(day thirty-one) information vs. illumination

Today I got a call from one of the girls who attended Siloam camp last week. Before one of our sessions her and her sister told me about losing their mom in a motorcycle accident this past April. Even more tragically, their dad witnessed the whole thing. This happened just a few days/weeks after I spoke at Siloam during this past spring break. The crazy thing is I think I remember her telling me about how she longed for her daughter to be there that week. She wanted freedom for her daughter. After that week she went home and told her daughter how much she wished that we had met. Well, her prayers were answered in a way no one expected.

Both of her girls came to camp numb and weary. They had just lost they only voice of hope and love in their lives. What a tremendous blow on these young girls. They were beginning to feel defeated by the lies that told them they would never make it without her. They had heard so much information about God their whole lives, but never took interest in really seeking for themselves what God thought about them. So now, with the desperate situation at hand... they were at a very pivotal place. They were standing at a crossroads about to choose the very path that would lead them to a place of freedom and joy or destruction and slavery.

As we were talking one day about Identity, Missions, Creativity, and Freedom... both girls sat listening intently with eyes wide and hearts open. I knew God had begun moving in their lives. Afterward, we had the awesome opportunity to speak and pray with them knowing it was going to have to be the Holy Spirit that illuminated himself to them in a real way. Later that evening I ran into one of the girls who came up shouting, "I feel so different, so alive!" And just a few minutes ago I got a call from the other girl telling me how excited she is for life now!! She's even found an opportunity to serve in Africa!! Wow, God is SO SO GOOD! They are still hurting from the absence of their mom, but now have now decided to go to the depths with God as He is shining light in every avenue of their life and comforting them in a way they never could have imagined.


Today during church at Journey, Brother Dan's sermon was about this very thing. He mentioned how Jesus had to leave us so that we would be able to do even more with the Holy Spirit resting inside of us. If Jesus had stayed we'd probably let Him do all the work thinking He could do a better job and we probably wouldn't need much faith. It's funny how we continue to think that it's actually about the "work" and our performance in the "work", rather than our love relationship.

Dan continued on to talk about how much information we have available to us these days and that sometimes that very thing becomes a crutch in our lives. We tend to think that the more info about God that surrounds us the more "ok" we are with Him, but the whole time we are lacking the very illumination God wants to give us of His truth. God values the process of us investigating His deeper realm of understanding. Contrary to what we may think, just because God is opposed to our "earning" His love doesn't mean He's opposed to our effort to learn, grow, and ask.

Dan also said that our experience of God can only go as far as the knowledge we have of the Word. And that when we sit down with the author and take time to hear His thoughts on what He's written, He will begin to illuminate the scripture making it come alive to us! If you desire freedom... then you desire to know the deep things of God. Let the Spirit take you there. Every part of you will be challenged, but just remember you are in the process of being restored to who you were intended to be- a beautiful reflection of Him as a child of the King.

B90: (1 Chron 16- 28:21) "For you, my God, have revealed to your servant that you will build a house for him. Therefore your servant has found courage to pray before you. And now, O Lord, you are God, and you have promised this good thing to your servant." Ch 17:25-26. God loves to make known His mysteries, and even more so for His children to simply seek them. How much more strength do we gain from the illumination brought forth by His very own hand?

"Only may the Lord give you discretion and understanding, that when he gives you charge over Israel you may keep the law of the Lord your God. Then you will prosper if you are careful to observe the statutes and rules that the Lord commanded. Be strong and courageous. Fear not; Do not be dismayed." Ch. 22: 12-13. If we seek the world for understanding we will never exceed the revelations beyond this earth. We will always wonder why we don't feel something more, something greater, something divine. But when we seek HIS discretion... our knowledge of the word of God will serve as a spring board for the Holy Spirit to do amazing unfathomable things within our soul! "Set your mind and heart to see the Lord your God." vs 19.

"Serve Him with a WHOLE heart and with a willing mind for the Lord searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you..." Ch. 28:9.

(day thirty) time to dust off the the ole harp!

It seems as though so much of our day is spent fighting earthly battles mustering up enough strength just to make it through. We get to the sunset ready to kick up our feet, veg out, and hide from the world for awhile. We may feel quite defeated, weary, and dreading the next day only to do it all over again. Bills, sickness, car problems, drama, bad attitudes, mean boss, tedious work, long hours, traffic, disappointment, failure, abandonment... the list goes on. We may even find ourselves either giving up and settling for that routine or desperately in need of change.

This may or may not be where you are at... but i can pretty much guarantee most of us have been there at some point. The most exciting news is that it doesn't have to be like this forever!!!

