walk through your neighborhood and say a warm hello to everyone you meet, or simply stare out a window and dream about something you stopped dreaming about when all this craziness first started. 

When we take time to do these simple things, we interrupt the flow of our thinking and our focus shifts. We are able to redirect our thought process and become more willing to put down the weapons of our dissent. This gives the Lord time to speak to our angst and recalibrate our thinking. Under the influence of His love, a renewed sense of hope and trust will come to wash away our need to fire off comments at every passing opinion of which we might disagree. 

Keep Your Eye on California

As a native Californian having lived in Oregon now for more years than I spent in the state growing up, I have watched California's life and politics with interest. Yesterday, Kamala Harris was selected as Joe Biden’s running mate. Again, my focus was directed to California. 

I was born and raised in California. I love the state’s diversity of geography, climate, and culture. The state is now large enough economically to represent the status of a nation. It is also a state in trouble. Some of its cities are revealing deep despair. People are leaving California in droves. It is not the state of my youth. California has been described as a national indicator of the future direction of the nation. At this moment, it is indicating trouble. It is also destined by the Lord to become a spiritual indicator exhibiting potential for revival and transformation. God loves California, and its people and He has something good planned for the future of the state. 

Four months ago, I wrote a blog article titled, “Out From the Shadow” (linked below). At the time, I knew what the Lord was saying to me, but did not have permission to write in detail. My words appeared like a riddle by design. At the time, I told Jan I felt Kamala Harris would be selected as Biden’s running mate. In the brief article, I said, “One will come forth and walk in the shadow of another. This shadowed one is the primary, not the secondary.”

 

Like some have already expressed they believe Mr. Biden may not have an extended stay in office if elected, for whatever reason. Behind Vice-President Biden now stands Kamala Harris and behind Harris in the shadows, stands the Governor of California, Gavin Newsome. Harris and Newsome both came from the seedbed of the San Francisco political arena. Harris was the city’s District Attorney and later became the state’s Attorney General, and was eventually elected to the state Senate. Newsome was the mayor of San Francisco and later ascended to state politics as Governor. Newsome has been seen by some political observers as a person with presidential aspirations. Also hailing from San Francisco is Speaker Nancy Pelosi. San Francisco is a powerful and well-funded political machine that has produced state and national leaders.

 

What California is revealing to us is the course of a nation’s future in natural terms. Politics, whether you like them or not, do not accurately reveal a nation's spiritual future. Keep your eye on California, not for its politics, but for its spiritual potential. Politics are only natural indicators, not the future spiritual potential of a nation. People in office from any party are not an enemy. They are people loved by God who deserve our prayers. Look past the personalities and platforms to see what God is doing in the state. Begin to pray for those in power and those aspiring to power. Don’t limit your prayers to simply a change of those in office or a particular policy with which you disagree. Keep praying for the hearts of the state’s leaders to experience God’s love. Also, keep praying for God's justice to be revealed so that real change can take place.

 

I am believing in something beautiful and transformative to happen in my home state. God wants to show us that those we might deem as enemies of the good can actually become partners in righteousness. For some, this will be a leap of faith to believe it could be possible because they only know and have been led to believe a negative narrative, not a Kingdom narrative.

 

God is creating a new narrative for California, and that sound is being heard by those with ears to hear. That is the narrative we need to pray into and its where we should invest our resources and energy. Keep God’s heart for California in the forefront of your thinking and call to remembrance the prophecies of goodness spoken over her. 

www.prophetichorizons.com/2020/03/out-from-shadow.html

The Smoke is Clearing Away

The cultural shift some foretold was coming has already taken place. What we see playing out in the streets, courts, and politics of our nation are manifestations of that change. The smoke of conflict is beginning to drift away, revealing what actually happened when our culture made its most recent move. Many of us are now standing in new and unique places. As a result of that change, our faith and worldview have experienced a new focus and clarity. 

Self-control will be seen historically as one of the most significant choices we could have made in this heated social environment. Self-control is not silence, the abdication of responsibility, or relinquishing our duty to live as responsible citizens of our nation and of Heaven. Our dual citizenship creates a unique tension. As citizens of Heaven, our first responsibility is to God and His agenda. Even in our most patriotic moments, we allow the Lord to set the timing and content of our response to what is transpiring in the earthly realm, not our emotions, or the heated relational discord our choices might produce. 

