Knowing is half the battle...

No, this blog isn't about the GI Joes (although there is a lot we have to learn from these iconic American heroes).  But knowing is half the battle.  Knowing what?  Knowing what's holding you back.

Since we are all children of the One, Highest God, and since God (like any good father) wants to give His sons the verb best - that means we should be living lives full of greatness and power that God has in store for us.  So what's holding you back?

I cannot speak into your live about what is holding you back, but if you're anything like me, then you'll see yourself revealed when I tell you what's holding ME back.  Two things.  These two things with in tandem to keep me in place.  They try to keep my eyes closed to what could be and if I do catch a glimpse, they keep me from running after it at full pace.

These two things are fear and, perhaps worse (especially for many Americans), comfortability.  That's right - comfortability is an enemy to most Americans.  Why?  Good is the biggest opponent of Best; not Worst.  Best and worst at least have something in common:  Somebody tried their heart out and didn't hold back.  But good?  Good is my job.  It provides a good income: it's one that my wife and I can live off of.  Good is my relationships with friends: it's one where I don't know too much about them but they don't know too much about me either.  Good is most everything in my life, not great.

But as a child of God I am called to greatness!  I am called up to where He is - through Jesus Christ we have access, full and unbridled, to God!  So knowing is half the battle!  I know that fear and comfortability are my enemies - they keep me eyes closed to greatness, and if I see something I want, my comfortability tells me that I am happy enough right where I am.  Does this sound like you?  If so, then please accept my heartfelt encouragement and congratulations!  Congratulations for admitting you have a problem (no, this isn't AA) - but remember:  Knowing you have a problem is only have the battle.  If you're going to be rich like I am going to be, then you still have half the battle in front of you.  And you'll have to take it one step at a time.

Rescuer Led by the Spirit of God

This is a special Shout-Out to God for His work:

Video Clip

This shows exactly what our life is supposed to be!  We should be guided at all times by the Spirit of God; Yes, God talks to us!  At least He wants to talk to us; unfortunately often-times we are too distracted and busy to ever hear Him talking to us.

Some other 2nd-hand accounts of God's miracles that I've heard (but not seen) before:
(I want to post these because although I did not experience them first-hand, I still whole-heartedly believe they are true, and I also think that hearing stories like these help to increase our faith in God.)

Two weeks ago my pastor was telling a story about being at a meeting with some dude.  The guy abruptly got up, said that he forgot his pen in the other room, and walked through the wall, into the other room, and back through the wall where my pastor was seated.  Yes, you read that right - THROUGH the wall.  He did not use a door (not even a window) - he phased through the wall.  When my pastor asked him about it, the man said something along the lines of "What's the problem?  The wall is made of atoms, and my body is made of atoms." It sounds so common-place, doesn't it?  But that is our God - our God created the entire universe and nothing is impossible for Him!  It should be common-place for us to just walk through walls whenever we need to get from one place to another.
Imagine:  A home with no doors... just rooms and walls.  Nobody needed doors because everybody knew God and how He made us/the universe so we all just phased through walls!

I heard a story from my same pastor, about himself and Rick Joyner a while ago.  I will probably mess up some of the details (if you know me, you know that A) I don't have a great memory and B) I am not detail-oriented) but I will get the main gist of the story across.  My pastor and Rick were at the airport, waiting to get onto a plane.  They must have gotten lost in conversation, and they realized that they only had a very little amount of time left to board their plane (like 5 minutes) and they made a mistake: They were on the opposite side of a huge airport (maybe Heathrow in London?).  There was NO way they were going to make it to their plane in time... regardless, they started running with their luggage to their terminal and praying in tongues.  They found that when they got to the other side of the airport (a 15-minute journey) that NO time had passed according to their watches and the airport's clocks, and they were able to make the flight!  You thought that one dude in the Bible was fast when he out-ran horses?  These guys didn't have to be fast at all!  God just stopped time for them so they could make their flight!
Imagine:  A life with no rushing needed.  Whenever you were not on time for something extremely important, you could just ask God to stop time for a little bit, and then you could catch back up to where you were meant to be.

I hope these stories have helped to build up your faith in what God can do.  God is awesome and nothing is impossible for Him!!

my daily chase

the sun rose
my hope began the day
with doubt spitting in his face
across the sky, the sun i chase

and true to form
i run and grasp
only to wildly miss
a shadow only i kiss

now it's dark and i'm tired
wondering where i've been
lost in my own treasure map

i never reach my final lap

the sun set

was it worth it?

the sun seemed to think so

he never dimmed his glow

in the chase after the sun

i only ever lusted after my own shadow

because i put the sun behind me

a now rather obvious fallacy

but the sun never returns

no, he only ever rises

with the sun ever before me
my face bronzes in his glory

(but when the sun does one day return

rise again, it never will
shadows will be that former story
we will all burn from within the sun's glory)

Work, work , work

"Flee from the One Who is Work"

This was about the only thing I could remember from my dream last night.  Somebody told me to 'flee from the one who is work'.  What does that mean!?

I think that God gives us dreams very frequently.  More frequently than we might imagine.  We're always told that dreams are just electrical discharges or impulses about what's been happening in our lives and they don't mean anything; they're just a stress relief.  At least that's what I've been told.  But throughout the Bible, God spoke to men in dreams.  I think it's one of His main ways of communicating with man because it's the time that we're finally still and quiet enough to listen to His voice.

So back to my dream.  Here is my interpretation of its meaning.  (Please feel free to post comments on this blog to agree or disagree with my interpretation, or to simply add to it, if you feel so inclined.)

