Rid me of myself

Can We Still Be Friends?

2009-03-10T01:01:00.002-05:00

I'm officially moving into Wordpress... at least for now.

Visit me at blakestuddardblog.com from now on. If things change, I'll let you know from there.

I may utilize this space for something in the near future, so don't completely forget about me here.

I'm Moving

2009-03-08T16:36:00.001-05:00

I moved into a new house a couple weeks ago, and I'm going to move into a new website in the next few days. I'll keep you updated, with a link to the new site soon.

Honor

2009-03-03T23:59:00.003-06:00

For those of you living in Norman and going to Norman Community Church, you might find this uninformative (as our pastor Ken Primrose conveyed this more eloquently and clearly than I will here).

But for those of you who do not fall into that category, and for myself (since writing on here does much more for me than the ones who read this), I want to share this idea of honor.

- - - - - - -

DIS-honoring someone doesn't mean you have wronged them. It simply means you have not honored them. You've treated them as ordinary and not special.

Honor is the first of the ten commandments to have a reward attached to it : 'Honor your father and mother that your days will be long in the land the Lord has given you.'

The two greatest commandments ('Love the Lord your God and love one another as yourself') are narrowed even more in John 13:34-35 by saying, 'a new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know you are my disciples, if you love one another.'

- - - - - - - - - - - -

so,

the week before I heard the teaching that gave me the above information, the Lord began revealing to me the people I haven't been honoring. There were those who had walked away from the Lord that I was frustrated with. There were those who I felt had wronged me or wronged others. There were those who were prideful and stubborn and undeserving of the authority they had been given.

And up until now I was under a political-spirit-inspired lie that some of these people were deserving of my 'righteous anger' or even that I was hearing from the Lord a frustration and disdain for their behavior. But I was so far from the true key, the true door to the next place the Lord wanted for me.

Last Monday, I sat in my room and surrendered my mind and my heart to the mind and heart of the Father for those people I had been struggling with. I wasn't ready for the result that hit me with such weight and intensity, feeling certain wires in my heart and mind being ripped out and replugged into new places. I literally felt as He grabbed parts of me I had been getting used to and yanked them out. I found myself crying out, "Father, give me your heart for _______ ! I want the compassion and love you have for these people I've hated for so long! I want to love the unlovely! Even the ones who have done evil to me, I want your grace to send me out so I can go and bless them!"

It's always the opposite of the flesh.

The church you've walked away from : bless them. honor them. regard them as special, as the Father does.

That scripture about heaping coals on people as you love them : forget about the way you were taught that, where it involves a revengeful heart. Honor comes from a pure, compassionate heart.

That person who is attacking you : love them in a real way. a tangible way. don't just bless them with your mouth, but ask the Holy Spirit to begin and actual transformation in your heart toward that person. that one who deserves your love the least.

I believe the way we love the least lovable person on our list determines the amount of intimacy, love, and blessing we receive from God.

My Heart Is Awake With Many Things

2009-02-28T00:35:00.004-06:00

(deep breath)...

I'm laying on a hotel bed in Texas. This has become an incredibly familiar place - this place of unfamiliarity. In January, it was great - it seemed like every new thing was just so good. But February decided to become one of the hardest months of the past year and a half or so. Everything seemed to drag on, relationships began suffering from communication problems and distractions, life on the road felt less enjoyable and more like a job again, and even though the Lord was providing in extravagant ways, I felt every inch of distance in my intimacy with the Lord. Maybe at some times they were more like miles.

I don't want to sound down, though. Yes, it's been hard recently (for myself and some of my closest friends), but we cling to our hope. God promised us His nearness. He vowed, swore, and made a covenant with us that He would give us the Holy Spirit as a comforter - teacher. He said the truth is that He longs to be near to us and that the lie from Hell is 'distance.'

At times, I've made the blasphemous mistake of blaming the devouring work of the Enemy on the 'will of God.' I've said that distance has come from God to make me hungrier for Him. Because of my need for a logical explanation, I've 'sacrificed my faith on the altar of human reason.' (Bill Johnson, sermon : 'Enduring Faith')

No, I don't know why I've felt distanced from God. But it's not from God. I cling to the hope that God will come, soon. He will once again be, as He has been millions of times before, faithful to his sons and daughters.

But for the sake of us who still need a reason, I can speculate : Maybe 'this kind only comes out with prayer and fasting.' Maybe I need to increase the amount of the Lord I allow in my life to remove this blockage, this demonic political spirit (the one that causes dissension, pride in rank, and an atmosphere of merit).

But regardless of what the reason may be, I will not blame the devouring distance I've felt this month on the One who came to bring life to the full. Nor will I blame Him for any sickness, disease, poverty, or any other Hellish aspect of the kingdom of darkness.

Am I saying that God cannot control these things and that these have happened against His will, that He is weak? Halfway. It was not His will for any to perish, to be stricken with disease or destruction. But He is not weak. He allowed us the free will we asked for. He is the covenant keeper. And because of that we must daily choose Him to come and free us from the prisons we come under as we neglect a right relationship with HIm.

Normally I'd apologize for the run-on thoughts and the lack of references to 'sound doctrine' (oxymoron?), but I'm not sorry. If any of this helps you, then amen. If this pisses you off, amen. If this bores the crap out of you... I don't blame you. All I know is I've needed to write this for a while now, and now I've done it.

I love you, whoever you are.

Scene Change

2009-02-16T01:15:00.002-06:00

I'm tracking a worship record with Phil.

We started it back in August 08, but took some significant time off while he got married. Just today we hashed out a few songs and made lists of things we need in each. A few days ago we got together and got a vision for the record, mostly coming to the conclusion that we just need to finish what we've started, and do it as well as we can.

So for a few hours we sat and cut up songs, listened for what each one was lacking, and took in what the project is becoming as a whole. This was encouraging and discouraging at the same time. While I'm completely energized to put myself into this record as an important thing that contains so much symbolism and significance in my life, I am also very aware at the things hindering me from making it great sonically. I've been spoiled by the gear from other studios that I've learned in, and I know how things 'could' sound. But as we were listening today we began discussing the logistics of processing it when we are done doing all that the two of us can, including taking it to two other studios in Norman for some enhancing and final mixing.

I say all this (that many of you are just bored of reading and confused altogether) to say I am seeing a new day coming very quickly (and is upon me now) where I'm stepping into the next stages of the things I've been doing.

I'm also moving out of my current house this weekend to live with Brett for less $ than I pay now...

Life is once again taking me to another place. While it's a tiny scene change, it's definitely new.

My Favorite Number Was 8

2009-02-12T13:48:00.002-06:00

I am sitting in Medieval Art History class, an upper division class usually taken only by art history majors. I say that to explain the foolishness of me blogging at the moment. But something was just said that I think is important for me to hear...

Growing up, my favorite number was always 8. I liked it because you could sit in class and draw over it and over it and never pick up your pencil for as long as you want. Around high school, I began drawing 8's with two circles instead of a vertical infinity shape...

Just now we are talking about octagonal shapes churches in the Medieval period.

We discussed how there are 8 notes in a musical scale, and how the 8th note always recreates a new scale, rebirthing the scale.

The Lord also created in 6 days, rested on the 7th, and so the 8th day was a day of the cycle occurring again.

I've been experiencing shifts in seasons my whole life, but the past year has marked a cyclical pattern where things are coming full circle over and over again.

My birthday is the last day of the year, 12.31. Every time I turn a new age, the year is being made new as well.

Maybe I'll start drawing my 8's the way I did when I was younger.

twentyfivethingsyoumaynotknowaboutme

2009-02-11T00:12:00.000-06:00

1. I was a skateboarder throughout middle school, and since my mom wouldn't let me wear Jncos, I got her to buy me some Lee Pipes. I got her good...

2. I can stretch the skin on my face a few more inches away from my face than most people can. I figured this out when I was bored in 5th grade.

3. There is only one other musician in my extended family, and it's always relieving when he's around during family gatherings. Sometimes I feel pressure to explain how a creative person can be financially successful in the world today, while at the same time communicating my passivity toward monetary gain.

4. I recently learned that I am an INFP.... Introverted, iNtuitive, Feeling, Perceiving, with 90-95% Feeling. When I read the profile of INFP's, I was amazed at how accurate it was.

5. I only have energy to do things I really care about. But my energy for those things is intense and many times makes me obsessive.

6. When I was 15 I formed a group of about 10 friends together and orchestrated an outlandish way of asking a girl to be my girlfriend. This included fireworks when we kissed, cameras, walkietalkies, carpet, music, and a disco ball in the park, candles in the middle of a Taco Bueno, a song and an after party. Flawless, except I didn't like the girl THAT much.

7. I had two hernias when I was an infant.

8. I've totaled 2 cars. The first time, I was turning left at an intersection and a car full of my friends drove by to my right, screaming at me while I crashed head on with the car coming the other way. The second time, two years later, I was driving home after an appointment to see if I had ADD.

9. I married two girls at the same time in preschool and had my first french kiss with a 9th grader when I was in 5th grade. She was babysitting me while I was on a family trip in Alaska.

10. I've never broken any bones.

11. When I was 14, my best friend Ira and I would steal his parents' cars at 2am and speed around Tulsa, usually visiting multiple girls' houses.

12. When I was 4 and my brother was 8, he threw a dart at me and it pierced the corner of my mouth.

13. When I was 3, I ate a tiny piece of poop that fell out of my diaper, thinking it was a raisin.

14. I love making art and I love the art school, but it hurts me to see so many people lose their identity, allowing themselves to be defined by what they make, wear, listen to, or write. While this usually makes a person better at their craft, it's NEVER the exchange.

15. The Lord has been reinventing the way I experience Him everyday for over a year and a half.

16. I'm intensely sentimental, causing me to love fiercely and lose things painfully.

17. I check my email and follow links to Facebook if something alerts me. I have 192 inbox messages I haven't taken the time to delete.

18. I do artistic things for both enjoyment and employment : guitar, drums, keys, live audio production, studio audio engineering, photography, screenprinting, and graphic design all feel equally natural to me but I feel like I only know about half of what I need to know about each.

19. I'm left handed when I throw, golf, kick, and hit, but I'm right handed when I play guitar and write.

20. I experience the Lord everyday through recurring numbers. I was confused when it first started happening, but now I embrace it.

21. I am (arguably) too open about my spiritual experiences on my blog, but having some people (many I don't even know) tell me that it has blessed them has kept me connected to that.

22. I only hear the instruments (and vocals as instruments) when I listen to a song for the first time. This pisses off my friend Brett who only hears the words being sung.

23. Intimacy is the most important part of my relationship with the Lord. Community is the most important part of my relationship to the world around me.

24. I was expelled from Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity for not paying. I think I should've been expelled for not caring.

25. I generally like really really sad or intimate songs.

Don't Let Your Serving Him Replace Your Knowing Him

2009-02-05T18:54:00.002-06:00

Before Nick starts the piano intro for the song 'Missing You,' He almost always tells the same story:

"This next song comes from a few years ago when I was doing a lot of things for the Lord. I was leading worship weekly for about a thousand college students in Norman at the largest church, for the largest college ministry at that time. I was doing so many good things.
"Then one of my pastors came up to me and told me, 'NIck, don't ever let your serving God replace your knowing God.'
"I realized I had been doing things for the Lord, but that He didn't need me to. He didn't even want me to. He wanted to be close to me. To know me. I realized I'd been missing the most important thing in life. To know God."

Brett and I sat with Shane yesterday (our grandfather in the prophetic) and discussed this new year. We talked about all the healings, the prophetic words, the dreams; so many of these things have been happening in the last five or six weeks. One week, 24 people were healed. Multiple deaf ears popped open, a woman's breast cancer vanished, eczema faded before the eyes of onlookers, and backs were healed. People have been having dreams before things happen and others are being prayed over and encouraged with words that could only have come from the Lord.

But stop. Stop the harvest. I know it seems like a sweet momentum is here. It is, but stop. As soon as you feel yourself rolling in a great prophetic flow, stop. I don't mean stop it in the moment. I mean stop as soon as you can. Yes, the Lord loves momentum. Yes the Lord loves revival. But the only reason He loves it is because hearts are being brought closer to Him. If you feel yourself doing things more than you are being alone with the Alone, stop right there. God doesn't need your work. He wants your heart. This is always true. I'm not talking about a clock that marks the amount of time you're doing ministry versus the amount of time you are spending alone. I'm talking about your heart. You can feel it. Good indicators are fatigue, pride, laziness, a loss of passion, etc.

Then, finally, do the one thing God actually wants from you. BE with Him. Let Him physically hold you. Get out of the workzone and keep the Sabbath holy. Rest.

Just Sayin...

2009-02-04T17:24:00.002-06:00

Brett and I are about to meet up with our prophetic grandfather. First time for us to schedule something like that officially. I'm pretty excited. I know pops is too. 'Stoked' was the word he used, though.

I sat down to spend time in the Presence earlier and the clock said 11:11. Luke 11 really charged up my time with the Lord today, speaking about the Lord's Prayer (specifically '... your kingdom come...') and 'the Father will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask.'

I stood up to go back to class and the clock read : 1:11.

Just now I got on facebook to upload an old video of Ira and I, and noticed that as of today, I have 1,111 'friends' on facebook.

11 is the number of the prophetic.

It all just hit me a few moments ago.

Just sayin.

Rebirth

2009-02-02T17:13:00.002-06:00

I love the people the Lord has put in my life.

.. especially this year so far.

I've been on the road with Nick a lot. Definitely more than any other school month. And the next month is looking about the same.

Normally, this would cause me to lose touch with people in Norman, hibernating once again through another season. But this year is different. This month is different. This season is different.

The rules have changed. The atmosphere is not normal.

Just yesterday, Brett prophesied over me that this season is a season of an armor shift, where I'm stripped of the bulky gear of the past years and given new, slimline, more energy efficient equipment from the Lord. This word was powerfully accurate and gave words to the unexplainable change of years to 2009.

I sat in a group of four guys at house church yesterday and all of us had stories of encouragement that this new year/semester/season/month is incredibly significant, holding breakthrough after breakthrough in our own lives and those of the people in our communities of friends. All the breakthroughs for all of us could be explained as the Lord drawing us into more intimacy by redeeming, reconciling, healing, and rebirthing us in various ways.

I've shared with you about some of these things for me (victories in the lives of my close friends and the marriage of my prophetic father to name a couple), but along with these things has come a rebirth and igniting in the realm of relationships. I can almost tangibly feel myself being moved deeper into friendships with several people in my community, my new roommate (who I just met a month ago) is resonating with the heart of NormComm, I'm leading worship for a late night prayer meeting for our house church, Charlsey (a living, walking, breathing testimony of true intimacy with and redemption by Jesus) is allowing the Lord to mold her in beautiful ways, Madison's roommate is seeing and experiencing Jesus physically (and in many other ways) for the first time...

much more.

I guess I'm saying all this to let you know you're invited to trust the goodness of God. Apparently, He's in the 'mood' to give His Holy Spirit to His children, redemption to the lost, the oil of gladness to the mourning, and deliverance to the afflicted. If I were you, I'd capitalize on that opportunity... Every moment I've been with Him I've received more than I had bargained for.

I'm definitely an INFP

2009-01-30T19:02:00.004-06:00

The Idealist : The Dreamer : The Romantic : The Healer

Introverted : iNtuitive : Feeling : Perceiving

As an INFP, your primary mode of living is focused internally, where you deal with things according to how you feel about them, or how they fit into your personal value system. Your secondary mode is external, where you take things in primarily via your intuition.

INFPs, more than other iNtuitive Feeling types, are focused on making the world a better place for people. Their primary goal is to find out their meaning in life. What is their purpose? How can they best serve humanity in their lives? They are idealists and perfectionists, who drive themselves hard in their quest for achieving the goals they have identified for themselves

INFPs are highly intuitive about people. They rely heavily on their intuitions to guide them, and use their discoveries to constantly search for value in life. They are on a continuous mission to find the truth and meaning underlying things. Every encounter and every piece of knowledge gained gets sifted through the INFP's value system, and is evaluated to see if it has any potential to help the INFP define or refine their own path in life. The goal at the end of the path is always the same - the INFP is driven to help people and make the world a better place.

Generally thoughtful and considerate, INFPs are good listeners and put people at ease. Although they may be reserved in expressing emotion, they have a very deep well of caring and are genuinely interested in understanding people. This sincerity is sensed by others, making the INFP a valued friend and confidante. An INFP can be quite warm with people he or she knows well.

INFPs do not like conflict, and go to great lengths to avoid it. If they must face it, they will always approach it from the perspective of their feelings. In conflict situations, INFPs place little importance on who is right and who is wrong. They focus on the way that the conflict makes them feel, and indeed don't really care whether or not they're right. They don't want to feel badly. This trait sometimes makes them appear irrational and illogical in conflict situations. On the other hand, INFPs make very good mediators, and are typically good at solving other people's conflicts, because they intuitively understand people's perspectives and feelings, and genuinely want to help them.

INFPs are flexible and laid-back, until one of their values is violated. In the face of their value system being threatened, INFPs can become aggressive defenders, fighting passionately for their cause. When an INFP has adopted a project or job which they're interested in, it usually becomes a "cause" for them. Although they are not detail-oriented individuals, they will cover every possible detail with determination and vigor when working for their "cause".

When it comes to the mundane details of life maintenance, INFPs are typically completely unaware of such things. They might go for long periods without noticing a stain on the carpet, but carefully and meticulously brush a speck of dust off of their project booklet.

INFPs do not like to deal with hard facts and logic. Their focus on their feelings and the Human Condition makes it difficult for them to deal with impersonal judgment. They don't understand or believe in the validity of impersonal judgment, which makes them naturally rather ineffective at using it. Most INFPs will avoid impersonal analysis, although some have developed this ability and are able to be quite logical. Under stress, it's not uncommon for INFPs to mis-use hard logic in the heat of anger, throwing out fact after (often inaccurate) fact in an emotional outburst.

INFPs have very high standards and are perfectionists. Consequently, they are usually hard on themselves, and don't give themselves enough credit. INFPs may have problems working on a project in a group, because their standards are likely to be higher than other members' of the group. In group situations, they may have a "control" problem. The INFP needs to work on balancing their high ideals with the requirements of every day living. Without resolving this conflict, they will never be happy with themselves, and they may become confused and paralyzed about what to do with their lives.

INFPs are usually talented writers. They may be awkard and uncomfortable with expressing themselves verbally, but have a wonderful ability to define and express what they're feeling on paper. INFPs also appear frequently in social service professions, such as counselling or teaching. They are at their best in situations where they're working towards the public good, and in which they don't need to use hard logic.

INFPs who function in their well-developed sides can accomplish great and wonderful things, which they will rarely give themselves credit for. Some of the great, humanistic catalysts in the world have been INFPs.

Spiritually Full

2009-01-23T02:08:00.002-06:00

I just got home.

I need to get up in 7 hours.

Then I'll have to sit for 8 hours in a suburban, pulling a trailer.

All to go to the butt-crack of Texas.

But it's my job, and I love it.

It is late, though.

But this is the best feeling.

Tonight, I experienced you again.

It never gets old.

