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Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Release the arrow

Raise the sail

Break the tension

Tear the veil

Sound the waters and check the gate

The King is coming

Make no mistake

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I was asked to create a painting that illustrates a verse from Hosea (6:3).  This image illustrates the promise of the sun coming back out and rain showers watering the earth. The great flower in the sky is opening up like vents of a window, and pouring out a fresh spring rain. God promises us that He grips our desires and hopes firmly in His hands and releases those manifestations on the earth in the most perfect, ripe timing when the right season is aligned with himself. We may not understand his heart through the ripening process, but the outpouring of his fulfillment is so abundant and worth it. It is sure and unmoving and as vast as the ocean. Even when all we see is cloud, he is preparing the dawn…

“Let us know Him;

let us be zealous to know the Lord.

His going forth is prepared and certain as the dawn,

and He will come to us as the rain that waters the earth.”

———————————————————————-

Hosea 6:3

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Rising

 

Beneath the surface something is always rising. Everything has a temperature, things are always moving or sleeping, alive or still. The nature of nature is a planting moving with the winds of choice and methods of sustenance. What are we giving birth to beneath the outer walls? What is brewing beneath the surface soils of what meets the eye? What aborted hopes and desires are cut short or born through the processes of pursuit? The movement we seek becomes unlocked by vision of the heart. As we fix our breath upon God, things begin to rise inside. Eyes open, deaf hear, lame walk, and dead things are revived. Sleeping pieces stand up and obey the voice that fits them together in perfect order. Just as a seed of hope buries itself in a process of maturity and longing, our hearts become strengthened and ripened through persistence and willingness to stay put in the fire of testing. Seeds break, small conceptions die and unravel themselves as they spread apart and multiply. Like a newly pruned branch makes space for the blossom, our struggling desire for God’s dream becomes awakened through personal transformation. By movement, we become strengthened. A baby bird doesn’t wait for the egg to break, its strength becomes forged as it fights to be free inside the smaller space. I need not despise the day of strengthening and call it a day of disappointment. A life fully awakened is fully emptied of disappointments. Because space has been made for reforging. Doors were quietly cracked open for construction. A good day of heart construction. A glad day.

Sometimes growth seems to plateau. I refuse to wholeheartedly see God when stories of who I’ve been cloud the water. When I’m not sure all that He says about my future is happening. Surely I’ve done something to stain this perfect boundless dream. Subtly something in my cocoon of faith shrinks, quiets down. I am lured toward hard voices, sarcastic impatient responses swim around my opportunities to lay ahold of heaven’s map point. Another shepard pointing the baby butterfly back to the cocoon. When life is birthed, in the natural and of the heart, a new strength is also birthed. We emerge from smaller spaces with sword in our hands to cut loose ropes that restrict us. Strength is required for wings to spread. Resurrection takes place daily for seeds that wait. It is the nature of nature to worship God by birthing new life and learning to fly. And so I can take heart when my dreams of soaring don’t fit my newly broken shell of hopes not yet filled. Because He is rising from the smallest place in me, taking me from darkness to the tallest brightest sky. Picking up destiny on its way. e Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings. And you will go free, leaping with joy like calves let out to pasture.” -Malachi 4:1-3

“Then you will take delight in the LORD,

And I will make you ride on the heights of the earth.” -Isaiah 58:13-14

“I will wake the dawn with my song;

The deeper your love, the higher it goes; Soar high in the skies, O God!

Cover the whole earth with your glory!” -Psalm 108

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   ”You can only come to the morning

through the shadows.”

-J.R.R. Tolkein

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“The Spirit Himself testifies together with our own spirit, assuring us that we are children of God. And if we are His children, then we are His heirs also: heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ sharing His inheritance with Him; only we must share His suffering if we are to share His glory.

For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.

What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.

38For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus.”

ROMANS 8

 

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Psalm 46

“God is a safe place to hide,

ready to help when we need him.

We stand fearless at the cliff-edge of doom,

courageous in seastorm and earthquake,

Before the rush and roar of oceans,

the tremors that shift mountains.

Jacob-wrestling God fights for us,

God-of-Angel-Armies protects us.

River fountains splash joy, cooling God’s city,

this sacred haunt of the Most High.

God lives here, the streets are safe,

God at your service from crack of dawn.