There is so much to say at this time in our developing national history. We must wait for God’s timing to speak, or we will enter the floodwaters of disgust and offense where the impact of our voice will be drowned out because we were the ones who chose the content and timing of what was spoken, not God.  This is the spiritual tension created by our dual citizenship. 

Blessing of the God Who Will Do It Again by Jan Elkins

Isaiah 51:9-11; 35:9-10  

There is a reality of evil. Israel is reminded that when they were threatened with Egyptian genocide, they experienced a demonstration of divine power.

In the Name of Jesus Christ,

      I bless your spirit, soul, and body

      with great victories in overcoming

      the forces of hurt and evil.

Though He is not the author, creator,

      or instigator of all that disrupts you

      or threatens to destroy you,

      everything is under His sovereignty—

      even to the point that He sovereignly

      turns hardship into blessings.

You have the sure word of the Lord Jesus:

      the Cross was the final blow in Satan’s

      attempt for world dominion;

      the work of redemption made Satan

      of no further significance!

Just as the Red Sea became an escape

      route for the redeemed,

      may every skirmish to disrupt

      and destroy you become an exit

      to safety and promise;

      your divine Kinsman-Redeemer

      can turn every circumstance

      into a way of escape.

Make this your prayer:

      God, it was you who made a way

      to rescue your redeemed—

      do it again!

May you experience the demonstrations

      of His divine power.

Influenced by the certainty of His historical

      acts, signs, and wonders,

      may you now have confident faith

      that He journeys with you,

      He comforts you, He delivers you,

      He takes all your needs as His own.

Confident in Him, depression and despair

      will disappear, sighing and sorrow

      will turn to celebration—

      you will be overwhelmed

      with never-ending gladness and joy.

Springing the Trapdoor of Evil

The gallows of control and subjugation of God’s people are being constructed by the spirit of Haman in an attempt to destroy the work of God’s Spirit. While individuals are being used to build these gallows in the political and economic sphere, do not focus your attention on them. These individuals are only a diversion, pawns used in a broader strategy of evil. The real battle is taking place in the second heaven, the realm of spirits.  

Above all this intense warfare, Jesus Christ sits at the right hand of the Father, the place of supreme authority. No plan of hell or an evil plague will have the last say if God’s people will pray. The spirits motivating people toward these evil agendas will soon fall through the trapdoor of their own devices. Some of the individuals held captive by these spirits will see the error of their ways and turn to God in repentance. In this time of unusual conflict, focus on the end game, not emotional diversions, and you will see the glory of God released in the Earth.

“So, they hanged Haman on the gallows which he had prepared for Mordecai (Esther 7:10).

Redeemed Failures

Recently, I was asked to write a contributing chapter to a book about prophecy. In my introductory remarks, I wanted to introduce the reader to the reality of my life in the Spirit. I wrote, “In this chapter, I have assembled some thoughts I hope will help you steward your prophetic life well. Most of these impressions and lessons were learned the hard way – through failure. In all the ups and downs of life and ministry, I have learned that redeemed failures can become the most cherished teachers.”

It can be hard to imagine how failure can be redeemed and become a cherished teacher when it is fresh, raw, and humiliating. In our pain, we try to ignore our failures and move on in an attempt to discover our strong points and linger in their illusion. That choice never produces good fruit. God has always done His best work in our weak and broken places if we embrace the responsibilities that go along with partnering with God in a redemptive work.

The older I get, the more meaningful the Lord’s words to Paul have become to me when I read how He addressed human frailty.   “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness” (II Corinthians 12:9). If God’s supernatural power works best in our weakness, then our weakness becomes a learning environment where we are tutored by the Spirit how to encounter God’s grace and experience the power of His love. Don't waste your failures.

Beware of Light Winds

Before you change the course of your life, be careful to rightly discern the direction the relational and spiritual winds are blowing. Some of the first indicators of a positive way forward might not be telling you the whole truth.

Paul was being transported as a prisoner aboard ship to Rome to stand trial before Caesar. The sailing was slow, so the captain and crew became impatient. When a light wind began to blow, they decided to make a run for a favorable harbor. Winter was approaching. It was not a wise decision.

Paul warned the crew with prophetic insight that if they continued on the current heading, there would be danger and shipwreck ahead. Paul’s warning was ignored. 

