The Season Has Changed – It’s Time To Reposition

I have a group of friends who have invested months of detailed planning and strategized for a project of immense potential. The scale of this Kingdom enterprise is in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Non-Disclosure Agreements have been created and honored in the process. My friends have done everything they can do. Now comes the waiting. A time of waiting is always filled with emotions of every sort.

In a recent conversation, I said to my friends in their time of waiting, faith is the only substance they can trust. They have planted all the seeds God commissioned them to plant. They have done everything with excellence throughout the process. In order to navigate into the next season of the project, they will need to change roles from that of a seed planter to a midwife in preparation for the healthy delivery of their project. In natural births, midwives are present to calm fears in the delivery, give timely encouragement, and provide wise instruction in the process of birthing. The same is true for anyone involved in the delivery of any Spirit-birthed and Spirit-empowered high stakes Kingdom adventure whether it is the investment of finances or human resources.

Our dreams and visions have seasons. Each season will have a new role for us to assume. Make sure you know the current season of your dream. For every dream, there is a time to till the soil, a time to plant the seed, and a time to harvest the fruit. Different seasons will reveal different roles. Ask God for the wisdom to define your current season, your assigned role in that season, and where you will need to stand at the time of harvest. When the time of fulfillment comes, you will be standing in the right season and in the right place. 

Because you have properly discerned the season and faithfully transitioned your various roles along the way, you will have the honor and privilege of seeing the purpose of God being birthed before your very eyes. Someday you will hold a fulfilled dream in your arms. At that moment you will worship the One who first commissioned that dream as just a small seed of faith that, against all odds, became a reality.

Commissioned for Beauty

My daughter, Anna, is a formally trained and accomplished artist. Her paintings hang in galleries around the world. From time to time, she will have a work commissioned by a client. Under a commission, Anna will create an original work of art to present to the client. I’ve had the privilege of hearing some of the comments made by her clients. They were amazed how Anna was able to create something they were not able to imagine but the final work was just what they wanted.

A commissioned person is someone who has been entrusted with a project granting them creative license. It is a work of artistic freedom. A commissioned work allows the person under commission to use all their gifts and talents without reservation or the need to seek permission. The word commissioned has at its root the word “commission.” The word commission comes from Medieval Latin meaning “a delegation of business.” It also carries a deeper meaning, “to unite, connect, combine or bring together.” 

When a commissioned artist is given the freedom to express their gift without restrictive oversight, the unique beauty of their creative work has the ability to bring people together. The client, artist or anyone who passes by the hanging work of art will be drawn together around the beauty being expressed. The art becomes a connecting point. It has a uniting potential that would have remained dormant had not the commissioned one been given unhindered freedom of expression.

Jesus gave the Church the Great Commission. To employ the creative diversity of the Church to fulfill that commission does not make Jesus nervous. Our commissioning was granted for us to reach nations with the Gospel of the Kingdom in a variety of unique and creative ways.  It is not a commission to reproduce sameness. It carries creative license that must be released or the full potential of the Church will not be realized. 

Commissioning someone with creative freedom is fearful consideration for individuals in positions of authority who have not learned how to trust others. To them commissioning someone and granting them freedom is the equivalent of losing control. In the group or an organization, the choke point for future expansion becomes the fearful leader, not the team.

Not every believer, business team member or expression of the Church should appear the same – even within the same team. If you are in a place of authority, God may invite you to lay down your assumed rights and grant creative license to those on your team. This will be a test of your integrity. It will confront a common bondage a driven person can have of needing to control and micromanage every aspect of a mission. 

If you are a leader, the breakthrough for the dream you carry may not be something God will have you do, but rather, it may be a work you commission in another person who will present to you a beautiful solution for a challenge your giftedness was not able to imagine or create.

Take Another Shot

During the Super Bowl, I heard an announcer use a short phrase not commonly used. The announcer said a player had made "a miscue." The words brought back a memory from a time in my life many years ago. When I heard the words, I also heard a promise for those who might feel like they only had one shot at something important in their life. 

For a summer during my college years, I managed a pool hall. It was an interesting experience and revealed a part of the world I never knew existed. I got to see first-time pool players struggle to hit the ball. I also saw professionals play high stakes games where hundreds of dollars went to the winner.

The phrase used by the Super Bowl announcer comes from the world of pool and billiards. A miscue happens when the cue ball is improperly struck and sent in the wrong direction. To execute a shot, pool and billiards players use something called a pool cue or cue stick. It is a wooden or composite stick with a piece of leather glued to the tip that a player uses to strike the white cue ball. Players add chalk to the leather tip to increase friction between the pool cue tip and the cue ball.  Once struck, the cue ball is sent to a target ball to knock it in the pocket. If a player fails to properly align the cue stick with the cue ball they will create a miscue sending the cue ball spinning in the wrong direction. 

I’ve watched professional hustlers in high stakes games actually jump a cue ball over another ball in the way of their target ball to make what appeared to be an impossible shot. Expert players can also perform something called a masse shot. When a masse shot is performed a player strikes the cue ball at such an unusual angle that it puts a radical spin on the cue ball causing it to travel in a curved path on the table moving around another ball that stands in the way of the shot. These unusual shots are what is called putting some “English” on the ball.

The word miscue has come to mean more than a missed pool shot. A miscue is described as a mistake or a blunder. That was what I heard when the Super Bowl described a player error.

