A Grand Election

I need to post this and I truly hope many of you will read this with an open mind...I hope it does not offend but I think it is time I said some of this.


My oldest daughter Leah Beth Payne has been saying for weeks now that God has commanded us to give thanks for all in authority (1Tim. 2:1) and I think before we as children of the Most High can begin to wag the finger about all the hot button issues and this election we need to look inside the church first...  

So let me give you my evolving perspective on some of these things...   



1.Gay marriage...

When you look at the core issue here its about "same-attraction/homo (the same as)covenant-intimacy...and when I look at the Evangelical church I notice we are always ONLY intimate and in connection with the ones who are the SAME as us. 

And we have very little regard for real covenants.

We gather together based on the same likes, and the same "do not touch" kind of rules and we exclude any who are different from us...when was the last time you visited another part of the body of Christ in your city? Do you think your church is the only one? Probably not, but you do believe in some metric that it is better than the others or you would go to another church in town...you would find the one that is most like you in your beliefs.

But let someone begin to question the "same-old, same old" and covenant is out the window...they are normally rejected as rebellious, treated like a leper and sentenced to exclusion...actually kind of what we do to the gays...all out of fear that others will question, and we all know what kind of rebellion that will lead to...we only want to be in covenant with those who think and act exactly like we do...kind of like same sex marriage.

I know because I did this to others for years...I had all the neat little labels, they were "wounded" had an "orphan spirit", were "immature", needed "inner healing"...and I believed and projected they would eventually come to see things my way, or we would never ever have a relationship...and of course it would be their fault for being different.

For years I have ONLY gone to conferences, hung out with like minded people as me, been part of groups that were like I was, and I never even entertained the notion of celebrating communion with an Orthodox believer, or a Catholic, or even a Baptist for that matter...I stayed with those "like me"...my intimacy centered around those who shared my model of life.

And most of you are just like me...we are not homophobic as much as we are "anti-homo-phobic" in other words...we are most afraid of those NOT like us.

We need everyone to believe exactly like we do or we cannot fellowship on any level of intimacy...covenant is reserved for those MOST like me.

I wonder why?

Shouldn't opposites attract? Its true in magnets and physics...but not in church.

Do I think homosexuality is not an issue? Of course not, but its a little weird to be so judgmental at a group of people who do not claim to know the God who connects with "who-so-ever-will" when we (who claim to know Him better) won't.

So you choose to gather with those most like you, but Jesus hung out with those MOST UNLIKE himself and actually got a reputation for it...but we are so proud of our reputations, as a matter of fact "reputation" is an essential part of our leadership model, but its funny when you go to the Bible, Paul and Jesus did not regard that as nearly as important as we do...and I suspect a HUGE amount of our "sameness" and intimacy with only those like us is based on protecting our reputation. Paul says Jesus made himself of "no reputation" and Paul completely abandoned his for the sake of the gospel...but the gay community does not give a damn about reputation and they are often-times much more supportive of their own than the church is...but the core issue here is we are not much different from them in that we are seeking intimacy ONLY with those like us.

That goes for God as well as our church...we essentially believe He is like us but we would never admit that.

I read several post on facebook tonight from Pastors who were basically saying if you supported Obama you were on the wrong side and were against God...(obviously the same side as us!)

But when the Angel of the Lord showed up to Joshua He did not pick a side, He said "neither"...Gods position is probably much different than we suppose, but we have a hard time seeing it since we are only connecting and "loving" with those like us.

God is NOT on our side and we would be wise to not have one.

As far as I can tell, calling out for judgement on America is really risky business because according to scripture judgment BEGINS with the house of God...are we ready for that kind of scrutiny?

As far as homosexuals and the Kingdom, they are no different than you were before you encountered the kindness of the Lord...it was His kindness that led you to repentance, not His judgments...they simply have not encountered his kindness yet.

When was the last time you determined to demonstrate the kindness of God to a gay person? When was the last time God was kind to you?...today is my guess.

We overcome evil with good, (not protest) and we do it everyday starting with the day Gods kindness encountered you.


2. Abortion:  

When it comes to aborting the fruit of the womb, and eliminating a pregnancy for convenience I can trace a lot of that back to the general condition of the church where we have adopted models of life that do not require we grow up and take ownership for our own destiny and life, further-more the church as a whole has continually marginalized and discredited other cultures, other people groups...this will eventually find expression in marginalizing life in the womb.

What do you think of when I say "Sharia Law"???

But it is a culture and a people group that we have marginalized.

Did you know that Sharia Law prohibits gross compensation in business without a reflecting value present? In other words if some parts of Sharia Law were in place our economy might not be where it is. 

We guard against the alien and have essentially abandoned the widow and the orphan (making HUGE generalizations here to make a point I hope you understand I see you as an exception). Is abortion a heinous crime? Of course it is. I cannot reduce the impact of how that affects the land or our country...(let alone the troubled and usually abandoned women who endure it)...but Jesus said:

 >ALL AUTHORITY IN HEAVEN AND EARTH HAD BEEN GIVEN TO HIM< ...all is pretty inclusive.

"go therefore"...in other words He is transferring authority to us...and where we refuse to take responsibility, we cannot enforce His authority...our current models of church are built on convenience, we time the worship service, we make the offering as painless as possible and we are in and out faster than a one night stand in the red light district all for our "intimacy fix" with the Lord.

We have elected pastors to do the heavy lifting for us so we can be free to do whatever we want to do the rest of our lives, so we are in at 10 out by 12:30 and off we go to live life unencumbered by real responsibility for those around us let alone the seed of nations and people across the street.

One day each of us will stand completely alone before God and give an account for our time here and our pastor and our church will not be there, it will be just you and Him.

Is it really convenient to do church rather than be the church?

Do you really think this is the model that Jesus said the gates of hell would not prevail against? Because last time I checked the divorce rate was the same as the world, pornography and substance abuse (prescribed by professionals) is just as prevalent in our convenience model as the world. I have heard of at least 3 worship pastors in the last few months that had been caught having long time affairs...so intimacy seems a little bit...casual and no one is asking how come.

Before we get all hot and bothered about the abortion issue (and I am not saying we don't get bothered by it) perhaps we should look at what the church has been aborting for a long time...and ask yourself...are there seeds that God has deposited in times of intimacy that I have conveniently aborted?

I understand these are not exactly the same...but we need authority to change our culture, authority that has already been released to us...so what are we authorizing? 

What if we were authorizing a spirit of convenience and lack of responsibility for life with Heavens authority? What if the world was simply reflecting us?

Just asking.




3. The economy...

I have a real problem making this connection...how is the economy of the saints even slightly tied to our national GDP? Or Wall Street? And if you are being affected on a personal level with these things why is that?

I am not ignoring the reality that we live in a world where poverty and changing economies have an impact on our daily lives, but last time I checked God did not promise any of us the "American Dream" and anyone else who did was fooling you.

