Category: Design

How G-d Wounds and Then Heals a Mercy, Part 2

by theparacleteshammer, posted in Design, Fathering, Inner Healing, Redemptive Gifts

I was going to go with a post on the Teacher, but then something struck me from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and so I had to run with it. So, here goes…

A Bit More On the Mercy From the MCU, and Then, I Promise We Will Get To the Teacher

Of course, I had to go here for a bit, because there is more than I wanted to say about the Mercy, given the material on the gift keeps bubbling up. So, because I analyze the RG’s in pop culture, there is a significant buildup of material that naturally flows. So, here goes…

Yes….the kid is a Mercy….and had the Exhorter for a surrogate/adoptive father…..

And his wound? It’s being presented with the question, “are you enough without the crutches, and the people, and the relationships, and the tricks, and the gifts, and the resources, and everything that is not the L-rd Himself who must alone stand guard over your heart without any additions?”

Because if you aren’t enough without the suit, then you’ll never be enough with the suit.”

When we first meet Peter in the MCU (Captain America: Civil War), we see as a boy with serious confidence deficit. He hides himself from those who love him and blames himself for the bad things that happen around him. In Homecoming and then Far From Home, we come to an individual with not just problems with self-confidence, but also serious legitimacy issues. From Civil War to Homecoming and Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, there was a deep internal struggle with both his identity, place, and purpose. He did not see himself for what Tony saw in him, even though it took Tony some time to come around to embracing Peter’s inherent value and design, and to father him effectively.

But eventually confidence bloomed and grew in Peter. This deep well took a hit when Tony died. With his father figure gone, he had to develop a different source, and dig a different well.

Unfortunately, this very negative belief about himself that he wasn’t good enough or strong enough to fill Tony’s shoes, led him to give up the resources that Tony gave to him to someone he thought could be trusted. Following that, Beck toyed with him and, because of Beck’s possession of Stark Tech, he was able to fool Peter into questioning the fabric of reality.

Though it was never about filling Tony’s shoes, but filling and walking in his own shoes, and flowing in his design.

Mercies, when their confidence is deeply tested, usually in the area of relationships, may question reality in the worst way. And this will bring them to a crossroads.

They ultimately must come to a place where they rest in the One Thing that will never abandon them, even when everything crumbles around them: the anchoring point of the nature of G-d, Who Is fiercely loving, completely consistent, will not forsake them, and commited to His covenant.

The wounding comes when they are stripped of those things that once brought them confidence, and the healing comes when their internal structure is so aligned with The One Who Is Perfect Reality that the external world deteriorating impacts them in a decreasing fashion. Dependence on the Bridegroom and no one else, not even family, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, spouses, close friends, is what stabilizes the Mercy as they grow through the season that threatens to wound them.

As a result of that, the L-rd pushes the Mercy to adopt a capacity to fix their problems piece-by-piece, without crutches, and as a result, they grow to respond to the following challenge.

As a result, they can either grow into what they were made to do, or shrink back, and their legacy be forgotten or picked up by someone else.

Mercies are going to either bloom or crack under pressure, and as a result of staying the course under pressure, something else comes of them. Something really good.

So, if they bloom in adversity, and they respond to the pressure by leaning hard into the L-rd (Proverbs 3:5-6; Isaiah 54:1-16) instead of relationships governing them, they govern their relationships. And to those relationships they add boundaries, which breaks the spirit of codependency.

Biblically speaking, I think about the confidence John got as a Mercy through living on the Island of Patmos, where he wrote the Revelation and then penned his gospel.

Just some thoughts here…..

Now, onto the Teacher….or not really…but that should be the following post…if I can get off my soapbox long enough to execute…

When a Mercy Messes With Their Design Or Their Birthright….

by theparacleteshammer, posted in Birthright, Design, Five Levels of Holienss, Redemptive Gifts

Gang,

I am not sure how to say this.

The major design of a Mercy is to sanctify time as it is and as the King intends for it to progress.

It is not for the Mercy to move or realign the flow of time in accordance with how they wish it would be.

