TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter One

About the Author

Acknowledgements:

But God: Two Words to  Freedom

Copyright © 2013 by Jennings Wright. All rights reserved.

http://www.jenningswright.com/

First Kindle Edition: 2013

Cover and Formatting: Streetlight Graphics

This eBook is licensed for the personal enjoyment of the original purchaser only. This eBook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this eBook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

To all the Kingdom warriors

CHAPTER ONE

EVERY MAN DIES, BUT NOT EVERY MAN LIVES. BRAVEHEART

I have a tattoo. I got it when I was 45. It’s a beautiful Hebrew tattoo which says, “In Your freedom I will live.” I also have a new one on my wrist which says “faithful” with an infinity heart.

Right now, one paragraph in, many of you are scandalized or offended. Maybe both. Which actually is the point of the book (although not the point of this story). In general, the Church at large prefers to operate as the Jews did in Jesus’ day, with a myriad of rules and regulations and checklists to keep this whole Christian thing “doable”. I encourage you to keep reading, and see if there is another way. A broad expanse where you can live in freedom with Father. And I mean really live, the kind of adventurous Kingdom life you were meant for.

Back to the tattoos... My generation grew up seeing only 2 groups with tattoos: military vets and bikers. In recent years we have witnessed the rise of the Gen-X and Y crowd and their fascination with body alteration. Getting a tattoo is definitely not what respectable Christian folks do. Yet there really is something to be said for intentions. This is where this story and living in true freedom come together.

In late December of 2005, as I was contemplating and journaling about the upcoming new year, the Lord very clearly spoke to me the word “freedom.” At this time my life was very far from free. We had a successful business that we couldn’t stand and which took a lot of time and energy. As icing on the cake, because it was complicated and blue collar and dirty, we weren’t able to sell it. We were homeschooling three kids, with our youngest only 9. We had some significant issues with extended family that had been dragging on for years. My husband had been longing to pursue his passion, but the pressures of the business made that impossible. He was close to despair over what he saw as lost dreams. I didn’t even have any dreams; I was just hanging on. We did not feel free. We couldn’t even imagine it.

But God... (These are my 2 favorite words in the Bible!)

God saw the future, and saw that the seeds of freedom were ready for planting. That year started a five year adventure, an odyssey of finding God and not worrying about “church;” of looking at who the Father really is, what He really wants, and how my life should really look if I am truly living for Him. In other words, pursuing freedom.

For the 2011 New Year I got a new word. Not a word to replace “freedom,” but one to enhance it. The word was “LIVE”. In my spirit, this is how the word looks – all in big neon capital letters. LIVE. During the previous 5 years I had started to grasp verses such as, “I came to give you life, and that abundantly.” (John 10:10) I understood that freedom and having a real, abundant, authentic life here on earth were connected. I was living my life as I saw God shaping it and saw His purposes for me. But this was new. This was bigger, more. This was, “Do it! LIVE!” It was a command rather than a promise.

A couple of months later, I acted on an idea that had been percolating in the back of my mind, which was to get a tattoo, a reminder of not only the promise but the command. I joined the two words into the chorus of a song written by Hillsongs: “In Your freedom I will live.” It is a reminder to me every day of who my Father is and what He wants from me -- a life fully lived for Him.

“Wait a minute,” you say. “God has given me words before. Are you saying that I have to get a tattoo?” No, of course not. We are all individuals and this book is about that, if nothing else. For me, getting that tattoo was a sign, to both God and myself. Something that, when I am scared or lonely or flying along to Africa in turbulence at 38,000 feet over the North Sea I can look at and remember. I’m not in charge of this adventure called life. I’m not calling the shots. But what I am doing, all I can do, is surrender to the One who is, and live it. Live it exactly as I see Him showing it to me, with all the love and craziness and compassion that I can, and going only where He sends me.

STUDY QUESTIONS:

1. Name three Christians you admire, and tell why.

2. Name three Christians that you know personally whose walk with the Lord you admire. What makes them stand out? What can you do to emulate that?

3. Has God ever given you a specific word, or a verse, that He then let you live  out? Give an example.

CHAPTER TWO

A couple of years ago, I watched a BBC show called “The Great British Bake-off.” It was typical reality TV, but in truly British style they threw in “history of cake” segments between the big drama of elimination bake-offs. One of the snippets was trying to answer, from a historical standpoint, the question of why we feel guilty eating cake. It particularly caught my attention because the answer was, “It’s the Puritans’ fault.” A noted historian went on to recount how Oliver Cromwell thought that cake was too sensual, and he didn’t like that Christians had begun to have cake at all the church holy days. The implication was that they were even coming up with holy days in order to have cake. Cromwell’s solution? He outlawed cake.

Outlawed cake? The Government? I certainly don’t remember this from my British history! I did some digging, and sure enough, when the Puritans came to power in 1644, Cromwell banned celebrating Christmas, which included all of the Twelfth Night celebrations and especially the feasting (including the cake). The Puritans basic outlook was anti anything fun — they closed down inns and pubs, stopped sporting events, imposed days of fasting, and felt that anything even remotely enjoyable could and should wait until heaven. It’s no wonder that they fell out of power in 1660… One wonders only why it took so long!

As Americans, we are philosophically descended from the Puritans, and I think our Church still takes a lot of cues from the “reformation of manners” that the Puritans fled the British Isles to pursue. Many churches forbid drinking alcohol, period. (Please find this for me in the Bible. Never mind, you can’t.) Some forbid PG and R rated movies, dancing, “secular” music, co-ed swimming, even reading books other than the Bible. What strikes me most, after the fact that none of this is Biblical and implies that God is incredibly limited, is that it is all based in fear. And not fear for themselves as church leaders (we all know the unfortunate stories of pastors of highly restrictive churches who are found doing all kinds of things they shouldn’t). It is fear of losing control. A fear of letting God be God, of letting the Holy Spirit be free to work in the lives of the flock, to teach and counsel and admonish and encourage and strengthen, just as Jesus promised He would do.

I understand about fear. I struggled with it for a very, very long time. What frustrates and saddens me is seeing the Church, the body and bride of Christ, being squashed under volumes of rules and regulations that God never intended, Jesus didn’t preach, and the Holy Spirit doesn’t want us bound by. (The early Church agreed that the only rules for the Gentiles who were being saved was not to drink the blood of animals sacrificed to idols, and not to engage in sexual immorality. Acts 15:29) Church leaders don’t trust that God Himself can teach a follower the difference between having a drink and practicing drunkenness. They don’t trust that God can shine light through the darkest movie to either point out truths within, or educate and forewarn us of the evil in the world. They either blame everything on the devil or pretend he doesn’t exist, but they certainly don’t teach Christians how to overcome him and live a life of freedom -- in this world -- that makes Satan want to throw things at the nearest gate to hell.

The other problem with imposing false rules and regulations is that the majority won’t follow them. This means they have been unnecessarily predestined for guilt and lying. A case in point: There is a Christian school in my town, which has a contract containing all the things both the student and the parents can’t do. These include (but probably aren’t limited to) dancing, secular music, R rated movies, and drinking alcohol (yes, I mean the parents). When I asked for clarification, I was told that their definition of dancing included things like ballet, jazz, and formal contemporary and hip-hop, not just informal dancing at parties. My kids have a teenage friend who attends this school, and I asked the mom about the contract, mostly because I knew that the teenager does listen to secular music, sees R rated movies, and dances. The mom told me that, yes, they’d all signed it, which for them wasn’t too big a deal, but “of course”, if they went to a wedding or something, they’d dance or have champagne. Now, they have 3 great sons who have all gone to this school, so I assume they have signed this contract 3 times over. With the full intention of not abiding by it. I wonder if the leadership of that school realizes that it has taken man-made rules and regulations, formalized and required them, and set up the people signing their contract to commit the real sin of lying. It’s an interesting question, isn’t it?

In The Shadow of Agony: The Dance of Circumstances, Oswald Chambers says this:

“Sensibilities” means the things at the basis of life, the way we are externally related to life. The three main sensibilities in a man’s life are sex, money and food. What has he to do with them? They are not sinful, they are plain facts that can either be devilish or sublime…

Our Lord says He does not pray that His disciples shall be taken out of the world, but that they shall be kept from the evil one, kept from being overwhelmed. Paul, in Romans 14, beats out into gold foil what Jesus Christ gives in nugget form. He warns all through - Beware of those who teach abstinence from marriage and from meats, they are true neither to God, nor man as God made him. A false religion grew up in the Middle Ages which taught, “You must get out of the world, deny sex, and cut yourself off from everything around.” The stamp of a false religion is that it denies that these sensibilities have any nobility in them. It is spiritual cowardice to deny these things because they have been made sordid and bestial; if they cannot be controlled for the glory of God, Jesus Christ misled us. Remember that we have to live a Christian life in these bodies, to get the right alloy which will produce the thing Jesus Christ stood for…

Jesus Christ’s holiness has to do with human life as it is. It is not a mystical, aesthetic thing that cannot work in the ordinary things of life, it is a holiness which “can be achieved with an ordinary diet and a wife and five children[1].”

Either Jesus told us the truth, or He’s a liar. Either God is able, or He’s not. If you’re reading this book, you probably believe that these things are true. What that must mean, then, is that much of Church “tradition” and “rules” are false… And are keeping you from your intended path.

[1]   The Shadow of Agony: The Dance of Circumstances, Oswald Chamber, first edition 1918 The Oswald Chambers Publishing Association. Taken from talks on redemption given by Oswald Chambers to soldiers at the YMCA camp, Zeitoun, Egypt, August 14-27, 1917

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. Have you run across a situation where man made rules have set you up for real sin? Give an example.

2. When you are faced with these situations, what do you feel? Fear? Anger? Peer pressure? Why?

3. Oswald Chambers said, “It is spiritual cowardice to deny these things because they have been made sordid and bestial; if they cannot be controlled for the glory of God, Jesus Christ misled us. Remember that we have to live a Christian life in these bodies…” What are your thoughts as you read this passage?

CHAPTER THREE

There were a lot of women up in arms a few years ago over Dr. Laura Schlesinger’s book “The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands.” Personally, I thought the book was fabulous. I have been saddened for years over the state of marriage, especially in the Church. What I find especially distressing is that I have watched leadership in church after church do subtly but actively destructive things to the marriages in their congregations, even while offering “marriage seminars” and couples retreats designed, allegedly, to strengthen them.

“Wait!” you say. “Just last Sunday our pastor was saying how marriages and families were the foundation of our church!” I have no doubt that’s true. What I suspect is that you’ve also heard things like this:

“The women in this church keep it running! Why, without the women, we couldn’t open our doors.”

“We all need to pray for the men to become the spiritual leaders in their homes. What a great day it would be if all of the men were truly the spiritual leaders in your home… This church would truly be unstoppable!”

“We want you to be here every Sunday morning to worship with us. We want you to be here every Sunday night to pray. We want you to be here every Wednesday night for (fill in the blank), and every third Tuesday for (fill in the blank), and every second Thursday for (fill in the blank). And Monday evenings for small group/women’s ministry/men’s ministry. And church is all about community, so come on Saturday to help with the landscaping/window washing/painting, and make sure your kids are always at youth group and Sunday school.”

These are all valid things in their way. But here is the problem. Women are very, very often held out in churches as the model of… well, everything. Selflessness. Sacrifice. Organization. Participation. Leadership. Men are very, very often held out to be… slackers. Oh sure, they’ll take his check. But we always seem to need to pray for the men for something, especially this “spiritual leader” thing.

Here’s my question. If everyone is supposed to be at church every time the doors open, and every waking moment is supposed to be about the running, cleaning, teaching, pot luck, youth group, nursery, small group, softball league, worship team, intercession, yard work, carpet committee, chair selection, VBS planning, greeting, and general hob-nobbing (uh, community), when exactly does the marriage have time to be strengthened? When does the poor guy have five minutes to try to be the spiritual leader in his home, when his family, and especially his wife, is running out the door for committee meetings and flower arranging and praying for the leadership (of the church, not her husband), and taking the kids to every lock in and sing-a-long and Sunday school class offered? What possible chance does he have to lead anything, when the church is monopolizing every second of every day?

I seem awfully familiar with your church and situation, don’t I? Well, that’s because I was living it, too, until about fifteen years ago. I was on the finance committee, the pastor’s intercessors group, taught Sunday school, led Cleansing Stream, went to church every Sunday, brought food to pot luck every week, painted walls and scraped off wallpaper, led a weekly home group with my husband, had my kids in every activity, hosted a New Years Eve party at my house every year… In general, I lived at the church. But this didn’t last too long, with the help of my husband and the Holy Spirit. He finally put his foot down, and after I had a temper tantrum and did what he asked, I realized how woefully overcommitted my family was, and how little time we had together outside of work, school and church.

I know so many women who smile and smile but are miserable in their marriages and their lives. They smile because they are doing “the stuff” that is supposed to be making them happy and bringing them fulfillment and (magically) strengthening their marriage. (It rarely seems to occur to most Christians that the way to strengthen their marriage is to spend time with their spouse.) But they can’t say to their pastor they aren’t happy, because they are supposed to be happy, and they’re doing everything “right” and so it must just be them. (Or their husbands, who aren’t, despite so much prayer, being that spiritual leader…) It’s really desperately sad.

And the husbands. Well, they’ve pretty well given up. Their bride has turned into a “mom” and spends all her time and energy at church and on the kids, with PTA and play groups and sports practices thrown in for good measure. Their only “dates” are to the monthly pot-luck dinner at church, or to see the church team try to beat the Mormons at basketball. Maybe a little league game or five. They don’t feel respected by their wives, who are following the leadership of the church quite well, but not paying a whole lot of attention to their husbands, especially on “spiritual issues.” (Because we are all still praying about that, remember.) Popular culture has convinced moms that being a mom is the end all, be all of life, and the “hardest job they’ll ever have;” and that everyone knows (and so is ok with the fact) that once you have kids you don’t have sex. And if you’re not having sex, what’s the point of trying to look sexy -- you’ve got the guy, after all -- and so she has forgotten that she is first and foremost his bride. So he’s married to his mom, which is really not a good scenario. (Christians cannot give up being the bride of Christ, and women should never give up being their husband’s bride, either.)

So you’re reading this and thinking, “Well yeah. But what’s your point? Everyone I know is like this - this IS what marriage is!” Um, no. It’s not what it is, not what it’s intended to be, and so very far from it’s potential that it might as well be called “bowling” instead. In God’s hierarchy of priorities, it’s Him first, spouse second, kids third, family and friends next, self last. Yep, self last. God expects agape love from us - unselfish love, as He loves us. And agape is active, not passive. You can’t spend your life running around doing stuff all the time, throwing “I love you” over your shoulder on the way out the door every night, and call that love. Love is a decision. Jesus made a decision to come to earth as His Father asked Him to do, and sacrifice His life for mankind. Love is a commitment to following the path of an active relationship. Agape means that I will think of others, all others, but especially in the order of God’s priorities, before myself. And the great, amazing, God part is, when you do that, it blesses your own socks off, too!

So back to the question of whether everyone’s marriage is like this. No. Mine isn’t. And I’m not trying to sell you on a perfect union of perfect soul mates who swoon around doing perfect things all the time and never arguing and never feeling hurt and making goo-goo eyes to the dismay of their children. (Although I have nothing against the occasional goo-goo eye.) My husband is a type A entrepreneur, big vision/forget the details, passionate, loud, expressive, moody, whip-smart, funny, sarcastic, pessimistic, strong guy. I am a type B creative, artistic, messy, even tempered, optimistic, introverted, quiet, practical strong gal. We clash. Not hugely often considering we’ve owned a business together for almost twenty years, homeschooled our kids, and generally been in the same place at the same time 80% of the last couple of decades. But we do. I frustrate the heck out of him sometimes because I have the spiritual gift of faith (which he sometimes feels is a “head in the sand” approach), and because I don’t vent and don’t really get the whole venting thing. He frustrates the heck out of me sometimes because he’s way up and way down and way back up, and is glass-half-empty to my glass-half-full.

But God.

We decided a long time ago -- actually during our absolutely horrible pre-marital counseling sessions with our pastor and his wife where I cried on the way home after every meeting -- that we weren’t going to be like all those other unhappy Christian marriages. I didn’t want his highest praise of me to be that I was “capable and able”, as someone once told me about their wife. We didn’t actually know anyone who had the kind of marriage we were committed to having (other than Ronald and Nancy Reagan, who I obviously didn’t know personally), so we had no idea what we were doing, but we listened. To God. And God not only brought us through the (many) hard things we’ve gone through, together and stronger, but he’s brought us into a marriage that we didn’t even know could exist. One we wish everyone could have. Is it “perfect,” if by perfect we mean peaceful and quiet and calm and no problems or struggles? Absolutely not. Is it “perfect” if we mean fun, exciting, sexy, best friends, spiritual adventurers, can’t wait to see what happens next? Absolutely!

So how does this relate to the concept of freedom? Well, the Church’s approach to marriage is, in general, to subjugate it to the needs or desires of the Church. Because we all, especially Christians, really want to do the right thing, and want to follow all those rules, and (especially) address all the needs we see around us, we let the church supersede our relationships, and especially our marriages. (Just think what might happen if you spent even half the time you spent doing church stuff doing marriage stuff.) Being free means, first and foremost, listening to God. Always, about everything. We can listen to God by reading the Bible and seeing what He has to say about our spouses, marriage, and our time. And we can listen to God each and every time someone sends an email or text message with another “to do” request for the church. Because maybe the answer is no.

So many Christian women can’t say no. It was apparently removed from their vocabulary when they got saved. When your pastor, his wife, or someone else in leadership asks you to lead a committee, teach a class, or join a group, odds are you say yes without even thinking. Because, of course, they wouldn’t even ask you if they didn’t need you to do it. And if you don’t do it, who will? (It’s well known that busy people get asked to do more things, and most often say yes!) And also, it’s for church so you can’t really say no, can you? I mean, it’s practically God Himself asking you!

Well, not exactly. In fact, it could be the devil himself asking you, because he would absolutely love to keep you distracted, distanced from your husband, and far, far away from ever hearing the voice of your Father telling you what He really wants you to spend your time doing. Saying no is not a sin (contrary to what some of the elder stateswomen of the church will tell you -- because they, after all, have sacrificed everything to make this church what it is, and it’s only right that you should too). You should probably say no a whole lot more often than yes, if truth be told.

But do you? If you need a little kick in the pants, here’s what Oswald Chambers had to say about it: “The people who are always desperately active are a nuisance; it is through the saints who are one with Him that God is doing things all the time.”[1]

Women, I challenge you to really seek out Father’s will in both the realm of the church and your marriage. Really ask, and really listen. You may think your marriage is beyond help, so you might as well spend your time at church. Your husband just wants to watch ESPN anyway, so why not go do the Lord’s work. Well, it may not be not the Lord’s work, first of all. And secondly, as Dr. Laura says in the aforementioned book (to paraphrase), men just aren’t that complicated. If you start paying selfless attention to your husband for a while, you’ll be amazed at how he will absolutely blossom. Well, that’s a girlie word… let’s say he will re-emerge as the man you fell in love with. Quit all or most of your church extras and spend time with him. Plan and enjoy having sex (seriously, is that so hard?!). Date and travel -- alone. Become his bride again, and let your marriage be the ringmaster in your home circus -- your kids will thank you for it. Let yourself be free to hear all of the great plans that God has for you within your only covenant, chosen relationship… You’ll be amazed.

And men, yes, a lot of times you’ve gotten the short end of the stick. But perhaps you’ve given up the stick all together at this point. It’s time to pick it up again. (No, not to beat some sense into your wife!) You don’t have to wait for some magical feeling of spiritual superiority or maturity to lead, because you have a secret weapon. The Holy Spirit. Sure, you’ll make mistakes. Even when you don’t make a mistake and you have been listening and heard exactly what God wants you to do, it may not work out for you or your family like you thought. What you think of as success - promotions, raises, movin’ on up… well, that’s not God’s idea of success. So you might know with absolute certainty and clarity that you should quit your job and start a business, do it, and have it fail miserably. Does that mean you didn’t hear from God? No, that means there were things in that experience He wanted from you and wanted you to learn. You might know for a certainty that your wife should quit all her church stuff, and tell her, and she might (probably grudgingly) agree. But things won’t magically become right the next Monday night she’s sitting at home. You will have to find your way back, or, really, forward, into a new relationship, and you will have to show her that you are listening to the One who is leading you both.

“But my pastor will have a fit, and who will do all that stuff?” Well, the first truth is that neither of those is actually your problem. Maybe your church isn’t really meant to do all that “stuff” in the first place. Maybe the “stuff” they should be doing is God-stuff like missions or helping the homeless or mentoring the fatherless. Maybe your church shouldn’t be quite so focused on the bricks and mortar issues.

Here’s a thought. Maybe the church is actually supposed to be fluid. Paul compares us to the parts of the body (1 Corinthians 12). We all have a place within the body of Christ. THE body of Christ. The whole body. That is where your allegiance lies, with the Kingdom. We get very focused on a local church because we build relationships, we like the Sunday school, it’s close to our house, they use wine instead of grape juice for communion. But focus on God. Listen to God, and do what He wants you to do within a church, and be in the church (whether it’s a brick and mortar, shopping center, movie theater, park or home) that He wants you to be in. All leadership deserves our respect, but always, always understand: you were made for a Kingdom. You were made for a purpose. You are on a mission in this world, and only the Father can reveal it to you. If your Kingdom mission is to teach the three year old Sunday school, be the best three year old Sunday school teacher you can be! But if they ask you to teach the three year old Sunday school and your first reaction is nausea… say no. It’s okay. They’ll get over it, and you’ll be free to hear what it is He does want you to do. And if you get a lot of grief, feel free to pull out this great Oswald Chambers quote; very few pastors would dare argue with him: “If you are a saint God will continually upset your program, and if you are wedded to your program you will become that most obnoxious creature under heaven, an irritable saint.”[2]

I want to say that we are very fortunate to have a Kingdom pastor. When we started going to our church, we met with Pastor Jimmy and told him, “We’re sitting in the back, we’re not leading anything, we’re not saying anything, we’re not going to be greeters or home group leaders, and we’re not going to be here every Sunday, or any other time of the week. We travel a lot, we have other missions, and this is what they are.” We told him what God had shown us about our purposes in life -- my husband is called to political commentary and consulting and is extremely passionate about the founding principles of this country; and I am a writer and have a ministry to Uganda, which takes me there a couple of times a year and involves fundraising and other things the rest of the time. Not only was Jimmy okay with that, he is always completely stoked to find out the next chapter in our stories. It is extremely rare to find this in a pastor, and it has really been in stark contrast to most of the other churches we have attended.

Whether or not your church leadership is truly Kingdom focused, you can be. In your marriage, with your kids, in your daily life, and in living the life the Father wants and meant for you to have, fulfilling His purposes. How? Read on!

[1]   Run Today’s Race, October 4

[2]   Run Today’s Race, July 10

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. In looking at your commitments at your church and elsewhere, are you overcommitted? What steps can you take right now to cut back?

2. If you are married, be honest and rate your marriage on a scale of 1 to 10. Don’t compare it to other “regular” marriages; compare it to where you dreamed it would be. Every marriage can grow and improve. What steps can you take, starting today, to start building the marriage God wants for you?

3. Why are you in your church? If you’ve been there a long time, have you ever prayed about it? Are you open to what God might say if you did?

CHAPTER FOUR

There’s a glimmer of light ahead. It’s not a train, I promise. Which is not to say that you won’t encounter those in your journey through the Kingdom, since, of course, no one ever promised it would be easy. But what this glimmer is, for lack of a better term, is Aslan’s Country. If you haven’t read The Chronicles of Narnia, you might need to stop here and do it -- go ahead, it won’t take long, and you’ll thank me for it later! But I’m hoping you have, and to remind you, Aslan’s Country is that land beyond the sea where the son of the Emperor Over the Sea lives. Very few ever journey there in their lifetime. But after their lifetime… Oh, the joy!

In The Last Battle, when Jill and Eustuce help Tirian, the last king of Narnia try to defeat the enemies of the land, we find that we are witnessing the death of Narnia itself. But all the children from our world who have gone to Narnia before, and Tirian and Jewel the unicorn, and the good people and beasts, find themselves going through the door of a stable and ending up in Aslan’s Country. In this country there is vast expanse of green and hills and mountains, there is fruit that tastes beyond description, there is freedom and strength to run and never be tired, to swim up a waterfall, to laugh and meet long lost friends and to be with Aslan.

Ah, the vast expanse… A couple of years ago, a friend who is a long time Christian and a real father and pioneer in the faith, told me that he’d had an amazing revelation. He said that what the Lord showed him over the New Year was that, though the gate to the Kingdom is narrow, the path after the gate is ever-widening. Now, this friend has been “outside the box” for a long time in a lot of ways. But in a lot of ways he, and by extension his wife and children, have been bound up in rules and “don’ts,” and have been very ridged. They have struggled for a lot of years, and there has been less joy than Father intended. So when he shared this with me -- and for him this was a completely brand new revelation -- I nearly cheered out loud in the restaurant. Freedom is coming!