 How does any of this figure into who we choose as President? It seems like we prefer shifting blame here...the President does not choose how you budget you money and what you do with it...and before you respond consider that Jesus had no issue paying taxes, He commanded us to give to Caesar what was Caesars and with that He basically undermined the entire "tax exempt" status of the entire American church culture...I wonder what difference would be felt in our economy if the Billions of dollars gathered every Sunday morning were taxed into our national economy? But no one wants to even entertain that idea we're to busy...with other financial ventures.

I am not trying to be harsh here...I just think we are approaching these things from the wrong side of our place in life.

There are unintended consequences for the way we take up offerings and do money as believers...by placing a check in the offering plate you have not  absolved yourself of taking care of the widow and the orphan, or the naked and homeless, or really anyone on the planet. If somehow you have bought into the notion that by paying your tithes you are entitled to a certain financial security, I have news for you and its very good...you are no longer under the  Old Testament Levitical model according to the book of Hebrews...so the curse in Malachi only applies to you if you choose it...you are invited to tithe into  a system that is quite different and is based entirely upon honor...you knew that right? 

I mean the financial model we are using as evangelicals, its all Biblical and what-not right?

10% to the local church for the Pastors...that what Jesus and the Apostles taught about money right? And once you've done that you are a good steward and you have not buried your money in the dirt...

(Just wondering... have you really ever read the OT verses about the tithe and how it was to be spent? Research some of the things we have been doing since Constantine and get back to me).

Seems like I cannot get away from asking tough questions here...but its only fair since a lot of believers I know are taking very tough postures towards this election and our culture and the "liberal media" (which has never claimed to be Christ-like as far as I can tell)...

The minute you tie your financial wagon to ANY system outside of what Jesus suggested you have no grounds for complaining...sorry that's the side benefit of being one of Gods kids.

I am not at all suggesting we are not called to be generous and I am further-more NOT implying that we go through life poor, quite the opposite...but the entire financial system that we are part of does have elements in it that exploit those who do not have good credit (cannot buy or sell without the mark) and it also exploits all sorts of people and when you look at the rest of the planet its a bit arrogant for us who live in the top 3% of the world wealth to be complaining about our national economy when others do not even have clean drinking water.

How do you think it looks in heaven when we are in the top 3% of wealth in the world and we cannot pay our cable TV/Satellite/cell-phone luxury bills and blame the President?

Pretty silly I am sure.

God probably sees an entirely different system of value, because His system looks at gold and makes it like dust to walk on, because He values other things much more.

I am simply suggesting that the authority of the church in the financial realm is directly connected to our willingness to help the poor and that includes those who are in our land perhaps illegally (the OT had very specific rules about not mistreating the alien)...I live in a State that has a reputation for its defiance of the aliens right to even be here...(Sure go ahead venture down that thought path, but let me remind you that we were not the first people here...they still exist here and are a huge mission's group we tend to ignore as we drive past the Casinos)...

Here's the point I am trying to make...a lot of my friends, believers I know have come away from this election complaining, discouraged and declaring incredibly judgmental postures and I think this is NOT helpful to our cause before the Lord.

Our culture is in need of radical change, and we have fallen in lock step with them in thinking the answer somehow is going to come from a system that is old and dying anyway, there are currently ONLY two cities on the earth right now, Babylon which is falling and the New Jerusalem which is descending...one is a system of power and control that enslaves exploits and manipulates, the other is one that "comes down" from a higher place and heals, serves, and releases the life of heaven on earth, but both are going the same direction...one is falling, the other is choosing to descend to a lower place to help those who need it most.

It is not political.  

That Babylonian Empire was finished when Jesus said it was... at the cross...the New thing is coming down like a Bride..beautiful and pure.

So as long as you look longingly upon the Babylon that is falling, you will have no choice but to weep as the rulers of the earth do...but if you lift up your eyes you can see and be a part of something that will never be subject to slavery again, is free and heals the nations.

And it starts by being thankful.

I would suggest the language of judgment and complaining, the posture of indignation and disappointment are not based in the Kingdom that is descending...they are a fallen posture we need to divest.

I hope you can hear my heart here...I am not wanting to criticize...I just think we are missing the forest for the trees.

You can "elect" or join the "elect"...I prefer the later...its a "Grand Election" we are called to...and it doesn't look like what we've been doing...its bigger, bolder, full of life and joy and not limited to voting or sitting in neatly arranged chairs for 2.5 hours a week...Grand by definition would not look like that.

Your mileage may vary.

Ok I'm done.

Hope you still love me.

-Mark

Serpents...(Yikes)

Since moving to the desert I have had a plethora of experiences with rattle snakes.

It started with my oldest daughter dreaming that I had gotten bit between my index finger and thumb on my right hand...a few days later she kills her first rattle snake...

(Side bar...she LOVES killing them and wants to collect enough skins to make something, this is the same girl who recently walked the corridors of one of our lands greatest courts praying in tongues! She had the Cyrus anointing of "access" working for her)...

But to be honest I sort of dismissed her dream...

About a month later my third daughter has a dream (not knowing what Leahbeth had dreamed) in it both of us got bit by a rattle snake, but this time it was my left hand between the index finger and thumb (but the exact same place on her right hand)...

Within  a few days I kill my first rattle snake...

Last week I have a dream where a friend of mine has a bruise on his heel, the Lord says "I want him to crush the serpents head, but it was your words that bruised him"...

So I email him and repent...turns out the night before he had torn his Achilles tendon playing softball and was on his way to the Doctor when he read my email...

So I go out for a prayer walk, to repent some more and its then that I kill my second rattle snake...

With only my sandal...really...it looked like a really fat stick on the side of the path...I had been doing spiritual warfare after repenting and walked past it...when I realized what it was...so I went back with no fear just a lot of adrenalin and beat the smithereens out of it with my sandal...

So last night I have a dream...in it I have mowed 1/5 of my yard and all the snakes have moved into the other 4/5's...2 rattle snakes pair off in front of me but they remind me of cobra's because they are rising up and taunting me...I shoot a gun at one of them and miss and they both slither off into the tall grass...

So I go to a coffee shop (really no pun intended here) to talk to the Police...there is a group of them sitting at the table, I explain my situation and tell them I will need to be shooting my gun off in the city limits, they say "We understand, if anyone asks you, we were never here"...meaning in a round about way it was ok for me to kill the snakes with my pistol even in city limits, but they could not authorize it themselves...

So I go on a prayer walk tonite...and yes I have NOT been to the boot store yet...so I am in sandals...AGAIN...yikes!

And yes you guessed it I encounter not 1 but 2 very large rattle snakes...

One after I crossed a bridge...a young woman was frozen in front of me with her little dog and a huge snake crossing the path between us...I waited until it had gone off the path and stood between her and the snake so she could pass...the snake was pretty upset and I have a recording of its rattle warning us to stay away...

