I am a fairly expressive guy.
Most of y’all that read me, know this.
And when I do friendships, I go very deep and am very loyal.
It is rough when I lose a friendship.
I still recall the day, September 11, 2000 when I connected with the very first person I ever led to Jesus.
She had experienced a deep joy in knowing the saving power of the Truth.
I remember the day I gave her the most important chapter a new believer could ever know.
Romans 8.
And I remember the season when the dynamic of our friendship changed.
I remember the strongest experience I had ever had in worship. I was at the front corner of my home church at the time, dancing in my (at the time) very exuberant fashion. And without warning, this friend, who was trained in dance, came up and grabbed me by the hands and spun me around and around. I still remember the glittered look of her red dress, and the unbridled joy on her face and the sound of laughter as we both enjoyed the presence of Father’s delight. I still remembered that that was the only time I had never gotten dizzy from spinning around for that long.
For the sake of clarity, there was never anything relationship-wise that happened between us.
And before I knew it, the friendship was gone. Too soon. Another needless casualty of the war that we had fought for our college campus. Territorial warfare. Another intercessor and Exhorter, and friend of the King, disenchanted, and somehow made an enemy of those who were once friend.
Things didn’t have to be that way.
I still pray for her today.
So, despite my strong ideological bend, I have a deep sense of friendships that come as a result of kingdom work.
For years after that season, I received a lot of stares from people and a lot of whispers went on around me from those who had thought I was unstable and crazy. These labels–when they get stuck on to a person, and people whispers–and these whispers leave a mark.
Years later, it was this past September, and by this time, dozens of friendships were ruined because of these very nasty labels.
My wife and I had a conversation with a precious friend from one of my favorite towns in the country: Los Angeles. In another season, that town was part of this season of warfare. I have seen the sunset over Malibu, seen the brokenness and beauty of California, and seen the capability of the campus of UCLA.
This friend agreed to have lunch, and we sat and discussed several dynamics of our lives.
And then the dam broke. It happened without my warning.
My friend, who was the major speaker at a conference we had attended, asked some question about the Redemptive Gift of Prophet’s major challenge, I think.
I blurted out, as a matter-of-fact, “Bitterness”.
And he replied, “that’s David, who has deluded himself into thinking he is a Mercy”. And the whispers started in the room. And I thought, great, now people are talking about how I am crazy or unstable or rude for answering to quickly.
But even though I sort of cared what people thought, I decided it was best not to care.
And then another similar event happened, and my friend made a remark about what a Mercy would have done, and people in the room audibly whispered “that’s a Mercy?!?!?!?!?!?!?”
And then one, then two, then four, then nearly half the room approached my wife, and asked, “You really think you are a Mercy?!”
You would have thought someone had called Cornell and reported the sighting of an Ivory-Billed Woodpecker.
And then the next day…
While coming back from a meeting with Greg Hubbard, a generous-with-his-time evangelist and friend from my wife’s previous season in Western Massachusetts, I felt eyes on me. And heard the question about my T-shirt.
“Where is New Life Church located?”
I was at the moment holding the door open for my wife, daughter, and mother-in-law. I offhanded had chosen that we should go to Longhorn Steakhouse for lunch. And the shirt I was wearing came from the church where I work as a Pastoral Researcher.
The voice belonged to a district Bishop of the Church of G-d, Cleveland. And I responded, sensing the favor of the Father at work. It was a brief conversation, but then I began to think about what was happening.
And in the months that passed since that weekend, friends that were connected with that conference began to just add me on their lists and connect and interact. And I began to use the tools handed to me then to be able to be life-giving in different ways.
And that is when I saw it.
It was a substance, like golden glittery oily substance, dripping off of me.
The same substance drips off of those who are Givers by Redemptive Gift, and attracts resources to them.
This substance was attracting people to me.
I, who was told that I was an unsafe, crazy person was dripping a substance off of me that was causing people to gravitate toward me. And I have had a number of conversations with various people that enabled me to be life-giving to them.
It has caused a number of people to see me as this safe individual, and it has thrown my empathy into sharper relief, and the enemy’s regular emasculation of my in the spirit
I have begun to see a lot more of that quality in my life, and a quickness, not of tongue–though I am still fiercely opinionated, and some people still think of me as unsafe–but of ears. There has been a significant change in that people drift up to me and the result has been fruit of just being able to bless people and speak and be heard as far as what Father really thinks of them.
The tenderness I have experienced as Father’s son has been communicable to others as they receive healing and ministry, for lack of better words.
Whether you call it favor, or anointing, or the presence of G-d, or the volcano that has released because something is now available that wasn’t previously, I am finding interactions with most other people vastly more fluid. and I am finding it easier to hold back and listen before I stick my foot in my mouth, and subsequently connect with those people.
And my wife notices the difference.
I am grateful, and I recognize the change, growth, and ease.
And I recognize that the curses from former leaders, spiritual fathers and mothers, churches, and denominations has been gloriously broken.
And for others of you, the same substance drips after some point. And it causes things or situations to work favorably for both you and the kingdom of G-d.
I don’t know when that point is, but it does happen, and it causes many things that you cannot explain, to happen.
And I still have a heart to see various churches and denominations recover specifically what Father wants them to have, and walk in the portion of birthright and inheritance Father has for them to possess.
Even though I have a post-church mentality, I still weekly go to church, and do what I am asked in order to see Father break the church from her slumber and bring her, deeply and affectionately, into all he has for her.
This is an expression of his bride.
And yes, I know I will offend most people by saying that G-d works even in and through nasty and filthy denominations (see Anglican Communion as but one example), but my Father and my fairest-of-ten-thousand Husband work wherever they want to.
And he will use those who have suffered from SRA/DID and CRA (Christian Ritual Abuse), and those who are shattered in spirit and soul to do mighty things and tear down strongholds and every wicked and vile device of his ancient enemy, and I am celebrating the victory in and through one of those vessels far in advance of that victory.
The Paraclete’s Hammer
