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

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…

Blessing 14: September WOR Blessing: Psalm 42:10

Beloved,

I invite your spirit forward to treat with me, regardless of what status it or they are in.

Spirit, I recognize the pain of assault and the trouble that comes when you are traumatized, and the shattering of the human spirit that takes place when ritual abuse occurs.

Spirit, listen to the word of G-d for you for today.

Be still and know I am G-d

Psalm 46:10

Spirit, there is a place following the trauma of a harsh season or following mistreatment of harsh leaders.

G-d can and often might place us in proximity to harsh leaders.

Note what I said versus what I did not say.

Consider the following also, spirit

Although he was a son, he learned obedience by the things he suffered.

Hebrews 5:8 ESV

There may be times when G-d allows you to connect with harsh leaders in order to refine you.

I don’t guarantee it will happen. In fact I hope it doesn’t happen. But in case you end up dealing with a difficult or harsh leader, I want you to remember one thing in the still place following mistreatment.

He is G-d. And He will coach you in very difficult times.

You will also note I did not say G-d sets us under harsh people in order that they would abuse us.

Abuse happens, but I don’t see it as from the hand of G-d. I do however see our response as capable of coming from the hand of G-d.

I bless you following a difficult situation to get really still and to occupy the still place and to lean into the King deeply.

I bless you to walk in stillness and to take advantage of that stillness in order to receive deep clarity.

I bless you in that season to find out how Father wants you to respond and to deeply know Him in intimacy.

I bless you to find deeper intimacy regardless of the current pain.

I bless you to speak to Yeshua, who is capable of taking all pain. I bless each of you, parts, to just be and to appropriate whatever of King’s love in whatever manner you deem necessary.

I bless your enforcers in their anger to express that anger and frustration and to ask the questions they need to ask. This is a safe space for them.

I bless you to know what is meant by fellowshipping with the King in His sufferings.

I bless you to participate with Him in a deep and satisfying connection.

And most importantly, I bless you to, in the still place, for your parts that which to occupy that space, to occupy that space in time and to fill that space with the knowledge of Him.

I bless you with dignity and grace and love and affection and wholeness.

And above all, I bless you, spirit, and relevant parts to know you belong.

You belong, dear heart.

In stillness, you belong.

I bless you to know Him as G-d, spirit, in the name of Yeshua.

So be it.

Concerning Fathering: My Perspective On What Is Missing

Matt. 13:12 For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

Matt. 21:43Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.