It’s been a while now. Is he living a completely joyous and free life, unfettered by all those chains? Not yet, but it’s started. And this is the path we all must take. It’s not one of a lightning bolt, Damascus Road revelation, followed by a completely and instantaneously changed life. It is, indeed, a revelation, whether all at once or over time, but it is a widening path. It doesn’t go from a trail through the woods to a super highway in one fell swoop. It can’t, because you would soon be flattened by a tractor trailer coming up the on ramp. But if you know what to look for, or more specifically what to listen for, you begin to see the opportunities. You begin to see how many things have been heaped on your shoulders that never should have been there. Here’s another Oswald Chambers quote: “Always keep your life measured by the standards of Jesus. Bow your neck to His yoke alone, and to no other yoke whatever; and be careful to see that you never bind a yoke on others that is not placed by Jesus Christ.”[1]

How do you start this journey? Well, first, you really must understand that freedom is not only possible, it’s what Jesus came to give us, in this life, here on this earth. There is absolutely no Biblical basis for the Puritans’ claim that all that living needs to wait for heaven, and plenty to point us to a life of purpose and joy and freedom with the Father, through the Son, led by the Spirit here and now. Consider these verses and let the Holy Spirit really show you their truth.

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery… Galatians 5:1a English Standard Version

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. You were running well [free]. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from Him who call you. Galatians 5:6-8 English Standard Version

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh [see note], but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “you shall love your neighbor as yourself [agape].” Galatians 5:13-14 English Standard Version

NOTE: Galatians 5:19 tells us: “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.” English Standard Version

Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover up for evil, but living as servants of God. 1 Peter 2:16 English Standard Version

“If you abide in My word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered Him, ‘We are the offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free?’ Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” John 8:31-36 English Standard Version

“Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by Him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses. Beware, therefore, lest what is said in the Prophets should come about: ‘Look, you scoffers, be astounded and perish, for I am doing a work in your days, a work that you will not believe, even if one tells it to you.” Acts 13:38-41 English Standard Version [Emphasis mine.]

I find this last one particularly interesting, because of the “beware therefore.” The warning (vs 40) is in the same paragraph as the statement that by Jesus we are “freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.” EVERYTHING. That’s a lot of things… and if you’ve ever read Leviticus and Deuteronomy, you know that the law of Moses, even just as given, not to mention how the law had grown by Jesus’ day, covered everything under the sun Diet. Sex. Cows falling into holes. Leprosy and boils. Adultery. Blood. Death. Murder. Sanctuary. Bodily discharges. Hooves, cuds, fins, scales, wings and legs. Everything. So now all that’s out the window. (I know you are glad you don’t have to worry about boils and what kind of hooves the animals you eat have… but you also don’t have to worry about all the other things -- the everything contained in the law of Moses and the rest of the additions to Jewish law.) What the early church decided for the Gentiles was abstaining only sexual immorality (the works of the flesh), and animals sacrificed to idols. And the latter, isn’t, in and of itself, evil:

I am saying that these sacrifices are offered to demons, not to God. And I don’t want you to participate with demons. You cannot drink from the cup of the Lord and from the cup of demons, too. You cannot eat at the Lord’s Table and at the table of demons, too. What? Do we dare to rouse the Lord’s jealousy? Do you think we are stronger than he is?

You say, “I am allowed to do anything”—but not everything is good for you. You say, “I am allowed to do anything”—but not everything is beneficial. Don’t be concerned for your own good but for the good of others.

So you may eat any meat that is sold in the marketplace without raising questions of conscience. For “the earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it.” If someone who isn’t a believer asks you home for dinner, accept the invitation if you want to. Eat whatever is offered to you without raising questions of conscience. (But suppose someone tells you, “This meat was offered to an idol.” Don’t eat it, out of consideration for the conscience of the one who told you. It might not be a matter of conscience for you, but it is for the other person.) For why should my freedom be limited by what someone else thinks? If I can thank God for the food and enjoy it, why should I be condemned for eating it.

So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

1 Corinthians 10:20-31 New International Version [Emphasis mine.]

Now obviously, living a life for God would deter us from the “works of the flesh” anyway. But as far as obeying the Law of Moses (and the modern day “law” of the First Baptist Church of Kalamazoo), we are free. You might notice that, in this verse, Paul also makes sure to point out that “the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.” God made a pretty graphic statement to Peter about that, too, when, in Acts 10, He brought down the smorgasbord on a blanket and told him to eat. Everything. Regardless of cuds and hooves and fins and scales. To a Jew that was earth-shatteringly dramatic. It is to us, too, if we really apprehend what it means.

It means that YOU ARE FREE. You do not have to endure a yoke put on you by man, one that Jesus didn’t place there. His burden is light, remember? His burden is only that you follow Him. That’s all. Just follow Him. If you follow Him, you will want what He wants (which takes care of the murder, adultery, etc.), see what He sees, go where He goes, love who He loves, and you won’t be bound up by rules about whether you can dance (like David danced), or enjoy wine (like Jesus made), or watch a movie battle scene (like the ones filling the Old Testament). You will focus on Him and you won’t be distracted trying to please men. As Paul said to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:4: No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. (English Standard Version) You were enlisted by God before the foundation of the world. Your aim is to please Him and Him alone. If the rest of the world thinks you’re crazy but He’s smiling down at you, you lack nothing.

And what is going to happen when you know that you are free? When you allow Him to remove the yoke that was never meant to be there? Let’s go back to Acts 13: 41 - “…for I am doing a work in your days, a work that you will not believe, even if one tells it to you.” A work you will not believe, even if one tells you. Well, I’m asking you to believe, or to try to believe, that God has, indeed, freed you from everything, and that the subsequent work will be something beyond your wildest dreams. Something you can’t even imagine. Something about which you would say, “That’s as likely as my flying to the moon!” Well… Buckle up, because that ride to the moon is pretty darn exciting!

[1]   My Utmost for His Highest, May 6

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. Do you think that you can experience the “vast expanse” here on earth? Why or why not?

2. What do you think about true freedom and the ever-widening path? Does it make you excited or afraid? Why?

3. What will your life look like when you remove the yokes that others have put on you, and you are only carrying Jesus’ light burden?

CHAPTER FIVE

PUTTING GOD IN A BOX

I hope that there is at least one area in your life where you are living “out of the box.” Maybe you are a risk taker in your fashion, going bohemian to the PTA when everyone else is wearing Talbots. Maybe you are really into curling when the rest of the guys are watching the NBA. Maybe, like me, you’re a homeschooling mom who thinks that there is way more to education than what can be found in a book. Some people are, by nature, non-conformists. Perhaps you’re an artist or a musician and you’ve followed your vision in those areas.

Most of us, by nature and by upbringing, are conformists. We certainly are in middle school, if nothing else, when it seems to be the most vital thing in the world to be just like everyone else. Your school had “norms”, your parents had “standards”, your job has a dress code (which might get bent slightly on a ‘casual Friday’). Your church almost certainly has an unspoken dress code, hairstyle, and behavioral template.

We all typically live in a box, at least for a good part of our lives. Some people want to be in the box and never think about getting out of it because it’s safe there. Everything goes along the same way all the time, with a little ripple or wrinkle from time to time, but nothing shocking. However, if you’re reading this book, you are probably in a box that you hate but don’t know how to get out of. Maybe you have managed to make your box a little bigger than those of the people around you. Maybe there’s a window in the box and a little fresh air can get in. But the box is still there, because really, it’s pretty scary out of it. One step out -- getting a tattoo, a unique hairdo, or painting your living room purple -- and you will immediately get stomped on by someone you trust. Someone you love will be the one to question what in the world you were thinking, and your face will flush and your heart will pound and you’ll say something like, “Oh, yeah, well, I don’t really know what I was thinking…” and you’ll try to change or cover up what you’ve done and get back in that box as fast as you possibly can.

Because we are in a box, we like to pull God down in there with us. Maybe you hear of an amazing miracle that happened in a third world country, and you say, “Well, that’s not in the Bible!” Never mind the part that is in the Bible, where John says, “Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” (John 21:25 English Standard Version) Or “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these because I am going to the Father.” (John 14:12 New International Version, emphasis mine.)

I am fairly certain that God is not shocked or surprised at the modern technologies of our world, and I am also fairly certain that, if a miracle happens in or around one of these modern technologies -- like the missionary who managed to drive his vehicle while it was completely submerged in a flood -- that God can still do it even though cars aren’t in the Bible. Many of us don’t think He can even do miracles anymore, because many churches have taught that healing, miracles, speaking in tongues, prophecy, and the like all “died” after the book of Acts. (Please refer to the two verses above in this paragraph -- do you see an expiration date? Because I don’t…)

In our box, we believe that God is limited. He is hindered by or shocked by our behavior. He is flummoxed by the economy, wringing His hands over the state of the world, and completely at a loss as to how to unscrew up what we have so completely screwed up. In our box, we are pretty much as important and powerful as God is (we would never actually say this, but this is how we act), and we think that our decisions, or lack of them, have doomed us. We made our bed and we’re going have to lie in it. We’ve got to suck it up, get through life, try not to strangle our kids or hit our spouse with a hard object, and make it through to the end, which will hopefully be something peaceful like dying in our sleep. God can’t help. He can’t change us or our circumstances. He can’t get us above or beyond the box, He’s just “out there” somewhere, hopefully listening in every once in awhile.

But God.

God merely thought the world and it came to be. God parted the Red Sea. God caused a ninety year old woman to have a child. God let the teenage David defeat the bane of the Israelites with a stone. God saved Daniel from the lions, and his fellow Jewish captives from the fiery furnace. God caused the walls of Jericho to fall by the sounds of a trumpet blast and shouting. God gave victory to Gideon with only three hundred men over an army without number. Paul survived viper bites and shipwrecks and stoning. Peter was released from jail by an angel. Jesus healed every kind of sickness and disease, cast out demons, killed a fig tree with a single glance, and defeated death, hell and the grave. All in all, God has a pretty good track record of being bigger than. He’s bigger than your problems, bigger than your circumstances, bigger than your dreams and ambitions, and even bigger than your mother-in-law, your boss, the economy, and the enemy of your soul. He has a plan and a purpose for you that is more than you ever would have dreamt for yourself, because your dreams are confined by the six sides of your box, and His are bigger than the universe.

ESCAPE

Right now you’re saying, “Okay, maybe (just maybe) God can do more with my life than I think. But even if I knew how to get out of this box (and I really do have it decorated just the way I like it right now), I have no clue what that looks like.” No, you don’t. You won’t, until you start beating down the walls. For some of you, it will be the ceiling that comes off first. Maybe you have small kids and this season of your life is boxed in on all sides by their childhood. Those walls are temporary but necessary, so that you can be the parent to them that they need to grow up to be godly, mature, successful adults. Maybe you’re in medical school, or the military, or some other commitment, and you can’t budge those four walls right now.

But the ceiling… Just blow that right off the hinges! What’s up there? Well, God. You can, during these seasons, start to find Him. You can really begin to listen. Remember when we talked about how a good relationship required time? Well, now is the time! Spend time with Him whenever you can; it doesn’t have to be locked away in a prayer closet. Journal over your coffee. Talk to Him while you take a shower or walk with your kids or drive to work. Listen to music that makes you feel close to Him. Wake up with a “Good morning, Father! I can’t wait to see what you have for me today!” and go to sleep thanking Him. Start to be attentive to His voice and to the small things He’s telling you, like to be especially nice to the waitress at McDonalds who’s had a really bad day.

What will begin to happen is that things will start to simmer on the back burners of your mind. Every once in a while they may come to the forefront, but even if you try to pursue one of them, it will fall through because it’s not yet time. But it’ll be back there, bubbling away. What does this mean? Well, for me, I had this vague idea of a non-profit for about six or seven years. I had no idea what it would do and didn’t know much about setting up a non-profit. I talked casually to a CPA and got NonProfits for Dummies.

Around the same time I started drawing and painting “distressed” people. By that I mean mostly third world people. Why? I didn’t really know, except that they had interesting faces. Faces that had seen a lot and felt a lot. I didn’t know why they appealed to me, just that they did. One Sunday, during the worship, I suddenly knew why. They were God’s forgotten people. Not that God had forgotten them, but we (the West and the Church) had forgotten them. And He was showing them to me, introducing me, softening my heart and tilling the soil.

It was several years later that my “back burner” project of a non-profit came to the front. In late 2008 I started my ministry, and saw how God had used those distressed people to prepare my heart and plant seeds. Even with all that preparation, what I thought I would be doing was not at all where He has led me. (More on that later.) But for a lot of the time that my kids were young and I was homeschooling and running a business with my husband, this was back there on the back burner. As I grew in my walk with Him and learned to listen and let Him guide me in the smaller areas of my life, that dream was growing and slowly turning into one of the main purposes in my life.

“Hold on… Years?” Yes, years. There isn’t a fast track on this ride. You don’t get to know friends or your spouse overnight, and you don’t get to know your Father and His voice overnight either. Like with AA, the first step is to admit you need to change. Decide to get out of the box. This usually involves a lot of saying “no,” evaluating your friendships, and being selective on how you spend your time. It might involve a season of doing nothing at all, but what you are really doing is rebooting your internal computer. A little Restart. You need to spend some quality quiet time figuring out who He is and who you are (who you really are), and what your first baby steps outside that box are going to be. For us, our church of many years fell apart with a pretty dramatic crash, and we just decided not to find another one for a while. When we got out of “church” and started hanging around people who were actually looking for Him (in all kinds of places like parks and boats), we realized that we were feeling a whole lot more free, and a whole lot closer to God.

Sometimes, you can just blow the walls down around you. Maybe you are in a job you absolutely hate, and you know what you love, you know the dream God has put in your heart. So quit. It might take a little time to organize things -- your mortgage might have to go, or you’ll have to move to a new city, or get some training or education. If you really feel called to become a missionary, call YWAM or another organization tomorrow and start figuring out what you have to do to join and get where God is sending you. If your artistic side has been screaming from under the sofa cushion you threw over it a decade ago, take a painting class, learn the guitar, or sign up for dance. Write a book. Audition for a play. Have you always wanted to homeschool but didn’t want to have to explain it to your in-laws? Fill out the paperwork and withdraw the kids as soon as you can. Decide, right now, that you will refuse to care if you are the oldest person in the class or on the mission field in Timbuktu. Decide right now that neither your parents, your in-laws, your neighbor, your kids or your tennis buddy can say anything that will make you put up a makeshift wall in that box where you’ve torn one down. Decide that you will be who God wants you to be, period.

Now a warning…

COUNTERFEIT FREEDOM

I had a sad conversation with a good friend of mine recently, whose teenage daughter has become a prodigal. She’s left the home and family because she “needs to be free.” It’s largely over a boy, but it is really warfare for her soul. It is an attempt by the enemy to derail her in her very clear purpose. She still says that she will still pursue what she knows God has called her to. However, she has no money of her own, has left her family and will likely be tied in some way to this young man. She hasn’t finished her education, and has, in this one move, destroyed the structure and foundation of her life. For her to pursue her calling now… Well, without a true repentance and an about-face, it’s unlikely, at least in the near future.

What this child has grabbed is counterfeit freedom. She has been tempted by the enemy to grab what he has presented to her as freedom, but which really isn’t. And because she is young and impulsive (as young people are prone to be), she has jumped off the narrow path of God and jumped onto the wide path of destruction. She thinks that by getting ‘out from under’ her parents and family, she will be able to do whatever she wants to do, but her character isn’t developed enough that what she wants to do is godly. It is inevitable that, being out from under the spiritual covering and instruction of godly parents, she is going to be damaged in ways that God never intended for her life. No matter what happens, even if she comes home tomorrow, she has destroyed the enormous trust her parents had in her, and she has eaten of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Fruit that wasn’t intended for her.

In The Magician’s Nephew, the last written but first chronologically of The Chronicles of Narnia, Jadis, the evil queen and witch is accidentally brought into Narnia on the day it was created. She sneaks into Aslan’s garden and steals and eats a fruit of the magnificent tree growing there. The fruits are beautiful, and smell delicious, and Diggory has been sent to fetch one by Aslan himself. On the gates was written a warning:

Come in by the gold gates or not at all,

Take of my fruit for others or forbear,

For those who steal or those who climb my wall

Shall find their heart’s desire and find despair.

Not only does the witch eat the forbidden fruit, she tries, as do all those who try to thwart God’s plan, to drag Diggory into the mire with her.

When Diggory bring the fruit to him, Alsan tells the beasts of Narnia that the tree will protect the land because the smell of it will be “death and horror and despair” to the witch. Diggory and Polly tell him there must be a mistake, because Jadis has eaten one. Aslan says, “That is why all the rest are a horror to her. That is what happens to those who pluck and eat fruits at the wrong time and in the wrong way. The fruit is good, but they loathe it ever after. Alas, things always work according to their nature. She has won her heart’s desire; she has unwearying strength and endless days like a goddess. But length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery, and already she begins to know it. All get what they want; they do not always like it.[1]”

This is the sadness of a life, and in particular a Christian life, that is lured by the enemy into a false freedom. Unlike Jadis, who would always be evil, the Christian who has turned rebel to God can come back to His Kingdom and be forgiven. But they can’t escape the consequences of their actions. We never can. As much as God loves us, and as much as He will deliver us if we repent and ask Him to, we will always, always reap what we sow. There will be missed opportunities; there will be lost trust; there will be damaged hearts. It can’t be avoided when one chooses the counterfeit over the real. The enemy seeks to destroy and the he will pounce on every opening. Do not ever, ever underestimate his desire to keep you from God’s purposes.

[1]   CS Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew

STUDY QUESTION

1. Do you feel like you live your life in a box? Why or why not?

2. Do you put God in a box and limit what He can and will do? How can you stop   that cycle and let God be God?

3. Do you have something on the “back burner” or a heart’s desire that you’ve given   up on? What is it? Do you need to get out of your box in order to follow it?

4. Have you chased counterfeit freedom? Are you still?

CHAPTER SIX

Now we come to one of the biggest hindrances to godly freedom that there is. The fear of man, which stems solely from pride.

We all want to be liked. Better yet, we all want to be loved. We want respect, particularly men, and we want companionship. In the West these days, we are consumed by social networking and texting and tweets while studies show that more and more people are lonely. But we busily “friend” everyone we have ever met, and tell everyone on Facebook and Twitter our innermost thoughts. The problem is, most people can’t be trusted with our innermost thoughts. To top it all off, most people aren’t even paying attention.

It seems that many people have not been raised to discern between the kind of friends who you can tell anything to, and those who will not honor those secret thoughts. Now days, everyone knows everything about everybody and heartbreak abounds. In your entire lifetime, you may have a handful of friends (hopefully including your spouse) to whom you can entrust all your thoughts and mistakes, and all the things God has shown you, good and bad. These are Kingdom people who practice agape love, who hold your heart to be even more valuable than their own. These are the people whose opinion matters, who give godly counsel, who are there to laugh and cry and pray and celebrate with you without envy or sarcasm or spite.

Unfortunately, because we want to be loved, and because we find human company more “real” than God’s, we often fall in with a wrong crowd. Now don’t get me wrong, these can be church going folks, Christians even. But if they are not walking this same walk with you, they are, for you, the wrong crowd. You know those people who give you candy when you’re on a diet? Or talk you into going to a movie when you’ve got a big deadline looming and can’t possibly spare the time? Well, there are people who do the same thing spiritually. And because you are “friends” you want to please them. You care what they think, and especially what they think about you. But then when you say something like, “I have really been feeling lately like the Lord wants me to adopt a child,” these are the ones who say, “Oh come on! You’re 45 years old, your kids are almost grown, you’ve started a garden/scrapbook/tennis group. You can’t possibly think that God would want you to give up all these things in your own life for a baby, can you?” And then they make sure that you do lots and lots of “grown up” activities so that you realize that you are just way too happy being unburdened to even think about adopting.

Maybe you have gotten a vision for a new business, and you know beyond knowing that it is what the Lord is calling you to. It will involve quitting your nine to five job, giving up your regular salary and your health insurance, and maybe you have to downsize your house or downgrade your car. In step the friends: “You can’t possibly mean to start a new business in this economy, can you? Be thankful you have a good job, regular salary, benefits, and you can play golf on the weekends. That’s just crazy!”

Mmmm. Yes. It might be crazy. But that’s Kingdom life. And if you don’t have Kingdom friends who are listening to the vision rather than the substance, you will probably be one of the tens of thousands who chalk up that crazy idea to spicy Mexican food or bad sushi. But here’s the thing… If you deny the visions for your purpose and your future that God shows you, you are denying Him and His will for your life. Jesus said in Matthew 10:32, “So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven.” (English Standard Version) God is working in your life through the Holy Spirit. You can embrace that and follow Jesus wherever He leads you, or you can deny Him so that your “friends” (and probably family) don’t think you’re a nut.

My goal in life -- my one and only goal, which I aim my marriage, my parenting, my homeschooling, my writing and my ministry towards -- is to hear God say to me, when I meet Him face to face, “Well done, My good and faithful servant.” That’s it. That’s what it all boils down to. So while I absolutely hate disappointing my husband or frustrating my kids, I make decisions based on this one thing: living how my Father wants me to live. There are many people on the periphery of my life who think I’m somewhat crazy (or “lucky” depending on the day and their own circumstances). I have only a few Kingdom people with whom I can really share all I see God doing. But those people I trust implicitly to listen, counsel, pray, encourage and celebrate with me. Does this mean they will never disappoint me or hurt me? No -- they’re human. But they listen to God and love with agape love, and that is all you can ask of a fellow Kingdom traveler.

This is the kind of friend you need, too. It’s okay, especially if you’re an extravert, to have lots of people you do things with. It’s okay to hang out and have fun and not be too deep. But understand the difference between these friends and those who will support your vision and goals. Don’t get them confused. When you go from being the party organizer of your group to the homeless shelter volunteer coordinator, don’t expect those left behind to not be resentful of your absence, and to say things like, “You’re still doing that? I thought it was a passing phase!” If you’ve been the sugar daddy, taking people out on your boat and giving come-as-you-are backyard barbeques for all of your friends and neighbors, don’t be surprised if they find another source of free stuff when you’ve quit your job and quartered your income and are having hotdogs instead of filet mignon. It happened to the prodigal son and it will happen to you. Oswald Chambers said, “Fearless devotion to Jesus Christ ought to mark the saint today, but more often it is devotion to our set that marks us. We are more concerned about being in agreement with Christians than about being in agreement with God.”[1]

But God.

When the Father smiles on you for your obedience, despite the pain and struggles and heartbreak, you will begin to see that the opinions of men (and women) really don’t matter. It’s certainly nicer when everyone likes you and thinks you’re the best thing since Greek yogurt, but it’s not the most important thing. Being lonely isn’t the same as being alone, and as long as you have your Father, you are never alone. We all have seasons of loneliness, times where even God seems to be silent. A popular Christian phrase these days is, “If you feel far from God, guess who moved?” Well, sometimes that’s true, and we do move away from Him. But when we keep our eyes on Him, we can be sure He’s always right there by our side, even when He’s quiet and still. There is an Irish saying, ““I believe in the sun when it’s not shining, I believe in love even when I feel it not, I believe in God even when he is silent.”

Why do we feel alone when we know that we are doing what the Father wants? Well, I don’t think that’s His desire, but in this fallen world, you have an enemy, and that enemy is usually quite subtle. If he can make you feel alone, he can keep you busy on anything other than your purpose. He doesn’t have to make you a drug addict or a pagan. He just has to keep you from God’s will, and there are, unfortunately, a lot of people he’s able to recruit to help him. They aren’t doing it intentionally (they certainly wouldn’t brag about working for the devil!), but that doesn’t make them any less deceived. There’s a verse in Matthew that scares many Christians, and well it should.

Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?” And then I will declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” Matthew 7:21 ESV

That’s more than a little bit frightening, isn’t it? These aren’t people holding a bake sale for new pews or grudgingly tithing every week. These are people who are doing the stuff. They’re prophesying. They’re casting out demons. They are doing “mighty works!” (Let me point out once again that there’s not a miracle expiration date in this verse either.) And yet, Jesus says He will declare He never knew them because that stuff, as good as it sounds, wasn’t what God wanted them to be doing. It wasn’t His will. It was someone’s will -- your own, the enemy’s, your small group’s. Just not the right Someone.

