Standing Stones

“After the entire nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the LORD spoke to Joshua, "Choose 12 men from the people, one man for each tribe, and command them, 'Take 12 stones from this place in the middle of the Jordan where the priests' feet are standing, carry them with you, and set them down at the place where you spend the night.'" So Joshua summoned the 12 men selected from the Israelites, one man for each tribe, and said to them, "Go across to the ark of the LORD your God in the middle of the Jordan. Each of you lift a stone onto his shoulder, one for each of the Israelite tribes, so that this will be a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, 'What do these stones mean to you?' you should tell them, 'The waters of the Jordan were cut off in front of the ark of the LORD's covenant. When it crossed the Jordan, the Jordan's waters were cut off.' Therefore these stones will always be a memorial for the Israelites." The Israelites did just as Joshua had commanded them. The 12 men took stones from the middle of the Jordan, one for each of the Israelite tribes, just as the LORD had told Joshua. They carried them to the camp and set them down there. Joshua also set up 12 stones in the middle of the Jordan where the priests who carried the Ark of the Covenant were standing. The stones are there to this day.” [Joshua 4:1-9 HCSB]

At my Berean Bible Church brethren’s small group we ‘happened’ to be in the area for this weekend watched a VHS tape about the ‘standing stones of Tel Gezer’ And it was this verse, this ‘faith lesson’ that hit me the most. I could feel God’s nod as He saw my heart open to what He would have me learn not just from this video, but how the whole weekend was a progression towards this ‘faith moment.’

A blessing from a brother in Christ didn’t come in the mail as expected so I went to see this man of God whom I had never met before but have connected (like many others) in the larger ‘electronic’ community. The hour I spent with this brother listening to the understanding of his gifting from God and have him pour into my life with the observations of what he had watched in my walk with Christ over the internet was a blessing above the blessing. I walked away from that meeting feeling truly blessed. Since I was in the area, I felt led to go over to my dear Berean family and visit with them for a while at the E.A.C.H. block party they were having. I was blessed by some friends to go and get my son (my daughter didn’t want to come) from his mom’s and bring him back to the event so he could have some fun. When I arrived back, a dear brother in Christ whom I had a powerful friendship in the church community where I was saved was there. We hadn’t seen each other in eight years. But it was like yesterday.

The day ‘over’, or so I thought, I dropped my son back at his mother’s for the rest of the weekend and headed over to a sister-in-Christ to help her with the PowerPoint presentation for a ministry idea she had to present to her seminary class. It was a blessing to sit down and see this idea fleshed out since her idea was a special needs ministry. Though we didn’t get the presentation done that night, we got a majority of it completed. A brother in Christ from Berean called, apparently my son had forgotten his hat at the event and we stragetized how to get it back on his absent-minded head. It worked out that my brother was having a small group at his home, a few miles from where I pick up the kids from their mom.

Sunday morning had me waking up to see my Mosaic A2 community for worship and instruction along with a Potluck afterwards. Good food and fellowship again were the theme of my day. I returned to my sister-in-Christ’s home to finish up the PowerPoint and head out to gather my children and visit with some dear friends in Christ over some bible study.

It is here that I realized God’s lesson for this weekend. Standing Stones.

Standing stones, translated from the Hebrew word “massebah” means ‘to set up.’ This was something that the Israelites did when God performed supernatural acts on their behalf. They were to be a reminder of the event that took place and to serve as a ‘talking point’ for those who came upon them to ask about what event had transpired there. Several of these ‘standing stones’ were erected in the nation’s history (to name a few), like the ones at Bethel by Jacob to commemorate the reaffirmation of the covenant between he and God (Genesis 28:18-21, 25:14-15), by Moses at the foot of Mount Sinai after receiving the Ten Commandments (Exodus 24:2-4), to remind the nation of the renewal of the covenant at Shechem (Joshua 24:27) and the commemoration mentioned in the verses above (Joshua 4:1-9) where the nation crossed the Jordan river into the Promise Land.

We no longer have to erect silent and mysterious stones to highlight the effect of God moving in our lives and it is Peter, the foundation of the Church, that calls us to be something more than stones weathering silently on the landscape of our spiritual walk home. In 1 Peter 2:5, he uses this imagery to call believers ‘living stones’. In today’s world more so than not, we need to boast of our God and His mighty mercies. We need to show as much excitement for the things that mature us and grow us and draw us closer to God as we do the latest techie gadget or car improvement or even the promotion at work.

As we walk in this faith journey towards home, much like the Israelites did into the Promised Land, we need to erect standing stones along the path…..a formation of stones that our friends, family and unsaved pedestrians that walk in our lives have no choice but to give into their curiosity and ask…..”What does this stand for?”

And then, either as simply as giving your “Two-Word Story” or speaking of the mighty blessings that God has given, you can bring the Gospel to life with a testimony of your God’s love and blessing.

This weekend is a standing stone for me. February 14th, 2004 is another, when God’s knock on the door was answered and I saw a man with pierced hands and feet weeping with joy at my answer. Another was October 20th, 2004 when I heard Him say, “This you will do for Me and My glory” at Hybel’s church in Chicago. There was my son’s acceptance of his salvation, Easter 2005 and the events of Feb-Mar 2010 and 2011 in the Bowery Street Mission in New York City.

These are standing stones to moments where God did supernatural things in my life, transforming and maturing me for the purpose He has set aside for me……. They aren't by any measure the only memorials that I have in my life and my testimony that show God's favor, mercy, love and grace. And I doubt as I walk this journey towards home that they will be the last or the greatest momuments of living testimony that I'll have to give.

His blessings and mercies are new every day.

What are yours?

The Prodigal Father with two sons.....

“The younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the estate I have coming to me.' So he distributed the assets to them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered together all he had and traveled to a distant country, where he squandered his estate in foolish living……….But [the older son] replied to his father, 'Look, I have been slaving many years for you, and I have never disobeyed your orders, yet you never gave me a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when [the younger son] of yours came, who has devoured your assets with prostitutes, you slaughtered the fattened calf for him.' (Luke 15:12-13, 29-30 HCSB)

I knew this parable, now correctly identified theologically as “The Story of Two Sons”, as the Prodigal Son and have written on my blog about it. The worst thing in the world I ever heard was, “You are just like your father.” The first comment caused me, when I left home at the age of sixteen and turned my back on ‘The Church” to hate looking in the mirror because I was reminded of whom I looked like. Granted, my father was no saint and did a lot of things that were wrong but I understand him more and the wounds that he himself carried in the darkness of this world. Indeed, we were very much alike.

I left home at sixteen, boldly telling both my fathers (earthly as well as the heavenly) that I was done with them and would be a shining example of the problematic son that would only bring grief in the telling of who’s I was. A majority of my testimony I’ll probably never tell in one sitting because of the places I went and the darkness I wrapped myself up into. Much like the younger son, whom squandered the inheritance, I was for the majority of my life. I even squandered the financial inheritance my father sent me a few months after I left home. I was, in my opinion, everything my earthly father hated in one of his offspring. What I didn't know is that everyday my heavenly Father looked longingly down the road for my profile to crest the hill.

The greatest thing I ever heard on this earth was, “I was never, for one minute, ashamed of you.” I can remember sitting down in the living room of my earthly father’s trailer on the farm in Gladwin and telling him I had traveled up there to ‘bury the hatchet’ for my own sake, if not for him. I was tired of running away from myself because of who I reminded myself of and I was sorry that I had been a son of whom he was ashamed. The shock on his face, along with the words he spoke, was not what I had practiced for or expected. We didn't suddenly become close, hugging and weeping in each other’s arms and when he passed away a few months later, the intensity of the sorrow was partly for that lack of intimate love a father and son should have had…..but, that step was part of the journey I began to take to understand the man I knew as my father. To this day, I look in the mirror and thank God for the memory that presents itself to me of the man known as Ronald Lawrence Hutson.

I thought my connection to this parable ended there, but my heavenly Father taught me something in the last year that had me realize that this was not true.

Against my heavenly Father, I have been an older son too, especially in regards to the pursuit of His purpose for me. It has been a struggle, fighting the wounds of the past and dealing with the circumstances of my sinful life. I am very much older, physically, than my chronological age because of the abuses I once visited upon a body I didn't care for and the emotional scarring that was allowed in the darkness to tighten and limit my mental health. Much of the last year has been a ‘quieting’ of the ‘What about me?” syndrome that has haunted the lessons and discipling that the Lord has put me through, at my request, because I have surrendered all I am to His shaping. It has been hard, this redemption of my mind and soul, because I've struggled with the concept of love and mercy and grace…..and why, if I was ‘doing so well’ I still faced the struggles I did. Much like the older son, I wanted the bigger portion because I had done the ‘bigger’ growing.

The greatest thing I've ever heard from the Heavens is “"'Son,' he said to him, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.””

As always, I have learned, it is a choice that you have to make; both initially and continuously, whether you will remain outside the party in anger at the celebration of sibling or go inside to raise your heart in praise at what the Father has done.

