Anyway, for the two people out there who know about my super-secret Web project, you may be wondering what the latest news is. Well, the latest news is sad: the project died due to a lack of time, resources, and motivating vision. Here’s what the project was all about in a nutshell: an innovative Christian social news + networking site that would provide really cool ways to aggregate content from exciting news sites, blogs, podcasts, ministries, and so forth with an emphasis on media and the arts — all the while fostering meaningful relationships that would encourage discipleship and Biblical training. Lots of neat ideas…WAY too ambitious. I honestly would need to assemble a comprehensive team and expend a lot of effort in order to get this off the ground.

The strange thing is that the genesis of this project actually looked a little different and somehow it got lost in the shuffle: a site that would be forward-looking and would encourage and challenge the Church in the West to envision a future age where the Church isn’t a dying institution divorced from the language, culture, and concerns of the day but is wholesomely engaged in restoration and healing and progress within the culture around it.

Here’s what I think: there are many innovative streams within the Body of Christ today: missional, emergent, charismatic, apostolic-prophetic, reformed, and so forth. There are probably more streams that I’m not even aware of. The problem is that, by and large, these streams are not talking to each other — or if they are, it’s largely on a footing of either distrust or sheer ignorance. And so we come to an inescapable conclusion: if we’re expecting to reach non-Christians or former Christians with the Gospel and convince them that the Church is the place to be, then we need to be doing a much better job of understanding and articulating what the Church actually is (and is not) and what its primary purpose is in relation to people’s everyday milieu.

I am a strong advocate of unity within the Church (see my three-part essay on Thoughts of Resurrection for more on this topic), and one of the ways I would like to see unity in action is within the process of taking a hard look at how we “do church” and which ways we can embrace change, uncertainty, innovation, and Spirit-led renewal in order to effect a positive and greater impact on the world around us.

In other words, I wonder what it would look like if Brian McLaren, Bill Johnson, Rick Warren, Frank Viola, and N.T. Wright all got in a room together and talked about the state of the Church. Just a thought. (And if you don’t know who some or all of those people are, that proves my point exactly. We need more cross-pollination!)

So there’s a brief peak into my brain today. What is the solution to this conundrum? That’s something I’m still working on. If it ends up becoming a new project, that’s awesome, but if not, I’m confident someone else will pick up the baton. At any rate, I will continue to post my thoughts here on this blog over the next few months as I wrestle with these intriguing questions.

What do you think?

Chilling is hard for me. I’m not the kind of guy that just goes and hangs out to yak it up, have a few laughs, have a good time, do the work, get paid, go home. Don’t get me wrong, I certainly know how to enjoy myself, but my normal tendency is to be always living in tomorrow, planning, pondering, thinking about the future, wondering if I’m actually accomplishing anything I’ve set out to do. Some people worry, worry, worry about everything that could go wrong. Not me — I worry about not doing anything at all. Nothing stresses me out more than inaction on the things I care about.

Mark Batterson talks about sins of “omission” — the right things that we fail to do, as opposed to sins of “commission” which are the wrong things that we do. Sins of omission frighten me. There’s a riveting scene in The Two Towers where Aragorn asks Eowyn: “what do you fear, my lady?” Her reply: “A cage. To stay behind bars until use and old age accept them and all chance of valor has gone beyond recall or desire.”

My grandfather on my mom’s side died before I was born, so I never got to know him. One thing I know about him, however, is that he never finished anything. He married multiple times, he made and lost several fortunes, and then he died. His legacy? Nothing, expect for the fact that he did love my mom, his daughter, and was a much better authority figure for her than her dysfunctional mother. Aside from that, though, it was largely a waste of effort all those years. Every time he “conquered” a mountain, he moved on to the next one. He never learned how to occupy the territory he had taken.

In my quest to chase after my dreams, nothing scares me more than to imagine myself at the end of my life looking upon an empty legacy. But there’s a subtle lie that creeps in when you are driven by this kind of fear-based motivation. The lie is that you are defined by what you accomplish. In the past, my identity always lay in my artistry, which meant that I was unfulfilled and unsuccessful unless I was making art and being recognized for my talent.

But as I’ve come to understand more about who God says I am and how he values me and defines me, I’ve come to realize that my identity lies in my relationship with God. I may be an artist, but first and foremost I am a child of God. And therefore, as long as I am loving on Daddy and listening to His voice, I am successful, and I am fulfilled.