The spirit of prophecy fell over Ira and I on his kitchen floor.

It's always best when it's beyond our control.

Some things that came out of my mouth felt tingly.

I could feel them come out and touch him.

I know they were from You, though.

And so did he.

It's best when there's no other way to explain it.

You're so beyond what we think we know.

Numbers, twitches, words, themes...

Everything in this life is just affirmation.

Affirmation of your unfailing love.

Go sit with the Lord, the One who made you, and let it ruin you.

It's ruined me.

It ruined Ira.

It will ruin anyone who is willing.

Oh, my God, Thank You Lord.

9:11. Heat. Psalm 27. 11:11. Joel. 12:31. 1:22. Twitch. Father. Peace.

Did I mention this never gets old?

" Ira " - (My 100th Post)

2009-01-21T00:57:00.004-06:00

I couldn't have planned this out better.

The thing about allowing the Lord to take His place as your God is that you'll just live the most messed up, crazy life. And you will be left each day feeling like you've actually lived.

The fact that this is the 100th post (that I've written, I'm pretty sure I've left a few offline that had problems) is incredible. The ebb and flow of the blessings and endurances of living in intimacy with the Lord have been exchanging back and forth in a mighty way these past few months, and the shift of the past two days have been timely to say the least.

- - - - - - - - -

Ira : My brother (not biologically) and best friend since 6th grade.

Everyone who is close to me knows who Ira is. Even though we have been out of regular communication for the past few years, it is a mutual agreement that we are equally one of the most important people in each other's lives.

We met in 6th grade, at the depth of my valley of rebellion, defiance, and anger. I remember Ira spending the night all the time, and many times reminding me to take my Zoloft (anti-depressant) due to certain episodes I would get into (fighting with my mom, talking about cutting myself or huffing sprapaint, etc.). Don't get me wrong, we weren't the most angelic teenagers... we definitely treated girls as objects together, helping each other out with what girl to hook up with next (a couple times we exchanged girls we had personally taken advantage of). But God was gracious, and we ended up growing out of that phase into pretty good high school students that ultimately began dating girls seriously (we both dated girls for over 3 years, beginning our senior years of high school.

Ira is contagious. Not only is he attractive physically, but even more potent is his ability to magnetically attract people with his sincere and selfless love. It's not that he's smooth, although to the less discerning he seems to be. It's his ability to sense what people are feeling around him and know how to meet that feeling with edifying words or actions that make them feel like the most important thing in the world. Always full of joy and globally accepted as the one who deserves to be the center of attention, he can entertain any and everyone with his light, encouraging, and life-bringing presence.

We both graduated, and that was about the time some things went crazy for Ira. All out of his control and despite his goodness, the Enemy made it obvious with certain events that he wanted Ira dead. Maybe a little physically, with sickness and other physical ailments that come along with hard times, but most importantly (and most intense), there was a warrant from the kingdom of Hell to kill Ira spiritually.

I won't go into the details, but I will say that over the past 4 or 5 years Ira has endured, withstood, and experienced more warfare, deprivation, and external attacks on his identity, physical body, family life, and spiritual being than anyone I know. The lies of the Enemy oppressed Ira to points of condemnation that have isolated him, leaving him separated from spiritual food and community.

aside - when you are being separated from a community of love and intimacy with Jesus, you are being kidnapped by an Enemy who has no authority to do so.

as you could have guessed by my enthusiasm, Ira is doing well today. A couple days ago, the Lord once again (as He has been doing intermittently in the form of big fresh breaths at widely separated times the past few years) brought Ira to a place of peace. There recently was a purging that occurred (as is the style of our jealous lover God), which has allowed for him to be alone with Jesus, discovering what it means to love and be loved by his creator.

At prayer tonight (Ira couldn't attend), the Lord spoke prophetically through everyone there about Ira. Some people described a man with a huge smile on his face that was full of energy, life and laughter. That is the Ira that the person having the vision does not yet know in the physical, but it is who the Lord sees when he looks at his Beloved.

Pray. I've seen the Lord redeem some key players in the Kingdom before, and let me just say that this is more than a key player we are contending for. This man has an anointing that is more potent than many people I've ever met, and that's not just my biased, love-drunk emotions talking. This is another step in an intense shift that will bring more of Heaven down to Earth, invading the lives of thousands and redeeming countless hearts to the Lord. It's intense.

Rejoice. God has already redeemed Ira. He did that years ago. But this is the dawning of a new day for Ira. Thank the Lord for spiritual rebirth and reinstating Ira to a higher level of rank in the authority of Jesus.

Allow this testimony to invade your life. Learn experientially the jealous, fiery love of the Father, the sweet, intense communion of the Holy Spirit, and the administrative power of Jesus.

Crested Butte

2009-01-15T01:39:00.003-06:00

I got to go with some friends to Crested Butte, Colorado from January 2nd to the 7th. It was awesome.

The snow was perfect, the condo was beautiful, the food was some of the best I've ever had, and the people I went with became close friends immediately. Oh yeah, and Bill Murray stayed at the same condo, so we saw him a couple times...

Secret Place Day 3 - Back in Norman

2009-01-14T17:43:00.003-06:00

It's apparent to me that in one sense the 'secret place' isn't very 'secret' when I keep talking about it... But I guess I'm just writing here about the things I feel some amount of energy to share.

Yesterday, on the way back to Norman, I listened to a Kris Vallatton sermon that really messed me up (in the good way). You should check into his stuff.

Today I woke up at 2:30 pm. Probably due to the things I've been opening myself up to recently, I kept going back to sleep and having more crazy dreams (more about dreams in the future). They were good crazy dreams, but I've been in some places of warfare recently that leaves no room for dumbing down the reality of who/what our battle is against.

A text from Phil woke me up the last time, asking me to help him with an errand. I hopped in the shower and texted him back, saying I was ready to leave as soon as he was. Then, after throwing some laundry in the washer and organizing some things in my room, I felt a clear call to be with the Lord.

I literally just stopped what I was doing and stood in the middle of my room for a few minutes, not expecting much, since it was so impromptu...

At first I was my mind wanted to wander (as it almost always does), reminding me to call Phil to make sure he knew I was ready to run errands with him, to make sure I knew where my rent check was, etc.. but I just kept getting connected to His Spirit instead.

Then it came. Once again, without fail, the peace of God came that settled my mind and made me almost drunk. I leaned on my desk and just kept allowing the Holy Spirit to just be with me. Not tell me things or teach me anything. But just be with me and I with Him. Gosh, that's so good (I'm gonna re-enter that once I'm done typing).

I sat down and jotted a few lines in my journal, thanking the Father for His Spirit communing with me.

Then, as soon as I wrote, "I love you." in my journal, Phil texted me back saying he was on his way to my house. I mean it was instantaneous. Not a few seconds later, but as soon as I dotted the period, my phone alerted me.

I say this to you for two reasons: one, as an encouragement. The Holy Spirit wants to be with you. He doesn't need time cut out of your day, He works with the whole thing. While your mind is ignoring the cares of this world to be with Him, He provides everything you need... even the small things.

Two, I'm recording this on here as a public declaration of the provision and goodness of God, so that as the Enemy (who is already on his way) comes to discourage me or thwart my intentioned plans, I can stand under this testimony. When the devil comes, I will ignore him. I will speak my identity over myself, not to him. I don't have time to waste speaking to him. But I will have this testimony to worship the Lord for, and that will be a weapon that will cost the Enemy for coming against me.

Paraphrased from that Kris Vallotton sermon: 'Make it cost the devil for coming near you. When he comes, stand and worship the Lord. Even if your heart is beating out of your chest, worship the Lord. Then it will be costing the enemy to come near you, because you take it as a call to worship the Lord - which is what he wants to keep you from doing.'

Secret Place

2009-01-12T14:49:00.002-06:00

I have so much energy to post this one, oh man. And this is gonna be long. Don't feel bad if you can't read it all, but know that you have to read it all to get it.

What I have to say about the secret place comes only from my experience right now. I'm about to read a book about it, but I feel like the past year and a half has given me all I've needed to know so far.

I cannot express to you how much I love the Secret Place. It is the one place I have found any knowledge, wisdom, insight, revelation, or information in general that always holds water. When I'm obtaining these from conversations or anything besides the Secret Place, I always have to sift through the words to find the ones from the Lord. I can trust everything I experience in the place where I've allowed the Holy Spirit to commune intimately and privately with me.

There are no gimmicks here - no shows being put on for people - no fear of man - no making up a prayer language to impress people.

There is complete freedom here - so what if you are unsure about the whole 'speaking in tongues' thing? When you're alone with the Him, the Holy Spirit will teach you all you need to know about it.

It's such a sterile environment where if anything happens, it can't be from conjured up emotion. It's yours. All yours. And it's just like the Lover God to reveal Himself so powerfully in this place, because it's just like sex. You're locked away, alone with the only One you love, creating memories and moments that are only for the two of you.

Here's why I have so much energy to post this one: I just physically exited a time of intense intimacy with Him, and I was reminded of how much I love it - how it has been the central life source for me the past year and a half, and how I must consecrate it to the Lord every day in order to stay connected with the Head.

Here's a story from the Secret Place today:

It starts with yesterday. Stephen, Jill and I went to Norman to go to cluster. The date was 1.11, a prophetic number in my book, so I was expecting at least something. We get to cluster, and the love of the Lord is just intense. We worship for about 45 minutes, allowing the Lord to impart His joy on all of us and interceding for those with illnesses or needs of joy. Ken, my pastor, shared a word about new wineskins, and how he is being called to experience the Lord in a a new way. He had always known the presence of God through tears, but now he was being called to know it through intense joy. Afterward we were asked to share any prophetic words, and my whole body started trembling with a feeling of responsibility to share. I gave a word about intimacy and prayed it over the group. Cool, but not profound.

The three of us started driving back to Tulsa, and we saw the full moon. We were driving straight toward it. We began talking about the prophetic, how the date was interesting, the full moon had to also be a type of sign, etc. It was just a really healthy talk.

After arriving in Tulsa, we went to a bar to watch a friend play a show.

Then I got home and turned on a podcast by Kris Vallaton. He said how it was interesting that in Genesis the Bible says the sun and moon were set for signs of seasons and night and day, and how in Acts it says people will see signs in the sky. Its also interesting that the Enemy has capitalized on this, creating the horoscopes and such, and if the Enemy only counterfeits what is truth, then us Christians should probably start allowing the Lord to take His sky back as a source of information conveying truth instead of leading people away. - interesting this sermon would come on after a talk in the car about the full moon.

Anyway, that's the night before.

Today, I sat in my closet, lit a few candles, and sat in the Presence for a while. I turned on my spirit ears and eyes and waited. Immediately, I received two phone calls. Normally I would see these as distractions, but in my spirit I recognized the voice of God in goofy places. The first was from Nick. The words he gave (unknowingly) from the Lord were, "Yeah, I just wanna party, like an end of the year kind of thing." For me, this meant an opening of a new year, filled with the joy of the Lord. And because the Holy Spirit was near, He reminded me of cluster last night, how it was about 'joy.'

Then, not two minutes later, Phil called for the first time in days. He just laughed knowingly when I told him I was being called into the Secret Place again and encouraged me.

I kept asking Holy Spirit to come, and then He had me open my Bible. It fell open to Job 26.

This is where it gets crazy.

I was attracted to how it talks about God helping people saving people and giving knowledge to people, so I started writing the chapter out. Then I got to verse 9. "He covers the face of the full moon, and stretches over it His cloud."

Holy Spirit immediately reminded me of the full moon last night and how clouds came and covered it, and I looked at the bottom and saw that in Hebrew, 'full moon' could mean 'his throne.'

and then He blew me away with reminding me of the name of the bar we were at after arriving in Tulsa... The Full Moon Cafe.

He then reminded me of the name of the beer I had. Newcastle. I thought of the New Wine and the New Wineskins we talked about at cluster. Castle reminds me of the place of His throne. 'A new place for the throne of God to dwell' was the phrase I ended up on, reassuring me of my need to get into my new wineskin : the Secret Place.

Here's the deal. God speaks however He wants to. I don't understand it, and neither do you. And that's the way it needs to be. Once we start understanding our faith and what exactly is happening and how it's going to happen, we need to start worrying that we may be heading down the wrong path. Don't get me wrong. I believe God is knowable. In fact, that's the very central part of His heart - to know His people and for them to know Him. But He doesn't give a crap about whether or not you figure Him out. We do Him no favors by knowing ABOUT Him. We please Him only by communing with Him as faithful Lovers. Let's go find Him in the Secret Place. Trust me, it will blow your mind the way He has been constantly speaking to you. You need only to ask Him for the spirit of wisdom and revelation, and He'll begin decoding the fabric of your mundane life into pages and pages of His divine words, scribbled all around you.

Bless you and your time communing with the Triune God.

Thank You... (To My Spiritual Fathers)

2009-01-11T00:37:00.003-06:00

Thanks Stephen. You're always telling me I'm anointed and even though we are often sacrilegious and sarcastic when we joke around (maybe sacrilege is actually a good thing... future post?), I always end up in a good place, closer to the Lord than when I was prior to hanging out with you. You don't have to build up to a place of reverence, you can switch to the spirit realm instantly when you feel the Holy Spirit urge you to. Thank you for being sensitive to the Spirit. From the moment I entered the desert, you were there, literally, and that has made me a more earnest lover of the Lord. I love you and I look up to the discipline you possess, running in the physical and spiritual without fatigue.

Thanks Brett. You have dug so deep in my soul during the talks we've had that it feels a lot like when Ramey does his heart surgery stuff, except it's every time we talk. You don't mess around, and I have been blessed by that. Your respect and awe of the Lord puts things into perspective for me, and your knowledge of the prophetic and inner healing always leaves me with a 'good heavy,' the weight of the truth of the Lord resting on me. Every time I'm in your presence, I'm blessed by the presence of the Lord. I couldn't ask for a spiritual brother with more integrity and faithfulness.

Thanks Grant. You have spoken words over me that have altered the paths of my life, and without knowing it, they were words from the Lord, telling me to follow my heart and not my head. If it wasn't for your words, I would've been in school to be an electrician or a businessman, forsaking the gifts the Lord has given me. You've pushed me in the areas of my creativity, being an integral part of the force that made me a person of passion. Thank you for loving me selflessly and pouring advice and life lessons into me since I was only 15 years old.

Thanks Blake (Slatten). You're the one I've looked up to as a man of supernatural passion and conviction since my first weekend at OU. You've taught me how to run after the face of God, leaving everything behind and offending the minds of people. Your faith that fears no man and cannot be bought challenges the deepest parts of me to live extravagantly. Thank you for the times of prayer in our room with our faces buried in the carpet, overwhelmed by the reality of the supernatural realm. Thank you for getting that tattoo with me that proved to be more prophetic than we had bargained for...

Thanks Philip. You're my father, brother, guide, and role model. Everything I know about intimacy with Jesus and hearing the voice of God can be traced back to the roots you implanted in me about 3 years ago. My spiritual heritage wouldn't have been rich and experiential without you. You've taught me how to know the Lord and commune with the Spirit, not by words, but by power. You've pushed me musically more than anyone I've known. You've believed in my musical and spiritual anointing, causing me to experience the love of the Lord through both in a way I never could have dreamed of. I want to fall in love the way you did.

Thanks Nick. God blessed me with you as a boss, friend, and band mate. I have continually been inspired by your energy and work ethic, knowing your abilities and defying the voices of the Enemy that have told you that you can't accomplish the things God has put on your heart. I'm proud of what you've done and when the worship music we play stops playing, I will have learned vast amounts of what it means to have a career in music and ministry simultaneously.

Thanks Tim. I don't know why the Lord had you spend coffee meetings and conversations at the Refuge with me, but apparently He wanted to deposit in me an element of His heart that would change the way I saw the poor and addicted forever. I want to follow Jesus in the apostolic gifting the way you have, fearlessly and fully abandoned to the guidance of the Lord, forsaking wealth and fame for the Kingdom. Thank you for teaching me how to have a Kingdom mind.

I love you all. I cannot believe the amount to which each of your spiritual lives has changed me. Thank you for speaking life over me time and time again. My prayer is that I would make each of you proud to be in the place of spiritual authority over me, that I would have respected your position and proven myself faithful to the calling you placed on me. Because of you, I've seen too much. I've been ruined, and I have no excuse for disobedience, laziness, or ignorance. The knowledge I received from you was of the Spirit, causing me to know the face of God... not a cheap form of inspiration that led me to a perceived accomplishment. Your words left me undone. Elevated in revelation, but broken as I gained perception of the reality of who God really is and what that means for me.

You are the most serious parts of my life and I love you.

On Loss... (Written For A Close Friend)

2009-01-09T14:10:00.004-06:00

... not that I really have anything to say.

First off, I want to assure you wise people out there that you are right - I have nothing to say that will prove to be profound about the subject of loss. However, as is the root of this post and my whole life - the Lord, the Holy Spirit speaks, gives wisdom, comforts, and carries through. So anything you think you've obtained as 'wisdom' that you find useful or good, if it really is useful and good, came from Him. Not you. And anything from this post that is truly useful and good came also from the Holy Spirit who taught it to me. And let me assure you 'wise' people out there - He is the only one who could've taught this to me.

Loss is something I'm very acquainted with. I would say I'm good at loss. Not because I've numbed myself to anything dear to me... I'm quite the opposite. I latch on and don't let go. I unhealthily hold onto the people and sentimental parts of my life with all I have. I love deeply and strongly. I give myself to anything and everything I love. Being good at loss, for me, means I've found the place worth running to. I know where to find healing. Even though I've whored after the portions apart from the Lord, He always takes me back. Being good at loss, for me, doesn't mean I'm noble. I'm quite the opposite.

About a year and a half ago, I lost the girl I was about to marry via a surprise breakup. It was an immediate loss, kind of like an accidental death, only this provided a different language of confusion and lies. But more importantly, this provided what every loss provides : an opportunity for the gaining of something more, better, dearer, of more worth. Something from the Lord.

I'm going to sound irreverent or insensitive in some respects when I tell you what I've learned. But I am confident that the Lord is energizing this word. His mercy and His grace are so offensive, especially in times when logic, effort, and gain is our defaulted defense mechanism. He tells us to boast in our weaknesses, rejoice in our sufferings, and recognize our strength amidst inability. He says the death of ourselves means life. And in a narcissistic culture, these are the most offensive things that can be said.

But I dare you, this time, this time that the Lord has once again favored you by tearing away the one thing you can't give him... I dare you to actually choose Him as your portion. Do it everyday, every moment. When you don't feel the good emotions from Him, prove yourself faithful to Him by saying, 'though He slay me, still I will trust Him.' Embrace brokenness, seeing it as an avenue of breakthrough rather than the Enemy's victory of breakdown.

To the one I wrote this for that may never read this :

I love you. I know it hurts. But I pray you don't get it back. I pray that this time the Lord does you the biggest favor of your life and keeps it from you forever. It's the name of my whole blog : "rid me of myself, I belong to you."