There is a huge aspect of this tied to their birthright.

If a Mercy can hear from the King, and not meddle with time as they wish it were, but seek for the alignment of time as the King wants it, then there will be a huge payoff…

Even if life is pain, and seasons are full of burning, pain.

NO MATTER HOW PAINFUL YOUR LIFE GETS, TO WISH TIME WOULD SPEED UP, SLOW DOWN, CHANGE, TWIST, BREAK, MOVE AROUND, SKIP, AND OTHERWISE BE THAN WHAT IT IS IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE KING’S TIME FRAME….

You stick to your guns and you leave what happened in Time be, and you redeem the days you have.

No matter if the enemy is adultery; or cancer; or a car accident; or a trauma; or an SRA or CRA; or a bloodline; or a tie-in to a demonic throne or dominion; or bloodline; or relative; or abuse; or rape; or incest; or anything else in all of creation.

If it means you soak in His love, you still do not mess with the timestream, Mercy.

Scott Lang (Ant-Man) is a Mercy. And this film is what will happen when the Mercy, in their hard portion of being reconciled to and hunting for the King’s will for Time, seeks to RUN FROM PAIN.

I cannot say how many times I wished my timeline was other than what it shook out to becoming.

That said, right now, you can impact Time and its flow to the King’s purposes, if you will partner with the G-d Who Is and Who Was and Who Is That Which Will Be.

I know it is painful. The timestream can be intensely painful. And sometimes time, instead of healing wounds, can sometimes be the vehicle that seems to inflict wounds.

3013 days one way.

3013 days another way.

Abuse.

Shattering of spirit and soul.

Death.

Destruction.

Cancer.

And then my emotions moving now up, and again down.

Some things just do not seem fair.

And, besides, “fairness” is not a concept found in the biblical text.

Justice and Mercy, however, are.

And you were given Love, not fair, and not fairness.

And G-d’s metric for kingdom dynamics is Justice/Mercy, the Twin aspects of Love.

It is not Love vs. Justice. It is Mercy Paired with Justice as Aspects of Love.

They marry together like red and blue, or peanut butter and jelly, or Linus Torvalds and Giving the Finger To The Corrupt Company NVidia, or broccoli and cheese, or Maine and Raccoons, or Poles and Cats, or Bambi and deliciousness, or Thirty and Aught-Six, or Ferdinand and Nina…

Mercy Gang, you were made for something to handle. And in order to handle yourself, your emotions, and your power under self-control and with gentleness toward yourself, you will have to go through some things that will burnish you and help you learn the meaning of endurance.

And you will either endure or not. Your life is a thread, it breaks or it doesn’t break.

You must lean into Him to endure…

In order to thrive, you must Know Him…

And if you feel broken, then fall into Him, and let Him heal you.

And walk with the King into what He has for you, deep and tender beloved.

For to mess with the timestream will mess with the fabric of essence and reality itself.

Move with you Husband. Know Him. Walk with Him. Seek Him. Rest in Him. Be held by Him. And Seek for the Timestream to flow in accordance with His design.

And give not up your design to sanctify time.

Your responsibility and anointing and design, O Mercy, is to sanctify time as no other gift can.

And you can either sanctify time, move or adjust time, circumvent time, or do nothing.

And the King waits for you to partner with Him.

Your Bridegroom has much for you.

Be at peace.

Endurance and the Exhorter: Getting Chiseled

by theparacleteshammer, posted in Design, Exhorter, Principles, Redemptive Gifts, Seven Curses

Text

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.

Much love.

And be at peace.

From the Desk of Stacy Sims: Women Are Not Small Men

by theparacleteshammer, posted in Design, Principles
Plyometrics and Resistance Training….

Principles Vs. Correct Thinking/Philosophy/Doctrine

For a biblical studies blog, it might seem unusual to y’all for me to post a video that deals with kinesiology. But, if you will look at the category of this post, you will see it listed under “Principles”.

A principle is a universal, non-optional, cause-and-effect relationship.