Which brings me back to my original topic. I need to chill. I need to stop striving so hard, always looking towards the “next big thing” that I need to accomplish. I need to learn how to be content just…being. Being at one with God and my fellow man. What I do is a by-product of who I am, which actually means the less I try doing the right thing and the more I try being the right me, the more likely it is that the right things will get done.

There are times for fighting and times for looking ahead, but sometimes, it’s time to stop fighting and just, well, chill. And believe me, whenever I am able to get into that zone and chill out, it’s the best way to live. So, dude? Chill.

Then I realized something that’s increasingly been bothering me: our society’s addiction to controversy. With the 24 hour news cycle and the YouTube no-holds-barred coverage of every little tiny gaffe or strong statement, controversy is an industry and smears and attacks a modus operandi of the media. It isn’t their fault, of course — they publish controversy because people want it. People buy it in droves.

When’s the last time you read a news article talking about how folks came together for a common good to do something really lovely? Sure, you see something like that occasionally, filed as a “human interest” story — perhaps after some terrible disaster has struck. But, by and large, news is always bad news and our national conversation always negative.

I’m sick of it. I’m sick of the pundits. I’m sick of the stupid “watchdogs” that act like they’re protecting our interests. I’m sick of hearing about the latest leader’s screwup. There are better uses of my time and better ways to spend my energy.

Of course, by talking this way, I’m generating controversy over the idea of controversy. Ironic. Perhaps it’s just an inevitable aspect of human nature, and I should accept it for what it is. But somehow I’m still too idealistic to give in.

For your reference, the previous posts in this series are:

• 1: Paths
• 2: Immanuel
• 3: Direction
• 4: Voices
• 5: Prophecy

So let’s get down to it. You’ve realized that you want to venture forth on the adventure of a lifetime and that you need God’s help to get to where you’re going. You want to make sure you’re hearing His voice and obeying His command. You need supernatural revelation to give you the keys to unlocking your destiny. That’s all very well and good, but how do you actually do all that? Just thinking about these ideas is not enough. It’s time to put your money where your mouth is and take that first baby step.

Based on my own experience thus far, an overall strategy has emerged that I believe can aid you in your quest. I’m not saying that this is a magic formula or appropriate to your stage in life, but it’s generally a pattern that I’ve seen repeated over and over again and has been tremendously helpful in my life. I hope it blesses you and gives you newfound confidence that God is going to do great things in you and through you!

So what is this strategy? It is this:

1. Walk away. The first step in following after God’s own heart is realizing you have to repent. To repent means to turn away, to change course. It’s easy to get fixated on repenting from outright sin and forget that in many cases we need to repent from desires, affections, ambitions, and pursuits that are holding us back from what God has for us. Don’t just mumble “sorry” and then fall right back into it all. Don’t hesitate. Just walk away. Say goodbye and never look back. If you want to reach your God-given potential, then Jesus has to be The Boss.

2. Give up your ideology. When you start living life for Jesus with passion and zeal, expect Him to smash your ideology, crush your theology, and demolish your philosophy. When I rededicated my life to Christ a few years ago, it began a chain of events which ended up redefining almost everything I thought I knew about God and what it meant to be a Christian. The key is to make yourself vulnerable to the corrections and convictions of the Holy Spirit. Trust me, it’ll be good.

3. Get connected. You can’t do the Christian life alone. Christianity is not an individualistic spiritual path, it is a Spirit-filled community. You are not just some organic robot that needs the right software to work right, you are a vital member of the worldwide Body of Christ. You need help! You need to be loved! You need people to pray for you and prophesy over you! While I don’t believe in the “any church is good church” doctrine that says you must go to church to be a good Christian, I do believe that God has a place for you in His body — though it may take some time to find that place. Don’t give up — once you get there, it’ll be like coming home. It’ll be like Heaven on earth.

4. Ask, seek, knock. Start consuming books, podcasts, videos, etc. of godly Christian leaders with a proven track record in humility, pure faith, and spiritual fruit. No, these people aren’t perfect, and not everything they say is going to be The Truth, but they may have more experience in walking with God and following His ways than you do. Wisdom is worthy to be sought. Also, if you have the ability to travel, invest your time and money in attending some awesome conferences or revival meetings to get a feel for what God is doing around the earth. They will open your eyes to things you never dreamt were possible!

