And yes, note the flag. That’s the flag of Iran. The date was July 7, 1987, nearly three years into my wrestling with the enemy from the last post. I was standing outside of a building somewhere in Jacksonville, my birthplace and one of the cities I love.
Standing outside that building, my eyes fell to a newspaper vending machine, and the headline featured some story featuring a Marine Colonel being asked to testify concerning some scandal. The headline said something about Iran, and I, not knowing what it was, heard a voice saying “pray for them”.
From that day to this, my eyes and my heart have been filled with a deep yearning for the people of that place. And though I am Jew, my heart is with them.
That Christ is the Son of David, shows He is also the Desire of David. The Desire of the Beloved. The Lover. The Compassionate. The Son of the Tender-Hearted Mercy. The one who seeks in the street for someone to follow the Voice of Wisdom, with treasures that are not cheaply-gotten. Priceless are these gifts and this understanding.
Not only Is Christ the Son of the Steward Abraham, but He is the Son of the Mercy David. And David believed G-d with a Mercy and a Kindness and a Revelation of His complete Covenant, of His Covenant as embodied in the Desire of the Tenth Commandment. Governing the internal, the interior place, by his spirit, David engaged, with desire, the enemy.
For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living G-d?
From 1 Samuel 17:26
And, though David’s unbridled desire fostered destruction later, it was his zeal and desire for the King’s love that drove the King and the Judge of All the Earth to build David the Beloved an everlasting house.
Beloved, I know how the text is often taught that Persia will fall.
But I also know the text that reads there will be a place in eternity where sundry nations will be honored in the City of the King.
They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.
Revelation 21:26
That glory and honor of the nations will include the ways in which the L-rd has honored a large group of nations. and I am of the point-of-view that dispensationalism will not account for all of these nations being numbered in the museum of eternity.
Only the King’s tender affection for the Ruler/Judge/Deliverer (China, Russia, England, the District of Columbia), and for Persia will bring their glory, a glory that maybe only He knows about, as well as those who will discern it, into eternity.
This zeal for the L-rd to have a gathering of EVERY nation is embodied in the reality that one day, He will wipe away every tear. And it never says in that text that the only tears He will wipe away will be human tears. A Father honoring their child’s wish to separate will always bring tears out of the heart of that Father. There will be people from every nation that will bring Him to tears. But there will also be people from every nation that bring a fire to His eyes.
Where do we think David and the Son of David get this zeal for compassion from? Rather sounds like a Chip off the Old Block.
Desire of the Nations has a Desire FOR the Nations.
Gang, ponder what needs to be done, and consider not just the Day of His Vengeance against His ancient enemy, but also the simultaneous Year of His Favor upon those children of His in nations that are not yet His, pre-Christian Uyghur Muslims, Shiite Twelvers, Soon-to-be-former-Communists, and embittered former sons and daughters who, out of woundedness, walk as practitioners of witchcraft. Those who would, like the separated AHS’s, when they saw the Affectionate King’s face, as did my beloved daughter, Amberle, on the day of her visitation two years ago this past January 2, would turn in a moment toward Him.
The love in His silvery eyes on that day will cause those who will turn to turn in a moment.
For He is Heaven itself….
And His desire, well-stewarded and managed, will cause even the most-pained child of His, who has even the slightest chance of turning, but who ran away because of religious boxes, dead man’s bones, other man’s standards, and fouled man’s programming and destruction, to come running back to Him.
I come back to this now, at the end of some things, and the beginning of others.
Having read an old post on transformation and metamorphosis, I recognize that, via my YouTube channel, I have partly stored the lessons I spoke on the Gospel of Desire (Matthew). But I realize that the other portion of those lessons were downloaded from BookFace, so in the interest of providing access to my thoughts about the central theme of Matthew, namely desire, I will attempt to start a process of chronicling those thoughts here.
And to those who are irritated with the rerun of old content, I offer an apology. And now, given the woman formerly known as Peaches is gone, and Tirzah is running with the horses and speaking with the Naiads and Dryads, in accordance with the King’s desires and her design, I realign those thoughts here in keeping with the new season.
Desire
Why do I use the word “desire” to describe Matthew’s central theme? Because too much of the teaching of this gospel’s texts are devoted to talking about how Yeshua was giving them new ways of interpreting the Decalogue.