Lord, possess your bride. Holy Spirit cause this person to miss YOU. Not the thing they lost. May this person long only for intimacy with you. May they experience your love and your words of truth. May pain from you be the best feeling they've ever felt. And keep this avenue open, that they may know the plans you actually have for them - plans of hope. Good, perfect, pleasing plans. I speak life over this person and not death. Life over this person via death. Not death via death, but life via death. Come teach them your ways, the ways that require all that we have. Explain your jealousy and your fiery love to this person.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus, come.

22

2009-01-02T01:45:00.003-06:00

A much more profound entry by the same title written by a close friend of mine can be viewed here.

I turned 22 yesterday, on 12.31.08.

It's always interesting having a new years eve birthday, especially as I am seeing myself become more and more mystical about changes in seasons and the mile markers of life.

2 Samuel 22 popped up around the 30th, revealing that an inner cry of mine over the 2008 year has actually been recorded as a song of praise by David. In his book 'Velvet Elvis,' Rob Bell says that the greatest truth of the Bible is not that it happened, but that it happens. I believe I grasp that concept in moments like the ones where I see my reality written out in a book created thousands of years ago. The more I allow my heart to touch the Lord's, aligning my heartbeat with His, the more I see my present reality in scripture. The more I allow my heart to listen to the lies and distracting phrases of the Enemy's demonic realm, the more I forget the relevance and power of scripture.

I was in Dallas from the 29th to the evening of the 31st. I spent the day of my birthday striking (tearing down) a set for a youth conference, driving to Norman to quickly drop off my gear and grab by snowboarding clothes, then finishing the drive to Tulsa to meet my family for my birthday dinner at Outback (I drove straight to the restaurant, ran inside, and the waiter was there with my family seated, asking me what I'd like to drink). The car was definitely my office for the day, making phone calls with friends and planning out what to do for new year's eve.

Brett, Stephen, Madison, Jill and I planned to meet over at Stephen's house to mooch off his parent's church party's snacks, champagne, and wine. Gotta love being in Tulsa sometimes.

Also gotta love spiritual family. Brett, Stephen, Madison, Jill and I all go to Norman Community church. Despite being from different clusters, the Lord has aligned our hearts together, resonating in a beautiful way.

We decided to intercede and worship for a while, asking the Holy Spirit to come and bring a spirit of remembrance, thankfulness and worship. It was beautiful. God allowed us to see 2008 from His eyes, with the spirit of prophecy touching down to reveal themes, provisions, and faithfulness that all came from Him. Then, without skipping a beat, He was faithful to bring in vision, hope, and revelation for the year to come in 2009.

The rundown of 2008:

God preparing hearts through purging, refining, redeeming, etc.

God assembling the troops through divine appointments, holy organization, etc.

God equipping the leaders and warriors with the gifts of the Spirit.

The forecast of 2009:

God will allow us to harvest more fruit via an increase in healing, rebirth, and renewed relationships.

God will continue to impart gifts to people as He draws his Bride closer to Himself.

We will learn to walk with God in His blessings as He teaches and leads us by the Holy Spirit.

We will be going on the offense, taking more ground in the Kingdom exponentially.

After that, we went around to each person in the room, asking for visions, pictures, words of wisdom, etc. that would be a covering for each individual in the coming year. Without giving out the intimate details of these friends of mine, I will just say that God proved Himself faithful over and over with accurate prophetic words and an atmosphere of tangible love that left all of us craving more. We had to take a break and went downstairs for the midnight countdown, but something felt incredibly right and good about giving the new year's eve of 2008 to the Lord.

To the religious, it would seem that our initial new year's plans of running around downtown bars and venues were ruined by an obligatory, drawn out seance of sorts that made us feel better about ourselves. But for us, we were blessed by the presence of God. You see, you can't conjure up the presence. He gives it to us... we don't take it from Him. Sure, He'll always give Himself when He is asked. But beware of the religious spirit that thinks the Kingdom exists in words and methods and achievement, while being sensitive and welcoming to the Holy Spirit who desires to commune with the willing in purity and truth just as any lover does.

12.27.08

2008-12-28T01:43:00.002-06:00

The day Philip and Becky Rice began their lives together.

Gah, that's just messed up.

Here's the wedding through my eyes:

Matt (drummer from the neighborhood and stardeath), Eric (bass player from the neighborhood), and I were perched up in the balcony. Cables, computers, iPods, drums, a sampler, hand percussion, a synthesizer, delay pedals, bags and cases littered the space around the Yamaha m7CL (a digital mixing console). And right out over the rail, everyone dressed up, each ribbon and fabric placed carefully, every relative positioned in the right chair, the church was full of excited hearts and anticipating loved ones.

Weddings usually piss me off. Things are generally so pretentious. Trust me, I believe decorating and atmosphere are totally valid and always essential. I'm not talking about that stuff. I'm talking about the stench that exists too often at weddings where the relatives are uptight, the creeper uncle is checking out the bridesmaids (sorry, I don't know where that came from), the bride is worried about the unnoticeable flaw in her hair and dress, the groom is in need of a pep talk, and no one is actually happy because they drove and flew too far to just make their socially required appearance.

This wedding, however, couldn't have been more opposite of that. From the balcony, one of the musicians and I were noticing how only a small pocket of people weren't in the most lively conversation people could have in such a situation. The level of community and love existing in that one room was truly remarkable.

Then, before I could take it in, I was cued to start playing the keys that would set the mood for the whole service. You see, Phil, being a musician, and I, being his wing man in just about every musical endeavor he makes, sat together for hours writing out a score for the wedding. Yeah, like in a movie. This wedding was created to be a song. In the key of D. We tracked his vocals overlapping and swirling in falsetto notes, reverbed out to put it eerily in the distance. We spent time dialing in the synth sound I would be droning out perfectly. We discussed each movement of the music corresponding with the service.

And it worked.

I played little soft droning synth chords for a while and abruptly stopped. It was time for Becky to come walking down the aisle to Phil. Making anxious eye contact with Matt, his finger hit the sampler trigger simultaneously with his big crash, opening up a naked space where Phil's pre-recorded vocals swept the sanctuary. Two bars in, Matt, Eric and I came in big, ushering the bride in with huge, epic notes.

Things would die down, flow, anxiously wait, slow down, and immediately hasten with the corresponding event happening in the wedding. And I must say, not due to our musical talent, but rather to an atmosphere of love and the presence of the Lord, the wedding was intense. No homily (speech or sermon), no dude on acoustic guitar, no 'butterfly kisses.' Just a series of emphases being placed on the epic moments of life: the triumphal entry, the vows, the intimate communion, the prophetic and savored prayer and laying on of hands (of over 60 or so people), and the big kiss. Dang. That's pretty rich.

Heritage

2008-12-27T02:21:00.003-06:00

Philip Rice, my spiritual/prophetic father, is going to marry Becky Freeman tomorrow night. After just two and a half months of constant planning and preparing and arranging and writing and on and on... It's really going to happen. And that is just a crazy thing to begin wrapping my mind around.

Tonight we held a bachelor party for Phil at my house. Mitch Freeman (Becky's father), his sons, Sid Rice (Philip's Dad), his sons, Willis Rice (Philip's uncle), the guys of the Neighborhood (Matt, Eric, and myself), Shane Mock (Philip's spiritual father), Brett (my spiritual brother) were all in one room for a couple hours. The weight was intense.

We sat in a circle, with Phil in a nice leather chair, and each man told Philip what we thought about him and how he had changed our lives.

The part that really messed with me wasn't the cute stories. It wasn't even the prayer, although it was one of the most important prayers I've ever witnessed. It was when Philip's father talked about the heritage of the Rice family.

Phil's dad had told Phil that he reminded him of his father, Phil's grandfather a few months ago while Phil was preparing to propose to Becky. I remember when that was said, because Phil and I talked a long time about the significance of that statement. But seeing his dad actually in front of me tell Phil the same thing I had only heard second hand was powerful. Then, when Shane followed up with a picture of the spiritual heritage of his relationship to Phil, I was definitely blown away. Parts of my heart started resonating that I didn't know existed.

It clicked that Brett and I are spiritual brothers in a lineage of incredible men. The fact that Phil started calling the two of us his prophetic sons a few years ago set a part of my heart into place, and I could almost physically feel the connection being made.

As we prayed, Shane had his hand on Philip's heart, and Brett and I were overlapping our hands over his belly area. I will NEVER forget this picture. It's an image of Shane depositing things into Phil, Phil stewarding them, and channelling them into Brett and I. And behind Philip were standing the two biological fathers (his father and his uncle) that passed down a ministry of passion and faithfulness from the very beginning of Philip's life, anointing him in a very special way as the first born among his brothers.

Well, there you go. Hopefully you're getting a picture of intense love and lineage that surpasses any talent, skill, or trade. Hopefully you're being inspired to begin pouring into someone under you and multiplying your life of intimacy with Jesus into them. I know I'm inspired to do just that.

...

2008-12-19T04:06:00.003-06:00

Soak

2008-12-17T15:19:00.004-06:00

Back in the Summer of 2006, while I was a counselor at New Life Ranch, I met Philip Rice. Due to timely appointments clearly from the Lord, we found ourselves retreating to remote rooms or buildings around the camp, playing music and praying together. At this point, deep intimacy in prayer was a familiar element in Phil's life. Despite my history of leading worship for years at my hometown church and knowing there could be more than I was experiencing back then, I could hardly believe the level of God's presence and love that existed while Phil and I sat in these candle-lit rooms alone with the Lord.

I realized a few things:

- Prayer and worship are learned behaviors.

- One cannot base their knowledge of God's presence on personal experience.

- No one knows the extent to which someone can experience God's Presence.

- Although the Holy Spirit draws us in, God is a gentleman- He won't force Himself on you. You have a choice in receiving His unconditional love or rejecting it.

- We can always go deeper and know more of His presence- but we better be ready to look more and more ridiculous.

I vividly recall one night when the two of us were walking out of a dark, vacant chapel after sitting and experiencing Heavenly worship. We parted ways to go to our rooms and looking to me with a look of relaxation and rejuvenation, he said, "That was a good soak."

soak : [sohk] - verb

1. to lie in and become saturated or permeated with water or some other liquid.

2. to pass, as a liquid, through pores, holes, or the like : The rain soaked through the tear in the umbrella.

3. to be thoroughly wet.

4. to penetrate or become known to the mind or feelings. : The lesson didn't soak in.

5. to drink immoderately, esp. alcoholic beverages : They were soaking at the bar.

God doesn't want you to know about Him. He doesn't want to know about you. He desires (more than you or I ever will) for you to know Him, experience Him. He wants you to feel Him. You're doing him no favors by saying, "It's enough for me to be 'reverent' and distanced from You." Calling it emotionalism is blasphemous, grieving the Lord who is crying out for communion with His beloved- YOU.

Screw sipping on the Living Water. I wanna soak in Him. Forget moderation. I wanna get drunk on the new wine of The Spirit. (I understand that the semantics can get confusing for someone who doesn't know me, but I have no other way of putting it.) I can't keep it in. I've found the purpose of my life. The life source I have always needed and searched in all the wrong places to find.

It will look different for you than it does for me. That's the beautiful part. God has a perfect, intimate way of interacting with you. He's designed you to commune with Him in a way that is completely unique and suited for you. But understand the jealousy of Him- He wants the thing you just can't give Him, and if that means vomiting up your religious doctrine that has been encaging Him, you'll have to hang over the toilet for a while before you experience Him fully.

... and trust me- personally, I've never known such a beautiful purging.

I L0V3 0LD 5TYL3 NUMB3R5

2008-12-13T15:47:00.004-06:00

It's a designer-nerd thing, probably. Please excuse the nauseating drop shadow, I found the image on Google.

Stop Looking At The Telephone.

2008-12-13T15:15:00.002-06:00

Fascination is dangerous when learning about the prophetic or healing or anything else that is supernatural. If fascination fuels the desire to see more of God, it's incredibly easy to be led astray from the thing God desires for and from us... intimacy.

Intimacy is the central focus of God, always. He doesn't need us. We aren't practical to Him. My friend Brett made the analogy of having kids - they're expensive, needy, and easily misguided. For a good father to have kids makes no sense unless you actually love them. The Father's love for us is so intense. He didn't send His Son to die in order to fix a problem. He died to become more intimate with us.

So if He has plans to be more intimate with us, prophecy should end in the fruit of intimacy. Prophecy is a telephone - a supernatural communication with the Lord.

When you're on the phone with someone, do you get distracted that you're on the phone, too excited that a device is connecting you to someone else to focus on the conversation? Are you thinking about how it works? Are you distracted by the batteries, the microphone, the speaker, the soundwaves, and electronic signals? If you are, you're hindering the purpose of the phone.

When I first became aware that God still speaks to people, I was skeptical. When certain prophetic words of wisdom became too accurate for me to deny it anymore, I was fascinated. When I realized who the One is on the other end of the line, I was convicted of having my eyes fixed on the telephone.

May the Lord ruin our boxed-in perception of who He is and what He can do.

Design And Other Things About Me. Honestly.

2008-12-11T23:07:00.003-06:00

To my classmates and teachers :

I know it seems like I don't care at all. Reality is, I don't want to allow being a designer to negatively affect me. I don't care to impress and compete with you, allowing pride to become a presence in my life. I believe I have been given a creative mind from the Lord, but it would be disobedient to use that gifting selfishly or pridefully. I don't want to waste my life searching out my life as a designer. I want to waste my life searching out the face of God. I do believe being a good designer is pleasing to the Lord. I believe it pleases the Lord to be great- to do things well. Honestly, I'm living in a constant ebb and flow between designing well and restraining my mind from neglecting the Lord's provision in this area. My deepest desire in school right now is to live in that flowing heart that moves with the Lord and not against him. I know it will offend you (and already has) when I say I'm confident with where my designing has ended on a certain project. I guess what I'm saying in that place is that my heart is confident in the Lord. When He says I'm done, I'm done and I'm not going to stress myself out and so disobey Him. Anxiety is the opposite of prayer. The opposite of faith.

-Blake.

To everyone :

I'm not very supported by most of my family (primarily my extended family) in the realm of what I'm in school for, what my occupational 'ambitions' are, and how I'm looking at life in general. To them, I'm immature, rebellious, reckless, and a bit strange.

They think my hair is too long.

my clothes are too abnormal.

my earring is too offensive.

my political views are too liberal.

my spiritual life is too, well, spiritual.

my mannerisms are too feminine.

my ambitions are too dangerous.

my job as a musician is too inconsistent.

Basically, I'm not becoming a doctor, dentist, engineer, or electrician...

I might become a musician.

maybe a missionary.

maybe a designer.

maybe a record producer.

Maybe I'll be poor.

Maybe I won't.

I've been tempted (prior to a year and a half ago) to be 'normal' as defined by my critics. It'd be so easy. Wear normal things. Go to a normal, speaker-oriented church on Sunday mornings, get out of the Art School, stop playing so much music, and cut my hair. Sell my recording gear, focus on becoming financially stable, and throw away all the crazy charismatic, prophetic, healing, hearing-from-God books. Shut down the right side of my brain, basically.

Sometimes I can still be tempted to do that. But I believe that me keeping these things as parts of who make me who I am, holding onto the way God made me - keeping the right side of my brain active and alive, basically - is one of the central reasons God took me into the Desert.

"I'd be foolish to stop being so foolish to the people that tell me I'm foolish."

-Blake

Right Now, I'm A Little Hung Over

2008-12-11T22:45:00.004-06:00

... from the wine of the Holy Spirit.

I know, I know. I almost offend myself to say that. But I offend myself in almost being offended. What I'm saying is that the true drunkenness we can receive from the Lord should start getting a better reputation among Christians.

Q and A time:

- 'How do you know when someone is or is not experiencing the Lord in a true, pure way?'

- I don't. At least not always. And neither do you.

- 'Why do I need to look and act weird when I'm supposedly interacting with the Lord?'

- You don't. At least not always. But sometimes you do.

- 'Do you believe the Lord still heals people supernaturally and speaks to people prophetically?'

- Yes. Always.

- 'Then why are some people not healed and some prophetic words not accurate?'

- I don't know. But I won't stop praying for it. And neither should you. Many times, it's probably the intense jealousy of God, seeing if we will persevere and be steadfast lovers of Him.

(If anyone wants to pick my brain with some of these questions, I'd love to go in depth. I just feel like there are some of these things floating around a lot and wanted to make room for answers to be found and conversation to occur- maybe shake some things up.)

I'm not done writing..

Design.2

2008-12-09T17:37:00.003-06:00

It's finals week for me, which means I'm living at the art school for a few days. Here's a random design for you to see... I'll be more interesting in the near future.

(click to enlarge)

Design

2008-12-04T03:22:00.002-06:00

I don't talk about it much, but I'm in the art school at OU, studying Visual Communications. That's the fancy way of saying graphic design. 99% of the time, I'm too busy trying to keep design projects from killing my emotional and spiritual life.

Here's a design for a timeline project over the history of communication and language that I'm printing off right now, at 3:45 am.

New Horizons (Part 2 of 2)

2008-12-02T14:58:00.003-06:00

A little over a month ago, a friend of mine from high school - I'll call her Jennifer - came to Tulsa, visiting for the weekend. She had briefly communicated (via facebook wall posts) that it would be nice to sit and talk about the Lord with Brett and I, and that for the past couple years she had been running away from the Lord, finding that nothing could satisfy the deeper longings of her heart. I got to see her with some other friends of ours on Saturday night for a little while, but we didn't really get around to talking intensely about the Lord. I was about to head back to Norman with Brett on Sunday, believing the Lord would just keep pressing on her heart and reveal Himself to her more and more. As I hopped in the car with Brett, he told me Jennifer was coming with us to a prayer meeting in Edmond.

My heart leaped. I had a strange assurance that the Lord would completely redeem her that night. She was going to drive her own car to Edmond and back that night, while Brett and I were going to just keep going to Norman. I felt like it would be good to ride with Jennifer on our way to Edmond, hopefully to engage in some good conversation before the meeting. Well, the good conversation I had anticipated turned into great conversation that resonated deeply for both of us.

You see, I had just gone through a year of the Lord redeeming me and starting a revival in my life, the Lord slaying me in order for me to receive my inheritance of peace, relentless love, hope, power, etc. There is no argument about it. The Holy Spirit was literally sitting with Jennifer and I in that car for an hour and a half, pouring out themes and verses and an atmosphere of Heaven leaving us in awe of who Jesus is. I love that the Holy Spirit always glorifies the Son.

The prayer meeting was intense. A normal small group house bible study thing turned into a Jesus rave with a flip of the light switch and a cue on the sound system. It was loud. And I must admit I wasn't a huge fan of the first couple songs. But I couldn't help but feel the presence of God in that little cleared-out living room. A 50 year old man was choosing songs, pouring out all his energy vocally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. A passion for Jesus was so thick.

This opened up a beautiful time of intercession among the believers, the blessed ones and the mourning ones were receiving love from the Lord all at once. Jennifer got prayed over, and I saw it with my own eyes - she was restored. She was always known in high school for her huge smile, her bright eyes, and her laughter. What the Lord imparted to her was more than that. She simply could not stop belly laughing, enjoying the passionate unity of herself with her first love.