“When a light wind began blowing from the south, the sailors thought they could make it. So, they pulled up anchor and sailed close to the shore of Crete. But the weather changed abruptly, and a wind of typhoon strength (called a “northeaster”) burst across the island and blew us out to sea. The sailors couldn’t turn the ship into the wind, so they gave up and let it run before the gale” (Acts 27:13-15).

The ship entered a severe storm. The cargo was thrown overboard in an attempt to keep the ship intact. Eventually, they ran aground, and the ship broke apart on the island of Malta. In the disaster, Paul would become the spiritual captain of the ship, and all 276 aboard survived.

“The sailors thought they could make it” is a spiritually dangerous mindset. Beware of the undiscerned light winds blowing into your life, asking you to go against the instructions of the Lord. Every season of life has a safe heading given by God. Stay on that heading even if you seem to be delayed. These light winds offer a false and foolish invitation asking us to can follow their attractive lure. Every deceptive light wind will lead us into a personal life-storm where we will encounter things God did not want us to experience on our journey. Trust the last known heading provided by the Lord. It will keep you safe and out of danger.

A Raw and Vulnerable Beauty

A friend of our family shared this painting of the nativity scene by the artist Gari Melcher on her Facebook wall. When I saw the image, I stopped and stared, stunned by its raw beauty. It conveyed to me something more profound and impactful than any other nativity scene I had ever seen.

Melcher captured the reality of that night. In the image of Joseph, I see the weight he was carrying, knowing the story of a virgin birth would sound like a lie. Mary is asleep exhausted at his side from the pain of the delivery, and the King of Kings has allowed Himself to become a vulnerable infant under the care of a mother and father He created.

What makes this image so profound is the lack of addition. We have added so much interpretive license to our understanding of God and His Kingdom that we have lost an essential ingredient - reality.  

In the portrait of our lives, the most beautiful representations are created when we live raw and exposed to the reality of our circumstances. Like the painting, God is with us in the midst of our difficulty even if His current manifestation seems inadequate to help us through the night. 

Never allow personal fear or the demands of someone’s religious ideal to paint your reality out of the image. The Immanuel principle of God with us is the most beautiful and impacting when painted on the canvas of honesty, expressing the raw and vulnerable beauty of its reality.

The Messes We Make

When the mess you made finally catches up to you, God will be present in that painful place ready to redeem the negative outcome others have predicted over your life. He will turn the negative mess into something positive because that is His nature. It’s not over until God speaks. Listen to His voice, not the voice of your graceless critics.

If It Bleeds, It Leads

The title comes from the world of journalism. Blood and gore catch the attention of an audience. It’s not just the blood and gore of murder, catastrophe, or natural disaster that gains our attention; it is the blood and gore of broken lives, broken political systems, and the potential of a future filled with the never-ending promise of disaster.

A fear-based message wrapped in a morbid sense of curiosity is not from God. Proverbs tells us our future will be like the light of dawn that grows brighter and brighter until the full day. Jeremiah quoted God saying our future is filled with hope and a plan to prosper us. Under the ever-expanding revelation of God upon the Earth, things are actually getting better, not worse. The statistics reveal that reality. A message of hope and redemption is contrary to the pitchmen and women in the news and, unfortunately, some in the Church whose product sales depend on you and me perpetually living in need of our next fix of death and disaster to feed our fear-based habit about the future.

If you turned off your television or put down your smartphone for a year and did not listen to any reports from the “If It Bleeds, It Leads” crowd when you reengaged your device, you would hear the same dark prophecies. The only things that would have changed were the names and places. 

We have been called to live in hope, not fear. Fear, and the resulting doubt, and despair that comes with that message are not on Heaven’s menu. God is not the purveyor of these things, and we should not consume them or promote them without discernment. If we do, we will exchange a message of hope for a message of fear and become spokespersons for another kingdom.

The Look

Have you ever noticed the image of celebrities when they are arrested for drugs or drunk driving, and their booking photograph is posted online for the world to see? They don’t look the same. In the pre-arrest publicity photos, they are well-coiffed and dressed in the latest styles. Their booking photo captures them raw, rude and undone. Any of us can look rough if caught and undone by our sin. Unredeemed guilt and shame can radically alter our appearance.

The photo I included in this writing is of me at age 26. I was an undercover narcotics cop getting ready to go through the hiring process at a large corporation in Silicon Valley in an attempt to arrest two drug dealers. I had an untraceable driver's license using my undercover identity issued by the State of California.

