I proved to you that I am mature HERE. However, I prefer whining, usually. It’s less risky.
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She rises from her knees in her prayer closet, opening the curtains to the brightness of the risen Sun shining on her face.
She leaps and skips to the bedrooms, waking her family.
“Get up”, she calls out joyfully! “God is good! He is leading me into an adventure and . . . “
STOP
There is a large STOP sign directly in front of her face. She tries to look around the sign and peek behind the large octagon shape at the people standing in a line behind this sign. “Can we speak…?” she asks. The words are not heard. She is met with authority. The sign doesn’t listen. It only speaks.
Religion, defined here as (1) “an institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices”, religion (2) without the breath of God blowing through the nuances, this religion1 arrests her enthusiasm.
And what do we do when the church expects us to be Martha? What do we do when we set aside everything of value in our lives and sit at the Teacher’s feet, and He is calling us to walk a new path, not to follow the footprints that tradition carved into the sand from thousands of past traveler’s feet?
What happens when God calls a woman in your church on an adventure outside the boundaries of how you expected her to serve in YOUR programs and initiatives?
What then, women and men in leadership, whom she longs to bow the knee before and to serve with love.
What then?
What will be their Master?
Will you open the door, church leaders, both men and women, who are both officially and unofficially recognized as such in the church? Will you listen to her enthusiasm with an openness to be convicted by Holy Spirit? What if your church programs aren’t ALL perfectly aligned with the heart of God for this season?
If what they say is outside the current scope of your existing programs and activities but you sense the breath of God, too, blowing your congregation in this new direction, then friend . . .
what (or who) will be your Master?
Are you WILLING to open another door, to encourage others to follow her, if your spirit also testifies within as she speaks what Holy Spirit has been whispering, as you (1) listen and (2) have an open mind to the new thing God may be doing in our midst?
Never doubt God’s mighty power to work in you and accomplish all this. He will achieve infinitely more than your greatest request, your most unbelievable dream, and exceed your wildest imagination!
(3) Will you encourage their flagging spirits?
That’s your job.
(4) Will you remove obstacles in their way?
Then sit back with a coffee and watch them soar. You did that, friend. You helped them fly.
Well done.
I am doing something brand new, something unheard of. Even now it sprouts and grows and matures. Don’t you perceive it?
May she be set free, church.
And may you and your congregation follow.
Innocent, simple faith that believes what God says is real and that expects Him to do what He says He will do – that’s the mark of a mature believer, not complicated doctrine and fancy arguments.
John and Carol Arnott in Preparing for the Glory: Getting Ready for the Next Wave of Holy Spirit Outpouring
Photo Credits: Sunrise by Sefa Murat Özdemir on Unsplash, STOP! by Anwaar Ali on Unsplash, Many Doves Soaring In the Sunrise by ekrem osmanoglu on Unsplash, Another Bird Flying by Happysurd Photography on Unsplash
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1 Every man and woman inside the church has a tendency toward legalism as defined here. Let’s rid our hearts and our churches of it, friends. What is God whispering to your heart? If you are not currently connected with a church, please rebuke us. We need you, too. Let’s soar together, brothers, sisters, and new friends!
Adventure Himself is calling.
Can you perceive it?
The world has never needed more hope than to be encouraged by the transformation of others they can see when they lift their eyes.
Yes, I did design a Newsletter around this picture.
This is my dog.
To Longtime Subscribers: I love you! And see the bottom of this Newsletter for A Note About Reposting This Month’s Demonic-Themed Newsletters
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Last time, I gave you TWO AMAZING, UNUSUAL tips to curb sugar. Here are two more.
You’re welcome!
Good luck!
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You read this stuff because I am full of interesting, unusual advice! Today will not disappoint as I share my top four tips for eating less sugar! (Two tips today, two tips NEXT TIME.)
1. My top tip is perhaps the most controversial, and I will never admit to having said this if you tell someone else that this was my idea.
Liar!
(Confidentially – Shh… Here’s my top tip for eating less sugar.) Wait – A bit of context first – The only part of your body that LOVES sugar, if we’re honest, is our taste buds, and it turns out that most of our sense of taste is related to smell. So – Here’s the tip: (Try this when no one is looking.) Close your eyes, inhale deeply as you lean over that dessert you MUST have, and PRETEND to chew and enjoy it, but really you are just smelling it and looking like a cow chewing it’s cud to onlookers!
(As I said, try this when no one is looking).1
Benefit: You get (almost) all the enjoyment of the experience of eating it without poisoning your body!
You’re welcome!
Good luck!