5. Face time. You can pray and read the Bible on a daily basis, but sometimes that ain’t gonna cut it. You need to get down on your knees before Almighty God and remove every other distraction for a significant period of time. Here’s a challenge: spend at least two full hours by yourself in a room with nothing but a Bible, a journal, and water. Don’t allow yourself to be interrupted by ANYTHING or ANYONE. Give a couple of hours of your life to God. And if you want a REAL challenge, try spending eight hours with God. I’ve done it once, and I can tell that just doing it once was life-changing. I’m looking forward to doing it again. It was incredibly hard at first, but believe it or not I was actually sad to leave His Presence after a while! (BTW, don’t feel bad if you snooze a little bit. God can speak to us through dreams, remember?)

6. Take action. Once you’ve repented of sin and unnecessary pursuits , given up your prideful presumptions about God and your destiny, gotten connected with fellow believers who can pray for you and prophesy into your life, sought out important spiritual truth and ways of worship that others have discovered, and spent meaningful and consecrated time alone in the Presence of the Lord, then it’s time to act out the faith that’s stirring in your heart. The things that the Holy Spirit has been showing you, the person that He’s called you to be — you need to take steps to move in that direction. Perhaps that means seeking out someone to mentor you. Perhaps it means changing jobs. Perhaps it means talking to your family about some serious things you have been keeping to yourself. Perhaps it means seeking counseling or prayer therepy to deal with past issues that must be dealt with. Perhaps it means launching out into a new endeavor. Perhaps it means simply going out into the world and ministering to people in need just like Jesus did! Whatever “action” represents in the context of your life, you need to step out in faith and believe in what God has shown you. The Christian life isn’t talk, it’s walk, after all.

Rinse and repeat as necessary. I’ve gone through this cycle more than once, and probably every time that God leads me into a new season, I have to go through the process. Don’t feel bad if you falter at any one of these points, because it’s never, ever too late to try again! Remember, God’s grace and mercy is fresh and new every day. He will give you the strength to overcome your weaknesses and fulfill your destiny!

Thank you for embarking on this voyage of discovery with me. I was greatly blessed myself just writing it, so I truly hope it blesses you as well. If anything here has raised some questions or perhaps led to some testimonies, please let me know in the comments. May God richly reward you in everything that you do in Christ Jesus!

Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. Practice these things, devote yourself to them, so that all may see your progress.

Welcome to the fifth installment of God is the Ultimate Travel Agent! We’ve learned a lot in this series already, such as what it means to devote yourself to following the path that God has for your life, comprehending the wonderful “good news” of Immanuel…that God is with us everywhere we go, and humbling yourself to receive direction and insight from the Holy Spirit. It isn’t enough to be moving fast in one direction, because if that direction is leading you towards destruction, it’s better to stand still and wait on the Lord to hear where your real destination lies. Last time we discussed how to position yourself to receive revelation from God; now we will delve further into the ways that God speaks to us and imparts knowledge into our souls.

Given to You by Prophecy

Possibly the most dramatic way God can give you direction and meaning in life is via the prophetic gift in others. When godly people under the anointing of the Holy Spirit speak words of knowledge (divine awareness of current or past truths) and prophecy (divine foretelling of future truths) into you, the course of your life may be forever altered.

In the verses cited above, Paul instructs his young protégé, Timothy, to remain steadfast in his calling to be a teacher of the Word and to instruct his fellow believers in the faith. What I find fascinating is that Timothy’s gift was not something he just happened to have when he received Christ but was given to him by the laying on of hands by the church elders. Paul also mentions the prophecies for Timothy earlier in chapter 1 verse 18, and the laying on of hands in 2 Timothy 1:6. The elders, including Paul, saw in Timothy the ultimate person that God had created him to be, and Timothy very likely had little awareness of this spiritual reality. A wise man once said that the spiritual reality is always superior to the physical reality, and that’s essentially what prophecy is all about — taking that which is true in the Spirit and declaring it forth into the world around us.

I encourage you wholeheartedly to seek out sincere Christians who believe in the gift of prophecy and words of knowledge and allow them to lay hands on you and speak into your life. The blessing you will receive from hearing those words spoken over you is incalculable. Many facets of my life at the present time only came to pass because of a prior prophetic word. I can honestly say I would still be floundering around trying to figure out what to do without that inspired direction that flowed from the throne room of God.

