Author: theparacleteshammer

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….

Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the L-rd appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the L-rd had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah:

“A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.”

But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the L-rd appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, “Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child’s life are dead.” And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee. And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene.”

Matthew 2:13–23 ESV

Gang,

I often wonder what the L-rd meant when He allowed his son, the Exhorter, to be raised by a Servant (Joseph) and a Teacher (Mary).

Were they able to comprehend competing desires for their son’s attention?

Were they ever concerned about their son’s desires leading him to places that would become dangerous?

Were they ever concerned when he was led into the wilderness, while Joseph handled work in the contractor’s office (τεκτον is inaccurately described as a carpenter; it better describes, not someone who works with wood, as working with wood is only once described in the New Testament, at Golgotha, but rather someone who works with metal, stone, gems and other materials that are found in eternity; for reference, many of those other materials are spoken of extensively throughout the New Testament. Likely we we’re dealing with stonemasons, considering the context of Yehsua’s birth. Furthermore, “carpenter” among the skilled trades several decades back, used to refer to a catch-all tradesman who did everything)?

Were they ever concerned about not being able to keep their social butterfly of a son safe?

Were they concerned, given the religious leaders might raise questions about his parentage, if they found out what Mary knew about the father?

What was Mary like as a Teacher after that encounter with the King? For this is how the L-rd heals a Teacher after their wounding.

Escaping genocide. Thousands of women’s desires were destroyed in a matter of days. Dreams, birthrights, designs, future families, all enshrouded in the lament that refuses comfort. Desire expounded through the words of the Exhorter Jeremiah.

All because a spirit of jealousy took over a king who would not focus on his owndesign and his birthright, and because he refused understand what the elders of the nation said to him. And instead he began to envy someone else’s design without first seeking to understand it.

(Exhorters are often threatened with their lives or their skin, and this is part of how Father brings the Exhorter into Reality and brings him or her to a place of radical dependence on The G-d Who Fabricates And Designs Reality.)

Desires that are not rightly-aligned-and-attenuated lead to the destruction of other godly desires.

And the region of Rachel, the Prophet wife of Jacob, had a volcanic response to the destruction.

Gang, we must focus our desires in a right frame . And often that frame for those desires is bred or given through a dream.

Again, I understand that many of y’all may not have read Matthew this way, but the 10th commandment is the featured thread of the textile of this gospel.

What is in your heart? For out of that will come everything else, including your speech, the issues of life, your desires, and your willingness to execute on those desires.

And as for the Father, His desires were executed through the giving of dreams and prophecies and FULFILLMENT (a Mercy dynamic) of those prophecies, which inceived us into the process of following His heart. The question is, given the Giver Dynamic of this Gospel, how are we going to steward those gifts given from the Father of Lights?

Just some thoughts here, gang.

I am in part the product of a series of transient fathering figures, but primarily the product of one father.

I can name them all.

Wallace MacNelley

Kyle Schumacher

Hugh Stephens

Darryl Hilliard

Robert Doughty

Richard Nussel

Sam Harris

Michael Modica

Luis Chavez

Andrew Hadden

Walter Brashear

And to a man, they all left and walked out. Some due to abuse, some neglect, some because their job took them away, and some because it was time for them to walk out.

And what was left was few and far between.

Then my actual father, Second Person of the Trinity, took me back to October 10, 1984, and said to me,

“Am I not Your Father? What did I tell you back then?”

Now, beyond all this, in my trade, and in my walks, he has used a number of men to steward and grow the deposit in me, beyond the heart cry for a father. I know that desperate and perennial cry. For me it was decades-old. And believe me, I know the pain of the lack of that person.

But I also know the pain of crying out for something that will never come, unless the enemy uses that to set you up for something that will create only further grief if your anchor is not set in the Right Place.

They that go down to the sea in ships are not brought back to a safe place by some white knight on a horse. For no man with skin on can completely be that Ultimate Safe Place; they can become A safe place, but every human will only ever become a shadow of the Real: the King of Kings and the Father of Lights.