Godless nations rant and rave,

kings and kingdoms threaten,

but Earth does anything he says.

Jacob-wrestling God fights for us,

God-of-Angel-Armies protects us.

Attention, all! See the marvels of God!

He plants flowers and trees all over the earth,

Bans war from pole to pole,

breaks all the weapons across his knee.

Step out of the traffic!

Take a long, loving look at me, your High God,

above politics, above everything.

Jacob-wrestling God fights for us,

God-of-Angel-Armies protects us.”

 

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“Abraham didn’t focus on his own impotence and say, “It’s hopeless. Nor did he survey Sarah’s decades of infertility and give up. He didn’t tiptoe around God’s promise asking cautiously skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God, sure that God would make good on what he had said. That’s why it is said, “Abraham was declared fit before God by trusting God to set him right.” Romans 3:19-23

 

“I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God. Then you will have minds confident and at rest, focused on Christ, God’s great mystery.”

Colossians 2:1-3

 

Focus: single-mindedness-endurance-patience-fortitude-strength-vigor-stamina-spirit-bravery

The resolve to focus packs power. A scattered mind loses purpose and function, just as a languid spirit is without creativity and fruit. Vision is a gift which allows us to perceive what God values. And so vision gives worth to the things and people in our lives we otherwise might pass by. Vision raises a standard, gives perspective a name, and arms us with bravery that does not come naturally. I’ve been asking God lately, what are you showing me these things for? What am I supposed to do with this word/revelation? He’s handing me a fishing pole. Something to hang on to, something worth fighting for. Speaking of fishing, you will never catch me dying to go catch a fish. I do not have patience to sit around and wait. But maybe I’ve never had someone to pinpoint where to cast my line. Maybe a little bit of commitment and persistence is the difference between fulfillment and collapse. A willing heart to focus past what appears to be will penetrate the surface waters that only reflect self.

To endure is to abide. I don’t like to be pinned down to anything. A label, title, obligation, or expected role. This can be problematic. I’ve moved past some immature commitment-phobe mindsets for sure, but there’s something to be said about standing by something when nothing is happening. Abiding when I don’t feel like it. Sometimes I get bored with the marathon pace and miss the baton through the sprint. There’s some key to gain in each stretch of the mile. There are new winds to tap into, new gifts to understand, and new muscles being worked out into perfection. There are some places I’d like to pass through quickly and some I’d like splash around in for the day. The place we call home is often a place we fight for. A place we stand from. The place that supplies us and reminds us of who we are. There is a fine line between faith & focus and conformity to our perception of the situation. One keeps me circling in shallow waters and the other sets me on a promising course into an ocean of faithfulness. One mindset gives me permission to meet my own expcectations, and the other launches me into extravagant love.

Focus grows a staircase of faith in God’s fidelity to bring us home. Nothing can separate us from God’s fulfillment in our lives but us. He is jealous over his garden. He keeps diligent watch over who comes and goes, over what his colaborers allow to fall into the soil of his good intentions. Should I not honor his planting by standing for what God values? Even if it’s a blossoming creation I’ve yet to own? When we focus on what we own in order to control, we miss the grace because we forget what we really are. Children with a sovereign generous dad, who excitedly writes us into his adventure stories. He’s always throwing out lines to us, shouting our names and focusing on the valuables. And as God pours water out of the sky and onto my desert path, I am guided by reflections of heaven to point the way home.

“Vision, defined by the dreams of God, equips us with undying courage.”

 

-Bill Johnson

“The prophetic Word was confirmed to us. You’ll do well to keep focusing on it. It’s the one light you have in a dark time as you wait for daybreak and the rising of the Morning Star in your hearts.” 2 Peter 1:18-20

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“Show me how resurrection works. Give me a diagram; draw me a picture. What does this ‘resurrection body’ look like?” If you look at this question closely, you realize how absurd it is. There are no diagrams for this kind of thing. We do have a parallel experience in gardening. You plant a “dead” seed; soon there is a flourishing plant. There is no visual likeness between seed and plant. You could never guess what a tomato would look like by looking at a tomato seed. What we plant in the soil and what grows out of it don’t look anything alike. The dead body that we bury in the ground and the resurrection body that comes from it will be dramatically different. The corpse that’s planted is no beauty, but when it’s raised, it’s glorious. Put in the ground weak, it comes up powerful. The seed sown is natural; the seed grown is supernatural.”
- 1 Corinthians 15:31-42

Struggle is nature’s way of strengthening itself.”

