These Boots Are Made For Walking...And More

Recently, while attending the Hub Nation conference in Bend, Oregon, I took a short walk around the parking lot of Eagle Mountain Fellowship where the conference was being hosted. In an adjacent retail complex is a business called The Boot Barn. As I walked by the front entrance of the store, I sensed the Lord say, “Go into the store and buy some boots.” It was an unexpected request. I have not had a pair of cowboy boots in over 40 years. I hung a right turn and entered the store. After trying on a few pairs of boots, I settled on some Ariats and out the door I walked, two inches taller with new boots on my feet. It just so happened that I was wearing a pair of blue jeans long enough to make the boots work and not look like an urban western wannabe with high-water pants.

While still processing the “why” of the boot purchase – they are expensive – the Lord began to download some thoughts to me and maybe for some of you who are reading these words.  

The Lord began explained two things about the boots. One, He actually enjoyed seeing me wear the boots. He was sharing my joy. Secondly, the boots were a metaphor for the needed preparation of our hearts as we enter the coming months. This preparation will need to take place if we are going to be a reforming presence in culture. 

Paul told the Ephesians part of their required armament for spiritual warfare would be to have their feet covered with the gospel of peace. To walk with the spirit of a peacemaker will become one of the most powerful preparations we can make for navigating the increasing turmoil in our culture. Those who choose peace will literally walk over the plans of the enemy crushing division and destruction. True peace is never a compromise to the truth. Peace reveals things that the two sides in a heated dispute may not yet realize. Peacemakers are cultural prophets who reveal what anger, wrath, and malice cannot see. 

It was comforting to walk back into the Hub Nation conference with new boots on my feet. The boots felt strong and secure. Our spiritual strength and security will not come from flowing in and partnering with the turmoil-creating atmosphere currently taking place in our culture. It will come when we yield to the Spirit’s presence and walk in the ways of peace through the battlefields of life. Your spiritual boots were made for walking into the current cultural upheaval to leave the footprints of God’s heart. Get your boots on! You have places to go and people to see that only peace can reveal.

The One Simple Thing

This is a time for you to pay close attention to the small details. Your ability to connect with what the Spirit is doing will depend on precise accuracy, complete obedience, and a new level of sensitivity to the voice of God.

I was away for a writing retreat and not using my familiar Internet connection. The productivity of my time away depended on a solid Internet connection in order to do my research and connect with people for various writing projects. It was a real downer to not be wired. I tried everything I knew. Finally, I contacted customer service and after listening to elevator music for half an hour and having to call yet another number, I found the problem. The owner of the place where I was writing had left the Internet account information but used a capital letter instead of a lower case letter for one part of the password. That one misstep wasted an entire day of my devoted project time. 

While we live in a grace covenant there are particulars God will give us that we must align ourselves with or we could miss a vital connection that will make everything work. If something is not working in your life, review what God has asked you to do and complete His assignment. Assignments that are not getting traction may be the result of you not completing that one simple thing God asked of you. Do it and a connection will be established that will reveal what has been hidden in the time of your disconnect.

The Circuitous Route of Love and Life

In August of 1969, I was driving north on I-5 in my 69 VW bug to return for my sophomore year at Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington. I was reporting early for football camp. As I drove north, I was listening to the song White Bird by the band, Its a Beautiful Day. The song really struck a deep cord of emotion in my soul. I had just left a relationship and felt lost. My 19^th year was tough. Little did I know that in the storm of my loss and despair, God was navigating me toward the love of my life - a love I did not know existed. 

Driving north I had no idea the coming semester would be a closure to my time at Whitworth. The Lord would have me return home to Los Gatos, California where I would have an encounter with God in the middle of what would become known as the Jesus Movement. That encounter would take me north once again, this time to Multnomah University in Portland, Oregon where a beautiful young woman named Janice Jean Parry was waiting. Neither of us knew the other person existed. God knew and he would direct both of us along the circuitous of love and life to find each other.

Sometimes we must be cut away from what was to experience what can be. In these moments of painful release is where we have an opportunity to encounter God in a new way. In these encounters, when we are in a state of mourning about what no longer exists, is where God shows up to reveal to us something beautiful and profound. 

If you feel cut away and drifting in an ocean of loss and despair, you will not be adrift forever because God is leading your life. He uses every feeling of loss and each disappointment as rudders to steer you forward to something new and completely off your current radar screen. God is always leading you to a new place of wonder and beauty.