And that is a prodigal move either way.

As Christ said, "They shall know you by how you love one another" A blessing from a sister in Christ....

I've heard this song in relation to Olympic athletes - perhaps the 1996 Olympics, of which I was a particular fan). I think of you as that athlete. You are running one of the most challenging marathons I have heard of. You are trying to do your best, in obedience to God's leading, to keep your head above water, only to find yourself sinking with every effort you make. Do not be discouraged, beloved brother. God is not done with you yet!

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go
To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far

To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march into Hell
For a heavenly cause

And I know if I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star

Here is what Paul wrote, about YOU:
I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 1:3-6)

Take heart, dear brother! God will lift up your head. Your eyes are focussed on the prize - achieving the impossible dream, reaching the unreachable star - with a heart overflowing with love for the lost and wounded in this world, so that they will be blessed in heaven eternally. Do not be discouraged by circumstances. They seem so definitive, though, don't they? But look at Sarah. She conceived in old age. And Elizabeth had been barren. And Mary yet a virgin! God seems to be blind to earthly circumstances, not of discompassion, but to the obstacles.

upon the ruins of Jerusalem's walls...discouragement is not of God's people

Before I begin my blog today, I just wanted to post a call to prayer from George from Worthy News Ministries that he put on the bottom of his devotional today: In times such as these, we need to focus more and more on Yeshua haMashiach (Jesus the Messiah) and call upon our Father’s mercy and grace in the days ahead………

Friends, this is a warning to all of us -- it is time to PRAY!!!

We have entered into the time period on the Hebraic calendar between Rosh HaShana (Head of the Year) and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), which is known as the Days of Awe. It dawned on me this morning that perhaps this year will give new meaning to the term. I'm not sure if you realize it but this week's events have the potential of changing the course of history as we know it. As believers, we need to be united in prayer more than ever before.

Thursday: Obama will become the first American president to chair its 15-member Security Council. He is expected to push a UN nonproliferation resolution which is designed to bring all nations into a binding agreement. In the resolution it calls for the right of all states to pursue peaceful nuclear energy -- including Iran. It also calls for all states to sign Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) agreement. This is key because Israel is one of four nations that still has not signed the agreement and understandably so, since the UN is so biased against the Jewish state. (Personal note: it is interesting that Obama would push this stance with the speeches given by Iran’s and Libya’s leaders that accuse the world’s nations of handling them as second-rate nations. Iran still continues to claim a non-military use for the military grade uranium that it is making….)

Friday: A G-20 economic summit representing 85% of the world's economy will be led by President Obama in Pittsburgh. Meanwhile, in Washington D.C. Muslims will be gathering for their first ever "prayer meeting" where there are expected to be up to 50,000 to be in attendance.
Please keep these points in prayer this week and don't forget to keep us in your prayers here in Israel as well.
Your family in the Lord with much agape love,

George, Rivka, Elianna & Obadiah
Currently in the Negev Desert, Israel

Last night I had a prompting of the Spirit to go to church….a surprising development given my recent church history and the struggle I am having with risking myself in another fellowship, though I have met and worshipped with a range of styles since moving back to Canton from Holly. From the comfortable to the new……each has its own disappointments and encouragements, style and worship but each has a biblically sound teaching platform.

A friend on Facebook, the pastor of Thrive Church in Texas, mentioned that in conversations with other families in similar stages of searching for a home church that one phrase kept cropping up….and it perfectly describes my heartfelt desire for the next home God leads us to in this season of the journey: Life-giving.

Neither Mosaic A2 (the new church plant in Ann Arbor) or Life Church in Canton had Wednesday night programs when I checked their websites; Life was going to the North Pointe church, my friend Chris Birtles’ church that I will attend on Saturday (I have experience with NP, and the River of Faith was under the campus leadership of one of NP’s brothers), on some ‘ultra-church’ field trip for some of the youth, but there was nothing else.

Only Berean Bible Church, my friend Tim’s church, had Wednesday night programs: Awana for the two fifth graders and a middle school program called Thrive for the other two…..and a bible study for the men.

With the kids settled into their respective programs, I was directed to the men’s bible study group….They were doing a study on a book written by Dr. David Jeremiah on the book of Nehemiah. The topic for last week was fear……this week, it was discouragement.

God, indeed, in His wisdom and provision knew exactly what I needed to be reminded of and how to send me in the direction of where it would be spoken.

Nehemiah is told by Hanani, one of his brothers, who came from Judah that “those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.”
Nehemiah was distressed about the condition of his people and his capital city…..and fasted praying to God about this burdening sorrow:

“"O LORD, God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands, let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father's house, have committed against you. We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses. Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses, saying, 'If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations, but if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name.' "They are your servants and your people, whom you redeemed by your great strength and your mighty hand. O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name. Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man." I was cupbearer to the king.” Nehemiah 1:5-11 (NIV)

Nehemiah was an employee of King Artaxerxes, and was held in good regard apparently as we can tell by the King’s reaction when Nehemiah sees him after this tragic news; a) that he would notice his servant’s unhappiness and sorrow, b) He would ask why instead of exercising the option to kill him because he was unhappy near the King and c) He would not only give permission but provision and equip Nehemiah to rebuild Jerusalem’s walls. As Nehemiah departed, he recognized God’s hand in even a pagan’s heart to affect the work that He had burdened His servant for.

God has shown me time and time again that He will provision in amazing and logic-defying ways His servants for the work He’s enticed them to join with Him in.

Nehemiah organizes and sets forth to undertake the rebuilding of the capital city’s walls……He gives an accounting of who did what in Chapter 3. Such work wasn’t embraced by all of the pagan people in the area….most ridiculed the Jewish people…..Sanballat the Horonite, in front of his associates and the army of Samaria, was incensed and angry saying…”What are those feeble Jews doing? Will they restore their wall? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they finish in a day? Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble—burned as they are?" Tobiah the Ammonite joked even more, “What they are building—if even a fox climbed up on it, he would break down their wall of stones!"

And even as the work progressed, nearing completion, it raised even more dissention among the pagan enemies of Israel…..Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites and the men of Ashdod began plotting against Jerusalem and its people.

God has brought it about as I progress under the teaching and instruction of the Holy Spirit opposition and ridicule from those opposed or not in sync with God’s word or purpose and have come against me as I push against the ‘corporate mentality’ of the postmodern church………..

Dr. Jeremiah points out four temptations that are usually the precursor to the sin of discouragement……

1) Fatigue, mental and/or physical.

2) Frustration.

Nehemiah 4:10-11 The people of Judah…faced with opposition from the pagan nations surrounding them as they rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem cry out, “The strength of the laborers is giving out, and there is so much rubble that we cannot rebuild the wall. Also our enemies said, ‘Before they know it or see us, we will be right there among them and will kill them and put an end to the work.”

These first two can usually go hand-in-hand, one on top of the other….as you get frustrated, you get tired or as you get tired, you get frustrated. The builders were facing the ridicule of enemy nations and turned to the pile of rubble before them, lamenting that no apparent progress had been made….and time was running out in their opinion before an enemy would attack them.

3) Failure (fear or attitude of failure)

Also in v10 above, the Israelites show the fear of failure, that they aren’t going to be able to build fast enough to thwart the enemy………

4) Fear

Nehemiah 4:11-12. “Also our enemies said, "Before they know it or see us, we will be right there among them and will kill them and put an end to the work." Then the Jews who lived near them came and told us ten times over, "Wherever you turn, they will attack us."”

They didn’t know when the enemy would attack and knew that when it came, they would be overwhelmed with no protective walls…..

Discouragement is the antithesis of what God built us to be and what the rebirth of salvation delivers into our hearts as we continue the journey towards the gates of the New Jerusalem……and the battle grows more intense, the enemy seems to have superior forces arrayed against the children of God.

We elect politicians who mouth godly intentions while their actions draw us further and further away from God’s plan…..we speak the truth, that Christ is the only way to salvation and are twisted into a corner with the new definition of tolerance…..more and more faithful are falling to false doctrines, couched with enough gospel verses to sway the shallow believer and beset the more mature, we label them good under the banner of ‘love’ and condemn those who are led astray……more and more third world countries are under the battle of fatigue, hungry and persecution with more and more believers imprisoned, tortured and killed for the refusal to turn from the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob…….future generations will never breath air because of the increased support of the secular world of abortion and the legislative laws bring us to a ‘master race’ mentality of who is allowed to breath air and who must die, be controlled and prevented from giving birth and more discriminatory, punishing legislation being passed to restrict Christianity……the economy is floundering and the governmental answer is to indebt the future generations…..

We are in discouraging times and the division between the pilgrims of this world and its permanent inhabitants grows daily in ways that years ago we would have scoffed at the possibilities……as we look at the rubble of what was once our protection in the secular world…once so bold and strong in the lives of the people…now lying tumbled and burn upon the ground, we are turning more and more away from the God of our faith and depending upon the workings of man and the ‘religious’ leadership that proclaims a stunted gospel….love everyone and we’ll all get to heaven in our own ways, don’t be offensive and above all, don’t speak absolute truth….define what truth is for you and allow that to be your guide.