Rather, they that go down to the sea in ships saw the Majesty of G-d Himself, and it was G-d Himself that delivered them to their Ultimate Desired Safe Haven, which, all along, turned out to be Himself.

Followers of Messiah, I know the temptation to turn some dude or chick into your hiding place, your father, your spiritual daddy, your covering, your whatever.

I have spiritual kids in addition to my biological kids. But, my job in mentoring and working with them and the point of that deep heart connection is THE SAME as it is for my biologicals; that they may each ultimately be anchored with confidence in the heart of the True Father and the True Son, and not merely only, or primarily in my heart.

I am not any of their covering, though I do bathe and cover them in prayer. I am not their place of last refuge or safe haven, though I have modeled safety to each of them many times.

I never had a consistent spiritual father or covering. But then again, they were not ever supposed to function like I used to think they were supposed to function in that fashion.

And the moment you begin replacing Father with a father, ultimately, that will end up putting way too damned much pressure on that person: pressure they were not designed to endure.

And the only reason I am able to be as effective a father as I have grown into becoming is through the prayers of many saints, through interactions with a slew of godly men, both in person and in writings and sermons, including authors, writers, and men long gone, whose writings have shaped me, and through the weeping intercessions of a zoologist who is no longer with us. She sowed for years in tears for me, and now others, including my physical and spiritual seed are reaping the harvest from her faithfulness. And I cannot go back to the way my heart used to be.

I am so different from the person I used to be.

And for their influence I am grateful.

Man, I tell you, I post a pic of the Iranian flag, and people run the other way.

MacNelley! He done did become a turrurist. That thar #FloridaMan has a steerange look about ‘im.

No, no. I did not become a turrurist. I just realize the possibility that Yeshua has people in Iran and Tehran that might know Him and be about their Father’s business, even when the chips have been down for 43 years.

And the Ayatolloahs cannot stop nor forbid that advancing, if there is no brooking of compromise under the context of Revelation 12:11.

Desire, yearning…

They overcame by the blood of the Lamb, and the Word of their Testimony, and because they did not love or desire to preserve their lives so much they shrank back from death.

So, What Does This Have To Do With The Gospel of Matthew?

I will show you, friends.

“Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, ² saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” ³ When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; ⁴ and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. ⁵ They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet:

“‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;

for from you shall come a ruler

who will shepherd my people Israel.’”

Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. ⁸ And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.” ⁹ After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. ¹⁰ When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. ¹¹ And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. ¹² And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.

Matthew 2:1-12 ESV

So, these magi were likely astrologers from the courts of Persia (Iran).

See, even the Persians led the way when it came to authentic, divine worship of the Jewish king, before his own people. And this worship came from a heart full of internal yearning, joy, and yes, even desire. That joy of desire, having read the portents in their own land, they sent not just three dudes on camels with some of the costliest gifts of their time, but a CARAVAN and a full litter of armed escorts, scribes, cooks, porters, etc. to protect and supply that caravan and the goods.

If you have that kind of priceless treasure present, then are you not going to hire a BRINKS truck to secure it, because of misplaced desire on the part of thieves and bandits?

Now, as they arrive in Bethlehem, they evidently had some sort of announcement which piqued Herod’s misplaced desire and jealousy, prompting him to summon these magi.

And listening to the voice of Herod, they followed the path of the star to the place where Messiah lay.

And they presented gifts of desire, according to the Fractal of three, The gift of the Father, Gold, given as a memory of Jesus’ true home, where the gold was translucent like glass, which allowed His beauty to radiate through His realm. The gift of the Son, Frankincense, recalls the Sons’s chief desire: intercession for those who know Him and those who do not yet know Him, for as the quintessential Exhorter, He is not going to let the Father or the created order rest, that none should perish. His heart is for all coming to repentance, and therefore He will deny or restrain giving vent or air to the incense of his intercession that His Father’s House might be made full. And the gift of the Holy Spirit, fragrant Myrrh, showing the deep intimacy in His presence that comes with death and the embrace of pain, which is the Exhorter’s portion in order to earn strong authority in reality, and as a result of that suffering, the fragrance of Christ is released.