So yeah...I'm pumped up a bit and continue walking, praying trying to refocus on praise and I walk about a 100 yards and just feel the tug to look behind me...sure enough about 20 feet from where I just passed another very large rattle snake was crossing the path...going the same direction (both were going South, but curl up facing the path<North>)

About 25 feet further past that was a young girl maybe 10 or 11 walking the path following me, not paying attention listening to her iPod not even looking ahead...I yell at her to stop and run back to where the snake is, stooping to show her what she was about to encounter...again I stand between her and the snake and invite her to pass behind me so she is safe and I "encourage" her to turn off the iPod and look where she is going.

Both of these snakes curled up right off the edge of the path (which is actually paved, and two lanes for bikes and pedestrians) both snakes pointing their fang side to the path....

Anyway I spent the rest of the walk warning people and rehearsing all the verses I knew about serpents, trying to get back to worship and adoration since that was the main purpose in the first place...

I thought about Paul shaking off the serpent into the fire...and wondered what gave him such a relaxed approach? What was it that made Paul so sure the venom would not affect him...I felt the Lord say..

"Paul's anti-venom was his mission" he knew he could not die outside of Rome, because he had a mission to accomplish...

I have been dealing with generational sin, cleansing the family lineage in my prayer times...I told a friend of mine it seems like all I ever do in prayer anymore is repent...

But I am not complaining, we could all do a lot worse than repent...it IS part of the foundation of our life in Christ and when you build on a foundation it becomes a part of the building even if it is "under" the more visible parts.

I love repentance it is one of the greatest gifts God will ever give you...without it you never even enter the kingdom...

So yeah my prayer life is a lot of repenting and always will be if I'm honest.

I think there are all sorts of parallels to draw from the space between the "fore-finger" and the thumb, between the 1/5 and the 4/5 parts of my yard, between the snake in front of me and the one behind me...

1/5 of my kids are male...4/5's are female...

4/5's of my kids are married, 1/5are not...

Courtney had also had a dream where we were looking for my son, he had gone missing, so we were walking up this hill and all these snakes were coming towards us, she and her sisters didn't know what to do and I said "Pick them up and throw them" and as I showed them the snakes all turned into sticks behind me...

Yes there is cleansing of the generations that needs to happen, yes there are things on the time line and after the bridges that needs attention, but ultimately...I need to get the the place Paul was and allow the mission to take my focus rather than some snake bite...

At some point all this inner healing and Sozo's and healing the land and removing curse from time needs to be shaken off into the fire of the Holy Spirit and my focus needs to be on getting to Rome to tell a certain King, he is not Lord, Jesus is...

Until then...I will keep on repenting, shaking off the things that are poison and try to attach to who I am...but I also think I will go buy some boots...

Mission not possible

I've been rethinking much of the church...

Frankly I'm already tired of the negative aspect of it...the basic premise that it is not working should be obvious to anyone who is honest, and if you are not honest you are probably a large part of the current empire system we call church, sorry to be so blunt.

There are pockets where it does work, there are a handful (at best) of communities where the church is making a significant impact for good, but even there the measurable metric is not the driving factor in the community...not yet anyway.

I'm not suggesting that church in itself is not good, just that its impact on the local level is probably a zero sum equation, it does some good for some people, but by that fact alone it probably alienates and has unintended consequences that affect just as many others in a negative way.

I can give you specifics but its probably a dialogue we aren't exactly ready for yet.

What I do notice is the incredible pressure we put on pastors who have genuine shepherds hearts but truly lack the wiring for the assignment we need most...its a bit unfair and a lot like asking Florence Nightingale to organize the D-Day invasion, it horrifies her sensibilities and guarantee's her strategy will do more harm than good...

And that is exactly the metaphor we need at this moment...your mission in God is a suicide mission but the kingdom cannot accomplish the victory already purchased without your participation...its D-day...

The language of Jesus and the early Apostolic church completely supports this model, it is one of being sent into a hostile environment, with not promise you will survive, only that you will win, language like "they loved not their loves unto death", overcoming in the New Testament is not about over-powering, its about sacrifice and the blood of martyrs and selling all and going...

Its a suicide mission that guarantees life...

Jesus demonstrated it, the Apostles demonstrated it, Paul told Timothy to prepare for it, Revelation is full of it and we have to embrace it if we want to reach our destiny in God.

Shepherds cannot lead that charge...it goes against their very nature to comfort and sustain green pasture like stillness for the flock...and yet these are the ones we have put in charge of the invasion...that's really not a good strategy and definitely not the Biblical model.

What if to reach your dream, your assignment in God it would require you to sell all you have, give it away and just go in faith to another place? 

Do you really think a local pastor is going to be able to sign off on that? Of course not, the system requires your presence and tithe to keep the rest of the flock safe and secure, but the idea that we are called to lay down our lives and obey regardless of the cost is certainly not alien to the teaching of Jesus or the Apostolic mission....actually both pretty much require it...

This is where the comments will filter in about being "to heavenly minded to be any earthly good" and about living in "balance" both concepts not found in the New Testament...whats balanced or "practical" about turning over money changers tables and calling for more prayer, or preaching until a riot ensues and you get thrown in jail?

My point is this, you are never going to be satisfied until you give your all to your mission in God whatever that is for you, and it is NOT your Pastors job to guide you, sustain you, or arm you for the battle, his primary job is to comfort you, let you rest and recover, and provide a safe place for you to heal...beyond that the local pastor is primarily just a nurse in a hospital away from the battle, except for a few who are sort of like M.A.S.H. units in the heat of it.

SO you should stop expecting them to help you reach your dreams...if they are God dreams they will require everything you are and a pastor cannot require that, it perverts the call...

So lets stop placing this kind of expectation on the typical Sunday church Pastoral model...it is simply NOT going to happen and the primary proof of this is sitting in the pew with the unfulfilled assignment every week...if our model of pastoral culture could have accomplished the Mission of Jesus (and how your mission coincides with that) then we would be there by now because this model is at least several hundred years old.

Stop looking for the answer there, you are not going to find it.

This brings up an entirely difficult discussion about what in the fatal fires ARE we doing, since we don't seem to be advancing the Kingdom Mission, but that would require us leaving our safe and comfortable hospital pews and actually looking at the battle plans...

Selah.

The Royal Parade of Destiny

Just had an intense dream, one of those dreams you slowly wake from as the details fall into your mind:

In my dream there was this incredible Parade of all Gods kids dressed in Royal robes and lined up, it was simply Glorious...all kinds of Gods kids, young and old marching and dancing in gowns and armor, covered in Jewels and Crowns and carrying banners...(The banners were always the names or shapes of nations and cultures)

Some were playing "instruments of righteousness" which were on some of them their own hands and body parts that had been transformed to musical devices that were making the most amazing and captivating sounds...those who listened to these instruments were immediately transformed and some were actually caught up to heaven to have an experiences at the Throne.

Every person in the Parade was singing their own song, but it was the "Song of the Lamb"...made specific by their voice.

