Tag: Kingdom

Problems Unpack You

by theparacleteshammer, posted in Destiny, Exhortations

There is wind that is too strong. 

There are materials that are too weak. 

The glider you built broke the arm of the photographer that was holding onto your experiment. And he is laying with broken arm in the midst of the wreckage of recently-successful dream.

There are people in your hometown that are cussing you out, even believers doing the same, saying you cannot do this.  You aren’t allowed.

You didn’t follow the protocol.

You didn’t have the permission of your apostolic covering.

You disobeyed the voice of the prophets who told you you were throwing hatchets at the moon.

You bit off more than you could chew.

The problem is, everything around you on this barren beach known for common hurricanes and the destruction of of the Queen Anne’s Revenge is also the land of your destiny.

You see, Prophet land in a Teacher State can be incredibly unforgiving. Even downright asshole-ish. Just like Prophets and Teachers are frequently.

And for those of you who are thinking I am talking about Fivefold Prophets and Teachers, I am never talking about Fivefold Prophets and Teachers as popularly described.

I am talking about Redemptive Gift Prophets and Teachers. Designed and hardwired to be two of the more unforgiving gifts when it comes to getting their crafts right.

Prophets abide by principles with relentless intensity and are obsessive with whether or not someone did the right thing out of moral considerations. Few things appeal to them as much as a blank slate or an empty canvas on which to create. Wide open spaces, so they can go wide open with the throttle.

Teachers, on the other hand, are meticulous to making sure the details are ironed out. There is no detail a Teacher does not like completely dialed-in. There is a precision and a perfection and a slow, gradual, and ponderous depth in which they check and double-check, perfect, tweak, and adjust everything.

There are people who want you to stay in your bicycle shop.

They don’t care how many years you have spent honing your skill or developing your craft.

They want to maintain the status quo.

And you do not maintain the status quo when you go looking from problems, looking for trouble.

Much less when the L-rd brings you problems, and others viciously yell at you that you should not have problems because problems are not the children’s bread.

Nevertheless, We walk with a Father who is so completely and in totality multifaceted of Himself and He is A Fire That Constantly Is Consuming Itself that He cannot help but to bring all of his greatest problems to those He trusts the most: us, humans, His sons.

You see, and yet you might not see. So, a couple of verses for you.

Gen. 22:2 He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” 

Ex. 4:22 Then you shall say to Pharaoh, “Thus says the L-RD, ‘Israel is my firstborn son,'”

Okay, I know some people might get ticked off at the idea of me using a Nicene line (NEWS FLASH: I dislike Constantine more than all of you combined, but I am also aware of Athanasius’ contribution to the creeds and I am grateful for his presence in the cloud of witnesses and contribution to Christian Theology), but this line communicates the eternality of the reality of the sacrament between the Father and Son.

“Eternally begotten of G-d.”

Gang, there was a time when G-d the Father was not Creator, but there was never a time when the Son was not. He was eternally begotten of the Father. Meaning, there was a time when G-d was Creator, but there was not a time when He was not Father. The Son was always there. And the Spirit was always there. And because Jesus died on the cross, the Father knew what it was like to be alone and apart from the Son. Therefore, it is not good for man to be alone….I will make him a partner, battle buddy, a helper suitable for and corresponding to him, a Ginny to his Harry, a Han to his Leia, a Eowyn to His Faramir, a red to his blue, a Prophet to his Mercy.

So much in this. Problems are made to be solved, and this causes humans to get unpacked, as happened in Dare County those 121 years ago. Problems were tackled and destiny was stepped into.

Just do it, my loves.

40 Years a Son, Living With the Word

by theparacleteshammer, posted in Biblical Studies/Exegesis

I was reading something in the biblical text this evening and I had a bit of something like a revelation.

Sometimes the one thing the King wants to emphasize, is the one thing we as translators and the writers of the original canon treated as an afterthought. We treat things as an afterthought because of the way they are phrased. And simply because of the smallness of the word, maybe the original writers did, too, if we take the words in the text at face value.

Allow me to explain.

It was Genesis 1, and always with the Fourth Day, there is something with the Fourth Day the King likes to highlight for me, and it is a kiss from him. It is a small phrase, only three words, and I have never heard the phrase emphasized, thus it seems to me most people do not treat it with emphasis when the read it, because it takes up such a small percentage of the text.

Maybe the original writer of the Creation Narrative, whether you call him Moses, or JEDP (ahem), or anyone else, just wrote this one phrase and gave it no further thought, but I would like to think it meant something, especially since these entities feature prominently elsewhere in the Tanakh, and in the Revelation and the First chapter of James.

So, here is the text for the Fourth Day of Creation:

And G-d said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. And G-d made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. And G-d set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And G-d saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

Genesis 1:14–19 ESV

Did you see it?

And the Stars

I wonder, gang. I wonder if we know of this in this way. For He is the G-d of the Seven Stars, Who Walks Among Them, and knows the starways, and walks among the starlight.

And it is the stars as the Sons of G-d that shout for joy in the book of Job, and the Father of Heavenly Lights that gives every good and perfect gift from above as He walks among the stars, which are themselves heavenly lights.