2. Downscale your addictive personality.
Our church has been reaching out to our city’s homeless population, and it is AMAZING how much sugar most of these people who have kicked their drug addictions mainline (Can you mainline sugar?) Whatever.
But let’s face it, mainlining sugar is a LOT healthier than mainlining crystal meth!
Since the reality is that we, too, are just nicely dressed balls of addiction, chasing the wrong desires, let’s learn from them!
Let’s downscale our addictions!
For example, I met a lady last week who stopped smoking and then gained thirty pounds. But stuffing our faces with food is MUCH better than stuffing our faces with cancer sticks! In my case, I am more addicted to sugar than I am to processed chips. So I TRY to eat chips instead of sugar.
Once we’re addicted to chips, it’s easier to wean ourselves off that addiction than a more challenging addiction.
Our addictions have been downscaled!
It’s easier to eat fewer chips than it is to mainline a bit less crystal meth!
Get the pattern? While we’re at it, downscaling our addictions, let’s upscale our Levels of Happiness! Oh, and as we set aside that third ice cream cone, we may find that the ensuing brokenness we experience (Let’s be honest), ushers us closer into the realm of the spiritual as we set aside our addictions and finally ask Him to fill the void.
(And that’s pretty cool, actually.)
. . . we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we’re never left feeling shortchanged.
And may we eventually find something we want EVEN MORE than a fifth ice cream cone, friend.
As the song below sings, “There’s an ache in my heart,” consider offering your emotional brokenness to Jesus instead of numbing the pain with the fruit of addiction again, which will only bite us later. Holy Spirit, would You fill the ache in our hearts with Your presence, Your love, more and more, we pray.
Photo Credit – Sugar Or Crystal Meth? by Immo Wegmann on Unsplash
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1 (Yes. I have actually done this -ONCE!- but I will NEVER admit to that either.)
Putting lots of chickens into a cage, cutting off their beaks, and letting them defecate on each other for their entire caged lives because we prefer our chicken sandwich to cost $1.99 instead of $2.56 has, at times, been my church culture.
This financial choice is a particular “church culture”, not “Kingdom living”.
Kingdom living says:
Good people are good to their animals; the “good-hearted” bad people kick and abuse them.
And so we dig deeper into our pockets, where it hurts, and place more coins on the counter for our lunch. OR heaven forbid, we eat a few more vegetables instead of another chicken sandwich because it’s cheaper than another piece of chicken, considering the actual cost of paying for cage-free birds.
This example is an aspect of a church culture (a common behavior) that I experienced many years ago, which I find frustrating.
Some of the very wise, and my heart goes out to you, dear friend, say, “That is not a healthy place,” and do not return to church. I do not blame you. I believe God does not blame you . . .
. . . though He is still pursuing you, dear friend.
Keep looking.
There are safe places to rest. But it might take a bit of seeking. And God will be (Sneakily!1) healing you as you seek a safe group of Jesus-seeking people to belong to. Who you started as won’t be the same person as who you end up as, which is half the joy of the process, actually.
And there will still be annoying parts of church culture to correct, no matter where you call home.
It’s the reason you’re there.
It’s the reason they need you.
Remember: Don’t just “fit in”! Disagree!
Be a jerk! Be you!
Instruct and direct one another using good common sense.
Been disgusted by Christian culture, or church culture, lately? I have too. Jesus was, too. His harshest comments were for the leaders of His church.
Ouch.
May our rears be sore from the spanking that Jesus gives us because it is better to have a sore rear than for our entire selves to be oozing pus from our unhealed diseases – the diseases of pride, love of money, prestige- that we are too proud to ask Jesus to heal.
However, within the mess and the brokenness of Christian culture, in pockets of beauty, is the joy of Christ’s message, called Kingdom living.
Thank you, Lord, for loving the mess that is your church, the mess that is me. Thank you that even here, in the charred remains of my heart, there lies an ember of love that you can fan into flame. Do your good work, dear Jesus. We pray to help us become Kingdom people, not merely robots of Christian culture.
Help those rightly offended by Christian culture to find a home in You, and with other broken people that You also (of course) love, we pray.
And friend, as you grow, learn, talk, and ask God (heaven forbid) for His perspective that is a BIT higher than ours, may you get a bit happier, too, as clearly proven HERE!
You’re welcome!
Good luck!
Photo Credit – Fun With Jesus And His Friends by BBC Creative on Unsplash
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1Oh. And a caveat about this approach is that you must be prepared for… clearing throat… you may be WRONG about ONE of the ideas you hold so dearly. For example, I am listening to a course on Food Ethics, and they are messing with my dogma. That’s when you MAY need some humility, BUT that is a later lesson, and I haven’t found any need to grow in that discipline yet.