The speaker at camp this week started one session by asking the kids if they knew who all these famous people were and of course they cheered and jeered their fav's. Then he asked if they knew of a certain sergeant's name. No one did. He then talked about the war that's going on that no one seems to know a thing about. How easy it is to forget about things that are not right in our face or effecting us in any way. This is just like all of the injustice that goes on in the world. There are hundreds of thousands of people dying in slavery every day, many more dying from hunger, and even more from diseases... and we don't even know it. So how then do we begin to bring that world into ours without becoming overwhelmed? When do we start to see that there is much more going on out there than just our little sphere? What is God's heart for us, the world, and us connecting with the world?

In Ephesians 6 The Lord tells us to be strong in the strength of His might, wear the armor, and stand firm. He also says again that we DO NOT fight against flesh and blood, but against rulers, authorities, cosmic powers, and spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. There is THIS battle going on every day and we don't even know it. Every single day we must go out prepared. If we knew we were going into battle tomorrow, we would not be spending our time on frivolous things... instead spending time with the one who makes us strong in Him by His love. We have no real battles with earth, but in things we cannot see. And we conquer not by fighting but by standing in His presence declaring His goodness, praising Him for who He is, and seeking His beautiful heart for us. According to my irish friend Phil, this is exactly how we send the devil to therapy. Haha... funny thought. Time to break out the harps and lyres perhaps?

While we rejoice in Him... our enemy is defeated and our life becomes a little bit (ok, a lot) more exciting. I have a completely different view of daily challenges now that i've had this revelation. Now when someone cuts me off, or cheats me on something, or is being negative, or embarrasses me, or simply hurts my feelings... i can look at that situation and see how somewhere along the way they've believed some lies, have some toxins stored up, and haven't had a full revelation of God's love for them yet. So instead of me holding on to the pain or returning the favor, i can easily let go and start praying for that love encounter for them.

If we invite the WHOLE trinity to rest wherever we are... then we will fully be able to walk around in that kingdom of heaven on earth where His love is in a constant flow. My day is so much more adventurous when I put my spiritual goggles on and see the battle for what it is. Even more so when we know it's not ours to fight, but stand and praise!!!

We are the very intersection between heaven and earth :)

B90: (1 Chron. 4:13- 15:29) One of my favorite verses in this book is Ch. 12:8, "there went over to David at the stronghold in the wilderness mighty and experienced warriors, expert with shield and spear, whose faces were like the faces of lions and who were swift as gazelles upon the mountains." Wow... this is so rad. Can I have one of those please? Ok, in all seriousness though... what a cool picture of what we are actually called to be in the spiritual realm. Experienced warriors, expert with shield (of faith) and spear (of spirit), courageous and fast! Again, important to remember that it's by our praise to the Lord that our real enemy is defeated. David knew this well and even appointed people to do this very thing at times of struggle and celebration. "David commanded the chiefs to appoint their brothers as singers who should play loudly on musical instruments, on harps and lyres and cymbals to raise sounds of joy!" Ch.15:16

P90: Still keeping up with the workout pretty well, just not really seeing a need to blog about it as much anymore. I'm finding it's always good to mix it up a little looking for fun creative ways to get a workout in... like rock climbing, swimming, kayaking, sports, yoga, surfing, etc.

(day twenty-nine) breakthrough city... talk about some freedom ya'll!

As most of you know, I spent the last 3 days at a camp in Siloam Springs, Ar. Thank you so much for lifting us up in prayer. It's hard to explain what actually went on the last few days, but i'll try my best. It was yet another prayer request answered to be spending time at a summer camp, loving on some kids, visiting with family, and being able to have a reunion with some of my best friends. I would've been so happy just being present, but God had much BIGGER things in store.

Beau, Phil and I led a breakout session the first day called, "Creativity and Missions". We had a idea of what were going to talk about, however...God had something much cooler up His sleeve! They expected about 25 students for our class, but about 60 showed up that day. We truly felt like the first thing for them to REALLY get... before they could ever do "missions", is for them to know how MUCH God loves them. Because like the speaker said, "You can't give what you don't have." Part of what religion has done is create a performance base acceptance of God's love. Many have been raised with this agenda, and now genuinely desire to "live for God" but don't even know how to simply receive His love. We want others to be "saved", but we ourselves sometimes walk around in our own slavery. It's sometimes quite hard to see through the glasses we've been given by the world that we don't actually have to DO anything for God's love. He FIRST loved us, and He loved us before we were even born... so what makes us think that we have to perform a certain way to gain this love?