Everyone in the Parade was a Royal Son, or Daughter...regardless of their age they had a sense of regal bearing about them and each one of them walked like Audrey Hepburn in "My Fair Lady" in the Ascot Gavotte scene but instead of big hats with feathers and decorations each person was walking with the Dove of the Holy Spirit on their head...walking in such an awareness as to not disturb His Presence...some were literally bent back as His Presence was so weighty,,,,

The Parade led through a poverty stricken portion of the earth...it was on the outskirts of the city of God, but the road went straight to the Palace from poverty...and that was a big part of the purpose of the Parade, it was to draw the poor, the lame, the rejected and broken into it's ranks and as it did, the children became Kings and Queens simply by imitating the behavior of the Regal ones...it was incredible to watch as poverty stricken and hungry people dropped their trash and empty cups to join the Parade, as soon as they did their feet became clean and from there they became outfitted in Royal garments...and it all happened as they simply pretended to be what they were on the inside...but this was not pretense...it was "pre-tense" meaning they were walking out the reality in spite of the tension...because this was a destiny given them before they joined in the Parade...

But this is where the dream shifted...some of the children (everyone was a child from the greatest to the least) began to throw rocks at others in the Parade...and some began to spew what looked like paint basically vomiting it on the backs of others in the Parade...but the saddest part was when they threw rocks at the poor kids to drive them away from the Parade.

Many of the rocks had names written on them and there was a LOT of rocks with the word "Doctrine" on them these rocks came from the side of the road, these were very "hard stones", some of the rocks even had the name "jesus" on them these were the rocks thrown at the other poor kids to drive them away (what was sad was everyone at one time was a poor slave child).

Some rocks had the names of sin on them, like "homosexual" and "wine-bibber"...some of the rocks had "rejection" on them and those rocks came from inside the person throwing them...the vomit/paint was always behind the backs...spewed over coffee or tea or pillows...some pillows like in a living room, but most were sleeping pillows that were made not of feathers but a bag of rocks and I knew these had been keeping them from sleeping they were so uncomfortable...

Some of the rocks had more than one word, and most of those rocks had gold paint on them that said "my truth"...and these rocks were always aimed at certain people in the Parade...the other rocks were thrown quite random, and it was because someone had stepped out of line or in front the person so they reacted...

As soon as the people began to affect others in the Parade, either by the vomit/paint (which was like whitewash but wasn't white it was more like "grey-out") or by the intensity of the rocks thrown...God would reach down and pull that child/person out of the Parade and put them in a fence in school yard...where their garments and demeanor would begin to get smaller...the problem was the person still felt just as regal but it was obvious this was a "time-out" recess kind of place with a chain link fence...

From there they could still see the Parade...and the Parade continued without them...they stopped growing immediately when they were placed in time-out...although many of them had books, and were worshiping and even having church services every week...lots and lots of church services were going on in the recess yard...and God would come and sit in on the "service" and when they were done He always said "There's more would you like to see?" and always the kid would agree and say "I know but its not time"...and the Father would get up and say "Ok" and walk away...

The time-out had lots of wood chips on the ground to make it safe, like you often see in school yards and parks but the chips also made it uncomfortable because they gave off splinters, what was odd is I could tell the wood chips had once been bread.

As each child would get a splinter they would cry out to God who would sit down with them and remove the splinter and He always asked them "Are you ready to get out of time-out?"...almost none of them did even though I could see they were getting healed at times...some were even healed of cancer and when I asked Him about it (because my brother died of cancer it made me upset) He said "I rain on the just and the unjust, your brother was just and did not die of cancer, only his body did".

There were some kids in the time-out that decided to have their own Parade...and while they were children inside on the outside they looked like old women...(a few were old men)...it was incredibly heart-breaking to see because from outside the fence when you looked in you could see a beautiful and stunning Royal Bride...but inside the fence it was an old and frumpy, run down woman who was so caught up in her own Parade that she had shut out the real one...and each one of these Brides was alone and did not care because she kept saying "Well at least I have my children with me" and she pretended to have dolls in her arms even though she was alone in her place, the dolls in her imagination were always people who had joined the Parade for real because of her, but she only had a a sad little doll of a poor person and no longer could even see the Regal and Royal person in the real Parade.

Some of the time-out kids simply curled up and went to sleep...these children made the Father weep....and the phrase "Weeping and gnashing of teeth in outer darkness" came to mind when I saw Him cry...

On the outside of the fence were these demonic "bullies"...who would pester and create fear in some of the kids in time-out...they would say things like "If God loved me why did He let this happen to me?" or "If you love me then I know it will all work out in the end"...but all of the bullies had one thing in common and that was they blamed God and made the child doubt His goodness...some said things like "There is no Parade, that is for another time"...even though the children could clearly see the Parade through the fence...

Some of the kids in this time-out area were intently praying in tongues...some were fasting and these kids seemed to go back to being poor again...thinking that if they humbled themselves they could get out of time out...and that's when I noticed each one of the kids was wearing a sash around their waist...I had not noticed it before...but each child as they were placed into time-out was given an Angel who tied a sash around their waist that had a key on it....it was the key to get out of time out and it was always a small replica of the person they had thrown the rocks at or vomited on...

Some kids had many keys, but each key was a different person...and the people in there the longest had the most keys of anyone...

It was obvious...I did not even have to ask...each person was in time-out because of unforgiveness...and each person had the key (attached to a very powerful Angel) that would immediately get them back into the Parade of their Destiny...and when they did the keys were then placed on their shoulders, it was an authority to help others get out. They would see rocks being thrown or vomit being spewn and would run over to help the kids in the Parade by showing them the keys on their shoulders, many fights were stopped this way.

I saw several children watch through the fence as windows would pass before them these were "Opportunities of a Lifetime" and each window was a different path to the same destiny the Bride had been born for...as the windows passed from right to left...they slowly closed and locked...many refused to look at the windows...but the windows were inside them...what they saw pass on the outside were simply moments in time that were opportunities...some turned away crying...but they could not ignore the windows because they came from inside the person and it was their Destiny...

I watched as one girl looked intently at a window...in it she was performing miracles and restoring poor children in Haiti...she turned to the Father and said "I want to go, I want to go"...He said "You are the only one with a key, I cannot help you"

So looking at her sash she held up the key and said "But I love this person"...hesitating to give Father the key...I realized she did love it but it was a warped kind of love...it was a love of addiction, not a love from the Father...He said "You cannot love them from you its the wrong kind of love"...finally she reluctantly turned it over to the Father and He signaled the Angel, who became excited to get her back into the Parade of her destiny...both she and the Angel began to laugh as little pieces began to fall into place that made a bridge right over into another world but back into the Parade and she was on a beach in Haiti dancing with children leading them to the Parade.

This is where the dream got uncomfortable...the Parade of Destiny continued with many being added to it...it was always a "New Day" for the Parade...however for the kids in the time-out playground....it began to turn to dusk...and I knew evening was coming...it would be dark soon...and they would be left in the dark in time-out...the windows would stop coming by...Father could not get them out if they chose the darkness...and the Angels were also affected but eventually reassigned...

When I woke up I felt the Lord say to me "Unforgiveness is the only thing that can kill your destiny once you join in the Parade".