So what do we do? Do we sit and do nothing until we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’s God’s plan? No. You will rarely know beyond a shadow of a doubt. That’s why it requires faith. That’s why it requires you to step out and do what you hear Him saying. Will you miss it sometimes? Almost certainly. Will God punish you in some horrible way? Not if you are on the right Kingdom path, not if your heart is yearning to hear Him and obey. But if, like the people in the verses in Matthew, you go off on your own without His will or blessing, without seeking Him first, and without obeying what He says, it’s gonna get ugly. That’s why clearing your life of the things that keep you from hearing Him, keeping your journey as open and honest before Him as you know how to make it, and learning in the small things to hear Him are so vital.

Here’s an amazing thought. What if His will for you today is something as “simple” as apologizing to your spouse, when you really know you’re right? What if His will for you for this year is to get your financial house in order? That’s it -- no promise of a fabulous outcome, no vision of a successful ministry when you are out of debt. Just clean up your mess. “Oh ugh, seriously?” Well… yeah.

You know the parable of the talents -- those who are faithful with a little are entrusted with much. While God knows that we’re human and have flaws and make mistakes, He is also looking for obedience when He points something out to you. Have a bad relationship with a relative or neighbor? He might tell you to ask them for dinner. Come home after work and plop on the sofa with a bowl of popcorn and the remote? He might tell you to start walking around the block with your wife or to spend an hour listening to your kids (sans popcorn and remote). Are you way past your high school dress size? Maybe you will need to get your physical body under control.

Now, I’m not judging here. And most often God doesn’t require us to clean up all our messes, change all our habits, or become the next best thing to a Jesuit before using us for His Kingdom. But where obedience always starts is with those internal things, perhaps we can call them expressions of the seven deadly sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, despair, wrath, envy, and pride. Maybe you are, like me, a mystery novel enthusiast. Early on in my walk, God asked me to stop reading certain of these books that were too graphic or too full of fear. Maybe you rack up charges on your credit card for clothes or electronics -- that new white iPhone that’s really cool -- not because you need them or can afford them, but because “everybody” has them and there’s really no reason you shouldn’t have them, too. Apologizing to your husband when he is clearly wrong about your mother/kids/cooking is just really too much… for your pride. What obedience means is doing something you probably don’t want to do just because your Father asked you to. Preferably without arguing, grumbling, complaining, and certainly without pointing out afterwards how fabulous you are to have done it. It’s looking at Him, and keeping your eyes off you. Ouch.

DYING

If you are like me, you will pray, journal and mumble under your breath a LOT about dying during the next… well, lifetime. As long as we are physically alive we can never be totally dead to ourselves, and God will continue to give us opportunities to realize that (especially at those times when we are congratulating ourselves for how selfless we are being). There are a lot of verses about this concept, and our self-preservation instinct (which comes, I’m sure, from the fall and wasn’t actually part of our original nature) doesn’t really like any of them.

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.” Mark 8:34-35 (New International Version)

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” (Emphasis mine) Luke 14:26-27 (English Standard Version)

And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with it’s passions and desires. Galatians 5:24 (English Standard Version)

For you died, and your life is now hidden in Christ with God. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature… (Emphasis mine) Colossians 3:3, 5a (New International Version)

“I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” John 12:24 (New International Version)

There are many more, and it’s a good Bible study for those times you are trying desperately to get over yourself. Our flesh really doesn’t like to get over itself, and we hang up much more often, and for much longer, on pride than on any other problem. Because we have rights. Things should be fair. Your boss shouldn’t have given all the credit for your joint project to your partner. Your husband shouldn’t complain about watching the kids while you go on a women’s retreat. Your wife shouldn’t claim to be too tired for sex four nights in a row. Because you have rights… And it’s not fair!

Welcome to the world. Where if you’re a Christian, you don’t have rights to yourself, and life’s not “fair.” Are these examples fair as the world would describe it? No. In the natural I can agree with every complaint. But what is it that’s complaining? It’s your pride. Your ego. The “what about me?!” thing inside you that just can’t stop searching for kudos and approbation. It’s certainly possible that, in all of these situations, the Lord wants you to talk to the person involved and work it out. But it’s pretty much guaranteed that He doesn’t want you to do it to satisfy your feelings of self-righteousness or fairness. He wants you to do it so that you don’t have aught with your brother or sister. So that you don’t let anger or resentment build up. A lot of times, especially when you have the absolute perfect speech in your head with which to make your point (and probably throw some barbs), He will tell you quite specifically to keep your mouth shut. To just love your spouse and forget it. To congratulate your partner and move on. To die to yourself a little bit more, and to see that you, as an independent person, are not at the top of the heap.

Oh my, is it hard! It’s very hard at first, because most people have never, ever operated this way before. (This, by the way, is operating in agape love.) Your head will feel like it’s exploding, and you might need a long walk (or five). While you are walking, though, talk to God. Identify with Jesus. Sing in the Spirit and let that horrible thing building up inside you go. If you need to, write it down and then burn it. Or pantomime handing something to God. For your sake, and the sake of those around you, let it die. I am convinced that this is at the heart of the wisdom of Proverbs 15:1: A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. (English Standard Version) When we answer from a place of love -- either to the person who is hurting us or to the Father -- we don’t participate in any brewing arguments. We step out of the ring, as it were, and abdicate our “right” to fairness. And with every step we take away from our rights, we die just a little bit more to them. It’s going to be a lifelong process, but you can start it today.

How does all this relate to the concept of freedom? Well, in Kingdom physics, you can’t be free until you are willing to die. Very few people who stand up for “their rights” to other humans don’t do the same thing with God. We have made kicking against the goads a national pastime. As it is much easier to learn the how-to’s of relationships with people who have actual skin on and who are not the God of the universe, our families, workplaces and friendships are where we get to figure this stuff out. Let’s put it this way: if you can’t get over that slight by your spouse and your hurt feelings, how are you going to say yes to God when He asks you to do something that’s inconvenient, embarrassing, or just plain “not your thing?” Odds are, you aren’t. Because you will still be clinging to your rights and to what’s fair, and, while God loves you as if you were the only person on the planet, He isn’t much into the whole concept of “fair.”

In Narnia, Aslan is described thus: “Of course He’s good. But he’s not safe. He’s not a tame lion!” God is good. He loves you. He has redeemed and sanctified you. But He’s not safe. He’s not tame. He will send you into the wilds, if you will but go… But not until you can survive. And to survive, you have to die. To be able to be free to follow Him wherever His Spirit takes you, you have to give up your rights to yourself and give it all over to Him. It’s a lifelong process. We fight against death. You must keep your eyes on the prize, which is living in freedom in Christ. You must keep in mind that when we are not scoffers, when we keep our focus on God and do our best to live out this dying, “a work that you will not believe, even if one tells it to you” will happen in our lives.

[1]   Run Today’s Race, February 6

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. Name one area where you are especially aware of what other people think. How do you see your pride working in that situation?

2. Give an example of a time when you criticized or scoffed at a friend or family member for talking about a “crazy” idea from the Lord. Did they give up their vision or go forward anyway? Has this happened to you? What did you do?

3. Do you see God as tame and safe, or do you expect Him to lead you on an adventure? Why or why not?

4. How do you feel about dying to yourself?

CHAPTER SEVEN

Oswald Chambers says, “The essence of Christianity is that we give the Son of God a chance to live and move and have His being in us.”[1] Have you ever wondered how you can do that? Well, think of yourself as a storage unit, stuffed full of all the stuff you’ve accumulated over the years. You’ve got the furniture from your childhood room and a whole lot of baggage from middle school in the corner. There’s the full battle armor you needed in college, leaning on top of the baskets full of woes from your church experiences. There really isn’t room for one more thing in there. How is Jesus going to move in? He has to have a chance to get in there and move around so some of this stuff has to go. We have to clear it out, because the Son of God isn’t going to perch on top of your baggage and huddle in the corner.

We are all “experience hoarders,” especially bad experiences. Until we grow sufficiently in our walk with the Lord our hearts are chock full of all the crap we’ve gone through in our lives, and, as much as we really hate having that stuff around, and as much as we know that it effects our relationships with others and with God, we really kind of hate to see it go. Why? Well, it goes back to pride. We want to be able to show others how badly we were treated. We want to be able to pull out those suitcases and baskets and show someone, “See?! Do you see what I’ve had to deal with? Do not ask me to do (fill in the blank), because I have suffered enough.” Okay, you probably don’t actually say “suffered enough,” but that’s what you mean. You mean that your attic full of hurt should be sufficient, and it should be a shield against further hurt and disappointment. Some of you have had really, really bad times: abuse, addiction, terrible betrayal. You were, truly, someone’s victim.

But God.

This is a very hard concept, particularly in our culture. You are not a victim. You may have been victimized. You may have had terrible, inexcusable things happen to you that were totally beyond your control. You may have made decisions that were in your control because of things done to you before. But you cannot, and should not, lay claim to the title of “victim.” First and foremost, this is because if you have accepted Jesus as your Savior, you are a new creature. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (English Standard Version) It does not say that you “will become a new creation”, or that the old will eventually pass away. It says you ARE a new creation. The old HAS passed away, and the new HAS come. Already. Whether you feel it or not. Even whether you believe it or not, because fortunately, Truth is not dependent on our believing it.

So what do you do? Well, love is a commitment to action. You love God. He has already said what has been done in your life. You have to walk in it, whether you feel it or not. In the world, the way this plays out, is that you choose agape love. You choose to walk out loving actions and words whether you feel them at the moment or not. Our culture is full of divorce because people don’t understand that love isn’t a feeling. No one feels loving all the time, but everyone can act loving all the time. Or aspire to it. And because you have the Holy Spirit inside you, the feelings will come. We always want to feel something before we do it. “I just don’t feel like that today!” But God wants you to act. He wants you to let Him love others through you, whether or not you feel you are able. Corrie Ten Boom, a survivor of the Holocaust, says in The Hiding Place, “Whenever we cannot love in the old, human way God can give us the perfect way.”

There are a lot of resources for Christians, which can help you let go of a hurtful past that is beyond your ability to release. Neil Anderson has a great book called The Bondage Breaker.[2] Cleansing Stream Ministries[3] has six week seminars followed by a retreat that is offered by many churches. John Eldredge has written Wild At Heart[4] for men, and, with his wife Stasi, Captivating[5] for women, to show you the way back to your heart and to a free walk with God. All of these resources and more are at your disposal. When you make the choice to be free from your past (and no matter how idyllic your childhood was, we all carry baggage from our past), God will meet you and give you the strength, wisdom and courage you need to face those dragons and move on.

And you have the biggest resource of all: Jesus. He came to give you life, “and that abundantly.” And He means it! You just have to reach out and take hold.

WALKING OUT FREEDOM FROM BONDAGE

All of the resources listed here will tell you, and I will reiterate, the importance of walking out your freedom. Now, we are not yet at what I described earlier as the vast expanse. What you are freed from at first is just living in the box and the bondage that has kept you there. And that first city block of walking after you manage to leave the box is a bit scary, and it takes a lot of concentrated effort. Most of the effort is expended on trying not to go back to the habits you left behind. For me, the hardest thing to walk away from was emotionally shutting down when there was conflict or stress. That was my go-to reaction, and had been all my life, because I grew up in a volatile home. As an introvert and only child, when things in my house started getting tense, I just shut down. I didn’t stop going through the motions, I just literally didn’t feel anything. On purpose. This self-protective measure had become my entire modus operandi by my mid-twenties when I was in a very bad relationship. All I felt for a couple of years was either nothing or rage.

After I got out of that relationship, I began to work my way back to authentic emotion. But even a decade later, if there was a lot of stress in my life, I would find that, without my noticing it, I had shut down. It wasn’t depression; it wasn’t that active. It was… nothing. Once I recognized it, I’d confess it to the Lord and to my husband, and start the climb back. But I didn’t seem to be able to keep it from happening, only reverse it once it did. Through Neil Anderson’s books and Cleansing Stream, I learned to not only let all that go and heal the past through Jesus, but also to walk out that deliverance and freedom every day, so that I was being proactive and not reactive. It has been many years now since I’ve been free of that, but at first it was a daily, sometimes hourly, sometimes even an every-minute struggle to hold on to what was promised to me by the only One who could make such a promise and not be forever a liar.

So the beginning of your journey to freedom is knowing that you need and want it. The second, and probably hardest part is this, to start walking it out. Take hold of your own life, leave off being a victim, get rid of the baggage, and purposefully face every single day determined not to let the enemy put that burden back on you. Remember, Jesus is the only one who should put a burden on you, and His burden is light. Each morning, wake up and claim it. Each morning, wake up and commit your day to following the Spirit of God, and Him alone. Every time you feel your particular basket of woe settling upon your shoulders, whether it’s every single minute for an hour, or after a nightmare in the middle of the night, turn your whole heart, mind and spirit to the Lord. In my case, I would repeat a verse over and over and over or sing worship songs in my head. I journal, so if that was possible in the circumstances, I’d write my way through it. I decided that I would absolutely, positively not lay claim to those burdens again. Period.

[1]   Run Today’s Race, October 5

[2]   Harvest House, 1990

[3]   www.cleansingstream.org

[4]   Thomas Nelson Publishers,

[5]   Thomas Nelson Publishers

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. Everyone has baggage from hurts and disappointments, abuse, addiction and sin. Are you holding onto yours? If so, are you willing to let it go? List three things that you are willing to give to Jesus and not reclaim.

2. Do you feel that the things holding you back are too much for you to deal with alone? Are you willing to use one of the resources in this chapter, or others, to find freedom?

3. Are you afraid to let go of your past for an unknown future? Why or why not?

CHAPTER EIGHT

Another key issue in this stage of your freedom journey is forgiveness. While most of us can come around to forgiving small offenses (although not everyone, and not all the time), by nature we struggle mightily with large ones. If you were betrayed, abused, lied to, ignored, or discarded, it can be very hard to forgive the perpetrator. Some perpetrators are particularly heinous, and it would seem imminently logical to never, ever forgive them.

But God.

And forgive us our sins, just as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins. (Emphasis mine) Matthew 6:12, 14-15 (English Standard Version)

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. (Emphasis mine) Ephesians 4:32 (New International Version)

But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins, too. (Emphasis mine) Mark 11:25 (New Living Translation)

If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him. Luke 17:4 (New International Version)

It doesn’t really seem very ambiguous, does it? There’s not a lot of wiggle room. Here’s the catch that can give you hope to get started. We don’t forgive for the benefit of the person who has wronged us. We forgive for our own benefit. We forgive so that God will forgive us; we forgive so that we do not become hardened and bitter; we forgive so that we can love freely, without putting walls and pitfalls around our hearts. We forgive so that we can be truly free! Without forgiveness, it’s just not possible, because you are actively hindering the work of God in your life. Not to mention this one teensy weensy little detail -- Jesus forgave you. Jesus died for the sins, all the sins, of the world. You do not have the right to refuse to forgive someone that Jesus died to forgive… Ouch, huh?

This part isn’t fun. In fact, it’s painful. The good news is, just like giving your kids a consequence that they always remember and so do not ever want to risk repeating, your Father has done the same for you. (Okay, it’s a bit twisted to make that “good” news, so here’s the point -- this next part is generally pretty unpleasant, and you will not want to repeat it if you have any way to prevent it. Which you do. Forgive sooner!) What do you have to do?

Well, you have to forgive. Not just in your head and in your heart. If at all possible, to the person who wronged you. Go ahead, throw the book down, run from the room screaming, fume for a bit. I know the feeling… When you’re ready, here’s what that looks like, and I’ll use my own example to show you that I really do know that this isn’t fun.

As I said before, I spent my early to mid twenties in a bad relationship. Not only was the relationship itself toxic, my relationship with his mother was toxic, too. I had left, moved away, and thought it was all behind me. And then I heard my first teaching about forgiveness, and I was very, very convicted. I am not, by nature, a grudge holder, but in this case, I was not only moving on, I was done -- the kind of done where you tell everyone how done you are, how hurt you were, how bad they were. In other words, not really done. I hadn’t forgiven, I’d just escaped.

I spent several agonizing days full of the conviction of the Holy Spirit and really determined to be free. But the doing of it… It made me sick to think about. All I could do was pray for help, because there was no way I could do it in my own strength. I didn’t feel forgiving, I felt like I should be the one getting the apology. And because I knew these people, I knew that, not only would this not turn into a love fest, they would have NO idea what I was talking about, and probably figure out a way to turn it around to be my fault (again). But I made the first call, and, while I thought I was going to throw up or pass out (or both), and my heart was beating so hard I could barely hear myself talk, God got me through it. I made the second call, and He got me through that one, too. I had been right in my prediction of how they would respond, but what I realized afterwards was that it didn’t matter. I wasn’t responsible for them or for their actions or reactions. I was only responsible for me and mine, and I was now free! It was absolutely, completely worth it. (I did decide that I never, ever wanted to have to do that again, and became very much quicker to forgive offenses both small and great after this.)

Let me give you another example from my teenage daughter. Please know that I am firmly convinced that there is no “junior Holy Spirit,” and that kids can hear just as clearly from Him as we. My daughter has attended a local Christian camp for many years, which operates both summer and school year programs. For most of those years she was a “favorite” of a senior member of the staff, and then, for no reason that we have ever discovered, she fell out of favor. This person was not someone she could avoid if she was going to continue her activities and work there, which she very much wanted to do, so for a couple of years she was hurt and angry and uncomfortable. Before she went to college, she decided that, whatever his feelings were, she needed to forgive him. So at seventeen, she went to him, told him that he had hurt her with his actions, and forgave him. I would like to say that he repented and they became friends again, but that didn’t happen. He did what my “forgivees” do and acted like he didn’t know what she was talking about; nothing outwardly changed. But it didn’t matter, because she was free of that burden of pain, anger and sadness she had been carrying around. (And her parents were pretty darn proud, too!)

I give you these examples, which are not, in the classic sense, “happy endings,” so that you will see that this is not about reconciliation or the restoration of relationships, although I am sure there are times when that happens. What people often find is that the person they need to forgive for an action that happened many years ago and that hurt them deeply, has absolutely has no memory of the event, and maybe was even confused by the break in the relationship. (This is obviously not true with an abusive situation, but it is often true with a hurtful remark made by a parent or sibling, or a perceived betrayal that was actually an accident.) But it doesn’t matter. You are doing this for you, and for your relationship with God. You are doing it so you can forgive and move on. You won’t ever truly forget, but the pain can be taken out of the memory so you look back and almost feel like it was someone else who was bitter and angry and hurt. Several times I have run into people who have caused deep grief to me or to my family but who I have forgiven. What I felt most was relief at seeing them and realizing that I really have forgiven and moved on. I’m not angry or bitter. Maybe a little sad, but that’s all.

If you work through The Bondage Breaker or Cleansing Stream they will lead you through this process. If you haven’t read them, or you have but feel that maybe more people are coming to mind that you have been holding a grudge against, I would highly recommend that you stop now and make a list. Do it prayerfully. What you want is freedom.

Your pride will get in the way of that goal at every opportunity, and this exercise of forgiveness can be seriously injurious to one’s pride. This is not a bad thing! Once you have made your list, contact the people on it if at all possible. The first and best option is to call; first of all, it’s over the fastest. Secondly, you can get out what you want to say (and you can preface your forgiveness with, “I am not doing this so that you will say anything back to me, I just ask that you let me say what I have to say without interruption”), and then decide how long to continue the conversation. If they get their back up or get snarky, you just say, “Well, have a great life, bye!” And you’re done! If you can’t call and the person is living, write a letter. I would suggest NOT writing an email. This needs to be personal, and emails do not have the personal touch that letters do. Don’t enclose a self addressed stamped envelope (meaning don’t expect a reply), just lay it out without undo emotion, forgive them, and close. If the person is dead, write the letter anyway. It will be very cathartic. Then destroy it as a symbol of your new life.

I know, it’s exhausting. You absolutely can’t do it without God. But you have Him one hundred percent on your side, because this is His will. Corrie Ten Boom, who I mentioned before, was sent with her sister and father to a concentration camp after the Nazis discovered they were harboring Jews. Her sister and father were killed in that camp. Here is her take on forgiveness:

It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there – the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie’s pain-blanched face.

He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. “How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein.” he said. “To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!”

His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.

Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.

I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness.

As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.

And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.[1]

If she can forgive this guard… Well, none of us have been in a concentration camp and lost our family there. If God can give her the strength, He can give it to you. Guaranteed.

As so often happens in any walk in the Kingdom, the day I wrote this section on forgiveness, I was faced with an opportunity to walk it out. (Really, I should have seen that one coming!) We had a rental house damaged by a freak tornado, and, in order to get repairs underway quickly and with little oversight on my part, I called a contractor that I have worked with satisfactorily on several previous occasions. He got an estimate together quickly to build the house back as it was prior to the tornado, and he also knew that, because of the extent of the damage to a third of the house, we wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to change some things on the rebuild to improve it. The adjustor only wanted the price to put it back the way it was -- once that was approved we could do whatever we wanted as far as changes.

So the estimate was approved, giving us a set amount of money to work with to fix and remodel the house. The estimate to the adjustor had been somewhat vague, with a lot of things lumped together. The contractor told us that the estimate to rebuild the house with no changes and the estimate to do the changes was a wash, even with some savings I’d found in a few key areas… Honestly, we just wanted it done, and didn’t question him too closely. (Rebuilding a house wasn’t in my schedule!) Then we met with a big Realtor in our area who suggested a little change of plan, and when we began to question how much that would save, we began to realize that the numbers didn’t add up. Not only should it not be a wash, we should have a lot of money left over, which we could use on some of the Realtor’s suggestions.

You have already guessed that this is where it starts to get ugly. I do a lot of remodeling and am pretty good at estimating costs, especially the cost of materials. I began to add it up in my mind and just couldn’t make it come out as he said. Over several communications, asking for an itemized list, the contractor was vague and defensive and not willing (one can assume not able) to provide a list to back up his numbers. Now, this was not “our” money, some joint pool owned by the contractor and my family. It was my family’s money: our house, our insurance premiums, our disaster. And you can imagine my feeling of betrayal (as I had dealt with this man on several occasions and thought he was trustworthy), as well as mounting frustration when we finally had to halt all work on the house to try to get it figured out.

I would like to say that I calmly took it all in stride, immediately giving it to the Lord, maintaining a positive and peaceful demeanor, saying nothing but good things. The truth is, I wrote (but didn’t send, thankfully!) a harsh email; I fussed and fumed and cussed and felt my blood pressure go up. I hashed it out with my husband and a friend who was visiting who happens to be a contractor, trying to make the numbers work, trying to give him the benefit of the doubt but getting more and more upset as it became increasingly apparent that, for whatever reason (like seeing a big pile of “free” money) he was trying to rip us off. For over an hour I lost it.

After that, I wrote a more generic email, which I did send, asking for the itemization again. I expressed our concerns. Then I went outside, sat down with the Lord, and did some business with Him. It went exactly like I had outlined in this section. I was, understandably, hurt and betrayed by someone I trusted; I was angry. I was also determined that I was not going to hold onto unforgiveness towards him, no matter what the outcome. I confessed it all to the Lord, poured out my sadness, frustration, hurt, and anger, and I confessed that I had actually sinned in my anger (not all anger is sinful, but it can be a fine line!). I forgave the contractor. I’d like to say that was the end of it. Of course it wasn’t, because the issue of the money still wasn’t resolved, the work on the house had stopped, we had to do a lot of work to get other bids and select a new contractor, send the checks back and redo the bids and paperwork with the insurance company, and on and on. And my mind was wont to go back to the sadness and frustration (I got over the anger, but the loss of a trusted associate over something like this does cause me sadness).

But God.

In Mere Christianity C.S. Lewis says this:

“…redemption always improves people here and now and will, in the end, improve them to a degree we cannot yet imagine. God became man to turn creatures into sons: not simply to produce better men of the old kind but to produce a new kind of man. It is not like teaching a horse to jump better and better, but like turning a horse into a winged creature. Of course, once it has got it’s wings, it will soar over fences which could never have been jumped and thus beat the natural horse at its own game. But there may be a period, while the wings are just beginning to grow, when it cannot do so…”

The moral of the story - besides the fact that we live in a fallen world where people will lie, steal, hurt, and betray you regularly, is that this is, for everyone, a lifelong walk of faith. You make progress along the way, old hurts are healed, you become a lot less sensitive to small slights, you are able to forgive more easily and don’t hold grudges. But don’t ever think you’ve “made it” because, as long as you live in this world, there will be abundant opportunities to forgive and walk that forgiveness out. It’s like patience… I never pray for it, as I find I have plenty of opportunity to exercise it as it is without any special intervention by the Lord!

[1]   The Hiding Place, Corrie Ten Boom,

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. Virtually everyone has someone they need to forgive. List three people, and an action plan on how you’ll walk this out.

2. We forgive primarily for ourselves. In what ways has unforgiveness held you back in your walk with the Lord? How can you release that and resist when the enemy tries to drag you back into it?

3. Have you witnessed someone who has lost their battle with unforgiveness? What negative things have grown in their life because of it? On the other hand, have you seen someone who forgave and was able to walk in freedom?