Once this begins to sink in and the lies are exposed by truth, healing begins... and freedom enters in. God's already there, He just wants to be moving in and through us with His power and glory. When we accept His love and surrender our own lives, it's an opportunity for a constant flow of His goodness and mercy. Unfortunately, instead of listening to what He says about us in the living word... we believe what the enemy says about us through the world's mouth. The lies burrow deep inside and we become numb to the kind words of our Savior. Being an adopted kid of the MOST HIGH KING seems like a distant fairy tale instead of reality.

We trade His throne room for a jail cell, His crown for shackles, His robe for rags and His beautiful FREEDOM for paralyzing slavery. How on earth can we help others break free when we are just as tangled in this web of deception? And the worst of it is... sometimes we think we actually deserve that!!! Oh my goodness. Here's the thing: we very much would deserve it, but we don't because we have a Savior who took on all the shame, guilt, and sin of the world on the cross. His blood has already taken care of our debt, yet we still blame ourselves for succumbing to the lies.

I saw so many jr. high, high schoolers, and parents who came seeking God's divine love and power. They felt trapped in their own body and desired nothing more than to serve Him with their lives. How frustrating this can be for all of us. After that first day of speaking we began to see bits of breakthrough. It seemed like the speaker's talks went hand in hand with what God had spoken through us. That next day we had about 100 kids in our breakout session. This day we truly felt the Holy Spirit running through our veins and knew God had some extra special goodies for them. Afterward, so many came up and wanted prayer. I saw one after another healed from these lies. And NO LIE, they seriously ran outside shouting FREEEEEDOM like a crazy person! It was SO AWESOME!!!! I really wish i could share all of the stories, and maybe i will eventually... but one in particular was very special to me.

One night during worship I went to pray for a young girl about 13 years of age. As I was praying she began crying. I asked her to pray and as she did she mentioned a guilt she was holding onto from her aunt's death. Wow! This little girl (and some family) was blaming herself!!! Can you believe it? I spoke right into her face the TRUTH of what God says about her, how much He loves her and how it's not her fault! It was so beautiful to see this precious thing dancing around with her arms lifted high praising the one who has released her from bondage!!! I got about 15 hugs a day from her too!!! How cute.

Another kid was upset because He loved to pray, but felt like His prayers weren't making it to God anymore. I knew there had to be some lie that was causing this barrier... so we prayed for him and he went on his way. That night He ran up to us and said... "i'm free i'm free i'm free!!!", with the biggest smile i've ever seen. He proceeded to tell us that God revealed to him the lie he had been believing. He said, "God doesn't care what I say or how i say it... He just wants to hear my voice." Whoooooah. Crazy revelation for this kid. So amazing. It's hard, even at our age, to know that the God of the universe gets excited when we simply spend time in His presence.

So many more stories, but I have to sleep at some point :)

B90: (2 Kings 19- 1 Chronicles 4:12) Probably one of the most fascinating things to me in 2 Kings is at the very end when Evil-Merodach king of Babylon graciously frees Jeroiachin king of Judah from a very long time in prison. (Chapter 25: 27-29) It says the King spoke kindly to him and gave him the best seat in the house dining regularly at the King's table eating the King's food! He took off His prison clothes and replaced them with clean, nice smelling clothes i'm sure. It even says that the king took care of every single need He had for the rest of His life.

If this earthly King could bestow this much grace and love on another human being, how much more would our heavenly King bestow on His own children!! He does desire to see us completely free, madly in love with Him, and living out this bold yet humble love to the world every single day! He wants us to sit with Him at His table so we can feast on all His goodness, which He never withholds from us!!! He really does want to supply every single need for us. All He asks is that we allow Him to transform our lives with His love as we trust His word is true, take the lies captive, and live in the full complete freedom offered in His kingdom.

How many of us have believed the lies that have kept us trapped for too long? How many of us have quickly let fear or anxiety determine lack of trust? I encourage EVERYONE to search deep within to find any tiny thing you may have believed along the way that you know is not true about yourself because of what God says. This lie needs to be attacked and destroyed. When it is, you will find long awaited healing... and know without a shadow of a doubt are now free. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING is too big or small for God. Like the speaker said this week, "If we make Jesus really small our problems will seem really big, if we make Jesus really big... those same problems will seem tiny and way less important."

I'll leave you with something my good friend Beau just posted on His FB wall that blew me away, "You never see Jesus save without healing, heal without revealing truth, or teach without transforming."

(day twenty-eight) Campin it up!