I do not think Yeshua is doing anything new. I think too much of the church’s obsession with the New Covenant or being a New Testament Church has kept them from seeing the wholeness of the covenant Father has given His children, and the grace Father gives us, as well as His concern for the internal workings that is found in the Tanakh.
The frame that leads to the execution of the first nine commandments is the Tenth Commandment: the work done in the three hearts (Brain, Myocardium, Reins all three think and act and desire). It is our desire internally, our zeal, and our passions that lead us to act externally. They color our interaction with the King; our days of rest; our parents; and our interpersonal ethics touching life, sexuality, property, and verbal integrity. That commandment is all about the internals. No desire for things G-d has forbidden shall even be permitted to enter your heart. “Guard your heart with all dilligence”, saith the Exhorter Solomon. It is the execution of this Mercy commandment that shows the other commandments have stuck in their place. It is the yearnings of our hearts that show Whom we have chosen to be our G-d.
So, what Yeshua is trying to do repeatedly throughout Matthew, with sharp focus on Matthew 5-8, is to get his audiences to handle the heart of the matter and encourage us to see execution flow from our inner man.
Matthew 1:1
The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham…
Matthew 1:1 ESV
Genealogy. Legacy. Those things that began in the heart, flow into a cascade of elements on the timestream. The intense reaction of those visceral elements lead to the creation of new humanity. Desire. In the case of the Matthew text, we consider the desire of Abraham and David.
Are we genuinely blocked or do we just feel blocked? So let’s look at Abraham. Was Abraham blocked? No. G-d assured him several times, “Everything’s on course. I got this wired. I know what I am doing.” But he felt enormously blocked because he was using a human grid. There’s this pesky little thing called menopause that was bothering him…but he’s looking at this situation and saying “according to the human grid that I know, I am blocked”. G-d operated outside the human grid. He was not the least bit concerned about biological time clocks ticking, because he had a bigger plan. The problem was that Abraham and G-d had very different objectives for his life. Abraham had a small grid; he wanted to be a dad. That’s all he wanted…. “Just give me a son”. He’ll even settle for the son of a slave, and be a happy camper. And G-d said, “well you may be a happy camper, but I’m not.”
Arthur Burk; When Your Call Is Blocked; Disc 1, Cut 4, Timestamp 0:13-1:24, Toronto City Church, Toronto, ON; 19 March 2016
Abraham was willing to settle because his desires were in a different place, and G-d in His mercy, forced His agenda onto Abraham whether or not Abraham agreed.
Sometimes, G-d is a gentlemen, and sometimes, He’s downright pushy. Some places on universal timestream from the vantage point of Gallifrey are fixed and cannot be moved, and some can be moved. And the good Doctor is intent that those places that are fixed come to pass, come hell or high water.
And our small grid may get in the way of the execution of that fixed point.
Building into Abraham the superstructure that was necessary for laying the foundation for an entire nation of priests was a tall order; it was more than the mere passage of sperm into ovum. It was the careful setting in place of 100 years in Abraham, followed by the interaction of that which is spiritual by design with that which is also spiritual in the womb of Sarah. That zygote/baby knitting, gestation, and birth was followed by 75 years of G-d’s intent Abraham would pour ONLY into Isaac, followed by Isaac begetting and then pouring into Jacob, and then the promise came to pass with the birth of twelve sons.
Likewise, we have to take our agendas and set them into alignment with His agendas. Desire. What are our internals saying to G-d, and are they listening to Him and receiving not only G-d’s word spoken to us, but also our reins, cleansed and set into alignment delivering right counsel in the night seasons? Both the interaction between us and the King, and between us and our reins must be operant, especially since He has designed the reins, the kidneys and adrenals, to give us counsel while we sleep (Psalm 16:7: in the night my heart (Hebrew for “reins”: AKA: the kidneys and adrenals) instructs me).
Is it any wonder the enemy assaults our dreams as children in one of the first overt attacks of our lives?