CHAPTER NINE

PERSONALITY

We are all unique, and created so by God. The danger here is in holding onto the “me” in that uniqueness. You may say you have a temper because you are Irish, but God says you are a new creature, that this world is not your home, and He doesn’t care about your ancestors and their anger management issues. He cares about you, here and now. We have opinions and attitudes that we had before we became a Christian that we think are part of our personality; they aren’t, or, if they are, they shouldn’t be any longer. There are things we “know” to be true about ourselves that are patently not, and vice versa. You are not who you can be, and who you can be is so far outside of your imagination that you don’t know that person yet. In Mere Christianity, CS Lewis says:

To become new men means losing what we now call ‘ourselves.’ Out of our selves, into Christ, we must go. His will is to become ours and we are to think His thoughts, to ‘have the mind of Christ’ as the Bible says. And if Christ is one, and if He is thus to be ‘in’ us all, shall we not be exactly the same? It certainly sounds like it, but the fact is not so…

The more we get what we now call ‘ourselves’ out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become. There is so much of Him that millions and millions of ‘little Christs,’ all different, will still be too few to express Him fully. He made them all. He invented - as an author invents characters in a novel - all the different men that you and I were intended to be. In that sense our real selves are all waiting for us in Him. It is no good trying to ‘be myself’ without Him. The more I resist Him and try to live on my own, the more I become dominated by my own heredity and upbringing and surroundings and natural desires. In fact what I so proudly call “Myself” becomes merely the meeting place for trains of events which I never started and which I cannot stop. What I call “My wishes” become merely the desires thrown up by my physical organism or pumped into me by other men’s thoughts or even suggested to me by devils…I am not, in my natural state, nearly so much of a person as I like to believe: most of what I call ‘me’ can be very easily explained. It is when I turn to Christ, when I give myself up to His personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.

What this does not mean, as Lewis confirms in the first paragraph of this quote, is that we are all the same once we become Christians. Rather, it means that, once we are saved, we start to become who we were created to be. We begin to walk out our lives only as He instructs us, rather than through obligation and guilt and the fear of man; we hear Him when He starts to show us what our purpose in this life is; we begin to see other people as He sees them, and love them as He does; we begin to be the person, with the personality, that He “knew before He formed” us.

As Americans, we tend to struggle with our individuality (which goes along with our “rights” as previously discussed), and don’t like when these fathers in the faith suggest that we have to give that up. But this goes along with dying to ourselves. We also have to die to the idea that we are separate beings from God. Before we were Christians, we were separate:

…remember that you were at that time separated from Christ…having no hope and without God in the world. Ephesians 2:12 (English Standard Version)

But when you accepted Jesus as your Savior you were brought into His family: “For through Him we both [Jews and Gentiles] have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.” Ephesians 2:18-19 (English Standard Version)

But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear. Isaiah 59:2 (English Standard Version)

They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart. Ephesians 4:18 (International Standard Version)

But now…

“That they all may be one; as you, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be one in Us, so that the world may believe that You have sent Me.” John 17:21 (English Standard Version)

…Even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved - and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus… Ephesians 2:5-6 (English Standard Version)

Now you are in God’s family, one with Him as the Son and Father are One. That is really hard to wrap your head around! What this doesn’t mean is that “you are God.” This is not a New Age quest because we are all “gods” and can find our own path, blah blah. There is one path to the Father, through believing in the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and in His death being for the propitiation of your sins. But if you are reading this, you are probably saved, and that’s where this topic is headed. You are not God, but you have God always with you, the Son in your heart, and the continuous counsel of the Holy Spirit. Jesus was about His Father’s business while He was on the earth: “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of Him who sent Me.” (John 6:38 English Standard Version) But Jesus was Himself -- he had likes and dislikes, close friends, a trade, emotions, personality. He wasn’t “other;” He was a Jew of His day, and a man like the other Jews of His day. There was nothing about Him as a man that showed Him to be the Son of God. He didn’t hover three inches off the ground or have light encompassing Him or a halo encircling His head. In fact, when He went to His hometown of Nazareth, “they took offense at Him… And He did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief.” (Matthew 13:57, 58 English Standard Version) They said, “Isn’t this [just] the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas?” (Matthew 13:55 NIV)

What does this mean? It means that, over the course of the rest of your life, you are going to become a different person than you are right now. If you’ve been walking with the Lord seriously for any length of time, you are a different person right now that you were a year, five years, or a decade ago. That person is not the same person you would have become had you continued to be separated from God by your sins, and, if you follow the Kingdom path, it is not the same person you would be by doing “Christian stuff” that is not what God wants you to spend your time on. Oswald Chambers said, “The spirit of God alters my dominating desires; He alters the thing that matters, and a universe of desires I had never known before suddenly comes on the horizon.”[1]

If you are so busy doing all the things we talked about in the beginning of this book, you do not give the Spirit of God the chance to “alter your dominating desires.” If you are trying to please everyone else first, you can’t possibly hear His voice telling you how to please Him. You can’t ever hear what His desires for your life are, what your purpose in life is, and what it is the He wants you to be doing right this minute. Trust me, the dry cleaning can wait… Start to listen. Slow down. Breathe a bit.

One of the many good things about going to Uganda is that life there is very much slower than it is here in the States. Things take longer to do, between the bad roads, bad traffic, lack of resources, etc., but there is a lot more time to just be. To sit and enjoy a view. To chat with children about nothing at all or about their most treasured dreams. To read a book, write in a journal, draw, paint, take photographs. Talk over cups of tea. Dance in a thunderstorm. Go to bed early. Think clearly. Listen, and, more importantly, hear. It’s hard for us to do that in the West, unless we take a vacation to the beach or mountains or somewhere inherently quiet. (Even then we often feel like we need to be entertained and make sure the kids are entertained every minute of the day.)

It’s very important to carve out this time in your life where you live, for without some quiet space in your day, you can’t possibly feel the nudging of the Spirit or hear His gentle whispers. You will miss His voice and wonder why He doesn’t speak to you when He seems to speak to others. Trust me, He is talking -- He just can’t compete with the constant background noise of your life: car radios, iPods, iPhones, DVDs, reruns, sports events, noise. Be quiet! Take a walk with nothing stuck in your ears. Drive with nothing blaring from the speakers. Turn off the television after dinner and talk with your spouse or read a book or sit in front of a fire or on the deck and breathe deeply. Listen. Listen to the stirrings in your heart, to the things that are on your back burner, to the new thoughts that the Lord is planting in the ground your quiet time is tilling up.

And when you do hear, obey. Immediately. If He tells you to call and ask someone you don’t really like or know to a meal, pick up the phone. If He tells you go visit your mother-in-law, go. If He tells you to give a sum of money that you think you can’t possibly part with or afford, write a check and mail it. Obey. George Mueller said, “Nine-tenths of the difficulties are overcome when our hearts are ready to do the Lord’s will, whatever it may be. When one is truly in this state, it is usually but a little way to the knowledge of what His will is.” Often, when we do actually hear the Father through the din of our lives, we either delay obedience, disobey (usually by blaming what we heard on the devil or pepperoni pizza, rather the fact that we are saying “no” to God Himself), or decide we didn’t really hear anything at all. All of these are really quite dangerous to your spiritual health…

Adam disobeyed and all of mankind fell.

Moses disobeyed God out of anger at the Israelites, and was denied entry into the Promised Land.

King Saul disobeyed God and was driven to madness and overthrown.

King David disobeyed and a pestilence killed 70,000 of his people.

Will any of these dire things happen to you because you don’t go visit your mother-in-law. No. (At least, it’s highly unlikely!) But what will happen is that your heart will begin -- or continue -- to harden. You will find that, not only do you not hear from the Lord, He does actually stop speaking. What more can He say when you are already disobeying Him? If this has happened to you (and it has happened to everyone at one time or other), you need to repent. You need to ask God if there is anything that you refused to do that can still be done, and if so, do it. If not, be quick to obey the next time, and the next time, and the next. It is the only way that you can fully walk in freedom and purpose.

As you do obey and move forward in the Kingdom, you will find, inevitably, that the things you are asked to do, the changes you are asked to make, become harder. This makes sense; we are His children, and, like an earthly parent, He doesn’t ask a toddler to do what only a teenager could do. But as you grow and mature, the cost gets greater. (The rewards get greater, too, as we’ll discuss in a bit.) Here’s how Oswald Chambers puts it:

If we obey God it is going to cost other people more than it costs us, and that is where the sting comes in. If we are in love with our Lord, obedience does not cost us anything, it is a delight, but it costs those who do not love Him a good deal. If we obey God it will mean that other people’s plans are upset, and they will gibe us with it: “You call this Christianity?” We can prevent the suffering; but if we are going to obey God, we must not prevent it, we must let the cost be paid…

Stagnation in spiritual life comes when we say we will bear the whole thing ourselves. We cannot. We are so involved in the universal purposes of God that immediately we obey God, others are affected. Are we going to remain loyal in our obedience to God and go through the humiliation of refusing to be independent, or are we going to take the other line and say, “I will not cost other people suffering”? We can disobey God if we choose, and it will bring immediate relief to the situation, but we shall be a grief to our Lord. Whereas if we obey God, He will look after those who have been pressed into the consequences of our obedience. We have simply to obey and to leave the consequences with Him.

Beware of the inclination to dictate to God as to what you will allow to happen if you obey Him.[2]

Yes, you must keep going. If you are to be free, if you are to walk in the Kingdom with His purpose, you have to obey. At first this might manifest itself with your pastor, when you quit being the nursery school teacher; or your mother, when you find that it’s really not the Lord’s timing for you to visit her for your kids’ spring break. But it will also, most likely, at some point manifest with your spouse and your children as well, if for no other reason than to prove your loyalty is first to God.

I have walked this scenario out in the last several years, and found that passage by Oswald Chambers to be very helpful. It didn’t really lessen the tug-of-war that went on in my heart, but it gave me courage and confidence, and that was enough. When I first started my non-profit, Ten Eighteen Inc., I didn’t think it would involve travel, and I thought that I would be working mostly with missionary friends in Zambia and Thailand, helping them meet the needs they saw every day. It was a way to receive charitable donations and expand my personal ability to give. Looking back, I should have realized that God’s vision for us is so much more than we can possibly imagine for ourselves!

Right after my non-profit status was approved, I reconnected with the wife of our former pastor on Facebook. She was now living in Uganda. After finding out about their life there and a ministry called Ray of Hope that she was working with, I felt the Lord telling me to help. That entailed paying a year’s rent on a bigger, safer building for Ray of Hope. I also felt very strongly that the Lord wanted me to visit Uganda.

Now, my husband doesn’t much like to fly, and it is a long way from North Carolina to Uganda, so I figured that I would be going with my children but without him. Up to this point, we had never been apart for more than 3 days in our married life, but I left him alone (our daughter was in college and my son came with me) for two and a half weeks. He was not especially pleased! (To his immense credit, though, he did recognize that it was the Lord asking me to go, and not just a “travel bug” on my part.) What neither of us knew when I left, but what I knew by the time I came back, is that I would be going back to Uganda. Regularly. That this African nation, which had never so much as crossed my radar before, had stolen my heart.

I travel now to Uganda twice a year or so. My husband has never been able to take the time away from business to go (and really has little interest). He is still not overly thrilled when I leave. He does know with certainty that it’s God’s will, though, and that is his particular path of obedience: to let me go, with good grace; to pray for me while I’m traveling; and to spend time on his own walk and his own purpose while I am away. It doesn’t work out perfectly. I always feel torn in two, and he would definitely prefer that I not leave. But as we walk out our obedience in the matter, it becomes easier, and our reliance on and faith in God has increased enormously.

Your purpose may not require long trips and separations from your family or spouse. But it will require that you disappoint them sometimes. You must still choose to obey God. Leave your loved ones in His very capable hands. You will find that He is much better able to comfort and keep them than you are!

“Wow,” you’re thinking. “This sounds like it’s really not all that much fun!” Well, God promised joy, not happiness, but I can tell you that I have been happier more often in the last ten years, despite some really bad circumstances that we’ve gone through, than ever before in my life. When you choose God first, and obey him first, you find that you are afraid less. You hold onto things and people much more loosely, and so have much better relationships. Things become, even in this complex Western civilization we live in, much simpler. When the questions really boil down to one thing -- is this God’s will? -- you’ll be amazed at how much more peaceful things are. “For Christians life is the simplest, gayest, the most regardless-of-consequences life, lived as it is taught by Jesus.” Oswald Chambers[3]

[1]   Run Today’s Race, January 3

[2]   My Utmost for His Highest, January 11

[3]   Run Today’s Race, January 10

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. Do you have a personality trait or characteristic that you blame on heredity or circumstances? How can you turn that over to God?

2. Can you think of a time when God asked you to do something and you pretended you didn’t know it was Him and ignored it? What happened? Have you repented?

3. Are you willing to do whatever He asks you, and go wherever He sends you? If not, are you willing to become willing?

CHAPTER TEN

Which brings us to fear.

I have struggled with fear most, but not all, of my life. When I was young, due in large part to a freakishly high threshold of pain, I had little fear of anything. I broke my leg falling off a fence when I was 20 months old. I jumped off the roof of my house when I was about 5 (no injuries with that one). I stood up on monkey bars and merry-go-rounds, swung on parts of the boat never meant to hold weight, went off high dives at 3. My pediatrician’s stock response to seeing me was, “What did you do now?”

But in my tweens (I actually hate that word, but I have to say it’s descriptive) I began to go see horror movies every week with a friend. This was the era of Friday the 13th, Halloween, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. There was a new horror movie out every few months, and that was when movies stayed around a long time at the theater, so even if there wasn’t something new, we’d see the old ones. When the VCR came out, we’d get together and watch them at my house. I don’t know what I was thinking, or what my parents were thinking, but those years did a lot of damage to my spirit and left me with a legacy of fear. I was afraid to be home alone; afraid some stranger would rape and kill me at every shopping center; afraid of driving alone at night. I did all these things. I stayed home alone (and, later, lived alone), went to shopping centers, drove alone. But I was always afraid. When I had kids, I didn’t so much transfer that fear as encompass them with an invisible field of it. I was afraid someone would take them, afraid they’d break their bones (which would have been my just desserts after what I put my own parents through), afraid they’d get a disease, afraid someone would molest them. I rarely showed them this fear, because I knew that it wasn’t how God wanted me to feel and I didn’t want them to be afraid. Maybe it was courage… That’s what they say about acting despite fear. But it didn’t feel like courage. It felt like sickening, heart pounding, gut wrenching fear.

I will confess to you that I still struggle in this area, although nothing like I used to, and that it was - and is - a long way out. But it was my own fault for yielding to that fear, actually seeking it out like a it was a roller coaster. To find my freedom, I started by a combination of prayer, Cleansing Stream, and The Bondage Breaker. I found verses in the Bible that I could recite to myself over and over and over when I was afraid: “Perfect love casts out fear.” (1 John 4:18) “ For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7) Trust me, I didn’t feel like I had a “sound mind.” Sometimes I thought I was completely losing what little mind I had left! But I would say these verses, or sing worship songs in my head. I would talk to God and give him, again, my children, my husband, my life -- whatever I was in fear for. I stood on the faith that He loves me, and He loves my family even more than I do. And if something were to happen, it would be in His hands, and in His hands was where I was placing all of us.

All of us face things that should and do legitimately inspire fear. We are given fear and other emotions for a reason. So if you are thinking that I am saying that you should never be afraid, please don’t misunderstand. Sometimes it’s right to be afraid, and that fear can help save your life, or that of your family or your property. But this fear, this spirit of fear, is a prevalent, pervasive sense of fear, and it is straight from the enemy. I allowed the enemy that foothold, as we can do with other things in our lives as well: lust, addiction, anger. And while God is sovereign and can and does deliver us, there is also the principle of reaping and sowing that can’t be avoided. While my favorite genre of book and television is the murder mystery, there are certain shows that I absolutely cannot watch (Criminal Minds, for instance), and if I do happen to come in the room while it’s on, I will spend many nights trying to overcome the fear that even one minute instills in me. My best friend can watch horror movies and never lose a wink of sleep. If I were to watch one (which I don’t, ever), it would take me weeks to shake off that spirit of fear. There are certain authors, who write very good stories and who I used to enjoy reading, that I can’t read at all anymore for this same reason. It’s not punishment… I am reaping what I sowed in those early days, and much of my fight against fear is to not expose myself to anything within my control that will instill it.

As I said, you may have allowed the enemy in through another avenue. Lust is common in our culture, with sexual innuendo, nudity, sexually explicit media, an online pornography so prevalent. While a healthy sexual relationship within marriage is fabulous, extra- or pre-marital lust and relationships are not, and this can lead to all kinds of problems in your life and marriage. With pornography so easily gotten in every convenience store, airport, book store and on the internet, it’s no wonder that many people, especially men, are really struggling in this area. I encourage you to not only find help in the resource books I suggested earlier, but to find help with a program that specializes in pornography if that is a stronghold for you. Even if you haven’t gotten into that extreme, if you struggle with lust, you will need to do what I have had to do to preserve myself from the spirit of fear: take the offending materials out of your life. What may be perfectly fine for your friend, your brother or even your spouse may not be fine for you. You must be sensitive to the urgings of the Holy Spirit.

The same holds true for any other stronghold in your life. Common areas are anger and addiction, and these need to be fought against just as proactively as fear and lust. Yes, God will help you. But you have, at some point in your life, opened the door to the enemy in this area, and you will have to walk out your freedom from start to finish. It is a huge blessing to know that the Lord is fighting by your side, and to know that He loves you when you fall and when you fail, and that He is right there to help you start again. It gets easier… But I’m not sure if it ever totally goes away, and you will always, always need to guard your heart against it. The enemy is very clever, and he “prowls around like s roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8 English Standard Version) He doesn’t have to get you to denounce God and become a Hari Krishna, he just has to distract you from your purpose, from freedom, and from the Kingdom. Don’t give him the victory that Jesus died to preserve.

Another area that needs diligent attention is depression. Now, depression can have purely physical causes through chemical imbalance, so please seek help just as you would for any other physical ailment. But if you have gone that route and not had relief, this is a stronghold and needs to be dealt with as such. Depression will keep you from joy, keep you from freedom, and will quite often suck your family down into a dark hole with you. People suffering from depression focus inwardly on themselves and all the perceived awfulness of their life. It is, at bottom, self pity, although the person suffering from the depression doesn’t see this as clearly as those around him do.

“What does it matter if the external circumstances are hard? Why should they not be! If we give way to self pity and indulge in the luxury of misery we banish God’s riches from our own lives and hinder others from entering into His provision. No sin is worse than the sin of self pity, because it obliterates God and puts self-interest upon the throne. It opens our mouths to spit out murmurings and our lives become craving spiritual sponges, there is nothing lovely or generous about them.”[1]

Being delivered from strongholds is, as I’m sure you’re thinking, a lot of work. But think about it this way. What if you came across your husband or wife chained up to stakes in the front yard. Maybe there were only one or two chains, or maybe there were a dozen or more, but either way, your beloved spouse is not going to be leaving the yard any time soon. Obviously, your first thought would be to free them. Cut them loose. But what if, after you got your biggest sword to accomplish this heroic feat, your spouse looked at you in all sincerity and said, “Oh no dear, I really like it here! This is really just fine with me, so please don’t trouble yourself.”

We do this in the spirit all the time. We walk around in chains, bound to our strongholds, and we actually kind of like it. We’re comfortable in our bondage. We say things like, “Oh, I could stop this (drinking, drugs, pornography, temper tantrums, staying in bed all day) any time I wanted. I just don’t want to. There’s no need to worry, really, I’m just fine!” Those around you are thinking, “Yeah right…” but what can you do? You can’t free someone else. You can pray for someone else to get free, but they have to do the work. They have to make the decision. George MacDonald said, “Free will is not the liberty to do whatever one likes, but the power of doing whatever one sees ought to be done, even in the very face of otherwise overwhelming impulse. There lies freedom, indeed.” Our overwhelming impulse, when it comes to strongholds, is to uphold the status quo. To stay where we are, even if we aren’t happy, because we’re not really terribly uncomfortable anymore. We know this place… (“Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t” as the French proverb goes.) But of course, that’s a lie.

Just as in AA and other programs, there are people who can help you, and who can hold you accountable to walk out your freedom. There are formal support groups for certain issues, or you can find an accountability partner. It’s usually best that this is not your spouse, as there are times when you will say hurtful things in the heat of a temptation, and someone who a) you can’t emotionally hurt, and b) who can (metaphorically) smack you around can be very helpful. You won’t need this forever, but it is a very good idea at first. You don’t want to end up like the man in Luke 11:24: “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and finding none it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes it finds the house swept and put in order. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that person is worse than the first.” You must not leave your house empty when you have begun your walk to freedom. You must fill it with the Word of God, with worship, with godly relationships and counsel. Then, when that spirit returns, it will not find any room for itself, not to mention it’s seven friends!

A word of caution -- not everyone can be trusted with your spiritual wellness. You need to ask someone who is a more mature, seasoned Christian than you are, whom you do not intimidate, and who has proven themselves faithful in their walk. If you are in a good church with a discerning pastor, ask him for some recommendations. DO NOT pour out your heart to someone you don’t know well enough to trust, or who has not been given to you as a solid recommendation. You must have total confidence that your relationship is one of confidentiality (although you should give your accountability partner permission to ask your pastor for guidance if needed).

After you find this person and humble yourself to ask them to walk this journey with you (because it is humbling to have to go to someone and risk losing their respect by admitting your stronghold and asking for help), realize that they are not your primary “counselor.” God is your primary counselor, through the Holy Spirit. You have to take responsibility for this healing process and not simply dump one dependency for another. You become the best you that you can be so that one day it can be your turn to help someone else. Assure your new mentor that this is not an open-ended deal, that you don’t expect to need help from them a year or five years down the road. You expect to be free and capable of walking out that freedom by then. And then just do it. Decide, then act, and don’t ever look back.

[1]   My Utmost for His Highest, May 16

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. Do you have a stronghold that you can’t seem to overcome on your own? What is it? Do you know where the root of it is?

2. What have you tried in the past to get free of your stronghold? What worked? What didn’t? Are you willing to try whatever it takes to win your freedom?

3. Do you believe that you have an enemy who is actively seeking to destroy your walk with God by keeping bound to your stronghold? Why or why not?

CHAPTER ELEVEN

This journey of freedom is not a straight path. If you could see the road of anyone who has gotten to a place of real freedom in the Lord from a satellite view, it would look more like a meandering waterway than a super highway. Sometimes we make huge strides forward and are really in the zone. We see clearly, we hear clearly, we make connections, we sense lessons everywhere we turn. Sometimes we’re drifting a bit to the side, still going forward but at a relaxed rate, perhaps distracted by the cares of the world, or maybe just in a relaxed time where all of life is more of a drift than a race. And sometimes we make a hairpin, hundred and eighty degree turn, and mess up, big or small. Then we have to try to make another turn back in the right direction (which usually takes a lot longer than our first crazy turn around). That’s okay; God created us and knows we’re human. He knows we get distracted, a little OCD, or tired or lazy. We will fail. As CS Lewis said, “Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement.”

What is “achievement” when we are talking about freedom? Is it a carefree life? Is it the absence of conflict? Is it doing only what you most love and nothing else? Does it mean your children are perfect and your marriage is always a honeymoon?   Unfortunately, no, not any of these. Do you feel especially mature or holy or saint-like? I don’t think so! Do you feel confident in your ability to hear the Lord, confident that He has a purpose for your life, confident that, no matter what befalls you, He will work it out for His good? Yes.

CS Lewis had this to say about it: “If there is any point on which God’s holiest saints agree it is this: that they see more, and know more, and feel more, and do more, and repent more, and believe more, as they get on in spiritual life, and in proportion to the closeness of their walk with God.” Does that seem underwhelming? Let’s think it through.

“They see more.” This has a couple of connotations: they are more discerning, they see Him more in their every day life, and they see more in other people. Charles Spurgeon said, “Discernment is not a matter of simply telling the difference between right from wrong; rather it is the difference between right and almost right.” The enemy is the “angel of light;” looks can be deceiving. We can’t always expect the wrong thing – or the almost-right thing -- to appear as a choice startlingly different from the right thing. Sometimes it isn’t a good versus evil question, which we are all pretty adept at discerning. Rather, it is a matter of choosing God’s plan over our own “good” plan. For instance, your plan might be to work in the Sunday school, teaching children about Jesus. That is a good plan. But if God’s plan is that you go serve the homeless breakfast on Sunday mornings, your Sunday school teacher plan is the almost-right one. Maybe you want to take a vacation to Florida, but the Lord is really impressing on you to go to Texas. You don’t want to go to Texas, you want to go to Disney World and you can see that there’s no inherently right or wrong answer in the natural.

