There are those who have spoken to the dynamics of the 18-inch journey…
From the brain to the heart…
However, I have seen too many of these that say the heart is more important than the mind…
And they move to ignore the mind increasingly and growing the heart.
So, which is it? Mind or heart?
Depending on whom one asks, and the frame of mind one is in, the answer will vary.
But, must we choose? Either/Or.
I contend no.
There is a use for both…
And this “One-or-the-Other” mindset misses another member of the thinking/judging/perceiving group: the Kidneys and the Adrenals, known collectively as The Reins.
We must grow in our understanding and skill in utilizing the gifts of the mind, heart, and reins together, and so, instead of making an eighteen-inch journey, let us engage in the tandem of 24 inches.
Be blessed, gang. Just some thoughts as we step into this season.
I call your spirit and ask them to treat with me for a few minutes.
Soul, I need you to stand down for a few minutes, because I really want to connect with the spirit of this person with whom I am speaking. It is okay. I am not going to bring harm to the spirit of this individual, and it is okay if you, soul, do not understand everything I am speaking to the spirit of this person. Just rest for a few minutes while I connect and bless the spirit…
Spirit, listen to the Word of G-d for you for today:
You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Thank You for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in Your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.
How precious are Your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered!
I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand! And when I wake up, You are still with me!
Psalm 139:13–18. NLT
Spirit, there are going to be times when you are given a piece or a glimpse of what you were made to do, and as partner with and leader of the soul and the body, in partnership with Holy Spirit, your design is not a carbon copy, or a product of a sausage factory. Nor was it created on an assembly line, as Henry Ford made his automobiles on. It is not one OF a million, but rather one IN a million. And too often, we may be tempted to think of only a few jobs as the truly anointed occupations. However, this is not the truth.
The issue is that sometimes you may have an already-thought-of job position that works for you, and you do not have to engineer or fabricate a new position for yourself.
Teachers and preachers and lawyers and doctors are ready-made and well-known positions. The transmission fits the engine and the person pluggs themlseves into that work and the design fits, and they move along.
However, before Orville and Wilbur Wright came along in the early 1900’s, no one knew that pilots would be needed.
Today, I have been thinking a lot about the Wrights.
Wilbur the Prophet and Orville the Teacher hailed from the Prophet town of Dayton, in the Prophet State of Ohio, and they conducted their research and experiments in the Prophet county of Dare in the Teacher State of North Carolina, just to the north of the Prophet State of South Carolina.
Over and over, spirit, you will see that the Teacher and the Prophet are the interplay and the foundation for the aviation industry. And over and over, Teachers and Prophets make their presence known in the aviation and aerospace industries.
Those of us with strong Teacher and Prophet portions to our spirits always gaze upwards.
I write this to say the following.
If there does not yet exist a readily-available occupation that matches your design, you are likely going to have to develop or fabricate or engineer a space for you to execute.
And repeatedly, G-d is likely going to give you something that is not off-the-shelf, a set of strengths and weaknesses that are going to need a home to flourish. He is also likely going to give you pieces to the puzzle of your design and things that you have a fire for.
And if there is not yet a place for that, do not worry, spirit. Do not fret. Know He gave that tool or tool set so that you could enjoy this life. You were made to enjoy life deeply.
The Westminster Chatechism (a chatechism is a means of educating believers about the faith by asking questions and then answering those questions) opens by asking the following question:
“What is the chief end of man?”
The answer is two parts.
To glorify G-d…
AND TO ENJOY HIM FOREVER!
Yes, we were made to exhibit and demonstrate the glory of G-d.
BUT, spirit, we were also made to ENJOY G-D.
This life is not merely, only, solely, or firstly about glorifying G-d.
Let the Pharisees gather their stones if they want.
I am very good at dodging those stones.
Our life is about two simultaneous realities following Deuteronomy 6:5 (loving G-d)
We glorify Him
We enjoy Him.
Spirit, we enjoy Him.
We enjoy Him, and we also enjoy doing what He has put into our minds, hearts, reins, spirits, and souls to do.
So, there is a small obedience piece, but there is a greater enjoyment piece to it.
If you enjoy it, if it makes you come alive, there is a strong possibility G-d designed you to do that.
So, spirit, I BLESS YOU INCREDIBLY to know, to find, or to receive that weird thing that might cause others to question or scoff you for wanting to do because it is not on a prescribed list of holy things that believers “should want to do”.