Hello all! I hope you've had a wonderful weekend. As I mentioned before, I'm leaving for Siloam Springs, Arkansas today to speak at a camp and hang out with some cool kids. I'd REALLY appreciate your prayers: that the Holy Spirit would connect my heart with the Father's and guide me to say exactly what He desires, and that these kids will be inspired to seek Him more and live for Him completely! I may not be writing for a few days, but feel free to check out past blogs in the meantime!

Last night I had the amazing opportunity to see U2 live in St. Louis!!! It was an unbelievable experience and God showed me things through that that i'm sure i'll be sharing in the near future. As we were sitting in our seats watching the crowd enjoy the show, i saw so many seeking spirits. U2 may be the closest to any "spiritual encounter" they ever have, but i certainly hope not. At one point Bono had everyone raise their hands, and Bono just said "Lord bring your presence in this place tonight." No matter where everyone else's hearts were at, the name of the Lord was being lifted up in that place. I pray that they walk away with a taste of our loving God and wanting more of Him! I also realized how much they paid for their seats and was amazed at the dough people are willing to lay down for this shindig. Pretty crazy! Then I realized how VALUED we all are, and how much we are worth to our creator! He paid the ultimate, and we have the opportunity to have the best seat in the house... right at the feet of His throne :) I don't know about you... but I sure don't wanna ever settle for the "nose bleed" section. Front and center... is where He wants us. How much more then can we see the true expression on His face for His kids that He desires?

B90: (2 Kings 8:16- 18:37) I read it and it was good. Ha. More on this later :)

Talk to you soon!!!

OOPS!

Sorry, messed up the scripture a little bit... Day twenty-six is actually 1 Kings 9:15- 20:12 and Day twenty-seven is 1 Kings 20:13- 2 Kings 8:15. My bad!

(day twenty-seven) water molecule miracle

I've been waiting forever to tell all of you this story! It's been one of those paradigm shifts in my life, and I hope you'll be inspired as well :) It all started when I heard a girl speak at church about the book she'd just written. About half way through she starts talking about this particular study and I'm going to try my best to explain it. Feel free to do your own research as well. Please keep in mind this man did not believe in God before He began this study and now knows there HAS to be one.

Several years ago this Dr. Emoto started to look at the effect of human consciousness on the molecular structure of water. (Stay with me) So to simplify it all for you, He took different samples of water and played music to them. After playing different types of music He froze the water. When looking at the molecules he found that the positive music forms beautiful and intricate crystals and the negative music has difficulty forming crystals and mostly looks like blobs.

Next He spoke words into the water. First words of life like: joy, happiness, love, peace, etc. And then words of death such as: i hate you, i want to kill you, you are ugly. After He froze the water and looked at the molecules, He found that the positive words AGAIN formed these beautiful crystals and the negative words ugly blobs.

Then He simply wrote words down and attached them to the sides of the water samples. SAME RESULT. Positive words = beautiful molecules and negative words = ugly blobs.
Then he took it a step further (and i know it sounds crazy, but...) prayed to one and silently cursed the other. Would you believe the same thing happened?

Dr. Emoto goes on to say that our body is made of up to 80% water and so is the earth. So it's quite interesting to think about what our words might actually do to others, and what our thoughts might do to ourselves. Now, I think maybe there IS more to blessing our food before we eat? Perhaps what we watch and hear DOES actually matter? What about tattoos and what they say? What about when God asks us to repent? Now I see his heart for us in that. It might actually make us physically feel better when we aren't storing up negative emotions inside! I also think about worship. When we worship we are in this pure, beautiful and sweet conversation with the Lord. In those moments our insides must look like a crystal cathedral, I can hardly imagine! What an amazing home for the holy spirit!!! Yet another reason to take our thoughts captive and to fill our mind with positive thinking, words of life and scripture :)

There are so many paths to go down with this, but I love this story my friend told me shortly after this discovery. She said that she had bought a chair from a junk store and turned it upside down one day to see "rejected" written on the bottom of it. Her and her mother agreed this was no chair they wanted to sit in, so she marked it out and wrote "CHOSEN" really big. Now, this will actually be claimed over the person that sits in this chair!!! I've also decided to do this at the coffee shop :)

B90: (2 Kings 8:16- 18:37) The reason I felt like I could now share this water molecule story with you, was because I was waiting for it to relate to the scripture. And in some ways it very much does. Just a few examples to look deeper into yourself are: Ch. 2:19-22 when He healed the water and made it clean; Ch. 3:11 when the servants said the water had been poured on the hands of Elijah and the word of the Lord was with him; then in vs 16 when they called for music to be played and dry stream beds turned into pools. There is also water mentioned in Ch. 5:14 when the man's flesh is restored when he dipped i the Jordan after Elijah told him too. It seemed as though Elijah was always had water in the picture. Now, I am in no way saying water has more power than God... I AM saying that it's possible God's power is very REAL. So real and powerful in fact, that He can actually make our words, thoughts and song change the very molecules into something that either reflects His glory or it doesn't.