It's funny because just before this meeting I told Jennifer about how the Lord has a true version of every counterfeit and vice the Enemy has ever offered.

for drunkenness on alcohol : drunkenness on the 'new wine' of the Spirit

for sexual indulgence : an intimacy with the Triune God that surpasses all lust

for highs found in pills and weed : ecstasy of open visions and community with the Most High

But these are only found in the death of ourselves.

We have a backwards way of inheriting things from God. Every other inheritance depends on the person who has the inheritance dying - then it falls to you. But in this inheritance, it is we, the heirs, who die. As we die, we are filled. As we pass away, (in THIS LIFE, by dying to ourselves) we inherit the Kingdom of God. HERE. NOW. It belongs to us. NOW.

After staying the night in Norman that night, she went to Tulsa before going back to her house over 10 hours away. The Lord didn't hesitate. She, being filled by the Holy Spirit, got to witness her own brother get drunk on the new wine of the Holy Spirit and transformed instantly from a critical analyst into a prophetic lover of the Man Jesus.

Jennifer, over a month later, is still living in the presence of God. She had a deceptive but true comfort before she returned to the Lord that now only exists as she draws in deeply to the Father. The arrows of the Enemy are flying toward her like they never have before. But in her emptiness, in her unity with Jesus, in that place of refuge under the wings of the Triune God... it makes sense. It's right. It's good.

123

2008-11-23T19:28:00.003-06:00

Stephen and I were driving back to Norman from the Nine Inch Nails show at the BOK center in Tulsa last night- the most entertaining and captivating show I've ever seen in an arena.

Stephen asked me how things were going with my interactions with the Lord, and I quickly told him how distracting spirits have been creating a wall between us. I would sit down to pray and worship the Lord, and unless I was in the presence of someone else who did not have the distracting spirits around them, I would instantly be caught up in 'the cares of this world' (homework, errands, other things the Lord is doing, music, obligations), therefore ruining my time set aside for intimacy with Jesus.

The rest of the ride home, I noticed the atmosphere change, and some of the road signs and numbers were highlighted. "See Moore" appeared on a sign outside Moore, Oklahoma as I was talking to Stephen about how I knew we would 'see more' things happen if we pushed through the crap of the Enemy. "Show me the love" was on a heart surgery billboard during a discussion on being a Lover of the Lord. Finally, "123" showed up a few times on the clock and signs, reminding me of a time when Psalm 123 had spoken to me significantly (though I had forgotten what it said).

I got home and read Psalm 123, journaling about how I want to see the Lord and wait on the Lord. Feeling only a little bit successful and a little more tired (therefore a ton more defeated), I went to sleep.

I dreamt that I saw Sigur Ros play a private concert, where I got to go and meet the lead singer mid-set. Immediately after shaking his hand, he broke out into a worship set, saying the name of Jesus instead of Icelandic words.

Waking up from that felt great. I had a feeling God wanted me to worship Him for at least an hour, playing through the "()" album by Sigur Ros (my favorite prayer background music, hands down).

Seeing 1:23 pm on the oven clock and realizing the date was 11-23-08, I felt it was a good time to start seeking the Lord. I started out blessing my room with the Presence of the Lord, realizing I have 3 doors as entrances to my room that could conveniently usher in the Triune God we worship and pray to. I read Psalm 123 over and over, praying the mercy of God over myself.

Then, after about 45 minutes minimum, my mind was blown. I cracked open "My Utmost for His Highest" for the first time in a couple months or so, and the title said:

November 23

Distraction of Antipathy

"Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us:

for we are exceedingly filled with contempt."

Psalm 123:3

WHAT THE CRAP!? The signs, the clocks, the date... the very verse and topic of a book up on my shelf.

And to top it off, I looked at my other Bible I hadn't used in weeks.. yeah, the bookmark was in Psalm 123.

I don't know why God does stuff like this. I don't need to know why. All I take from this one is that God knows my heart, my thoughts, my afflictions. And He wants me to be my deliverer in this time.

These are those situations where God makes Himself physically apparent. Maybe this is a taste of Heaven on Earth. Another glimpse of the Spiritual coming into the Physical. Another reason to give up trying to make anything out to be 'coincidence.'

New Horizons (Part 1 of 2)

2008-11-18T14:30:00.006-06:00

As we prayed with His Tribe in a conference room in the City Rescue Mission last Thursday, Philip asked Jesus, "Jesus, show us where we are going."

Immediately in my spirit I saw myself on a boat, next to Jesus, looking out over the bow. His finger was pointed out in front at the dark blue horizon.

Not long after that I also just saw a glimpse of a baby.

Then, not two minutes passed and Shane (His Tribe's leader) prayed, "Jesus, you're bringing new horizons. New horizons and new life."

Prayer ended quickly after that, and in the calm stillness that comes after a great prayer, I heard (physically) a baby in its mother's arms crying as they passed by the door to the room.

This theme was definitely for many people in many ways. Quite a few new believers were being baptized in a church service following our small prayer time, for example.

But, as you could imagine, due to the imagery the Lord was giving me in the spirit and how it correlated with what was being prayed aloud, I felt the Lord had some of that ready to give to me personally.

And it's obvious. The next day, amid the everyday, expected 'Christian Inspirational' books at Borders, I found one lonely copy of Good Morning, Holy Spirit by Benny Hinn. Here would be a good time for you to read the post previous to this one. I'd been hearing about this book from friends, curriculum, stories and sermons from Bethel Church in Redding, California (a church with a heart and fruit that we as Norman Community Church are following after and contending for as our own), that it was a really good book to understanding the 'mysterious' Third Person of the Trinity.

Along with the fruit and movement happening among some of my close friends in Fort Collins, Colorado, the revelation the Lord has been giving me through this book has been paradigm-shifting... offering the 'new horizon and new life.'

And here's why:

We believe in the Trinity. The Triune God. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But understanding who the Holy Spirit is will change your life. It's been changing mine this whole year, and after beginning this book this weekend, there is a face to the One I've been interacting with. He is the precious, lovely Holy Spirit. A Person of His own, just like Jesus and the Father. All three are equal. All three are God. All three function separately and simultaneously in unison as One.

I loved this imagery:

I tell you to turn on the light. You turn on the light. But what makes the light turn on? Electricity.

God said 'Let there be light.' (Genesis 1:1-2) Jesus did it. (John 1:1) The Holy Spirit made it happen. He was the 'electricity.'

God speaks to us. Jesus does the talking. The Holy Spirit delivers the message.

The Holy Sprit is our Comforter. Our Teacher. Our Counselor. Our Helper.

The following stolen from here.

The Holy Spirit is a Person

with a personality.

referred to in personal terms : John 15:26, John 16:7-8, John 16:13-14

acting as a person acts

speaking : 1 Timothy 4:1

loving : Romans 15:30

teaching : John 14:26

interceding : Romans 8:26

The Holy Spirit is Deity

eternal : Hebrews 9:14

omnipresent : Psalm 139:7-10

omniscient, knows all things, the 'deep things of God' : 1 Corinthians 2:10-11

taught the apostles 'all things' : John 14:26, John 16:12-13

involved in Creation : Genesis 1:2, Job 33:4, Psalm 104:30

intimately associated with the Father and the Son : Matt. 28:19, 1 Cor 12:4-6, 2 Cor 13:14, 1 Peter 1:2

Some Old Testament passages attributed to YHWH as the speaker are applied to the Spirit in the New Testament : Isaiah 6:8 to Acts 28:25 and Exodus 16:7 to Hebrews 3:7-9

A Couple Thoughts On Benny Hinn

2008-11-18T13:28:00.004-06:00

This is a deep subject with much more to it than I've included here, and I understand that. But I believe we are doing (and I have been doing up until now) a huge injustice to parts of the Body by being judgmental toward people like Benny Hinn and in many discussions outright grieving the Holy Spirit by certain comments on what things 'should' or 'shouldn't' look like in the Kingdom.

If you're interested in knowing more about the Holy Spirit as the 'Third Person of the Trinity,' read Good Morning, Holy Spirit by Benny Hinn. I know, Benny Hinn... Schmuck, isn't he? I've thought so too for my whole life - even when I went 'all spiritual,' I was never okay with big crusades of some 'for real' healings and some 'fake' ones, super-shady personas with 'obvious' financial greed, not to mention the televised aspect of all of this, thinning what already sounds surface level to amount to borderline void of authenticity.

But here's the truth that offends my mind but still is the truth : God anoints people regardless of their integrity. You don't earn things with God. God gives us gifts of the Holy Spirit. Who ever deserves a gift, unless the giver is a person of conditional love? In fact, I'm coming to a place where I'm more than okay with people like Benny Hinn (those who are anointed but have no integrity- although I think people misinterpret Benny quite a bit) because the less someone deserves what God has given them a grace for, the less they can take credit for what is happening in their ministry. But enough on that, because this has nothing to do with how we should approach Benny Hinn.

Benny Hinn is not a bad person. By exposing him as a liar, thief, or actor we are doing more damage than good in the Kingdom. I've looked at his beliefs, I've read his book. There is nothing more alarming about his beliefs than those contained in the Baptist Faith and Message. If I were him, I would not be driving a cadillac (or mercedes, whatever), own a golf course (I think that's true...), a $750,000 house or sell my paperback books for more than $14.00 each... I hope. But if I did do those things, would I be wrong? You tell me where it is right for us to judge these decisions of another brother in Christ. It's not.

The other truth that offended my mind but is still true is this : The Holy Spirit, through Benny Hinn, has healed thousands (that figure's a guess...). Sure some aren't healed. But many are... As has been the case as I've prayed for people to be healed. Except my ministry thus far has been mostly based on obedience and less on fruit... meaning my ratios are less impressive than those of Hinn.

My question is : What do we do as Christians about Benny Hinn? Since he seems shady we should quench out the work of the Holy Spirit? No. We pray for him. We pray that he would have a life of integrity that matches the anointing on his life. That he would have love, as it appears in 1 Corinthians 13, which is greater than all the works, healings, words, tongues and prophecies he has given. But if people are coming to an intimate relationship with Jesus, are healed, or are given words from the Lord via Benny's anointing that cause them to fall in love with the Man Jesus, I say more power to Him.

He's freaky. He wears gaudy clothes and looks like he smells weird. He spends money weird. He steps out in faith in weird ways that seem theatrical (such as waving his jacket around and healing people with it... which isn't what he's really doing, by the way). Credible sources say his ministry is irresponsible with their monetary spending. Almost everything that happens on his stage is offensive to the mind.

Mark 16:17

"And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; the will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well."

Why is it okay for many pastors to get up every sunday and speak good things, with no signs accompanying them, but live a pretty 'acceptable' (although still human) lifestyle, and be 'a good, grounded pastor'

while some, such as the freaky Benny Hinn, Heidi Baker, John Paul Jackson, Bill Johnson, Todd Bently dudes/chicks...

speak good things, have signs and wonders accompanying them by the thousands, but live a pretty 'out there' (although still human) lifestyle, and be 'wrong?'

What if God told Benny to do everything he has been doing and Benny has been completely obedient, unwavering under the pressure of negative media and scoffing evangelicals.. and we were wrong in our judgments against him?

What a loss in the Kingdom that would be.

Which side will you err on?

Caught Up In The Crossfire

2008-11-16T14:29:00.004-06:00

I've been in the crossfire of Heaven and Hell. I've watched firsthand as the Lord put HIs hand of joy, peace, rest, and comfort on a girl who thought she'd run too far from Him to ever feel Him again. I've seen demons leap upon recently delivered friends and family to try and taint their freedom and identity. I've sat with a man on a bench and heard the Lord reveal life-altering truths that offended all the evil that had been oppressing him for months. Seconds afterward, I heard the voice of the Enemy combat those spiritual truths with logic. I've laid on the ground for hours experiencing the peace and love of God, only to rise to my feet feeling accusing, condemning, and obligating spirits physically and emotionally attack.

Heaven is a real place. Here, as well as 'up there.'

Hell is a real place. Here, as well as 'down there.'

As we contend for Heaven to come to Earth as Jesus taught us to do - "... Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven." - we naturally experience resistance from the Enemy. But I guess I'm just here to say to you it's intense. It's intensely good, freeing, and right. It's intensely powerful. But it's intensely irritating to the evil that has a grip on so many people, lulling the Body of Christ to sleep and demonizing prodigals that need to come back home to their Father God.

But the good news is we have won. The Lord purchased our fear, our guilt. At an expensive price, too...

All Satan can do is lie to us. He's the great Deceiver. Any power the Devil has over your life, be it skepticism, guilt, shame, accusation, fear, addiction, whatever... ITS ALL ROOTED IN A LIE from the Devil. No will power gets you out of a place you don't actually exist in. You aren't a bad person. You aren't chained up. You aren't addicted to anything. There is a liar telling you what is happening to you, keeping you in his captivity - telling you that God wants to discipline you for what you've been doing - that you're going to have to do things right.

And those spirits of religion, obligation, fear, and shame do not belong on you. God will not spank you for what you've done. He will throw a party for your return to Him. He is too in love with you to give you what you deserve. Since when was God's love conditional? He's always there at the foot of your bed, waiting for you to say you love Him and that He is your portion. You can't push Him away. You can wound Him... But He'll always be there. Loving you.

Be loved. Don't do anything. There's nothing you can do to be loved by God. Just be loved. Encounter His love. God doesn't want your ministry, your worship, your 'faithfulness.' He wants you. You're his Bride.

I feel like maybe one or possibly two people needed this. For those of you.... know that there really is a Satisfier. A perfect One that gives you everything you have even the slightest desire for. The One who installed those desires in you. He is burning with a Jealous Love for you. Experience His power.

Okay, that's all. I love you, whoever has read this far. :)

November

2008-11-07T19:11:00.002-06:00

Thank God October's over.

I almost lost faith last month.

If it weren't for the little kisses that came just in time, I never would've persevered.

Earlier I named October the 'Month of Remembrance.'

I think more accurately it should be named the 'Month of the Enemy's Arrows Finding Gaps in My Armor.'

So far, and I know I'm jumping the gun once again on this one, November has been named the 'Month of Freedom for the Captives.' God is in a mood to release the captives right now. Not tomorrow, not when 'it's a good time.' Right Now. Geographical areas that once were a stronghold for the Devil are being turned over to become little flames of a passion for Jesus. God is releasing the chains on hearts that have been on the run for a long time. Right now. And what is the best evidence? ('Cuz we all know emotionalism can put people in good moods and make them feel free for a while)

Here's the evidence:

The demons by the names of Religion, The Fear of Man, Accusation, Lust, Shame, and Guilt are trying to find homes. They're rearing their repulsive heads against the individuals they were demonizing, formerly creating a strange 'comfort.' Now, as we are released and the demonic is cast out of our rooms, realms, and atmospheres, they're trying to get back inside their 'homes' in new ways and we feel it as anxiety, accusation, fear, and guilt. But it's external. They have no home anymore.

So here's to you free people:

Claim your freedom over yourself. You Are Free. You Are God's. Recognize the table set before you and eat from Jesus' body and drink from his blood. Don't do anything. BE free. Be free to let your mind wander where it wants. Satan wants you to feel guilty. God wants you to be you. Don't pray. Don't read. Don't write. BE with Jesus. He'll do everything else:

such as:

Speak to you through the Bible.

Intercede for you.

Install a wailing wall heart of intercession inside you.

Impart zeal for His house on you.

Reveal perfect peace to you.

You can't do anything to make him give you these things except receive them from Him.

End Rant.

Freedom.2

2008-11-04T23:24:00.003-06:00

There's a lot of 'activity' happening right now. It seems the Enemy is out prowling around, getting pissed off by the enabled lovers of Jesus, and resorting to annoyances and other games in order to throw off our rhythms. We are to live in a rhythmic heartbeat aligned with Jesus'. We are created to live and walk in freedom. So here's a prayer for you: 'you' meaning anyone in need of freedom from the arrows of the Enemy...

Lord, Jesus. We love you. We are yours, crazed with love and drunk with love, desiring to just press our faces to your chest and hear your heartbeat. We long to spend time with you. We don't desire to do business with you as a commissioned servant. We long to just be with you until you take us wherever we need to go.

Father I pray you would break the chains on the people reading this right now. Flood their lives with peace and intimacy with you. May they find themselves in you. May they hear your voice for what it really is. May the truth of your glory and your presence not only pass by them, but envelop them and take them into a place of complete peace. In this place, begin speaking and repeating your love over them. Tell them the names you call them by. Tell them how much you dream about them. Whisper your sweet everythings into their ears gently and tell them everything is okay. Nothing is in need of worry. All disease and sickness and pain and anxiety and accusation has to fall away in your Glorious Presence.

We aren't after emotionalism. We're after the Face of God. We can't help but be entranced when we finally see your face. Steal our minds, God. Captivate our hearts. Never let us go. We have no where else to go. We have nothing else that will do. Our anxiety and our worry and our walls of protection don't work. We have no home but in You.

Thank you.

I'm in love with you.

Bless these people You've had stumble upon this post in the Name of Jesus.

Amen.

Freedom

2008-11-02T22:16:00.002-06:00

I met with my spiritual/prophetic father (Philip) and grandfather (Shane) tonight at Winan's (a coffee shop). We just sat and had coffee and talked about what the Lord has been doing. This was a great ender to October - the month of remembrance, remember? I feel like October was just a struggled, oppressive, hard-to-push-through month. A year after the purging the demons that wanted me to indulge in the fleeting 'peace' they were offering a year ago visited me for a yearly checkup to see if I would go their route or the Lord's this time. I remember having to consciously choose the wine of Holy Spirit over alcohol and intimacy with Jesus over sexual indulgence with new girls to fill the void that was created. By the enabling power of God (grace) I over and over chose the Lord. Which brought me here a year later. Now, having again put my stake in the ground and saying 'God is my portion,' I'm off to a great second November for this Revival I've found myself in.

Freedom's the theme so far these past two days. Praise God I'm not called to discipline, doctrine, obedience or abstinence.

I'm called to a life of walking in Freedom from sin. Not abstaining from it. I can't do that. But I can and will walk in Freedom from it in order to see Jesus face to face.

I'm excited.

Isaiah 55 Screenprint

2008-10-31T22:26:00.002-05:00

This is the second screenprint I'm doing. These are two separate prints that will match up with each other. The colors will change a bit, but this is the idea.

L : 'the mountains and hills will burst into song before you'

R : 'the trees of the field will clap their hands'

(click to enlarge)

Philip and Becky

2008-10-27T20:48:00.005-05:00

Are Engaged.

(click to enlarge)

More at flickr.com/blakestuddard

The Single Reason Why I've Ever Failed

2008-10-26T23:07:00.004-05:00

I waste my time TRYING...

to be creative, conjuring up design ideas for projects

to please the Lord

to find the people God wants in my life

to get words for people

to balance my schedule

to stay in touch with people

to know which people to cut out of my life

to reach out and touch people around me... 'for Christ!' (just threw up in my mouth)

to know God

to walk in righteousness

I benefit from time spent...