That's when I remembered seeing only one person throw away the crown and chase away the dove...and I knew he had "blasphemed" the Holy Spirit...(which was truly kind of confusing after hearing what He said)...the Dove flew out into a field of white...

That's when I realized a part of the dream I had not remembered...these fields of white...they were millions and millions of poor people all around the Parade of Destiny...and what was making them white was the Dove of the Holy Spirit settling upon their heads and making them look up...literally millions of souls were being affected by this "Hovering" it was a white light that the Holy Spirit as a Dove would come and "light" upon these poor slave children...as soon as He did they would lift up their heads (He was actually pulling their heads up as He touched them...the fluttering was to draw their gaze up)...it was the Dove that was making them white...

When the Dove caused them to look up, they could hear the sound of the instruments of righteousness and the song of the lamb being sung and many were responding...and as they responded, they saw the King in the Parade and were transformed...

I knew that this was the next revival, the next great awakening...many of the "white fields" were in the shape of Muslim countries...

"The fields are already white"...said a voice...and they were...

The dream was very sobering...and made me realize the power of unforgiveness...but as I think abut all the metaphors in the dream there is a lot of hope there as well...

I got up and asked Him to search my heart...and show me any keys where I said I loved people but it was not His love but something warped instead...

There are some parts of this dream that do not make sense to me yet...especially the part about throwing stones in judgment to keep the poor kids away as being unforgiveness...that seems like it is more of a system than a posture but I might need to redefine what unforgiveness really is...maybe ts the sign of Jonah with the sin of Jonah attached...

Selah...seriously Selah...

The dream reminds me of this song I recently heard:

I think Jesus wants His Bride back...

For a thousand years

I had a dream almost 30 years ago, and my oldest daughter had one as well that drastically reshaped my approach to parenting and teaching my kids...

One Sunday as I was preparing for church Leahbeth had gotten up quite early and was sitting on the couch as I passed through...she said "Daddy did you know Jesus has a white horse?"

I said "Yes, I did know that" and walked into the kitchen...as I poured a cup of coffee it dawned on me that I did know, but how did she know?

So I went back into the living room and asked her "Baby, how did you know Jesus has a white horse?"...

She said "I saw it last night when I slept...He was riding it up in the sky and fire came out of His mouth and burned up all the evil people"...

I was quite stunned, she was three and we had never mentioned anything like this to her and pretty much knew she had never heard it before...

A year or so later I had a dream...in my dream I was very old...so old I was kind of confused and mentally not as sharp, but Leahbeth and her family were taking me to church...we went to this small little church and she said "Dad we are going to worship the Lord, so come down to the front like you always do..."

I went down to the front and as we all began to worship the Lord, the level of our intimacy drew heaven until Jesus could not be held back any longer and came to His bride because of the intimacy of life and worship...

I haven't really modified much of my eschatology because of the dreams, that is always a work in progress and I had pretty much abandoned any dogmatic posture when I met Barney Combs in 1978 and he dismantled my doctrine...

But what challenged me most was that in both dreams there was a very clear and unmistakable connection to the future and she was only 3 at the time...

I realized then that if I wanted to insure my walk with the Lord until the end, (whatever that might mean) then I needed to pour into my kids a model of following Jesus that would guarantee my own development once I crossed that thresh hold of being the guy in charge...it meant developing a model of relationship that would work when my own ability to relate might be impaired...

I think every parent wants their kids to be successful, but its a little harder to trust your own success to a generation that follows you...that is a completely different metric...but it is the Biblical model.

I'm not talking about the "survival success", you know the easy sort of excuse we can make when we say "Well we didn't lose any, they are all serving the Lord, etc..."

That's not success...that's surviving...success is "Greater works than these..."

Its the difference between a 2nd generation CEO and his fathers company...most businesses where the son takes over never really do much more than what the son inherited...the exceptions are few and far between...

I discovered almost 30 years ago that my future success would depend upon my current ability to teach and model an intimacy that would transcend the generations...so I stopped hiding my failures...I stopped hiding my insecurities...I let them in on the world of my doubts, and I gave them the authority to correct me without fear...

As I have engaged a certain "dismantling" of my models lately...rediscovering the desert and a need for intimacy that goes beyond my need for legitimacy...my kids have all kind of told me...

"We told you so..." 

And sure enough most of what I am encountering now was prophesied, encrypted and painted in conversations I have had with them over the last few years...they were mostly here already...wondering why it took me so long...

It scares the heck out of me, but gives me peace as well...its a little like accidentally winning the gold medal in archery...you know you missed it...but somehow grace moved the target to be right where your arrow would land...

TIME-OUT

I spent a few days at Courtney and Josh's while he was in Germany and of course was enriched by hanging with Rebekkah and Cyrus...(Grandkids #6 & #8)


One morning I got up and turned on the coffee pot and sat down, RockyJo (Rebekkahs nickname) said in a delightful perky voice :


"Grammu I maypor choiz"...I looked over at Courtney who is fluent in the RockyJo dialect and she said:


"She said -'Grampy I made a poor choice'"...and then she told me how Bekka had started out breakfast on the  new kids table in the game room, but part way through the meal had decided to stand on top of the table and was promptly informed of the bad choice consequence which confined the rest of the meal to the high security high chair in the dining room...


She had made a bad choice and at two years of age was ok with the consequences and frankly didn't seem to be to bothered by it.


I watched as all day long she made choices neither her mom or I could understand...she was confined to time out for not picking up her toys, after and very distinct decision was offered and agreed upon between herself and her mom...


"I go time out"...


"A spanking..."


Courtney was very clear in letting Bekka know these were her decisions, and bringing her to a specific point of ownership for each one of them...and then not hesitating in bringing the consequence...


The Bible says somewhere that because punishment is delayed iniquity increases...but in this case it was just a day of bad decisions...all day...


I was impressed with both the consistency of Courtney who was unmoved by the incredible cuteness of a tiny little girl smart as a whip, and then also the determined and unfazed ownership that the two-year old exhibited in each consequence...


It was clear she knew exactly what she was doing and was fine with it, while her mother and I seemed to be more concerned about her limited options than she was...


Sometimes...apparently...you just have to reach out and take the fruit of the tree knowing full well that bad consequences are coming down like a monsoon flash flood...


We have all been there to some degree...there is always a residue of the MOM voice of God inside us asking "Do you want to obey or do you want time out?"...and then we sit in time out watching our freedom evaporate...


I think the biggest casualty in the equation is our time...


The days we have spent in some sort of divine time out (prisons of our own design) are not normally days we  get back...


Time records it and moves on...


So there is this ongoing record of sin and bad choices...


But the good news is it is limited to time...


It IS a record...that someday God will roll up like a scroll and the record of sin will no longer be available for any to read, see or remember...


Sometimes...I think that is one of the primary purposes of time...to put a boundary and a limit on this disease we call sin...


So one day...God will take all of our "time-outs" and remove the record and the time out itself...