I bless you to find what you were made to do.
I bless you to see the thing that is in front of you, and if that thing makes you to come alive, to do that thing.
I bless your enjoyment on a visceral level. I bless you to find your love and your passion. And I bless you to do more of it.
“For the world needs people who have come alive.” -John Elderidge-
The world does not need more obedient slaves, spirit. The world needs you alive and flowing.
If that is construction, or flying or space walking, or poetry, or politics, or analysis, or engineering, or SCUBA diving, or things not yet considered or pondered, go do that.
For there is so much that goes unpacked because we are intimidated by Pharisees.
I bless you, spirit, to see the backs of the Spirit of Jealousy, the Victim Spirit, the Mesmerizing Spirit, the Spirit of Fear, and the Spirit of Intimidation Broken to pieces.
I bless you to know when you have found your sweet spot even if it feels different to how you normally present.
And I bless you to find the tribe of friends that support your flow in that no matter what. And I bless you to master that about which you are deeply and profoundly zealous.
I bless you with that reality in the name of Yeshua.
Gang, this is a bit of an unusual post, but I am asking y’all to stay with me.
We look for and celebrate the design G-d places in us, and, sometimes, that means we follow some unorthodox methods to identify that design.
Now, anger has often been characterized very negatively, and that is not without good reason.
However, I want to say something about anger. In most situations that include anger, there is a choice of what we do with the anger. Paul’s exhortation to the Ephesians to “Be angry and do not sin” implies that it is possible to engage in behavior that includes anger while also not crossing lines into behavior that is sinful.
Now, I am not saying that this is the case all of the time, but I believe the blanket exhortation to avoid anger is not generally helpful.
And like Clyde Fant, I am of the opinion that “righteous indignation is a twenty letter word for anger”.
Let me say that again two different ways. The need to use the words “righteous indignation” too often proceeds, from my experience, from a religious spirit or a spirit of being afraid of the full G-d-given experience of human emotion and free will.
To respond, instead of trotting out religious language for anger and USING THAT to justify an emotion of which we are afraid, it would be better to ascertain the root of our anger so we know what to do with it. Otherwise, we could be covering up a problem that our heart, mind, spirit, soul, or reins are trying to bring up.
Often, anger is rooted in two things: our sense of that which is just, and a violation of justice. It is not just because we are being selfish, arrogant, or proud.
To be sure, too often we are guilty of accusing of pride those who do not struggle with pride.
While some of you are wrestling with the idea that some believers do not struggle with pride, I will continue.
Indeed, there are qualities Father has built into certain of us that really incite zeal for excellence and effectiveness.
And coupled with those qualities are aspects that causes us to become rankled when excellence or effectiveness are mangled.
It is not pride or arrogance; rather it is anger as the King intended it to be the tool it is for provoking us to raise standards and hunt for better ways.
For example, when believers settle for a status quo try to move into something they know the King has for them….
…are corrected by other believers who either do not understand or do not want to understand try to correct us in accordance with a lower standard, then that friction creates issues.
In order to honor how the L-rd has uniquely made us, we really must move beyond avoiding all expressions of anger, hunt for and yearn for the G-d-ordained expressions of anger, nix religious expressions that blanket judge any expression of anger or frustration, and move into allowing ourselves to be pushed for “what is excellent…”. I would even bet money that those who are easily angered by slack-jawed expressions of faith have “what is excellent” in mind and are pushing for that excellent place.
There is a story behind this cut. Some of this is pulled from memory of wikis and online articles that are no longer available, as well as literature to which I have no current access.
The title of the cut refers to events that occurred on August 30th, 1995 when Martin, Stu G, Stewart Smith, Tim, and Jon were still known as The Cutting Edge and were pondering going full-time. On that day, Martin Smith; his wife, Anna; and bassist Jon Thatcher were involved in a near-fatal car accident, which left Martin badly injured.
After the accident, while Martin was convalescing physically, he wrestled internally with depression. During that time in the hospital, he was partly-inspired by reading Bill Flanagan’s biography of U2 to make the jump. As a result, the Cutting Edge became Deliriou5?, with the 5 possibly representing the 5 band members (while also noting that Stewart Smith’s keyboard was missing a letter S), and the question mark representing a transition from the questions of “What if we fail?” (doubts and fears) to the statement “Just imagine if…?” (Possibilities).
Also, the police report stated there were four people in the car at the time of the accident….