For example, consider the following. Starke, Florida, in the small neighborhood of Saratoga Heights. Sukkot 1984, though no one in this home knew it was Sukkot. This family of sometimes three, but usually four (these days) is getting ready to carve pumpkins and welcome the annual neighborhood romp with some 20-50 of their best friends. Many of the families are knitted together on some level. These are families that embrace the rhythm of fundraisers, and the county fair, and Dan and Cleo Harley’s watermelons in the summer, and campouts in the backyard belonging to Wayne Wynn, just a year before Shigeru Miyamoto throws their non-education seasons into all-night digital raves, complete with soundtracks that will deeply mark this generation, causing them to thank the L-rd in Heaven above for the presence of a Japanese Sapphire Company with enough petty cash and legal armies to choke every T-Rex on earth.
And they know their neighborhood will be visited, as happens every year, by families who travel from as far as 20 miles away. And to their knowledge, not a practicing witch in sight.
No thoughts of anything horrid cross the mind of the youngest of this family, a small boy, hair blond as the vaults in Kentucky and Sutter’s Mill five generations ago.
He only knows he hates writing and loses his 16-count Crayola boxes every other week. He also knows the autumn days in Northeast Florida are their usual just crisp and getting ready to turn for the cooler, and though no Berkshire festive oranges and browns and candy-apple reds will cause leafers to commence their peeping in these sub-tropical lattitudes, he knows there is enough chill in the air for the aroma of bacon, Velveeta, and corn to commingle on the gas-powered stove. And that glory is the work of this woman.
This night, October 10, sets itself to mark the boy permanently, because on this night, the Man From Nazareth appears in the boy’s bedroom in a plain white linen robe with brown beard and long flowing brown hair and asks him what he wants. Blank check. Keys to the kingdom. Maserati. A little boy who knows only to believe what he sees without questioning if there are hidden motives blurts out the first thing he feels: a deep longing for a father, for what reason he does not know. Except he knows something (masculine?) has been missing from his short existence. And though he knows there is currently a man in the house, he also intuits the man cannot give what he does not have. But this Man, Himself a Son, can.
And he hears words that awaken his spirit.
“I will be your father.”
And for a few minutes, the Gardener and the boy discuss the most important item of the moment: the boy’s pillow and the Sesame Street pillowcase.
And following that night, the boy knows without anyone telling him so, and confesses as such, that this Man was the Son of G-d.
And then the very next night, he is visited by another, but strangely dark, female entity, who shares no name. And for the next 14 years: abuse (emotional, physical, sexual, mental) by that entity and her fellows.
With no explanation, and no solution, for he does not know how to repel or fight those attacks, the boy has to, in his spirit, grasp for whatever he can find.
But he still knows about the Son, and refuses to stop looking for the Son, though some seasons are easier than others. And several months after the initial encounter with the son, the boy’s father leaves with little understanding.
So, what happens to that boy?
Well, he grows with a huge amount of pain without explanation, but he also is given a keen capacity to memorize huge chunks of Scripture and teach those chunks. He is also able to remember all kinds of things the L-rd shows him. And, while he is not taken too seriously by those around him, because of his age, yet he knows there is something awake in Him that most people live their entire lives without.
The King’s embrace and intimacy in that fight are tangible assets for this young boy in the fight against the forces of darkness.
Past year 14 of the spiritual abuse in his dreams, he meets another teenager in college who was the victim of childhood epilepsy, and was delivered by the L-rd from the enemy and a spirit of epilepsy with not a single instance of the dreaded disease past the age of seven. And this friend, this college roommate, teaches our young lad, now 18, how to respond to these very unjust assaults. Our young lad learns how to fight, and fight he does.
The Desire of David will come in the next post. But I want to leave you all with the following.
Aligning of Desires With the Author of Desires
Gang, no matter what happens, your life with the King is one of aligning your desire and drive to find what you were made to do, so that you can leave a legacy. And to you is apportioned a group of gifts and tests designed for you. And you are made to be forged so that “no weapon that is fashioned against” you can prosper.
We are each placed into a forge so that we can handle the gifts and the tools the King gives us with sobriety and a ready mind, heart, and set of reins.
The key to Isaiah 54:17 is found in the desires that are encouraged in Isaiah 54:1-16.
Sing, oh barren woman.
Break forth into singing
Your children, o desolate one, will be more that those of she who is married.
Enlarge the place of your tent.