Is it any wonder why more and more Christians are falling into apostasy? We believe in strength in numbers and gather ourselves into mega-churches we run like businesses…afraid of not making our ‘budgets’ and looking for spectacular and inviting ways to draw more ‘tithe’ givers of financial strength into our pews. We look less and less to healing those who are wounded, discipling those who are looking, and empowering those who have become apostles into commissioning others into the faith.

And we say, “Look, it’s obviously working…..the money is fine and the service is drawing more and more into our doors! We had to add “ADDITIONAL” services!!!!!”

The remnant is becoming disillusioned by the remaining rubble that lies around the modern church and is giving in to discouragement as the enemies of God’s plan threaten persecution and destruction…….there is just too much to do, there’s just too few to do it, and the enemy is making progress despite our best efforts!!

We all need to step into the story of Nehemiah and look to his example of how ‘sold-out-to-God’ people fight against discouragement. As Dr. Jeremiah points out, there are five God-given weapons to combat the enemy’s plan against the plan God has burdened His people with:

1) Cry out to God.
2) Continue to do the work God has called us to do.
3) Concentrate on the ‘big picture.’
4) Claim the encouragement provided in the promises God has given.
5) Carry the burdens of others as they carry your burdens….don’t carry your own.

”Hear us, O our God, for we are despised. Turn their insults back on their own heads. Give them over as plunder in a land of captivity. Do not cover up their guilt or blot out their sins from your sight, for they have thrown insults in the face of the builders.” Nehemiah 4:4-5 (NIV). Nehemiah doesn’t complain about the insults against him or the people but against God’s plan….giving it to God to handle in His way.

Even as the enemies grumbled and threatened, Nehemiah and his countrymen continued to follow God’s plan full-heartedly, building 25,000 yards (25 football fields) worth of wall half of its original height. Nehemiah 4:6.

He expected and prepared his people for the attacks against the people, rallying them with the encouragements that God had promised His children and walked as he talked, giving all he had in dedication to the call God had placed upon him….

“"Don't be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes." When our enemies heard that we were aware of their plot and that God had frustrated it, we all returned to the wall, each to his own work. From that day on, half of my men did the work, while the other half were equipped with spears, shields, bows and armor. The officers posted themselves behind all the people of Judah who were building the wall. Those who carried materials did their work with one hand and held a weapon in the other, and each of the builders wore his sword at his side as he worked. But the man who sounded the trumpet stayed with me. Then I said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, "The work is extensive and spread out, and we are widely separated from each other along the wall. Wherever you hear the sound of the trumpet, join us there. Our God will fight for us!" So we continued the work with half the men holding spears, from the first light of dawn till the stars came out. At that time I also said to the people, "Have every man and his helper stay inside Jerusalem at night, so they can serve us as guards by night and workmen by day." Neither I nor my brothers nor my men nor the guards with me took off our clothes; each had his weapon, even when he went for water.” Nehemiah 4:14b-23 (NIV)

When he would be discouraged, when he would be burdened by the task, Nehemiah did not isolate himself and take his portion..wishing for more. He bore the burdens of his people, making their burdened problems and situations his own. He led, again, as he spoke…giving his full focus and effort to the purpose God had set him to. He reinforces the vision with his dedication…inspiring the people through carrying their burdens and affecting change as he was given the authority to do. But he went further, sacrificing his own for the sake of his people:

“Now the men and their wives raised a great outcry against their Jewish brothers. Some were saying, "We and our sons and daughters are numerous; in order for us to eat and stay alive, we must get grain." Others were saying, "We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards and our homes to get grain during the famine." Still others were saying, "We have had to borrow money to pay the king's tax on our fields and vineyards. Although we are of the same flesh and blood as our countrymen and though our sons are as good as theirs, yet we have to subject our sons and daughters to slavery. Some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but we are powerless, because our fields and our vineyards belong to others." When I heard their outcry and these charges, I was very angry. I pondered them in my mind and then accused the nobles and officials. I told them, "You are exacting usury from your own countrymen!" So I called together a large meeting to deal with them and said: "As far as possible, we have bought back our Jewish brothers who were sold to the Gentiles. Now you are selling your brothers, only for them to be sold back to us!" They kept quiet, because they could find nothing to say. So I continued, "What you are doing is not right. Shouldn't you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of our Gentile enemies? I and my brothers and my men are also lending the people money and grain. But let the exacting of usury stop! Give back to them immediately their fields, vineyards, olive groves and houses, and also the usury you are charging them—the hundredth part of the money, grain, new wine and oil." "We will give it back," they said. "And we will not demand anything more from them. We will do as you say." Then I summoned the priests and made the nobles and officials take an oath to do what they had promised. I also shook out the folds of my robe and said, "In this way may God shake out of his house and possessions every man who does not keep this promise. So may such a man be shaken out and emptied!" At this the whole assembly said, "Amen," and praised the LORD. And the people did as they had promised. Moreover, from the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, until his thirty-second year—twelve years—neither I nor my brothers ate the food allotted to the governor. But the earlier governors—those preceding me—placed a heavy burden on the people and took forty shekels of silver from them in addition to food and wine. Their assistants also lorded it over the people. But out of reverence for God I did not act like that. Instead, I devoted myself to the work on this wall. All my men were assembled there for the work; we did not acquire any land. Furthermore, a hundred and fifty Jews and officials ate at my table, as well as those who came to us from the surrounding nations. Each day one ox, six choice sheep and some poultry were prepared for me, and every ten days an abundant supply of wine of all kinds. In spite of all this, I never demanded the food allotted to the governor, because the demands were heavy on these people.” Nehemiah 5:1-18 (NIV)

As Nehemiah progressed in the purpose to which God had set his heart to, he was more and more wary of the attack of the enemy…..Shemaiah tried to make Nehemiah give up because of intimidation….telling Nehemiah “Let us meet in the house of God, inside the temple, and let us close the temple doors, because men are coming to kill you----by night they are coming to kill you.” (Nehemiah 6:5 NIV). Shemaiah had been hired by Tobiah and Sanballat to create a bad name for Nehemiah and discredit his words of encouragement…..

How often do we, in the body, do the same thing…..we follow those leaders who whisper that we are being intolerant, unloving, and offensive by speaking the truth….the rhetoric is toned down, hell isn’t mention and the wages of sin…well, let’s just talk about the loving side of God rather than His wrath. We must water down the truth so that we can get the people in the doors…..we must not vote our faith but vote our hopes…..we cannot oppose the government in the democratic way but must accept what they deem is best for us……we run to our 'temple' and close the doors, creating the very reputation we've spoken against in times past and creating the image that our encouragement is not to be heeded......

We need to be like Nehemiah....

Nehemiah saw through the deception and uttered words we should be crying out against the opposition to the Truth, even those in the body who have become fearful and discouraged in the face of the massive rubble of this world:

“"Should a man like me run away? Or should one like me go into the temple to save his life? I will not go!"” Nehemiah 5:11a (NIV).

And in fifty-two days, the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt…..

What could God do with a body that is not discouraged despite the pile of rubble that has been created from the once-strong walls of the church, dedicated to rebuilding those walls under the threats, insults and intimidations of the enemy and glorifying God by that work He has purposed us all to do.

We can only do it now as the Israelites did in Nehemiah’s time.......Gather together, fasting and wearing sackcloth….confessing our sins and the wickedness of our forefathers in the body…reading from the Word of God and worshipping His mercy, grace and authority in our lives and the work of the church and recalling the promises and provisions of our God to His people, if we will only follow Him:

“"You are the LORD God, who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and named him Abraham. You found his heart faithful to you, and you made a covenant with him to give to his descendants the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Jebusites and Girgashites. You have kept your promise because you are righteous. You saw the suffering of our forefathers in Egypt; you heard their cry at the Red Sea. You sent miraculous signs and wonders against Pharaoh, against all his officials and all the people of his land, for you knew how arrogantly the Egyptians treated them. You made a name for yourself, which remains to this day. You divided the sea before them, so that they passed through it on dry ground, but you hurled their pursuers into the depths, like a stone into mighty waters. By day you led them with a pillar of cloud, and by night with a pillar of fire to give them light on the way they were to take. You came down on Mount Sinai; you spoke to them from heaven. You gave them regulations and laws that are just and right, and decrees and commands that are good. You made known to them your holy Sabbath and gave them commands, decrees and laws through your servant Moses. 15 In their hunger you gave them bread from heaven and in their thirst you brought them water from the rock; you told them to go in and take possession of the land you had sworn with uplifted hand to give them. But they, our forefathers, became arrogant and stiff-necked, and did not obey your commands. They refused to listen and failed to remember the miracles you performed among them. They became stiff-necked and in their rebellion appointed a leader in order to return to their slavery. But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. Therefore you did not desert them, even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, 'This is your god, who brought you up out of Egypt,' or when they committed awful blasphemies. Because of your great compassion you did not abandon them in the desert. By day the pillar of cloud did not cease to guide them on their path, nor the pillar of fire by night to shine on the way they were to take. You gave your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold your manna from their mouths, and you gave them water for their thirst. For forty years you sustained them in the desert; they lacked nothing, their clothes did not wear out nor did their feet become swollen. You gave them kingdoms and nations, allotting to them even the remotest frontiers. They took over the country of Sihon king of Heshbon and the country of Og king of Bashan. You made their sons as numerous as the stars in the sky, and you brought them into the land that you told their fathers to enter and possess. Their sons went in and took possession of the land. You subdued before them the Canaanites, who lived in the land; you handed the Canaanites over to them, along with their kings and the peoples of the land, to deal with them as they pleased. They captured fortified cities and fertile land; they took possession of houses filled with all kinds of good things, wells already dug, vineyards, olive groves and fruit trees in abundance. They ate to the full and were well-nourished; they reveled in your great goodness. But they were disobedient and rebelled against you; they put your law behind their backs. They killed your prophets, who had admonished them in order to turn them back to you; they committed awful blasphemies. So you handed them over to their enemies, who oppressed them. But when they were oppressed they cried out to you. From heaven you heard them, and in your great compassion you gave them deliverers, who rescued them from the hand of their enemies. But as soon as they were at rest, they again did what was evil in your sight. Then you abandoned them to the hand of their enemies so that they ruled over them. And when they cried out to you again, you heard from heaven, and in your compassion you delivered them time after time. You warned them to return to your law, but they became arrogant and disobeyed your commands. They sinned against your ordinances, by which a man will live if he obeys them. Stubbornly they turned their backs on you, became stiff-necked and refused to listen. For many years you were patient with them. By your Spirit you admonished them through your prophets. Yet they paid no attention, so you handed them over to the neighboring peoples. But in your great mercy you did not put an end to them or abandon them, for you are a gracious and merciful God. Now therefore, O our God, the great, mighty and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love, do not let all this hardship seem trifling in your eyes—the hardship that has come upon us, upon our kings and leaders, upon our priests and prophets, upon our fathers and all your people, from the days of the kings of Assyria until today. In all that has happened to us, you have been just; you have acted faithfully, while we did wrong.” Nehemiah 7 (NIV)

“God is not a man, that He should lie. He is not a human, that He should change His mind. Has He ever spoken and failed to act? Has He ever promised and not carried it through?” Numbers 23:19 (NLT)

My neighbor at work in the shop, “Junior” (as I call him), was telling me today about the repair to the roof of his new home that he has recently purchased. He said that as the roofers were walking on his roof, they would pause, shake their heads and proceed to rip out the boards underneath. As he watched the boards sail off the roof, he said, many were so badly rotten that they literally crumpled in the air, others were so warped they wobbled as they descended….the repair is going to require more than was originally estimated when the shingles covered the boards. My thought, sadly, wasn’t empathy for this young man and the adventures of home ownership but one of self-pity….”If only I had that problem.”

Yesterday was my birthday, the physical one. Forty-two years ago this day, a baby boy was born.

And, as is usually my practice on this day, I look back at my life….some twelve years past where I thought it would end…..and wonder about the journey I’ve travelled so far and the journey I have yet to go before I arrive before that great white throne of judgment and receive my ‘review’ of what I have done with what God has given to me.

And the struggles that I face…..even today, smack up against the deadline of the secular world and fully exposed to defeat yet again. With a mustard seed of faith…..crying out to the Lord for salvation from the distress yet again. Will He come through or will He finally shake His mighty head in sadness and let go……..
God is not a man, human or bound by anything other than His righteousness and holiness.

He is mighty and powerful indeed to save. Even a wretch like me.

Some people look at my life and where I am now; shaking their heads. I drive a car that has seen better days years ago. I have no degree, no ‘highly’ skilled job to match my desires, talents and skills. I have no home even, having fallen upon the graces of family….living in a home that is not my own and burdening someone else with the needs of my family. My bank account is seriously vacant and my financial outlook grimmer than a necessary roof repair….I have broken relationships and children who have had to grow up beyond their years…..I struggle with smoking, with depression and self-depreciating self-image…

And yet, on this day of my physical birth….I can only look back, even in the face of the burden of possibly being without a ‘legal’ car by the end of the day because of insurance and plates that expire and no funds to obtain their renewal……and see a God that is so much more than human eyes can behold and human minds can encompass.
And who has spelled out the proof of His love, the might of His grace and the redemptive peace of His mercy throughout history and even in the smaller story of my own life…time and time and time again.

Even in the midst of this latest deadline; I hope for an outcome that would not only rescue me from this disaster but would bring Him undeniable glory through the testimony of its resolution……or that the darkness of the road ahead is the one He has set my feet to and that my movement into its inky blackness would speak of His love and peace that is mine to have, if only I trust in Him.

But to testify to His power, to show His grace and to live in His mercy…we have to live exposed…and willing, by human hands and words, to be wounded. Honor scars, John Eldridge calls them…..the infliction of which bear no difference from the painful wounds of our hearts outside of Christ’s salvation.

“Have you ‘renounced secret and shameful ways’---the things that your sense of honour will not allow to come to the light? …………….. Is there a thought in your heart about anyone which you would not like to be dragged into the light?” Oswald Chambers asks us today in My Utmost For His Highest. “Renounce it as soon as it springs up; renounce the whole thing until there is no hidden thing of dishonesty or craftiness about you. Envy, jealousy, strife---these things arise not necessarily from the disposition of sin, but from the make-up of your body which was used for this kind of thing in days gone by.”

Today, forty-two years ago, a baby boy was born to Sharon Lee Nitchie and Ronald Lawrence Hutson. Shortly thereafter, the heart of that little boy was brutally murdered unconsciously and consciously at the hands of his parents….. At the age of sixteen, abandoned by a church that refused to step up and defiant of a father whom chose to live a life beyond the focus of children, that now-teenager left home and moved in with his birth mother for a week, then his half-sister for a few months, eventually living on his own during his senior year of High School, turning his back upon God and this religiosity called “Christianity.” Renouncing everything and anything to do with “God”, this young man departed into a life that would leave many quivering in their shoes and ill with contempt. It is hard to live life when your heart has been stilled…..and you are unaware of a life flowing around you when your ambition is to kill the body as the soul is by the age of thirty.

Drugs, immoral behavior, theft, alcohol abuse and involvement in things that would be questionable for even the hardiest of criminally-driven minds were my attempts….and they all failed in the self-set purpose they were engaged for.
Five years ago on February 14th, 2004 that boy was redeemed by the blood of the Lamb and the grace of the Father in Heaven….and took the first steps on a journey that has stepped into the darkness of a wounded soul…and found peace in the midst of exposure. My life is disrupted, disturbed and disorientated; completely worthless but in the hands of the Creator who made it ‘wonderfully and fearfully’, naming me before I was even born and purposing me to the work He has set aside to do with me for the sake of His glory.

I have been blessed, even if the only blessing I can see is the love of a Savior that was so powerfully felt within the fabric of His being that He allowed Himself to be sacrificed upon a cross, nailed brutally with iron nails through the human flesh He set aside His rightful place to assume by my own hands. I cringe when the image of that hammer driving the nails through His flesh plays in my mind.

Yet, even in those times of open rebellion and defiance when I walked willfully away from Him, His promise and His purpose….He stood there and offered the protection of a father’s love…..until that day He knew I would turn around and seek Him once more in the summer of my youth. He waited and rejoiced once He saw me walking over that hill and didn’t even wait for me to complete the miles to the front door of the home He’s kept for me before His arms wrapped themselves around me, His robe tightly wrapped around my shoulders and His love flowing over me like waves of cleansing rain…..tears of joy that once were tears of sorrow and pain for the son who wandered so far from home’s warmth and grace.

Where I am only fit to be a servant in my Father’s house, He would throw a banquet…..where I am only fit to slop the pens of the pigs and livestock, He would cloak me in finest silks…..where I am even unfit to tie the sandals on His feet, He would bend down and wash the grime and filth of the journey in this decayed and corrupt world from my feet.

I have nothing to give and yet He looks at me with the eyes of a Master Craftsman and nods His head….”This is what I was looking for when I first took you from the clay of the ground, and I can do much with this.”

He has begun that developing work; shaping this burnt, misshapen and brittle wood into the vision He holds in His eye for it. Whittling dependency on worldly things here, cutting off decayed and corrupted material there, sanding off the sharpness of an edge here and there…..listening with a craftsman’s ear to the story that the wood has to tell…one He knows from its beginnings…….working as He knows to do towards the final work of beauty that He sees already formed.

I am far from where the finished piece is, but I am being shaped by the Father’s hands.