Dreams

Another huge, though tricky, area of revelation is in dreams. Dreams are funny things. We dream by day and we dream by night. Our daydreams reflect the missing aspects of our lives that we long to acquire, and our dreams in the night reflect our most intimate fears or aspirations. The key is discerning where in the midst of dreaming God is. Because God most assuredly is there.

A few years back, my mom bought a book that talked about the ways God speaks to us through dreams when we are asleep. I’ll be honest with you: I thought it was a load of horse manure. Yeah, a few people in the Bible heard from God via dreams (sometimes via angels in dreams), but come on. Give me a break.

Then I had what I can only describe as a God dream. I woke up with a conviction in my spirit like nothing I’d ever felt before that this dream was holy and was from God. I then proceeded to have a series of dreams, dozens of dreams, over the course of only a few months that were all filled with spiritual insight and direction. I have yet to experience such a season of revelation as I did at that time.

If you are interested in placing your sleep and your dreaming under the authority of the Holy Spirit, here’s what you can do. Ask God to give you revelation in your dreams. Don’t be discouraged if you still have the usual wacky or bizarre dreams for a while that we all have. Keep asking Him to touch you, and sooner or later I believe you’ll wake up from something profound — possibly even Biblical or ministerial in nature — with a feeling that God wants to tell you something. Write down the dream immediately, even if the clock reads 3:17 AM, and then go back to sleep. In the morning, you can pray and ask God to give you an interpretation of what the dream meant. Sometimes it’s good to go to someone else with a gift of dream interpretation via the Holy Spirit and see what they perceive. In my case, I usually find that there is a knowing in my spirit of what the dream meant literally the moment I wake up from it — that’s often how I know the dream was from the Lord.

Day-to-Day Walk

This is probably a post all its own, so I’ll try to keep it short, but one of my favorite ways to hear from God is just talk to Him. Talk talk talk. Don’t ever give up. Ask Jesus to show you a picture of Himself in your mind, and then just focus on Him and talk. Tell Him what you love, what you hate, why you’re happy, why you’re sad, why you’re lonely, why you’re enthused. Talk about the weather. Talk about your health. Talk about your job. Talk talk talk talk talk. You see, we as Christians have been beaten down into thinking that God only communicates to us through Scripture, and therefore all we can do is pray in some kind of pseudo-spiritual manner and then try to read the Bible to get an answer. Oh, of course that will work. But it’s not the only way. You can also just talk. When you talk, listen. Don’t just speak words, but pause and wait for an answer. Sometimes the answer comes as words (and don’t be surprised if you don’t hear some huge gigantic voice like in the “Ten Commandments” movie), sometimes as just a “knowing” in your spirit, sometimes as images or impressions, sometimes even as music or a song. Other people get strange sensations in their body. I often just get a feeling of overwhelming peace and serenity.

How do you know you’re hearing from God, and not just demons or your own head? Ah, the big question. My only reply is that the more you submit yourself to the Spirit of God and stay steadfast in His Word (that’s why it is very important to know Scripture!), the more you will know the peace and comfort of His Spirit that accompanies any revelation He gives you. Remember, if you ever receive anything that contradicts Scripture, you will know it is false. Remember the famous “love” chapter of 1 Corinthians 13? Read that. God is Love, therefore, what you receive from the Holy Spirit always rides on the back of love. So if you receive revelation that denies who God is, who His people are (the Church), requires you to hurt or deceive your fellow man in any way, or that gratifies your flesh or ego regardless of the welfare of others, then it is not of God.

Stay true to the faith, and weigh every prophecy carefully. There have been many abuses in the Church over the last several decades due to the egregious misuse of the prophetic gift, so use discernment, wisdom, and sound judgement as you seek the Lord for revelation. Some people snub prophecy because of abuse, but that’s like outlawing cars because they can run over people and kill them. Cars are simply vehicles that carry things to their destinations. It’s how they get there that counts. Prophecy is simply a vehicle that carries a supernatural word. It’s what we do with the prophecies we receive that counts.

Conclusion

We have more access to divine insight and counsel than most Christians are willing to admit. Let’s not shirk our responsibilities out of fear or religious traditions. Remember, God is speaking to us, all the time. Maybe if we had the courage and the humility to listen to what He has to say, we would discover the incredible, miraculous, and awesome destinies that He has for our lives and for the worldwide Christian Church.