Stretch out your curtains.
DO. NOT. HOLD. BACK.
Lengthen your lines
Strengthen your stakes.
Spread abroad to the right and the left.
Your offspring will possess the nations.
And people the desolate cities.
Do not be afraid.
For you will not be ashamed.
Do not be confounded.
For you will not be disgraced.
For you will forget the shame of your youth.
And the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more.
For your Maker is your husband (brides make better warriors than subjects).
The L-rd has called you like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit.
For a brief moment I deserted you
But with great compassion I will gather you.
Know that even should the mountains be removed and the hills depart, that His steadfast love will not depart from you.
And these are the promises, o afflicted one.
Stones of antimony
Foundations of the sapphires like to the appearance of the Shammayim
Pinnacles of Agates.
Gates of Carbuncles.
Walls of precious stones, and not walls of text.
All your children shall be taught of the L-rd, and great shall be the wholeness of your children
In righteousness you shall be established
You shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear;
And from terror, for it shall not come near you.
If anyone stirs up strife with you, they shall fall because of you.
SEE I HAVE CREATED THE BLACKSMITH
WHO BLOWS THE FIRES OF COALS
AND PRODUCES A WEAPOM FOR ITS PURPOSE.
The point is that the blacksmith, the Paraclete, takes His hammer and forges us and tempers us in order that the weapons forged by the ancient enemy, the clowns, will not ultimately prosper.
Gang, no matter what has happened to you, there is a center and a core of you that the enemy is incapable of touching or molesting.
So, I bless you each to receive HIS desires and that the design and desires HE put into you, you would reflect those desires back to HIM and WALK IN THE DESIRES YOU HAVE WHICH HE PUT INTO YOU.
I bless you to see the key to Isaiah 54:17 in the previous 16 verses, and the necessity of being proven and refined and forged so that you do not fall apart at the first sign of trouble, but rather that you become a trouble to the enemy of your souls.
I bless you to hold your peace as best you can while you are being fashioned and forged, and I bless you to grow into the safe place to hold that treasure in the earthen vessel that you are.
When you vacillate as to your design because you want to get it right, and layers of the alien, the foreign, the formerly-accepted-way-of-looking-at-you have buried you under like layers of silken Saran Wrap….
When the abuse of your childhood makes its way from a former “union” to a true union.
When the alcoholism of your father causes you to act the same way toward the one you swore otherwise.
When the design for the nations rots around you and within you.
When the pregnancies turn to Edenward populace.
When the kids turn from the path of their design.
When you speak one language, and she hears another tongue transposed and backwards.
When the clowns challenge you by impersonating his voice, saying, he’s just like your father.
When death truly means death, and love hangs by a thread, and seasons leaving you feeling as though you are roommates.
When you are given permission to leave one another, and the Father follows that up with the name of your close friend who was also given a choice and a promise of blessing either way.
When the enemy assaults you so much you wonder if you have lost your sanity.
When pastors call you a terrible shepherd, and friends call you the unrepentant of Matthew 18.
When all has gone to “worse”…….
Where do you go when all you want to do is curse the day of your birth?
What do you say, when the clowns are attempting to call your bluff, and a witch rubs it in by sending flowers to the place where you buried your beloved?
I will tell you.
You let Him prepare a table before you in the presence of your enemies, and you let Him anoint your head with oil.
You let yourself walk with grief, and you observe that grief, and then you ask Him to cover you with the shadow of his wings, and you get back into the fray, and you do the things you know you are supposed to do.
And you remind the Clown Prince of his tininess, and of the King’s greatness.
And you ask Father to minister from His storehouses.
And feed on His faithfulness, even if you are reduced to repeating the refrain, G-d, you’re faithful, you’re faithful.
And you allow Him to cause you to float down the river of His reality and of His rest.
and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.
2 Tim 2:2 GNT and ESV
Budgeting…
We hate it.
It’s discilpline.
It’s no fun.
It is refraining and removing the fun and freedom that we want.
Granted, there are many who like this sort of thing.
I was speaking to those who dislike this discipline.
As a father, I was listening to an exposition on this text this morning, and the L-rd had specifically said something to me during the sermon, while the pastor was explaining the Greek word used for “entrust”.