Just before I got the assignment, my supervisor asked me to cut off my beard and trim my hair. The booking photo of me “cleaned up” was actually a real-life booking photo with a dummied up arrest record so when the bad guys checked me out in the corporate office, my story would hold. I had to clean up to get past the personnel department regulations on personal appearance. Before the photo, I looked like a drugged up biker. Only a single corporate vice president in the corporation knew of my assignment. At the time, I was a very backslidden believer. It was a dark time in my life. You can see it in in the blank and lifeless stare in my eyes.

The blank stare is what I had in common with others caught in a moment of deep brokenness. There was no difference between my eyes and the eyes of a failed celebrity, a local meth addict, or someone caught in gross sin. The eyes tell the story. Ever since that fake booking photo was taken and seeing what my eyes looked like whenever I see a real booking photo of someone caught in a broken moment, the compassion of God rises up in my heart.

It doesn’t have to be a booking photo. It can be someone walking by me on the street and seeing that blank look in their eyes. I see those same eyes sitting alone in the audience of churches and conferences where I speak. The eyes tell a story of hopelessness. Of no way out. The ones who carry that stare feel like they have messed things up so badly they are trapped in their failure with no way out. The eyes reveal the sorrow of their soul. 

The only thing that can change that blank stare is hope – a hope that comes when a lost soul hears the words, “You are forgiven.” When those words are spoken dead hearts start to beat, and blank eyes begin to refocus on the possibility of a new reality. Hope is our mission.

“As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” Then he breathed on them and said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit.'  If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven” (John 20: 21-23).

Going Tactical

When the first jet struck the Twin Towers 18 years ago today, I stood stunned as I watched the attack unfold. After the second jet hit the second tower, something paid a visit to my life that had been virtually dormant for 24 years. When the attack took place, it had been over two decades since I last donned my SWAT uniform, carried a weapon, and stepped into places of danger. At the moment I realized our nation was under attack, I went tactical once again.

I remember walking into our bedroom and assembling my kit. A kit contains the gear a SWAT cop or a Special Ops person carries into combat. It was as if no time had passed. My training and preparation were silently guiding me as I continued to listen to the unfolding newscast while assembling my gear atop the bed in our master bedroom. Like most Americans, I did not know what was coming next. Whatever was coming, I would be ready. Once my gear was together, I recall the shift that took place that morning in my thinking. I awakened to a new reality most of the world lives in on a daily basis outside the insulated suburban bubble where I was pastoring.

Today, on this sad anniversary of 9/11, I am still tactical both physically and more importantly, spiritually. In our culture, I see a lot of huffing, and puffing bravado tossed around by people who have never stepped into harm’s way. Along with the bravado is the polar opposite. It is a version of spirituality that lives in a dream world of an untested faith fueled by a misunderstanding of what Jesus meant when He said to turn the other cheek. This is the same Jesus who allowed Peter to carry a sword and the same Jesus turned over tables in the temple. Jesus meek and mild never existed. The Jesus of that illusion will get people killed both physically and spiritually.

While advancing age and circumstance may alter our ability to perform at our peak in the natural, our ability to be spiritually tactical never wanes. So I want to ask, have you assembled your spiritual tactical kit? What’s in it? Do you know how to use it? If something dark and disastrous were to spiritually assault your life or the lives of your loved ones, are you ready to do battle in the spiritual realm? Is your faith tactical?

As a culture, we are entering unfamiliar waters where the spiritual conflict will unfold in ways many have not experienced. This is not a place for the huffers and puffers or those who live in a spiritual la-la land. Life can be gritty and dangerous. When the light of truth displaces the darkness of deception and when hope displaces despair hell will come at us to bring its challenge. Being forewarned and forearmed will help us survive and overcome anything hell tries to throw at us - even a surprise attack on a peaceful morning.

“For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses”(II Corinthians 10:4).

Standing on the Threshold of Power

About 30 years ago, I was escorted through the West Wing of the White House.  A friend of mine who knew one of President George H. W. Bush’s correspondent secretaries arranged for us to get an after-hours guided tour. During the tour, we came to the Oval Office. The secretary opened the door to the office and uttered the words, “Don’t step across the threshold. That requires a Presidential invitation.” We went on from there to visit the press briefing room for an obligatory photograph standing behind the podium in a sport coat and tie. I sent the photo to my mom. She framed it and hung it on a wall in her home, fully convinced her son was in the big leagues.