Let's figure out who "the One" is, first of all, in this message.  God clearly tells us in the Bible that He is our comfort, our rest, our refuge.  The mountain of God is a place where we can go to recharge and refuel in His presence in preparation for this world that we live in.  So "the One Who is Work" certainly cannot be referring to God.  Therefore it must be referring to the devil.

I believe one of the biggest tricks of the enemy is that he gets us thinking that we're 'human-doings' not human-beings.  We need to just BE what God has created us to be, and that is enough to make God happy, is it not?  Satan wants our lives filled with so many obligations, dates, schedules and everything else that can fill our day that we don't have time to spend meditating on God's word.  (Once again, this refers back to my earlier statement about how God often speaks to us through our dreams since it's the only time we are quiet enough to listen to Him)  Satan wants us to WORK.  He is the 'One who is Work'.

I'm not trying to say that work in and of itself is bad.  But what I am saying is that when you place work before your family, or work before your relationship, it hold too high of a position in your life.  Your relationships with other human beings (not human-doings) is the most important thing in life.  God is a God of relationship; He is not a God of capitalism.

So I think we covered pretty well who 'the One' is in my dream.  I think the beginning part is pretty easy too.  Flee from Satan.  Run from him.  Do not entertain his thoughts and temptations.  I believe not only that God speaks to us through our dreams, but also that God wants to nudge us in the right direction; He wants to reveal to us, if we're willing to listen, some of His knowledge of the future.  Because I just received this dream, I personally believe that there is going to be an up-coming event in my life which is going to cause me a lot of work if I accept it.  Maybe even today I will be offered some possible situation that could cause me a lot of work.  I need to keep this dream's message in my mind, and make sure that I weigh the pro's and con's of whatever is presented to me.  If it is just more work for money, or some fading, material pleasure, then I need to disregard that opportunity; especially if it costs me time with my wife, family and friends.

What about you?  How is your life going?  Are you just trudging along with work, not really enjoying it and not getting the time you want to enjoy other people too?  Maybe if you take a true look at your life you'll see that you too need to Flee from the One Who is Work, and get back to the basics of life.  Be the human being that God intended you to be: enjoy all the relationships that God has provided you in your life and go out and make new relationships with new people.

Why God wants us to struggle

Do you see yourself as a caterpillar, a worm?  How often do you have thoughts of depression, of lowliness, of unworthiness?  When you try to picture yourself through God's eyes, do you see yourself as a 'sinner' and nothing more?  Unfortunately, this is how much of the church has painted the picture of Christians and Christianity.  But I want to help transform your mind into seeing yourself as God truly sees you.

God doesn't see you as a worm or a struggling caterpillar; He sees you as the gloriously transformed butterfly!  God loves you, and He looks past your struggles and your failures.  He sees your accomplishments, your aspirations, the times that you've picked yourself back up and carried on again.  God isn't as disappointed by the times we fail, as He is excited and overjoyed by the times we 'get back on our horse' and try again.  So what of these struggles?  Why does God even allow all these hardships and struggles in life?  Why doesn't He just eliminate sin from the face of the earth so life can be hunky-dory?

I believe there is one simple reason; one simple answer.  God allows sin because He wants us to struggle.  No - not like you may be thinking.  God isn't looking down from heaven, waiting for us to mess up so He can get angry and curse our lives, and our children's lives, and their children's lives.  No.  He is not an angry Father just waiting for us to mess up.  Far from it.  God is a loving, caring, kind Father who wants His children to grow up to be just like Him!  Let me draw a parallel to help me illustrate this point.

Caterpillars must go into their cocoons at some point of their life if they ever want to become a butterfly.  Your life pre-God is the life of the caterpillar.  You are just crawling around, eating stuff wherever you can find it, thinking this is all there is to life.  You draw your sustenance from this world.  However, at some point it becomes evident to the caterpillar that is must form itself into a cocoon to become a new creation.

When we accepted Christ as our saviour, we've realized a new struggle exists.  This is what the Bible is talking about in Philippians 2:12 when it says you must "continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling".  If you've ever seen a caterpillar working and struggling in its cocoon, you can actually see it trembling as it struggles!

This is the point I want to make:  If you don't go through the struggle, you cannot become a butterfly.
Butterflies will die if cut out of their cocoon too early.  God allows struggles and hardships not because He enjoys watching the pain but because His enjoys watching us grow into His own likeness; the image of his Son; the trueness, originality and intentionality of His creating us!  We were created not to struggle, but through the struggle to walk into our inheritance, which is a son-ship including the power and glory available to us from God.

Don't see yourself as a worm or a caterpillar crawling along the earth on your belly.  Remember, Jesus said in John 14:12, "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing.  He will do even greater things than these..."  You were originally and intentionally created to become the glorious butterfly.  However, there must be struggle for that to happen.  I don't particularly like math, nor am I particularly good at it, however, look at this equation:

Comfortability = laziness and sloth = no change = deterioration

If you're not struggling and working out your salvation daily, then perhaps you've gotten off the path somehow, some way.  I know that personally, I look for a life of peace and comfortability, and therefore my life in Christ deteriorates rather than improves.  Some days I am a caterpillar who is just sleeping inside of my cocoon; if I don't wake up because I enjoy my comfortability then I will never become the glorious butterfly that I am destined to be; the image of God with His power and glory.

You too were destined to struggle - not because God wants pain in your life, but because His ultimate goal must be fulfilled:  His goal is that you'll become a true son (or daughter) and that you'll have the life He always intended you to have.  A life full of miracles and communion with Him.