And in response to their desires being executed, Father, the G-d of the Translucent Gold gave them a gift: a dream came to them that night following their worship of this Jewish Messiah, saying, “FLEE A DIFFERENT WAY!”

So, my question to each of you is, what is the fruit of your desire. Is it life, or is it death? What can we do to increase the desire and the execution of all that is good, praiseworthy, and of good report?

It is an especially difficult question to consider when all hell is breaking loose.

What, when you provide gifts of desire, will be released to you? When what is inside of you comes out, then there will be a Return on Investment.

The Start of A New Series.

For the record, I could write the following about any other one of the Redemptive Gifts.

And if you want me to handle all seven gifts on this topic I will. And it will not be fun for any of us.

For one very specific reason

Each of us has an area that is part of our design that is both a strength, but when mishandled becomes a really bad weakness.

I have a specific reason for dealing with the Exhorter first.

They are lynchpins in creation that are designed to help us grip reality better than any of the other gifts, if they will first grip reality themselves.

And too often they come up short in fully executing because of their refusal to embrace ALL of reality, or they hide from portions of reality that are critical to them demonstrating they have embraced the whole of reality, inclusive of the painful, hard, difficult, uncomfortable parts.

The Exhorter is known for having a notorious habit of overpromising and under-delivering on what they say they are going to do.

Or they take information that is given to them, and stretch it to fit their perceptions. They hear, “do this”, and so frequently, they take it to mean, “do this or anything else that comes swimming into your mind, no matter what was originally said to you.”

And so, much like G-d has to walk the Prophet through great pain in order to get them to connect relationally with others in order to build out the Second Level of Natural Law (the set of principles governing relationships between man and man), so too G-d has to walk the Exhorter into great pain in order to force the issue of…

equivocation….

or the attitude of….

“if I engage this behavior, it will be good enough to meet the parameters of what is expected of me”

to the surface….

in order to remove it so he can push the Exhorter into a place where the Exhorter has to become precise and exacting in what the Exhorter does so they can learn the value of precision in word and deed and commitment…

rather than glad-handing and jollying others into seeing things the Exhorter’s way.

And too often the Exhorter, because of their relational skills of networking and connecting with other people, too often uses those people they connect with, in order to move themselves into a better place.

Too often, they resort to gaming situations, people, and circumstances with their many words and winning personalities, in order to gain an advantage.

I have an old friend from college who lives in Redding, California, and works with a well-known, independent, full gospel religious community headquartered in Redding.

The way this friend, an Exhorter, got there was through leaping from season to season, a series of seasons where she moved from one set of friends to another more notable set of friends. Once she perceived that one set of friends were less popular than this other set of friends, she would allow the connection with the set of friends who could not advance her deteriorate in favor of strengthening the connection that would bring her greater notoriety, and this friend, who used to be close friends with my roommate and his wife, no longer communicates with them.

It would seem that Exhorters, if their will remains unsubmitted or uncrucified, tend toward a pattern of jumping ship, leaving one set of relationships in the dust in order to move to a new set of relationships.

So, how does G-d fix this problem? I am only so glad you asked, and to answer that question, we are going to show a series of scenes featuring my favorite Exhorter.

Stark Raving Hazelnuts

You knew, given my predilection for analysis of Redemptive Gifts in film, and my discussion of the Exhorter in particular, that I was somehow going to put a film clip featuring Tony Stark. But, his timeline in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is precisely that of how an Exhorter goes to possess his or her birthright. And this injury opens the door to two things 1) a removal of ignoarance to how his weapons were being used and sold on the black market without his knowledge, and 2) a personal choice to engage in increasing risks in order to save those people that he feels he put in harm’s way.