The glory of the seed doesn’t rest in the seed. It doesn’t depend on me. It resides in the nature that moves the seed into higher living. God builds and imparts capabilities made natural to the seed, but its end doesn’t lie beneath the surface soil. Our ‘refining’ space isn’t our destined space. The place we take roots isn’t the place we remain. God is a dad who delights in journey, in process. Because end results alone don’t bring us complete revelation of His fullness, of the cost. The “X” we land on isn’t the enlarging tool of my heart. The hand that shapes me extends from the gap of promise and reality. It unveils the cost of the mover of life. The process reveals the raw nature of His mercy to change us. A greater nature is fully understood when the smaller nature dies. In this process His merciful extension is understood. Just as the example of the seed.

The “primary” shoots that tear from the seed extend to the right and to the left, like hands of the cross submitting to a death for a greater purpose. Death for a greater dream. The seed carries the dream in hand from planting till fruition. And so I ask: What do I really have without resurrection? What is the seed without this shift from death to life? What’s it all about without a superior force to lift my hopes like He lifts my face?
What God buries in the ground He always lifts out in a different form. What we plant looks different than what we reap in the end. God always brings us back to promise. He extends completion to broken hopes. Extends heaven to detatched dreams. Interlocks His fingers with misguided destinies. And pulls the life from the shouting womb. Removing the scales from the seeds we left behind.

I’ll come forth from this seed with a sword in my hand.

Just as Christ let Himself become a seed, so must we submit to a smaller place of our will to a greater hand, a stronger arm, a bridge to boundless growth and glory. And to allow the place of “smallness” to outgrow our perceptions and strivings. It’s the place of smallness that bows before great wide wings. Saying break me-then carry me, extend this dream to where I can’t. Erect a tower inside this tiny seed of me. That small seed lets death become her and lets birth transform hope from death to life again, from darkness to light.
The small plant listens to God’s word speaking her upright, as she twists and moves, dies and bursts. Evolving from glory to glory. From story to story. The testimony of Jesus. Taken from hearsay to the lived day.

From death to life, and life again.

A well watered garden restricts what it grows.” -Bill Johnson

“Where there is no vision, no redemptive revelation of God, the people perish.” -Proverbs 29:17-19

“For a tree there is always hope.” -Job14

Germination can imply anything expanding into greater being from a small existence.”

“A typical seed includes three basic parts: an embryo, a supply of nutrients and a seed coat.
The embryo is an immature plant from which a new plant will grow under proper conditions. Germination is the process whereby growth emerges from a period of dormancy.
The part of the plant that emerges from the seed first is the primary root. This allows the seedling to become anchored in the ground and start absorbing water. After the root absorbs water, the embryonic shoot emerges from the seed. Once it reaches the surface, it straightens and pulls the shoot tip of the growing seedlings into the air.”

Within the very dna of God contains resurrection power. A death defying nature.

Resurrection: to come back to life after apparent death, to bring back into use something that had been stopped or discarded

A seed does not carry the nature of resurrection in its own strength. By its own nature, it cannot erect itself and stand. In context to prophetic promises we carry in the vaults of our hearts, we cover an embryo of God’s word preserved through a season with nutrients and protective covering. We hold and wrestle with treasures protected in smaller spaces. At times we need to rest in smaller spaces to become strengthened and prepared before we break apart and rise.

Struggle is nature’s way of strengthening itself.” -Lost

The glory of the seed doesn’t rest in the seed. It doesn’t depend on me. It resides in the nature that moves the seed into higher living. God builds and imparts capabilities made natural to the seed, but its end doesn’t lie beneath the surface soil. Our ‘refining’ space isn’t our destined space. The place we take roots isn’t the place we remain. God is a dad who delights in journey, in process. Because end results alone don’t bring us complete revelation of His fullness, of the cost. The “X” we land on isn’t the enlarging tool of my heart. The hand that shapes me extends from the gap of promise and reality. It unveils the cost of the mover of life. The process reveals the raw nature of His mercy to change us. A greater nature is fully understood when the smaller nature dies. In this process His merciful extension is understood. Just as the example of the seed.