But God.

When God tells you to go somewhere when you’ve planned to go somewhere else, it is always, 100% of the time, better to listen. You may never know why you had to change plans. It may be a colossal pain in the rear end, and maybe even end up costing you money (if you’ve bought tickets, for instance). But there is always a reason, even if it is “only” obedience. Perhaps you met someone at God’s location who, unbeknownst to you, started looking for God after meeting you and seeing your walk with Him. Maybe there would have been an accident of some kind at your first destination. Maybe your child or your spouse or even you sees or reads or hears something on this trip that he or she wouldn’t have otherwise, and it changes the course of their life to some degree. Whatever the reason, it doesn’t matter. Always obey. Always discern, even in the things that you can’t see make any difference, the “right from the almost right.” The One who sees everything sees the difference, and He sees your heart.

“They know more.” This may mean that they know more academically or scripturally, but I am not convinced that’s the “knowing” he was talking about. In fact, most of the people I have met who are enormously educated in this way are demonstrably not free. They live in their heads, not their hearts, and while they know information, they don’t necessarily know the One who created it. No, I think what this means is that they know HIM more. While no one can know everything about God, when you are walking in intimacy with Him, you begin to know Him in a personal way. You know His voice (John 10:27 - “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” English Standard Version). You know His ways (1 John 2:3 - “And we can be sure that we know Him if we obey His commandments.”) because you are listening to Him and obeying Him.

“They do more.” We’ve talked about all the “doing” we do, and how much of that is just busyness for its own sake. The enemy likes to keep us busy, too. If you read Lewis’ Screwtape Letters you will get a really good picture of the seemingly mundane ways the enemy can use to keep your mind off the Lord and the Kingdom. What Lewis means by “doing” is doing the things He sends you to do. We often repeat Isaiah’s words “Here I am. Lord, send me.” But do we really mean them? If we are walking in freedom, we really do. You might be sent to the grocery store or you might be sent to Uganda. You won’t be sent anywhere if you refuse to go. “Doing” in God’s vocabulary means this and only this: Do what He says to do, when He says to do it, where He says to do it. Nothing more, and nothing less.

If you are willing to go where He sends you, be assured that He will go with you. But the ball is in your court -- you must grab hold of every opportunity, no matter how small or great, and then let Him lead you. He will “never leave you or forsake you…” (There is a great song called “Hands & Feet” written by Mark Stuart of Audio Adrenaline which perfectly expresses the challenges we all face in choosing to go where He sends us. I encourage you to listen to it and let the lyrics, which talk about surrendering to God’s plan, wash over you and really fill your spirit.)

“They believe more.” I have the spiritual gift of faith, so I believe a lot, easily. There are things that I just know about God, because I have been blessed with that spiritual gift. (If you don’t know about spiritual gifts, do a quick Bible study on them. There are also online quizzes to help you identify your own gift.) I’ve discovered, however, that even those of us who have this gift have to grow in it, as with any of the other spiritual gifts. Those with prodigious natural abilities - musical, athletic, artistic - still have to learn, practice and grow to reach their potential. And the bar is higher in those areas where we have a gift. Just like in the parable of the talents, if you have a spiritual gift and do nothing with it but bury it in the ground, God will not be best pleased with you when you stand before Him.

For all of us, we are given opportunities, like an opportunity to go somewhere, or talk to someone, which will stretch our faith. If you are an introvert, a direction from the Lord to strike up a conversation with the Muslim clerk at the gas station may make you want to lose your lunch. But if you will just start, you will find that He is with you. And after this has happened once or twice, your faith increases, and you believe without hesitation that, if God asks you to talk to someone, you will be able to convey His words. If He tells you to go on a mission trip and provides the funds once you begin to ask for help, you will know that He will bring about the things that He asks of you.

Similarly, if you lose your job, especially in an already bad economy, you will certainly find your faith stretched to believe that He will provide another one. But since the Bible is pretty clear on this subject (Matthew 6:30 - “And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?”), if you lean on Him, and you see the many miraculous ways He sustains you, you will find your faith growing by leaps and bounds. “These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold -- though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.” (1 Peter 1:7 New Living Translation)

Our entire spiritual life begins with believing: “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9 New Living Translation) Your Father is trustworthy. What He says is true, and that includes all the promises in the Bible and all the proclamations of love towards you in the Word. Did you know God sings over you? He does! “The LORD your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with his love, He will rejoice over you with singing.” (Zephaniah 3:17 New International Version) Did you know God rejoices over you? He does! “As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.” (Isaiah 62:5b New International Version) Did you know God takes delight in you? Yes! He does! “No longer will they call you Deserted, or name your land Desolate. But you will be called Hephzibah, and your land Beulah; for the LORD will take delight in you, and your land will be married.” (Isaiah 62:4 New International Version?) And have you ever read the Song of Solomon? Wow, does God love you!

What does all this mean? It means that you can believe. Just like love, sometimes faith is an action, not an emotion. Sometimes it is choosing to believe Him, to believe the Bible, and to believe the things He has spoken to you, despite what your life might look like. Despite, even, what that might feel like. You might be facing a situation where you can’t feel confident in God’s ability to overcome for you. Believe anyway. Choose to trust Him. Believe that He has what is best for you, and what is best for the Kingdom, always at heart, and that, while He’s not safe or tame, He IS good.

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. On a scale of 2 to 10, where would you place your level of faith? Why?

2. List five things that you know to be true about God, regardless of your feelings.

3. Faith, like love, is an action. Name one area where you can choose, today, to believe, despite your feelings or circumstances.

CHAPTER TWELVE

There’s a lot to do and remember, huh? Well, think of it as putting your priorities in order, cleaning out all that extra junk you’ve been carting around, making space for Him to “live and move and have His being.” Begin to picture what your life would be life without fear. Without guilt (false or otherwise). Without shame. Without anger, depression, lust, or addiction. How much time do these things rob you of every day? What other things will you have time for when you don’t have to make time for those old enemies?

That’s kind of an amazing thought, isn’t it? It’s almost like quitting a job! I heard this saying once, which turns out to be by Michael LeBoeuf: “Waste your money and you’re only out of money, but waste your time and you’ve lost a part of your life.” Isn’t that what we do when we are bound up by strongholds, questioning God, running ourselves ragged on things that don’t matter? You can’t get that time back, and while for God time might not be linear, for us it is. We can’t ever recover that lost time. God might redeem it, He can still bring us into His purpose for our life, but the opportunities we squander we can never get back.

So let’s not squander them! Let’s follow after God, and Him alone, with all our hearts. I have been for the last decade, and wouldn’t go back to my old way of living for anything. What does that look like for me?

As I said, I’ve homeschooled my kids. In fact, we are finishing our thirteenth and final year, since our youngest is graduating this spring. Now, many people homeschool, and, I hope, many people do more than “school at home.” Our family philosophy is that “learning is a lifestyle,” and we take every opportunity we can to travel, to engage our kids in current events (in our house there’s a lot of politics), help them try out new things, and help them to become independent, thinking, faith filled adults. We teach them about money, tipping, taxes, budgets. We teach them about worship. We teach them, and are hopefully always showing them, about listening to and following their heavenly Father.

That means that, when bad things happen, we share it with them so that we can show them how God is faithful even in the hard times. Case in point:

In 2008 we had an office manager who had been with us for a couple of years. I work from home, not at the office, so we divided up jobs into what I could do from my computer and what had to be done there. She had been sick a lot, so I offered to take on some of the work, and was in a season with some extra time so it seemed perfect. The day before my birthday we had scheduled a meeting to finalize these changes. When I went in she looked terrible and had obviously been crying. I asked what was wrong, and she said she had just found out she had terminal cancer. Obviously, I was devastated. I closed the door to her office and stayed in there several hours, talking to her and praying with her. We didn’t have our meeting, of course, and she went home early. The next day I was tied up with other commitments and the family obviously didn’t feel much like celebrating a birthday with this terrible news hanging over our head, so it was with a heavy heart that I went in the following day. Which was when I discovered that she’d stolen all the money…

Yep, that’s right. She’d cooked the books, falsified all the “bullet proof” reports I was getting, and had robbed us blind. In forged checks, she took almost $100,000. In charges to credit cards and accounts, another vast sum. In payments to one of her daughters, tens of thousands. In stolen office supplies ordered on account, thousands (did you know you can get fish tanks from office supply stores? Me neither.). In all, between the stolen money and property, and in the damage to our files and account relations, and interest charges on all the unpaid things we thought were paid, she did almost $400,000 worth of damage. It was a very bad day…

I will confess that when I first realized what I was looking at -- and my brain wouldn’t fully process it for a half hour or so -- I panicked. My husband was in the next office, and I had to go tell him we were broke. This, ladies and gentlemen, is not something you ever want to have to do. Later that day I literally, and for the only time in my life, had hysterics. (The funny thing about hysterics is that, somewhere in the back of your mind, there is a little voice saying, “Um, can you get a grip? You’re off the deep end! This is really a little scary!” But you can’t seem to stop.) Fortunately, my husband didn’t kill me, we had an amazing bank fraud examiner who spent countless hours with me figuring out how she had perpetrated the fraud (three sets of books and tons of time, which, had she had that much initiative on the actual job, would have made her Operations Manager in no time!), and a policeman who instantly understood what had happened once we had the information together and reported it. We found out about the embezzlement on Wednesday, she was arrested on Monday, and she spent over three years in jail without ever getting out, even on bail. Meanwhile, my husband and I worked twelve hour days for over a month, didn’t get paid for three months, and had all our vendors paid back within ninety days. We never missed a payroll and totally reorganized our business, which we’d talked about many times before but felt it was going to be too much work so we had never got around to. It actually ended up more profitable in the end.

Through all of this, we talked to our kids. For the first couple of weeks, when I was crying and barely eating, I told them, “I don’t know a lot right now, but I know this -- God is good.” I wrote “God is good” on a dry erase board in the office; I was no longer working at home, obviously. When people would call to check on me, I would say, “God is good.” Because, honestly, that’s all I knew. Whatever happened, however it turned out, I could stand on that one thing. And in that experience, my kids saw that played out. God WAS good. We didn’t miss a meal (although we had a lot of things we hadn’t had to eat in a long time, like beans and rice). We didn’t miss a mortgage payment. He had prepared us by really encouraging us in our saving (and we had obeyed), and so, while we certainly didn’t do anything extra, we were okay. Once we got through the first month, we realized the business was going to be okay, too.

God was good. We had to work hard, we had to cry and be angry, we had to forgive, we had plan and pray. But God was good. And now my kids know that truth as face, and so do we, beyond a shadow of a doubt. Would I recommend this particular experience to learn that lesson? No. But I don’t think I’d change it. A lot of really great things came out of that time, and they couldn’t have happened any other way.

THE LEVER

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it was later that same year that I was released by the Lord to start my non-profit. Not very long after that, my husband was released into an amazing area of influence in his own passion. Don’t get me wrong, God is never ever obligated to “reward” us. He owes me nothing while I owe Him everything. But what happened was that our “disaster” (in human terms) was the lever that was able to push a giant rock off our back. We had owned our business for seventeen years and never enjoyed it. We knew that we could change some things to make it easier on ourselves in the long run, but we also knew those changes would be difficult, time consuming and potentially expensive, and we hadn’t had the energy or will to bite the bullet and go through with it.

But God.

He provided the lever. We had some choices on where to go from that awful day if we were going to stay in business. It was going to be bad no matter what, at least for a while. We made the choice of freedom, which God had been speaking to us (without us seeing how it could be possible). We made the decision to build it back in a way that suited our dreams and passions, rather than sticking with the successful but very time consuming status quo. It wasn’t actually an easy decision, because we were in that place we talked about with strongholds: we really hated the business at times, and we never actually liked it, but we knew how to do it, and it had been successful the way it was. To make the changes we saw were necessary to give us freedom, we had to start a whole new paradigm, and there was no guarantee it would work. But because of the embezzlement, we might go out of business anyway, so we decided to give it a try. We really had nothing to lose.

And that rock moved. Not overnight. Sometimes it seemed to be hanging pretty precariously directly overhead. But by the six-month mark we had a plan, and by the one year mark we had implemented two-thirds of it. By the end of the second year, we had made a full transition into the model that would allow part time input on our part, but allow the business to continue to function as it had before. We’re still working on that plan, nearly five years later, and are almost totally free of the business via an internal sale to an employee. Now it’s not a boulder, but a small backpack hanging off our shoulders. We are no longer being crushed.

Notice that we didn’t have to fully walk out our plan for the business for God to step in and start us on our way to what we came to call “TNT” -- the next thing. All we had to do was obey the vision we were seeing. The vision we had actually been seeing for a while but had been unwilling to sacrifice for. Then He enlarged our territory. The new things didn’t start out with a big bang, but they grew bigger and stronger as our required involvement in our business grew smaller. Was that a coincidence? I don’t believe in coincidences with God! He knew what we needed to do to walk into that purpose, and when we didn’t obey it ourselves, He kicked us in the rear ends. It was effective, let me tell you!

Friend and Bible teacher Bob Mumford used to say, “You can bounce around like a bb in a boxcar as long as you like… God will wait.” The situation you refuse may not wait, and things that might have blessed you might not happen, but God will always be waiting for you to come to His way of thinking and doing. After all, it’s all He wants you to do! And He’s got lots and lots of time. I would recommend, however, that you give up your own plans a lot sooner than we did in this example…

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. What opportunities have you missed through delayed or disobedience?

2. Has God ever put you in a painful experience so that you have no choice but to do what you’ve been reluctant to do? How did you react?

3. What legacy are you passing onto your children about God’s character?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

LOST DREAMS

One of the very best things that came out of this whole experience was that my husband, who had totally given up on his dreams and felt pretty hopeless about ever being able to live them out, was put in a situation that could only possibly be a God thing. Through an incredible series of events, he ended up being a “super secret” ghostwriter for a very famous talk radio host. There was no way for him to claim credit, no way to know it was coming, and it’s just an amazing story. It really blessed me to see him begin to hope and dream again in his area of passion, when he thought he was “too old”. That position has led to numerous other ones in his area of expertise and interest, and he has been actively working in the political arena of ideas for years now.

Our culture values youth, but to God, those numbers don’t matter. Moses was eighty when he saw the burning bush. Paula Deen didn’t start her little catering business until her forties. Abraham and Sarah had Isaac when Abraham was a hundred and Sarah was ninety. The Colonel didn’t start Kentucky Fried Chicken until late middle age. Nothing is impossible for God! He has a purpose for your life and He will not give up on you, even when you have given up on yourself. You may have been stubborn and refused to get on board with what He was asking you to do, delaying your own walk into the Kingdom. But God also knows all things and sees all times, and what He wants you to do may not be ready until you are thirty or fifty or seventy-five. He’s not fretting over your passing birthdays… He is watching His plan unfold.

The Bible says that, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” (Proverbs 13:12 New International Version). If you have lost faith that your dreams are actually His dreams or that they can still come to pass, take courage! If you are following Him, as we read from Oswald Chambers earlier, His desires will be come yours. So if you have a dream in your heart, a vision that you can catch a glimpse of, and nothing at all is happening, keep praying and waiting. We should always be asking God, as David did, to search our hearts, and if He shows us some area where we are disobeying, or a stronghold, or an idol we are holding above Him, get that fixed. Do whatever you need to do to get right before Him in every area. But if you are sure that you are walking as He wants you to, and if you are hearing from Him in other areas and obeying, then wait. You are in the wilderness right now… The Israelites were there for 40 years. Keep being a faithful follower and you will find, sometimes quite suddenly, that you are doing what you’ve always dreamed of, and probably in a way you never considered.

God isn’t ever against you if you are following Him. He isn’t ignoring you. He isn’t mad at you or holding you back as a punishment. He needs you to be ready. His dream for you is so much bigger and better than your glimpse of the vision; He has to make sure you are prepared. The hard ground has to be tilled up. The attic has to be cleaned out. Your heart, mind and spirit have to be fixed on Him. You don’t have to be perfect… You have to be following Him, and Him alone, with your “eyes stayed on Him.” That’s the only way to get ready.

Because we live in linear time, we have a really (really) hard time grasping God’s timing. He is never late, but rarely early, which is both a comfort and a frustration. He’s a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path, but only about ten feet ahead. We want to have a clear view all the way to the horizon. We want to know what’s next, what we’re going to have to do, when it’s going to start, and anything else we can find out. We want a script handed to us that we can read and digest, and then memorize our part. He wants you to have to lean on Him for everything.

When I went to Uganda the first time, all I knew was that I was supposed to go, and that I was supposed to meet the people at Ray of Hope in Kampala. I also knew we were going to do a short safari (you can’t go to Africa for maybe the only time in your life and not go on safari!). That was it. For a two and half week visit. People would ask me why I was going, and I’d say, “God’s telling me to.” “Yes,” they’d say, “but what are you going to do?” “I have no idea…” Most people didn’t find that a very satisfying answer on my itinerary and agenda and consequently thought I was a bit nutty.

During that trip, I solidified my connection with Ray of Hope, and have continued to work with them in various capacities such as sponsoring children for school, giving micro-business grants to single moms, helping women with HIV/AIDS, and helping the women make money with their hand crafts. Every time I visit, the work expands a little bit more. But the second time I went to Uganda, which was 6 months after the first, I still had no idea what I was going for other than Ray of Hope. On that trip, God connected me with Hospice Jinja, and I have been working with them ever since. The time after that, while I was horseback riding with my daughter, God told me to build a school. I got connected with Arise Africa, and we have started building a primary school.

The point is, you never know. You can’t plan. He has the plan, and the only way His plan will work is if we keep our hands off of it. If we are truly following Him, and we try to take control (human nature being what it is), He will quickly cause that thing to wither up. You’ll be a little mad, because you spent time and effort on it and you thought it was a great idea. That’s the problem: it was your plan! It can be really hard to keep our hands off His plans – I think I am actually lucky that I have to go all the way to Uganda where it’s really hard to plan anything in advance. But do it, keep your hands off. Get on the ride, strap in, and throw your hands up in the air. It’s a whole lot more fun that way.

YOU NEVER KNOW GOD’S DREAM

On May 22, 2011, we attended the announcement rally in Atlanta for Herman Cain’s run for the Presidency. The reason I am including this in the book is this - his run for the highest office in the land was based entirely on the principles I have laid out so far in this chapter.

In 2006, Mr. Cain was diagnosed with stage 4 colon and liver cancer. He was given a 30% chance of survival, but during the diagnosis and second opinion, and then the initial in-take phase at the cancer treatment center he went to, he had several very clear signs from the Lord that he was on the right path for his treatment. They didn’t know that those signs would mean that he would beat the odds and be cured, but the Lord gave them comfort as they made difficult decisions, and the Cains knew that they were in the right place at the right time with the right people. I’m sure the month he stayed there and sought treatment, and the months after when he was recovering, were not at all pleasant.

After his illness, he had an unsuccessful run for the Senate, probably also not fun. He discovered a passion for radio, and started giving speeches at Tea Party events. And something began to percolate in the back of his mind after the 2008 election some about a run for the White House. Now, not many sane people would really want to do this in this day of hostile media and the 24/7 news cycles. But God began to give him signs in this area, too, signs that were an undeniable roadmap to the announcement rally in Atlanta. Obviously, he didn’t win. God knew that all along. That doesn’t mean God wasn’t asking him to run. In God’s economy, it’s obedience that matters. It’s seeing His purpose and following it with passion. What we witnessed at the rally and in the subsequent months was first and foremost a series of Kingdom moments: a man passionate about the hard road God put him on.

We can all be that way, regardless of whether your purpose is something as grand as the White House or as “small” (in human eyes, but not in God’s) as leading a Bible study. We are all part of the body of Christ, and every Kingdom purpose is equal in importance to God. When you are living for the Kingdom and for the approbation God and not men, you won’t feel envious of someone like Mr. Cain or your friend who is called to something that seems more glamorous than your own calling. You will celebrate every time you see a Kingdom oriented person following his or her Kingdom oriented purpose, because it’s always obvious that it’s God. And other Kingdom people will celebrate with you! That’s the beauty of living a free Kingdom life.

WHEN IT’S NOT GOD

As you learn to hear the Father’s voice better in your own life, you will be brought into situations with other believers and begin to see where they are in their own Kingdom walk. Sometimes you will talk to someone and, even if the dream or idea they are telling you about seems insane to the human part of your brain, your heart is leaping, and you feel like clapping, and you find yourself saying, “Yes! Yes, I can see that! That’s awesome!” That’s because, whatever it looks like in human terms, it’s a Kingdom plan. And then there are times when someone is telling you their idea, and you feel your heart sink. It might be a really “good” plan -- a perfectly thought out new business, a move, a missions trip -- and all outward, human signs would point to it being a great thing for God. But the whole time they’re talking you find that you are grinding your teeth a bit and having to refrain from shaking your head “no” during their explanation. I don’t envy you, my friend.

Obviously, you are experiencing a “God’s not in this plan” moment and, very much like when your best friend is in love with someone who is completely inappropriate yet thinks he or she is the best thing ever, you aren’t going to be able to talk them out of it. There is a major deception going on in their lives. Either the enemy is actively deceiving them, or they are caught up in the human excitement of the project without having ever really talked to God. Either way, when someone is deceived, by definition they really don’t see the truth, and trying to change their mind is about as easy as stopping Niagara Falls. Don’t lie, if they ask your opinion, but in my experience, this just leads to more retelling of the plan. They think you have just missed what they’re saying and how great it will be. You are left with prayer, which is a lot, but don’t be surprised if the project is launched, however big or small, and everyone is miserable.

We often ask God to join us in what we’re doing, rather than go where He’s already moving. Situations like the one above are just that. We have a great, wonderful, fabulous, no fail, all-for-God idea and ask Him to come bless it. He’s not going to bless it - you are being disobedient. Because He loves you, He won’t leave you. But He probably won’t save you out of your own mess, either. The best thing to do, when you know you’ve completely blown it, gone off the reservation, and into your own little world, is repent. Seek His wisdom to get out of it and back on the right track. It’s not uncommon for someone to start or get into a business and be a financial success at it, and yet know that it’s not what God wants for their life and feel stuck. It may take eating some humble pie, it may take a hit to your finances, it may take move that your friends and family thinks is off the deep end. But follow Him out of the wilderness and back on the path to freedom.

In the booklet “Disciples Indeed”, the words of Oswald Chambers spell it out: “The greatest service you can render to God is to fulfill your spiritual destiny. Where would you be if God took away all your Christian work [or work you assume is for Him]? Too often it is our Christian work that is worshipped and not God. We rush through life and call ourselves practical, we mistake activity for real life, consequently when the activity stops we go out like a vapour, it has not been based on the great fundamental energy of God.”[1] Don’t be one of those who does the “stuff” that God didn’t plan for you, so He doesn’t know you.

God knows you when you follow Him, and Him alone. His will. His purpose. His Kingdom. Your “assignment” might not be very exciting right now, and your heart so wants to serve. Be patient! He’s preparing you. He knows your heart, but more importantly, He knows what He’s put in there, and what He plans for you to do. No one else can do it. You are the only you. If you get so caught up in the stuff and don’t ever see what your purpose is, someone else will have to do your job. But it won’t be done the same way or at the same time as if you’d done it. Don’t be distracted and miss it!

In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo’s purpose is to take the One Ring into the enemy’s territory and throw it into the fires of Mount Doom. Nothing less than the fate of the world and its free peoples hang in the balance. His faithful companion Samwise Gamgee accompanies him, and for a short while has to bear the ring, but this is Frodo’s quest, his purpose. He and Sam have a dreadful journey full of perils. Without the rest of the fellowship and the help of many others carrying out their part of the story, and even Smeagol/Gollum, Frodo’s quest would have ended in failure. Our purpose is like that -- we may not be Frodo, or Herman Cain, or your friend who started an orphanage in Guatemala. But the God who sees all has a plan for you, which only you can do without causing detriment somewhere else. You may never know what part of the great story you played until you get to heaven. But you can be sure that, if you are walking in the Kingdom, walking as one of the free peoples, your part is vital to God.

[1]   Disciples Indeed, Workers For God

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. Are you patient? If not, what can you do to slow down and be where God wants you to be at this moment.

2. When other Christians tell you of their God-inspired vision for their life, do you feel excited or envious? Do you begrudge your own current assignment for the Kingdom?

3. Have you caught a glimpse of God’s vision for your life? What is it?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

WHAT THE WORLD IS REALLY LIKE

Many, many movies have been made and books written on the “end of the world unless the hero saves the day” theme, but the three best allegories for how the world really is are The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Matrix. Especially in The Lord of the Rings, there is a very clear (and probably frighteningly accurate, were we to be given a vision like Elisha was given) and dangerous picture of the true state of the spiritual world. We are at war. There is an enemy who would like nothing better than to steal your freedom, your heart, your faith, and your life. We are soldiers, in one way or another, in God’s army.