And as he knows that the Ten Rings has access to his weapons, he decides to do something about it. And the look on the thumbnail below says it all: I have to do something to stop them from the destruction I enabled in my ignorance. The Exhorter has got to come to grips with how his or her actions messed up situations and people. He or she must beg for an understanding of fullness of reality.

Part 2 of this sequence here.

And the risk to himself that came with rescuing people at potentially great personal expense.

And then the explanation he gives to Pepper basically puts a bow on the entire segment.

Tony realizes the problem that he is fixing is the result of his ignorance and actions. And, without flinching, he owns it, and is completely vulnerable to the Servant who has cared for him for years.

“You stood by my side all these years while I reaped the benefits of destruction. Now that I’m trying to protect the people I’ve put in harm’s way, you’re going to walk out?”

Tony Stark to Pepper Potts, Iron Man, 2008

And you realize in this scene that something in him seems to have sobered up. There is an emotional reconciliation and squaring-up to his actions that has begun to take place.

“There’s no throne, there is no version of this where you come out on top. Maybe your army comes and maybe it’s too much for us but it’s all on you. Because if we can’t protect the Earth, you can be damned well sure we’ll avenge it.”

Tony Stark to Loki, the Avengers, 2012

He is learning at least part of his place in all of this.

And now the first place of sacrifice, that leads to PTSD

Sometimes the Exhorter, in getting healed, has to embrace a situation, or two, or three, or twenty where they have to put their lives on the line. See Jesus dying on the cross as an example of this. Our requirement in dealing with reality, and especially for the Exhorter, is there will be times when brutal sacrifices must be made.

And losses add up.

There is a conversation during Avengers: Infinity War where Doctor Strange tells Tony that there is a 1 in 12,000,000 chance of defeating Thanos, and in the following scene, Strange’s one finger tells Tony nonverbally that this is the only way Thanos will be defeated, which involves Tony’s death.

So, the Exhorter sacrifices himself for everyone else.

Gang, specifically, Exhorters, your portion is to cry out for reality and to solve the problems that involve violations of reality. To this end, you cannot allow yourselves to become the ones who, through your relational skill and way with words, violate reality yourselves, even if it means the hard conversations that involves your repentance or confession of bitterness.

And, no, you cannot have these conversations in passing as you are doing other things. You must have deep conversations with others and engage in deep actions that are intentional in building out the work of the kingdom directly.

This is not an “as it fits into my agenda” set of tasks. This is the agenda you must choose to pick up instead of the other agenda you think is productive.

And, unfortunately as it may seem, this means you will have to embrace pain as you reconcile the apparent disparity between a love relationship with G-d the Father on the one hand and intense amounts of pain in order to grow on the other hand.

This is not a time for “why me?”. This is a time to step into the gym and grow. And the only way an Exhorter grows is with pain. Period. And they get a greater ROI out of embracing more pain than the other six gifts combined.

There can be a joyful life for the Exhorter, but it must also be paired with sobriety.

Just some thoughts here, gang.

And for the link to the second post in this series, click here for my post on the Mercy.

THE ONE PERSON…..

The date was September 11.

The year, though, was 2000.

These events were overshadowed by what happened one year later.

I was newly a Junior in college. 22 years ago…and we had just begun the school year a couple of weeks past. I had made a steady stream of friends, as was my habit those days, due to my fairly gregarious nature at the time.

And that day, I had walked into the Wesley House and, there was this woman sitting under the stained glass window. I didn’t think much of it, until we started chatting, and I got to know her. H

Mind you, I had been a follower of the King for about 17 years. And there were no lockdowns at the airports, nor were there any TSA, or Department of Homeland Security, no Tom Ridge, no Conservatives pretending to be proponents of lower spending or limited government. We were a bit more happy and care-free as a nation, and the Republican Party was not yet the bastion of uselessness into which it has grown.

Okay, maybe that is overstating the case, but lest you think the Democratic Party is less useless, ahem..

Anyway, Alyssa and I began chatting and I discovered, through our wandering conversation that she was not a follower of Messiah.