BEING a lover of my husband.

that's all.

its who I am. I can spend my time trying to be or do other things, but it's all wasted. You want inspiration for a school project? Put your face in the carpet, go on a walk, whatever it takes to be who you were created to be. A laid-down-lover of the Man Jesus. Aligning that will cause everything, and I mean everything... to work out exactly the way it needs to. Not the way you want it to (you could never dream of an ideal situation that can compete with what He has for you), but the way it needs to.

now stop reading blogs and hanging out on the internet and go be who you were created to be.

Speed Post

2008-10-24T21:37:00.002-05:00

Brett's on his way to pick me up to go out and meet up with some people in Tulsa.

Here's what's on my mind (not related to tonight's activities):

I want to be great...

I want to know things.

I want to hear the voice of the Lord well.

I want to know God, experience the Holy Spirit and follow Jesus well.

I want to design creatively and thoroughly.

I want to play music well.

I want to be able to speak well.

I want to listen well.

I want to be known by the people I love.

I want to read well.

Right Now, I Hate Spiders or Don't Become A Servant Of The God Who Desires Lovers.

2008-10-19T23:44:00.004-05:00

Spiders have been attacking me. They've been finding corners in my mind and weaving little webs of lies and deception, trying to destroy my trust in people and my knowledge of my identity in Christ. Today I had coffee with Brett, one of my best friends that the Lord has me in close community with, and I all of a sudden burst open the sack of lies the Great Deceiver was filling. It felt great. I felt a lift of some of the obvious oppression.

The Deceiver is Great at deceiving. He is so freaking sneaky. His lies are so misleading and we must not mistake his voice for the Voice of our Father. Spiders sneak in when you're asleep, when you're not cleaning your house, and even when you've just finished destroying their webs. They come in and find the most random but somehow perfectly unnoticed place to start taking ground.

After coffee, I went and was reunited with Blake Slatten, one of the very few people in my life I can say without a doubt I will be looking up to for the rest of my life, connected spiritually. I told him about the spiders and he prayed for me. It was great. I felt more of the oppression lifting and was incredibly blessed by his praying over me.

Then, Phil, Becky (his fiance) and I went to Edmond to a His Tribe prayer meeting. Phil and I led worship, and while we worshiped, I saw a spider run across the carpet. After soaking in the Presence for a while, Shane asked if anyone had been having a hard time the past couple weeks. I raised my hand. So did some other people.

Phil and Canaan, a friend of mine from His Tribe, began praying over me. I felt my legs give out, and right before I hit the ground Phil saw a white-ish spider run across the ground. Ramey, another friend from His Tribe, ministered to me and prayed for me while I was on the ground. He said he saw a lake full of God's Love that I was free to run and soak and drink in all that I desired. I could feel the Love of God soaking into me like I was a sponge as I remained on the carpet, full of peace.

The white-ish spider, Phil said, seemed to be a religious spirit type of liar trying to go in and weave lies about my identity and a false sense of earning the role of Lover in Christ's heart.

Sorry this post is so jumbled. Hopefully some of you are getting what happened today. If you've felt the way I have the past couple weeks, with an accuser and a deceiver weaving webs of lies in the dark corners of your mind and heart, claim the identity of Christ over your life. His love is unconditional. And that doesn't just mean it's continual. It means it doesn't take anything for Him to love you fully. Allow yourself to soak in the Love of Jesus and allow yourself to be defined by that love. Nothing else. THEN, from THAT place of being loved and desired by God... Pray. Read your Bible. Minister. Rest. Go to work/school.

Don't become a servant of the God who desires Lovers.

I Am So Hungry For You

2008-10-19T00:48:00.002-05:00

I need you so bad. I'm longing for you so badly I feel sick to my stomach. It's really hard to find you the way I'm used to finding you right now. Sometimes these times make me question what I'm looking for... Am I looking the right way? Am I going to the right places? What about the decisions I make every day? The little things... Help me get back on that track. Some of the avenues of breakthrough seem to be closed off. This intersection is beginning to feel like a change in terrain. 'I want to waste my life to search you out.' oops. I look at things I've said to you, and it freaks me out. I've said some jacked up stuff. And I know I've meant it. But sometimes I just have a freak out session trying to comprehend the things you've had me say. I say that 'you had me say' them because there is no way I could've come up with some of that stuff on my own.

'I want to waste my life to search you out.'

I guess this is the part where I search. I guess this is the part where I waste my life. my emotions. my love. my energy. my time. my mind. my night. on finding you.

'Find' by Philip Rice

If I fly on feathered wings of the dawn

Riding rapidly from time

If I say this darkness will be my fortress

You'll still find me there.

If I sail to the far side of the sea

Breaking every tide that keeps me

Keeps me in this state of mind

If I say this darkness will be my fortress

You'll still find me there.

Oh God find me there.

You'll still find me there.

Come find me there.

Won't you find me there.

Where can I go that your spirit is not there

Where can I hide from your presence Oh God

I cannot and I will not hide.

So come find me here.

I am here. I am here.

Find me here.

Find me.

Find me here.

Here I am, God

On the far side of the sea.

Come find me here

You will find me here.

Search me and know me, God.

Search me and know my thoughts.

Know my thoughts.

Know my anxious thoughts.

Come find me here.

Putting Words To What I'm Pushing Through : There's No Sex Until The Lovers Are Together

2008-10-16T22:41:00.003-05:00

I feel like I'm being called to the small things again. I'm definitely at an intersection. All red lights for now, it seems like. There are a lot of accidents that happen at intersections. Lots of cops (religious spirits) trying to direct traffic. I'm here to break the rules. If religious rules were meant to exist in the Kingdom, I'd be here to follow them. I'm not following any rule. I'm following Jesus. And he had no rules. He listened to His Father and did what he heard Him say. That's what I am here to do. I'm not here to make sure I can go right on red or that the left turn can be a yield on green or a left on arrow only. I must pray that God would shut the mouth of the Enemy trying to implant those thoughts and regulations. I pray that I would disregard the red lights altogether. This intersection only looks like an intersection. In the spirit realm I'm doing the same thing I've always been called to do: follow the voice of God. The active, present, constant voice of God.

'I'm being called to the small things again...'

- Finding the Lord in the moments. I'm done doing things right now. I'm done meeting, evangelizing, healing, feeding, and contending. I'm called to being. Being a Lover of the Man Jesus. Being possessed by my husband, the creator of Heaven and Earth. Being loved. Being in communion. Being in love with a lover who made me to be a lover just like Him. My desire to love a woman is there only to be fulfilled by the Lover of all lovers right now. The answer to all of life's questions has one answer : and it's not about us doing anything. It's about being who we were created to be by loving Love. The One who embodies love. The One who has no love language because He is love.

______________

- Obviously, from that place, we automatically go out and minister, meet, pray, heal, feed, and contend... but there's no food to eat before the meal is set out on the table. There's no effect before the cause. There's no prophecy before the spirit of prophecy falls. There's no sex until the lovers are together.

...

2008-10-16T02:01:00.004-05:00

(click to enlarge)

This Feels Good or The Authority Of Our Pinky Fingers

2008-10-15T18:00:00.003-05:00

I've been pushing through something. I've experienced a lot of resistance from the Enemy lately. He'll creep into my dreams and whisper in my ear when I'm focusing my mind on the Lord. He'll distract and deceive his way into my thoughts and try to knock me off alignment with Jesus. Even now, I feel him trying to put my mind on the 'to do' list that somehow disappears when I get up from a form of worship or connecting with God. It's a strange sensation to be intent on talking with the Lord, and then something pops in your mind that makes you tend to an 'urgent' issue, and then all of a sudden the issue is much less important once you walk away from the posture of worship and prayer.

It's hard.

But it feels good.

Because :

Psalm 27:2

'When evildoers assail me to eat up my flesh, my adversaries and foes, it is they who stumble and fall.'

I will not stumble. The Enemy will. The demonic realm falls. And will continue to fall. Because of Psalm 27:1. 'The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold/refuge of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?' v. 3: Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war arise against me, yet I will be confident.'

Satan has power but no authority. We have power and authority. We can give Satan power, but he has to steal it from us via deception. We must repeat the truth with the authority we have, and at the name of Jesus, demons go running back to Hell. The more we do this, the more we are faced with, but the more we are communing with our Father, our Lover, our Husband. Let us not be surprised by oppression when we press in to the Lord. We must expect it. Then we can also expect to speak out in authority against The Liar. We can also expect to trample the heads of the snakes (the religious spirit) and the scorpions and the spiders. I don't know about you, but I've got a lot of snakes and scorpions and spiders to go trample. I'll be right back. This won't be long. We have more authority in our pinky finger than all of Hell and it's disgusting, deceptive, repulsive inhabitants.

'The Year of Death and Rebirth'

2008-10-15T01:03:00.004-05:00

There's been a shift in seasons recently. Quick recap of the past year :

October : The Lord takes me into the desert via a painful, abrupt, hi-jacking style of purging... See post : 'The Desert' for details. I watch daily at His doors, and He is faithful to be All Sufficient One in my loneliness.

November : He appoints me as leader of a mission team to Africa in the midst of my weakness. Simultaneously, He gives me a heart for the homeless and addicted of urban OKC. (the refuge)

December : I turn 21 years old and decide to not have a drink of alcohol until at least a year goes by. I want the wine of the Holy Spirit. I want the pearl of great price. Not painted slivers of glass.

January - February : He calls me to reckless abandon in following Him to a mission training school in Waco for the next couple years of my life, and I say 'yes.'

March : I tattoo 'rid me' on myself along with Blake Slatten, claiming it as the theme of my life. (refers to a song lyric, "rid me of myself; I belong to you")

April : The Lord anoints The Neighborhood, a rock and roll band I play in at various bars, venues, and festivals. Publicity and favor with the press and artists spikes.

May : The Lord takes the team to Mozambique, Africa- blowing our minds and confusing us at the same time.

June - July : On the road around the U.S. with Nick Thurmond Band, running sound and recovering from a 12 - hour period of being back from Africa prior to hopping in the tour van.

August : The Lord doesn't have me follow through with the steps to go to Waco. Then I meet a girl the last week of the tour, and we are immediately attracted to each other.

September : The girl and I stop dating each other... Details omitted. All you need to know is it was all good and still is good. I learn more about what it means to be prophetic. Norman Community (my church) is reaping a harvest of healings and other breakthroughs from God, aligning perfectly with my life.

October : Here we are. In the middle of it. I'm having a terribly hard time putting a theme to it... Maybe its the month of remembrance. That would definitely make a lot of sense. It's been a year since the fire started. I am on my 5th journal since then. I could not ask for a better year of my life. 'Epic' doesn't do it justice. Neither does 'Mindblowing.' Maybe 'Indescribable' will suffice for now. Maybe I can name it 'the year of- something.' 'The Year of Provision.' 'The Year of Death and Rebirth.'

what a year.

Yom Kippur

2008-10-08T16:55:00.004-05:00

this is a sketch of the next screenprint I'm making. The dark type is stuff the Lord said to me, and the light type is made up of song lyrics that directly spoke to me over the past year. The lighter refers to the fire I found myself in a year ago tomorrow. Even though it's not the most technically appealing piece I've ever done, it's definitely the most important thing I've ever made, and the best part is no one will never know it. Unless they read this. Oh, and the colors went crazy when I exported the .jpg, it's actually brown and beige with a purple lighter. But I kinda like these colors. We'll see what happens by Monday (when the project is due).

I Want To Get Drunk

2008-10-05T02:31:00.003-05:00

I've been drunk before. Not very many times, but definitely a few. I'm not used to it, so whenever I'm starting to get drunk, it always sneaks up on me. I don't know how to enjoy it the way many people who get drunk all the time do, but I want to learn. There is nothing better than that feeling. I long for that feeling more than almost any other feeling in the world. It's like ecstasy or something. Which I'm really wanting to do to. I'm so desperate to feel the feeling of ecstasy. I know people who experience ecstasy, and it fries them. They seem to get dumber and dumber but somehow it appeals to me deeply. They're only dumber about things that don't matter anyway, like being in tune with 'reality.'

Okay, I'll stop talking in code. But only to let you in on the place I'm coming from which makes the above paragraph so literal. Many of you know exactly what I'm saying here. Many of you think I'm crazy. I don't know why I'm saying 'many' when only two or three of you will even read this. I guess I don't really care if you're reading this or not...

Everything. EVERYTHING. Everything in the kingdom worth desiring has been counterfeited by the Enemy. Drunkenness and ecstasy are just two of them. And I'm not gonna act like I don't want to feel ecstasy and drunkenness. I'd be living a lie to walk toward a sober lifestyle and pretend to be completely okay with it. I'm not okay with it. I'm not okay (and I believe NONE of us should be okay) with not getting drunk with love before the Lord. I know you're saying to yourself, 'Oh, okay, I get it... drunk with love. Like in the Bible. Yeah, okay, it's good to be warm and fuzzy in love with God.'

But let me correct you : I want to fall on the ground dizzy. I want to feel hungover in the morning. I want to slur my speech. I want to stumble around and laugh and sing songs at the top of my lungs. I want to get drunk on the wine of the Holy Spirit. And I want you to know that. I want it to be a part of my life.

If I believe in the Bible, I believe some jacked up stuff. If I literally believe what it says (which I do), then these are some of the things I believe in :

teleportation (yeah, like people disappearing and reappearing in other places) - Acts 8

..... (I was going to type out some other ones but thought that was crazy enough to swallow by itself)

I'm not trying to prove anything. I'm just saying how I'm feeling and hopefully giving some insight into how 'crazy' I may be, which is what's making me feel that way.

That is all for now. In the meantime, hopefully I'll be getting pretty plastered.

I'm Going To Write More Poetry

2008-09-29T22:25:00.003-05:00

Maybe I'll post some of it on here.

I'm not sure yet.

I'm not great at it. I don't know big words.

All I know is I just did a little bit of it and it felt really good.

But for some weird reason I feel like the Lord is having me interact with Him this way for a while. Maybe it's part of 'my debriefing' (whatever that overused term really means, I have no clue). Maybe it's a time of being artistic and creative in how I express what He is doing. I don't know.

'I just don't know.'

That's a phrase I've been using the past few months more than I ever have in my entire life.

The Refuge

2008-09-21T21:23:00.002-05:00

About two months into my desert a year ago (so around the beginning of December), the Lord took me to the Refuge for the first time. I remember the cold weather, the creaking stairs and the ruined carpet. I remember the industrial beige paint that was concealing the blood-stained walls, the dust-outlines of drug paraphernalia and the smell of rotten food in the abandoned refrigerators. I remember the looks on our faces as we listened to Tim tell us the horror stories of each of the 25 rooms- especially when we came to one of the prostitutes' 3.5'x12' rooms with baby toys till lined up by the doorway. Tim kept saying, 'You don't know how you wound up here, do you? That's so awesome. That's how it starts. God's bringing us some warriors. I can tell you are warriors.'

I found it funny that he called us warriors, because all of us were in shock, our mouths hanging open, our eyes bulging, our heads shaking, our fingers quivering and the weight of the story gluing our feet to the ground. He's prophetic, so maybe he could see past the helpless appearance we couldn't hold back, maybe he could see that we all were coming from a place of brokenness in our hearts. Maybe he could see that these nine college students who just met each other 'randomly' the week before were desperate for God to fill them- because after all, He was the one who had just recently broke them.

So I had found myself in this building that once was a crack-house. I thought we were just going to hang out with homeless people and use our Saturday leisure time to do it, intending to sacrifice it 'for the Kingdom,' but God decided to have us meet Tim and receive a heart for the Refuge that day.

The Refuge is a developing ministry in the homeless community of Oklahoma City. Its building was a highly powered crack-house less than a year and a half ago, and being the neighbor to the city's largest rescue mission, it enabled the addicted that would feed off the rescue mission's provision of food and shelter to stay locked in the cycle of drug-addicted homelessness. At one point, the crack-house was the destination of +60 percent of all 911 calls in OKC and trafficked over a million dollars of drugs a week. Inside its walls dwelled prostitutes, pimps, gang members and leaders, murderers, thieves, con-men drug dealers and drug lords. Porn, the production of meth, cocaine, acid, ecstasy, and heroin... you name it, it was happening here. It was 'the place to be' if you wanted any of it.

These are some of the quotes I have burned in my brain from walking and talking with people who know about this place :

"One of America's Most Wanted was squatting in this room, and as police were chasing him, they through a smoke bomb through a window. He had just murdered someone and raped one of the prostitutes that lived here."

"Someone committed suicide in this closet right over here." (the whole room was black and grey from smoke, the closet being the source of a fire caused by an explosion that tore through the walls)

"This was the lookout room where pimps and gang members would watch for their prostitutes, gang members, drug dealers and cops, so they could be ready."

"They'd make porn in here. I met a girl who said she lived here when they would all take x and lay around naked, watching each other have sex."

But that's the past. Here's what has happened since a year and a half ago :

Tim, the recent owner of the building, bought it a couple years ago as an investor. He lived in California at the time, and when he heard about what was going on, had the SWAT team come in and ransack the place, kicking everyone out and leaving it vacant for Tim to go in and start from scratch, claiming the building as a temple for the Lord. A few times as Tim would be cleaning and praying over a certain room, the tenant or squatter who used to live in that room would come in to the building, up the stairs, and break down in repentance before Tim, calling him an angel from God. Tim would unclog pipes from underneath the floor to find it was a jam of drugs, pipes, broken bongs, and porn material that had caused it.

Each time Tim or one of the 'warriors' God brought to the Refuge would unclog a pipe, paint a wall, or rip up a hallway of carpet, God was busy in the Spirit Realm flowing into what once was clogged, making white what once was blood-stained, and re-flooring what once was a ruined foundation. God is still doing this, everyday. Families (mostly middle to upper class citizens) from California and Oklahoma are selling all they have and moving to The Refuge on California Avenue (funny 'coincidence', huh?) to see that God does what He wants to do in the homeless and addicted community of Oklahoma City.

"Let's Talk... About Spiritual Puberty"

2008-09-18T13:16:00.003-05:00

That's how I began my new journal. I've recently realized that I have a lot of things to process, and being the introvert I am, I decided a few days ago to get alone and talk with God. It's been a year full of aloneness with the Lord, but the summer hit me and left me before I could think twice about anything that happened within it. Don't get me wrong - I journaled like a crazy person (as is the pattern this year) the whole time. But somehow, perhaps due to the rapid fire of changes and movements happening in the last three months or so, I've got a bunch of suppressed crap I need to deal with. Okay, it's not crap, but it's a lot of stuff.

So I decided to get alone and have some talks with the Lord, focused and centered, 'in monk - mode' as Phil would describe it. I've discovered it's how prophetic people run away and approach God. And here is a taste of the surprising things I got back from the Lord as I heard him speak just moments after turning to Him this way :

I've learned some more of what it means to be an introvert

It means that after a long day full of people and interactions and work, I want to run home and be alone and introspective, processing the day I just had, getting a hold on myself and spending time to know how that relates to what is to come. Extroverts would come home from that to talk it up with their roommates and process out loud.

This has caused a blockage in me at this point because of the lack of time and availability of my heart to adjust and face the things I found myself doing (touring the midwest with a worship band 12 hours after landing in the States from Africa being the biggie). I realized last weekend that I haven't debriefed yet from a trip that happened almost 4 months ago, and that in and of itself stung a little bit.