So, let’s explode your thinking that your prime job is to correct false theology and bad doctrine. Your job is to build the right thing, and fight the right enemy. True, exposing false teaching is a part of the Christian/Jewish experience. But it is only a part. And many of us have come to believe that it makes up most or all of our job description as Jesus’ followers.

The Bible teaches a principle-based faith that executes beyond mere doctrine, what we believe. We move past expounding on what we think, and we move into expounding on how we respond, act, grow, and build, in response to what we believe.

We move into the arena of cause-and-effect.

Stacy is countering a lot of bad thinking. She is verbally warring, and in her life, practically meleeing, against improperly-executed principles: widely-held, cause-and-effect relationships that are completely unrelated (message to women: eat soy and engage in low-impact cardiovascular activity in response to not losing weight during perimenopause). And she combats it with real execution of real principles that have brought real results.

And principles are what we are followers of Jesus Christ build with. Not theology. Not doctrine.

Protecting Fences Vs. Using Them and Building Other Things…

Do we erect fences at times? Yes.

But do we build everything in our lives using the materials that are designed only for fences? Absolutely not!

Theology and doctrine are a fences. They are not a comprehensive set of building materials.

And fences make a great boundary marker, but a lousy airplane.

As Christians, we need to move merely beyond protecting theology and defending theology. We need to move into using principles to build with.

Again, what are principles?

Answer: Universal, non-optional, cause-and-effect relationships.

If we are so interested in how false everybody else’s theology is, but we are not interested in doing anything that is of practical value, we cut out about 90% of what we were designed to do with Scripture, which is FULL of principles, and all of Reality, which is also FULL of principles, and we reduce the life Christ purchased for us into an anemic shadow of merely erecting a dead edifice that is only constructed of the propositions we agree to, and we don’t bother scaling the mountain the culture has placed before us by using the principles to build the ladder, rope bridge, or carved staircase.

And how do we use the principles (ALL of the principles) to effect and produce change.

We need to desperately understand the principles Scripture teaches, such as:

  1. how women teach and preach, vs. how men teach and preach,
  2. how men parent vs. how women parent,
  3. how singles parent vs. how marrieds parent,
  4. how we connect with one another differently based on sexual differences,
  5. how we connect based on our varied designs from man to man and woman to women,
  6. how we weave the principles together to build: an auto, an airplane, a ship, and a shoe,
  7. how we each connect with various aspects of creation,
  8. those who connect with animals or plants vs. humans,
  9. those who connect with individuals vs. groups,
  10. how different people lead their companies, churches, countries, families, and schools differently, based on their unpacked design (Saul’s leadership vs. David’s Leadership, vs Solomon’s Leadership),
  11. how woundedness stunts our growth vs. how sin affects our growth vs. how demons, Leviathan, Nephilim, unclean spirits, or alien human spirits affect us (NEWS FLASH: it is not one or the other, but it frequently is facets of a couple of things. Your over simplification of a problem to only all sin, or only all demons does not help matters,
  12. and why a man’s body responds differently than a woman’s body when exposed to identical activities.

How Change Comes

If we want to produce change, we do not accomplish it by building more fences in order to show others how we are different from or better than them.

If we want to produce change, we do that by building cities, buildings, roads, professions, vehicles, communities.

Take the analogy, listen to. this video, and consider where you have been erecting fences instead of building homes, gang.

We Preach What Jesus Is Preparing…And It Ain’t Merely Fences

To finish, consider the following. Jesus never said, “I go to erect a fence in heaven to protect my very vulnerable kingdom”, nor did he say “when you preach, make your primary focus showing others their fences are in the wrong place and showing them how your fence is superior to their fence”.

And, before you shout at me, yes, I know there is a wall in heaven, and a fence, and a gate to keep undesirables out.

But that was not the sole focus of Jesus discourse on the kingdom.

Kingdoms are all about building, building blocks, and other masculine-type work.

They are not merely or only or primarily about fences.

Rather, the focus is:

What does that wall protect?