Next week’s installment will be the last one in this series, and I want to focus squarely on how to put all we’ve learned into practice. You may want God to hold reign over your life, you may be willing to let Him lead you on a grand new adventure, you may be seeking Him for spiritual revelation, but how do you take all that and translate it into concrete change in your life? Good question. Let’s find the answer together!

“For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you. And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, This is the way, walk in it, when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, Be gone!”

There is a lot of prophetic content in this passage and the text surrounding it, but I would like us to focus today on a promise that I believe is for all of God’s people at all times: if we strive to listen to the voice of the Lord and hear His decree in our spirits, He will be gracious and give us the knowledge and the strength we need to walk in His ways and in the destiny He has for our lives.

Last time in this series, I shared my testimony of God’s grace and mercy in my life and how God oriented me in the right direction to step forward into the journey He created for me. It is a process that is still ongoing, but the point I must emphasize above all others is that this process can only work to its fullest potential when two conditions are met: God speaks to you, and you are willing to humble yourself and receive what He shows you.

The first condition is of far less concern than the second, because the greatest revelation I’ve discovered in my short life is that God is speaking all the time! When we receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, and He sends the Father’s promise of the Holy Spirit to indwell in our bodies and souls, we gain access to a treasure trove of divine knowledge, insight, and wisdom — far above anything the world has to offer. If we are having trouble hearing from Him, perhaps we’re just not tuned into His spiritual frequency. Or, in many cases, we are receiving communication but we don’t know how to interpret it. In Luke 12:54-55, Jesus expressed it like this:

“When you see a cloud rising in the west, you say at once, A shower is coming. And so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, There will be scorching heat, and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?”

The very manifestation of the Son of God had come working miracles, signs, and wonders and preaching the Good News to a lost generation, and yet many people completely missed the boat and were unable to discern what was happening all around them. And so it is even with us today: we see God working all around us, we see His handiwork in our very lives, and we miss it. Perhaps we’re too focused on our own needs, our own desires. Perhaps we have plans that we aren’t willing to submit to God’s authority. James says it best in chapter 4 starting at verse 13:

“Come now, you who say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit — yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.”

Let’s unpack this for a moment, because I think there is something very telling in James’ example. I am probably safe in saying that everybody has a very detailed idea of what they expect to do in life. Some people even have names, dates, and places all mapped out in their heads. Such dreaming is not without its usefulness, but the danger lies in expecting our imaginations to dictate reality. Only God has the power to do that. Jill Austin warns of living in a self-made fantasy world and missing out on the true destiny that God has which always starts wherever you are right now on your life’s journey.

James warns of such foolishness. We are only to move forward in God’s will. We can make plans, but only if the Lord wills it do we accomplish it with His favor and blessing. To do otherwise is arrogance and conceit and will only come to an evil end. I find the end of this passage of James’ very interesting: “whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” That begs the question: how do we know what the right thing is to do? How do we know what God’s will is? How do we know we’re walking forward in His plan and His timing?

Again, if we take it as a given that God is always speaking, yet we can’t hear Him, then something is wrong on our end. Jesus says that His sheep hear His voice and follow Him. We are very precious to our God, and Jesus reminds us that He will leave the nighty-nine sheep safely penned up to go pursue the hundredth sheep who has strayed. So He is coming after us, hard. What should our response be?

There are three sources of information feeding into you at all times. The first is the devil and the evil kingdoms of the world. These voices are loud, persistent, and never let up. Every time you turn on the TV, read the paper, surf the Internet, or just chat with people not walking with God, you are inputting this sickly information stream. You can’t get rid of it, for God told us to go out into the world to be His hands and feet and to be the salt of the earth. But as soon as you forget these voices are to be kept at a safe distance, you are in trouble.

The second source of information is your own voice. I talk to myself all the time, and I know for a fact that I can logically rationalize almost any behavior I care to. I can easily fool myself into believing everything’s cool when it’s not. Conversely, I can fool myself into believing that God is mad at me and I’m a bad boy when in fact God loves me and thinks I rock. Really, my own voice can’t be trusted — unless I submit to the authority of the Holy Spirit.

Which brings me to the third source of information: the Holy Spirit! When we are born again and receive the Holy Spirit, we have a direct RSS feed from Heaven’s throne room, and we can send e-mail to god@heaven.eternity at any time we choose. And guess what? He actually answers! I have an inbox full of messages that have given me strength, solace, knowledge, and a heart of love that I never could have conjured up in my own power. I honestly don’t know how anyone can live the Christian life without apprehending this incredible connection we have with the Spirit of God that gives us everything we need in order to follow in the footsteps of Jesus!