I've learned some more of what it means to be prophetic

It means that I am susceptible to getting attached to and defined by an identity (usually in a desert situation) that I have been operating in for a while. Example : I entered a desert almost a year ago and it changed my life. The phrases used to describe that place are : perseverance, faithfulness in little, seeking the Face of God, prolonged intimacy with God in the quiet places. Due to the life and presence of God exuding from that season, I am dealing with how to feel okay in new seasons. Prophetic people pray, contending for God to come, and when He comes, many prophetic people don't know what to do or how to adjust in rhythm with what is happening. This is where God wants us to grow. He wants us to function in the body. Sure, some prophetic heroes have spent decades in the desert, but the Body of Christ needs prophetic people as much as the extroverted evangelists and teachers.

To sum up, I am being called to find my secret place with God in the midst of relationships and if I don't learn this, I will not grow the way I need to. We have to be stretched to grow.

I was expecting God to receive me a few days ago in the dark room with candles and quiet walks with pastoral figures in my life and tell me how proud He was that I had chosen to be alone with Him. Instead, He has told me I need to learn how to operate from a place of intimacy and rest in the midst of people and relationships.

I guess it makes sense. I've been describing the past month of my life as 'Spiritual Puberty' because I know I'm growing and moving into a more mature place than I have been this past year, but everything I'm doing feels wrong and awkward and new. I don't know what to do with all the newness (moving into a Rock and Roll Band house in Norman away from the old house that was a sanctuary of solitude with a lake, separated from any trace of OU Campus' stench being the biggie).

But s l o w l y , I'm learning. And it feels good.

911

2008-09-11T12:34:00.003-05:00

no, I'm not going to talk about the falling of the twin towers.

911 means change. A shift in what is going on at the moment. I can't sit and make a theology about it (I don't think that way), but for me I just have come to realize that's what it means.

Here's what I want to talk about, and it's kind of about 911 (the number, not the event) : The Religious Spirit. The one who wants to terrorize our rhythm with Jesus, especially in seasons of change.

I've recently been in constant conflict and all out fist fights with the Religious Spirit. It has been waiting for me around every corner of the past few months, ready to pounce on me and distract me from what I need to be doing. The biggest lie of the Religious Spirit is, 'You can't do that. That's not how it goes. You're not staying in the lines. These things don't add up the way they should.'

The Religious Spirit is an accuser. It is from Hell. It accuses people of doing the wrong thing when they are in fact right where they are supposed to be. The Religious Spirit sees people who are earnestly seeking the Lord's Face and wants to snatch them from His Hand. The Religious Spirit is really tricky, showing up in the conversations of close friends and relatives that you know are meaning well. But in your heart, the Lord is telling you to keep being messy, keep pissing off the Religious Spirit, keep doing the things that His Presence is taking you to, trust that you are listening to His Voice.

If we are not moving toward a place of conscious conversation with God one on one, and at some point facing attacks that test the authenticity and accuracy of that exchange, then we are not in the right place.

Many times I hear people question : ' How do you know the Lord told you that? '

My answer : ' Because I believe I can know His Voice, and that you can too. I believe it takes practice, and a lot of messing up, and sure it's possible that this is a mess up, but I have faith that it is not. We can be and are called to be confident in what God is saying to us. '

My friend Aaron Jaqua (who I ran into today - such a blessing from God) just told me a story :

A guy from Bethel Church in Redding, CA who was wanting to grow in the Prophetic (the gifting of hearing from God) would go into neighborhoods, stand in front of houses, and wait. He'd wait on hearing God's voice. He'd listen for names, ailments that needed healing, etc. and when he'd feel like it, he'd walk up, ring the bell, and ask for the things he got words for. If it was wrong, he'd go, stand in front of the next house, and try again. After a while, he became more and more in tune with the Lord. I've heard that now he is incredibly accurate incredibly often.

Here's what the Religious Spirit would say here :

' I'm skeptical of where he's getting this supernatural power (it's probably a coincidence-based thing anyway), because it seems people either have a gifting or they don't. '

Here's what the Holy Spirit says here :

' I am and always have been more interested in the process of things than the ends of things. I'm so much more interested in loving and being close to my people than seeing my people do things for me. I'm calling you to intimacy, and that intimacy brings fruit. Supernatural fruit. '

Well, for now, that's it. Let's see if there is anything religious in us and burn it. To the ground. And bury it. Forever. And fall in love with the person of Jesus, following Him and not doctrine. Are we afraid of the discomfort of being out of control? Relinquish control. It feels wrong in our hands because it was never supposed to be there.

55th post anniversary

2008-09-04T13:36:00.002-05:00

I like the number 55. It seems to show up at very specific times, and always reminds me of the 55th chapter of Isaiah. But I'm not going to talk about that. Here's what I'm going to talk about:

* Fear

* Supernatural Healing

* Chick-Fil-A

* Vintage Road Bikes

* Forever 21

Fear : This is the theme of the past month for me and a few of my closest friends. Here's the phrase I keep hearing from the Lord : "Don't do anything out of the fear of man, fear of the Enemy, or fear of anything else. Do things out of the Love I give." We are to move, make decisions, and take ground because of the love the of Lord. If we keep doing things out of the fear of doing the wrong thing, we'll never get where we need to be going. God's love should be the thing fueling our decisions and nothing else. We can then move in confidence and peace.

Supernatural Healing : I see it happening in the community I'm surrounded by more now than I ever have. There is a definite increase in the awareness of the Presence of God around Norman Community Church and the people affected by them. People are being healed everyday it seems like. Stories that did not really exist before are now expected in large numbers each time I am at church. Prophetic words and words of knowledge are becoming more and more common and direct. God is touching people in a different way than the recent past. And that is something to be rejoicing in. (much more to be said about this stuff later).

Chick-Fil-A : My good friend Stephen Pyle stayed up all night from 5pm yesterday to 6am this morning in order to get free Chick-Fil-A for a year. He invited me, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I should have. I'm excited to hear about how that went.

Vintage Road Bikes : I like them. I am riding Philip's to school each day, and I'm planning on buying one. Let me know if you know of one someone is trying to get rid of.

Forever 21 : Cheap, well designed clothes. They need more menswear in the ones here, even though we're not as cool as other, larger city people.

That's it for now. Random, I know.

Things That Have Happened Since I Last Posted:

2008-08-25T17:59:00.003-05:00

*Moved into a new house.

*Made progress on the Phil Rice worship record.

*Practiced with the Neighborhood, overhauling all of our songs to be more keys-driven (synth bass, etc.) due to the temporary loss of the bass player (full ride to Berkley in California for grad school).

*Attended a few prayer meetings, one of which consisting of me getting pretty much zapped by Holy Sprit. It was awesome... needless to say.

*Continued having great talks with Brett, Stephen, and Phil about how the Lord is moving.

*Witnessed the 'Spiritual Water Level' of Norman Community rise to a place of a heightened awareness of the Lord's Presence.

8.8.08

2008-08-08T13:20:00.002-05:00

Today is great. It started for me around noon. Last night I stayed up until 4:45 with my roommate Joe, reminiscing on the past year. This year has been nuts. SO freaking crazy. Anyway, that has nothing to do with what I'm about to type. I'm just gonna type out today's page of 'Utmost for His Highest' because it was incredible today.. okay? okay.

"If the Son of God is born into my mortal flesh, is HIs holy innocence and simplicity and oneness with the Father getting a chance to manifest itself in me? [1] What was true of the Virgin Mary in the historic introduction of God's Son into this earth is true in every saint. The Son of God is born into me by the direct act of God; then I as a child of God have to exercise the right of a child, the right of being always face to face with my Father.

[2] Am I continually saying with amazement to my common-sense life- why do you want to turn me off here? Don't you know that I must be about my Father's business? Whatever the circumstances may be, that Holy Innocent Eternal Child must be in contact with His Father. Am I simple enough to identify myself with my Lord in this way? Is He getting His wonderful way in me? Is God realizing that His Son is formed in me, or have I carefully put Him on one side? Oh, the clamor of these days! [3] Everyone is clamoring- for what? For the Son of God to be put to death. There is no room here for the Son of God just now, no room for quiet holy communion with the Father. Is the Son of God praying in me or am I dictating to Him? [4] Is He ministering in me as He did in the days of His flesh?

Is the Son of God in me going through His passion for His own purposes? The more one knows of the inner life of God's ripest saints, the more one sees what God's purpose is- 'filling up that which is behind of the affliction of Christ.' There is always something to be done in the sense of 'filling up.'"

[1]: God is actually manifesting Himself in the flesh the same way He did in Mary... Sorry to piss off people who think of Mary as someone lifted higher than any other human.. I just don't believe that. For me to believe that would mean that Jesus isn't being presented in the same powerful way that He was when He was born in the physical realm. If the spirit realm is more real and more present than the physical realm (which I believe completely), then Jesus being made 'flesh' via our lives as vessels means Jesus is at least just as present now as He was 2000 years ago. So I guess in that sense we are at least just as privileged as the Virgin Mary.

[2]: My mind gets me into trouble. I think logically about what God is doing, and I lose my balance. It happened just last night. I allowed my common sense to be deceived by Deceiver, and it wasn't until I allowed Jesus to speak to me via my heart- not my mind- that I realized the reality of what was going on. 'My Father's business' is crazy. It doesn't make sense. It never will unless we allow Holy Spirit to give us the Mind of Christ, which goes against all our human thoughts, ideas, convictions, motives, and especially logic. We will never be able to conjure up Jesus' thoughts as our own, so let's stop trying.

[3]: It just hit me as I read it: Just like the crowds were chanting, 'Crucify Him!' 2000 years ago, Enemy once again has the masses crying out for the death of Jesus. It's more intense now, though, because Deceiver has captured so many minds and has them chanting this phrase in a much deeper, hidden way. I'm not talking about the street corner Marilyn Manson fan flipping off church buses. I find that to be rather cute compared to the toxic, Spirit-quenching sermon to help the congregation feel comfortable with their Spirit-quenching lives, enabling their materialism and passivity. Some of these sermons I've heard make me want to expose the real message behind them: 'Crucify Him! Live your comfortable, glazed-over, Christian™ life and kill Jesus! Become so irrelevant and Spiritless to a point where you are driving people away from Him just by the way you are living. Just make sure you tithe...'

[4]: Let's ask that next time we pray... 'Jesus, are you as present and touching people through me the same way you did when you walked here in your flesh?'

142

2008-08-04T02:03:00.002-05:00

Psalm 142:5

'I cry to you, O Lord;

I say, 'You are my refuge,

My portion in the land of the living.'

Allotment

Ration

Inheritance

Fortune

Endowment

Distribution

You are all-sufficient for me. Everything else is a refuge of lies and a portion of no value.

Choosing Brokenness or Resenting God's Blessings

2008-08-01T16:33:00.004-05:00

This is a moment in my life where I'm being blessed immensely. And that terrifies me.

Sometimes I hate seasons of blessing. It means God is testing me to see if I'll choose brokenness over the success or provision He is giving me.

I'm not saying we should act like God isn't blessing us when he really is. I'm not saying we should be passive with the blessing He is giving us either. Which is why this crap is so hard. Which is why I hate seasons of blessing so much. Sometimes.

I just know how I've squandered the Lord's blessing in my past, and I know how good it feels to be desperately hungry for the Presence of God only to be filled just to the point where He is all you know. It's much better for Him to be your only source than for His blessings to be the things you find strength in. Even though they're from Him, they're just things. It's like how we shouldn't worship angels, but only God.. Sort of. We shouldn't rely on the presence of angels (or a relationship with a loved one) for our joy.

As I've said before, and I LOVE saying this: Pain from the Lord is so much better than pleasure from anything else. Even the things He's given us.

I read this today while I was walking with Jesus:

Psalm 144 (I'm gonna have to do a couple future posts on other parts of this Psalm, it's great)

v. 9 'I sing a new song to you, O God...'

I'm entering into a new place in so many ways. My 'song' (the way I approach Him) can't be the same as it was before, just longing for things to be familiar again. I must accept that God has brought me to a new place and now I have to allow Him to reign over it the same way He did in my past place, knowing it will feel and look much different.

vv. 12-14 (paraphrasing) 'Lord, bless the crap out of me, make everything great in my life. Make every aspect of each area of my life successful and good. Fill my stomach and my storehouse, even make my livestock comfortable as they give birth.'

Crazy. I usually think I'm being selfish and shallow praying like that. But what's cool is that in a verse before these two, David says that God is the one 'who gives victory to kings, who rescues David his servant from the cruel sword.' This makes me give David a little more slack- he's praying for God's blessing over his life after having experienced His Provision and Love in a huge, intimate way. I trust that David's asking for the blessings was out of a pure heart that wanted to worship the Lord with the blessing, and asked this of Him out of a knowledge of His Goodness and Authority to be the only one who could provide it in a way that would keep David safe from squandering it.

When God blesses us during an intimate relationship with Him, He gives us good things that cause us to worship Him and seek Him more. Well, maybe I should say He gives us good things that we have the option of choosing to find fulfillment from the blessing itself or the Provider. But when we choose fulfillment and happiness from the Provider, the blessing acts as amplification in that exchange. SO good.

I'm in a place of asking the Lord to help me handle blessings the right way. I'd say I'm a pro at being broken. I can take beating after beating and not run to the world's band-aids. But that's not really as noble and impressive as I just made it sound. It's actually pretty weak. I just know that God is the only one who can satisfy, so one could really just say I'm running to the only band-aid that works.

The place where are hearts are tested are the places where God blesses us. Sure, it's good to have run to God when you were hurting instead of alcohol, weed, sex, porn, whatever. But I'm finding (now that I'm experiencing it) that a deeper, truer test of the heart is happening right now as God is pouring out so much blessing on me that I don't have enough room for it (Malachi 3:10). His hand is outstretched, and there's a blessing in it. It's beautiful. It's exactly what I told Him I wanted, every detail, that one time when He asked me what I wanted in a blessing-- every single detail. Now I have a choice to look at it- ITS SO BEAUTIFUL!!- or at His Face. As Stephen Pyle once told me, I am to pray: "I don't know what to do, but my eyes are on You." EVERY time we don't know what to do, we must fix our eyes on the Lord. That is ALWAYS the right thing to do.

People in the Bible are CONSTANTLY faced with this option (I didn't realize it happened so much until I read it from a place of brokenness), and I am a believer of the idea that if something is repeated in the word of God, it's pretty freaking important. So let's not take this lightly.

Here's the last verse of Psalm 144 that I found myself repeating over and over today:

v. 15 'Blessed are the people to whom such blessings fall! Blessed are the people whose God is the Lord!'

It feels like if I were David and I was to write a Psalm 144 I would have written: 'Tested are the people to whom such blessings fall!'

Luke 12:48 '... Everyone to whom much has been given, of him much will be required...'

Dangsies. Talk about responsibility.

Satisfaction

2008-07-30T16:42:00.003-05:00

Words from 'Utmost for His Highest' by Oswald Chambers in today's devotional:

"The refusal to be disillusioned is the cause of much of the suffering in human life. It works this way- if we love a human being and do not love God, we demand of [that person] every perfection and every rectitude, and when we do not get it we become cruel and vindictive; we are demanding of a human being that which he or she cannot give. There is only one Being Who can satisfy the last aching abyss of the human heart, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Why our Lord is apparently so severe regarding every human relationship is because He knows that every relationship not based on loyalty to Himself will end in disaster. Our Lord trusted no man, yet He was never suspicious, never bitter. Our Lord's confidence in God and in what His grace could do for any man, was so perfect that he despaired of no one. If our trust is placed in human beings, we shall end in despairing of everyone."

We should never trust ANYONE... hmm. weird.

Oswald Chambers is not Jesus, so we shouldn't just take him at his word, but I think I agree with this statement. Since we are all fallen people, we should never trust anyone with the things we need from God. I know, now you're saying, 'oh, well yeah, duh.' but wait a second.

How many of us are trusting God for everything that we need?

I'm not.

I can't. It's too hard. It requires too much faith. Not a day goes by where I don't allow at least one person to speak life in the form of a compliment to me and for at least a second I am illusioned by what they said. I have to constantly be in prayer about this, because if I allow myself to exist in that moment after someone said I was good or talented or anointed at something, I'm trusting them for the identity I must be given by Jesus. Now, I know God locks His word up in the mouth of a friend many times, but we must be careful to recognize it not only as a word from Him, but as His mouth that is speaking it... just through someone.

Welp, that's about it for today.

God Is Crazy.

2008-07-29T16:06:00.002-05:00

Wow. What a mysterious, terrifyingly close God we have... Or rather, that has us.

It's 4:15ish... pm.

I'm so floored, almost paralyzed by the awe I'm in of Him. It's physically hard to lift fingers to type.

I feel like I just took a couple drags of marijuana, really.. heavy. But good. Very good. So bear with me as I try to make sense.

Here's what I've come to from events of the past couple days, this day, this moment, being just as intense:

*God speaks via the clouds, trees, wind, voices of friends, numbers on our clocks, license plates and odometers, the words stitched on the backs of people's hats, the cop car, ambulance or fire truck that just pulled by you, even through music featuring a made up language of an icelandic-speaking homosexual.

Here are just a couple events over the past few days that have revealed these venues of God's voice:

Sunday:

My friend Alex has a thing for trees... She loves how they grow up, reaching up and worshiping the Lord with their existence. I've found They are waiting for the Lord to let His wind push them and have them clap their hands for Him in worship (Isaiah 55). She told me this at lunch along with Blake Slatten, and that night at cluster a man had a vision of a tree in the middle of the room, with leaves that are for healing, available to people who are in need of His Touch (Revelation 22).

Monday:

She and I sat on boot hill in Yukon, in awe, because as we thanked the Lord for the wind, He increased the intensity of it, multiple times. At that moment, we looked to the right, and the sun peeked out from behind a sky filled with clouds. Then, 10 birds that were completely white flew from right to left across our field of view (hadn't seen any like these all day, or after this moment). Then, looking back right, the sun made rays underneath the clouds. Incredible.

I got a pain in my hips right before we were going to watch Batman: Dark Night, and when I sat down in my seat, the back of a man's hat in front of me just said 'Payne.' He was one of only three other people in the theatre. I had listened to Zach Payne's record earlier, and I was in pain, so that was cute I guess. Not real pleasant, and I'm not gonna try and interpret the event, but I'm just saying... God's everywhere.

Then, when I was about to drive back to Norman, my odometer read 77055. Psalm 77 and Isaiah 55 are both very close to me.. also extremely relevant to the day.

In the car, I probably saw 10 or so numbers that directly spoke to me. One of which was my birthdate, 12:31, as I asked the Lord if this was what he had planned for me for that day. It's cool, too, because Luke 12:31 says, 'Instead, seek His Kingdom, and these things will be added to you.' Which for me is huge because God has put this juicy plate of food in front of me at his dining table, and He's testing to see if I will keep my eyes on His Face instead of some blessing He's offering. He's after me.

He's after you.