επιτίθημι seems to refer to this dynamic of despositing. Hearing that word made me think of a safe, a bank safe. Paul told Timothy to treat the teachings Paul was describing as something to “place beside” or to “place with” others who were trustworthy.
And I heard the phrase “emotional desposits”
And I saw the things that we do and we build up, different mindsets and different sets of decisions that, when consistently made, built up or piled up a large pile of something that creates momentum and makes gtravel easier.
And then I heard Him imply with His eye…
“For better or worse”
An addict has built up a pile of deposits that he has accrued emotionally in an area. Porn, alcohol, drugs, you name it.
A farmer provides to his soil seed that came from a previous deposit. Plants, Monsanto and their blood crops aside, yield seed that will reproduce themselves after their own kind and will in turn each seed produce multiplied dozens of other like precious seed that will each produce plants.
A husband will add deposits emotional or spiritual or physical or pinancial or sexual into a bank account.
We can deposit many different types of things with others.
Are we depositing the sorts of things from which we will eventually want to reap and harvest?
Intentional and emotional and relational and spiritual deposits, gang.
“These things entrust…”
Be not deceived. G-d is not mocked. Whatsoever a man sows, that also shall he reap.”
Galatians 6:7
It is easier to withdraw from a positive deposit that we have piled up over the long-term, than to try to create something positive at the last minute to stem the tide of a negative deposit that pours over us like a flood, that we have accrued over time.
If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame.
Proverbs 18:13 ESV
Our government’s job is not to make us safe by stripping us of our natural and G-d-given freedoms.
And calling the government cowardly because of our perception of their perceived inaction in response to death is a straw man.
Our responsibility is to lead the way and initiate the instruction of the principles of responsibility as those rights and responsibilities get passed down from unconfined and godly moms and dads to sons and daughters.
FDR and LBJ engaged in a lot of “do something” that was driven by panic over circumstances and a willingness to circumvent due liberty and process.
Goading people (churches, governments, politicians, etc.) into “doing something” usually results in terrible solutions and even worse execution.
We don’t merely seek to say “do something” in response to a panic. Rather, we look for RIGHT AND PROPER solutions to problems. We look for weighed-out and thoughtful responses to problems once we have gathered all the data and considered the full nature of the problem.
Especially given the wrong theory or hastily-formed-then-acted-upon presuppositions can lead to a terrible solution or solutions that tie our hands rather than freeing them.
The false accusations that politicians are “not doing anything” likely proceeds from a mindset that “any answer is better than no answer”.
At worst it can fell like we are being gaslit into making a quick decision that is worse than the problem.
Not like we have experienced this recently anywhere. Kung flu anyone?
Yeah, I went there. Fight me.
I am not sorry to say that ANY answer is NOT better than the perception of NO answer, especially if the product of any answer is an abridgment of design or principles.
And for those who think this problem is the NRA’s fault…
I would first direct them to wonder why effective laws fail to pass, such as Beth Van Duyne’s (from the Texas 24th district) bill to prevent the expungement of minor criminal convictions upon the 18th birthday of convicted felons. Felonies make one a prohibited possessor.
The truth is, it is primarily the left is not as interested in prosecution as it is in controlling the execution of duly-granted natural rights given to us by G-d due to our inherent design as His sons (see not just the text of Scripture, but also the Ninth Amendment to the Consititution).
In the process of hunting for solutions, proposing solutions that violate the G-d initiated natural order are not advisable.
So, to you who are calling the church, government, or believers cowardly, I would urge you to back away from the keyboard and consider the broader context and all of what is happening.
And for those curious about one such example, here is Dana Loesch’s recounting of the Parkland shooting.
And for those critical of Loesch, she still maintains contact with a whole bunch of parents who lost their kids in the Parkland shooting and whose stories are not being told because the MSM is covering up their stories with propaganda.
For example, here is a book from one of the dads whose daughter was killed in Parkland.
It gets into the policies that made Parkland possible.
Why Meadow Died: The People and Policies That Created The Parkland Shooter and Endanger America’s Students https://a.co/d/5XBEW8j
And the hand of the people of Israel pressed harder and harder against Jabin the king of Canaan, until they destroyed Jabin the king of Canaan
Judges 4:24 (ESV)
Thoughts Here
Gang, I am doing a read-through of scripture, and this text really hit home for the Exhorter, especially given it deals with an aspect of breaking the Canaanite Curse, one of the Seven Curses against design.
