Wednesday

Your Town's Move of God



I'm hearing something in the Spirit, feeling an unction in the Wind. It's time.

If you've been seeing the move of God in other regions, and hoping for it, praying for it in your own community, I believe this is the season that God is blowing on that, encouraging that hope, encouraging that vision, because it's on his heart too.

May I encourage a couple of first steps that you might consider on behalf of your town, your region:

  • Pray for the leaders – especially pray for the emerging apostolic leaders – that God is raising up in your region (and note that it may be YOU that he’s raising up for such a time as this). When God does things, he often works through leaders, but those leaders are often not the people in “positions of leadership,” or the people you’d expect.

  • Expand your relationships with God’s people in your region. It doesn’t matter if they believe what you believe, or if they worship like you do, as long as they serve the same God you serve. Some don’t, you know. Some serve the agenda or structures of man. But don’t shy away from people who are within those structures, people who do things waaaaay differently than you do.

    (Note that "build relationships" is not related to "attend meetings." It probably has more to do with the local coffee shop, or the dinner table, than it does with church meetings.)

  • Give thanks for that which is not yet happening, as if it were. Give thanks for the barest little sprout of the thing that God has promised, even if (possibly especially if) it looks completely different than what you expected. The business of expanding the Kingdom is a work of faith, not sight. It’s when we can recognize and bless the tiniest hint of revival that revival is really planted.

  • You pursue God. Fan your own passion into a good, healthy flame. Set your own heart to pursue the Kingdom, to expand the Kingdom, regardless of whether anyone else comes with you.

    Interestingly, it’s often when we declare that we’re moving forward, whether anyone else comes with us, that people decide they want to come with you. They can’t follow unless someone is willing to lead the way.

  • Take ownership. Understand that you are God’s representative in your community. As you take that seriously before Heaven, your prayers will change, and you’ll have more authority in Heaven to move Earth. If you’re praying as a resident of the region, you have more authority than a stranger. But if you’re praying as Heaven’s representative in the region, accountable before God for what happens here, you’ll have both more authority and more passion.

  • Recognize the strengths of who and what is in your region already. There’s nothing wrong with driving to another area for a conference, or bringing guest speakers in, but God wants to raise up His voice in your region, not just to your region. Look for “the voice” of your region. Look for the gifts that God has given your community. You’re not above others in the purposes of God, of course, but neither are you below them. God is at big in your little town as he is in New York or Seoul or Redding.

I believe that there is a grace available for this, for spreading the fire, for infecting the entire Northwest (well OK: the whole world, but the Northwest is my focus!) with the move of God. I believe that the time is right to move from a region with a handful of campfires, to an entire region on fire in God.


Tuesday

Testing in the Waters

There’s an interesting story in Exodus 15. Right after the kids cross the Red Sea, right after God drowns their enemies, there are two significant events:

The first is a party about the multiple miracles in their escape from slavery. Moses and the kids sang a song about his glory and his strength. It sounds like three million people (historians’ best guess for the size of the crowd exiting Egypt through the middle of the Red Sea) spend the better part of a day partying with God, and Miriam and the ladies took up the refrain and went after it with dance and tambourines. That is a serious party! Have you ever had three million people at one of your parties?

After the party, they headed out into the wilderness, though they weren’t particularly well prepared for the wild-ness of it, and then the second significant event happened: the bitter waters of Marah. The hike from the party spot at the edge of the Red Sea was about three days, and by the third day, there was a lot of complaining among the community. These people had been slaves for hundreds of years, and had received their every provision from their slavers, and who had lived on the banks of one of the greatest rivers on the planet. They weren’t so good at taking care of themselves, and never thought they needed to bring water!

But the desert they were waking through had no water. Unfortunately, there wasn’t one person, except Moses himself, who had backpacked through the wilderness before, and I’m thinking Moses had other things on his mind besides telling three million people how to pack for the journey. The beginning of the trip was hard to plan for anyway, so it’s not completely unexpected to discover that they didn’t actually carry three days’ worth of water with them.

So on that third day, they’re whining and complaining, focusing mostly on their need (their thirst) when they round the bend and look, there’s water!

And it is there that the problem exposes itself. Here were a very large number of people who had been focused on their thirst for the last several miles of their trek through the wilderness, and when they come around the bend and discover something new, they interpret it through their focus for the past couple of days: they make an assumption.