This is a reminder, gang, that no matter how dismal, nasty, or uncertain the future is, there is a place in the King’s presence, and a destiny He has for you.
He does not look for you to wander or to be without hope. In the presence of your enemies, He prepares a table before you. Each of y’all.
Without remorse, without repentance, without argument.
And His tender bid to you is to come and see, to come and dine, and to come and drink.
Not one condition. Not one blockage. Not one wall.
There are some days I would as soon forget, but then I remember, it is not about forgetting the days that forge us, but being removed from the trauma and redeeming the pain that came with those days. And this day was no exception.
This event, during my Senior year of college, followed another, June 1, 2001, in which I hit a drunk pedestrian, and in which he died.
And I still remember faces and incidents from both days, for the first was during Pentecost Weekend and I had just made the decision to drive south to spend time with a close friend who was going to become my new roommate, as June 2 was his birthday.
I do not remember much of the birthday, but I do remember the blood on the road, the moment when I laid hands on him, and asked the King for a miracle, and standing up because the Sheriff’s Deputies wanted me to take a blood test, and I remembered nearly passing out and the feel of being….mauled by something.
It was the spirit of premature death….
And in the first, it came about because someone wandered out in traffic in front of me.
In the second, I made the mistake of U-turning when a number of cars were behind me.
And in one motion, The Box (the name of my 1980 Toyota Corolla), was t-boned and totalled, and I should have been dead or seriously injured.
And I just had some bruising to my calcaneus (heel bone). That’s it. And a sore and pinched left foot.
This coming after a gospel choir concert in which my ex-pastor and his wife were present….
And I learned, the King allows Father-filtered pain simply because He is working through situations to grow us to know His love and connecting with Him in the middle of the furnace and the crucible.
A crucible for silver, and a furnace for the gold.
And these are the only ways the gold and the silver emerge purified, in the midst of the fire and in the presence of the flux.
And thus, began a multi-part story in which the L-rd began exposing me to how spiritual leaders can engage with witches in order to work nasty things against the King’s kids.
And I am not grateful for the damage and the suffering and loss, but I am grateful for the King being with me in the midst of the tragic circumstances to show me how to build and how to fight.
And this is another lesson in sonship.
Gang, the hard stuff is going to come.
But I can still repeat the refrain of the King through Isaiah the Teacher.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
Isaiah 43:2
He is not going to allow all of you to be overtaken, gang. There is still a core center piece at the root of you that, no matter how divided, traumatized, wounded, or overthrown you are, the enemy is INCAPABLE of violating or overthrowing.
So, spirit, I bless you,
I bless you with the courage to see and to hear Him, as you rest in Him, as the hard things come.
I bless you with fearless understanding and love.
I bless you with the place of stillness following the destruction and the beating waves, and the pounding waters, and the burning furance. I bless you to allow Him to pour his balm and oil and wine into your wounds.
There is a balm in Gilead. And that balm is a mercy to your afflicted spirit and soul.
There is a love for you even when heartache happens.
I bless you to know even as you are fully known.
I bless you to know you are being fought for by Love and Life Himself, even in the midst of when death seems to be poured out on you from every angle.
I bless you when you are being covered by predators, to know the Christ Himself is THERE to show you how to push back against the ANTI-Christs.
I bless you with skill, savvy, and truth, and wisdom, and eternal and unfailing lovingkindness.
Spirit, at your core, THEY WILL NOT OVERTAKE YOU.
I bless your confidence in Him to grow.
I bless you, not with shrewd strategies of avoidance, but with real and tender and bold LOVE and the EMBRACE of the Bridegroom when you feel hammered.
I bless you to not stop, even as you must embrace moments of stillness. I bless you with the cup of cold water from the One Who Feeds You Hand To Mouth With Ravens and Corvids, precious Elijah….
I bless you spirit with this reality in the name of Yeshua….
They like to help….and help….and help….and help….and help….
And will not stop helping…..
Meeting tangible needs…
Cleaning…
Praying…
Cleansing…
Praying off death spirits…
No guile…
Willing to stand up to bullies…
And they do not quit when a fight is involved and others are damaged beyond repair…
The just do not quit…
And they have no guile and no agenda…
Until or unless someone breaks them out of that tiny and small vision of serving and obeying…
Like a trauma…
Or a hard word of some sort from a friend willing to deliver that message….