The “primary” shoots that tear from the seed extend to the right and to the left, like hands of the cross submitting to a death for a greater purpose. Death for a greater dream. The seed carries the dream in hand from planting till fruition. And so I ask: What do I really have without resurrection? What is the seed without this shift from death to life? What’s it all about without a superior force to lift my hopes like He lifts my face?
What God buries in the ground He always lifts out in a different form. What we plant looks different than what we reap in the end. God always brings us back to promise. He extends completion to broken hopes. Extends heaven to detatched dreams. Interlocks His fingers with misguided destinies. And pulls the life from the shouting womb. Removing the scales from the seeds we left behind.

Just as Christ let Himself become a seed, so must we submit to a smaller place of our will to a greater hand, a stronger arm, a bridge to boundless growth and glory. And to allow the place of “smallness” to outgrow our perceptions and strivings. It’s the place of smallness that bows before great wide wings. Saying break me-then carry me, extend this dream to where I can’t. Erect a tower inside this tiny seed of me. That small seed lets death become her and lets birth transform hope from death to life again, from darkness to light.
The small plant listens to God’s word speaking her upright, as she twists and moves, dies and bursts. Evolving from glory to glory. From story to story. The testimony of Jesus. Taken from hearsay to the lived day.

From death to life, and life again.

A well watered garden restricts what it grows.” -Bill Johnson

“Where there is no vision, no redemptive revelation of God, the people perish.” -Proverbs 29:17-19
“For a tree there is always hope.” -Job14

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Be moral

Be good

Live small and understood

Say this line, erect nice walls

Don’t speak too loud or stand too tall

Don’t rattle the bars or spill the juice

Smile and wear this religious noose

I’m warning you, we’ll run you through

Don’t go too far and chase that star

Look here do this there’s nothing you’ll miss

It’s a different size when you hold the prize

Through telescopes some cold dark hope

Recycled vomit speaks again

A substitute to speak of sin

The heart of God exploding outside

But you’re sitting here in the shallow lie

What are you doing? I made you for more

To shout and to dance, be wild, explore!

Where are the people longing for me?

Why did you leave me for watered down tea?

You took fire and snuffed it, some carcass and stuffed it

That wasn’t my body you’re preserving with care

Your actions as empty as spoon feeding air

A day is soon coming when all good intentions

When all of the Hallmarks and well meaning lessons

They bow down to ashes beneath the King’s sashes

You’ll understand grace and the meaning of haste

He’s letting us go till our hearts overthrow

The bleak church games we’ve maintained

The preaching to look sane but beneath the makeup

Immoral blood erupts

Terrified of what’s inside

We can’t expose our ugly hide

So keep it nice, just wink and smile

Secretly wasted in hopeless denial

I’ll never tell my soul’s not well

Held captive by the bonds of hell

Soldiers rise let out your cries

Expose your hearts no compromise

Can’t go to war and live the lie

An airbrushed soul won’t last the night

It’s time to rise and hear the call

It’s time to leave our pretty walls

The winds are coming you can’t go running

A tree without root will get robbed with the loot

Come and see the good fruit

Step out of that soot

Remove that tight muzzle

I’ve solved your strange puzzle

Jesus Christ my only salvation

Not a cartoon stamp or a fuzzy sensation

The hero of power, the only strong tower

To outlast the day of the well meaning way

His mighty ship will sail on new waters

Of pure roads hand shaped by the Father of potters

Do we want our great answer?

Or just settle for cancer?

Do we want to be healed? Our dark hearts now revealed?

I’ll just camp out in peace signs

and drink down my fine wine

While people are dying to smiling priests lying

Through new polished teeth as they hang their white wreath

On their nice Christian package inside see the wreckage

Come on let Him salvage the things we can’t fix

Release all control of the leashes and sticks

You can’t keep these pets they’re all going to get wet

And soon they will drown when the storm comes to town

It’s time to set free all the things you won’t see

Set fire to stone

Don’t leave love alone

It’s time to worship the One on the throne

Abandon your models you’ve carved and you’ve coddled

I must choose to move from Lie to Ascension

Or else its just death

By my ten good intentions

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