Standing on the threshold of the Oval Office and peering inside was a very unique experience. Just a few steps from where I stood the most powerful human being in earthly civil government made decisions that carried global ramifications. When my friend and I left the White House and drove on to our hotel in Maryland, I pondered what I had just experienced.

If you are a believer, there are no restrictive thresholds to power. God has opened up the way into Heaven’s version of the supreme spiritual Oval Office where God sits enthroned with Jesus Christ at His right hand. Seated in Christ is each redeemed person. The only prohibiting thresholds are lies crafted by hell to keep us thinking we are an unloved outcast or the restrictions created by a religious spirit offering us a weakened, performance-based version of faith or our own unredeemed thinking that inspires us to live like slaves, not sons and daughters of God.

Today, if you have believed a hellish lie about your identity, have been restrained by a religious spirit or assumed an opinion about yourself that is less than a loved child of God, please read the following Scripture. Read it out loud. Hell needs to hear you speak it. The religious spirit restraining your Kingdom potential needs to hear it. But most of all, you need to hear it. When the Word of God is read out loud, it reverberates throughout all of creation. It disempowers the lies we believe, and its truth readjusts our thinking.  

In our relationship with God, there are no longer any thresholds - none! Now read the Scripture below and step across the threshold.

“And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water”(Hebrews 10: 19-22).

The Transformation of a Painful Setback

Your set back will become a set forward when God intervenes. You cannot change what has taken place or who was wounded in the painful process, but you can change the condition of your heart. A changed heart will invite God's hand to reach down and transform your set back into a set forward. 

God is hovering over your circumstance waiting for your heart change to take place so He can pick you up from this setback place and move your forward over all the spiritual and emotional wreckage that seems impossible to cross in your own strength. The Lord will put you down in a new place – a place your detractors and condemners told you was not possible for someone like you. 

When you arrive in the set forward place, let your first response be worship and thanksgiving, not self-justification and payback. That choice will be the first outward evidence that your heart has truly changed.

When God Reaches Down

The fears we live with made their initial appearance when we chose to listen to their lies. In moments of fearful uncertainty, is where hell can speak its deceptive script in the most effective ways. These lies will always contradict God's truth about our redeemed past and the hopefulness we should have about our future.  God is not locked in time like we are wondering what will happen next. 

Scripture tells us “Sing to the one who rides across the ancient heavens, his mighty voice thundering from the sky” (Psalm 68:33). God rides back and forth across history – across the ancient heavens - without the limitations of time and physical space. He sees history as a whole, not in part. He sees time outside the bookmarks of our earthly beginning and end. He is the all-knowing God of all things.

If you want to know the way forward or where to place your foot for the next step in your journey, the answer will not found by examining your past, present, or future. It will be discovered in our heart. “For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His” (II Chronicles 16:9). 

This God is the One who rides back and forth across the heavens looking for hearts that are completely His. When He finds such a heart, He reaches down to touch the carrier with the intent to release things not possible for those whose hearts are compromised by fear and unbelief. The evidence that we have experienced the perfect love of God is seen most clearly when love's presence in our life is actively expelling the very things that compromise the full expression of love.  

Examine your heart. If your heart is entirely His above all else, the God of Heaven will find you. He will reach down and touch you to let you know you are not alone. By that touch, you will know you are being supported by the God of all time and eternity.  That touch will heal the sorrow of your past and give you great confidence and hope as you move forward into the future. You will move forward with new freedom because in your heart you now carry a new level of faith in the unfailing love of God.

A New Day - A New Image

Today, a large maple tree will be removed from our property. The tree finally died after several years of progressive disease, so we hired an arborist to come and cut it down. The tree fills the view from the window just outside where my writing chair sits. It has been there for the last 17 years. About midday today, the image outside my window will radically change forever. 

At the start of each day, I stand by the window, look out, and pray into the dark predawn hours. This morning, as it has been each day before, I saw the image of the tree silhouetted against the faint light coming from the town in the valley below. In the darkness, one would almost think a living tree was standing there until the light of dawn revealed the image of its death.

The image of the dead tree could be a metaphor of sorts for what is taking place in your life. Something has filled your view of life for many years. It was once alive, vibrant and beautiful, but over time became diseased and died. It could be a relationship, a job or way of seeing the world around you. The time has come to remove the dead image. God has something new He wants to show you.

The removal of what has died will change how you see a significant part of your life. You have been looking at the progressive death of something that once was alive just like the tree outside my window. And like me, you are finally ready for your dead tree to be gone. You no longer want to look outside your window and see death.