Time after time, I, and others, have encountered those who believe the only thing necessary to break a curse is to utter a renunciation, or have a court case, or __________ (fill in the blank with tour chosen thing to utter). And frequently, Exhorters who are built for the long haul of endurance are hunting for the magic spell or incantation or eight key. THE SOLUTION TO ALL MY ILLS.
And while renunciations are excellent, they are not the whole picture.
There must be, resident within the Exhorter, a commitment to grow and increase through consistent righteous actions of sowing and reaping in order to break a stronghold through overcoming.
Exhorters MUST, non-optionally, and non-negotiably, build a reservoir of endurance and strength.
They have to develop life-strong, sinewy muscle (Muscular System of the body is Exhorter) in order to win at many situations.
Press HARDER AND HARDER. Over and over and over. Keep pounding. Hammer to nail. Pull and push and develop. There is a reason that well-built people are referred to as chiseled and cut and ripped. Such adjectives speak of a PROCESS that happens layer by layer.
Such an appearance is pleasing to the eye.
And such an appearance will be the result of building out groups of musculature. In the gym. In the kitchen. In the community. In the secret place. In all of the places.
Gang, especially Exhorters, it’s time to get cut and peel back some things that you have tolerated in previous seasons.
If we struggle with hearing others or being heard by others, we might have an issue with how we are managing those things we have been given.
Exhibit A
“My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me.”
Sheep can either choose to listen or they can choose to not listen. As sheep who are more accurately sons rather than servants (though “servant” is a small aspect of what we do in the kingdom) we have been given the freedom to listen to the voice of the Shepherd and either execute or not. And, whether or not we are satisfied without the outcome of listening or not listening to the communication the King gives us, the results of our listening or not will come.
In Illustration
I am not the usual one to give any sort of gloom-and-doom message, in case one is tempted to read the following as an invective.
A couple of years ago, a regional communications grid was knocked out in a major American city. Now, am I going to say that this was the judgment of G-d definitively. Not at all. But I notice when G-d attempts to communicate or speak to His children and they resist hearing that voice…
…when scripture plainly teaches, from the mouth of the Word Himself, that followers HEAR his voice….
…and that hearing is plainly a gift of the King to His bride…
…and, as such, is meant to be stewarded well…
…to the best of the skill and ability with which He endows us…
…then our communications networks of various types risk disruption…
And:
People who normally hear us fail to hear us clearly.
Our capacity to receive in prayer is hindered.
Our cooking in the kitchen is messed with.
Our technology and electronic devices, most of which involve some form of communication, foul up worse than usual, or sooner than usual.
“The wires get crossed” between even good friends.
Our tone of voice or text is misheard.
Our parents, siblings, spouses, close friends, or kids begin mishearing our plain verbal cues for something completely foreign.
Gang, the land in this city cries out for someone or more than one someone’s to help straighten out the mess that has happened in the spirit.
And, while there are those who are called to work with people, there are also those that are called to work with creation.
Be encouraged, if your communication is messed up in one or more ways, then the ultimate reality is that Father wants to help you fix the problem areas.
There is no mess that cannot be repaired or renewed.
The kicker is we have to be willing to quiet ourselves and listen for His voice.
He is always speaking something or communicating to us.
The real question is…
Are we listening and did we treat as important what He said, such that we write it down and consider what He has said.
Another passage to illustrate this concept.
Judges 4
Deborah did not tell Barak anything he did not know at the start of their interaction in Judges 4.
Rather what she said, in our vernacular, might be rendered as:
“Bruh, the L-rd already said this to you. So what are you waiting for?”
Barak’s response: “Woman, I am waiting for a woman to validate me.”
The L-rd already spoke to Barak, and Barak was sitting on his arse waiting for the chick to validate him.
A man who is a son and to whom the L-rd is already speaking, don’t need anyone to validate him. He is responsible to go.
Seriously, and we do this same thing.
Personally, I delayed in coming to town myself. So I am culpable for my delaying.