Seems like a good plan and should give us hope...especially on days we spend making poor choices right from breakfast til bedtime...


Selah.

Get in the boat...with Todd...

It was probably 20 years ago...not exactly sure about the date but the word was unmistakable...


"Get in the boat with Todd"...it was a clarion call from heaven and I had no way to do it really...


Since that time I have had to process a lot of really interesting twist and turns connected with that initial script from heaven...


First off...me...I ended up being divorced and rather preoccupied with raising my four daughters and one son as a single parent...little hard to "get in the boat" in that context, heck it was hard just raising them without anyone getting lost or damaged too much along the way...


So I was distracted...yet resolved to be obedient when I could lay aside other more pressing agendas...


I have no regrets about that decision...


Second there was the whole derailment thing of Todd...see as far as I could tell Todd kinda went off the reservation so to speak...and it was completely understandable...losing his son...divorcing...life can create train wrecks that stop traffic in both directions and ruin the land for a long time...


I have recently visited a blog that is a tribute to Todd and Deann... their influence was primary in shaping who I have become as a believer...they were the first "Apostolic" pastors I encountered and it was  the very first church I chose as an independent adult of 18...


I met Ern Baxter in their home, I was introduced to Sophal Ung and he stayed with me in my little house in Tucson the impact is still part of my being.


Todd was the first Pastor I had who was not my dad...


I had moved away from home to OKC and found this amazing church called New Covenant Community, "Tippy (Earl) Stewart and Mike Torbett and Todd and Deann...who had been missionaries to Cambodia and India and now were helping plant missionaries all over the globe in Bern, in Bogota, Hawaii etc...I knew if I stayed I would go...I would have ended up in Thailand or Columbia or Europe somewhere...its what he did...he sent out missionaries, many of them never returning...


The Lord sent me on another path though...and I ended up reconnecting a few years later as a Pastor on my own...


Still the influence of passionate lovers of God resounded in my soul and shaped my future...


Then life happened...or in some fashion...death...death of a marriage, a ministry, a dream...death of a status and an icon...ministries that once were lighthouses of hope seemed extinguished and there were plenty of rocks around them that you could go ship-wreck upon...


And this is where the grace showed up...when God doesn't heal, when things don't work out, when hopes are dashed and the light goes out and there is no anchor strong enough to hold you in the storm...


Grace is that wonderful small voice that refuses to shout above the wind that says God is always good, He is always love, and He is deeply connected to you in spite of the lonely dark and cold vise around your heart...




Grace says, trust Him in the mystery...


Trust Him when it makes absolutely no sense...


Trust Him when it is impossible...


Trust Him even if He does not deliver you...


Trust Him if you never see the healing...


Trust Him when you see a loved one take the last breathe this side of heaven...


Trust Him when she walks out of your life for good...


Trust Him when the dreams are so shattered you cut yourself just picking up the pieces...


Trust Him when the best friend you ever had hates your guts...


Trust Him...in the mystery...


Trust Him when the plans don't work out, the road dead-ends, the check does not show up, the car breaks down, the promise gets forgotten, the door remains shut, the bill stays unpaid, the pain remains...


Trust Him in the mystery of no answers when you desperately need an answer even if its "no"...


This capacity, born of grace, to trust Him in the mystery and to hold onto faith in spite of all odds against it is what defines us as Abraham's offspring...and it is this capacity born in the furnace of adversity that will make us heirs of the world...


So...I now get to fulfill the Macedonian call...even if Todd has gone on to his reward...I get to "get in the boat with Todd"...


Its about Missions...its about thinking outside the box...its about dynamic revival and miracles and covenant models and since Todd is not here, its my version now...the boat...it always belonged to Jesus...


Who's ready for an adventure?

On the Margins...

Sting, whose music I have always been a fan of, discusses the use of silence in music as being one of the more critical elements... actually he basically suggest that the song is really just a frame around the silence, and that is the most important part, and for us in the west it is an uncomfortable part.


It is important in life to take a moment on occasion and stare hard into the margins...stand back and look intently at the edges of life, the undefined and foggy perimeters that we normally discard in order to pursue our goals...and sometimes when you do that you become aware that the margins are really the actual thing and not the focus that you have been following.


As  believer I have had to do this recently and the picture that emerged was startling to say the least...it disrupted my mode of life and the model it was riding in.


I have been driven my entire life to build up, create, sustain, encourage and maintain the body of Christ, I started when I was 2 and my Dad became a Pentecostal Pastor, and I graduated into that world without even thinking about it, it has always been "what you do"...no questions asked.


The particular model of life that emerged from this penumbra of circumstance was basically joined without much thought or question, as is normal for most of us.


I had a room mate in college who told me I was only a Christian because I grew up in the USA and my parents were Pastors, my response was "No I am a believer because God appeared to me when I was six years old"...which was my conversion experience...no sinners prayer, no one else in the room, just me and the Son of God standing above the doorway demanding my allegiance...my Mom wrote it in my baby book after I went in and told her what had happened.


I have never once seriously doubted the existence of God from that moment on...but it has not stopped doubt from creeping into how I relate.


Recently...I have been forced to the margins and have had some rather intense conversations with many who are sharing the same journey in various stages of map-less anxiety as you cross over boundaries you never thought you would encounter.


One such boundary is how we are currently expressing body-life and the authority structure that sustains it...I  have had to revisit margins of how we do church and as I stand back and look at it I realize this is the seedy part of the shape...control, submission, money, worship, even actual physical architecture are pointing to some rather ugly realities, realities I would not have visited if I had not decided to launch out into the "land that I will show you"...


As long as we continue to sustain a top down hierarchy instead of an "among" position of empowerment, until we release resource and value instead of collect it, when we stop imposing submission to one particular vision and instead become enraptured with the journey and story of our fellow combatants, the amount of life we draw from the body of Christ will be a small cup of juice sucked through a stirring stick as my friend Ryan would say.


There's an old adage "If its not broken don't fix it" that seems to be the main focus of the church in the west...but we should not ignore the margins of "if its not working, its broken"...


The margins are really what you see when you back away from the intrinsic and captivating...its the forest not the trees that will stand out in our history.


My point is probably this: God is pushing many of the Levites out into the margins, and it would be good for us to remember that God very rarely showed up where we expect Him...it was Moses and a bush out in the desert, Gideon hiding in a wine-press, David out in the sheep fold, a feed trough in a manger and religious Zealot persecuting the Way...if we ignore the margins and the truth they blatantly declare we just might find our wicks burned out and we have run out of oil at just the wrong time because the focus and redundant rhythm of life lulled us to sleep when we least expected it.


Maybe you aren't there yet...if not that's ok...but you should at least check out the reality of what is on the edge of the city you live in...you just might hear the cry of the fatherless and the weeping of the widow and I know these are the things God is concerned about, don't let the din of the traffic dull your ears to what is coming from the desert.

Chapter available

I am posting a chapter from my book on divorce online for a while so anyone can read it.