Instead, Jesus said:

I go to prepare a PLACE for you…

That place, though protected by a boundary, is, in fact, a home not built with fences, but a whole host of raw materials.

Gang, are you only erecting fences, or are you making a difference? For the focus has been on building fences. And it has needed to always be, instead of fenses (see what I did there?).

Are you driving others and impacting them to focus on returning home, or to merely obsess over whether or not they are engaging with the fence the way they are supposed to be?

Are you building with fence pickets, or are you using EVERYTHING THAT HAS BEEN GIVEN TO YOU?

Are you incorporating both the fence and the building blocks.

It is time to grow the whole property, and the whole of what he has given you.

Not just the fence, which is a fraction of what Father has given you, but also the home he has given you the raw materials to build.

What are you protecting? The protection device, or the building and city inside? And what percentage of your time should be devoted to protecting the kingdom instead of preaching its nearness and impact? I dare say…..
Very little

Offense and the Teacher; Your Longest, Strongest Vein of Ore; Your Place of Infinite Reserves; Functioning In a Place of Woundedness; Single Dynamics As Litmus Tests for Determining Redemptive Gifts; and Part of the Place of Offense In Discovering Our Design

by theparacleteshammer, posted in Design, The Deeps
What follows is a series of somewhat random thoughts, but it deals with a series of dynamics where people have been obsessing with this gift’s weakness or that gift’s Achilles’ Heel.
OFFENSE AND ONE OF THE GIFTS:  TEACHER
I have to say, I have a friend who is a Teacher, and I think the potential for offense in Teacher would be because people often have a crappy perception of Teachers.
We have a whole lot of “new treasures” in the body that came through the other gifts, and the Teacher’s love of the old can be a source of great offense.
I am irritated, exceptionally vexed, that the Teacher’s love of the old is such a stumbling block that gets mistaken for a religious spirit.
In a healthy Teacher, the offense for others would be low.
Imagine our nation without Baltimore for Catholics, or Pennsylvania for Quakers.
ONE-DIMENSIONAL ASSESSMENTS AND TWO-DEMINSIONAL VIEWS OF THE GIFTS
Now, backing up to a larger frame, looking at the RG’s from one aspect creates a two-dimensional view of the gifts, especially if we are looking at one aspect of us that is a hangup.
If we are looking at this as a “which gift is the most offensive?” then you are talking about Prophets all day long.  Same for the question of condescension.
But, I would urge a whole heaven of a lot
of caution when it comes to making snap decisions based on one trait.
And in the case of each of us, the overarching quality cannot be quantified in one sentence; a test won’t reveal a whole lot when wounding or personal biases with respect to the gifts or other issues are in place.
I can make all sorts of claims for myself for four of the gifts, but ultimately I have to know what I am, even if this or that person is right or wrong.
And we can get so caught up in the teaching on the Gfits, that we forget to be our own people and come up with our own stuff, our own revelation.
 And, lest we forget, people like Arthur do get it wrong from time to time.  People like Megan and Sandy do get it wrong.  People like John Mosley to get it wrong.  And people like David MacNelley do get a whole lot wrong.
I would urge all sorts of caution in using those single qualities to identify this or that gift.
THE PRIORITY OF DESIGN
But ultimately, our greatest strength comes down to, what is our design?  Design is way more important…
Finding your transmission and engine, are vastly more important than knowing your gift. Get the design and what makes you come alive and the gift will follow. The disproportionate ROI.
And if your transmission does not exist, then you have one option, either do without, or get greasy and design and build your own transmission.  That is what the Wright Brothers did.
In what area of your life does the golden-glittery-oil drip?  For you, where is the work the most effortless?
My spiritual mom would probably push in the area of our effortlessness in part to help us out.
MANY FACTORS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ONE MAJOR FACTOR
And I would exhort us to look at a number of factors, and especially where the ROI is.