A Dangerous and Promising Prayer

One of the most dangerous and promising prayers we can utter is, “Come, Holy Spirit, come!” It is dangerous to the works of darkness and promising to the one who utters its invitation. The challenge comes when the Spirit finally does arrive and He must work through our assumptions and predeterminations. We can assume the Spirit will manifest in the same way He did in our previous experiences with Him. We can also predetermine who He will touch or how He will touch them and even how they should respond. 

Scripture says, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." Those words are not meant to become a devotional wall plaque. They describe the very nature of God whose newness knows no boundary of expression. He is truly new every day and so are His arrivals in answer to our prayers.

Pray the dangerous and promising prayer, “Come Holy Spirit, come!” but before you pray give the Spirit permission to orchestrate His arrival in any way He so desires. Offer all people to Him along with your assumptions and predeterminations. Let Him arrive in any way He chooses. These unique and unhindered arrivals of the Spirit are what have set in motion the greatest revivals in human history. 

Spiritual Earthquakes

The most devasting natural disasters typically come without warning. So do the most beautiful works of the Spirit that shift culture toward God and His Kingdom purposes. While some of us move in the realm of the prophetic, on our best day we only see in part and prophesy in part. God has the ability to surprise the most astute of prophets and forecasters of culture.

I like to read a wide range of topics. I just finished reading a book on earthquakes. I discovered a new term, “blind faults.” Blind faults are previously undiscovered fault lines deep within the Earth that contain earthquake potential of devastating proportions. These blind faults are hidden miles beneath the surface of the Earth and do not always reveal their existence through surface fault line evidence. The devastating earthquake of 2011 in Christchurch, New Zealand came from one of these blind faults. Seattle, Washington sits atop the Seattle Fault that runs beneath the city of Seattle. The same is true for the Tacoma Fault. The entire Olympic peninsula sits atop previously unknown fault lines. These blind faults were not discovered until 1992 long after the urban sprawl had taken place. The Pacific Northwest is not alone. All the inhabitants of Earth live atop floating tectonic plates that are constantly in motion. As these plates grind against each other they set off earthquakes revealing what had been long hidden beneath our feet.

As I read about natural earthquakes, I began to sense that nations, institutions, and groups who function contrary to the love of God are sitting on blind spiritual fault lines. God has set beneath their over-confidence moments of spiritual breakthrough those currently in control do not sense, see or believe is even possible. At just the right moment a quaking of the Spirit will erupt under the false foundations causing their structures to collapse.

As blind faults are being discovered across the globe in the natural, look to the Spirit to identify the spiritual blind fault lines that lie beneath what to the natural eye seems unchangeable. Surprises are coming. A shaking of what seems unshakeable is about to take place. When the emotional and spiritual dust settles and the devastation is cleared away, be ready to move into the devastated landscape with the love of God to reform and transform the landscape of what has fallen. You are standing on the next great move of God. The tremors are coming.

Bigfoot Traps

We can build traps to capture things that do not exist. We can also build traps to capture what we fear.

Not far from where I live is The Bigfoot Trap. In case you don’t know who Bigfoot is (also known as Sasquatch) he is the mysterious ape-like creature that some people believe still roams the mountains of the Pacific Northwest. The Bigfoot Trap was constructed in 1974 near Applegate Lake in southern Oregon. It was built in hopes of trapping a live specimen. The trap was baited for the first six years of its existence, but only trapped bears. Bigfoot never appeared. Today, the trap is visited by curious hikers who pause long enough for a selfie before continuing their hike along the Collings Mountain Trail.

Some people create an entire life around Bigfoot-like traps. These traps are perpetually empty of the thing their fear wanted to trap. The only evidence to show up and become trapped in the delusion is an overly active and undisciplined imagination. 

People can become pre-occupied with Bigfoot-like thinking, conspiracy theories and all sorts of intriguing diversions. This happens a lot in culture, and unfortunately, too often within the Church. If we are not careful we can become focused on these illusions instead of on God. 

The next time someone tries to sell you a conference or a book with a garish title and advertising scheme or some strange alienesque spiritual concept, read the following verse before you start building your trap. If the idea passes the test of Paul's admonition to the Philippians then invest your time, money and energy. If not, take a selfie and keep hiking.

“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise”(Philippians 4:8).

At All Costs

At all costs, choose hope. Hope will reveal a God-shaped future. Hope has the power to heal our wounded hearts. Hope creates forward motion in seasons of life when we find ourselves at an emotional or spiritual standstill. It is Heaven's alarm clock that awakens us each morning from the slumber of our despair to see for the first time the new possibilities that hopelessness had masked. Choosing hope is a profound act of spiritual warfare. No condition of human brokenness or any work of hell can withstand its power and influence. At all costs, choose hope!