Matt. 25:29 For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

What I am going to say is doubtless going to cause some who view spiritual fathering as the great takeaway in this generation of the church to be greatly disappointed.
I have a spiritual father.
The sad thing, is that, I have always had him, and he was always available.
So, let me explain below.
A FATHERLESS GENERATION THAT NEEDS A FATHER
The fact remains: We have a generation of unfathered men and woman, and it has been this way for decades. I don’t need to cite stats because many of y’all already know them.
In an attempt to stave off this culture, many believers in our generation, Jew and non-Jew, have affirmed the following broken model.
THE BROKEN MODEL
“I don’t have a father. I will ask or beg this or that person to father me or mother me. That person agrees to it.”
And we blissfully proceed down a path to paradise, because, now after all, we have a spiritual father.
THE BAD EXPECTATIONS AND THE NEGATIVE OUTFLOW
What we didn’t explain or understand is that there are these sets of expectations that we bring to the table in a fathering relationship. The “father” has one set of expectations, and the “son” has another set of expectations.
The problem arises when we insert the broken model of fathering that we call “covering” into these relationships. This perverse teaching flows from the spirit of antichrist, and I will cover that in another post.
And what is missing from a lot of these fathering relationships, which I will cover in this post, is the foundation and impetus for fathering relationships: the presence and acknowledgement of the one thing that, as a believer, you and I already have: access to and a relationship with a perfect, loving heavenly Father. 11354
MY INITIATION INTO FATHERING
As a matter of fact, when I became a follower of Jesus, back in 1984, it was precisely in the context of a fathering/filial relationship.
Jesus showed up in my bedroom (whether it was a dream or an open vision that detail is fuzzy to me). He was wearing a plain linen robe and that was pretty much it. Very simple. There was no mistaking who this was. He then asked me, “what do you want?”
Hello, blank check.
Solomon, son of David.
And I can still remember the words falling out of my mouth, though I can tell you to this day, that those words did not come from a wound or any place of my soul; they were just the most logical words I ever spoke. And because of the simplicity and non-woundedness of them, I am believe they came from my spirit.
“I want a godfather.”
And His response, which I won’t easily forget was this:
“I will be your G-dfather.”
From that moment, I was clearly able to articulate that Jesus was the Son of G-d. I was able to say He was the Son, but I was not able to clearly articulate why. In short, this was when I was saved.
So for those of you that like to spit and say, “there is no way, because this or that is how you get saved and it works for everybody”, I can only respond as a Mercy would respond:
“That. So. Doesn’t. Work. For. Me.”
Yes, I am not a Mercy, but I had a whole host of unusual experiences that happened to me that have some Mercy flavor.
See, some people cannot understand that not everybody who becomes a Christian does so through saying a sinner’s prayer at an altar with someone else.
Now, do I have an awareness of sin? Yeah. I grew into that awareness, pretty quickly, and the repentance that followed, I also grew into.
THE IMPETUS AND REVELATION OF WHAT I WAS GIVEN IN JESUS’ INVITATION
But what it took for me to really grasp the idea of the Fatherhood of G-d was a series of very painful, broken relationships that happened after I left the Methodist Church for college. I hooked up with a CP (Classical Pentecostal) Denomination while in college and as many people in the late 1990’s got sucked into a perversion of the fivefold ministry and the “covering” nonsense, and the garbage that came with that. And it came at a high price to the end that I spent 14 years trapped in a combination of a Philistine Curse, the Negative 5th Head of Leviathan (where people could not hear my heart rightly), the Mesmerizing Spirit, and a number of negative Spiritual Structures.
During those years, a set of spiritual structures was set in place by my spiritual mother at the time that caused other people to see me as “crazy” and “unstable”. Those came in the form of a straitjacket in the spiritual realm and sedatives that were pumped into me and labels.
And that nonsense was only broken after I rejected the “spiritual parents” that parented by control, rejected that Mesmerizing Spirit, understanding the one thing I needed was something I already had: namely, that I already have a Father (many joyous thanks to Sandy Landry for helping me there), and breaking up the spiritual structures that affected me deeply (thank you, Megan Caldecourt for the language to explain what those things were).
TO THOSE WHO HAVE…
Today, here is what I know through principle. We don’t need spiritual parents.
Yeah, I will let that bomb explode and then expand on it.
We do not need to go to anyone and beg them to father or mother us.
Now, let’s expand on this.
We started this walk with Jesus as a personal relationship. We love to emphasize, in Protestant Christianity, the notion of “personal relationship with Jesus.”
But, more often than not, we reject it in practice. We have this idea that Jesus saved us, but we are often not interested in cultivating the relationship into a relationship. Many times, we are not willing that He should influence the stuff of our Monday through Saturday reality. We don’t want Him in our job, or marriage, our parenting, our errands, our chores, our lawnmowing, our feeding the birds, our our Facebooking.
And on that last point, so Facebook turns to Faceb****. And so much of our life remains much the same as it did before we met Jesus, because we don’t let that relationship impact our lives.
The passages above say it clearly. If you have, more will be given, but if you don’t have, then what you do have will be taken from you.
Hey, gang of Christians, you have been given a personal Father already. He is spiritual. He lacks no resources to parent you, and yet you are running after this person or that person begging him or her to father you or mother you, when Father wants to be your first spiritual father and your first place of dumping and your first place of crying and your first counselor.
THE REST OF MY PERSONAL STORY
When I hunted for a spiritual father and mother, the relationship with the one Father I had stagnated. Everything was taken away and devoured in many areas.
But when I recognized that I had Him as a Father, then He added to that package some precious people as fathers and mothers, not to suck them dry, but to get some other perspective.
He added and grew the connection between me and Arthur Burk (who is the closest thing I have to a good male counselor/mentor/father type person in the flesh, and the expectations that are there are in the context of Matthew 6:33). Arthur talks honestly and openly about stuff, and there is more of a two way thing that happens there. It’s healthy, at least as how I see it. I act as a son of the Heavenly Father, and hunt for my own resources, and when I have a nut that I can’t crack on my own, I ping Arthur, who says “have you checked over here or here”. And back to tooling I go. Because I am first and foremost a son of G-d.
And the Father also grew the connection between me and Sandy Landry. There is a precious bond that has multiplied there, that is without words. She has…spoken with dignity to me and helped me to receive of the Father’s embrace such that I could become a father myself.
And I am growing into a place where I am able to father others.
THE PUNCHLINE
If we don’t act like we have, then what we do have will be devoured. But if we as believers stop and recognize that we have a Father already, and EMBRACE HIM HAS OUR FIRST AND PRIMARY FATHER, then He will begin to add other things to us.
But the key is that we stop acting like we are slaves and servants, and embrace our identity as His sons. “For we are His offspring” (Acts 17:28).
In Him, not in others, we live and move and are (Acts 17:28).
And we are His workmanship, not the workmanship of another human being (Ephesians 2:10).
Gang, you already have a Father, and He is available.
Until you can receive that Father, you need to stop chasing after this or that person to parent you. And recall that Malachi 4:6 says that in order for someone to father you, their heart has to first be turned toward you. It’s not your begging that makes someone a father or a mother. It’s their connecting with you first. Begging is a sign of the orphan spirit, that can only be displaced.
And that can only have it’s right perspective IF you first have the right Father in the first place. And what better Father can G-d give you than He Himself?
And if Father gives you no-one for a season or permanently, so that He can show you how He directly fathers you, then you might have to go without a human being for a season, so that Father can show you how to receive directly from him.
What does He lack with which to father you?
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