In America, we have a harder time grasping this than in countries where they have had wars and atrocities as part of their ongoing culture. But our not understanding it doesn’t make it any less true. The Hobbits, Men, Dwarves, and Elves were the free peoples, and they had many strong enemies who were seeking to wipe them out. As our world gets increasingly violent and our country increasingly secular, we can extrapolate how this might play out in our own country one day. The point is, you must understand that you need to be, and remain, free in your spiritual walk with the Lord, and you must do whatever you need to do to know Him, know His Kingdom and His Son, and to know your place in this great ongoing battle.

As you begin to walk this walk out, you will have many obstacles thrown in your way. You will be tempted in ways great and small to veer just a very little off the path. A one degree step. If you were on a ship in the ocean and veered off course a mere one degree, every mile traveled would put you 92 feet off your course. In a hundred and fifteen miles you’d be 2 miles off course. If you left California to sail to Hawaii, which is 2506 miles, you wouldn’t make it. You’d be almost 44 miles off course and would miss the state altogether. This is what happens spiritually, if we let it, if we get just a little off course. That’s all it takes to totally miss your destination and purpose. If the enemy can’t get you totally off course, going to Minas Tirith instead of Mount Doom, he’ll settle for just a little tiny shift, and then keep you on that divergent path. He’s patient and long-sighted… We need to be, as well.

What this means it that you can’t meander along in your life, keeping busy, keeping your head down, and think you are doing God’s will because you are being “good.” Jesus was very clear about this in Revelation: “So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.” (Revelation 3:16, New American Standard) Don’t think that this applies only to the church at Laodicea… This is for the Church and for you. If you are not either listening and obeying or actively disobeying, you are lukewarm. In my opinion, being spit out is probably about the same as being told He never knew you… Not the ideal scenario for a believer. You may not like the idea that you are actually living in a war. Who would? But you were born into one nevertheless, and unless Jesus returns in your lifetime, you will die in one. Unless you realize it and act upon that realization, you will become a casualty.

THE FULL ARMOR OF GOD

In Ephesians, Paul talks about putting on the full armor of God:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Ephesians 6:10-17

This isn’t something that can wait until a specific day, sometime in the future. You have to do it now, do it, in fact, all the time, so that you are ready when the day of evil comes. (Not “if” it comes, “when” it comes.) The Message puts the fight this way: “This is no afternoon athletic contest that we’ll walk away from and forget about in a couple of hours. This is for keeps, a life-or-death fight to the finish against the Devil and all his angels. It’s not a game, it’s your life. And until you realize it, you will continue getting stomped, and not be able to walk out your freedom in any meaningful way.”

“Well jeez, first we’ve got to walk out the whole deliverance from strongholds thing, and now this! I have a hard enough time getting ready for work, I’ve got put all this on, too?!” Not if you don’t want to. But if you want to walk in the kind of freedom Paul had, and the kind of freedom believers around the globe have, you have got to understand that the enemy hates freedom. One reason that so many other religions hate Jews and Christians is because, under the one true God, we can be free. People without Him want to control, just as the enemy wants to control. You don’t have to do anything but exist; if you exist free, they will hate you. And the enemy is not powerless.

Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. 1 Peter 5:8-9 (New International Version)

But even Michael, one of the mightiest of the angels, did not dare accuse the devil of blasphemy, but simply said, “The Lord rebuke you! Jude 1:9 (New Living Translation)

Then they will come to their senses and escape from the devil’s trap. For they have been held captive by him to do whatever he wants. 2 Timothy 2:26” (New Living Translation)

The Belt of Truth: Always walk in the Truth. This is the not referring to not lying, although you should refrain from that, as well. It is referring to THE Truth, the Word of God. The Word is the Scripture, but it is also Jesus: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life is the light of men.” (John 1: 1-4 New International Version) You must know the Scriptures, and read the Scriptures regularly, and keep them in your heart to fight the devil. But you must also know Jesus, The Word, and keep Him in your heart and active in your life.

Jesus Himself used only the Scriptures to overcome temptation by the devil in the desert after His forty days in the wilderness. Here is Luke 4:1-13:

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone.” [Deuteronomy 8:3]

The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you worship me, it will all be yours.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.”[Deuteronomy 6:13]

The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’ [Psalm 91:11,12] Jesus answered, “It says: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”[Deuteronomy 6:16]

When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.

The breastplate of righteousness. In the dictionary, righteousness means “virtuous. Morally justifiable or right, especially from one’s own point of view.[1]” That’s man’s perspective. Here’s God’s perspective: “I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with Himself depends on faith.” (Philippians 3:9 New Living Translation) We must continually have faith in Jesus, faith in God, faith in the Scriptures, and keep that faith a living and active part of our lives. We must let the Holy Spirit convict us of sin, and readily repent when necessary to maintain a right relationship with our Father. He is holy -- we must be constantly aware of the state of our lives, so that we, through Jesus, can be holy too.

The Gospel of Peace: We are to be shod with a specific kind of shoe: the gospel of peace. This phrase is also used in Romans 10:14-15: “How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!” (Romans 10:14-15 King James Version) The gospel of peace is the “good news.” We are to be walking, living, examples of the good news of Jesus Christ, followers and disciples, a testimony to others. We protect the part of our body that will get us on with the Kingdom, our feet. And then we walk out His purpose in our lives.

The Shield of Faith: There are so many verses about faith, and we have discussed it earlier in this book. But let me reiterate -- you cannot walk through all you will have to walk through without it. It will, as this verse says, shield you from the fiery darts of the enemy; they are aimed at your head and heart all the time. You have the choice to let those flaming arrows penetrate and form a stronghold, or you can use your faith as a shield to keep them from you. When you are having thoughts that are starting to take you captive, “destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:5 English Standard Version) Notice that this is active, not passive. We destroy them, and take them captive. No mercy.

The Helmet of Salvation: If you aren’t saved, you aren’t going to be able to fight the enemy. If you don’t take salvation with you into the world and share it, proclaim it, and walk it out, the devil will have a field day with you. ”If anyone is ashamed of me and my message, the Son of Man will be ashamed of that person when he returns in his glory and in the glory of the Father and the holy angels.” (Luke 9:26 New Living Translation) Salvation comes through Jesus Christ. Period. There is no other way, no other path, no other God by which we can be saved.

The Sword of the Spirit: The verse defines this for us: “which is the Word of God.” How is the word of God a sword? “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12 New International Version) “In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.” (Revelation 1:16 New International Version) The Scriptures, the Word, the Truth, cuts “between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.” (New Living Translation) We need to wield it with strength. Jesus has defeated the enemy, and He defeated him with Scripture in the desert, before He defeated him with His death and resurrection. We have to walk that out in our own life, because the devil is still allowed to move on the earth and devour whom he might.

There are heavenly realms. String theory posits that there are at least eleven dimensions of space time (which some call the “theory of everything”). We only exist in four. Do not discount your enemy. Don’t dismiss him as a fairy tale, a crazy notion, or your imagination. He exists. He was thrown out of heaven for pride. He hates humans. He wants you destroyed, and if he can’t destroy you, he’ll settle for distracting you. Your path to freedom and your walk when you get there depends on your ability to fight, all the time, against his minions, his deceptions, and his will to deactivate you in God’s army.

But God!

He has given you the armor and also a wardrobe lesson in how to use it. Hallelujah! We aren’t fighting alone. We would be an ash heap in about two seconds if we were. We are fighting with the God of the universe, the Creator, the Trinity, the Word, who will never leave us or forsake us. What better ally could we have?

[1]   www.dictionary.com

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. Are you familiar with the armor of God? Do you see it as an allegory or as an actual act that believers should perform?

2. Which part of the armor are you weakest in? Which the strongest? What can you do to strengthen your entire suit of armor?

3. Are you veering ever so slightly off course? What do you need to do to correct your trajectory?

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

As you have probably figured out by now, just like in our nation, freedom isn’t free. We are soldiers in very serious, deadly battle, and we have a purpose that our enemy will try to thwart in any way possible. You will have to sacrifice many things:

The sacrifice of selfish privacy which is daily demanded of us is daily repaid a hundred fold in the true growth of personality which the life of the Body encourages. Those who are members of one another become as diverse as the hand and the ear. That is why the worldlings are so monotonously alike compared with the almost fantastic variety of the saints. Obedience is the road to freedom, humility the road to pleasure, unity the road to personality.[1]

The things you must sacrifice are not things that really make you happy, make you you, or make you free. They are things that hold you back, leftovers from the fall. Pride. Fear. Worry. Anxiety. Rights. Fairness. The things that will make you fully yourself are all things that will remain and be added onto by the Lord as you walk out His Kingdom plan.

After a while, a lot of the things that we have talked about will become standard operating procedure in your life. GK Chesterton said, “It’s not that the Christian faith has been tried and found difficult, but rather it’s been found difficult and left untried.” But not you! You will not only make a habit of talking to God, reading His word, watching for the enemy, taking thoughts captive, most of the time you will do it without thinking about it. Do you remember when you learned to drive, and your instructor or parent told you that you have to not only look ahead all the time, but also in your rear view mirror, both side view mirrors, and over your shoulder to see in the blind spot? You thought they were crazy, that there was no way in the world you could monitor all those areas at once and still stay on the road. But now, umpteen years later, you don’t even know you’re doing it, but you do. You are constantly watching your back, your flank and ahead for dangers. Your walk with the Lord is the same way. It takes a while, it takes practice, it takes reliance on the Spirit, and yes, it takes discipline. And just like in a car, you are never completely safe from someone else’s error, or your own. But protecting your spirit while following His Spirit becomes a way of life, and the paving stones on your road to freedom.

Freedom is something you can strive for, but you can’t achieve it on your own. You were a slave to sin; only Jesus can set you free. As you walk out that freedom, and seek it, and pray for it, only Jesus can guide you into it. Slaves couldn’t set themselves free, and neither can we. While a slave could be set free with one stroke of a pen, and you were set free from sin when you accepted Jesus as your Savior, the habits of slavery don’t come off that quickly. You have to shed them, one by one, add new godly habits, and then keep moving forward.

In our business we have a lot of blue collar workers. They are paid quite well, a very “middle class” income. But many come from the projects, and can’t seem to leave that life behind. One day, as an older man who was a long time employee was bemoaning the fact that his common law wife’s children had stolen his money while he slept, my husband said, “Willie, why don’t you get out of there and get a nice apartment? You can afford it!” Willie, a military vet, a smart guy, and a hard worker, looked him in the eye and said, “Well, Mr. Chuck. You can take people out of the ghetto, but you can’t take the ghetto out of the people.” We were born in a spiritual ghetto, but by the grace of God and the sacrifice of Jesus we can get out and stay out!

GIVING

One of the most important aspects of your Kingdom walk is giving. The Bible is full of examples of the importance and benefits of giving, the most quoted but still most inspiring from Luke: “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Luke 6:8 New International Version) How about this one? “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this,” says the Lord of hosts, “if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.” (Malachi 3:10 Emphasis mine)

All churches talk about giving and tithing. There is usually much discussion involving tithing. Do you tithe on net or gross income? Do you tithe on gifts or insurance money or the sale of your house? Do you tithe to a church only, or can you tithe to something else? Then there are “giving campaigns” which are generally to build something, where church leadership talks ad nauseum about the importance of getting behind what the church is doing. It’s actually a confusing and even scary topic for most people, especially in difficult economic times, and, in my personal experience, the average church doesn’t do a very good job with it. There’s a lot of guilt involved, and not a whole lot of spiritual education or testimony from Christians who have lived giving lifestyles.

Let me give my testimony on it, and then my thoughts on how I see it both in the Bible and playing out in your life.

When my husband got married, if it had cost a quarter to go around the block we would have had to stay home. I didn’t have an engagement ring because we didn’t want to go into debt for one, and that’s the only way it could have happened. We paid for our wedding ourselves; it was a really great wedding and reception and cost us only $3,000, but that was a huge stretch for us (my cousin got married not long after we did and spent $30,000). If we went out to eat, we ate in the late afternoon to get the “senior” discounts. We were starting the business, and being self employed, we knew that every dollar spent was not guaranteed to be replaced, so we were frugal with the little we had. In spite of all that, we tithed ten percent, always. And then we gave over and above that. I have the gift of giving (my two spiritual gifts are giving and faith, which has definitely stretched my husband!), so for me it was somewhat easy, but it was difficult for my husband at first, because sometimes the Lord would ask us to give an offering with money we actually didn’t have. Meaning I’d write a check on Sunday, without the money to really cover it unless we postponed groceries or a bill. But every time, every single time, we obeyed the Lord to give, we not only got the money that He’d asked us to give, we got more besides, and in time to eat or pay the cable company.

As our business grew, and as my husband saw the faithfulness of the Lord in this matter, we continued to give. We were tested in many areas of giving, like knowing we were to make a “loan” to an employee that was then never paid back. The first time this happened, we had an employee who had a home loan fall through on a trailer at the last minute, and he already had given his landlord notice of their moving, so he ended up homeless with 3 children, really through no fault of his own. He asked us for a loan to put down the deposit on an apartment, to be paid back through his payroll. I prayed about it, felt the release of the Lord, and gave him the money. A month later he called for more money. It turned out that they’d never moved out of the hotel, and they’d been paying for two rooms plus all their meals (since there was no kitchen), and again needed money to move. I was mad, let me tell you!

In the midst of my ranting and raving, the Lord very clearly spoke to me, “I told you to give him the money. Period. What he did with it afterwards is none of your business.” Oops. A couple of things happened that day. I never loaned anyone money again. If we were released by the Lord to give it, we gave it, no strings attached. If we were paid back, it was an unexpected gift. If we weren’t, we never worried. I did give that employee money, and I told him that I, personally, wouldn’t have, but that the Lord had told me to. He was amazed… (Maybe that was the point; I never found out.) And he did eventually pay most of the money back, although I had given it away in my mind and heart, and really didn’t worry about it after that.

The other thing that happened was a real lesson on whose money it is in the first place. We have tried to be good stewards of the blessings God has given us, and always upheld our obligations, and gave. But up until this point it was still “my” money. And I felt gipped because this guy had taken “my” money for one reason, and used it for another purpose. He legitimately acted stupidly… But what I realized is that whatever he did with it, it wasn’t my problem, because it wasn’t my money, it was the Lord’s. He allows us to tithe and give, because it’s good for us (He doesn’t actually NEED your money, you know!). But “the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.” (Psalm 24:1 New International Version) My job is just to obey. And when you get that “a-ha!” moment, and realize that nothing you have really and truly belongs to you, you will be absolutely astonished at how freeing that is.

We hold on very tightly to our things and to our money. Particularly in these trying economic times, we don’t want to give (or feel we can’t), and we take comfort and security from our stuff. We may have to sell it at a garage sale, or maybe we have to help out a friend or family member who really has lost it all. But it’s still “our stuff” in our mind. That dollar from the garage sale is symbolic: a whole lot of people would rather get a dollar at a garage sale than give something away. That’s holding on too tightly. If you have toys your kids don’t play with, consider taking them to a battered women’s shelter, or give them to an organization that will take them overseas to an orphanage. If you have clothes, consider donating them to organizations that help people dress appropriately for job interviews, or give them to the Salvation Army, or to a charity for veterans. There is always someone worse off than you. If you don’t believe me, please pray about going on a missions trip to a third world country. Cultivate a generous heart. You cannot possibly outgive God.

As I said, the Bible is full of verses on giving.

Give generously to him and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. Deuteronomy 15:10

Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the LORD your God which He has given you. Deuteronomy 16:17

Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it. Proverbs 3:27

He who gives to the poor will never want, but he who shuts his eyes will have many curses. Proverbs 28:27

Now this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 2 Corinthians 9:6-7

Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine. Proverbs 3:9-10

2 Corinthian 9:6-7 sums up what I believe God’s philosophy is -- and so what should be our own -- on giving: For God loves a cheerful giver. The debate on tithing on gross versus net income misses the point. You are giving the first fruits of your labor back to God to thank Him. To bless Him. To see His increase in your life. “Tithe” means a tenth. The ancient Jews didn’t count out kernels of corn. They gave a tenth of the best they had, joyfully. God has given you the skills, the job, the health, the tenacity to hold your job. Thank Him for it. Don’t penny pinch, bless! When you bless Him with your tithe, He will “open the window of heaven and pour out a blessing til it overflows!”

And then give. “Wait a minute - you were just talking about giving!” I was talking about tithing… Now we’re talking about giving above that, what’s called offerings. Yes, above that. In the Bible there were many kinds of offerings, which were all over and above the tithe. There were sacrificial offerings of animals made for various reasons by the priests on behalf of the people. Much of Leviticus and Deuteronomy are taken up with what to offer when, and how. The first born animals were offered to the Lord. Men made offerings when they presented themselves to the Temple, or during a census. They made offerings for special things, like building the tabernacle or restoring the Temple. The Jews were also to take care of widows, orphans and the alien. We are likewise commanded. And a hallmark of all these offerings is that they were done joyfully.

Do you give joyfully? There are all sorts of giving in our modern world. We talked about some just a minute ago: clothes, toys, etc. But you should also give of your money and your time. And not “for the tax deduction!” (There’s nothing wrong with taking advantage of all the tax breaks you can get, but your motivation in giving shouldn’t be to cut your taxes.) There are many charitable organizations doing wonderful work that are, especially these days, in desperate need of your monetary donation. Pray about where to give, ask God to touch your heart in a specific area. Your passion may be the homeless in your city, or veterans returning from war, or a cause overseas. Organizations big and small are full of people pouring out their lives to bring clean water, education, vaccinations, eyeglasses, prostheses, food, shelter, clothing, surgeries and other things we take for granted to people all over the world. Start looking for where God is calling you to give, and then ask Him how much. His answer will almost certainly stretch you Trust Him and obey.

There are many places you can give of your time, as well. You can be a mentor in your schools or Boys and Girls Club. You can teach immigrants English. You can volunteer at a soup kitchen or food bank. You can cut your elderly neighbor’s grass, or watch the kids for the single mother next door. You can show God’s love to people in any number of ways, and again, if you will but put it before Him, He will direct you. I always highly recommend a short term missions trip, especially to anyone who hasn’t been out of the country. Working with those who have so little and yet are still joyful will change your life.

So now that you’ve hidden your checkbook and day timer, let me point something out to you. The only time in the Bible that God says to “test Him” is in this area of giving. If you aren’t tithing the full ten percent of your income, but only a few percentage points, ease it up and see what happens. If your spouse objects, read him or her this section and go slowly. Test God. I have never met anyone who wasn’t blessed beyond all expectations when they began their journey of generosity to both God and to those in need. And I mean a financial blessing, not just the spiritual and emotional one you will get from helping others. God will meet your financial needs, and as you become more generous, you will allow Him to trust you with more and more. And then you will have a testimony to His faithfulness which no one can ever talk you out of, and which will help others to walk in the freedom that you have found in your finances and beyond.

[1]   CS Lewis, from Membership, The Weight of Glory

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. What is your attitude about tithing a full 10% of your income? Does it match that of your spouse? If not, what do you need to do to become unified in this area?

2. Do you give (money, time, goods) over and above your tithe? Why or why not? Are you doing all God has asked of you in this area?

3. What is your response when someone asks you for a loan? What does that show about whose money (or stuff) you consider it?

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

DEBT

Our nation (the people, apparently not the government) has learned a lot about debt in the last few years. For twenty years or more the debt level of individuals had been rising as a percentage, and the savings rate declining. When the economy crashed, led by the over leveraged housing market and fast rising gas prices, we had an ah-ha moment as a country. Paying down debt and creating a safety net of cash suddenly became a lot more important to a lot more people. And economically, that makes a lot of sense. Economic freedom is definitely a must in your Kindgom walk, because without it, you can’t go when God says go, do what He says do, and you are beholden to whoever holds your debt. The Bible says that “the borrower is slave to the lender” (Proverbs 22:7), and especially in tough economic times, this becomes even more clear.

Walking away from your obligations isn’t an option that God will honor. This is, again, the reaping and sowing principle. You borrowed and spent the money, and you will have to do your best to pay it back. Until you get this area of your life under control, you won’t and can’t be free. This is a burden that Jesus didn’t put on you, and that you will have to clean up, before you can take on His much lighter burden.

There is a very practical side to getting out of debt. Dave Ramsey (author of The Total Money Makeover) or someone like him can walk through that with you. My concern here is the spiritual side of debt. God mentions money more times in the Bible than he does any other topic. Isn’t that interesting? We just talked about the importance of giving, and you need to keep tithing and giving as the Lord leads you even while you are getting out of debt. But the other issues are spiritual, because it indicates where your loyalties lie and what your relationship is with the things in your life.

The Bible doesn’t say, contrary to popular belief, that money is the root of all evil. It says, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” (1 Timothy 6:10 New International Version. Emphasis mine.) In this day and age we can substitute “eager for the things money can buy” for just money, for many of us have lived well beyond our means thanks to easy credit. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Luke 12:34 New International Version) When you are indebted for those treasures (that 50” plasma television, the luxury car, a Harley), your heart is chained to them. As long as money is owed on them, you can’t get free, and the fruits of your labor are all going to this debt.

King David saw this as a curse. In Psalm 109:11 he prays regarding his enemies, “Let the creditor seize all that he has, and let strangers plunder the product of his labor.” In Biblical times, if you didn’t pay your debt, you could be forced to become a slave to the creditor, and he could sell you. Literally. While we may not be forced into physical slavery now, we are certainly forced into emotional and spiritual slavery by indebtedness, and we find that our path to freedom in those areas is just as difficult and full of obstacles as it is in the financial realm.

So what can you do? Well, you must get out of debt. Other than your home, which should be one you can actually afford the payments on with a regular mortgage, you need to do whatever it takes to get rid of your consumer debt. There is nothing wrong with boats and motorcycles and nice jewelry, as long as you actually can afford to purchase them. With money. But if you are like most of the country and have a car loan and credit cards, you need to follow a very careful plan to get all that sold and paid off. Yep, that might mean you drive a clunker of a car. (That will be very helpful in reigning in your pride, right?) You might have to eat beans and pasta and canned tuna and peanut butter for a while. You might have a period of working an extra job, having garage sales, and getting very familiar with Craig’s List. It’s not going to be fun if you have over-extended, and in this economy. But more than your financial future rests on it. Your very freedom in Christ is at stake.

Billy Graham said, “If a person gets his attitude toward money straight, it will help straighten out almost every other area in his life.” Start with your attitude. Live within your means. See money as a tool, not as an end. Realize that everything you have comes from God, and that what you do with what He gives you will determine what else He’ll entrust you with down the road. Give back to Him, and give more where He’s moving. Hold onto things loosely. Be willing to give up anything and everything He tells you to, and get your physical, financial and spiritual house in order. It’s then that you will be able to see the Kingdom road widening and leading to totally new horizons.

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. What is your relationship with debt? If you have consumer debt, are you actively working to pay it off, or are you unconcerned because you can afford the payments?

2. Do you understand the relationship between debt, slavery and freedom? Where are you in that cycle?

3. Are you and your spouse in agreement on money and debt?

4. If God asked you to go somewhere, could you go in your current financial situation?

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

IT’S NOT THAT COMPLICATED

It has been an unfortunate tradition in the church since very ancient times to make the laypeople feel they need the clergy to interpret both Scripture and the will of God for them. Even the Israelites, when they were in the desert, made Moses stand between them and God. But when Jesus died, the veil was torn in two (Mark 15:38), and we have nothing separating us from God. We have direct access to Him, with the guidance of the Spirit, at all times. In the early days of the Church, the Scriptures were in Latin, and most people were illiterate, so the priests and a few nobles were the only ones who could read it. Even after the first English translation, the King James, illiteracy rates kept many common folks from reading for themselves. In the Roman Catholic, and then Anglican churches, tradition had it (and still has to a large extent) that the priests did “the stuff” (communion, confession, etc), and the people showed up on Sundays and listened to whatever they wanted to talk about that day.

I was driving in my car listening to Christian radio about fifteen years ago and heard a very well known author and radio teacher say that the Church (meaning the listeners) needed people like him and other “Bible scholars” to tell us what was in the Bible. I really almost wrecked my car. I grew up in the Episcopal Church, and except for a youth worker we had for a short time in my teens, we were never encouraged to actually read the Bible for ourselves. But by this time, I’d been in an evangelical/charismatic church for several years and had read the Bible through a couple of times already. I didn’t need someone to tell me what the Bible said -- I had the Holy Spirit! This doesn’t mean that there isn’t a role for teachers and preachers and scholars. There is always more to learn, and God often imparts His wisdom through these gifted men and women. But what the radio teacher talked about for ten minutes was that the average person was unable to properly read and interpret the Scripture, so we really shouldn’t bother too much since there were great guys like him around.