So other times, I briefly referenced when I went to another country and how I accidentally (I didn’t mean to!) humiliated some people in a poverty-stricken town by winning some arm wrestling matches against the regional men because I was stronger than I appeared.1
I should explain, and give MY point of view so you can empathize with me.
Or maybe I should ask God for forgiveness for being a cultural horror, but it’s easier to convince you to feel sorry for me so that I can feel justified. Let’s go with the latter option today because I don’t have much time, and getting to a place of feeling bad about stuff I did wrong takes some time and effort.
First of all, we need some context.
It all started many years earlier when I also won (Do you notice a theme here – of me being a WINNER?) a push-up contest against someone much stronger and fitter than me, my older brother.
The following is what happened:
My brother was the kind of guy who ate chips and hot dogs at every meal and was usually found on the couch, vegging out and watching TV. Then he moved out, and the next time I saw him -Wow! – He got fit!
The problem was that my self-esteem couldn’t easily handle this transition.
I have ALWAYS been the SUPER FIT one in the family (Proof HERE). “I MUST still be fitter than my couch potato brother!” I assumed.
“Yeah, you’re a little bit more fit than you were before you moved out,” I humbly admitted to my older brother. “But OF COURSE I’m STILL a LOT fitter than YOU!” My reality began to keel off-center when he challenged me to a push-up contest.
“HA!” I said with fake confidence, “OF COURSE!”
We settled on a tasty treat for a prize the OTHER sibling would pay for.
He bought me the prize because I WON (!) the push-up contest.
I want to end this Newsletter here, but my Editor (meanie) says I HAVE to finish this story for “Context” – whatever that means. So the next day, my brother shoveled sand and helped with other demanding physical labor around the house. (I couldn’t get out of bed for three days. My editor says I HAVE to put that part in there. But I don’t see how that statement is even relevant to the story!)
Anyway, how do we BECOME physically stronger than we ACTUALLY ARE? That’s easy! We fake it!
To soar through life, like I do, look down your nose at other people, and assume that you MUST BE better than them!
Then you’ll become a WINNER like me!
We may have to pay a bit in the next few days because we cannot get out of bed, but THINK OF THE GLORY that you will overshadow your brother and other rivals with!
You’re welcome!
Good luck!
Wait – The Point of this Newsletter doesn’t sit PERFECTLY with me today. Those who are more spiritually mature than I (and there AREN’T many of those!) mention something about sitting down and finding our TRUE identity as a child of God so that we are not hurting ourselves emotionally, physically or spiritually by trying to appear superior to who we are.
I keep forgetting stuff like that.
And once we really GET that stuff, then it’s okay EVEN to admit to being a loser! And the good news is that, thankfully, being a loser does not define us, either!
All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! . . .He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do . . .
And once we figure that stuff out, then we can tell the truth, EVEN about ourselves, and EVEN on the internet!
You’re welcome!
Good luck!
Photo Credit – I Feel This Strong Too! by Jakob Owens on Unsplash and Lorenzo Hamers on Unsplash
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1I can’t do everything right, ok?!
Want to get happy? The following is my interpretation of the philosophically based “Four Levels of Happiness.” We will then compare the original version of these Four Levels to my interpretation later in this Newsletter.
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This month’s prompt in my daily prayer book is to “pray for the people of Costa Rica to experience God.” Well, they will surely have a MUCH harder time with that because I visited Costa Rica! Oops!
Let me explain.
Previously, I talked about following the seeming nudges of God to attend a spiritual school.
We did some travelling as part of this bible school I attended and went to the POOREST of the poor in Costa Rica for a couple of weeks, where people earned an average of two dollars per day.
We decided we would build them a new church!
Our group was “billeted” in the little shanty town with barely a roof over our heads. We worked earnestly and “for the Lord” by first taking apart, brick by brick, the small one-room building that operated as their local church. An AMAZING aside was that this building was next to the largest mango tree I had ever seen. We would sit in the tree on breaks and eat mangos until our stomachs were so distended and sore we could barely work.
But we continued our work, laboring EVEN in discomfort and sometimes pain because of our distended bellies for the Lord’s work!
Anyway, after much sweat and tears (And winning a few arm wrestling matches against the smaller Costa Rican full-grown men in our group – that’s another story1 and not my best moment – granted), we finally achieved the FIRST half of our goal. We successfully dismantled their existing church to make way for the new building we would build!
Forget about what’s happened . . . I’m about to do something brand-new.
