The Great Gardener

Every two hours, a new prayer meeting starts here at the Global Prayer Room at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, alternating between intercession and Worship with the Word (essentially a"Bible study with music.")

Normally, I read or do my own thing during the Worship with the Word prayer meeting.

Not today.

After the kind of morning I've had, this is just what I need.

So I sit down and study the passage-Psalm 11: "I have taken refuge in the Lord, How can you say to me, 'Escape to the mountain like a bird!'" Just this morning, I was that bird.

Yet the truth of the reality of God, however minuscule my knowledge of it may be, had somehow preserved me through my rebellious thoughts. That's the mark of a gracious Savior.

I found myself praying despite the rebelliousness of my black soul. Despite how I felt. I was crying out of desperation, declaring through all my internal struggling and trying to run from God, "Lord, to whom will I go? You have the words of real life, eternal life. I've already committed myself, confident that you are the Holy One of God." (The Message, John 6 paraphrased).

It was my own "gut check," a litmus test to see if I'm in this for the long haul. What I'm made of.

I know I passed the test. Saying Yes to God in our weakness does not always produce tangible benefits. For a second, I believed the lies of the enemy. The next second, the truth of God came down like a hammer on that lie.

Small victory #1. Thanks, Papa!

I headed off to class-Spiritual identity.

Funny how the teacher (well, God) has your number when you least want Him to.

(There's Pride again. Rearing its ugly head on the battlefield of the mind.)

Jesus went through an identity crisis. He was baptized, the Spirit of God descended like a dove, then He was off to His Wilderness for forty days. It was here that His identity was tested.

And my identity and your identity are constantly being threatened and attacked. Let's take a brief look at the parable of the sower in Mark 4:

Seed #1 of Truth is sown into my heart. Immediately the enemy takes it away-I'm a hearer but not a doer (Js. 1:22).

Seed #2 of Truth is sown into my heart. Great news! but no growth; persecution and hardship kill off the growth. (v. 16)

Seed #3 of Truth is sown into my heart. Distractions and worries come, commitment falters, unfruitful testimony. (v.19)

Within my mind and heart, all three seeds are continually being sown. I contend for the Lord to tenderize the garden of my heart to be like Seed #4.

But how?

He talks about the next verse: Second Corinthians 10:3-5:

"[...][A]lthough we are walking in the flesh, we do not wage war in a fleshly way, since the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but are powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds. We demolish arguments and every high-minded thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ (HCSB)."

Cool. So far, God's reading my mail (you'd think this wouldn't be a surprise by now). Respond for ministry time. Check.

Small victory #2. (Thanks, Abba!)

And so all these truths are coming to mind as I read Psalm 11 several hours later. Reminders to abide, contend, and most of all, declare my dependence on the Great Gardener to prune my branches so that I can produce more fruit. Such glorious pain.

Worth it all. I'm all in.

"I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without Me."

-Jesus, John 15:5

Come to More

It was a year ago today that I first sat down as a Fire in the Night intern. No stranger to the ministry of IHOP-KC, but I was a stranger to truly knowing God.

I'm no longer an outsider.

Jesus changed my life.

After seven years of suppressing the call of God on my life to pursue ministry, I finally answered it. That internship began to accelerate the journey to intimacy that my soul has yearned for since I was created in the womb.

And I'm never going back.

Back to what?

There is nothing that can compare with the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus. The only Son of the Creator of this incomparably vast universe, became like me to settle a debt that He didn't owe for a creature who rejects Him. Daily.

That's Love.

If you have yet to experience even a glimmer of the hope that is this Love, I pray that tonight you will encounter the Author of Love.

It's more than gaining heaven and avoiding hell.

Than crossing off a to-do list.

It's about being in a relationship with the only perfect Person in the world. Everything we ever thought we needed doesn't matter when we get to sit at His feet.

And the funny thing is? I don't get it. Yet.

Not even close.

There is no way I can.

My body cannot contain the fullness of the knowledge of God's character.

But I try anyway.

I pray that I, "being rooted and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and width, heaght and depth, and to know the Messiah's love that surpasses knowledge, so [I] may be filled with all the fullness of God" (HCSB, emphasis mine).

And I've tasted just a small drop from this unfathomably vast ocean of love.

Does that kinda blow your mind? Yeah, me too.

And I love it. But it didn't used to be that way.

Rewind. I'm at a conference in 2009. For the first time, I'm overwhelmed by the fact that God actually likes me! He's not mad at me! He wants to take away the shame from the things of my past of which He has already forgiven me. Such freedom.

I submit. He overwhelms.

And thus begins the journey to understanding the kind of love that Jesus has for those who call Him Daddy.

It's been a year since I began to encounter.

And now I'm ruined for anything less.

I'm thankful for that.

Now I sit here in the prayer room again.

It's been nine months since my internship ended. I begin a new one on Friday morning. After that, I'll pursue music ministry at the music school here in KC. It's...refreshing to finally be walking in obedience.

Being here, in the will of God, finally, is a breath of fresh air. It's been a journey. And it will continue to be a journey. But it's a journey of "Come to More," a never-exhausted supply of living water. And I drink deeply.

Will you?

