Month: October 2022

If you are arriving here as the second link of the chain from my post on the Exhorter, welcome, and if not, then welcome anyway. I am grateful you are here. And this Series on “How G-d Wounds and then Heals the Redemptive Gifts is very important. This post on the Mercy will naturally bleed over into the post on the Prophet, because for some reason, there was a natural flow from the one to the other, especailly given G-d places Mercies in such close proximity to Prophets so regularly.

Preface: Marrying Jezebel and Keeping Up Good Appearances

Gang,

It is October 30th…

I am dealing with a situation that will require me to tell more of my story.

Many of you know me as a verbal expressive and an external processor.

But that is not reality.

I am only a writer and an external processor because I am an empath. I help other internal processors process because they otherwise might not have a voice to speak up and process.

And this is a piece of my biography.

When I moved to the Midwest, I thought I would find the woman of my dreams and marry and raise a large family.

I was wrong.

To that point, I had been living in a massive dose of non-reality, that enabled me to press forward with marrying a Jezebel Spirit-possessed woman, simply because she had a dream, and her then-best-friend and a number of acquaintances said this was the will of G-d without explaining themselves.

I was told that they needed no justification for their reasoning, and when I pressed them for an answer why, they refused to give an answer.

When I voiced concerns, they ignored those concerns.

When I said things were not well, the only people that were in my corner were my then-best-friend-in-college, and the dean of my college, who was also my teacher in New Testament Greek.

And all that time, instead of listening to the red and yellow flags coupled with zero conviction of the King, I pushed forward because friends told me.

And what followed was a 3013-day-long struggle to regain my voice, while being controlled by what grew into an alcoholic, psychologically-and-verbally-abusive asshole.

And her family.

With my friends and her friends giving zero support, while letting me jump out of the frying pan and into the fire.

And as a result of me not listening, eight years later, I was arrested, she cheated on me, and I had to file for divorce.

Since that time, in dealing with people, I find this unusual quality that sometimes crops up in people: Often, they will give their opinion when they want, but too often, when I have a quizzical inquiry, the question or the observation gets ignored. So, too often, I am left scratching my head, while situations get unanswered, undealt-with, or unresolved.

I think it is because there is a test the King puts Mercies through…And they have to often not only make do with the unwillingness of a person to finish speaking to the Mercy’s curiosity, they also have to deal with refusing the counsel of someone who may speak in such a way the Mercy feels pressure or intimidation from the person. Either way, there are a number of ways the Mercy can learn to deal with fighting the fear of man.

And this is part of the process, from a number of different facets, of how a G-d deals with, and breaks a Mercy so that He can heal them.

So, how does G-d break a Mercy?

Real simple.

The Idol of Relationships

He breaks him or her of their radical codependence on other relationships, and brings them to the place of radical dependence on the King.

He shows them the places they have over-relied on other people, and other false families, and false realities, and falsely-deep social places, and breaks them of their pervasive wont to say “I am legitimate because other people love me and want deep relationships with me.”

Sometimes people want relationships on their terms, and there is no room in their mind for considering a win/win.

Oh well.

Sometimes people have everything figured out and do not need your opinion.

Oh well.

Sometimes, people are just radically consumed with their own issues and do not have time for your issues or concerns.

Well, there is the King, Who, if we will give due dilligence to connecting with Him, will respond and reciporocate.

Note to the Mercies: if you have a relationship into which you have entered without due consideration or counsel from the King, you will find yourself more often than not, struggling with your own voice, or maybe struggling with hearing His voice.

If others take over for speaking up for you, and you refuse to speak for yourself, you will not be in a place of health.

And the King will make sure to yank that rug of dependance out from under you, especially if those relationships have not pushed you to radically interact with, and relate to, the King.

He breaks us of the incessant need to push our decision-making onto others, and requires that we learn to make decisions on our own.

Because of the fear of man that is pervasive with the Mercy, as well as the fear of letting others down or wounding them, and the selfless martyr complex, He often pushes us to make the adult decisions of being sons and building with whatever raw materials He gives us, and making decisions that we are okay with, and as we grow, breaks us from the mold of “you must obey My voice” and refuses to tell us how to to live our lives. Sometimes, He will put us into positions, where we will hurt someone’s feelings and then we have to deal with that outflow, and risk something. Are we ready to choose the danger? Or are we still concerned with appearance and perception or pain.