Redemptive Gift Prophets are usually the ones with the chops and the authority to speak to both, and if mature, the blow can be softened by the Servant seeing and hearing the heart of the Prophet…
Candidly, Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America, was, in his early years, possessed of the heart necessary t take on the task of making the world a safe place from bullies, but while his best friend, Bucky Barnes, was present in the early season, Barnes was a constant distraction for Rogers from his missions:
It took the grueling adversity of believing Barnes dead to get Steve into the right place of focus.
Then, being frozen in the ice for 70 years after interacting with another Prophet (Peggy Carter) got him more focused, as he was given the mission of leading the Avengers.
And with us, especially with the Servants, we have to be broken from our lesser goals and embrace the deeper things the King has for us, if we are to walk in our highest calling and the best version of ourselves.
And maybe, just maybe, we will in the process, regain some of what we lost.
In Rogers’ case, he received back his best friend, and then the love of his life, and after the Infinity War and Endgame was able to go onto a third act and another shot at many of the things he had missed out.
Those events, if they do not let the King in to heal them or the memory, can leave them in a low place for much of their lives.
The King attempts to break so many of us out of the mediocrity of the Grand Central Station of Obedience and into something deeper, but sometimes the higher, deeper, broader, more colorful place requires we endure a large measure of productive pain.
And as to Bucky (Prophet), the Prophet’s pain is of a different type and a different pathway, but it is no less significant.
In the case of the Servant, “throwing myself in, follow orders, serve” is NOT enough once the dissatisfaction with the low goal of obedience is quashed for a vision with purpose and an adventure.
The tracks or road or path get laid through obedience, but the adventure only gets embraced through creativity, and that comes only through sonship. Slaves obey, sons create.
Servants, who are so used to settling for something secondary, helping others, or BEING PUSHED INTO THAT ROLE AND ACCEPTING IT, were made to be dialed-in for one thing…
Yet….
GREATER…
…than meeting the felt needs of others: to create an environment wherein the King would be happy to come and dwell. They ultimately must be pulled from their secondary purpose, as with the Prophet from theirs (solving problems and fixing things), and get dialed into their primary purpose (creating the one environment that matters to provide a place that is comfortable and inviting so that the King’s purposes might get accomplished).
It took Steve losing his best friend and his former reality to move into something deeper.
It will take the Servant losing their smaller reality to move into the deeper purpose.
And, sigh, it will not be easy, but it will be worth it.
#PrincipleOfAuthority
The Example of the Servant Who Missed It and Lost Out Bigtime
I am going to leave one line here from one account, and I want you each to catch it, and i want it to sit with you, and I want you each, Servants, to move into greater things, because the typical Servant is adept at the ecosystem and working with the earth, incredibly well, or some dynamic that can become settling, if they are not careful.
Then Saul, went back to his father Kish at Gibeah, having received the kingship and the office, and resumed his lesser task of farming….
Do I need to qualify this by saying that it’s a rant? Do I need to write “trigger warning” because my use of certain words will equal butthurt?
No.
I am about to piss off some religious spirits. Good, ‘cuz in Facebook Land the usual tripe rarely does anything to help the advancement of Kingdom.
First of all, I am a Mercy by design. Don’t get that twisted. Too many believers think that means we show mercy, and then they stick us into a fucking box, but being a Mercy that means so much more than that.
Don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t cuss, don’t chew, and don’t run with the girls that do…..that’s how went the refrain for the last 20 years in a denomination that stole my voice and told me I was a rebel. Good, I don’t mind being a rebel anymore, or one who shepherds rebels and the broken.
Because, Michael and Renee, you have zero business being pastors.
A Mercy is known because they show the heart of G-d. His tender heart. His loving, emotional, accessible, affectionate heart.
And above all, His warm Bridegroom’s heart that viciously rages against all manner of boxes that say “holiness and righteousness look like this”.
“Holy” means so much more than limp-wristed, set-apart-ness. It means we get together our tools that the King has given us, all of them, and we build something together. It means we execute.
Calling “set-apart” as the definition for “holy” stops short and makes me vomit.
The Wright Brothers, their project funded by their bike shop in Dayton that changed the world, that is HOLINESS.
And when we recite the first statement of the Westminster Catechism, we miss the full point.
What is the chief end of man?
“To glorify G-d”
And too damn many believers stop there…..
And they ignore the rest of the story….
The whole statement is “to glorify G-d and enjoy Him forever”
“To enjoy Him forever”.