It is completely unedited at this point, but I do have Cindy Hansen and Marlene Cole as well as my daughter Leahbeth Payne to thank for ideas and input on structure, flow and content.


It is completely raw, but I believe the concepts are critical for any divorced person to grasp and there is very little along this line of thinking available.


I will eventually make the file private again so the editing can be done by people armed with words and word-processors.


It is a rather long chapter...actually REALLY long...which may be adjusted by smarter people than I.


There will be three versions available, a pdf, a word, and a pages document.


here's the link:


pdf

Word

Pages

Feel free to comment, understanding that all comments require approval and I don't always see them when they are posted, but I will read all of them.


Thanks!

Girls, Women and culture

One of the incredible vignettes of life I have gotten to watch was the development of my four daughters and each womans core culture from being a teenager until they became women on their own.


I took notes because it was a fabulous journey and celebration to behold.


The bedrooms they had were the laboratories of discovery they experimented in and it is a fascinating study to evaluate a girls bedroom as she becomes her "true" self and explores that, to watch and see what she chooses as her own unique culture in way of reading, music, entertainment and self decoration...


The trick is to understand that you only get to watch by invitation and if you fail to value the process, you will be left out of it, so I kind of let them do their own thing with no rules, no strings and no snarky comments.


Leahbeth decorated with trophies, awards and stuffed exotic tigers and pillows, she wore business suits and competed in National Business and education events, she listened to a lot of music but that was never the biggest part of her world, she watched the Real World but rarely spent time in front of the T.V. since she preferred actual real time social connection.


 Rena covered the walls with Victorian porcelain dolls and flowers, read books like crazy, loved true crime stories and unsolved mysteries, listened to just about everything and was really my first child to have both old music and new, from the Monkees to Metal, she dressed very casual and almost never spent time doing makeup or hair and loved old movies, Audrey Hepburn and I love Lucy...


Courtney cut out bible verses and poems and taped them everywhere, she read almost as much as Rena, but oddly enough she really enjoyed my "Get Fuzzy" books, and watched the Simpsons and Home Movies, really laid back cartoon stuff, she always dressed very conservative and modestly and was the second of my girls to be Homecoming Queen, but it was not a trophy event for her as much as it was a game to play and joke about...


 Ariel wrote in the boldest colors  and biggest letters her own name and "Faith, hope, love" (which took several coats of primer and lots of work to cover), dressed in shorts and cowboy boots, loved to dance, and was my most athletic daughter, so there was a lot of "team" and sports decorations and clothing style, she loved Dallas Football and U of A basketball, listened to lots of stuff, but most of it was high energy music that had a competitive edge, spent less time in her room than on the couch and needed contact more than content...she just liked to hang out...


What is fascinating is to extract the core culture of each woman now and see how it relates to her teenage journey...


Leahbeth is a Lawyer, her drive is to change our culture through the political and legal process, so if you look at what she collected as a teenager, you can clearly see a drive for unique influence, power, and justice, she is a tough negotiator but has an incredibly high value for relationships which makes her very successful in her chosen direction.


Rena's core identity is somewhat more difficult to extract but the elements of classical values, individual beauty and a love of the natural beauty and simple joy is there...she is on her way to become a teacher which is very ironic since she gave all of her teachers fits, her family style is very relaxed, and has an emphasis on individuality, but requires reality so she does not allow drama, but allows the dramatic, its a unique and distinct culture and to this day she listens to much the same kinds of bands that I do, we are both very progressive in our taste.


Courtneys core culture is peace, and of all my kids she is the most prophetic, so the Word of the Lord and the stability of His word and the culture that values that is clear, there are no extremes allowed in her world, she just does not get extreme behavior, she requires stability and consistency but also has a very high standard of truth and personal integrity that defines her world, you don't get to be messy or stressful in her culture, Courtney still loves to laugh and her primary drive is to be a mom and raise beautiful children.


Ariel simply shouts "I am Me" and the most basic values of life, Faith, Hope and Love are truly her main culture, if you can't simply be real and stay connected to the most basic identity and simplicity of the Kingdom then you won't get her...family, love and life are her main decorations...she still is a huge sports nut and very competitive, her current energy arena is pinball, and she engages people not so much in a space as in an activity...her culture is still in process as is all of the girls, but its fun to watch and really impressive to see her do it on her own after having 3 very powerful sisters go before her.


Its been fun to watch how each of them projects the kingdom through her own unique personality...


I told Rena last about a prayer that I have prayed for each of them from the time they reached their teenage years, and I in fact pray for everyone I love...


"Lord, break their heart"...and at a first glance it seems like a really sadistic prayer to pray, but as I have prayed it I have seen God do it and the beauty is that once it has happened I have never worried about if they would stay in His will...see once your heart is broken and God comes and dwells with you, then your internal culture is forever spoiled, you will be ruined for anything else and I know that faith and a walk with Him becomes inevitable.


So the added element changes everything...and makes the teenager who became a woman even more powerful...


Marky...not so much...but his heart has been broken as well and it changed him from a boy into a man.


I love getting to be a scientist of the soul and just watch the petri dish of life grown incredible things...even when it means I have to clean up brightly colored paints and dried flowers all over the place.

The Myth of "Mr/Ms Right"

One of the things I have had to process as a divorced and now "single-again" person is the questions of my choices in the past...did I choose correctly?


My core as a covenant person says that no matter who you choose to marry or be in covenant with, that person becomes the "right" person for you...but I think there are a couple of underlying issues that stay below the surface that we should unpack in this concept of "the right person".


First we have to face the Sovereignty of God issue...is God sovereign even in human choices?


Well I have to say yes...and this leads us into some very deep theology and concepts that great Saints have wrestled with in the past...it loads up our assumptions with the concept of "predestination", and "free-will", and those issues drag us into the whirlpools of "limited atonement" and the nature of God.


If God is Sovereign then the entire issue of evil takes on a very different framework...but rather than swim in those deep waters I'll just throw you a life jacket of what I believe and not tell you how I got there, it is a distraction for what I want to say right now.


I believe God is sovereign, but I do not believe He is in control...those are two different things, and I believe this so much I also believe that God will NOT control us, or anyone else, He is so committed to the concept of love that He demands freedom of choice and never lets it get completely stripped away, so not even He will violate it.


In other words God values our choices much higher than we know, and I believe because of that He does not make EXACTLY one person for each and every other person to marry...He is a huge fan of diversity, just look around, so the idea that He wants life limited to a few choices and only certain people is contrary to His desire for freedom and uniqueness, and inconsistent with the way He does things.


Think about it like this: I like coffee...I like it a lot, I prefer a strong French Roast to a Colombian blend, these are choices that I have made...did God make me to prefer French over Colombian? No I am not a puppet, He put the elements of taste and the biological capacity within me, but the rest of it is a matter of my own reactions to my history and a developed taste from my experience.


If you want to argue with that, then you might give John Calvin a run for his money on the whole predestination thing and frankly I don't want to argue with you about it the outcome is predicted.