I know you may or may not think this is true... and it's ok either way. But it helped me see again how much God is involved in everything, how BIG God is... and how much He cares about His creation. I hope you do your own research and i hope you are inspired like I was to think positively about myself and others, speak words of LIFE, sing songs of joy and praise, to be careful what I watch or listen to, and to continue giving Him the glory with every breath.

(day twenty-six) Elijah and Bono

First things first... it's been a crazy few days and it's about to get a little crazier. I'm actually thinking of taking a 3 day sabbatical from the 90 day challenge for several reasons, so if you don't hear from me for a few days don't fret... i'll return soon! Just so everyone knows what is going on... I got asked to speak at a youth camp in Siloam Springs this week so i'll be gone from Monday to Thursday. Not sure how good the internet is, so that's why i may lack in the blogging area. I also know i'll be pretty busy with the kids and some good friends of mine who'll be there as well! I would LOVE to have all of you praying for us while we are teaching the kids how to use your gifts and passions for the Lord! We will also be teaching on human trafficking as well as a few other injustice issues.

Today I had a friend walk into the cafe I was working at and tell me he was going to see U2 in St. Louis. Immediately my jaw dropped to the floor and I was almost speechless. I have been trying to go to U2 for years, always missing them by a hair. A few days ago I found out that I probably could have gone to the show in Nashville for free. So... I told my daddy in heaven I'd like to go if it were at all possible :) And then, it happened! My friend actually asked me to go!!! So now i'm going to St. Louis tomorrow with a great friend and get to see one of the most incredible bands ever!!! And guess what? I'm giving all the glory to God! Haha.

For the past few days i've been working at my friend's cafe downtown. She desires for the cafe to be a place people can come and be loved on, inspired, encouraged, ect. Well so far, every time i've been there it has been! I could probably fill up the next few blogs with all of the amazing stories. But I really just want to share one with you today about a very special man that's hurting.

Yesterday this man came in frustrated and mad at the world. He began yelling about another friend of ours that he says cheated him out of money. This man was just nasty about it all. He stormed out and we spoke to those friends about the mishap. Today, this same man came in and then stormed right back out because we didn't have diet coke. Haha. At first, I was thinking "good riddance mister". But then, this love came over me and i started praying for the man. About 30 minutes later he walked back in. (Apparently no one in all of downtown Jonesboro had diet coke.) We started chatting and I began to see his whole demeanor change. He told me the story and said that it had all been taken care of. He said that our friend found him, paid him back and apologized. (Even though our friend was not at fault.) My eyes filled up with tears as he continued on with his story.

In the last few months this man had lost his job, house, had a heart attack and triple by-pass surgery. He was living at a homeless shelter and had no family around. No wonder this man was hurting people... all he knew was his own hurt. He told me that when all this happened He went to the tracks and was actually going to step out in front of a train until he remembered his grandma telling him he would go to hell if he ever took his own life. It makes me a little bit sad this is the only thing that kept him from suicide but at least he's still alive! Then He started praying for help, hope and love. And wouldn't you know it, God started providing for this man! Need after need taken care of!! At the end of the conversation, his words began to be more positive and he actually let me pray for him! It was amazing!!! Thank you Jesus for that rad opportunity!!! Pray for this man, that He would continue to seek God and find him :) He said he'll be a regular, so if you live in the Jonesboro area come to Soul Boost cafe and love on some people!

B90: (1 Kings 20:13- 2 Kings 8:15) Elijah is the man. Isn't his solid rock faith just fantastic? I also get a kick out of how frank he was with everyone. This guy just told it like it was. He spoke truth, with no extra fluff :) One of my fav verses is when he says "how long will you go limping between two different opinions? IF the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him." (18:21) Wow... pretty straight forward there Elijah. And then it says "the people didn't say a word." Haha. Wow.

And His faith, man... I admire this. Story after story his trust in the Lord revealed as He practically spoke things into existence. Every time, Elijah went against the grain of the world, took a "risk", and jumped... right into the arms of a loving Father who can be trusted. He cared not for his reputation,status or fame, but knew WHO he was and WHO he lived wholly for!! I also think so much symbolism can come from Chapter 19:11-12. When God was not in the fierce wind, or the earthquake, or the fire... but in the whisper. Nuff said.

P90x: Had a great workout last night, looking forward to the next one :)