A COUPLE OF THOUGHTS ABOUT SALT LAKE CITY:
The following may get ignored because I didn’t use the phrase “thus saith the L-rd to Salt Lake City”. But prophets don’t need to announce they are prophets in order to speak the truth the King gives them. And “thus saith the L-rd” has often preceded manipulative words. So, you each can have the freedom given to men and women to decide what you are going to eat as manna from the King and what you are going to spit out as bones.
I have never lived here in Salt Lake, or Provo, or Orem, or anywhere else in Utah, and I have never had a need to live here, but I think a few things, and I am going to share those things that were thought, about this precious patch of bee-busy land.
Salt Lake City Thoughts
Part of the stronghold built around this city revolves around finding legitimacy around the capacity to bring resources and provide for others and be independent for so doing.
They are great at doing and working with INDUSTRY (the state motto), but the independence that means they, or we, do not need to rely on the counsel and friendship of the L-rd and place our anchor in Him often leads to a form of legalism.
It is good to know your design. But it is horrible to make your design your anchoring place.
So, what may help in dismantling that stronghold is, for those that love and work in Salt Lake City, to come in the the opposite spirit by leaning into a radical partnership with the L-rd in everything that y’all do. Blending your design with and submitting it and it’s flow to His input in all things.
If you do not live and/or work here, or pay taxes here, you have substantially less authority to deal with the junk in the land.
Resist Non-Reality
We have a non-reality in some of the bedroom communities in Charlotte that people who do not pay a cent of taxes to Charlotte can exercise significant authority over Charlotte spiritually.
What you pay taxes on, you own. What you do not pay taxes on, you do not own.
If you want to exercise significant authority in the realm of a business or a city, you might first have to pay some taxes. You might need to live in a place in order to impact it significantly.
Different strongholds exist in different cities, and for those with a victim spirit (none of that here in SLC) they have to learn some independence and building with what the L-rd has already put in their hands, and the L-rd May be wanting to teach them radical Industry.
I know, some may stone me for saying that because “aren’t we all supposed to only depend on G-d and ‘lean not on our own understanding’, David?”
Not when the stronghold is a Victim Spirit and the L-rd is trying to break you of magic wand, welfare Christianity. If your sin of choice is a stronghold of Industry that says “no” to the counsel of the L-rd, you need to learn partnership.
On the other hand, if your sin of choice is the victim spirit and codependence on the L-rd (which is no partnership), the L-rd may be trying to get you to stand up and walk and use the tools He has put in your hands to build with.
May I Cut In, Cuz’ It’s Time To Dance
I know that, in my expression of these two dynamics, the “stay in love with Jesus/Brides Only” crowd will likely be offended with the paradigm of inddustry and work and being sent out by the L-rd and standing up and walking out dynamics.
This is why this is a dance between the two dynamics. Son mode and bride mode.
Sons build and use tools. Brides do intimacy and stay close and receive.
But we dance between receiving and giving.
We dance between bed chamber and kitchen/living/meeting room.
The Mary And Martha Dance
We dance between Mary and Martha.
Martha was a Giver. She owned the house where people met in Bethany. Mary was likely a Mercy.
You need both. And had Martha invited Jesus in to help her with the work (Jesus was a friend and family), Jesus would have come into her world and worked with her. Thanks to C.T. Meyers for that picture.
Jesus did not respond to Martha’s serving. Jesus responded to Martha’s perverted view of Mary’s design.
And we will have to do the dance and find the treasures between the closeness and the industry that is connected as a partnership.
So to the Industry crowd, learn how to partner with the King in your work, and how to invite Him in to that work. He will come to you in tour work where you are.
And to the Intimacy crowd, learn how to be about the BUSINESS of your Husband. You are intimate and in the intimacy, you receive tools so you can take the Kingdom and the Garden to the non-Garden parts of the world. Stand up and start swinging.
It’s not just about being intimate or trying to figure it out (understanding and wisdom and knowledge are not a hierarchy; they are tools).
It’s about doing the dance….
Transformation of Materials Used For Idolatry
And Salt Lake City has Treasures.
To hell with the mindset of “stay away from Salt Lake City because it’s loaded with demons.”
Oftentimes, the only reason a city eats your lunch is because 1) you were not called there, or 2) you are compromised in the area of the stronghold that holds that city or land captive.
Stay in the society where you are and cultivate the opposite spirit and the cardinal virtue tied to the land where you are and the stronghold’s optic, followed by its grip, will shrink.
Deal with the camoflauge and the issues if inaccurate perception.
They are clowns, and the circus deserves to leave town.