So on a core level I no longer believe there is only one person for you to choose from to live happily ever after with...at least until you have made a choice...once you have chosen, covenant kicks in and that's where the real fun begins, life is always a product of covenant protecting and empowering intimacy.."into-me-you-see"...this is where we really get to experience life as God has designed it.


What that means is if you are divorced, you did not miss it...regardless of how badly it turned out, it wasn't the choice to love a particular person that created your catastrophe, it was something much other than that.


But lets dig a little deeper and look at why we would even go here at all...its a cultural, and frankly fairy-tale world that suggest this idea of "the right person" in the first place.


(Disclaimer: I am most definitely NOT talking about throwing caution to the wind and just hooking up with blatantly bad people, that is dumb behavior and scripture is clear we should not yoke up with people of different value systems, if you don't know what your core values are, you should not even be reading this in the first place, go find out who you are first and then come back)


Its a subtle trap to drift into the mindset that a certain person, or even a certain "type" of person will be responsible for your happiness...Mr/Ms Right regardless of how perfect we may make them in our minds will never be able to create the perfect world for you.


Sometimes we let Hollywood destroy our happiness before we ever get there...especially when we look at the basic idea that many of us have grown up with...


In almost ALL of the fairy tales we read, or movies we watch there is conflict, there are difficulties but we know that if we can just get Prince Charming and the Sleeping Beauty together, everything will work out...think about it...in all of those stories we believe that if the couple can just connect everything will work out...and they will live "happily ever after"...and who doesn't want that?


But the problem is, there is no Mr Right, there is no Knight in shining armor, there is no sleeping beauty, there is no princess who needs rescuing...there's just us...you and me...the way we are...warts and all.


Its very important especially for the divorced to get rid of the idea that Mr/Ms Right exist at all...you are never going to find the "perfect" person...and the harder you look the more disappointed you will be, and many times it is our past experience that drives us to drive away (because of fear) the very thing God may be sending us.


The idea that if you wait long enough, or get in just the right moment, then Mr/Ms Right will suddenly sweep you off your feet and you will live happily ever after...this idea is often used by the enemy to beat us up since we never find the right person...there must be something more we can do, or worse, there must be some hidden sin that God is mad about and thus keeping us from true happiness until we clean up our act.


There is a core lie here we don't always notice and the lie is "If I just connect with the right person, bells will go off, love will blossom and I will live happily ever after"...


This idea is false...life does not work like that, simply connecting with the "right" person is not how God has made the world, especially when He likes diversity, it is not the right person that makes those things happen, it is something else.


So we may be waiting for something based on a myth...much like deciding "I will never leave my house until I see a unicorn for real"...it would be a limit placed on your own heart, sort of a vow that would keep you trapped because something mythical and awesome...but it just wouldn't ever happen no matter how much faith, confession and standing you did...


Any decision based on a falsehood regardless of how sincere is not faith, no matter how much you prop it up and pretend...in other words if you are holding out for the perfect spouse...you are simply setting yourself up for loneliness and defeat...because it is a mythical person you are believing for.


The perfect spouse does not exist...we know this, but fail to adjust our expectations, and because of undefined expectations we often frustrate our own growth waiting for a myth to make our lives perfect.


I think at its core, the most powerful expression of love, is simply "I choose you"...and if you have determined to never choose until Mr/Ms Right shows up, then regardless of the feelings love will never come because you will never be able to choose...and you may end up settling for feelings over love in the long run...which can be a disaster. 


And if you are divorced, you need to remember that the "feelings" that were once so powerful...well those are gone now aren't they? So how important are they now?


Wouldn't you rather build your life on something more permanent, more stable, less "sand" more "rock"?


I am not against feelings, heaven knows I am a hopeless romantic and very emotional, I feel, and express my feelings way more than the average male, but I know in my core that they are a limited liability, they can  infuse energy, but they can also drain it...we walk by faith not sight, even in the corridors of love and romance.


Real love, true love is a decision based on character and not emotions, it is how we behave towards another, not how we feel towards them...we can actually feel in love and behave differently and it will not be love...but if you behave in love, regardless of how you feel...it is love.


If we follow Gods example...we choose to love, and that choice empowers freedom, and freedom allows love to be returned...that is the ONLY way it works...there is no magic, no unicorn and no fairy tale ending based on a child's concept of life...we tell these stories to children, yet somehow expect them to work in real life.


So how do you avoid the jerks, the evil men, the bad girls, the tricksters and fakes?


Well I think its rather simple...


You become Mr/Ms Right...not for you, but for who you think the right person would deserve.


You will attract what you are.


If you want Mr/Ms Right you need to become them...


So how do you do that?


Simple...


1 Cor. 13...


Its the Love chapter...it the "How to" guide for becoming like God, it is the manual on how to be Mr/Ms Right...


Love is patient...that means love does not pressure...it does not get irritated when others need time...isn't that what you would expect in the perfect person?


Love is kind...how does that break down? Well, it means love is considerate...you "consider" the other person...what are they going through, what have they been through? You consider and empathize with their journey and you open your heart to what they have been through and behave in a way that makes them feel safe.


You get the idea...


You want to become a mythical lover?


Become 1 Cor. 13...its the very best way to prepare for a relationship...and if you do you won't be so selfish and expecting someone else to be perfect...you will learn to love and might even discover it was closer than you knew.


And once you have determined to become Mr/Ms Right yourself based on the value system of God, it will be easy to match up with someone who has the same value system, actually it will will be perfectly natural instead of "magical"...it may have a feeling of magic at times but will make incredible sense and should not be hard. 


To be clear, waiting is not wrong, or bad, IF you are growing in love as you wait...but if you are not growing in love, if you are waiting for a Mr/Ms Right to sweep you off your feet and into the perfect marriage and relationship...good luck with that...


...be sure to stock up on rainbows to feed the unicorn they will be riding.




POST SCRIPT:


After a few email discussions with some very smart people (sorry men it was mostly women) I feel I need to add one more disclaimer:


While I am communicating that I no longer lean into the idea of a "right" person, let me be perfectly clear, the anti-thesis is not supported...


It is true there may not be ONE right person, there may be many and you get to choose out of the many a ONE...but the opposite is not true, there are definitely people I would classify as Mr/Ms WRONG.


Just because there isn't one perfect person does not imply there are not a whole lot of wrong people you can marry or get into covenant with...you can most surely mess up your life and destiny by marrying the "wrong" person even if covenant tries to make them the "right" person.


There are some marriages that cannot be blessed and if you doubt that then read the last chapter of Ezra which is a somber mass divorce so the fierce wrath of God would be turned away...


I am all about grace, I am all about love winning, but I am also about reality...faith does not deny the existence of problems, it simply denies them the right to dominate.


The Bible does not teach that faith cannot fail, it teaches that LOVE cannot fail, and Jesus said love was best demonstrated by doing His commandments...you can confess and believe all you want for things to work out, but if people do not obey the Lord...well the outcome will show the truth, I don't need to say it.