“No”, the religious say to us, “G-d’s so blasted holy that we are not allowed to enjoy Him”. We are only allowed to glorify Him, and that is used as a club to beat believers upside the head, and abuse them if they come across as too carnal…..
They say “glorify G-d the way I tell you to glorify Him”.
We get told, this behavior or that language doesn’t glorify Him and so we lance, bolt, skewer, dart, and shoot anyone that does not fit our idea of what “to glorify Him” means.
So, ”to glorify Him” comes with so much damned religious baggage that too few people really get to hear what it actualy means. And we tell people do do this approved list of do’s and don’t’s. And we violate or sear the conscience of too many people when we miss the aspect of connecting with G-d that involves enjoying just being with Him.
As a result, we lost the plot, as they say in Australia.
What if you just walked how He hardwired you? What if you embraced your unique design. Even if that does not mean you “preach the gospel” or you are not a church-planter, or you multiply financial wealth, or you develop the next thing?
And what if we got our mouths off of what “glorify G-d” means, and onto what it really means.
It’s not just about obey and be a slave or even a servant alone.
Really, it means “walk in your design and enjoy the journey with the King”.
Too often, we use triteisms that curse or block or trigger people to respond or tune out.
And we need to get this thing so that it is more approachable.
And the heart of G-d is this, and the Mercy that walks squarely in their design says this:
Be what He made you to be. As Chris Pfohl would say, “let your freak flag fly”. Contribute your unique sound to the sound of heaven, and let Him do in you what you were made to do.
Be you. And for those who are scared of this statement, I will qualify it so you can be happy. This once.
Be what He designed when He knit you together in your mother’s womb.
All forms of guilt because we think we did not engage in behavior that glorified G-d even though it was our design, those sins of misapplied guilt based on false information rooted in the religious spirit, will lead to death of some part of us. There is a sin that leads to death. One of those sins is the sin of religious self-flagellation or feeling guilty over some aspect of our design.
Another of those sins is attempting to control the behavior of others through fear or intimidation.
Feeling guilty over something that is part of His design MIGHT be a curse…
Or a heart belief…
Or a spirit belief….
Our overfocus in what we think is glorifying G-d by squelching His good design in us has turned into a religious cultus or occult knot led by an antichrist spirit designed to destroy us.
What Really Is Antichrist?
Also, allow me to define antichrist with a touch more nuance.
It’s the spirit of “instead of”, not “against”.
αντί, preposition in Koine Greek, meaning “instead of”
ANYTHING but the one thing we need. Substitute who we really are for something that “glorifies G-d even though our heart is not in it. Flurry of religious activity. Paired with the religious spirit to bring a flurry of activities that people think glorify G-d, but leaving the heart of the matter out of the work of worship.
Jerusalem, Teacher City, Philistine Curse. One thing. One thing missing from the full package.
Meanwhile, G-d is comfortable with us as us.
He wants us to be us, and He really wants us to do what we enjoy.
As a Father, He most behaves like a Father when He is enjoying us and taking pleasure in us AS we enjoying the things that bring us joy.
I will be honest, we on the East coast, except for Florida, the former 13 colonies, have this dour and sour attitude. I have a couple of close friends from California, land of dreams, that beautiful Exhorter state, and there is a joy and an ease of thought and living among many California natives. You’d never confuse Cali for New York. Or Tejas.
And we in the East need that infusion of the West’s joyful mindset on some level.
So, as you connect with the King, know Him. Yada, KNOW Him. That word, ידע, means “to know something or someone”, and it is found in both places like Proverbs 3:5-6, and Genesis 4:1, when Adam KNEW his wife, Eve.
Know Him, and KNOW that He adores you and adores how He made you, and He is not afraid of you doing what brings you joy, for in that, in your design, He will be glorified. Forever.
And if people want to tune out because I used a cuss word in this one, then let them. This isn’t for them. And I won’t placate the junk because they require it.
And enough experience on receiving end of what it should not look like in several dozen facets.
First marriage destroyed through adultery.
Second marriage lost due to interference from control, jealousy, and witchcraft because I work with survivors of Satanic Ritual Abuse.
January 14, 2005 to April 15, 2013: 3013 days.
April 19, 2014 to July 19, 2022: 3013 days.
And both marriages had many lessons to impart to me, and these treasures were not easily excavated. It was a crucible for the silver, and a furnace for the gold…
And I would like to offer the following bits, so thank you to those friends who enabled me to see some facets of a number of right ways of looking at this topic, and I would like to share things that maybe do not get enough daylight.