At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 18:1-4

Children are utterly dependent on their parents for protection, nourishment, instruction, and loving guidance. Children know that when danger looms, the refuge of the open arms of their fathers and mothers is the place to be. And so it is with our Heavenly Father! We must not listen to the voices of others but only the Father’s Voice which speaks to us and equips us to set forth on the adventure of a lifetime. God gives us protection, God nourishes our bodies and refreshes our souls, God gives us lawful instruction and wise counsel. Only if we humble ourselves, like a little child, will we be exalted and live forever in glory in the Kingdom of Heaven. What an awesome promise!

In part 5 of this series, I will elaborate a bit on how we can “dial in” the right frequency to hear God’s voice and not any other. Blessings be upon you! See you then!

The surest way out of temptation or depression is to declare the truth of God’s rhema word. It stands the test of time and trouble, and the stances you take will trump any circumstances.

Before I tell you to go pick up your trusty, well-worn Holy Bible and scan through a pile of verses, I want to back up and try something a little bit different. I am going to extract what I read into a simple summary of points, and as you read through these points, I want to you to ask yourself if this is how Christianity is perceived by the world today (and when I say the “world” I mean the unchurched people in the West who are not particularly friendly towards our faith).

In this passage, Paul extorts Christians to conduct themselves thus:

• Let love be genuine.
• Love one another with brotherly affection. (And of course “sisterly” affection.)
• Outdo one another in showing honor. This one bears repeating: outdo one another in showing honor.
• Contribute to the needs of the saints (i.e., those who are part of the Body of Christ) and seek to show hospitality.
• Bless those who persecute you, and do not curse them. If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if your enemy is thirsty, give him something to drink.
• Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
• Live in harmony with one another.
• Do not be haughty or conceited, but associate with the lowly (i.e., the undesirables, the untouchables).
• If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

I have a feeling that if someone walked into a community of people living together in the peace, love, and understanding that is described here, they would think they’ve stumbled onto a hippie commune rather than entered into the presence of the glorious Bride of Christ. Somehow the message of grace found in Christ has been obscured by the pride and arrogance of man, and what was supposed to be a message of freedom has become corrupted and turned into a spirit of bondage. And now those who are enslaved to the desires of the flesh and the schemes of the devil are the ones who are portraying the lifestyle of peace, love, and harmony in our modern culture.

Where did we go wrong? How has the Church stumbled so badly? Why aren’t Christ-followers the most loving, peaceful, harmonious, and understanding people on the planet? Why has Christian become a dirty 9-letter word and Pastor (which means father and is supposed to echo the lovingkindness of our Father in Heaven) become associated with a hypocritical bigot who preaches on Sunday and sins on Monday? How has the Gospel, which means Good News, become Bad News? Why does it seem sometimes like everything Jesus came to proclaim — that the Kingdom of Heaven is now here in our midst; that healing and deliverance and love and grace and joy and peace are now available to all through the redemptive power of the Resurrection of the Son of God — has been completely and utterly lost?

I get that there are hard aspects to the Christian faith, and I understand that we make exclusive and difficult claims about sin, death, and redemption. But it’s interesting to note that the central message of the four Gospels and of much of the other writings of the New Testament is focused on life in the Kingdom of God, not on hell and damnation — or even eternal life in some other plane after we die. Jesus came to proclaim Life — life here, life now. Abundant Life, with deliverance from bondage and freedom from sin and death and every evil thing done by the forces of hell. That is indeed Good News, and that is indeed a Gospel that I am very happy and excited to share with others.

So let love be genuine, as Paul says, and live in harmony with one another. May the word “Christian” become worthy of its grand heritage once again!

(P. S. In case you’re wondering, the passage I discussed above is Romans 12:9-21.)

You may think things are just cruising along in your life, but it doesn’t do you any good to be making tracks and moving along at a rapid pace if you are pointed in the wrong direction. You’ll just end up in the wrong place faster. Sometimes the best thing you can do is stop, sit down, and wait until you find out just where the heck you’re supposed to be heading toward.

My mind’s a bit hazy as I try to remember all the details, but the 2002-2004 timeframe was very difficult for me. Oddly enough, due to my eccentric upbringing, the bulk of my teen years in the 90’s went by smoothly, and I had a heap of fun. I was learning all sorts of things through my home schooling, I ran my own freelance Web design business, I performed music and toured with our family Celtic band “Distant Oaks”, I had a good amount of free time to explore different ideas and hobbies…it was a good time.