That is why I struggle despite the certainty of my doubts, why I move into the darkness of a small and narrow way and why I desire nothing more than to stand before those seeking, those hungering and those thirsting for His truth and speak it from personal experience; the hope that flows within me that He has begun a work in me and will not stop until He is finished.

On that day, however many birthdays on this world I have yet to celebrate….I want to stand before Him in judgment and know that I am the beautiful work He has made in me, that those who stand with me that I have come across in this journey were blessed by my testimony, empowered by my sorrow and impacted by my love for His work.
That is my purpose, to which I have given my life freely to Him to be used as He sees fit. To serve others that they might see Him.

“Do not use deception,” that is, resorting to what will carry your point. This is a great snare. You know that God will only let you work in one way, then be careful never to catch people the other way………………..” Chambers concludes his devotion for today, “For you to do a certain thing would mean the incoming of craftiness for an end other than the highest, and the blunting of the motive God has given you. Many have gone back because they are afraid of looking at things from God’s standpoint. The great crisis comes spiritually when a man has to emerge a bit farther on than the creed he has accepted.”

Fully exposed…….in the midst of this deadline, where the doubt of my flesh war with the assurance of my spirit, I will stand; praying for God’s provision and understanding His authority to answer in His way, His timing and His plan….even to the point of my distress in the physical. I will continue to praise Him if the plane continues to the ground…..I can do nothing else.

Because on this day forty-two years ago, a baby boy was born…..and is walking closer and closer to home in the arms of his loving Savior.

There was no resolution for the mountain that I face....but I am confident in the Lord to do what He has purposed to do in this situation and bring me to greater testimony about the power, grace and love of our Father in Heaven.

Joy...the fabric of hope, love and peace...deep in my heart

“So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.” (John 16:22 NIV)

The kids are safely ensconced in their individual schools, Sara at Farrand and Casey at Central, and I have met with the Teacher Consultant regarding Casey’s IEP. It looks like Central will not be able to give him the support he needs for his cognitive impairment which means he’ll have to move over to Discovery. Life goes on, its struggles never far from mind and its demands never ceasing in my ear. Sorrows and heartaches beat in tune with my heart……the future doesn’t look bright, even without shades.

A friend of mine on Facebook, Kimberly Cash-Tate, writes a devotional “Colored in Christ” and the most recent was “I’ve got the Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy…..” She references the verse above and says this, “God didn’t give us joy just to feel giddy. It fortifies us. It helps us endure. Like Jesus, believers know that this life on earth isn’t all there is, no matter the trial. We’ve got an eternity set before us.”

I look at the life that I have lived so far upon this world and I, quite frankly, am amazed that I have survived so far…even still today…both life in general and the attempts that I made to try and exit out early. Sometimes, it isn’t amazement but a sullen sorrow that I have. Sometimes I wonder if God is playing some cosmic game where I am the pawn with the big old red target plastered on my back…..customized for everything possible that could go wrong, be difficult or painful. It is very natural for me to withdraw from the world, to protect me and my children from the difficulties that are presented to us and the ignorant attitudes that can be so viciously applied from those who seem to have no regard for the well-being of those they should. Others, brave enough to step into the chaos of the life that this part of the Hutson family lives, are disrupted and don’t seem to fare too well for too long because of the myriad of complexities and relational defects that plague my children and break my heart. They fall away into the annals of the past, sad reminders of what could have been and what is not.

Sometimes, stumbling around in this darkness that permeates the world…..not so much casting out the junk, that ‘stuff’ that God is working on, but moving it around so that, in my own broken, dysfunctional way I can move….for the sake of my children…I break further and feel more and more unable to overcome the major mountains of my life, straddled as they are with the Goliaths of my deepest fears. Even as I fall to my knees, overwhelmed with depression and heartbreak, as that anvil of living slams into me again and again to bury me in the dirt from whence I was formed…..I cannot escape that knowledge that God is good, merciful and graceful…..even in the depth of my despair, I cannot escape that fact that God is…..GOD.

At times like those, that knowledge haunts me….doesn’t give me peace….doesn’t give me strength…it hangs like that undesired diagnosis from the Doctor: incurable cancer, stage 4, and only months to live.

You can’t escape its complications, its connotations….God exists and isn’t going away, even if you move to that state down south of the everglades called Denial.
He is unmovable, unshakeable and totally undeniable……there is no way to ignore that pink elephant that sits in the corner of the room…..even denying His voice doesn’t do any good….in the middle of the tempest, battered back and forth by the mighty waves, pummeled by the merciless gale and listening to the stressed joints of your vessel straining to the point of sheering….you can’t deny Him.

That knowledge keeps you fighting against the gales of this life; struggling even as the ship fills to the bottom of the gunwales with icy cold, black water of the depths….even as the masts of your dreams come crashing upon the deck of harsh reality….even as your world is reduced to a small life raft bobbing on the vast open waters…..even when it seems all hope is gone…..it drives you beyond yourself and its hopelessness.

Some call it the unshakeable ‘human’ spirit….that essence of humanity that has driven us from the protoplasmic wiggly mess to grow legs, grow through the centuries’ march to that complex form that we currently inhabit as a ‘twenty-second century’ construct of mankind….or, to be PC, Humankind…

According to those, it is such ‘drive’ that has brought us through the dark ages and the industrial age into the technological age…..it is the driving force that causes us to invent, to question and to divine our place in this universe……That ‘human spirit’…..it is the reason why abortions continue to decimate entire populations and races, why abnormal and psychological/physiological behaviors continue to destroy the fabric that stitches the myriad of complex human personalities and cultures together and pulls apart the entire cohesiveness of the ‘societal’ makeup of the species called homo sapiens.

It’s ugly, broken and corrupted head was first reared in the Garden and it has been slowly killing itself ever since. It’s driving force isn’t ‘being’, ‘who am I’ and ‘why am I here,’ it is to create a way so that it can deny the truth, that we are created beings who corrupted ourselves through sin and are in need of salvation that only that Creator can effectively deliver to us. If we can only prove the illogical probability of our own ‘chance’ existence, we will have effectively proven the concept of a Creator is false and therefore our own corruption is a figurative thing, individually defined. We will be the unlikely, undesigned Masters of the Universe……and the source of our own destruction when such illogic becomes logical.

Some call it the ‘collective consciousness’, that massive cerebral mystical being….made up of all of us, mini-gods, self-aware, self-evolved and self-determining. It is what brought humanity from the oozing fields of prehistoric life into the upright forms today, highly intelligent and socially evolved. It is the “CC” that is driving humanity to the ‘next level’ of consciousness…..when we will become one with the cosmic and float among the stars in a mental/spiritual return to that protoplasmic organism of our creation……the ultimate circle of life; birth, life, evolution, expansion into the cosmic……never-ending and definitely non-fatal.

Those who fail to achieve the higher consciousness will simply be absorbed.

None of it answers everything….nothing explains its existence in the primordial ooze before words could be shaped to explain its concept. It is there, as if designed and grafted into our being, the fiber of our physical/mental/spiritual totality of our being collectively called human---which works independently and co-dependently together for a purpose designed by something other than ourselves. It drives us to supersede our ‘animalistic’ instincts for the sake of the other, to seek beyond ourselves and to care for the wounded, hurting and broken of our species…..beyond the ‘conscious human spirit’ that calls for survival of the fittest….

As if, in our design there was given a measure of this stuff…..that drives us to find more of it within ourselves, our world and those around us.

It isn’t love; unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another or the warm attachment, enthusiasm, devotion or affection for another……

It isn’t hope, for hope without it is nothing except a statement, a wish for something with expectation of its fulfillment that is absent of any life…..

It isn’t peace, for without it peace is nothing but a fragile individualized inner contentment or serenity that is unsustainable in the harsh light of day…….

It entices us into places we have been hurt before, if only to feel it’s temporary and brief warmth again for a short time…….

It dares us to love, to hope and to be peaceful in this midst of being in a self-serving, individual world that cuts us daily, wounds us weekly and demands everything from us............

It rallies against our ‘human spirit’, is indefinable by our ‘consciousness’ and defies our attempts to create it unreliant upon anything else that may cause its collapse. It exists where it shouldn’t, moves us into places we may not want to go and propels us to do more than we might be comfortable doing; for others and the society as a whole. And sometimes it is a deep river within the protected walls of our heart.

But, when we experience it…..it is an intense, ecstatic and exultant happiness that renews our hope, sweetens our love and brings peace in the chaos. It allows us to experience an undeniable reason to keep fighting, keep struggling and keep working towards its embrace again….laughing madly in the face of the tempest. When felt, it vibrates within the fibers of our being, physiologically and psychologically, as if we’ve touched upon that which we were designed to continually feel, to be in a state of each and every moment of our lives…..it makes us feel ALIVE

It’s name is Joy…………………

From the joy of our Father, we were created…..to live and to be in relationship with Him. From the joy of the Father and the Son, the sorrow of the Cross was endured…..for the joy that would be reborn from its sadness and corruption would bring humanity back into His arms, in relationship with Him.