Now, for some of us who have had NASTY trauma, the process is harder, and especially when brain trauma or neuro-trauma is present, the path to a place where we are not bumping into others is going to take some time.  And there are a variety of factors that can cloud the journey, the mining job, the digging around under the earth in order to come up with our gemstones that describe us well.
But really, what Dad is trying to do is pick us up in His lap and take us each on a journey to find the treasure in us.
SHORT-CIRCUITING THE JOURNEY BY FOCUSING ON ONE FLAW
So, in short, this is no easy process.  But it can become a glorious adventure.
We can, however, shot-circuit the process by focusing on one issue, one flaw, one sin, one pattern.  Many patterns and many aspects reveal the multi-dimensional nature of the gemstone.
And offending people can come from wounding, or scandal, or sin, or design, or family, or Leviathan, or any number of factors.
But recall two things,
1) “how I began this life is not necessarily how I am going to finish this life”.
2) Every single stinking thing that is wrong with us, is on G-d’s to-do list, whether He has to tell us that those things are part of his design, whether wounding, or sin, or devil, or affliction, or chain, or cell, or dimension, or portal, or whatever.
And recall from earlier this week, I said that He died to roll back not just our sin, but everything that is off-kilter or wrong with the universe.
Every sin was laid to Christ’s account, and he willingly took it up, and His death was and is and will be sufficient to redeem every wrong thing you ever did, every wrong thing that was ever done to you, every sin of the enemy that twisted the original design of everything, and everything else.
His death is sufficient to redeem the entirely of the cosmos, and forever separate His and our enemy from us forevermore.
So, take heart and be encouraged.
THE CAPACITY AND TENACITY TO PUSH THROUGH
One other thing: for those of y’all who are further down the road and are far more healed or whole, please take a couple of us wounded souls into your circle and walk with us.
I have one PRECIOUS brother who, when I met him, had MASSIVE negative 5th head of Leviathan at work in areas of his life.  For some reason, I suck at the Principle of Stewardship in my own eyes, and yet for some reason, his 5th head DID NOT TOUCH me at all.
I was able to talk through that clown, and it irritated that entity that I had the grace to ignore him and minister grace to this man’s spirit.
I was able to walk in the face of the presence of that negative head, call it my tenacity or pigheaded stubbornness, but his friendship is more valuable that the negative stuff he put off.
I have this built-in capacity to not be affected by those sorts of things and still walk with others.  Things I don’t get.
And I have a loyalty and trustingness which is unusual for a Prophet or an Exhorter.
And it took years of being pummeled by the enemy, sexual assault by the Jezebel Spirit to get where I am.
THE VEIN OF OUR DEEPEST STRENGTH
The bottom line: each of you has a vein or ore, or a specialty, or a long game, or a deep vein of emotional or spiritual ore that is deeper than anything the enemy can reach the bottom of. For me its loyalty. Play to that one strength in working with that person, brother or sister, rough edges and all, and go in the strength of that bread, because that is the one place in you that is most unbroken where the grace is the strongest and deepest.
Each of you has a place where the earth is turned up as by fire, no lion knows the path to that place, and no devil or twisted serpent can touch it.
Run there with the L-rd and use it as a regular place of refuge from which to strike.
It was put there for a reason.

“Surely there is a mine for silver,

and a place for gold that they refine.

Iron is taken out of the earth,

and copper is smelted from the ore.

Man puts an end to darkness

and searches out to the farthest limit

the ore in gloom and deep darkness.

He opens shafts in a valley

away from where anyone lives;

they are forgotten by travelers;

they hang in the air,

far away from mankind;

they swing to and fro.

As for the earth, out of it comes bread,

but underneath it is turned up as by fire.

Its stones are the place of sapphires,

and it has dust of gold.

“That path no bird of prey knows,

and the falcon’s eye has not seen it.

The proud beasts have not trodden it;

the lion has not passed over it.

“Man puts his hand to the flinty rock

and overturns mountains by the roots.

He cuts out channels in the rocks,

and his eye sees every precious thing.

He dams up the streams so that they do not trickle,

and the thing that is hidden he brings out to light.”

Job 28:1–11