For those who ask if I am going to touch the egalitarian-complimentarian-headship debate, well, we will see.
But allow me to lead it with a couple of lines of thought….
Three Threads
Thread 0 offered, then set off to the side: Regardless of how I interpret Ephesians 5:21 followed by verses 22ff (I am very much of the view that in the context of the submission that all believers offer one to another, a wife still has a further place to submit in some way to a husband to loves her as Messiah loves His body), we are missing some critical ideas in this topic, because we look at roles, without looking at birthrights.
And design….
Women are not merely to play like they have hammers and swords….
Rather, they are to use them.
Thread 1:
A woman and her sword, once separated, leave her vulnerable in ways she should not be made so.
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the L-RD G-d had made. He said to the woman, “Did G-d actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but G-d said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For G-d knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like G-d, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
Genesis 3:1-6 ESV
The chief clown, Lucifer (I call demons “clowns”) came to the woman with her man and spoke to the woman.
For those who say “the man should have spoken up”, I am going to stop you right there.
The attack of the clowns frequently shows us an indicator of design. Husbands and wives are made as foxhole partners. Period. Get that one into your spirit. I implore you. Wrestle with the junk that fights against both of you, and woman of G-d, pick up your sword.
Or your tent peg.
Healed Exhorter/Servant combos in action…
The Other Two Points:
At this point, the issue is not one of submission, but of dominion, and refusing the victim spirit. Also, it is not about blame-shifting, but about fighting together against the real enemy. The real question is not are you loving and submitted to one another. The real questions (and from this, submission and love will flow, as well as a whole host of other dynamics) are these:
“Are you together learning from Father how to build; and how to fight?”
“Not only that, but are you aware of the raw materials you have together with which to build in a creative fashion?”
Point 2: Building
I pose these questions to y’all, gang, because there are times when the Father is not going to give you directions to obey, but is rather going to turn the two of you warriors loose in order to make choices together about what to build creatively.
First, in the early days of your relationship, you are going to struggle because you are going to feel like there is no user manual for building. So you are might desperately struggle with working together as you slap something together because you feel like you have been thrown together with little training. And then, as you grow together, working with one another, synching with one another, you are going to get more intentional about what you are doing, and as you grow more intentional, you can begin to incorporate strategy, and timing, and understanding, and pacing, and wisdom, and you will get able to fold together intimacy with one another together with skill in building.
Slaves obey. Sons create.
Create and build together. There is something there that can be done. He wants to partner with you to enable and endue and empower you two to build.
Point 3: Fighting
Second, to fight together.
Are you also aware of the real enemy that you should both be protecting and covering one another from? Do you have your lover’s six? Can they count on you to protect them and to give the enemy an earful of the Word of G-d Himself, and a faceful of His shekinah on their behalf?
“Having done all, to stand….” As Anne Hamilton has said, have you allowed the Bridegroom Warrior to kiss you into your armor? And that is something husband and wife were made to do in tandem with He who is Adonai T’Sevaot.
Again, as with the building part, you might find yourself clumsy as you work to direct your assaults away from your mate, whom the enemy will tempt you to attack as the source of all your problems, and against the real enemy. This is why you should exercise plenty of descretion when choosing a mate. And if you already have one, then work the best with what you have. This is not a decision to rush into, but rather to wait until the markers and evidence that this will be a redemptive relationship, one in which you can accomplish more redemptively together than apart. When you have the markers there, then a lot of the marriage prophecies and dependence on other people saying “thus saith the L-rd” can fall by the wayside.
Are you a safe place for your mate, and a terror to the enemy that assaults them?
Are you a confidant?
Do you hold secrets back one from another?
Can you share the little things together?
Do you have the common interests on some level?
Is there a cause?
The biblical text that gets overlooked, and I think the King Jimmy puts this best. Matthew 19:5
For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?
It’s not about the love and submission (shorthand for the Ephesians 5 text) at this point….
Go beyond the elementary principles to the roots of those things which give life to a marriage.
And at the root of every marriage, let me CAPS out three words in Matthew 19:5.
FOR THIS CAUSE….a man will leave his parents and be joined to his wife….
You have to have a cause….there has to be a reason….a purpose….for the connection….
What’s your cause…..
What’s your reason for wanting to wake up with this man, this woman…
As David said before he fought Goliath….”Is there not a cause?”
