Blake

James 'Blake' Slatten.

I just got done talking with him for about an hour about the upcoming changes in our lives and how our current interactions with the Lord are preceding them. It was great.

Blake is the person in my life that I seem to (oddly) be very similar to:

He played high school baseball; I was a skateboarder.

He listened to country music back then; I rocked out to Limp Bizkit (unfortunately).

He trims his hair between 1 and 3 times a month; I haven't cut my hair in a year and a half.

He gags when he has to pick up coins; I just put a quarter in my mouth to gross him out earlier today.

He knows how to two-step; I rip out my guitar strings during Neighborhood shows.

He's going to live in Waco, TX in the fall; I'm moving into a different house in Norman, OK in August.

Also:

We both go by the name 'Blake'.

Our initials (that we go by) are both BJS.

Both of our last names start with 'S', are two-syllabled, and have double letters starting with the 4th letter.

We both hate lettuce, tomatoes, and onions on any sandwich or hamburger.

We have both led mission trips to Mozambique.

Both of us were accepted to Elevate (Antioch Training School in Waco, TX).

Both of us bunch- not fold- our toilet paper.

We slept in the same bed starting in May for the summer (as long as I wasn't in Africa or on the road).

There's something else we have in common that I will have to disclose at a later date due to the risk of certain people finding out via this post. (No, we're not gay).

We love to worship the Lord on our faces, spending hours with Him in order to know him more. We are both hungry to hear His voice. We find our homes only in Him. We have both tasted brokenness, and it has changed our lives forever. We have both denied the approval of our parents in order to fully surrender to the Lord's call on our lives (not that that's always necessary or makes our parents any less Godly- just another commonality we share).

So there are some of the similarities between Blake and I.

Here are some things that stand out to me when I think of Blake Slatten:

When God is breaking you, he will ALWAYS push you deeper into the fire. One time, when I was bawling my eyes out over the loss of a girl in my life, he prayed aloud over me, "Lord, I pray more persecution over Blake. I pray he would become more weak than he is now, because you will be proven to be even more strong."

When you are unsure about a major change occurring in your life, Blake will ALWAYS pump you up and make you ready to recklessly abandon your inhibitions and trust that the adventure God is calling you to is much more appealing than the comfortable, boring, pacifying, dead life you are prone to choose. This urging is always from a genuine place in his own experiences, enthusiasm and faith in Jesus.

Blake sat with me for more hours than just about anyone else when I broke up with the girl I had given my heart to. For months, repeating myself and working through all God was saying to me, he faithfully and loyally sat there and prayerfully answered every question I had and God made him one of His key mouthpieces in the Desert I found myself last Fall. Even now, we revisit our Winter breakups, our calls to suffer with the Lord. We know that these events were crucial and life-changing, integral in bringing us to where we have found ourselves today.

I remember him telling me what God had done through me to touch his life. I was sitting on a couch in the prayer room in a duplex three doors down from his house- he was sitting on a dining chair in the middle of the room, really feeling heavy, empty, and in pain with brokenness. He made the brokenness make sense by telling me how much God spoke through me because of it. I cried and shook my head with awe over how precious that moment was, completely floored that I had been blessed to this degree- that I had been chosen to experience this intense level of beauty.

His prayers over me have channelled the Lord into my spirit to the point where I have literally convulsed on the ground.

So there's a taste of Blake Slatten. As is the same with Brett and Stephen, he has touched my life with the Power of God that goes beyond man-made words and inspiration. These people (as I will reiterate as I go on to write about more of the key players in my life) are the people God has spoken to me through. They are my teachers, my pastors. The Lord through these people is the reason I am experiencing this level of intimacy with Jesus. I am madly in love with these people.

Bless them, Lord.