From joy, we strive to live a ‘Christ-like’ life, forsaking our comfort; peace and measure for the sake of helping others find that joy….a sustained, living and breathing happiness that comes from an indefinable source….God. Even in the midst of our sorrows, it is the smile that comes to our face as we;

Hear the whispered words, “I love you”, from our children……………………………………….

Think of the beating heart of a unborn child that beats within a woman’s body.........................

Feel the tender embrace of another after the brutality of our peers……………………………..

Know we are truly, deeply and powerfully loved in measures we do not deserve…………….

It brings us to a group of fellow ‘like-minded’ fellow human beings, in various sizes and shapes, to lift our voices (and sometimes our hands) above the impoverished state of our world to raise high our thankfulness, hopefulness and happiness to a Father who loves us, a Son who died for us and a Spirit that struggles for us each day of our sorrowful lives.

It is what creates, breathes life into and endures the ability to struggle through the trials, tribulations and sorrows because of the knowledge of its existence in a God who created us, died for us and beckons us back to His arms. Who holds, for a little while, His righteous wrath so that His desire that none should perish but all know the happiness of eternal life.

It is that knowledge that, even as we live in sorrowful grief, that sustains the hope and belief that we will be back in those arms again…..as soon as we see the face that is it source and we know upon that day………..

Our Joy will never cease………

because our Savior has come back to make it complete.

I have joy, joy, joy, joy deep in my heart….deep in my heart….deep in my heart

Sorrowed into silence....

“…and having heard these things, Jesus said to him, `Yet one thing to thee is lacking; all things--as many as thou hast--sell, and distribute to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come, be following me;' and he, having heard these things, became very sorrowful, for he was exceeding rich.” (Luke 18:22-23 YLT)


“I can be so rich in my poverty, or in the awareness that I am nobody, that I will never be a disciple of Jesus.” Oswald Chambers writes in My Utmost For His Highest (Updated Version edited by James Reimann) daily devotional, “Or I can be so rich in my awareness that I am somebody that I will never be a disciple. Am I willing to be destitute and poor even in my sense of awareness of my destitution and poverty? If not, that is why I become discouraged. Discouragement is disillusioned self-love, and self-love may be love for my devotion to Jesus ----not love for Jesus Himself.”

The clock slowly ticks away on that time bomb that lies at the center of my life….it’s booming mechanical snap tolling like some endless chiming haunting my hours, whether awake or asleep, as the avenues that I have become increasingly few….and the sentries that stand at the forks increasingly agitated about my passage.

My faith has been tested these past summer months and I find more and more appalling structural in my belief and cosmetic damage in my faith than I would’ve have thought possible a few months prior. It has continued to pile on as the summer progressed and no solutions were found; no one stepped forward in the church to respond to the need with my kids….even the elder that talked so promising to me the Sunday prior to the last never called back, and yet greeted me with a kind smile when I came to church this Sunday.

The finances fell apart again, quicker than last time, and I put my pride on the shelf to go to the Soldiers’ Relief Fund ran through Oakland County to sit with a Chief Warrant Officer (Ret.) and be made to feel a disgrace to the military service, without a guarantee that they would be willing to help.

The Landlord, who has finally managed to rent all three apartments, is angry.......the lease is up September 1st and I cannot give him an answer as to whether or not I’m going to be staying in Holly.

The meeting with my Lead Pastor that I missed by being at the wrong Villager Restaurant is probably not going to happen in time, even though it was not for the purpose of discussing the situation, before I leave the congregation. He and his wife are celebrating 30 years of marriage and August is typically a busy month, even without the addition of preparing the new property for the ‘grand opening’ for the River Church. And, seemingly when I have found that niche in the church family here in Holly, I find that the movement out of the congregation will seal that undone and unexplored.

In a state of ‘increased’ conviction that Holly is where I am supposed to be, and the River is the church to which I will find the next season unfold in this journey….the confidence of those around me lie in moving out of the area.

In a state of ‘calm’ conviction that my job is the thing that I should be moving away from, into the calling of God’s from so long ago, the assurance remains in others that God will make a way, in accordance with those around me, and I will be preaching or teaching the Word……I have nothing to be gained by speaking its vision to others, nor of the vision to go overseas as a missionary. The Body has nothing to do in neither preparation nor establishment of that position to which God has foolishly called me to.

And as time grows increasingly shorter, both in this current personal seasonal ending and in the shortness of the season of this world, I am growing less and less convinced of the calling or its authenticity. The sharpness of my faith is a double-edged sword and I am becoming immune to its cutting edge; dulled by the merciless beating of it in the battlefield.

Instead, haunting images grace my slumber….of the contentment and peace of being within the purposes of God, doing the work to which God has seemed to call me……that transforms in the harshness of the daylight the horrifying nightmare that I am nor will ever be within the grasp of that purpose; being the utter sinful, though redeemed, man I am.

Like that rich young ruler, confronted with the necessity of being a disciple of God, I find myself utterly shut up with sorrow and frozen with shame. The world continues to collapse and the foolishness of the man-made structure of governance worldwide, particularly within the boundaries of my home country of the United States, continues to be exposed to the apathy of the governed.

The conformity of humanity under a worldly-established and defined ‘religion’ continues forward like a ravenous beast, consuming those opposed in the name of ‘tolerance’ and ‘unity’ and mankind cheers its cleverness under those dripping jaws…..clueless that when the truth is eaten and the world is void of the voices of the faithful who have been consumed, they surely must be the beast’s next meal source. Religion has become boastful obedience to a outside God, the love for the worldly things dressed up in mankind’s version of what god is supposed to be; silent and aloof.

Mankind has once again claimed its unfounded right to declare what is righteous, fair and dutiful of their gods.

I grow sorrowful, not because of the ‘mega’ nature/size of my home church nor the path to which its leadership have decided to follow in the pursuit of God….I disagree with its decision, but am confident in God to correct it and use the resultant mess (if any) for the betterment of the people within its walls. I grow saddened that I won’t sit under the teaching of Jim Combs, a godly man and excellent communicator of what God would have me to hear…..even now.

For some reason, even in the short fast I performed (24-hours), he remains upon my mind to sit down and talk with, not only about the burden of missionary work in Australia but of all the things to which God has burdened me with……as if even he would change the decision of the church’s lack of participation in my life, messy and bumpy as it is…..after all, there is nothing in the church about the single father being treated with the same deference as single mothers, widows and orphans.

My devotional time has suffered greatly, as is evidenced by my decreasing blog writing……there is nothing to which the fire is being fueled and I am not one to just go through the motions as if action can transform into reality and create belief….the brokenness of my beliefs, the smallness of my faith and the worldliness of my experience has brought me to a standstill……to a sorrowful silence……...and I feel less assured of my calling and purpose as a God-desired thing as I pile more and more reasoning that others have given me for the seemingly inaction of God in this place.

But I wonder if I loved the way I loved the idea of Christ and have fallen upon the reality of how much farther I have to go to be confident in loving Christ Himself.

The illusion of my belief has been dashed upon the rocks of reality……as time goes on, with the uncertainty of the future, I haven’t even packed my belongings up in preparation of moving..I don’t believe in the capability of moving. Even if I get approval from the park management to move into that beat up and damaged older trailer…..I have to come up with the funds to move, to start utilities, security and first months……and then, even then, I don’t have the confidence in the increased demand of the cost to live………though my faith is the size of a mustard seed……I don’t believe I can move this mountain, or the mountains that stretch beyond it as far as the horizon.

I have been sorrowed into silence.

The hope remains……and the assurance of God’s authority rings in the silence of my ears.

And my sorrowful heart lifts up its plea…..its heart-rending brokenness crying out its pain…….

“I will cry out to you, O LORD. I will plead to the Lord for mercy: "How will you profit if my blood is shed, if I go into the pit? Will the dust of my body give thanks to you? Will it tell about your truth?" Hear, O LORD, and have pity on me! O LORD, be my helper! You have changed my sobbing into dancing. You have removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy so that my soul may praise you with music and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks to you forever.” (Psalms 30:8-12 GW)

Even in this place, I cannot deny the authority of God, His mercy and grace and the demand of voicing that praise and thankfulness as the ship fills with the waters of this world and prepares to go under. I cling, against any worldly hope, to the fantail of this massive ship…….determined to gasp life-giving breath until I am no longer able, until this world consumes me in the mouth of the mighty beast that roams hungry upon its surface.

His story will remain, even if mine ends.

Prayer

It all depends on what you can do and how much you are willing to compromise to make the situation work. Here is the mobile home that I can afford to live in so that I can move closer to my family so that I can keep my job and yet have help with the kids…….

Sometimes the provisions that God has for us don't look like what we imagine. Pray that I can be accepted by the mobile home park that has the one I can afford….and that we can make the move soon.