Which means SLC deserves a contingent of salty, rugged Christ-followers who will grow in some Giver Virtue.
We don’t cede land to the clowns as unredeemable.
California. Colorado. Massachusetts. New York. Fill in the blank. You don’t cede what you think is one damned inch of land.
Freaking. G-d. Was. There. First.
And just because treasures have been taken and carved into idols does not mean that there are not proper ways of using and working with those treasures.
You want to break the stronghold here? Avoid the slope of turning industry and the can-do attitude into Mammon.
Work, but work with Him. Be intimate, you intimacy people, but when the season of intimacy is done, move out and build and work. Sweat as Adam did. And drink your cold drinks, little ones.
The unique stronghold here is reliance on AND ANCHORING TO the Giver Free Money of Resources that flow to you effortlessly, and Independence.
As you are working to reconcile to your land and reconcile the land to the King, part of that reconciliation might involve having a conversation with the land and asking it what is going on in it. Consider the history. Consider the founding. Consider that the King sent you to a place.
A Blessing For The Industrious Ones
Beloved, I invite your spirit forward.
Spirit, listen to the Word of G-d for you for today.
A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
The L-RD G-d took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to WORK it and keep it.
Genesis 2:10–15 ESV
Spirit, you were made to work. Work is not a sin. Figuring out and pondering, and thinking are not sins. Your mind is not less than your heart, nor are the two of those less or greater than your reins (the RJD/Servant combo of your Adrenals and Kidneys).
They are just different.
Spirit, your place of dwelling is in the Seat of Dominion, in the brain in the Frontal Lobe. And yes, the heart and the reins also are thinking and feeling organs along with the brain
Spirit, the emotions and the toughs are designed to work together. As much as the first six gifts need the emotions, so also the Mercy needs the thoughts.
And all serve different functions.
Spirit, I went on that rabbit trail because this blessing revolves around one thing.
Tools, spirit.
Can I substitute a drill for a hammer in the matter of nails?
Can I sub a screwdriver instead of a wood chisel in the case of woodworking?
Screws and nails instead of glue in the case of broken ceramic?
In all of these cases, the answer is the same. No I cannot, if I am looking for excellence.
Spirit, you are made not only for tools, but also for intimacy. And you are made for kingly interactions in all areas of your life. No matter your Redemptive Gift, you are needed and all of your tools are needed.
And you were made, not to lean on your tools, but on the King.
For those of you with an independent streak, not all of those streaks are demonic or “soulish”. Some of those streaks are out there by the King and they demonstrate and display His goodness to the Giver tribe.
That said, that design of yours is meant for partnership with the L-rd.
So I bless you when you hear the L-rd say, build.
I bless your perspective to be fuller and to go for what is missing.
I bless you to see with the King’s eyes as He releases you to build using your tools.
But I also bless you with the capacity to slow down and hear what the king is saying to you.
I bless you to find all the King has for you in each Sonship and Kingdom assignment.
I bless you to hear the birds and see the light and to feel the wood and to wisely allocate the raw materials as you transform them into something different.
I bless you with the skill to apply gas and brake in sequence.
I bless you to partner with the land where you are and to see your gifts Marshall these tools, gifts, and raw materials and resources to come in the opposite spirit of the stronghold in place where you live.
I bless you to smile at the land where you live, no matter how much junk there is.
Spirit, no matter how much junk there is, the devil cannot tarnish the reality that “G-d was there first”. Not one damn clown beat G-d to any single patch of land on earth.
Even in Deseret, G-d was there before Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and the clowns of that perversion.
G-d put Industry in the land.
And G-d created us for incessant relationship and partnership. Partnership with Him. Partnership with others. And Partnership with the Land.
Spirit, I bless you to smile and show the land a bit of your sunshine as the King imbues YOU WITH HOPE!
I bless you to interact with the land and to speak to the land, not AT the land.
I bless you to listen to the land. And I bless you to take the tools give to you and to flow from stand-up-and-go on the one hand, to partnership and dependence to on and receiving from your bridegroom on the other.
I bless you to WORK the land and WORK WITH the land.
I bless the dance, as my sister from the Old Northwest was blessed in her capacity to receive her daily food from Her Bridegroom while she waited for her passion to take off.
I bless the tools to be connected to the capacity to flow between partnership when you check back in with the King periodically to receive from and being sent out from Him on assignment that means you might trailblazing alone in the wilderness, when the work is hard and the sun is hot.
I bless the land to facilitate you with its gifts without you falling into any traps created by anchoring to those gifts instead of the King.
Be blessed, spirit, in the name of Yeshua.