I hate assumptions. They get me into all sorts of trouble, and it appears that an assumption got this vagabond community into trouble as well.

The people were so heavily focused on their lack (of water) and their problem (their thirst), that when they saw the water they made the assumption that this water had to be God’s provision for them.

The thought process apparently went something like this: “I’m following God, and I have a need. Here’s something that looks like it might be an answer. Therefore I conclude that this is God’s answer for my need.” Suddenly, the whole world was to be interpreted through the particular need that they were focused on. (I suspect that there were other things that this vagabond metropolis needed besides water, but water appears to be the primary one they noticed at the moment.)

And apparently that was an incorrect assumption, as the water wasn’t even drinkable: it was bitter. But they’ve already concluded that this must be God’s provision for them, so they go after Moses, who goes to God, and in his mercy, God provides a solution to the problem of the bitter water.

If the rest of their journey is any example, and if we’re able to learn from hindsight, then it is not unreasonable to infer that God’s plan actually had more to do with water flowing from a rock at the command of the man of God, than it did with a loving Father’s provision consisting of a nasty puddle of ickyness in the wilderness.

God, of course, had intended that instead of the people trusting what they found along the road, instead they would trust him for their provision, and I think that this is the crux of the issue with these people, and perhaps in our day as well. They trusted their need – and their interpretation of their need – more than they trusted God to take care of them.

I have known people – God’s kids even – who do this very thing. They discover they have a need, a lack, and they fix their attention on that lack, and now a disproportionate portion of their lives is defined by their lack. It’s easy to interpret a great many things by the vocabulary of that one perceived lack, and that perception begins to define their relationship with the Almighty.  

I have lived among people who described their provision as “living by faith.” But some of them lived a life that could better be described as “living by hints,” and by the donations that came as a result of the hints. Others have lived by scrounging: always on the lookout for money lying around, on the floor, in pockets, in vending machines, in parking lots. (Since I’ve participated in these patterns, I’m afraid I know whereof I speak; if others have not lived there, then I suggest they give thanks, rather than pass judgment.)

Even affluent people can fall into the problem of relating to the world through their lack, whether in regards to money, or to the need for a husband (or a wife), or the need for acceptance, or significance, any lack, really. Their interpretation of the world – and ultimately of God – revolves around the need that they are fixated on. This presents some problems.

·         Some of us see every expense, every scrap of money coming or going as an expression of God’s provision for our (very real) financial need. Often, these people find themselves “living by faith,” and financially living on the edge, where “enough” is a scarce commodity, or has fallen off the radar entirely.

·         Some of us see every relationship in terms of our own needs, and their conversations often center around their own healing, their own goals, rather than about the real need for community. If every relationship is evaluated by “Do they help me feel better?” then I’ve become just as guilty as these Israelites: I’ve stopped looking to God for my provision. Instead, I’m looking to my own understanding, though I may disguise the issue by using religious terms like “God wasn’t leading me that way.”  I may slap a prayer onto the process to convince myself that I’m focusing on God, while I focus on my own needs.

·         Some of us see every sickness and injury as a ballot on whether God is still in the healing business, or whether they’re good enough, devout enough, or holy enough to be successful at healing the sick. If we were to look at the situation from God’s perspective, we’d see it differently.

·         And we tend to judge (yes, “judge”) God’s care for us, predominantly by that one issue: has he met this need? At the waters of Marah, the people judged Moses and the God whom he served as having failed, because this puddle that they so desperately wanted to be God’s provision for them was not actually God’s provision for them.

Note that these are not illegitimate needs. We need provision. We need real relationship, we need to walk in the power of the Kingdom. And the Children of Israel in the desert really needed water! Those are real needs.

The issue is not in having a need, or even in acknowledging a need. My need is not a problem. It’s only when I begin to make a solution for my need apart from my relationship with God that I get into trouble.

This leads us, or at least it leads my own thinking, to an uncomfortable place: much of this could be resolved by simply trusting God – the God who promised to provide for us – to actually provide for my needs. It’s a shame that this is something of a radical proposition.

Trusting God really shouldn’t have been a great stretch for these particular folks. Apart from the testimony of their ancestors (Abraham, Isaac & Jacob, though their reputation was not yet what it is now), these same people had just watched a grand showdown between their God and the gods of the Egyptians. It wasn’t even close, which, of course, was God’s plan: God was showing off his provision for them, his advocacy of them. And in the actual departure, he made these former slaves wealthy, wealthy enough to construct a very impressive gold-laden tabernacle a few months later.