 

The world grows smaller as the dream grows bigger

"And when they were on the way, a certain man said to him, I will come after you wherever you go. And Jesus said to him, Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have resting-places, but the Son of man has nowhere to put his head. And he said to another, Come after me. But he said, Lord, let me first go and give the last honours to my father. But he said to him, Let the dead take care of their dead; it is for you to go and give news of the kingdom of God. And another man said, I will come with you, Lord, but first let me say a last good-day to those who are at my house. But Jesus said, No man, having put his hand to the plough and looking back, is good enough for the kingdom of God." (Luke 9:57-62 BBE)

God's commission doesn't sit well in the modern westernized Church model...which seems so far from the model of the Church that Christ left in the hands of His disciples some 2,000 years ago. More and more churches are more concerned about fancy temples, big projects (called capital building projects) that do little within the communities in which they rest. Evangelism becomes a 'big sign' and 'full parking lot' rather than one-on-one relationships. Pastors become favorites rather than the word that is preached. Outreaches become single-minded and sharply focused upon one group, one bracket or one direction.

The numbers look good, the finances attract investors who 'loan money to visionaries' and the Word (never to return void) goes slowly silent as the faithful are guided into the postmodern 'self' message of love, love and love.....the lies and philosophies of man become hazy and semi-biblical in their utterance but totally void of their fruitfulness, until it becomes the 'Word', leaving more and more of the mega-churched empty and abandoned to fall prey to the growing malaise that paralyzes a people into 'voting' for a immoral change, speaking less against a culture in chaotic destructive mentality and a rejection of those who would speak the Truth in its unadulterated, non-respecting purity.

Go out to all the nations of the world and tell them the Gospel, making disciples becomes an inward focus on keeping what you have and calling the community that lies stagnant a focal point of God's blessings, the Word proclaimed and the lesser 'dirtiness' of life is conveniently swept under the table that sits on the stage.

Disciples lose their zeal for the passion of Christ and opt instead for the relative comforts of Sunday school and cookie-cutter programming for the ministries. Challenges once issued to the leadership under the passionate convictions of a man or woman of God, even if in opposition to the leader's chosen direction, fall upon the ears of the discontent as they have been silenced into submission by the congregational love feast with their pastoral leadership. No one really questions anymore, for questions are not welcomed within the halls of the faithful and the glittered temples of mega. It is better to fade into the quietness of contemplative silence and forego the desires God stokes within the flame of our faith.

Most churches preach a doctrine of peaceful contentment, relative bliss and relational complacency that one has to dull their hearts in such condition so that the mudanity of their lives serve as a balm for the discontentment that boils beneath the surface. This is why I believe the mega-, emergent- and postmodern churches are the most popular today.....it soothes the discontentment that a life seeking Christ, knowing God and being counseled by the Spirit causes, the disruption and the fearful reliance upon a faith that is never stagnate, never satisfied and constantly challenged.

As John Eldridge says in The Sacred Romance, "While our hearts grow in its capacity for pleasure, it grows in its capacity to know pain." The Church, in trying to answer the painful experiences that its congregations are facing actually helps to silence the growth of its members....calling them to a mundane numbness that nullifies the growing sense of painful disconnection to a world that moves further and further from the precepts of its Designer and Creator.

"As the Lord gives you truth, acknowledge it and allow HIM to guide you through it. Don’t try to do anything on your own. Our walk with the Lord is a continual realization of how we need to grow in the image of the Son." Paul Ferree, American missionary and writer of the blog "How To Become A Missionary", writes as he and his family travel the United States where the Father leads, "We simply recognize our errors and repent, or trade our ways for the Father’s ways. Turn from the way we do things and do things the way our Father in heaven instructs us to do them."

As I sense with growing wonder and competing fear the grand work of the Lord within and around me, and the evidence that shows a preparation to the impossibility of the direction that......my preconceived perceptions of what my service to the Call would shape out to be. These are shattered upon the rocks of disillusioned fantasies, exposing the utter foolishness of a future built upon their fragile and simple frames. The assured, peaceful disruption of following the 'walk of sorrow' that characterizes the journey of Christ from rejection to condemnation to the crucifixion promises a grander context, greater works and stronger persecution in ways that I immediately want to reject as foolishness and point out their improbability.

It no longer seems ironic to me that as I look into the chaos of my disrupted life and all of its trials, tribulations and stresses that I find more and more Word being delivered upon the platter of my supplication for God to speak. From a multitude of sources; devotions from separate ministries, words from others (and not just necessarily 'faithful' ones) and an inter-relationalish to events in my life.

Today, from the Ransomed Hearts ministry of John Eldridge, author of Wild at Heart, as well as other fantastic books, comes a devotion that referenced Psalm 119:25. I've quoted part of Eldridge's comments from his book, The Sacred Romance, already...but God chose to expand upon Eldridge's offering with the verses from 25 through 38.

"I am at the point of death. Let your teachings breathe new life into me. When I told you my troubles, you answered my prayers. Now teach me your laws. Help me to understand your teachings, and I will think about your marvelous deeds. I am overcome with sorrow. Encourage me, as you have promised to do. Keep me from being deceitful, and be kind enough to teach me your Law. I am determined to be faithful and to respect your laws. I follow your rules, LORD. Don't let me be ashamed. I am eager to learn all that you want me to do; help me to understand more and more. Point out your rules to me, and I won't disobey even one of them. Help me to understand your Law; I promise to obey it with all my heart. Direct me by your commands! I love to do what you say. Make me want to obey you, rather than to be rich. Take away my foolish desires, and let me find life by walking with you. I am your servant! Do for me what you promised to those who worship you." (Psalms 119:25-38 CEV)

My heart wants to cling to the 'comforts' of this life that has taken so much effort and suffering to achieve, even at this level. It wants peace, grace, mercy, love and above all, hope in such degree that its undeniable. It wants evidence of healing, restoration and an visible 'outward' sign to point to as evidence of my spiritual growth in His purpose. Yet, by clinging to that desire and the resultant chains that it creates, I become bound by the declarations of others.....more beholding to their perceived and unknowledged agendas. God doesn't move where we chain ourselves willingly but calls us to break those chains and live 'on the edge' of His cresting wave of life-giving water......straining in those places where our worst fears lie, unprepared and uncomfortable....God has already prepared us for those things, just as He has already restored our corrupted bodies, yet the journey is realizing that in truth in its entirity, something we will never fully achieve until we reach the point of Christ's return or ours to our Heavenly home

God doesn't ask us to 'fit Him into our life' but to surrender our life over to Him so that we can fit into His story, His life.

"But more than anything else put God's work first and do what he wants. Then the other things will be yours as well." (Matthew 6:33 CEV)

Even in the fluidity of my current situation; finances, location and family struggles.....my time has been less focused on what God is doing in my world, in the life around me, and more focused on the miserable attempt to 'maintain' this lifestyle's 'status quo' at least, with the hope to improve it beyond the difficult position of being fully dependent on God's timing, provision and direction. My devotional time, as reflected in my blog postings, has been stagnant and full of silence.

But, in the last few months, in ever increasing ways….God has brought undeniable proof of His provisions and of His conditioning for the Calling He's given. Not in the hallowed halls of the Church, nor the venerable cafeterias of the aging saints. By becoming vulnerable to God, I am realizing the folly of my limitations…..as if God is big, but not big enough for my situation and problems. He is working in my life in ways I didn't realize, amid the painfulness of letting go of the old…..and it is the strength He has added to my faith that makes it still cling to Him despite no assurance of anything.

Oh, I'm not fully free, if I ever will be, but God is still pointing the way and whispering words of preparation for a world that He's opened for me to journey in with His Truth, His Mercy and for His Glory. The dream, though personal and unique to my perspective, is expanding beyond my wildest imaginations.


Paul Ferre's website is www.paulferree.com that is his 'tent making' conjunction to his ministry. His blog, how to become a missionary is at www.howtobecomeamissionary.com . John Eldridge's devotionals are sent from the website of his Ransomed Heart ministry that you can sign up for at www.ransomedheart.com.

Following the work God would do.........

I don't know if this is going to be a 'smooth' flowing blog post today.....God has me in such a disrupted state that I just let it go......The harvest, He keeps whispering, is ready and the workers few, will you join Me where I call?"

"Thus says the LORD: “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls”" (Jeremiah 6:16, ESV)

Dare I hope that the day has come where I see the positive movement of God within the context of my story, no longer at the behest of the writer but through the hand of the Ghost writer that has been writing the whole breathe and width of the human story since its inception at the breath of God into the formed lump of clay?

If so, the vision is unlike the shape and color of that moment in October where I heard the LORD speak to me as Gene Apell stood upon the stage at the mega-church of Bill Hybels and spoke of his ministry; neighborhood communities. Being so newly minted into the new creature that God enables upon rebirth, I find it funny sometimes how convinced, convicted and even 'rejectful' of that moment in time, a scant eight months since the experience that would forever change my life's direction and would bring me into full view of the enemy's ill will, that I was.