Do you have a reason? Is there something you do incredibly well redemptively with this woman that you do not do with another? Or this man?
The cause will show you what to build and what your fight is.
And are there connection points between you and she….or you and he…..?
And is there enough diversity and difference between the two of you to make things interesting.
And is there enough of a draw beyond the superficial that you will last?
I cannot believe I am sharing this cut…..
Oy,
Thanks Tiffany….
Before You “I Do”
Though, a man should be confident enough in his own identity and authority on some level BEFORE HE STEPS INTO A RELATIONSHIP BEFORE IT TURNS INTO MARRIAGE that he will not have married a harpy or yielded his authority and is asking a woman to lead him or make decisions for him OR TO OTHERWISE GIVE HIM HIS LEGITIMACY…
Conversely, a woman should be confident enough in her own identity and authority on some level BEFORE RELATIONSHIPS AND MARRIAGE HAPPEN that she does not marry either an abusive or controlling jerk or a passive, milquetoast man, or an immature manchild who will not listen to her voice when she speaks to him in fullness, honesty, and rawness.
There has to be not merely the biblical text triteism of mutual submission, but also some level of mutual vulnerability, and both parties walking in partnership with Messiah, and willing to work through the tough issues, especially of growth, healing, deliverance, and love with one another.
And G-d did not say we had to be completely healed before we step into relationships or marriage. Nobody in Scripture, including Messiah who was fully human was fully whole without emotional issues as a human before stepping into relationship.
What G-d looks for is willingness and vulnerability, not absence of wounds or scars. The three together of y’all, working through things and journeying on this adventure…G-d looks for people who will just walk with Him and put Him at the center and forefront of their lives.
And couples who will walk together with Him, protecting one another.
It really means something when we war together against the enemy of our souls. And instead of the usual dynamics, we look at life between two battle buddies, two partners in crime, two companions in this eternal adventure.
And we engage with one another without passive/agression.
Some couples choose the way of sarcasm, and that works for them.
The real clincher here though is, are you together on close to a similar page about the L-rd, and the enemy?
And the next question that I would ask is, is there a spirit-to-spirit connection between you and your beloved, because so much happens in that space, when the portions of your spirit, and the portions of your beloved’s spirit actually interact and mingle.
It’s not just about being one flesh. It’s about the joining of spirits and the connection of journeys so that things flow in alignment.
Gang, Mercies are some of the most dangerous warriors to the kingdom of darkness of all the gifts, especially when they are healed and well-trained. This is why, when you can pour love and dignity and confidence into a Mercy and help them see their design, they will flower and bloom and create nightmares for the enemy.
Those who have been healed after having been wounded are so incredible effective, regardless of whether or not they are divided.
Just some thoughts for this afternoon for y’all.
See you all in class this evening, those that wish to come.
That was a razz on my Prophet friends, given the tribe, when they make decisions and judgments about items, tend to have a pretty good track record of being right. Not because they are arrogant, but because they are able to extrapolate from principles and see when things are not well-put-together or well-thought-out that the rest of us miss.
Further, they have a heart for justice, and they are centrally impacted by issues of right and wrong.
And given my last post in this series finished up how G-d Wounds and then Heals a Mercy and then dealt with the same issue concerning a Prophet, I was going to start with Servant, and the King said, “no, Teacher.”
Heading In the Right Direction versus Heading In the Best Direction
Sigh….
This is my absolute favorite gift to deal with, without exception, because there is so much potential and so much that gets undersold and mislabelled with the Teacher, so much so that many do not understand themselves. They are known for keeping their heads about them and heading in the right direction, generally speaking. However, so many of them are not known for being dialed in to the best direction of many right directions, which requires some fine-tuning and callibration, that can only be accomplished with the gentle whispers of the Executing Spirit, the Holy Spirit. (Whereas sin and defilement are the violation of principles, holiness actually means “weaving principles together”, and few can tinker and dial things in as well as the Spirit-governed Teacher who leads with their human spirit.
The Teacher, universally almost as slow as the Mercy, is also very deliberate and demonstrates a preference for telling the whole story, and also has a predilection for getting the details and the account of a thing or event right.
However, unlike the Mercy, they tend toward a predilection for the old and the well-researched, as my post on that RG shows, and they often get stuck in their thoughts, whereas the Mercy tends to gets stuck in their emotions. Both gifts can appear a bit absent-minded or head-in-the-clouds, and so they each need to have a couple of close friends that see them as they truly are, and be able to reach them where they are. The Mercy tends to find this in a Prophet or another Mercy, and the Teacher tends to find this in an Exhorter, which are typical pairings for those respective gifts.