"Taste and see that the Lord is good." -Psalm 34:8 HCSB

the delete button

I'm telling on myself.


I wasn't loving the other day.


I'm sure I"m in good company. After all, I'm human. But isn't that always the excuse.


I was chatting with a friend the other day. Politics came up and during the exchange I mentioned that I didn't believe that President Obama loved Jesus based on his actions. He claimed that the POTUS does. And we both ended up agreeing that no one man can, nor should be expected to, solve this country's many problems...


Then I began to think. I wasn't loving either, was I?


I judged a person by my extremely limited exposure to him.


That's about as bad as writing a book report on The Hobbit after reading only the inside leaf.


Funny thing, I had just gotten done teaching some young people about how powerful a weapon our tongues are.


That's just like the Enemy. He comes around when I least expect. Darn it. And every time, I say, next time, I'll be ready. The next morning, I wake up and voila! deja vu. All over again.


Can't say I wasn't warned.


 Jesus knows what this is all about.  Satan "retreated temporarily, lying in wait for another opportunity" it says in Luke 4 from The Message.


This is refreshing. The Savior of the world, firstborn from the dead, the One Who holds all things together, the head of the church, knows what it's like to be tempted. And so much more. The prophet Isaiah says he is "acquainted with grief." What a relief.


I'm in good hands.


So the definition of love Who died for me is patient with me and loves me (and President Obama...and everyone else for that matter). When I'm not loving, He still is. And gives me multiple chances.


So I confessed my failure to love and I repented. What's next? I press delete and press on. Or at least I try. For some reason, forgiving and forgetting the things I do is difficult. There I go again. Confession. It's cathartic.


My goal for tomorrow? Wake up tomorrow and try to love more like Jesus. The secret to this is allowing Jesus to show me how to love me like Him, and then love others like I love myself. It takes Him to love Him. We were created to be in a loving relationship with Jesus. It's a two way street.


So by the time you read this, I will have been unloving to someone. And you probably have too.


But I challenge myself as I challenge you: try out the delete button. It's a great way to keep yourself unburdened.

The Journey of (to) Submission

It's so much easier to follow Jesus when things are easy.

Why did I ever think things would be easy in the first place? Somehow did I think that being transformed into the image of His likeness would not be without pain?

Do I encounter seasons of doubt and just quit? Or do I take the good with the bad and realize there are lessons to be learned in the midst of these trials?

These are questions I've been pondering.

Last fall, I spent three months as an intern at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, MO.

It did not change my life; Jesus did.

He showed up in a tangible way in my heart. I personalized my faith in a way that I had not done since committing my life to Christ as a young child. Spending about five hours in the prayer room each night makes one acutely aware of personal flaws. I found myself stretched spiritually, and could feel my shallow, weak roots becoming healthier as I allowed the Father to care for them and prune away the things choking the life out of me. My fellow blogger and best friend explains this process the best in her blog.

That three months catalyzed a process that continues outside the prayer room, outside the walls of a house of prayer where I'm surrounded by fellow believers. The continuation of these decisions to willfully choose to grow closer to God choice by choice, step by step, moment by moment, day by day now occur in the marketplace...like most of us.

Few have the rare opportunity I enjoyed to sit before the feet of Jesus for such a focused period of time. True, we all have that option daily. Sometimes real life gets in the way. At least that's our excuse. But since that season at IHOP-KC, I've been discovering how much God has changed me. I'm finding that I handle just plain life better, and that the times I experience moments and, let's be real, seasons of doubt, I more quickly go find myself in the secret place. The place where Jesus and I can talk. Honestly. The place where He tells me that He knew what He was getting into when He created me. He knows my brokenness, my flaws, my fears, my joys, my thoughts, my deeds, my intentions, and most of all, my heart, better than anyone or anything on this planet.

It's been a journey to begin to understand this kind of love, this dedication to humanity. I'd be lying if I said that I understand it. Because I can't. Not completely. My human frame cannot understand the type of love that causes an indescribable, sovereign, all-consuming, inexhaustible, omnipotent, Creator-of-the-Universe God to take on the form of a human to show me the depths of His love. That's crazy.

Sometimes we write for others. Sometimes we write for ourselves. Sometimes we write for both. This is one of those times.

As I sit here writing this, the writer in me wants to have an introduction, a thesis, a body, and a conclusion. It wants to control what this post is about. Even the title has changed. Three times.

But that's not the point. This post is about my journey, and it's in real time today.  I think the point, if I had to pick one, is that most of us are control freaks, and at least for me, my doubts and uncertainties become more unbearable when I take God's leadership out of the picture.  I was created to voluntarily give up my rights to my life. When I voluntarily and stubbornly accept my own leadership of my life without His input, things just don't go well.

It's only in my weakness that He can be made strong. I can find Jesus at the end of my rope, but my life goes much better if He is my rope. And my anchor.

So as this blog progresses, the questions remain, but my hope is renewed. Writing is cathartic.

I'm a reforming control freak. Join me on this journey. We are pilgrims on a journey. Our destination depends on Who we serve. As for me, I'm going to follow Jesus. No matter what.

"Our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory.  So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen; for what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." -2 Cor. 4:17-18