It surely hasn't translated into assurance, edification and mentoring in the whole-wide body of Christ, even five years plus later....except in those 'pockets' of believers that have stepped into the messiness of life and seen the mark of God's annointing, that band of brothers, and sisters, who move into the messiness of life with more than just words of life but a positive movement that speaks louder than words could ever convey.

A faint glimpse that powerful October call seems to be now; the width and depth of the need within the body of Christ, not just worldwide but especially within the 'hallowed halls' of the westernized church that is slowly dying in the postmoderistic, universalist and agenda-ridden environment of the American experience has never seemed to be more in need of those faithfully called to ministry and yet so rejectful of those so called. "A prophet is not welcomed in his own town" has rang true throughout my experience here at home in the land of my birth.

The barely understood journey from the beloved boy that God created who was killed in his infancey to the godly man; still forming, still growing and still wounded as he faces that death and finds God's restorative, resurrecting power even in the midst of his past....testifies to the mighty works the Lord is doing within its confines and the broader scope of its use for the Kingdom.

It seems to be the mode operandi that God has used in my life; a simple question, a scriptural reference, or even a study that, once considered, becomes a moment of choice that becomes a journey of learning, seeking and realization that becomes a clear vision of God's working in and around me in my life...wherever it is and how ever it has been lived......that becomes a desire to declare its clarity in the lives around me and then another question, simply put, that brings me full-circle into the process.

Sometimes the process is seemingly effortless, those simple truths that cascade through the moments like a waterfall....one simply gives in to its powerful truth. More often though, the process is very difficult, exceedingly painful and in its entrity not all that much fun....but it is like a stream, still of the same element, but slower as it whittles the hardened rock to its eventual collaspe.

And, in the darkness of human despair, depression, loss, struggle and tribulation when the dark fluidity of the night seems to press upon me with the liquid heaviness of blood, I find the strength born of fear, faith and an undeniable hope that causes me to reach out to those things I fear the most for substainable substance in the midst of it all. Other men, relationship and community.

It is still a source of amazement to me at the power of God in the controlling and issuance of His word from the mouth of another brother or sister that, even in its actual context, speaks different words to each of those He has touched to be compelled by its utterance. Recently, my current home church completed the process of securing funding and the ownership (with mortgage) of a parcel of land where the Lead Pastor has envisioned a dream for God's work in the Holly Area. The pastor called upon the congregation to be a participator in God's work, not a spectator.

"One day Jonathan the son of Saul said to the young man who carried his armor, "Come, let us go over to the Philistine garrison on the other side." But he did not tell his father. Saul was staying in the outskirts of Gibeah in the pomegranate cave at Migron. The people who were with him were about six hundred men, including Ahijah the son of Ahitub, Ichabod's brother, son of Phinehas, son of Eli, the priest of the LORD in Shiloh, wearing an ephod. And the people did not know that Jonathan had gone. Within the passes, by which Jonathan sought to go over to the Philistine garrison, there was a rocky crag on the one side and a rocky crag on the other side. The name of the one was Bozez, and the name of the other Seneh. The one crag rose on the north in front of Michmash, and the other on the south in front of Geba. Jonathan said to the young man who carried his armor, "Come, let us go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised. It may be that the LORD will work for us, for nothing can hinder the LORD from saving by many or by few." And his armor-bearer said to him, "Do all that is in your heart. Do as you wish. Behold, I am with you heart and soul." Then Jonathan said, "Behold, we will cross over to the men, and we will show ourselves to them. If they say to us, 'Wait until we come to you,' then we will stand still in our place, and we will not go up to them. But if they say, 'Come up to us,' then we will go up, for the LORD has given them into our hand. And this shall be the sign to us." So both of them showed themselves to the garrison of the Philistines. And the Philistines said, "Look, Hebrews are coming out of the holes where they have hidden themselves." And the men of the garrison hailed Jonathan and his armor-bearer and said, "Come up to us, and we will show you a thing." And Jonathan said to his armor-bearer, "Come up after me, for the LORD has given them into the hand of Israel." Then Jonathan climbed up on his hands and feet, and his armor-bearer after him. And they fell before Jonathan, and his armor-bearer killed them after him. And that first strike, which Jonathan and his armor-bearer made, killed about twenty men within as it were half a furrow's length in an acre of land." (1 Samuel 14:1-14 ESV)

An exercise of the heart, like Jonathan's boldness in the face of an larger foe, doesn't start with worldly and human motives, but speaks of a boldness of the faith within; we know the brokenness of the world, the depravity of it and its soothing way of destruction, yet we live in a state of peace...worship...and blessing because our Lord is real. We mourn for the world, speak into the darkness because of this awareness and proclaim through the worship of our lives the Good News of the Lord. We don't ignore the enemy at our gates, nor do we wait underneath the relative comfort of our church walls and offer burnt sacrifices to cover our inaction.

As we were taught to pray, the desire of the children of God should be nothing more than to do the will of the Father on earth, by whatever means necessary without the compromising of the tenents and commandments that already exist. It is that desire that is so dominant in the bedrock of our foundations that we don't think twice about what He speaks, but have brought it into the light of His purpose and are given a peace about its truthfulness. A Participator, as my pastor would say, rather than a spectator.

"Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Matthew 6:10


This desire doesn't seem to make sense to others, yet many have left the comfort of support, security and familiarity at great personal cost to follow the Lord's will in their story. When we fail at the duties because of our own foolishness, disbelief or fearfulness, we hurt.....not because of our fear the Father but because we love Him so much. We rush headlong into the world where our Father is working around us, as John Eldridge points out, "out of desire" as Jesus did, "for the joy set before Him." The depth of His desire to be where His Father was, serving alongside His Father and bringing His Father that joy that comes from His child, indeed all of His children, was evident as He was scourged, beaten and crucified. The fierciness of His passion, His sorrow and His love touch our lives and draw us into the world He left us in to "perform things greater than these."

The life of a follower of Christ, a believer, is nothing more than a 'holy longing' that is never fulfilled but that grows stronger and stronger as we walk towards that final hilltop and view our Father's house arrayed before us....for that is where the saints who have gone before and those who will gaze into the skies and see the mighty Savior's return all are going.....the familiar treaded, harden pathways are permanently etched into the fabric of this world and yet it is only those who have learned to 'groan inwardly as' they 'wait eagerly' under increasing desire. A question, spoken by a dear friend of years, was a simple one; laughed off as 'yeah, right'.....for its sheer laughidity and utter improbability. Then another, when it was laughingly repeated, looked intent as words were spoken, "Maybe you will be...." Again, a shake of the head by the sheer folly of the very idea.......and the issue drops into the back drawer, forgotten for a time.

"O lord, thou hast searched me, and known me." (Psalm 139:1)

There is no denying God those things we wish to hide from the consuming fire of the passion He ignites in our faith, properly directed, in His purpose for us. A 'purpose' that isn't some block on the big board of God's construction projects where He grumbles, conjoles and entices us to finish our specific 'contracted' part of the building but something that was uniquely designed by Him for us to use to show our thankfulness and love for Him....like a father making known what he would like for Father's day and then helping his children make it. God has searched us, literally penetrated deep into our being and knows us intimately...our tendencies under the old nature, our fears and our ability to do the job at hand. He can even see the formation of words before they gain shape enough for our utterances....we are totally transparent to Him and only the blood of Christ saves us from that condemnation that is the result of sin. There is no hiding.


God loves us in spite of what we have become, and where we will fail and yet, He lives in the knowledge, the understanding, of what we can be through the gift of eternal life, the transformation that takes place and the journey that continues until we come to a place before the throne and find ourselves what He's always known we will be.

And if that is all true, then who are we when in the fire of the consuming passion to judge when we are 'sent forth' rather than 'dropping what [we] are doing and following Him?' We should follow the examples set forth by the saints of old….from the apostles through the early church fathers to the saints that have been fading from the American landscape as the church grows more distant from the origins of its birth…..and the Head Priest that gave her to us to care for….

Like George Mueller, quoted in "Experiencing God",

"I never remember…..a period…..that I ever sincerely and patiently sought to know the will of God by the teaching of the Holy Ghost, through the instrumentality of the Word of God, but I have been always directed rightly. But if honesty of heart and uprightness before God were lacking, or if I did not patiently wait upon God for instruction, or if I preferred the counsel of my fellow men to the declarations of the Word of the living God, I made great mistakes."

Only by sincerely seeking God's direction, waiting on Him to supply the Word to go forth with and looking to the Spirit to teach through the written Words of God, we are only running after our own agenda, our own wishes of glory and greatness that haunt the flesh of this corrupt body……forgoing forthrightness, uprightness and patience to follow the counsel of men who are themselves broken and corrupted.

So, as this question blooms into a choice to join God in the work He is doing, I seek to bring myself into a place where my will is absent, leaving this choice to follow not subject to feeling or whim and seek the Will, Word and Motivation of the Spirit of God, the Holy Counselor, through prayer, study and reflection.

And the possibilities are enormous, frightening to the flesh and peaceful to the spirit.