Likewise, is there something of which the L-rd has already spoken to you and about which you are delaying because you are waiting for a dude or a chick or your covering or some grand poo-bah to validate you?
Stop waiting for a ring to kiss.
And stop going around in circles with the same stupid crap you have been talking about for the last several years.
And stop with that years-old offense that you are using to justify your inaction.
Not all of those statements were for every one of my readers. Those each of those statements do have a targeted audience and then me of them may speak to you. Or none of them may speak to you.
Your job is to engage in Russian epic of Cinderella: “If shoe fits, wear it”.
I am here to be G-d’s mouthpiece to you and say, go and do what you have been assigned to do and stop waiting for someone to tell you you are allowed to do that thing.
Count the resources and capital which Father has given you and use those wisely to begin the process and be ready to partner with the additional resources He will bring.
There is a time for waiting (Isaiah 40:31).
However, there is a time to cease waiting and to start doing.
And our job is for each of us to hear which season it is for us, and to act accordingly.
Blessing
Beloved,
I invite your spirit forward to treat with me in this window of reconciliation, for reconciling with community, and for being at peace with all men, if possible.
And, spirit, I bless you to hear what the Spirit is saying to the seven churches. I bless you to know and recall the voice of the King. And I bless you to obey the voice of the King WHEN the right timing happens.
I bless you to instruct soul and body to ignore the voices of those who are either naysayers or who command you to wait when their voices are out of step with the voice of the King.
Spirit, I bless you with the boldness to move forward in your purpose, even if it makes waves with others.
Spirit, I bless you to move with the Lamb when he moves, and to sit when He sits, and to flow where He flows.
I bless you with kindness, but also courage and forthrightness to hear those voices that accord with the King’s voice, and ignore those that are out of accord with that Voice.
Be at peace, spirit, and keep pounding, or begin pounding if you are supposed to be pounding at an assignment.
You are loved, and I bless you with a pastoral blessing.
Find His Voice and do what He tells you, in the time and season He tells you to do it.
Tom Woods, arch-libertarian and Teacher, is refreshing me on sabbatical:
He writes:
Murray Rothbard described the free market as simply “the social array of voluntary exchanges of goods and services.’ In titling one of his books Power and Market (originally intended to be the closing section of Man, Economy and State) Rothbard was positioning “power” and “market” as antinomies. The market consists of voluntary transactions between willing parties; the state, or “power,” introduces compulsion into human relations, bringing about coerced outcomes that people would not voluntarily have chosen.
Noting Rothbard’s idea, I looked back at the idea of market as akin to free will, a gift we are unilaterally and without condition given, even if we mess things up.
I look at coercion by the government as akin to the overworn concept of control.
And the conscious or unconscious desire for control leads inevitable to structures and polity that lead to destruction of what would otherwise be a genuinely, disproportionately life-giving exchange (means of exchange for goods, or good for good).
In the case of our King, He exchanges our debt for His life and adoration.
I wonder if we are missing, in our desire to crown popes, presidents, and apostles (all usual forms of control) the legitimate and requisite aspect of the divine nature of which we were each made to partake, of releasing.
Father designated seasons of release, whether sabbaths, seasons, holidays, years, or other χρόνος or καιρός moments (and yes, Greek is good and both of those concepts are good) for us, as He designed both unique and non-unique timestreams in accordance with our divers designs, for us to unpack time-relative treasures for us.
And we need to hunt for those.
Another dynamic I have considered deeply is the concept of the “starways”.
Though I cannot find another reference to the concept of the “starways” outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and specifically, Guardians of the Galaxy (leave it to the Ruler Thanos to make us aware of such a reality), I know that they exist and are time-connected.
Someone, or several someones, will have to begin the process of unpacking the lightyears worth of pathways traced by the stars in the κόσμος. So that we can begin to embrace how we were MADE to be released, and not merely to control or limit or make small all sorts of things.
What is our place in being released and in giving release to others?
And what is our place in being aware of the connections between His light, His lights, the path that light and those lights travel, and the journeys which we were meant to take.
…you are not anyone’s flavor of the month because you have to confront everyone.
So, because you are lukewarm, I will vomit you out.
From Revelation 3
Sometimes, there are occasions when we have to take care of others, and other times, there are occasions when we have to impose responsibilities on others in order force or provoke growth in them.