With rain, with sun
With much, with less
With joy, with pain
With life, with death

The only things that satisfy come from You
They come from You

Everything that’s beautiful
Everything that’s wonderful
Every perfect gift comes from You

Your grace, Your heart
Your voice, Your touch
Your word, Your peace
Your hope, Your love

A thousand words could not explain
A thousand worlds could not contain
Every perfect gift comes from You

It comes from the Father of Lights
It comes from the Giver of Life
It comes from the Heavens above
It’s coming straight from Your heart
To the people You love

“Everything” by Chris Tomlin

When I was 18, the very first time I got to see the starways and the pitchblack of the heavens, I was in ROTC in college, and we were in Camp Blanding in Northeast Florida. My batallion was on a night march, and that was the very first time I was able to identify more than 12 constellations just based on patterns I had seen in books as a kid. And it was radiant, though not radiant like the sun. Sparkly.

And on the Fourth Day, as with other things pertaining to the Redemptive Gift of Exhorter, G-d usually highlights things in patterns of threes.

The nature of G-d

The Three major Exhorters of Scripture: Moses, Solomon, Paul.

The Sun, the Moon, the Stars

For me this highlights something that I wish to give to you as a gift in the arena of how I do hermeneutics, and precisely why the tagline of TPH is “Into all truth by the Spirit of G-d”.

It’s not the whole of scripture, written with a 1-to-1 mindset, with each word having and sharing equal weight with all the others. Sometimes, the Holy Spirit is going to highlight or lowlight certain words of phrases, depending on what is going on with you, and where He wants to point you in a given matter.

Sometimes, a phrase waits 10-30 years to emerge and glow off the page.

And this phrase “and the stars” just hits me in all the right places, moreso now I have seen stars and auroras and other entities with proper telescopes.

I put to you, as me reader, that, when you are reading, that you allow Holy Spirit the lattitude to highlight or emphasize something differently than you have allowed Him previously. If you allow Him to guide you along the river, you have no idea where He will pull the canoe up so He can take you exploring. Reading the text, as with other parts of our life, should be an adventure that is completely life-giving.

He may emphasize a piece of the text you never thought He would.

For example, when was the last time you heard there were three “veyahavtas” (the Hebrew Phrase translated as “You shall love”) in the text of the Torah.

And for you who are Torah haters, how many know the heart of the bible is the law, and the heart of the law is Deuteronomy, and for those who want to get intimate with how blessings and curses operate, you have to be intimate with how Deuteronomy operates?

I know we are not under the law and G-d abolished the law completely without exception, but maybe there is something of value in reading the law.

Just some thoughts. And yes, some of what I wrote above is a bit tongue-in-cheek.

But seriously, maybe it would behoove us to see, instead of a bipolar book, where the G-d on the Right Hand Side of the Book apologizes for the acts of the G-d on the Left Hand Side of the Book, perhaps we are dealing with the outworking of a very complex WHOLE COVENANT.

Perhaps there is life and fathering that will break the bastard curse off of us, if we will begin to obsessively hunt for the Father in the Tanakh, and in the Torah.

It’s not a list of rules and regs, gang, appended by Talmuds and Mishnahs and Gemaras. It is a arkload of principles and relationships available to anyone with the cojones to hunt for Dad’s mind AND heart within its pages.

For example, the first time “Father” is specifically implied in the pages of the Biblical Text is Exodus 4:22.

“Thus says the L-RD, ‘Israel is my firstborn son’.”

From Exodus 4:22 ESV

I wonder if one problem with too many of us that want to run from the Torah and the Tanakh and Whole Covenant into Better Covenant/Worser Covenant is that our relationships with our own earthly dads were so messed-up that we cannot bear the thought of beginning a relationship with G-d the Father in His fullness without a social worker present. And truly, if we were abused by our fathers, we might need someone who will take that role in the spirit for a season.

But, really, the gems are in the Torah for us to find if we are willing. The fat of the land, all of the fat of the land, is present for those of us who look to be transformed from disobedient to obedient, with hearts that are FILLED with the earnest of the Kingdom.

His heart is for us to know all of Him, and not just the parts with which we are comfortable.

The starsong….proclaiming the justice of G-d….

“And the stars”

May the King give light in strange and unexpected places for His kids to walk.

Just some thoughts.

Woundedness, Healing, and Walking in Principles

by theparacleteshammer, posted in Discernment, Filial vs. Bridal, Healing Vs. Walking

Sometimes, the L-rd wants to heal something sovereignly.

Sometimes we have a broken wrist or a gimpy foot or we are blind in an eye

And those are for the glory of G-d to be demonstrated.

And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

John 9:2 (ESV)

And expecting someone to function normally with a compromised wrist or foot or eye is going to eventually breed futility.

The L-rd wants to heal those.

But sometimes we are faced with a problem where we have a muscle that is atrophied from disuse.

And the L-rd expects us to engage in intentional behavior and to begin the process that will eventually make something happen. But for that to happen, we must do something besides waiting for His intervention.

We are, after all, engaged in a partnership with the King.

Our portion and responsibility are to test situations so that we may discern which is the flavor of a situation.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 12:2 ESV

So, gang, what is going on in your situation?

And what is your portion?

A Caveat

I realize some may not be able to hear His voice for whatever reasons. And for those, I would suggest partnering with someone you trust who CAN hear and can help you and will walk and lean into the the problem of hearing with you.

No fear. No condemnation.

Be blessed as you engage in these puzzles, gang.