I am looking forward to a change of scenery when I look out my window. In the future, I will see an image of a clear blue sky where pealing bark, dripping black sap, and dry, crispy leaves once stood.

The anticipation of something new came to visit my thinking this morning. Tomorrow morning, when I rise and stand in front of the window to pray, I will see new stars in the night sky not visible before the tree was removed and later in the day when the sun rises, I will see an expanse of clear blue sky. 

God's Plural Plans for Our Lives

When a life plan falls apart it and a feeling of discouragement arrives, it is too easy to believe a lie that says God has only one plan for our life. In those painful experiences, we can give up because we don't see a new way forward, thinking we serve a one-shot God. God has more than one plan for each life and He can make each one of them work no matter what kind of derailment has taken place.

During a lunch conversation with my daughter, Anna, she mentioned the plural usage of the word “plans” in Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” I looked up the verse just to read it again with fresh eyes and contemplate what the Lord was saying. As I read the verse, I realized the beauty of God’s creative ability when it comes to the failed plans in our lives. He is the infinite God of all things, including the revelation of a new way forward when we think our failed plan was the end of our road.

If a plan for your life did not work out, come to God in prayer and worship and ask Him to reveal another plan. These other plans are not second rate or lesser in value or quality than the original plan. God’s plans are all created in love and filled with excellence. He is waiting to hear from people whose plan was painfully dismantled. 

The Lord wants us to believe He has more goodness in store for our lives beyond the pain of what fell apart. God's goodness is always ready to reveal a new way forward with a new plan that will lead us into a future filled with hope.

Thought Police

Some mainstream social media platforms and search engines are demonstrating a level of control and censorship not imagined just a few years ago. Consideration of an opposing opinion is being denied and in some extreme cases defined as domestic terrorism. 

As frustrating as this can be, God is not muzzled. His prophets are taking note. Get ready to hear new levels of Spirit-inspired revelation that will reveal the wisdom of Heaven. This revelation will dismantle hell's attempt to control the culture.  Rome tried to censor the first believers in an attempt to maintain control. That attempt proved ineffective and futile. Truth expressed in love can never be silenced.

These forms of cultural censorship must be evaluated spiritually. If not, our frustration level will increase to such a degree that we could begin to mistakingly think God's agenda could be thwarted by human restraint. God is about to shout the sound of freedom upon the Earth. It will be a sound that no attempt at human censorship will be able to withstand. 

Swimming in the Deep Waters of the Spirit

Deep water feels different than shallow water. If you have ever jumped off a boat into the middle of a deep lake or out at sea, you will know what I mean. Yes, water is water, but the unknown depths beneath your dangling feet do something to your perception. For many, swimming in deep water creates a fear of the unknown. When we enter the depths of the Spirit something different takes place. We do not experience fear. We encounter awe and wonder. 

When I enter a church, and the worship is being led by the Spirit, I get the feeling that I can’t touch bottom. That depth is a place where trust is expanded and miraculous encounters take place. In some instances,  I have experienced shallow professionalism that never took us out into the deep water.  I have also experienced a sloppy ministry style that each week was defined as "we are just being led by the Spirit." Neither one got far from the dock. 

In the moments when the deep water of the Spirit was encountered, I experienced something that a well-scripted worship event or a loose leadership style could not attain. The depths of worship in those moments was an invitation to float into something more profound and awe-inspiring. Our lives must occasionally take these swims into the deep waters of the Spirit, or we will succumb to the acceptance of a wonder-less faith where our spiritual feet will always demand that we must feel the bottom. 

This is not limited to worship teams. It applies to a Fortune 500 executive leading a corporate team into a new venture, a musician taking his genre in a new direction or a single mom faithfully leading her children into a new season of life after her husband walked away. No matter our life-assignment, this boils down to a willingness to do all we can to host the Presence with as much skill, excellence, and commitment as we can muster and then diving into the deep water in faith willing to do whatever it is that God has called us to do. 

For many of you, your next season of life will be revealed in your willingness to sail your boat of faith out into the deep water of something new. In that new place, the Lord will ask you to jump out of the boat into unexplored waters where you can no longer touch the bottom of what had previously felt secure and familiar. In those moments awe and wonder will fill your heart with an unexpected buoyancy only experienced by those willing to swim in the deep waters of the Spirit.