I appear to finish this sabbatical in the same place where I began it: being a goad in the lives of those who need to mature.
I have seen a lot of good come from showing silence or gentleness to community, especially when community grows indifferent or unreceptive. However, there are times we need to shake or stir or provoke community so that it does not entropate.
The verb form of “entropy”, coined by yours truly.
There was a reason the only people vomited from our L-rd’s mouth were those who refused to decide between two useful states and attempted to mix the two into a state of apathy.
Lukewarmth defeats the twin purposes of hot and cold and leads to a destroyed twisting, much like the bile-laden and undigested garbage that is rejected by the king.
Gang, I would like to issue a challenge.
Cold is useful. As is hot. The text of Revelation and the rest of the canon never rejects the idea of “cold”, and, indeed, if we read the context, we will appreciate that reality.
But if you find yourself in a doldrumous place of apathy or refusal to fight or stir up what is needed to stir up, I would urge you to consider asking the King to shake you up in some fashion.
He might just surprise you.
Be blessed to receive His stirring of your spirit.
When we ask questions of others, and we have the opportunity to engage in something we desire, we have then been given two things. Resources, if you will.
Rights plus responsibilities.
We do not celebrate Christmas, and this may or may not create friction with others, because there are expectations, some twisted, that frequently attend the celebration of that day.
Expectations of stuff. Expectations of purchasing on borrowed money. Expectations of rolling with a yearly pressure that may be tied to celebrating the birth of the King, or not.
That said, we as a family usually go and watch a movie. This is something that has its roots in my first marriage but makes a lot of sense. And frequently, those movies are times where the L-rd sits with me in the movie theater and talks to me about what is playing.
And I frequently see principles in said film.
This year we were delayed in seeing the film, and we finally got to see our chosen movie yesterday.
And as a huge Marvel fan, we saw Spider-Man: No Way Home.
And in this film, Peter has dealt with the reality that his secret identity has now become revealed to all. And in frustration, he visits a friend, Steven Strange, in order to ask him to make reality such that people forget who he is. During Strange’s incantation, Peter begins asking him to make exceptions, and provisos, and the balance of the movie is then given to the mess that comes from Peter wanting reality his way.
He wants the rights without the responsibilities and he continually messes things up, which then ultimately leads to a near-destruction of reality. On the way, his Aunt May dies. And other villains from previous realities come to mess with the natural order of things.
And the only way he can fix the mess is by accepting reality the way it is. And enabling Strange to cast the incantation that causes everyone including, his loved ones, to forget who he is
Gang, we have been given a reality and a set of causes that mesh together with a set of effects.
And that reality, when we don’t opt out of the whole of it, can be beautiful, though difficult.
But it is far worse to want some of reality and ignore the rest. That twists reality into something that it wasn’t made to be.
When we do that selective appropriation of reality, we avoid the problems G-d intended us to wrestle with.
And we avoid the following two passages.
“Count it all joy when you face trials of many kinds.”
“You meant it for harm, but G-d meant it for good.”
G-d, in bringing us to growth, leads us through trials and hands us problems to solve.
And He may or may not force the issue.
The issue is, when we ask Him for a chunk of reality that includes hla major blessings, are we willing to cultivate the skills necessary to scramble over and around and by that set of rocks in order to possess all He has for us in terms of blessing.
We may not fully appreciate the blessing until we have been given the curse to wrestle with.
Now, be careful when you read what I write. By “curse” I don’t mean G-d literally curses us. By “curse” I mean “problem to solve”.
Now, why did I use the word “curse”?
Two reasons. One, because the poetic nature of the way “curse” pairs with blessing.
Two, because too frequently, WE CURSE the difficult or inconvenient problem G-d gives us to solve, because He treats us as sons.
Slaves do not get problems to solve. Sons, rather, are they who get the problems to solve.
So, take heart, love. Because if you are getting problems when you pray, it is likely because G-d is trusting you as a son.
Be at peace, and if you need to solve a nettlesome problem, please feel free to reach out. I and others, as fellow sons, can help you to solve that problem.
G-d wants to bless you, but in order to do it, He has to calibrate you in order to equip you to solve problems.