So, in an act that I honestly do not regularly engage in, because I have seen how frequently witnessing to people goes that you barely know, I sensed that maybe this one was white and ready to harvest.

So, I began the process of showing her, a basic idea of what salvation was about. And she was interested. And we spent time praying and talking in the coming weeks. She walked into the kingdom, I spent time handing her regular passages of the biblical text to read, and she began to grow by leaps and bounds. We played quite a bit of chess during those ensuing months, and began working on ministry endeavors together, and she was growing into her own walk with Yeshua.

And then, about the time I had graduated and moved to Tennessee to spend the summer in Nashville working as a summer camp counsellor, something changed. The only person I had ever directly “led to the L-rd” had begun to fall away. And I had had a couple of conversations with her by phone, and then, everything ceased altogether.

And every year, this time of year, when so many people come back to what happened on the corporate level, I think back to what had happened on an individual level, to my friend. I am not sure what happened, but I still pray and mourn for the loss. And I know I am not the only one that misses her sunny contribution to our community of faith. I have several friends that I know also miss her.

But, in this post 9/11/2000 world, I continue, puttering away, doing what I was made to do.

And I wait for news of her return home…as with many other close friends of those days. Brian, Casey, Jon…and I am grateful for the friends who remain from that season. We mourn the presence of the holes left behind by these precious brothers and sisters. And, simultaneously, we hope for their reconciliation, not to a church, or a denomination, but to the One Man.

So, when you have friends from seasons passed, and the L-rd reminds you to pray for them, please be encouraged to do so. For the King is not yet done with their lives, lovelies.

Reposted from Facebook:

Mom, I recall growing up in the Methodist Church for a number of reasons you specified, years after you left college, where there was infighting among all sorts of Christ-followers, and the value of friendships that led you to the L-rd. And I recall something that we did that was etched into my spirit, and have never let go. First time I knew it was right. And the first time a woman led me in such a meaningful time of worship.

And before anyone asks me, I can articulate textually, contra the tired, old arguments that they cannot lead or pastor, how they can.

Mom, one First Sunday morning in the late 80’s, we had decided to remain how and watch church from home, and during the time for taking the bread and the cup, you came from the kitchen bearing a cup of juice that had grapes floating in it, and a loaf of leavened bread. And the three of us sat and Holy Spirit showed up in that connection with His Love, in, with, and under the Medicine of Immortality (Ignatius of Antioch).

Since that day, I have seen and communed with many different groupings and manifestations of Bayit Adonai, the King’s Assembly, the ἐκκλησία, and have seen a whole lot, and been led into a whole lot.

Reasons I have friends who are practicing Catholics, as well as those who, like me, are practicing Jews.

And then there is Arthur Burk, the Man From California who added another layer to the Remnants of the Pesach Supper….

Following the breaking of the loaf of blessing in our celebrations as a global tribe, he mentioned the cup was an apocalyptic and eschatological reminder of anticipating the return of the Lamb of G-d, and as we engage in the Fractal of Four that helps heal those of us with PTSD (Anticipate, Experience, Savor, and Tell/Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and the Kingdom/Right Atrium, Right Ventricle, Left Atrium, Left Ventricle).

And so, this connecting point of encounter with the King is used, most notably during Pesach, the season in which my second marriage began, as a tool of deliverance and exorcism, and also as a tool for alignment. First employed by you to help us as a family stay in a place of alignment when so many other things were falling out of alignment, it communicated much to me.

And now, in this season when more alignment of other parts of my family, blood, marriage, adoption, and spiritual, I remember the way the King met me in Seattle, which caused everything to shift in the way I approach pastoral work, since the Man From California recognized and called me what I am: a pastor. It’s not what I am, it’s who I am, and it has always been who I am. Not merely an electrician, not merely a teacher, but a pastor. “A Naval Aviator. It’s not what I am; it’s who I am”.

It is a reminder to grace and bless and bring into alignment the organizations I lead and of which I am part.