The Idol of Obedience

As one of my Mercy friends got to saying. “I used to ask the L-rd what I should wear each day until He told me one day that I am no longer in Kindergarten.”

Sometimes, we give the King lattitude to speak to matters of wardrobe, but there may come a time or a day where He tells us to make our own choices.

And we must be content with being sons, making our own choices and being content with the consequences.

And we must learn the art of refusing to apologize for our choices.

And enough of this shit of “obedience to the L-rd is our highest calling”.

Obedience is a garbage goal for which to set.

It is rather a transition point between bondage and liberty, slavery and sonship.

And a higher goal yet still is for us to be able to wield the freedom of the King with responsibility and make our own decisions.

Too many believers laud obedience, and they forget or neglect growing as sons into what we were made to do.

And we want to shirk responsibility by passing the blame for our decisions to anything but handing the blame to the King.

But, the King is working us, especially the Mercies, to break us of everyone else, and to place us on Him.

He wants to stretch our capacity to trust He knows what He is doing.

It may look like a danger to trust His goodness.

But He does know what He is doing.

The Idol of Appearance

He is ringing us to a place where we seek Him first, and to take up the mantle of responsibility without apologizing for the truth, is a major thing.

He is also going to break us of appearance and perception versus truth.

Are we going to man up and woman up and deal in truth, or are we going to have things as we perceive them?

See them according to truth, or see them according to appearance.

Are we responding to an expectation or to the leading of the L-rd.

Are we driven by truth or by the expectations that have been pushed on us?

Healing the Mercy By Forcing Him Or Her to Relate to and Depend on the King and To Walk In Truth

Now, how does the L-rd heal the Mercy?

By forcing us to relate to the King, but teaching us how to deal in truth. And by driving us to speak the truth.

How do we walk in healing?

By knowing the Truth Himself (the one man, Yeshua) and being willing to deal in truth.

And that may be hard for us.

Put differently, The L-rd breaks us of depending on the opinions of others. And if we are not willing to resist and break off the opinions of others, that will cut off the flow of the L-rd. Now, there is a place for loving and creating room for showing some regard for others, but to the point where we DEPEND on their viewpoints, our hearts will not be as free.

But we have the weight of expectations that are cultivated, and those expectations can be the expectations of the L-rd. Do we let others define us by their expectations, or do we let the L-rd define us? We might have some room for truth from others, but if it differs from the King’s definitions, then that can impact the flow of the L-rd in our lives.

So, whose flow do you want, Oh Mercy?

Whose flow do you really want?

To whom is your flow subject? Others, and the history of their opinions? Or the opinions of the King?

Harshness, we apologize for. The truth and dependence on others, we don’t.

We make room for walking in our design of tenderness and compassion, but we grow to the place where we speak in truth and deal in truth, and acknowledge the truth. And pursue the truth.

And with this, we will continue on the Mercy in the next post and also consider the Prophet. For that epilogue, click here.

To my audience, there are not going to be sufficient words in this post. It will truly, up-front, be an insufficient post and unequal to the love this woman deserves from those in the kingdom.

The Background

I had just been kicked to the curb, arrested, feeling destruction all around me, and again, blindsided by enemy attacks.

The year was 2012…

The region of the country was…..ugh…..frozen New England…the border between Connecticut and Massachusetts. I had spent the previous 20 years of childhood growing up believing that the People’s Republic of Taxacusetts was a thing. That it was nothing more than a haven for people who wanted all sorts of taxation and zero representation. And that there was nothing redemptive there.

And for this Florida boy, for a season, under duress, that was in places true.

Then I happened into IHOP a very broken man looking for work to support my boys, from whom I had become very estranged, during probably the worst season of my adult life, and I say that now in light of the current season and the previous season that just completed.

And I met the man on the right, who served as a manager of that IHOP, and immediately we hit it off, and found we had common passions and common purpose.

You see, even though I am garbed like an electrician as a trade of sorts, I am really a pastor by heart. Pastor “is not what I do, it’s who I am”.