Let me ask you… If you were shipwrecked on a deserted island with a Bible and no Bible scholar, and you read that Bible every day, do you believe that the Spirit of God, who wrote the book, would give you all the insight and wisdom you need? I do. I have heard some great teaching and preaching over the years, but by far the most important, inspirational, transformational thing in my walk has been reading the Scriptures and allowing the Holy Spirit to be my guide. In January of 2001 I gave myself the challenge -- my New Year’s resolution -- to read the Bible through in ninety days. The whole Bible. And I did it, reading chapters from the Old Testament, Psalms/Proverbs, Prophets, and New Testament each day for about an hour to an hour and half. It changed my life.

That sounds clichéd, but that was probably the most amazing three months I’ve ever had with the Lord. Reading the Word through so quickly gave me a grasp of all that God has done and continues to do. My level of spiritual discernment grew by leaps and bounds. My understanding of my role as a child of God, as a wife, as a mother, and as an ambassador and soldier in God’s Kingdom was forever changed. I have never read the Bible through that quickly again, although I read it through one and a half more times that year and continue to read through it about one and a half times a year. There are still things that strike me as new, and things that I understand more completely because of experiences I’ve had. I change translations after two or three times through, as well, and the Spirit has shown me amazing things just through those different versions.

The first reason that this is important in your freedom walk is that this is your time to read God’s letter to you. God loves you like you are an only child, and He gives you the Scripture like it’s a personal letter. When you spend time in the Word and let the Spirit clarify and interpret and deepen your understanding of what you are reading, you are spending time getting to know your Father. You are investing time in your relationship. You are seeking and gaining more understanding of your purpose, God’s will, your calling, His love. You are listening to Him, not asking for anything except wisdom: “If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.” (James 1:5 New Living Translation) You aren’t complaining about anything. You’re just spending time with Him. Just sitting at His feet, like Mary did with Jesus, and listening to Him.

Another reason it’s a key is that, when you are familiar with the Bible for yourself, you aren’t led astray when people use a verse out of context. Another radio teacher I heard one time left out an entire section of 1 Corinthians 14, but read it like he was reading it in its entirety. He did this because there were several verses in there that contradicted the point he was trying to make to a caller. (Again, I almost wrecked the car, and I quit listening to Christian teaching radio not long after this.) Now, I realized he’d left out the verses; the caller didn’t. And unless the caller went to his Bible after he got off the air and checked for himself, he probably used what this teacher had told him as an argument to someone else, and yet the teacher was in error. Unfortunately, this happens a lot, both in the Christian world and in the secular world when non-Christians try to use the Bible to prove a point to a Christian. Unless you know the Word, you will be deceived and misled. God doesn’t release you from your responsibilities in your relationship with Him just because you hear a sermon weekly, or read Christian books like this one, or listen and watch famous preachers. You, yourself, must separate the wheat from the chaff. Humans err, sometimes by mistake and, unfortunately, sometimes on purpose. If you are in the Word and spending time listening to God, you won’t be fooled.

When we talk about freedom, it’s freedom in the Lord. It’s not what the world calls freedom, by which they mean doing whatever you want without considering the consequences. When you are in the Word, you see for yourself what God’s standard of holiness is. You understand what Jesus was like and how you can become like Him. That’s the whole point of this journey: to be Christ-like. Really Christ-like, not a limited, counterfeit, rule driven sad sack. If you don’t know who He was, how He acted, what He said, how He loved, you don’t know where you’re going. If you don’t understand the Father, from Genesis Chapter 1:1 to Revelation 22:21, you won’t understand what your purpose is when He lays it out. You won’t have a Kingdom point of view, without which you can’t possibly fulfill your mission here on earth. Think of it this way: God has given you not only a map, He’s given you the guidebook, a topography, and a Guide. He’s given you the overall destination (to really be like Jesus), and He will give you the keys to your own personal car (your purpose). But to get there, you have to read the guidebook, listen to the Guide, and refer to the map! Otherwise you could end up in Nova Scotia when you were aiming for San Diego, and that wouldn’t be good.

There are lots of ways to get to know Jesus. I highly recommend the video series “Matthew”, which is a dramatic portrayal of the entire book of Matthew, verse by verse. If you, like I, grew up watching “Jesus of Nazareth” every Easter, with the emaciated, depressed, unappealing Jesus, this video will radically alter your perception of your Savior. I was literally flabbergasted the first time I saw the film, to see Jesus laughing and dancing and crying with joy. It was shocking, yet in my heart I knew it was true; this was how Jesus really was when He was a man. Unfortunately, this is not the Jesus that most of us grew up with in church, especially in a denominational church.

Another way to grow your understanding of Jesus, and the Father, is to talk to and read about Kingdom people. I don’t mean any old Christians. I mean people who are living their life full on for God, or biographies about people who did. There have been many, and many who had dramatic conversions to the faith such as John Wesley, St. Augustine, and CS Lewis. Many have been tortured, imprisoned or martyred for their faith: Watchman Nee, Joan of Arc, James Elliott, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Corrie Ten Boom. Many others have done all they could for God, living out his purpose for their lives, for as long as they could, like Johann S. Bach, Sir Isaac Newton, Dr. David Livingstone, Galileo Galilei and St. Patrick. When you have a chance, talk to missionaries who are still excited at the work God has called them to. Don’t bother with the ones who are burned out… You want to talk to those who are living the true call and purpose of God for their lives, not who are doing what they think they “should” to be “good Christians.” Talk to anyone, of any walk of life, who you sense is full of the Spirit and living a joyous, full life for God. Find out what they’re doing, how they stay on track, and where they’re headed. You’ll learn a lot about your Father and His Son this way.

You will find that there are times when you just feel inexplicably close to Him. Each of these will be unique to you, because the Father knows you and knows what will touch your heart. But a lot of them are in some general categories. When I worship the Lord in song, in particular in corporate worship, but also just riding down the road listing to my iPod, I am at times overcome by tears at the sheer wonder of being able to praise and worship my King, my Father, my Savior. Sometimes it makes me laugh with joy, in sheer amazement, that Jesus is with me in my little car sitting in a traffic jam. Any time I am in a place of natural beauty I also feel particularly close to Him. Usually that’s around water, because I grew up on the water and always hear Him there, “His voice was like the sound of rushing waters.” (Revelation 1:15 New International Version) But I’ve also been on snow covered mountains, and on an African plain, and even in a city park in the spring, and felt the wonder and beauty of His creations all around me, and drawing me closer to Him.

Job 38:4-31 is an amazing description, by God Himself, on the majesty and wonder of His creation:

“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?

Tell me, if you understand.

Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!

Who stretched a measuring line across it?

On what were its footings set,

or who laid its cornerstone—

while the morning stars sang together

and all the angels shouted for joy?

“Who shut up the sea behind doors

when it burst forth from the womb,

when I made the clouds its garment

and wrapped it in thick darkness,

when I fixed limits for it

and set its doors and bars in place,

when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;

here is where your proud waves halt’?

“Have you ever given orders to the morning,

or shown the dawn its place,

that it might take the earth by the edges

and shake the wicked out of it?

The earth takes shape like clay under a seal;

its features stand out like those of a garment.

The wicked are denied their light,

and their upraised arm is broken.

“Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea

or walked in the recesses of the deep?

Have the gates of death been shown to you?

Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness?

Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?

Tell me, if you know all this.

“What is the way to the abode of light?

And where does darkness reside?

Can you take them to their places?

Do you know the paths to their dwellings?

Surely you know, for you were already born!

You have lived so many years!

“Have you entered the storehouses of the snow

or seen the storehouses of the hail,

which I reserve for times of trouble,

for days of war and battle?

What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed,

or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?

Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain,

and a path for the thunderstorm,

to water a land where no one lives,

an uninhabited desert,

to satisfy a desolate wasteland

and make it sprout with grass?

Does the rain have a father?

Who fathers the drops of dew?

From whose womb comes the ice?

Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens

when the waters become hard as stone,

when the surface of the deep is frozen?

“Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades?

Can you loosen Orion’s belt?

Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons

or lead out the Bear with its cubs?

Do you know the laws of the heavens?

Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth?

“Can you raise your voice to the clouds

and cover yourself with a flood of water?

Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?

Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?

Who gives the ibis wisdom

or gives the rooster understanding?

Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?

Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens

when the dust becomes hard

and the clods of earth stick together?

“Do you hunt the prey for the lioness

and satisfy the hunger of the lions

when they crouch in their dens

or lie in wait in a thicket?

Who provides food for the raven

when its young cry out to God

and wander about for lack of food?

God is the Creator and Sustainer of all things, and He wants you to know Him. He wants you worship Him in all you do. He wants you to follow His Son and become more like Him. To bring Him glory by your life. It’s not a formula, there’s not a hidden code to crack, and it’s not a big secret from which you are excluded. He gave you the Book. He gave you His Spirit. He will give you wisdom if you ask for it. He will treat you like His own child and will love, discipline, and increase your responsibility and freedom as you mature. He will reward your attempts, every time.

I’m not saying it’s easy to know God, but I am saying it’s simple. Paul closed his letter to the Romans this way: “Now to Him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of the faith…” (Romans 16:25-26 English Standard Version, emphasis mine) The veil was torn, and the mystery revealed… according to the command of God. It’s not that complicated… Your heavenly Father loves you, and wants to be in an intimate relationship with you. All you have to do is respond.

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. How much time to you spend reading the Bible each day or week? Do you feel that the time you are spending is bringing you closer to knowing God and His Son better? If not, what do you need to change?

2. Where do you feel closest to God? Why?

3. Have you ever suspected that someone was giving you an altered version of the Scripture but didn’t know how to counter it? What did you do?

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

WILL YOU HAVE REGRETS?

If you live for God, you won’t have regrets. When your focus is on Him, the only possibilities you see are His. But you will view much of the world with sadness, because you can see the pain and damage in so many people, and see the enemy winning. You will see people full of regrets. You will see people who spend their whole life running away, but never finding freedom, because they were running away from themselves. But since, to use the well worn line, wherever you go, there you are, that never works. Rather than confront the pain and damage in their own life, rather than turning it over to God and carrying His burden instead, many people, even Christians, spend life on the run from freedom and enslaved to their past. That’s not what God intends, but just like Aslan in his dealings with Uncle Andrew in The Magician’s Nephew[1], or with the dwarves in The Last Battle[2], there are things that God can’t do. Because He has set up this world and humankind with free will, He can’t and won’t supersede that. A Christian who lives life enslaved because he or she refuses to ask God for deliverance and deal with the issues will remain enslaved. He will not force freedom on you.

I read a comment on an online CNN article (entitled “Why is America a no-vacation nation?”), written by a palliative care nurse who identified herself as Bronnie Ware. The comment was entitled “Five Regrets of the Dying”. Having spent years with hospice, she had heard it all, and these are the top five regrets she heard, time and again. They bear repeating.

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

I think these are all important, but especially numbers 1 and 5. I’m sure since time immemorial children have felt the pressure to be what their parents wanted them to be. Some did follow those pathways, but some broke away. Among those who broke away, however, there were still people in their lives who exerted pressure to “be someone” in particular. Perhaps a professor took a particular interest, and wanted a protégé. Maybe a grandparent had some of the same natural inclinations, and so saw a young person to carry on their legacy. Maybe a fellow church member encouraged a young person with good teaching skills to become a pastor. Maybe it was just the social class to which the young person belonged -- people from certain backgrounds just “don’t” become mechanics, or, conversely, doctors or lawyers. But somewhere, someone either intentionally or unintentionally exerted pressure to have a certain kind of life, and lacking a passion or particular vision at the moment, they embarked on a life journey that wasn’t anything like what God intended.

How do we avoid that? Maybe you’ve already done it, and think it’s too late to change. Let me plead with you -- follow Him! No matter what it takes, whom you might feel you are disappointing or disrespecting, follow Him. It will never, ever be the wrong choice, and you won’t be on your deathbed wishing and wondering “what if.” Don’t we all toy with that sometimes: a morbid obsession with death and how we will look back at our lives? Don’t regret your choices here on this earth. If you are following His lead, if you are striving to be more like Jesus in how you live and love and sacrifice yourself, you will die ready to meet Him.

I also find number 5 compelling. Many people do not realize that happiness is a choice. Optimism is a choice. Love is a choice. There is nothing that says that you can’t be silly and laugh uproariously at 35 or 50 or 100. Only your pride says that. This ride called life is a grand, glorious, hilarious adventure! If you don’t think so, you aren’t living it! Explore your world. Meet people. If a street performer making balloon animals fascinates you, let it fascinate you! The fact that you are standing as the only adult in a group of children is, in fact, ideal. The Kingdom will be given to those who are childlike. If you want to slide down a hill in the snow on nothing but a cardboard box, do it! If you’re in a foreign country and find a hookah bar and think that’s awesome, try it. Weird food? Go for it! Bungee jump? You’re a better person than I, but bombs away! Dance when you hear music, sing in the shower, wear cowboy boots if you love them, stop and admire the buttercups. You are here on this earth an incredibly brief time. Let the wonder and amazement and hilarity and beauty overwhelm you!

Which leads us to number 3. In this country in particular, many of us are in the “no vacation” camp. You don’t have to spend a lot of money and go somewhere exotic, but you do need to take a break from work when you can. Even in a bad economy, maybe especially in a bad economy, you need time to refresh your body, mind and spirit. You need time with God, time with your loved ones, time for fun. God is the ultimate Creator and you are made in His image. We are all creative in some way, and we all need to rest, as God did on the 7th day. You might not be able to miss work or school, but when you are off, be off. When you are at work, work smarter, not harder. If you need help with organization, ask for it. If you are burned out or in an industry or job you hate, as we talked about earlier, make whatever arrangements you need to in order to change it. Think often, “What if I were to die today?” and don’t leave things unfinished with your spouse. Review the list of regrets above and really think about them. Change your life if you need to -- there’s still time!

I have literally changed my life I in the last decade, and I really do very little that I don’t want to do. Everyone has those things (the dentist and laundry come to mind), but when they are a minority of your time, they’re a lot easier to handle. I don’t let my kids’ schedules dictate my life, as so many of my friends do. They are active, and they participate in things, but not excessively. They have down time, and we work through schedules to make sure they are good for the family and not just the child. I have made my life the way I think honors God the most. I write, I spend time with my husband and kids, I travel near and far, I read, I walk, and I get enough sleep. I don’t serve on committees, go to every single activity or sporting event my kids participate in, or feel compelled to be at church every Sunday. Yes, I’m busy. I write full time, I work part time in our business and in my ministry, and I homeschool. But I leave margins in my life. As an introvert, this is especially key, as I recharge my batteries in these down times.

I used be the one who got asked to do everything, because busy people tend to be open to being even busier. Now, as my friend Cathy says, “When you go away next week you’ll probably write a book and paint a dozen paintings!” Well, no. But I have made my life function in such a way that I am open to God. I wrote the initial draft of this book, fifty thousand words, in a month. Why? Because, once I was released to write it, that’s what I felt I should do. I didn’t spend every minute doing it, and there were a few days here and there where I couldn’t get to it. I don’t feel guilty about those days, I just lived them out and went to the next. Each day, each step, is another for God, and another closer to being like Jesus. I want to enjoy each one and not clutter it up with so much activity that I can’t even see what He’s doing.

One of the things that has really made an impression on me every time I am in Uganda is the contentment with which the people do their tasks. Things in Uganda are hard. Most cooking is done on charcoal. Floors are cleaned with brooms that are just a bunch of reeds lashed together, with no handle. Farming is done with hand tools and cattle. Laundry is done in a bucket by hand and hung to dry. Marketing is done on foot. Things take a long time to do in comparison with our fast-food, fast paced world in the US. And yet, if you watch any Ugandan going about these and the myriad other jobs that make up a typical day there, the first thing you notice is that they don’t complain. And not only that, they sing or hum or smile while they’re doing these tasks. What we would consider back breaking, sub-human labor, they do cheerfully, contentedly. Are there things they could learn from us about organization and ambition and modernization? Sure. But if we did nothing else but learn this one thing from them, it would change our culture. And our hearts.

A lot of what constitutes freedom in Christ is summed up in these ideas of contentment and margin. We are so busy all the time. When we’re not busy, we feel guilty about it. If we’re home and not busy, we start on the project list: cleaning out the pantry, fixing the car, making lists, making calls. We can’t be quiet and still. We have no margins around our life, places of empty space. We are rarely content, because we’re never done. There’s always something that must be done, or should be done, or could be done, and we do these things instead of doing something we want to do, like taking a walk. Not for exercise, just for peace of mind and heart. Like reading a book. Like lying in a hammock and watching the clouds. Like listening in those quiet places for God…

It’s really not complicated. We have it made here in the West. We can get our errands done at giant grocery stores in a tenth the time it takes the rest of the world. We can email from our phones. Our laundry practically does itself. We can do everything so quickly that we can and should have much more down time. If you will just drop the (false) guilt about “doing nothing” and do nothing for awhile, you will see that “nothing” is really a critically important part of your walk. God rarely shouts at you. You have to have quiet times and places in each day to hear Him.

[1]   CS Lewis The Chronicles of Narnia

[2]   CS Lewis The Chronicles of Narnia

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. Do you have regrets about your life? What are they? What can you do to turn those into praise?

2. Are you so serious and busy that you don’t laugh as much as you used to? Do you enjoy simple pleasures? If not, what can you do to change that?

3. Is there margin in your life? If not, what can you change to give yourself that empty space?

CHAPTER NINETEEN

It is very easy to be overwhelmed with what is going on in the world these days. There are a lot of crazy things: wars, riots, mobs, tsunamis, tornadoes, droughts, floods, dictators. You can’t look online or turn on the television for five minutes without finding something new to worry about. I don’t know whether there is more trouble than in the past or not, but I do know that we know about more of it, and sooner, than at any time in history.

But God.

Is He shocked and taken by surprise at the state of our world? No. Did He include in His Word an “out” clause in case your worry and anxiety was really, truly “justified?” No. Corrie Ten Boom had a lot of analogies for worry:

Worry is like a rocking chair - it keeps you moving but it doesn’t get you anywhere.

Worry is like racing the engine of an automobile without letting in the clutch.

Worry is a cycle of inefficient thought whirling around a center of fear.

Her conclusion? “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength.”

Worry and faith can’t exist at the same time. If you have faith that God is trustworthy, that He is good, that He loves you and is control, then you have to give worry over. You have to choose to keep your eyes on Him.

Sometimes you have to do that by playing ostrich for a while. My husband does a lot of political writing, and I do research for him. There are times when I have to tell him I just can’t do it anymore. The weight of all the news reports begins to stifle my spirit, and fear begins to creep in. I have to take a break for a week or two and focus on God, the Kingdom, and my own personal role and relationships, because otherwise I am overwhelmed by all the things going on that I can’t control. While I’m glad to live in modern times for a lot of reasons (air conditioning, air travel and refrigeration being big ones), I don’t enjoy the constant bombardment of bad news and urgency that we get around the clock. And you know what? It’s okay to opt out of that for a while. It’s a spiritual vacation, and it’s free; you just have to turn off the news, put down the paper, and not search the internet for a while, and you’ll be amazed at how much better you’ll feel. It’s like a stalk of wilted celery getting put into crisp, cold water - you’ll perk right up!

Being overwhelmed is a key sentiment in hyperactive world we live in. There is nothing wrong with unplugging. We are all so used to having cell phones and email and smart phones and two thousand channels on the television. We are almost never somewhere where we can’t be reached, where we can’t be made to respond in some way. And everything is a crisis and urgent, if you listen to the people around you. But really, everything isn’t. If you turn your phone off for a day, the world will continue to spin on its axis. If you don’t return emails the minute they arrive on your computer or phone, you won’t start World War III. Remember the days when your parents left you alone while they went to dinner and a movie, and all you knew was where they were so you could look it up in the yellow pages if there was a crisis? And remember that there was almost never a crisis? We are often thrown into a rip tide and think we can’t get out, and thrash around and start to drown. But just like a real rip tide, if you just swim out of the current, you’re free.

Isn’t that the point? To be free? You can’t be free when you are tied to electronic devices and forced to respond to every request as if your life depended on it. If you are doing the work in all the other areas we’ve talked about in this book, take the next radical step and unplug. Regularly. Turn off the phones, close the computer, go outside in the fresh air, and breathe for awhile. Tell your kids only to call you in case of fire, flood or broken bones. Possibly blood, if there’s a lot of it. (Paper cuts don’t count.) Paint. Read. Pray. Study. Write in a journal. Reacquaint yourself with this wonderful concept: silence. Be quiet and still. You can’t be free if you are never alone with God.

If you are a type A personality, you are probably starting to get discouraged. Don’t be! God created you. He’s not shocked that you are a go-getter. But there are things He would probably caution you on. First, to be a go-getter for Him, and not for the world. Second, to be organized, and to understand the difference between things that are truly urgent and things that people say are urgent. Third, to put as much or more energy into your walk with the Lord and your marriage and family as you do in pursuing your career. And fourth, no one but Jesus was ever perfect. He’s not asking you to be perfect. He’s asking you to trust Him and follow Him. When you do that, you will find that your get-up-and-go mellows out some, and that your purpose and work for the Kingdom bring you ample satisfaction.

If you are a type B personality like me, you might see this section as an excuse to do, well, even less. This book isn’t about shirking all responsibility and becoming a twenty-first century hippie. It’s about fully taking on those responsibilities He gives you, those that are Kingdom focused, and doing your best for His glory. It’s very easy for a laid back introvert to think that all he or she has to do is “chill out for God.” But that’s not going to mature you or grow you up sufficiently to live in that vast expanse, that freedom in your life and walk, that you are reading this book to discover. This journey may be easier for you in a lot of ways than for your type A counterparts, but it will still require that you consistently grow and mature and stay focused on the goal.

Remember when you were young, and you just couldn’t wait to be a teenager? And then you couldn’t wait to be sixteen and then eighteen, and then twenty and then twenty-one. All of those birthdays were such big milestones, and you almost wished your childhood away straining to get there. (Fortunately for us, God lets us live in linear time, so we all had to wait and enjoy those years whether we wanted to or not.) We are still like that… We are here and now and need to live to the fullest. But we are still looking ahead to that next thing, that next big milestone that means we are one step closer to being who He wants us to be. We can’t wish it away and sit in a dark room until it gets here. In this maturing process, you don’t go anywhere but backwards when you do nothing. It might feel safer… But it’s a spiritual tar pit.

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. Do you get overwhelmed by the technology and constant bombardment of news and information? Does it make you feel stressed? What can you do today to reduce that burden?

2. How well do you distinguish between truly urgent and what others say is urgent? Do you see how learning this skill can help build margin in your life?

3. Are you a type A or a type B personality? How does that knowledge help you as you navigate your path to freedom?

CHAPTER TWENTY

I read a quote recently by June Jordan that said, “If you are free, you are not predictable and you are not controllable.” I don’t know who she is or what she was referring to, it was one of those random things that caught my eye and I wrote it down. But it is a perfect description of freedom in Christ and I think it’s a perfect description of why the Church, for the most part, really doesn’t want it. It’s hard to plan around a bunch of people who are free, and there are some people whose bureaucratic natures will not let them not plan. And there are a lot of people, including Christians, who struggle mightily with a spirit of control.

You will know how deeply rooted your spirit of control is the first time one of your children gets a learner’s permit to drive. Not being in control of the car and being at the mercy of someone who doesn’t actually know how to control the car is a great test of your level of control issues. My dad used to whack me on the back of the head when I made a mistake; he didn’t even realize he was doing it until I yelled at him to stop. My mother couldn’t drive with me until I’d driven “long enough.” (I didn’t do too badly with my own kids, except for that big hole I wore in the carpet trying to stomp on the non-existent brake.)

It doesn’t take this right of passage experience to know, however, that there are those around you who want to “guide” you, and who get extremely uncomfortable when you won’t be guided. You might also realize that you yourself like to “guide” others to a degree that really isn’t your business. It’s a difficult thing to stop doing, because you know what you know, like what you like, want things done the way you want them done. But it’s not a sign of freedom to be on either side of the control freak title.

There is only one Person who should be controlling you, and that’s God Himself. And there is only one person you should be controlling, and that’s you. Should you listen to advice? Absolutely. Do you need to discipline and teach your children? Of course. But the spirit of control comes in when you want your way, period. When you get angry or upset when something that is minor (such as loading the dishwasher) isn’t done the way you would do it, you have control issues. For everyone’s sake, let it go. Let God be God, and you just be a loving husband or wife, mother or father, daughter or son, and friend.