He is a jealous lover running after you. (Phil Rice song 'Hallelujah')

Today:

Talked with Bo in the car to see Blake at Plaid about the parallels God puts in our lives, like when you see a flask or something in a catalog and someone gives one to you the next day who is a complete stranger. (I'm trying to paraphrase and just give you the relevant stuff, but I think you know the little blip weird moments I'm talking about.... Oh yeah, I guess some people use the word 'coincidence'... hahaha, riight.) For some reason, I thought to say something about my pastor, Ken. When Bo and I walked into Plaid, Ken was sitting at a booth, eating his lunch.

Then I walked with the Lord around my Lake and I was going to look up a certain passage, but it fell open to Isaiah 55, and as I read through it, Holy Spirit just blew my mind with how he has made that chapter alive to me these last three days.

Then I talked to Brett on the phone (He's 24 hours from coming home from Israel!). He brought up 'out of the blue' the passage about Elisha and Elijah and asking for a double portion. 2 hours prior to this, I was reading Experiencing God (a devotional) and guess what the title was... "A double portion." The reference verse was the same thing Brett brought up!

Then he brought up the story of Joseph, saying he thought of me because it's my middle name. Just last night, Alex asked me what my middle name was. A question I hadn't been asked in months at least.

Moral of today's story: The Lord is speaking to you (clock says 4:55 right now). He even timed my typing this to land on 55. He's a jealous lover running after you. He wants you to know that there are no coincidences. You are being irreverent to the Lord to say there are. God is in control. When you are living in intimacy with Him, it makes much more sense, so just tap into it. Surrender control. Release the reigns. Keep your eyes on His Face and off the blessing.

Anything that penetrates, resonates, communicates, comforts, challenges, or convicts you about this post is not from me. It's the Lord using my heavy fingers to speak very specifically and intimately with you.

Thank you's to the empty people that allowed God to use them so I could hear from Him:

Phil Rice

Stephen Pyle

Madison Kerner

Blake Slatten

Bo Walbrick

Brett Colclasure

Alex Ford

Please stay empty, you seven. God's doing miracles through you.

Hearing God In All The Non-Religious Places

2008-07-26T00:44:00.002-05:00

I was about to go to sleep, but couldn't wait to write this:

Just got off the phone with Madison. It was awesome. The Lord definitely knew what He was doing when He had us lead that trip together... Mostly because it wasn't the trip- it's how God is still actively moving because of the spurring on that happens every time we're around each other. A very iron-sharpening-iron thing.

Here are a couple things I got from our conversation that I feel the need to blog:

We need to listen to the Lord for what He is really saying, not what our religious ears are hearing.

'religious ears' : By this I mean the phenomenon that happens when we've seen God move a lot. We've started to feel like we've figured out what God is trying to say because of an association of a particular word, event or situation to a past one. 'Well, last time this happened, it turned out to be this...' should never be the end of our interpretation of His Voice. I do believe God brings rhythms, patterns, and repetition in our lives (I'm the king of finding repetitions to be God's urging), but failing to consider that God may not be merely repeating Himself in any given situation is to quench Holy Spirit. Let us take each new conversation, interaction, season, and change in our lives as new moments, new and unfiltered avenues for God speak to us.

I've experienced a lot of weird situations this summer. I'm not accustomed to either living in Africa or on the road around the US for 11 weeks. It's not normal for me to meet a bunch of new people, most of which I will never see again, spend a few moments with them, then understand that we both have very different lives to go out and live. From the child in the African hospital that I spent minutes praying with to the camp staff of Wildweek I spent 5 weeks around, each new person I met this summer has a home very disconnected from mine. But, with the Kingdom mind, we can see that God has intricately crossed our paths with another person for some reason. Since there is no such thing as coincidence, it becomes more apparent, clear, and common that God is up to big things in small places. So perhaps it would be more accurate to say all these 'small' relationships with these 'random' people involve the very same home. As believers, sons and daughters of the Lord, we are home only in the Lord.

2008-07-25T20:06:00.001-05:00

In Tulsa For A Night Or So

2008-07-25T01:48:00.005-05:00

The tour is over.

I'm hilariously, helplessly, ridiculously, completely, unashamedly, forever in love with you.

I don't want the things I don't need:

money.

music.

recognition.

peace.

comfort.

life.

a girl.

family.

purpose.

success.

I need you. Your heart is all that I want. If all these things never come, or aren't right for me, or you take them away, I don't care. Just let me have you. Just let me see your face. Just let me know that you're there. If any or all of these things hinder me from knowing you more, refuse them and take them away. I hate them. I hate anything that keeps me from knowing you more. I'm disgusted by the way our Enemy has slipped into almost everything, making us able to stand on our own.

Sitting here with the T.V. on.... Sigur Ros playing in my headphones.

Some pervert is making money off of a girl on his show increasing his ratings just because she looks like she wants to have sex with me... Despite the fact she's actually looking at a camera. Stupid. I hate late night T.V.

Turned the T.V. off.

Even as I'm writing this, Enemy is right there on the wall trying to get to me through the T.V.

Funny, though. I just told you I hate that crap. It's doing nothing for me.

I've tasted too much of you to get pleasure from that crap.

Pause.

Re-reading what I just wrote. Seeing if it made any sense.

Changing a couple words so hopefully the readers will understand.

Don't know why I'm writing like this... Maybe cuz it's 2:03 am and I've been on the road all day.

Deep breath.

I love Sigur Ros.

Their music has accompanied some awesome prayer times.

Got to see Phil today. I love him. I'm gonna do a post on him soon.

Pause.

Thinking about Phil and how excited I am about living with him this year.

I got to go pray with Phil and some Bridgeway people today in OKC on the way to Tulsa. I love that. I've missed that this summer: people hungry for the face of God, allowing Holy Spirit to fall. People that spend so much time around the Lord that their spiritual gifts just flow during prayer. Empty people. People like Brett Colclasure, Madison Kerner, Stephen Pyle, and Blake Slatten.

It's late. I wanna be able to get up and see Grant tomorrow.

Current Mood: 'Experienced the Lord's peace today and gained more disdain toward the things that keep me from Him.'

"Blessed Are The Poor In Spirit...

2008-07-21T12:05:00.004-05:00

...for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven."

Matthew 5:3

This Mozambican girl in the photo will almost positively never have the things that are listed on her shirt as her 'favourite' things: new shoes, text messaging, jewelry, MP3 players...

It's the very first thing Jesus said in his most famous sermon. And honestly, I haven't really known what it means to be poor in spirit until it happened to me. I had a lot of speculation, and I guess I sort of got it, but man... When it really happens to you, you feel it. It's funny how things all of a sudden become truth when you experience them. That's what I love about the Lord. He's forced me to understand that He is real because I've experienced Him.

But back to being poor in spirit:

It popped up in a devotional I read today and really stuck to the walls of my heart because I've been praying through and hearing from the Lord about being empty. Emptiness is always going to precede me knowing God more, seeing Him at all. Every time I exist in a moment, I'm clouding my view of the Kingdom and the very face of God. And I've seen too much of His Face to make the foolish move of allowing things to blur that view. I think I'd be fine if I were blind. The eyes on my face get in the way a lot when my heart's eyes should be the ones that are seeing the Lord.

But back to being poor in spirit:

Jesus did not come to Earth to teach us. He came to make us into what He has taught us to be.* We don't even get to boast over our obedience. It is the Lord in us having His way with us, transforming us. So before we get to feeling good about ourselves because we helped at a soup kitchen or read our Bibles or prayed, lets remember that the Lord did that. He allowed us to be a part of Heaven coming to Earth and worked through us to make that happen. Everything we do to advance the Kingdom has been done despite us.

But back to being poor in spirit:

It means emptiness. Rid of ourselves. Poured out. Dead.

The very foundation of the Kingdom is poverty. As long as we are thinking well of ourselves and going out and existing in our daily lives, we are missing the Kingdom. We are not taking ground in the Kingdom. We are losing it. But when we allow allll those crappy parts of our lives- the bills that can't seem to get paid, the 'accidental' injuries, the breakups, the loneliness, the suffering- to break us of our selves trying to live our lives and realize what they really are there for: God has blessed you with them. He's given you the opportunity to be poor in spirit. To see the way He can move His Kingdom in your life.

If you're reading this, I'm praying that you come up with no solutions to your problems. I don't wish for you to pull through on the next car payment, to find a friend to pacify your isolation. I pray for the Lord to be only thing that you have. Then, when He blows your mind with His perfect Provision, don't thank me. I didn't write this. Well, I pray that this was not of me. I pray that anything said here that was of me to be forgotten as soon as you get off the internet.

Blake

2008-07-20T00:28:00.003-05:00

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.

I Wanna Be Like This Kid.

2008-07-18T00:03:00.002-05:00

His name is Tyton. He just turned 3. He's the son of the speaker at the camp we traveled with for 5 weeks. He fearlessly jumps in the pool, knowing he can't swim, knowing that even if it looks like his father isn't looking that he'll hear the splash and scoop him up from the bottom immediately. No hesitations. No anxieties about the 'What if...'s:

Scratch that post title.

I am this kid. Right now. I jump off. No hesitations. I'm yours, Lord. I know you know what is best for me.

I don't have much to say. I've just been running sound all week for Falls Creek, enjoying some (more) alone time with the Lord, trusting that things will (again) fall into place when I get back 'home'. If you're reading this, though, stop right now and read this post by my good friend Brett.

Take Everything to the Lord...

2008-07-11T02:54:00.005-05:00

because He knows exactly what to do with what is happening in your life.

I'm talking evening plans (yes, He cares about those). Weekend trips. Lunch conversations. What you think about. How you take a shower. And no, I'm not kidding with the last one.

Worship Him in everything. Even brushing your teeth. Ask Him to purify your speech while you go through that morning routine. Ask Him to be the thing you feel all day as you wash your body clean of the things the world has offered you the day before. As you put in your contacts, ask Him to reveal Himself to you so He is all you set your eyes on. As you pee, thank Him for ridding you of the dead weight that deteriorates your Spiritual health. I'm still not kidding with that last one.

When I'm at my best, I'm doing these things. When I'm at my worst, I'm doing my routines. Wasting time. Forgetting and forsaking my first love with the way I brush my teeth.

Stephen

2008-07-09T20:40:00.003-05:00

My good friend, Stephen Pyle, and I got to grab some coffee this morning and catch up on the past couple months.

Stephen is one of the people God has placed in my life as a partner in the Kingdom, a friend that loves the same music as me, and a role model in how to be disciplined.

One thing many people know about Stephen is he's a marathon runner. I can barely run a mile or two, let alone sticking it out for +30 miles as he does sometimes. He wakes up incredibly early to go out and run (I woke up at 1 pm a couple Mondays ago), mastering his body into a machine that can go for hours. I don't get it. I mean, I do but I don't. I get why, but I don't get how. Oh well.

I've known Stephen since we were in 6th grade or so at Jenks East Middle School. He claims that I scared him (I went through a rough skater/womanizer/KoRnlistening stage) back then. Over the past 8 months or so, I've seen our relationship become something completely different. Kind of like in my relationship with Brett, the Lord has changed the content of all of our conversation and has focused it on the Kingdom. We'll sit for hours at Subway, Starbucks, his house, in a car on the way to Kansas City to see Waterdeep, etc. and converse in such an intense, God-heavy way that it's physically tangible. We've discovered things about the Lord together and experienced movements of the Spirit together that can never be duplicated or out-done. He's been there for me every time I've had something hit the fan, been confused, needed to ramble for a few hours, had to cry and just feel the brokenness for a while, the list goes on.

This Fall we'll be living in Norman, OK and going to school at OU again together. Last semester was mind-blowing, seeing God take us to the homeless and addicted on California St. in OKC and meet some people we will not soon forget. We've hung cabinets in an overthrown Crack/Prostitution/Gang/Porn house and prayed with some of the dirtiest warriors of the faith that I've ever met. I've seen Stephen's selflessness and discipline to be single minded and consecrated to the Lord, and it has inspired me in ways I could never even begin to describe on this silly blog.

Lord, bless Stephen. Overwhelm him with your authority and goodness. Let him know just how near you are to him. I know he sits with you for hours every day, just to be with you. He doesn't seek his own will during those times, but Yours. Your perfect, pleasing, and good will. He knows you. May he know you more. I pray now in the name of Jesus that you would rid his life of distractions and leave only the things that you want for him. May everything that is not of you just flee his life, leaving him in perfect intimacy with You. I know that persecution must come, and seeing how faithful Stephen wants to be to you makes me sure that he will experience high levels of it, but he and I both welcome that in the fullest. I'm so excited to see what you will do in Stephen's life. I love you, Lord. Thank you for blessing my life with such an exceptional follower of you to spur me on and keep me hungry for more of you.

Tulsa

2008-07-09T02:01:00.002-05:00

After two months of not even seeing it, and about 3 months of actually spending more than 24 hours here, I'm sitting in my old room in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It's kinda cold. My parents have put blankets over my mixing console to protect it from dust. Things are right where I left them in December when I was here for a couple weeks over the Winter break. The goofy glasses me, Blair, and Crystal wore one awesome weekend last Spring Break are still sitting on the desk beside me. hmm... weird.

This place is kind of like home, but in a more cloudy way than before. I've been out of the house for 3 years, but due to recent events, I've spent less and less time here in this spot. It all feels familiar, but it's becoming a historic place. Weird.

Joe Thomas, my roommate in Norman, sometimes reflects on life like this. I guess it's natural for me to right now because I spent the last couple evenings around him, and it doesn't take long to get in 'Joe mode' around him. Yeah, he's one of THOSE people that are loud and speak out every thought going through their heads. But you love just the crap out of them.

Sometimes he says, "It's weird to think I'm saying the same things that everyone older than me has said in my situation. It's just part of life for us- we graduate, go out of the house, take on responsibilities, and every step feels weird, and we talk about it. Think of everyone who has said this exact thing before us for generations."

Trippy, huh? I think so. Growing up is different for everyone, but it happens to everyone, and each step has these internal thoughts that go with them that we all have, and they're all the same in nature.

Well, I had NO plan of talking about that just now, but I guess it doesn't really matter.

Here's what's been on my heart prior to this moment:

I love how God is so intimately involved in our lives that we have to look at 'what the crap just happened' to see it. I don't know if I'll ever get used to the fullness of His Presence. It will always blow me away.

Story time:

I was laying on my couch in Norman, resting after an intense buffet experience with Bo Walbrick (another roommate) at Mazzio's. I had my journal out, and was talking with Bo about how God had been speaking to us. For me, I felt desperate for the Presence because I felt like I'd become lost in the sudden change of rhythm during the first few days of my break from the road. Bo was talking to me about his decision to go to Waco (which was one I've been talking with God about too) and how God had put things on his heart in some cool ways.

For some reason I felt heavy, so I journaled a prayer telling God I was waiting for Him alone. He is my rock and my refuge, my portion. I word for word journaled those things a few times (repetition helps my ADD-ness and my need for meditation), then felt God telling me to look up a text I got from Madison the night before. The text included a reference to Psalm 62 so I looked it up:

The heading was 'My soul waits for God alone.' Wow. Exactly what I wrote two seconds prior. Then, reading into the Psalm, it said, 'My rock' and 'My refuge' as well.

Lord, you're good. You know exactly what you're doing. Thank you for putting up with my tendencies to doubt your eternal Presence. I love you.

In the Studio

2008-07-08T02:01:00.004-05:00

Phil, Matt, Eric and I have been spending the last couple of days tracking drums for four (fifth one's up for tomorrow's session) out of six songs that are lined up for a new worship record Phil is putting out. No, I couldn't go more than two days without patching cables, setting compression, placing mics, etc. WELL, maybe I could, but I don't consider this to be work at all.

First of all, I'm much more comfortable in the studio setting than with live sound (it's what I've learned the most about, plus you can screw up more and just fix it rather than living with a mistake you made during a live show- props to you live sound guys). Second, these three guys are three of my favorite people to do music with (The Neighborhood, worship sessions for Bridgeway and Norman Community, etc.). I'm overwhelmed that these guys would ask me to engineer the sounds for this project. I mean, I've written a few keys lines for the songs over the time we've been playing them, but to actually have this role in creating the most important part (drum sounds) is a big deal for me.

What a refreshing and life-giving thing to come back to in Norman!

The first day was an adventure: Phil and I are used to creating make-shift studios together (we co-produced a girl's singer/songwriter record a year and a half ago using just a couple pre's, a compressor from the 60's, and a 002), but THIS time, we hit a jackpot. Our friend Zack has some recording gear, so we went to take inventory before setting up a tracking room. Phil didn't exactly know what some of the gear was, but after I anxiously told him of all the professional records he had heard that used these mics, pre's, and compressors, we quickly called Zack to get formal permission. Here are just the pieces that we took away to use for the drum sessions:

*Shure Sm7 (broadcasting mic- great for vocals and kick drums)

*(2) matched Cascade 'Fat Head's- ribbon mics (we're using as overheads for some warmth)

*'Red' large diaphragm condenser (by 'Blue')- we've moved this one around between the kick (always good to have a couple there for versatility in post production), side-snare, over-tom, etc.

*AKG C414 large diaphragm condenser mic- customizable patterns, HPF, dB response

*(2) Empirical Lab 'Distressor's (one of them is the EL8x- optional british mod version)- the compressors I'm most used to from working at Black Watch. They're some of the standard compressors used in every professional recording studio.

*Black Lion modded 002 interface- beefed up preamps... sadly, this one may have the power harness problem mine had last summer, so we're using Eric's. But we're not needing the onboard pre's because of all the pre's we have as outboard gear.

*Dual channel Boutique tube pre with sweepable EQs

All in all, a good $9,000 loan in gear from Zack.

We also are using:

FMR audio 'really nice preamp (RNP)'- Dual channel preamp

FMR audio 'really nice compressor (RNC)'- Stereo linked Compressor (overheads)

Vintech Dual channel tube pre (1: kick 2: snare)

(2) Shure Sm57's: top snare, floor tom, trash cymbal, etc.

So, basically it's become a much bigger deal than before, running the 4 onboard preamps of the 002 and scraping by to get the other 4 line inputs to have some preamplification worth listening to. We have great tube warmth and some great compression to choose from, with great mics to match it all up with.

Phil and I have a history of using Shure Sm57s as overheads (big no no, but we were desperate), so again, this is a playground of gear we're swimming in.

It's great, too, because Matt recently acquired a new (from 1962) Ludwig drum kit (not that he needs more, he has about 5 kick drums, 15 toms, and 12 snares to choose from because of his connections with the Flaming Lips) that sounds great on these recordings.

By using the Flaming Lips' drummer's broken C&C transparent orange shell as a kick drum extender to get more low end, and taping ripped open Little Ceasers and Pizza Shuttle boxes around mics as shields for more isolation, I'd say these are the best sounds I've been able to engineer for drums (although I'm incredibly inexperienced in comparison to the people who have taught me).

So for those of you who have skipped to this paragraph because all I did was geek out for the majority of this post, I'm just documenting an incredibly undeserved blessing from the Lord during this break from traveling around with Nick and the band. Thank you for being part of my life (Wildweek Staff especially), and I pray that the Lord would bless you for being such a huge blessing in my life.