Some of you may have miscued certain elements of your life. Maybe it was a promise from God, a relationship or a business endeavor. You took your shot but miscued your effort. You intended the result of your decision to go one direction, but because you did not properly set up your “shot” the result of your decision went the wrong way, and in some cases might have jumped off the table.

Just as a pool player has to start somewhere and learn the finer touches of the game, so it is with us. God has picked up the miscued ball you sent in the wrong direction and brought it back to you saying, “Try the shot again.” He will do what I saw professional players do with willing first-time students in the pool hall I managed. They showed the student how to properly set up a shot and send a ball to its desired target. Some of those fledgling students went on to become excellent players performing shots that seemed to defy gravity. 

Be patient with yourself after you experience a miscue. God is eternally patient when you make mistakes. He knows who and what He is working with. He has other shots for you to perform and He needs you at the table of life learning from the Master. Don’t walk away when you are just getting started. Come back to the table and let God show you how to make your next shot. 

Check the Wind of the Spirit

As a pilot, I used to fly into airports without a control tower. On my initial flyover, I would check the airport windsock to see which direction the wind was blowing and adjust my approach accordingly. A pilot always wants to land into the wind. It reduces your airspeed and makes for a slower and safer landing.

Some of you are flying into a new season. Before you land, you will need to know which way the wind of the Spirit is blowing before you assume the direction of your landing. You don't want to land downwind with excessive speed and run off the runway of your calling. Those who are flying with you in this adventure are trusting your piloting skills. 

Finding Your Voice

Allowing our intellect to remain immature and reactionary while trying to have intelligent and compassionate conversations is like getting into a kayak for the first time without the discipline of training and choosing to slide into Class V rapids thinking you will survive. In these foolish attempts, our argument and credibility will get overturned and our reasoning drowned in self-delusion. Wisdom doesn’t happen overnight. Neither does a developed intellect. We need input and help from others to test the quality of our argument, the depth of our reasoning and most importantly, the condition of our heart. Ask God to show you the people who have matured in these areas. Listen to how they communicate. Watch their lives. These are the people you want to emulate. They are the ones who will help you find your voice.

Into the Empty Places

There are times when I need to go to an empty place to be filled. Once, I searched for a night sky empty of light pollution in order to experience the wonder of a panoramic sky of stars that spread from horizon to horizon. In the clarity of that night, the stars appeared so close it felt as if I could reach up and touch them. Another time I found myself traveling into a waterless desert to irrigate my soul with the beauty of a dry and desolate place. I found a similar feeling early one morning while walking the dark and empty streets of downtown Los Angeles several hours before the city awakened. In each of those places, I discovered a sweet vacancy that caused me to pause and reflect on things a busy and constantly occupied life does not consider.

Above our home is a small, elevated valley that deflects the noise of the surrounding community from within the stillness of its tree-lined enclosure. Whenever I hike into that small valley, I stop and experience what I call the hush. The unique location of the valley erases outside auditory input. The noise of people, cars, and leaf-blowers are absent in the hush. The hush silences any hurried thoughts I brought with me on the hike. In the hush, I get in touch with the deeper and more important realities of life.

Each of these places, a dark night sky, a dry desert, deserted city streets, or the hushed silence of a secluded valley, fill me in a beautifully strange way. What I  sense is Heaven’s nearness – a Kingdom closer than we realize. Some have called these locations "thin places." A thin place is where the distance between the spiritual and natural realms narrow and we see and hear things not considered in the normal routines of life.

Discovering these empty and thinned places is important to the health of our soul because they remind us that being emptied is the preparation for being filled. We need to find empty places and safe relationships that allow us to occasionally pour out the content of our lives to see if what we are carrying is from God or not. These places of safe solitude help us empty out things that pollute our thinking and make us fearful and faithless.

An empty place also gives us a sense of peace in its solitude and provides us with a reminder that life is not always about productivity, activity or trying to fill our experiences with anything beyond the experience itself. In these places, we can be still and know what is not realized elsewhere.

A Perfect Fit

Like most people, I buy my shoes at a department store. I know my size so I pick from what is available on the shelves. I did the same with a pair of western boots I own. Some people call them “cowboy boots.” Like any shoe, it takes a while for boots to mold to your foot. That is the problem with off the shelf boots or shoes. They are not an exact fit – ever.

There is another kind of western boot that is a dream of serious boot wearers. These boots are handmade. To produce this level of craftsmanship the bootmaker doesn’t work from your known size. He actually measures your foot – every square inch of it. Not just the length and width, but every imaginable curve, bump, circumference and unique dimension particular to your two feet. When he is finished the boots become like a pair of leather socks perfectly fitting over your feet. Add to that some beautiful design on the boot shafts along with a preferred toe style and you have a custom creation. Some of these boots cost thousands of dollars and the waiting list to take a pair home can be a year or two or more. No wonder these beauties cost a lot of money.

God loves to create a perfect fit for us whether it is a spouse, a ministry assignment or a place within a team working on a project. He knows our spiritual and emotional dimensions. The best part is that He does it all for free. Our only commitment to ensure this perfect fit is that we allow Him to assume the position of Lord in all the affairs of our lives and take His measurements, not work off our assumptions. 

Today, take inventory of your spiritual and relational footwear. The best fitting marriages, friendships, and Kingdom assignments are those where the Lord was allowed to take our measurements and design what we wear. If He was given permission to construct our relationships they will always work out in the end because they were created with all the uniqueness of our spiritual footprint in mind. Once the Lord is done creating these works of Heaven art, He will surround our lives with His creation and ask us to walk around and tell Him how it feels. That kind of creative love will always produce a perfect fit.