But as I headed into my early 20’s, my comfortable little bubble began to burst. We spent an extremely difficult couple of years on several creative projects that were like those “projects from hell” you hear about in artists’ circles. At the end of it all, we didn’t feel like our musical career was hitting its stride but rather we were going nowhere fast. In addition, this was the time when my mom started feeling unwell (it would be a while yet before we found out just how sick she was), and it impacted the frequency of our performances and our marketing campaign.

Beyond this, however, was a deeper sense of loneliness that was fast creeping up on me. For a long time, I hadn’t spent any effort trying to cultivate any lasting friendships with anyone, certainly not someone of the opposite sex in my age group. For one, I thought I was having plenty of fun doing family stuff (and sure, it was fun), and secondly, we were so busy touring around California and hanging out with musical acquaintances that I didn’t think I needed to “go out” with personal buddies. But suddenly, a case of artistic burnout coupled with a winding down of our career momentum left me reeling without any earth beneath my feet. I wasn’t in tune with God. I wasn’t going to church. I didn’t have any close friends. I didn’t even know any girls. I was in my 20’s and I felt like a looser, like one of those pimply-faced geeks they make fun of in tech cartoons. I was fat (really, I was). And, to top it all off, I had been dabbling in some sinful behavior that I knew was wrong and that I had been hiding from everyone else for a long time. All at once, what had often seemed like some innocent fun became the mark of a lost soul.

It all came to a head in (I believe it was) 2004 when I developed a severe case of colitis. I was out of shape, overweight, and now my digestive system was shot. I started not feeling like I could go anywhere because I’d have to run to the bathroom at any moment. I started having bouts of intense pain and felt like my body was breaking down. How could this be happening to me? It was only yesterday when I was young, carefree, and jolly, and now I’m a wreck. I thought I was having a nervous breakdown or had gotten “chronic fatigue syndrome” or some horrible disease.

But then something amazing happened. My mom, brother, and I were shopping at Whole Foods one day when one of us noticed this book called The Maker’s Diet by Jordan Rubin. With a title like that and a cover showing a rendition of the famous “Adam and God” painting by Michelangelo, it immediately grabbed our attention. After reading through it a bit and seeing Jordan’s amazing testimony of God’s healing through a Biblically-based diet, I immediately knew I had to try this diet as a way of saving my health. My mom agreed to do it with me to see if it’d make her feel better as well (and it really did for quite a while), and the rest of my family joined in as well simply because we weren’t going to cook two separate meals every time we sat down to eat!

I was astonished. In only a couple of weeks, I had lost at least 15 pounds, my colitis was nearly gone, and I felt more energetic than I had felt in months — even years. During the course of that summer, I ended up loosing over 30 pounds, and I’ve generally kept my weight and fitness in decent standing ever since. Oh, and my digestive system is working perfectly fine now, thank you very much.

But that’s really not the best part. The best part is that, when I first went on The Maker’s Diet, I also realized that I would need to go on a “spiritual” diet as well if I would at all be able to get out of the miserable hole I had fallen into. So I began to repent. I began to seek God again. I began to ask Him, beg Him to show me the way, to give my life meaning and purpose and direction again. I started reading the Bible more as well as Christian books filled with sound wisdom and revelation. It was a time of rapid transformation for both body and soul. As the months went by and I headed into 2005, I literally found myself rising up out of the darkness and loneliness that had ensnared me, and I began to catch a glimpse of the weighty prophetic destiny that God had placed on my life. It would be some time before that hazy picture became more clear — even now I’m still learning more about what God would have me do — but at least I knew I was finally headed in the right direction. Instead of moving to the beat of my own drum, I was following in the footsteps of my Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

God is the ultimate travel agent. When I trusted Him with my life, He took me on a trip of excitement, adventure, and romance that is only just beginning and can only get better from here on out. If you haven’t yet taken that leap of faith and stepped out in a quest to seek new horizons, heroic deeds, and chivalrous acts of nobility, I pray that God will bless you with the courage and the daring to begin a new journey that will take you to the edge of eternity and beyond.

In the next part of this series, we will discuss ways of hearing from God in the Spirit in order to understand the next leg of our journey. ‘Till then, may God’s face shine upon you as He holds you in the palm of His hand!