And just as “one warrior recognizes another”, so also one spiritual warrior recognizes another. That pastor, John Chase, had spent a season broken as well, in the marital sense, just as I was entering. He was, at the time we met, remarried, and had been treated to all kinds of nasty attitudes among those of his own tribe and calling, though he had loyal supporters.

And his gifting and hardwiring, to develop teams using radically imperfect and sometimes very broken people affects every area of his life. With those imperfect resources, he does things of which most people cannot dream, because most people do not have a mindset obsessed with the Kingdom and the King who is G-d of the Impossible.

And in the midst of his new season, G-d dropped a radically broken man, designed to teach and pastor and love deeply, into his lap. And so we began to connect, and he poured into me as I worked the night shift with a number of other broken people. And as I was in the process of being rejected by my then-home church, he invited me to come to the church he pastored.

And in short, he demonstrated rock-solid loyalty to those he shepherded.

And I got to meet this woman, Erin.

And I got to know her equal loyalty and tenacity.

You have met few woman her equal that with minimal resources, maximized and leveraged responsiblity and stewardship into loads of results.

And my then-betrothed also eventually came with me there. And Pam and Erin connected. And amazing things flowered there in that interaction.

And Erin, if you knew her story, you would balk and say, “how in the hell is this woman still standing?”

And then comes the answer: The King of Kings made her to stand.

A Segment of Their Story: Having Done All, Stand

And John, who was in his middle age with three adult children, made the sacrifice for his bride, who had never had kids of her own, to help her step into the office of mother:

Adoption of two boys, followed by later adoption of more, all with favor of the state where they reside.

And growth. And a Master’s Degree. And leadership. And their love is a testimony to what Father does at the core of His Kingdom.

For Father is not merely about salvation, though that is an incredibly important dynamic of who we are as followers of Messiah.

But Father is MOST COMPLETELY about reconciliation. He has not merely given us the ministry of salvation or sales of fire insurance. No, he has given us the ministry of reconciliation to show others the way home, to provide a place of safety and love to others. To be a safe place for others.

And this is precisely what John and Erin were all about: being a safe place, and “on some have compassion, making a difference”.

Gang, I researched for and served Pastor John in a number of places in his church. He was the first pastor to unjealously make room for me to serve his church with trust. And he was wise enough to recognize that I was already trained by the King and to maturely take advantage of that resource.

And Erin was always there at the church just being a welcoming presence no matter how beaten-up one felt or was. She was just ever-present without pretense.

And John and Erin chose to gamble on me and Pam. And we built a friendship that went beyond ministry. We got to bless their children, and we have spent time praying for their children’s children. They are such a tenacious couple, one of those rare couples sadly in a ministry culture that is so negatively OBSESSED with APPEARANCE OVER TRUTH.

Erin, you are one of the reasons I am in the ministry I am in. Having watched the way you have flowered both from up close and at a distance, and having watch you embrace the depths of the King’s Love and Faithfulness in the middle of great adversity, you are the kind of woman that raises the bar for how a pastoral spouse conducts themselves and leads others into the Kingdom, running toward their Bridegroom.

Thank you for the stedfast example you set, the way you model Father’s desire and heart to adopt and graft in wild olive branches.

And thank you, Pastor John, for empowering your wife the way you do, and for doing what too few husbands do for their wives, and following Paul’s injuction to husbands better than most I know:

Husbands love your wives, AS CHRIST LOVED THE CHURCH

From Ephesians 5:25

And for blessing my wife and I by marrying us, and by counseling me when it was time to remarry.

And for speaking and benedicting my late wife on the day of her passing by speaking this good word:

And to those with whom I am most entertwined in the ministry to the broken, this pair is one of the reasons that I am involved as I am.

So, Erin, thank you for your place and the purposes of G-d that came through your life, and flowed to us and to me.

In the words of Mike Aubrey, I would say this about our respective wives, “she was perfect for me”.

Never was this more true for Pastor John than it was about you.

As much as it as true for me about Pam.

And Mike about Barb.

A woman may not be perfect…..but they can be perfect for a particular man.

And it takes a specific kind of woman to put up with those of us who are renegade pastors.

Giggle.

So, on this the occasion of your birthday, ma’am, may your children rise and call you blessed, and may your husband have praise in the city gate as you consider pieces of property and buy them.

Be at peace, sister and mother in Israel….