A problem with the Teacher, as with the Mercy is the issue of being in control of a situation, versus being out of control. The King will routinely give both gifts situations and circumstances that are not neat and where they do not have control, to see how they respond to those.
See Exhibit A of the Exhorter/Teacher combo: Tony Stark and James Rhodes. And the line that hits me here, is “you got your best friend back”. Rhodey was not in control during this sequence in Iron Man 2 because his suit had been hacked by the fiilm’s antagonist, and the Prophet had to fix that problem.
Again, with the lack of control. This time in Captain America: Civil War. This time, hitting much closer to home.
And then having to be faced with the reality of his circumstances.
The fight needed to be fought, and the Teacher is central to the fight. Central with their humor. Central with their anchoring presence. Central with their safety. Central with their slowness. Central with their strength to endure.
And this whole thing with paralysis sucks…..But it is his consistency that helped Tony stay grounded.
And one other Teacher….who was saved by his divided personality….
Beyond that, there is, as with all the gifts, a certain stronghold that must be dealt with, in proper order, if the Teacher is to submit to the process by which they are wounded or broken, so they can grow into the fulness of what they were designed to be.
One of the major issues with the Teacher, and an issue G-d makes with them is the question of them being in control of a situation apart from His divine empowerment.
Teachers have to get to the point where, in order to walk in fuller authority, they give up their right to know in order to control.
Rather they know intimately, in order to wash feet and be a safe place, and to break the stronghold of witchcraft and rebellion by offensively engaging with those entities directly in the spirit. Further, they must wrestle, hand-to-hand, in close quarters, and submit (think the wrestling definition of “submit an opponent”) the predator spirit that seeks to hold hostage those they love.
They have to find the way that, through the spirit, enables them to marry what they know, to the Fire of the One Who Is All Truth, and allow the Holy Sprit, who is the Spirit that Executes, not merely Sets Apart, to lead them into all truth. It is not the biblical text that leads us into all truth. It is the Spirit of Truth that leads us into all truth. Our own mind, with all its absorbed and accumulated biblical knowledge, trivia, and understanding of the truth, is not what leads us into truth. Rather, it is the Spirit of Truth alone that can rightly divide the written biblical text, and apart from Him, with Torah in hand, we will risk killing the life-giving thing G-d gave to move us into the next realm of divine understanding.
My question to the Teachers in the crowd is this:
Do you want to continue being the one that kills with your cerebrum alone, or do you want the spirit G-d has placed in you to rule over the work of your mind, marry that to the felt work of your heart, and then your reins, and together with the thoughts, allow your emotions to emerge as your heart is strangely warmed by the Holy One of Israel?”
Apart from Him, you are incapable of exegeting at all.
I do not care how much Torah you know. If you do not know Torah Himself, the Word Himself, all your supposed truth is nothing more than the Vale of Ben Hinnom.
We go into all truth and get into all truth, ONLY by the Spirit of G-d.
And trust me, it is going to look really weird, the end product, and it is going to unsettle you and those around you, but as you grow into it, you will see the King’s faithfulness, and the Exhorter Himself walking alongside you will stay with you as you undergo this healing and transformation.
It is going to take time and a process, but it can happen, and Teacher, you are worth knowing, and being more fully known, even as you so fully know so much.
The Ancient One : But you are leaving out the most important part. In order to return the stones, you have to survive.
Going beyond the science and the knowledge acquired, the Teacher has GOT TO STEP INTO THE PLACE WHERE THEY PUT THEIR HEART, FAITH, AND WILL ON THE LINE, AND RISK DANGER WITH HEART AND SKIN IN THE GAME, in order to step up to the next level of who they are, which can invite circumstances that can hurt them in the process, trusting the L-rd to make them and their very, VERY tender hearts whole again. Teacher have to risk emotional exposure in order to be made more whole, bring wholeness to others around them, and to grow reality to a place where the L-rd needs it to be, embracing a potentially painful responsibility, the one thing they are supposed to do, in order to make the potential reality kinetic.
Be at peace, Teachers, for your is the most precarious of the seven gifts, I deem.
You are truly the motorcycles among the gifts. Huge payoffs and incredibly fun when the gift is done right, but also the risk of great destruction when mishandled.