Lord, thank you for the way you speak to me through creating music. I pray that everything we do to see this worship record come together would be worship to you. You've given us some great tools, now find us faithful in putting it to work. Blow our minds with what this record will do for people. We want this to be a furthering of your kingdom; not just some cool rockstar record. A tool for knowing you more. Not a glamorous milestone of musical success. We please you, Lord. Not Man.

I love you, Lord.

I love you, reader of this post.

I've created a Flickr Account

2008-07-06T01:26:00.002-05:00

so you can look at my photography stuff without it looking like crap on facebook (I don't know why, but photos automatically take on a terrible quality when uploaded on facebook...)

The link is under 'my photography' on the LINKS to the right ----->

Sitting On MY Couch

2008-07-05T00:12:00.002-05:00

Feels good.

I wonder if all my roommates are in town. I know Blake Slatten is- he's asleep in our bed.

After 12 hours of traveling from Craptown, South TX, I'm home for the week. And it feels weird- but good. I haven't been in my bed since two months ago, so this is gonna be awesome. All I have to do is crawl in it without waking up Slatten. Haha, I love the life I've been given.

Until I have something very interesting to say,

Blake.

A Notification to All My Friends and Family

2008-07-03T15:33:00.003-05:00

I'm nuts.

I've been tossing around the idea of not going to school in the Fall and going to a mission school in Waco, but due to the unfolding of some recent events, I halfway decided to go back to school and live with some really cool guys in Norman. Today, when I went to finalize my enrollment, I clicked 'finalize' and looked at the clock: 3:33. That number comforted me.

I love laughing at myself for things like these. I've gone insane. Well, at least a little bit. But I'm okay with that. You should see how many times these things happen- how many times I see a certain number and and the Lord speaks to me through it- it's weird. But as much as I don't like it, in a weird way, I love it. I love that no one will be able to believe me until they experience it themselves. I don't believe everyone should be seeing numbers like I do. I believe God develops an intimate, real language with everyone as individual and unique as that person is. For some crazy reason, I see some numbers a lot. Here's another one (if you haven't already, read some of the posts I've put up that have numbers as titles):

I was at a mexican restaurant in Boerne, TX this weekend, and for some reason I felt in my Spirit that the number that my change would come out to would be significant. And it was. It was 11.07. the last four digits of my old home phone number, a number me and my old youth minister shared (he has a really funny memory that includes it), and a recurring one that pops up only at opportune times.

That night I was checking my email, and I got a message from a girl who works on staff with the camp we're at. It was incredible. She was sharing with me some things I could pray for her about, and told me of some ways I've encouraged her even though we have only had like one real conversation that took place over two weeks ago. After I finished reading it, my eyes caught the time: 11:07.

I'm not trying to convince you, I just thought I'd let you guys know. So think I'm nuts (like I do) or think it's totally normal, I don't really care. At all.

Love you!

Blake.

Getting a Break

2008-07-02T22:28:00.002-05:00

This being the middle of the 5th week of being on the road, I'm getting excited about being in Oklahoma for a week next week. I'll be on my way home two days from now! Yes! Then, after the two weeks after that, I'll be trying to settle into the Fall semester. I should probably stop typing and finalize my enrollment, but that can wait. School will always be there, and it doesn't matter if I get the exact classes I need- there are plenty of things to be worried about, and those are not them.

Basically, this post is about celebration. I'm reading a book on celebrating the extraordinary elements of the everyday. It's called 'Cold Tangerines.' Thanks, Grant. It's nothing too profound, it's just a collection of this chick's life stories, and how she reflects on them now; but I LOVE reading about them. I love seeing someone make epic moments out of the mundane, normal events that every day offers. I feel like I've almost perfected that, sometimes leading to an overreaction to things, which isn't the best thing, but I'd rather my valleys be deeper and my mountains be taller than feel nothing. We miss a lot when we just try to 'survive' the season we're in. We have a lot to learn when things are hard, so we might as well own the situations God has put us in and allow them to hurt us to the fullest, surprise us to the fullest. That act will definitely leave us with so much gained. Then, when things are great, we know that it's not just those times we get to enjoy- they are truly blessings from the Lord, times when we get to choose Him as our portion.

So instead of looking at blessed times (i.e. my week off coming up) as the good times, the times when everything is finally okay for a while, let's live. Let's stop complaining. Worrying. Anxiously awaiting something better. Let's tap into the Kingdom- the water in the desert. the manna in the wilderness. the Provision that satisfies exactly what we need. When we are in blessed times, we don't feel like we need God at all. At least not nearly as much as when a friend dies or a parent leaves or we get sick or scared. Do we?

Let's be careful about when and why we long to be delivered from the desert times. When you're there and God is hand-feeding you because of how weak you are and how strong He is, realize how blessed you are. how happy you are. nothing tastes better when you're exhausted, thirsty and hot than cold water.

I know I talk about this stuff a lot. I know I've repeated myself a million times.

But here's what I will (hopefully) always believe in:

Brokenness brings us closer to the Lord, and being near to the Lord is all that matters.

What A Weekend

2008-06-30T23:25:00.003-05:00

Went away from this little texas town for the weekend (praise the Lord).

We did these things:

Went to San Antonio and ate at Chuy's

Stayed the night in San Marcos at a guy's house and played with his horse and donkey

Got up, went to Austin looked at really cool vintage guitars

Went to Canyon Lake and took a boat out

Went to the guy's river cabin and kayaked/swam/took pictures

Watched 'wanted' somewhere in a neighboring town

Slept in the cabin

Got up, kayaked, read, hung around the river

Went to a real texas barbecue joint (i hate that word, joint- sounds so hokie): they had some AMAZING cherry limeades

Watched 'Into the Wild' during the day

Went to Greune Hall, and ate at a great place right next to it

Watched 'Hot Fuzz'

Went to sleep

Got up at 10

Drove back to the camp

Still On the Road

2008-06-26T23:21:00.002-05:00

I'm in a small town about an hour from San Antonio, Texas right now. I've been here since last Sunday. Before that I was in Austin for the weekend to break up the drive from Gulf Shores, Alabama.

This is the end of the 4th week of our 8 week worship leading thing. I miss my home. Here's what I mean by home:

Walking around the lake in my old neighborhood in Norman, talking to the Lord and spending time alone with Him. Watching birds, trees, grass, and water worship the King.

Praying with Blake Slatten, Bo Walbrick, Joe Thomas, and Skyler Fike in that house, sprawled out for hours on the floor listening to Sigur Ros or Misty Edwards. Letting the Holy Spirit come and blow our minds again and again.

Going over to the D-house and sitting in the prayer room, talking with Phil Rice, Brett Colclasure, Evan French, Tate James, etc. about what the Lord is doing in our lives that moment.

Wasting the weekends with Crystal Mayhue, Madison Kerner, Blair Gunnels, Evan King, Stephen Pyle, my sister Ashley, and others by going to worship the Lord on Friday nights in the homeless and addicted community of Oklahoma City, then going again on Saturday mornings to spend time at the Crack House- turned- Ministry there.

Practicing and playing shows with The Neighborhood a few times a month, letting the Lord exhaust all my musical abilities.

Praying and doing life with Stephen Pyle, Brett Colclasure, and Madison Kerner- seeing the Lord use parallels and prophetic giftings to heal, speak, and move us in His Kingdom.

But here's the home that I know actually matters:

The place of intimacy with the Lord that comes almost exclusively through suffering.

The place of brokenness that oddly feels so good, because it's what Jesus feels for the ones He loves.

The bruising, the beating, the starving, the exhaustion... that leads to knowing God more.

Lord, my home is in you. But I pray for the people I call my family:

Mom, Dad, Ash, Ashley Lauren, Jon; Stephen Pyle, Brett Colclasure, Phil Rice, Madison Kerner, Crystal Mayhue, Blake Slatten, Grant Ferguson, Ira Ralston, Bo Walbrick, Joe Thomas, Skyler Fike, the Mozambique team, the people at the Refuge, the people at the City Rescue Mission, the people of Praise Night, the musicians around Norman and Tulsa... so many others.

Keep them in the palm of your hand. If you want to take them from me, I understand. I don't deserve any of these beautiful followers of you. I get overwhelmed with gratitude when I think of even one of these people. You've spoken to me so deeply through each of these. Why, Lord? Why do you choose to spoil me like this? How can I begin to be faithful to you when you've done all this for me? Rid me of the lie that I have any say in keeping these people in my life this Fall. I open my hands to you. These are people you've allowed me to fall madly in love with, and my tendency is to latch onto them and call them my own, but I know you have a bigger plan for them. Help me trust you in what comes of these relationships I've seen begin, grow, flourish, and move. Help me move in rhythm with you, and don't allow me to stand in the way of these people doing what you've called them to do. Bless the crap out of them, Lord. Now, in the name of Jesus, even physically, would you just FLOOD their lives with so much blessing that they don't have enough room for it (Malachi 3:10). Thank you, Lord. I love you. I love these people. I love the You in these people. The You in me is drawn to the You in them, and their hearts have resonated so deeply with mine that it has ruined me. I'll never be able to settle for a less-than-mind-blowing, breathing relationship with someone ever again.

Wow.

Brett

2008-06-25T22:11:00.002-05:00

I have a good friend named Brett that I've known since I was in 7th grade. We were in a group of about 10 or so close friends that formed while I was in school at Metro Christian Academy (8th grade through 10th).... We ended up going to OU together and were roommates freshman year there. We've experienced a lot together, especially in the last three years. Here's a few things:

*All the things that go along with being roommates during the Freshman Experience at college

*Going through pledgeship at our fraternities (we were in different ones, but it's all the same)

*Discussing and hashing through what it means to follow Jesus in these times

*Working at New Life Ranch in Siloam Springs, Arkansas the summer after freshman year

*Investing in a disciple group through Norman Community Church headed by our close friend Phil Rice

*Experiencing/Learning/Trained/being exposed to the Holy Spirit and the Prophetic gifting, and all the questions, problems, doubts, books, goodness, etc. that goes along with being introduced to that

*Spending many nights at his house our sophomore year when I didn't sleep more than a few hours a night in my frat house

*Driving all night from Norman to Kansas City just to experience more of the Lord

*Me crying in his kitchen in the Fall of last year over a wound the Lord put in my life in order that all this stuff that has happened since then would happen (see post: the desert)

*Praying countless times about my brokenness in the Fall together, asking for the Lord to keep doing the good work he was obviously doing

In the midst of all these little milestones I see when I look over our friendship, I remember always asking him a lot of questions because he is so full of knowledge and wisdom when it comes to the things that matter- spiritual things. Things about the Lord.

It seemed that I could never be around him without talking about what God was doing in our lives, what He was saying, how He was moving. We've definitely made a few bad decisions around each other, but it's beautiful how God orchestrated our lives to come to this point the way they have. Within the last 9 months or so, we've both been broken and shared in a bit of suffering from the Lord- and we both have loved it. We both love the Lord. And we can be a testimony of what a friendship that is based on the Lord can be- A life of it's own that furthers the kingdom of God.

I have other friends that are also living, breathing, moving machines that fight the demonic and arrows of the Enemy- I'm just compelled to write about Brett because of the things mentioned above and because he's by himself on his way to Israel right now for over a month of learning Hebrew and culture and other stuff.

I got to talk to him last night for a little over an hour, and it was by far one of those epic, beautiful conversations that define a friendship. The Lord obviously appointed it; even as I was calling him it was perfect because he was looking for his phone so he could call me. And by the time we hung up, we had both spoken so much life into each other (by the power of the Lord that is in us speaking) that we were ready to trust the Lord with every detail of our lives- If God wanted us to jump off the nearest cliff, I have no doubt we would've sprinted to it.

Anyway, I just wanted to share that this guy is one of the people in my life that I respect the most, look up to the most, admire the most, and love the most. Like I said, there are others, and I'll blog about them too (you already know who you are), but I just had to say this.

Brett:

I'm praying for you every day while you're in Israel.

Abba, guide every breath he takes, and may you speak to him through every leaf, number, color, person you see, hear, or touch. I pray now in the Name of Jesus that you would reveal more and more of yourself to Brett. Don't allow him to slip out of your hand. I give him over to you, and I say that everything that happens in Israel is perfect in accordance to your good, perfect, and pleasing plan. Don't allow anything in his mind that is not from you. May he rely on you for everything he needs, and may he ONLY find life there. At your feet. May there be a double portion of Holy Spirit that comes from being on his face before you, and a double amount of lacking everywhere else. Thank you for every conversation, every interaction, and every sight he will see. It's all from you.

...2 (Slow to Speak Continued)

2008-06-24T14:08:00.002-05:00

If you know me at all or have read any of this blog, you'll know that I led a mission team to Mozambique, Africa this summer... It was 3 weeks long, then 12 hours after landing I got on a bus and started driving around to Illinois, Alabama, and Texas doing worship music. What you might know is that while I was on the trip (and for the 7 ish months leading up to it) I was usually FULL of things to say- what God was saying to me, what I thought He wanted to say to others... but primarily: what was happening in my life. Then, After the 12 hour turnaround to a completely different rhythm, my mouth practically locked up.

And what you don't know (unless you're Madison Kerner or one of the members of the Mozambique team) is what I've seen, heard, learned, touched, felt, and experienced up to this tour thing. And it's those things (I think) that have me shut up. I'm pretty much speechless.

I thought it'd be therapeutic to edit some of the 2400 photos I took while in Africa. But if the goal was to help me talk more, it was counterproductive. While it did help me solidify that the things I saw were real and actually happened, I think it could have made me a little more pensive overall, and a little less whimsical in my interactions with most people. Gosh, this feels good... getting this out.

Here's why I've been 'quiet' (which, if you know me well, or are part of my family, you know I'm quite the opposite)....

a) I can't look at the side of the road here in America without thinking about how clean it is. The cleanest streets of Mozambique were where they were only 'half-covered-with-trash' because of the red sand burying the other. Walking on the side of the streets you wouldn't take a step without some kind of trash being under at least part of your footprint.

b) I am always thinking, in some way, about a few of the orphaned, abandoned, AIDS afflicted, abused, malnourished children I fell in love with while I was there. They wanted to come be with me, and I wanted to stay with them.

c) These are some of the things I've seen: A baby boy with his face burned off; A man crossing the street in Maputo's NYC type traffic, dragging his two dead legs behind him, using his knees as feet and his hands like the two forelimbs of an animal (there were too many sights like this one for me to list off); A teenager with Malaria, sitting in a shack next to the bocaria (dump), shaking and sweating, in desperate need of medicine that we take for granted; Children with nothing covering them from the waist down running and jumping in my lap, hiding single starlight mints in their mouths so they wouldn't get beaten up by other hungry children; A child (Santo, 5 years old, below) eating double what I could eat in a sitting, hoping it will fill him until the next Sunday he gets to eat at the church; Naked children wandering streets as we drove by, calloused feet protecting them from glass and trash all over the ground... This is the tip of an iceberg of scenes that pop in my head.

d) These are some of the things I've heard: A child at the center used to live with his mother who poured battery acid into his breakfast drink in order to kill him so he wouldn't cost her any more money; More stories than I can count of little girls that are put out on the street by their parents for money from prostitution. Okay, now I'm just tired of trying to spit it out in list form...

You get the point.

On the victorious side: Just read 'Always Enough' by Heidi Baker (co-founder of the ministry we worked with)...

The dead have been raised.

The paralyzed have been given the ability to walk.

Limbs have grown back.

Eyes that were blind can see.

Deaf ears can hear.

Hungry people have food and clothing multiplied before their eyes.

I saw the church in Zimpeto (right outside of Maputo) groaning and wailing as a body over the crises of their country (while we were there, Mozambicans were being tortured and killed in South Africa). For a few hours straight. Children, Men, Women, every one. Crying out, literally, facing out around the church (what a concept!), interceding for dying souls.

Again, you get the point. It was intense.

So pretend you did/saw/felt/heard all this in a concentrated amount and then went on a jolly tour around the US playing hip praise songs to a bunch of spoiled brats (even the main speaker calls these kids that from the stage- cuz it's that true) that have to be impressed to give their attention away. From children that just needed a crumb from the dirt (and often ate more dirt than food when picking it up) to bratty kids that have no concept of struggle, needs, desperation, hunger, etc.

That's why I'm quiet I guess. Don't get me wrong. I'd love to talk about it. I have talked about it, and it's been great. But I'm quiet because most of the time we as Americans, or westerners, or somethings-whatever we are... Non-broken? Calloused? Blind? We talk so much more about movies, jokes, entertainment, music, etc. than we do about the Lord. Has it ever bothered you that it's 'awkward' to talk about the Lord in most settings?!

THAT'S why I'm quiet. I'm supposed to be with the broken. How do I know? Because I'm special or have some great heart? No. Because the Lord has broken me and is keeping me broken. It seems that as soon as I 'gain my footing' or get comfy, He (like the last two nights, holy crap.) sends me a dream of warning that breaks me and sends me right back to His feet.

I love to laugh. I love to joke around. But I just don't think I'll ever feel 'at home' in a camp setting where we're gettin' fired up for Jesus all the time, wearing our Jesus shirts, listening to Jesus rap music. I feel like my place is in the trenches, suffering and receiving His bleeding heart. In that place, zeal for His house will consume me, and I'll follow Him into the darkness to be the light. Not running to light and staying away from what needs to be exposed, helped, aided, and fought against.

So, if you're broken, which I know many of you who told me you read this are...

I'm here, feeling it too. I'm praying with you. send me a message and tell me how I can pray more specifically.

If you're from the camp staff here where I'm at, know that the listed things above have kept me from being whimsical on the weekends... I'm digesting a lot in the midst of a crowded season I guess. I support what you're doing as a ministry. I'm not feeling the Jesus hype of the services, and I know some of you aren't either. But I've learned (I worked at a camp two years ago) that it's kind of our way of facilitating a place for the Lord to move among American youth. Hook 'em a little bit, then deliver the word God gave us for these kids. Kinda sucks, but it's camp, ya know?

Thanks for reading this. To many of you: I love you and I love that the Lord put you in my life. Hopefully the things from the Lord will stick and the other crap will just fall away. Bear with me.

Slow to Speak...

2008-06-24T13:42:00.002-05:00

It's been 10 days since that last entry... Not that that matters much. I guess I'd just rather be writing more on here than that.

Couple things:

1. I've heard people actually read this from time to time.

2. I'm apparently really quiet this summer. And I think I know a bit about why.

1. About 15-20 people (all pretty unrelated) told me in the last couple weeks that they read this thing... That initially scared the crap out of me. I immediately thought of every open post I'd ever written (which is just about every one). But about a couple minutes after that, I was given a deep peace. I've only written what has been heavy on my heart. And despite my people-pleaser way of living (which is toxic unless you're using it as a pastoral gifting or something), I have no reservations, nothing to be 'embarrassed' of.

I joked with just about everyone who told me they read this, saying, "yeah, I probably look like an emotional wreck on that thing... I think I only write when I'm feeling overly-emotional."

But here's the truth (that I had to share with everyone I talked to): It's not me being emotional at all. It's (hopefully) just Holy Spirit saying, 'get this out. I didn't put it here to sit and be wasted. Don't you know by now that this is how I work? I urge you and disrupt your day and talk to you and open your eyes so you will share it with people.'

2. To be posted above this in another entry.