Then we waited, as the new church’s building materials hadn’t arrived yet. We spent a LOT of time sitting in that mango tree, and continued to bless others with our presence despite MORE sore stomachs from continuing to overeat mangos! Sometimes we must endure suffering; however, as we dutifully do the Lord’s work!
The rest of the story (which I don’t WANT to write here but my editor says I have to for “Literary Continuity”) is that shh… the supplies for the new church didn’t arrive in time, and then we had to leave.
So YES!
We DID “help” the most impoverished people I had ever spent time with so far in my life by:
“You’re welcome! Good luck!” we called out to them!
STOP looking at the people in Jesus’ club.2 (They’re all losers!) Look at Him. He’s the only cool one.
You’ll WANT to follow Jesus on the adventure of a lifetime as He woos you to follow Him, if you STOP looking at his friends and start looking at Him.
Start learning more HERE?
Photo Credit – Oops! by Jelleke Vanooteghem on Unsplash
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1 Yes, I called out and chose the shortest Costa Rican man to arm wrestle with me. Obviously, I picked him because he was smaller than the others, but because of his need to avoid cultural humiliation, he couldn’t decline arm wrestling with a measly WOMAN! (Note that Costa Rica is much further ahead with women’s rights than the red-necked town I grew up in, but don’t spoil my superiority complex!)
Yes, his self-esteem would be decimated if I won the arm wrestling match (I did win), but my “Ego Needs” (as my Psychologist calls them) matter too! I will share THE FULL story of this event another time.
2 Oh! And you’re a loser too, but you’ll figure that out later after reading more of that book. You’re welcome! Good luck!
don’t take yourself too seriously – take God seriously
The question that keeps me up at night is:
How can God like me BEST, BETTER than other people?
My “Therapist” (What does SHE know?) says that these thoughts of comparison and drivenness are rooted in some sort of neurosis deep down, but I doubt that! Anyway, practically speaking, don’t we ALL want the teacher to like US best? Or the boss? Or even our friends?
Of course!
So, those are the types of questions that keep me up at night. And then God seemed to help me understand how to be his favorite! (I DO know that sentence is “Officially” a “Heresy” or whatever, but stay with me, because what God showed me is -Surprise! – theologically accurate, once you understand my point!)
Anyway, this is what happened.
It seemed God was highlighting the word “Beautiful” to a few of us.
How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!
There was something God wanted to reveal to us about this word.
As shown in this quote below, God isn’t quite as hung up about physical beauty as we are.
“Looks aren’t everything . . . God judges persons differently than humans do. Men and women look at the face; God looks into the heart.”
So He couldn’t be talking about that.
And in my prayer time, God seemed to show me a picture of two golden cups, one tarnished1, one polished.
Does one of these cups have less value? He seemed to ask my soul.
No! Of course not. Bought by a gold buyer, they would pay equally for both cups as they have EQUAL value.
So it is with my children, He seemed to whisper.
I think God was saying that ALL of his children have EQUAL VALUE in His eyes.
But some are a little more polished or beautiful.
I wondered how to polish oneself. I suddenly realized that a cup can’t polish itself! “How do we get polished a bit more?” I wondered
Let Me polish you, He seemed to whisper. As you draw near to me and seek me, I am polishing you.
And so I thought I would share what I learned here today with you so that maybe God will EVEN like you as much as He likes me!
Or maybe The Point is that:
If we knew how much God valued and loved us, we wouldn’t care how much He loved anyone else.
And I felt calmed, somehow, loved, and like I could finally take my unbearable list of “To-Do” items, the ones that I unconsciously think will help God to “like me” a bit more, and put it over there, far away, in the pile of stuff that God longs to burn. And I felt a bit more free. Maybe I don’t need to be better than others.
My therapist must be wrong!
(At least, I think that’s what she was getting at. See Paragraph One, above, but I am a bit confused whenever she speaks if I’m honest).
God LIKES me, as I already proved definitely HERE. And He LIKES you, too, and finds you more and more beautiful as you allow Him to purify your golden cup in the fire of His Presence. And there is our freedom.
If you still don’t know what I’m talking about, read this ancient story and let the metaphor sit inside your heart for a bit as you ponder, reflect and thank God for this truth.
(And God will be polishing your gold cup a bit more, even as you do this, friend.)
Photo Credit – Good News! by Jade Destiny on Unsplash
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1 (*I DO know that only silver tarnishes in real life, not gold, but this is a metaphor, remember? And I believe God considers each of His children to be of the highest value, of gold, so that’s why gold is in the picture. Can we return to the point now?)
Restoring Life 