Oh, and the parting of the Red Sea (and the drowning in that sea of one of the most powerful armies in the world at that time) was what? four days behind them? They spent a day partying and singing about it! God had demonstrated his supernatural provision this week, another set of testimonies last month, and the testimony of their ancestors. God had proven both his willingness and his ability to provide for the people. But they hadn’t learned the lesson.

And then I’m reminded of the many times that God has very effectively provided for me and my household, and I’m reminded that every time he’s provided for me is another testimony of his faithfulness, and another reminder that I need to focus on God and his provision more than I focus on my own needs and wants. God – my omnipotent and beneficent, heavenly Daddy – is my provider, not the mud puddles along the road of my life.

We will prevent a whole lot of serious problems if we leave the means of God’s answer in God’s hands, rather than focus on the thing that we assume his answer must be.

Realistic Risk Assessment


There has been an accusation that has come against a number of saints who have been walking with the Lord for a few decades: the accusation is that you’re not as “cutting edge” or as “willing to risk” as you used to be, and the accuser probably will add that you’re “becoming lukewarm” because of that. He may add a sense of disappointment, failure, or hopelessness to that.

While there may be some believers for whom that is a true story, I believe that most who are hearing this accusation are hearing a lie. 

The truth is that we’re measuring wrong; the enemy is pushing us to measure our experience. It used to be that we could tell when we were taking a risk by the level of adrenalin (or fear, or excitement) that it produced. It used to be true that we could tell that we were “cutting edge” because the people we hung out with stretched us. That was the old way.

But this is not that day. Many saints who have walked with God for many seasons have learned the lifestyle of walking with God, and as a result, the decision to “risk” with God is no longer scary, no longer “edgy.” It’s just the way you live. It's like an old married couple: you're comfortable in that relationship, and comfortable deferring to your spouse.

“Risk” (particularly the risk of actually believing God, rather louder, better publicized voices) is part of your daily life now, so adrenalin or fear is not part of the conversation. Of course you walk on water (metaphorically, at least); that’s how you get from here to there. It’s just a commute now. Will I really trust God’s provision instead of either the regular paycheck or the unemployment check? Of course! Next question.

There are a few reasons why risk doesn't appear as risky as it used to:

The first is simply experience. You’ve learned that it’s safe to actually trust God, and you have a number of years behind that trust. I've known some people who base jump: they first time was scary; the thirty-first time is not so much. It's fun, but now it's comfortable. The risk isn't nearly as apparent as it once was.

You’ve also changed your perspective. As John put it, “You know Him who is from the beginning” (1John 2). When you’re used to seeing Him, the threats of the world aren’t as impressive. You're not apathetic, but "This could be it!" doesn't mean as much when you're used to walking with the Creator.

But there’s a purpose that’s bigger than you in all of this. Whether you are aware of it, whether you can even see it, you’re breaking trail for others behind you. There are others who are watching you, watching to see if the life of walking with God that you’ve chosen will actually work in this day and age. There are youngsters following you, some close, some at a distance, and a few from the bushes where they hope you can’t see them, but they're learning how to walk with God by watching you walk with him.

If you’ve been paying attention (either to the Spirit or to the news, or both), you can see that "the times, they are a changin’!" Let me be blunt: God has been preparing you for these times. You’ve learned how to walk in victory even when things are hard, even when the way is obscured. That’s how you developed confidence with Him. The young ones following you haven’t needed to do that yet, but they will. Some of them have considered it a great trial when their iPod battery wears out, and they don’t even know how much they need to learn about following God when the world goes sideways.

Jesus said, “In this world, you will have tribulation” (John 16:33), and he was quite serious. You’ve learned that the rest of that sentence is also true, and you can teach the young ones. “But be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."

The exhortation is twofold:

First, reject the accusation that you're l
ukewarm. (Unless you are, of course.) Don’t even waste your time with the topic. You’re following God, and you’re pressing in, but it isn’t as scary as it used to be, because you’ve got history together. Keep up the good work!

Second, pay attention to the youngsters (of whatever age) that are following you. God has given you to them because they need you. And frankly, they’ll encourage you; they are, after all, part of your reward.

“…let us throw off everything that hinders… and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.” Hebrews 12