And one other thing I gathered from interacting with you whenever I have stepped into other churches and gatherings: I absolutely hate thin celebrations, celebrations that seem more buoyed or framed by fears, fears cultivated by the celebration of feasts, agape feasts, Jewish feasts, or otherwise, and other restrained “celebrations” that do not cultivate in us what Thomas Aquinas called the “red hot poker in the fire”. Salvation is not merely an insurance policy for barely-saved sinners, nor is it merely a penal substitution or a forensic justification, though those are important tiny-arse facets of it, but rather it is a gateway and a threshold across which we pass on the journey to being fully and completely transformed that we bear His fire and His image as the red-hot poker does the fire in which it rests. And that change is meant to temper and permeate all that we do and are, as we are made permanently hot and cold by turns as we do the dance as the season demands.

So, Mom, do not underestimate the impact you had, amidst the pain and abuse of too many others that could have driven me and Nick away from the King. And remember the grace on the land that helped anchor me as a unique son of the King in this season, and one tied deeply to land and people. This season will bear fruit; the Zoologist understood that. Their abuse and blame for their abuse does not fall on you, nor does any accrued shame. Neither of these are the King’s way.

And this season is a season of steep rescue by those who have put skin in the game for the rescue missions that are coming. For one too many victims of the October season and other crap that we have sat and tolerated. It’s time. And this is when the time for rescuing those too damaged by junk is ripened.

“I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”

J.R.R. Tolkein, The Two Towers

 Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. ²⁰ But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. ²¹ She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” ²² All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, G-d with us).

When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.

Matthew 1:18-25 ESV

There is a segment in Matthew with which I will not bore you. There are several highlights I would like to point out as points in support of the concept of desire in Matthew’s gospel.

Abraham desired a son. And as a result, G-d got what He desired (a nation).

Jacob desired a wife of fire, and as a result, he got twelve tribes.

Salmon desired Rahab a prostitute, and as a result, G-d got the Boaz which He desired for Ruth, a faithful and just husband.

Boaz desired Ruth, a Moabite and a guile-free Servant, and as a result, G-d got to illustrate his desire for mutual life-giving between Israel and Moab.

G-d desired Jesse, and as a result, He got the Branch that came from Jesse.

David desired Bathsheba, and as a result, G-d desired Jedediah (Solomon).

Hezekiah desired 15 years, and, as a result, Manasseh the wicked king was born.

Manasseh, in his later years, desired forgiveness out of his repentance, AND G-D GAVE IT TO HIM. BECAUSE G-D OFFERS MERCY FREELY TO ALL. Desire yields much fruit, and G-d gave Mannaseh what was not deserved.

Josiah desired to fight Pharaoh Neco, and as a result, he lost his life prematurely due to his stubborn pride.

Desire may lead to that which is bidden, or that which is forbidden.

And desire leads a child to be birthed of Holy Spirit. Desire creates a safe place for children to be found and raised. Desire leads to many things. The inward attitudes of the heart as reflected by the reality that G-d recognizes through the text of the Tenth commandment lead to many great things full of wonder when desire is rightly aligned, and can lead to many dangerous or destructive things which desire is misaligned.

Joseph’s actions were not yet known; he was pondering what he should do. All of the dialogue was internal. He was wondering, in the presence of the King who was residing in his wife’s womb, what he should do. He weighed the risks, inside his own spirit and mind. He knew what would happen if he exposed her to open shame. And in the end, the angel of the L-rd had to encourage him, against the spirit of fear that was working internally, to do the very thing that would destroy his reputation among the leaders of the day.

Our responsiblity, in the midst of potentially risky or destructive situations, is to ask the L-rd what His input is for us. Should we risk to do the thing we desire, or not?

There may be many thing we see or feel or experience inside of us, but the real question is, how are those desires reflected in our actions.

The more you read the Gospel of Matthew, the more you will see the desires that are inside a man’s or a woman’s heart guide him or her to act accordingly.