We also try to carefully control ourselves, at least in some areas of our lives. Maybe you are rigidly in control of your diet or exercise regimen. Perhaps you never let go and just enjoy life, because you want your emotions under control at all times. Watchman Nee said, “For years, maybe, you have tried fruitlessly to exercise control over yourself, and perhaps this is still your experience; but when once you see the truth you will recognize that you are indeed powerless to do anything, but that in setting you aside altogether God has done it all. Such discovery brings human striving and self-effort to an end.” Let God be the only one with control in your life. If you are always looking to Him, always listening and living for Him, your life will play out as a testimony to His singular love and purpose. Listen to Oswald Chambers:

The whole of our life inside and out is to be absolutely haunted by the presence of God. A child’s consciousness is so mother-haunted that although the child is not consciously thinking of its mother, yet when calamity arises, the relationship that abides is that of the mother. So we are to live and move and have our being in God, because the abiding consciousness of God pushes itself to the front all the time.

If we are haunted by God, nothing else can get in, no cares, no tribulation, no anxieties. We see now why our Lord so emphasized the sin of worry. How can we dare to be so utterly unbelieving when God is round us? To be haunted by God is to have an effective barricade against all the onslaughts of the enemy.

“His soul shall dwell at ease.” In tribulation, misunderstanding, slander, in the midst of all these things, if our life is hid with Christ in God, He will keep us at ease. We rob ourselves of the marvelous revelation of this abiding companionship of God. “God is our Refuge” - nothing can come through that shelter.[1]

Let’s look at the second part of Ms. Jordan’s quote: why are those who are free not predictable? Because the Spirit of God blows, and those who are free follow that wind. There is evidence that the ancient Christian Celts called the Holy Spirit the Wild Goose (“an geadh-glas”). Mark Batterson did a great Bible study book called “Chase the Goose” in which he delves into this metaphor and how we can apply it to our lives today. In the context of the quote by June Jordan, we can see why those who follow the Wild Goose might be seen by those not living a Kingdom life to be, well, crazy. Because God, His Son, and the Holy Spirit live outside of time. They see all, from beginning to end. So when the Holy Spirit tells you to do something that seems sudden and random to you and everyone who knows you, you must remember that to God, it is the next logical thing. He sees you at the end of your life already, no matter how old you are now, or how long you’ll live. He knows what purpose He has put before you, who you need to meet, where you need to go, and what you need to do. That Wild Goose chase that seems insane to you (and your mother) is the next step on the road to get you there.

He sees it! He knows! Isn’t that amazing! To us, tomorrow follows today. We have calendars and day timers and set appointments, all because we live in a linear world. But God sees it all at once. He sees you playing with GI Joe when you were five, serving in Iraq when you were twenty, and celebrating your fiftieth wedding anniversary, all at the same time. So because He sees that anniversary, when you come home from Iraq you get the strangest feeling that you really need to go to that lame birthday party your Aunt Betty is throwing for cousin Tim the geek. And there, you meet your future wife. When you follow the Wild Goose, you never know where that wind will blow you; you can only know that if you follow it, if you allow God to be the one with control, and put all your faith in him -- be haunted by Him -- “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28 New American Standard, emphasis mine.)

When you are free, you don’t hold on too tightly to the people and things in your life. If your spouse or child or a friend is chasing that Wild Goose, your spirit will know it and you can’t help but be happy. It’s like your feelings when someone you love, who is born again, dies. Yes, you’re sad that they aren’t with you anymore. You miss their laugh and their company, and you know that they have other loved ones who will miss them also. But you can’t be too miserable; after all, they’re with Jesus! That human part of us can’t help but react to the emotions of loss, but our spirit soars since we know where they are, and know that we’ll see them again. It’s the same in the Kingdom here on earth. You will feel those human emotions. But watching someone set out on a Kingdom adventure… There’s nothing better than that!

As I said before, I travel to Africa a couple of times a year, and leave my husband and sometimes my daughter at home and college respectively. I understand that it is hard to be the one left behind; the one on the adventure is having a ball, the time is flying, and God is moving. The one left at home… well, is at home. My husband is getting ready to launch a new book, and in this next year he will probably be embarking on some potentially significant travel of his own. Up til now, he hasn’t had to travel very much, so this will be another new dynamic for us in our marriage, but I’m so excited! While I’ll certainly miss him when we’re apart, I want him to go already! When it’s a Kingdom opportunity, you just want to see what God does.

This is the hallmark of Kingdom adventure: excitement! Helen Keller said, “Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” You’ve learned to overcome fear. You’ve been following God long enough to trust Him. Here’s one instance where, if Someone tells you to jump off a [hopefully metaphorical] bridge, do it!

[1]   Oswald Chambers My Utmost for His Highest, June 3

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. On a scale of 1 to 10, how controlling are you? How can you let go of that spirit? If you are easily controlled by others, what do you need to do to assert yourself and your freedom?

2. What do you think of the analogy of the Holy Spirit as a Wild Goose? Is it exciting or frightening, or even offensive? Why?

3. Do you want to be haunted by God as Oswald Chambers explains it? Why or why not?

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

IS IT ALL THE SAME?

The definition of sameness is this: monotony, uniformity. Synonyms include hum-drum and monotonous. This word could describe most of our lives. Not only is there not adventure, there is a monotonous quality that deadens the heart. In Waking the Dead John Eldredge uses the term “alert and focused times zero” to describe us. We go through life in a fog of sameness: kids to school, meatloaf on Tuesdays, same television shows every night. We approach our relationships with a practiced sameness, too. Have you ever noticed that your kids relate to each other the same way at fifteen as they did at ten? That’s because they haven’t paid attention to the changes, and are doing the same things they’ve always done. So are we!

But God.

God has an adventure out there with your name on it. Will it involve lots of travel to exotic lands and lots of travel shots? Maybe not. But if you are listening to God, if you are on this Wild Goose chase, the purpose you were created for will seem like as much of an adventure to you as climbing Mount Everest or mapping the whitewater in deepest Africa. If you were created to be an accountant, that will be exciting to you, and nothing anyone says should be able to take that away from you. We are all part of the body, remember? We need each and every part, doing its part, to keep the body healthy and moving forward in Kingdom work. Without every part, we are going to have some serious problems keeping this whole thing going until Jesus comes back.

That’s why it is so important to distinguish between working for God and working with Him. If you’re working for Him, you will be envious of others doing more “glamorous” things than you. If you’re working for Him, you are always trying to find the next thing to do or the next place to go, rather than keeping your eyes only on what He shows you. If you’re working with Him, you are excited about your brothers’ and sisters’ adventures, because they are advancing the Kingdom and maturing in their own walks. You are excited about your own purpose because God has placed that purpose as the deepest desire of your heart, and you can’t believe you are lucky enough to be able to do it. Your life isn’t like mine, and we can thank God for that! David Jeremiah said, “The only way the corporate Body of Christ will fulfill the mission Christ has given it is for individual Christians to have a vision for fulfilling that mission personally.”

You’re in a real life “Mission Impossible.” You will be given an assignment, and should you choose to accept it, your life won’t ever be the same. (Can you hear the theme music?) You will have fellow operatives, some who you will know, and some who are covert. You are all working for the same thing, fighting the same war through different battles. You might be Frodo, called on to for the most dangerous mission of all. Or you might be Sam, charged with being his companion. Your part in the story might be small or very great, but you can be sure it will be integral to the outcome. God will never make you do anything. You have free will. But should you choose to accept your role, your adventure, you can be sure that you will get a hero’s welcome when you meet Him face to face.

“Wait just a second…” you might be thinking. “I know what happens to those guys in “Mission Impossible. It ain’t called impossible for nothing!” Yes, you’re right. Not all endings are happy in the sense we usually mean it. Adventures, by definition, aren’t easy. Plan A almost never works, and you might end up around Plan Q before something does. You might need some MacGyver skills and a good supply of spiritual Velcro and bungee cords. Having people praying for you is never a bad idea, either. There are enemies out there, and remember, they want to devour you. They want you out of this war. They want you to take your ball and go home when it gets hard and scary and maybe a little foggy. But you have something they can’t touch, for “with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26 New International Version) Your devotion to the Kingdom and to doing His will is terrifying to that enemy, as Screwtape says to his protégé Wormwood in CS Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters: “Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.” (Emphasis mine)

You are at war. When you pop over to Kroger, you may not feel like you are, but you can be sure that there are demons from hell hot on your trail. As long as you are living for Church, your job, golf on Saturdays, or anything but God and His Kingdom, the enemy of your soul is happy to let you be where you are , which is on the wrong track. But just start living for the Kingdom, and all hell will break lose on your life for a while. Literally.

One of the things that surprised me when I first read the New Testament seriously was that it talked so much about a Dark Power in the universe - a mighty evil spirit who was held to be the Power behind death and disease, and sin. The difference is that Christianity thinks this Dark Power was created by God, and was good when he was created, and went wrong. Christianity agrees with Dualism that this universe is at war. But it does not think this is a war between independent powers. It thinks it is a civil war, a rebellion, and that we are living in a part of the universe occupied by the rebel.

Enemy-occupied territory - that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage….I know someone will ask me, “Do you really mean, at this time of day, to reintroduce our old friend the devil - hoofs and horns and all?” Well, what the time of day has to do with it I do not know. And I am not particular about the hoofs and horns. But in other respects my answer is “Yes, I do.”[1]

Our most beloved stories and epics are about this very thing - a hero/king who comes and defeats evil, with much peril. The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, Braveheart, Robin Hood, Star Wars, The Matrix… We love stories about a hero overcoming all odds. Boys, especially, play heroes in all sorts of ways as children: soldiers, firemen, policemen. Even unbelievers usually want good to triumph over evil. The difference here is that this isn’t an epic story. This is your life. I would say this is your life now, but really, it’s always been this way, you just didn’t see it. Elisha prayed that his servant would see the spiritual realm when facing Syrian forces in 2 Kings 6:15-17, and here’s what happened, “So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.” (vs 16)

You cannot behave as you have behaved before. You are getting on that on-ramp to the super highway now, and not only are you in danger from one semi, you’ve got a whole fleet bearing down on you. You will have to perfect spiritual warfare, wear your armor, and listen for your marching orders. But the good news is that, if the enemy is fighting you hard, you are on the right track. He’s trying to push you back because you are making a successful incursion into enemy territory. It’s a comfort in dark times. And God is good… All the time. He sees you as strong with the power of his Son, and He entrusts you with important battles to fight. He’s the general, sending out His elite troops, confident that they can get the job done. No matter what your part in the war -- carrier pigeon, gunner, spy -- your role is crucial.

Don’t worry though, you get shore leave. Your Father knows that you can’t actually fight all the time. You will have periods of intense productivity in your purpose, which is accompanied by times of intense warfare. But then you will have down times. I don’t mean a vacation, although you could be on one in this time. I mean times where you might be questioning your purpose because you just can’t seem to make things come together. You have no real ideas, no real motivation. Nothing’s wrong, you’re not questioning your faith or falling into old sin. You just feel on hold. Well, you are! You are recharging, whether you realize it at the time or not. You’re not being lazy, any more than a soldier who leaves the front lines for a two week leave is. You are combating fatigue. You are remembering what you’re fighting for. You’re spending time with your loved ones without the distraction of your calling. You’re just being. Being still. Being quiet. Being calm.

Enjoy it! Don’t get complacent and think the war has been won, or that you’re “done.” If you’re not dead, you’re not done. But if you are listening to GOd and working with Him, He will protect you from becoming burned out and ineffective. He created you; He knows what you need to refresh. Let new spiritual waters refill the tanks. He says, “I will refresh the weary and satisfy the faint.” (Jeremiah 31:25 New International Version) Jesus said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28 English Standard Version) He knows. He knows you get tired. He knows you get weary. He knows the burdens of your warfare.

My guess is that, after all this talk of warfare and battles and weariness, you are trying to figure out what this has to do with freedom. You’ve been told you’ve been drafted into a war you didn’t ask for and probably don’t really want to fight. When you were saved no one got into all this stuff, or maybe you wouldn’t have signed up for all this after all… Actually, the Spirit called and you answered. You are His. He is the Creator and Lord of the universe, the Lover of your soul, the author of the Great Romance. He created your heart and soul, and He wants nothing more than to have you bring Him glory by your exploits for the Kingdom. The world has nothing on the One who can offer you eternal life with Him (we all will have eternal life… some of us with God, and some of us separated from Him forever). You weren’t drafted, you volunteered, just as our wonderful servicemen and women do in this great country. You volunteered to fight and die for freedom and the Kingdom. There is more honor and glory in that than anything else here on this earth.

So you are a free soldier in the Lord’s army. There is a poem, author unknown, that has made the email rounds for years. Here is part of it:

I cannot be discouraged enough to turn me aside.

I cannot lose enough to cause me to quit.

When Yeshua called me into this Army, I had nothing.

If I end up with nothing, I will still come out even. I will win.

My God will supply all my needs. I am more than a conqueror.

I will always triumph. I can do all things through Christ.

Devils cannot defeat me. People cannot disillusion me.

Weather cannot weary me. Sickness cannot stop me.

Battles cannot beat me. Money cannot buy me.

Governments cannot silence me, and hell cannot handle me!

This is your life if you want freedom. Freedom is never, ever free…

[1]   CS Lewis Mere Christianity

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. Did you realize that you were in a war? How does that make you feel?

2. Now that you know, can you see the times of battle and the times of rest? What can you do during your times of rest to get strong again for battle?

3. Reread the Lord’s Army poem. What does that stir in you? Excitement? Fear? Why?

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“In Your freedom I will live.” That’s what my tattoo says in Hebrew. The next part of the song says, “I offer devotion.” That’s what God asks: your devotion, your obedience, your fulfillment of His plans, your advancement of the Kingdom. John Eldredge says, “We are in the process of being unveiled. We were created to reflect God’s glory, born to bear his image, and he ransomed us to reflect that glory again. Every heart was given a mythic glory, and that glory is being restored…[1]” You were made to reflect God’s glory, and the enemy stole that from all mankind at the beginning of the story.

But God.

God made sure that wasn’t the end of the story. God provided a way for you to be restored, to be ransomed, to be healed, to be awakened out of our “alert and focused times zero” lives and thrust into the midst of the His Story. (History… cool, huh?) We can’t go back to the Garden and spend our days walking with God in the cool of the evening. The cat is out of the bag, and isn’t going back in, so we have to live out that reality here on this earth. But you were created for the Garden. You were created to be that intimate with God. Jesus paid the price, once and for all, so that you can be that intimate with Him again, in your lifetime, here on earth. I had a friend who once had a stranger prophecy over her that she would do great things. The catch was that it would be in the millennial Kingdom, after Jesus returned. Of course, my friend found this very discouraging, like God didn’t have any use for her here and now. Well, I don’t think it was a prophetic word in the first place, and I know for a fact that He has a use for all of us here on this earth, right here, right now.

Will every minute be exceptional and exciting? No.

Sometimes it is not difficulty that makes me think God will forsake me, but drudgery. There is no Hill Difficulty to climb, no vision given, nothing wonderful or beautiful, just the commonplace day in and day out - can I hear God’s say-so in these things?

We have the idea that God is going to do some exceptional thing, that He is preparing and fitting us for some extraordinary thing by and by, but as we go on in grace we find that God is glorifying Himself here and now, in the present minute. If we have God’s say-so behind us, the most amazing strength comes, and we learn to sing in the ordinary days and ways.[2]

Chambers isn’t saying that we won’t have those adventures and exceptional things. He’s saying that we can’t suspend living while we wait for them. We must live in the “drudgery” -- the groceries and the bills and the sick children -- so that God is always being glorified in our life. It’s easy for someone to listen to you talk about your exciting missions trip to Africa and see God in it. But when they can see God in how you relate to your spouse, in how you enjoy your children, in the freedom to live and laugh every day and not be consumed by worry and made dull by the sameness of regular life, that’s when you know you are walking in freedom. When they want what you have every day, not just when you are showing your PowerPoint presentation of the good work you did for the adorable orphans.

You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.[3]

Yes, you are the light of the world… But you are also a lamp. In the house. That’s a small area, especially in Jesus’ day. You must shine your light in all things that you do, you must show the world the real life of a Christ-follower, and by that they will glorify God. And the Kingdom advances one more step.

CHRIST FOLLOWERS AROUND THE WORLD

There are many examples out there of people living this way, although fewer than I, and certainly than God, would like. They lead ordinary extraordinary lives for Him. Here are some of their stories.

SUZANNE

My friend Suzanne lives in Uganda. She has thirteen Ugandan children, ages three to nineteen. She has two natural children in their late teens and early twenties. She has four Ukrainian children in their twenties. (Yes, that’s 19 children!) She doesn’t have an orphanage, she has a family, and it is a fabulous family. She’s not a missionary, and she doesn’t reside in Uganda. She lives in Uganda. It’s her home. And she really lives. She dances, she plays piano sometimes at a local hotel, she travels and goes on safari, she knows all the great restaurants and ice cream places in Kampala, and is one of the few women in town who wears high heels to the market. She helps a ministry in the slums, and is totally invested in the lives of the women there. She always has at least 20 people in her house, and yet is calm and funny and gracious. Her husband is in the US teaching the Word of God most of the year, but she is totally content in her life. She has bad days like the rest of us, and a lot of warfare to fight, but she is totally free to be just who God created her to be, and she is completely focused on doing those things in Uganda that He tells her are for her.

We have had many conversations about this, because we have known each other for twenty years. And when we met, we were nothing alike. She was a pastor’s wife, and very much in that role. We had children the same age, and our church was small, so we knew each other, but we weren’t friends. They moved, and we kept in touch for a few years, but then I lost them when they moved to the Ukraine. I reconnected with her a few years ago, but really didn’t know what to expect when I visited Uganda the first time. What I discovered is that we had been on the same path to freedom. The scenery was different for each of us, of course, but the path was the same. And we are now so very much alike it’s actually quite weird! We are truly soul mates in the Kingdom, and we sit for hours having tea or rum punch looking out over Lake Victoria and talking about life, God, where He’s moving, and what He’s showing us.

DAN & JEN

We know a young couple -- I say “young” because we met them as teenagers, although they just celebrated their fifteenth wedding anniversary -- named Dan and Jen. They have been missionaries with Youth With a Mission (YWAM) since their teens. They have lived in India and Thailand, and they work with Muslims. They have moved a lot, had financial difficulties, Dan was even briefly jailed in Laos once for taking photographs. But they are still on fire for what God’s doing where they are and all over the world in the Muslim community. They are daily walking out His instructions for their lives, learning difficult languages, schooling their kids, and befriending Muslims and telling them about Jesus. You probably know enough about Muslim clerics to know this isn’t an altogether safe calling. But they have so much joy and fruit in their lives, and every time we get newsletters or see them on sabbatical, even when there are challenges and requests for prayer, their continued excitement in their assignment is palpable.

BOB & RITA

We have known this couple for almost twenty years. For all of those twenty years they have struggled financially. The cars and furniture they had were all given to them. They struggled many times to buy food. In the last couple of years, they began to get serious about paying off their credit card debt. In their mid-fifties, they had never owned a home or had a car loan, but they had a lot of debt in comparison to their income. It wasn’t an easy road, and it took longer than they hoped, but last year they paid off all their debt. And almost immediately, their lives opened up in a way they had never experienced before. There was a lot less tension in the marriage. They’ve purchased their first home. They have been able to give gifts to their adult kids and grandkids. They have been able to help their youngest purchase a car. They have options now, where they were always penned in before. And this is the friend who had the revelation of freedom one New Year. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

JENNY & SANDRA

Jenny and Sandra have a wonderful mission work in Zambia. Jenny had been working with orphans for many years in this country, but they started their work in Zambia when they were both grandmothers. They didn’t go under any denominational umbrella. God told them to go, so they went. What started out a dozen years ago as a small work has grown to provide food, education and shelter for hundreds of kids. They go to Zambia for many months each year, and spend the other months tirelessly raising funds and working on their projects from afar. They are what we would consider “retirement age” but these ladies are far from retired! They have battled through sicknesses and surgeries and are still going strong, following the Lord’s lead and seeing the fruit of His vision growing all the time.

THE BEAKS

When Tom was in his seventies and his wife a few years younger they were saved. The Lord had them on the fast track. Tom sold his lucrative business and retired, and then they waited on the Lord for instructions. They felt they were supposed to go on the mission field, but didn’t know where, so they decided to pray about it separately for a period of time, not speaking of it, and see if the Lord would lead them. After the weeks had passed, they compared notes and found that God had directed both of them to Togoland. They had never even heard of Togoland! So they sold and stored their belongings, told their befuddled kids goodbye, and went to Togoland, literally alone except for God. When they got to Togoland, they explored and asked a lot of questions. They discovered that what was very much needed, which was (not surprisingly) in Tom’s skill set, were wells. So they started drilling wells. They worked in Togoland for several years, and, when Tom was in his eighties, they were called to Ecuador. And off they went. This remarkable couple spent their “golden years” right along side God, digging physical and spiritual wells.

There are, of course, many more stories. There are many books written about Kingdom people, although most aren’t living the kind of life that anyone wants to write a book about. They are quietly obeying and bringing glory to God within their sphere, bringing the attention to Him and not to themselves. That others see the light in them is not because they are pointing out the light. It is because, in the darkness around them, the light shines, and points to Jesus.

[1]   John Eldredge Waking the Dead pg 75

[2]   Oswald Chambers My Utmost for His Highest, June 4

[3]   Matthew 5:14-16 New International Version

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. Are you beginning to understand the importance of your life in the scope of the Kingdom? How does that make you feel?

2. How can you bring God glory in your every day life?

3. Do you know people like those listed above? Describe them. What qualities do you want to emulate?

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Jesus said, ““I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33 New International Version) And I have told you these things so that you will see that you can have freedom in Christ, but that it’s not a smooth path. Many preachers over the years have misled people with a “prosperity doctrine” approach, or the “health and wealth gospel.” This isn’t Scriptural, and many people have been disappointed and left the faith because it won’t, and can’t, work. God isn’t a big gum ball machine or ATM. He isn’t as concerned with your health and wealth as you are. He’s concerned about your soul, your spirit, and His Kingdom. We’d like it to be an easy formula to an easy, prosperous life. Who wouldn’t? But if you set your mind on that path, you will never be anything but bitter and disappointed, and mad at God.

In our marriage we have had our business and fleet of vehicles flooded in a hurricane; vehicles, equipment and money stolen a dozen or more times; a family rift with unsaved siblings over an estate, that led to a legal dispute and a complete separation from those who tried to harm us; a prodigal child (who hasn’t returned, but we are believing God); a church split; a tornado hitting our house; and many other major and minor catastrophes. People tell us all the time we should write a memoir, except no one would believe it. So I can tell you from first hand battlefield experience that you will not succeed in your walk to freedom if you resist change, call it quits when it’s hard, or look at circumstances and not God.

It’s an act of faith and an act of courage to dedicate your life to God in this new way. There isn’t a manual, except the Bible, and everyone’s walk will be different. Just like in the parable of the talents, you will have hardships in proportion to how much you have been entrusted with by God. Jesus said, “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” (Luke 12:48 New International Version) If you are an American, you qualify for having been given much, no matter what you perceive your situation to be, but even among those in the “top earner” category in the world, there are going to be different things required. Remember the body analogy and don’t look at your brothers and sisters in Christ who may not be having as much warfare or as much trouble as you are. For them, it’s a lot. From you, more is required. It’s not about “fairness,” it’s about the Kingdom, and your role in it. Not everyone can be a general, and not everyone can be a spy. We need the privates and the cooks and the office staff, too.

CS Lewis said, “Jesus “is the ‘first fruits,’ the ‘pioneer of life.’ He has forced open a door that has been blocked since the death of the first man. He has met, fought, and beaten the King of Death. Everything is different because He has done so. This is the beginning of the New Creation: a new chapter in cosmic history has opened.”[1] (Emphasis mine) Everything is different. Not some things, all things. “[Miracles] anticipate powers which all men will have when they also are ‘sons’ of God and enter into that ‘glorious liberty.’ Christ’s isolation is not that of a prodigy but of a pioneer. He is the first of His kind; He will not be the last[2].”

You are the beneficiary of Christ’s coming to the earth. You have been saved by His death, resurrection and ascension, but you have also been left here to be a little Christ on earth. To be His disciple, His standard bearer, His temple. You have within you the power to live as He lived. He said you would! Not only did the Father send the Holy Spirit after Jesus’ Resurrection, Jesus said in Mark 16:17-18, “And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands, and if they drink any deadly poison it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick and they will recover.” Remember John 14L 12-14? “Truly, truly I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do, and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name I will do it.”

[1]   CS Lewis Miracles

[2]   CS Lewis Miracles

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. Are you willing to give as much to the Kingdom as you’ve received through Jesus’ death? Why or why not?

2. Do you think that being free is worth the sacrifices you’ll have to make? Why or why not?

3. Do you believe that you have the power, through Jesus, to live this kind of life?

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

WHERE ARE YOU HEADED?

Everyone’s purpose and destiny is different in form, but the same in substance. We are all striving to finish our race as much like Jesus as possible. We are all striving to do the will of the Father and hear “Well done!” when we see Him face to face. Beyond that, there’s no roadmap other than obedience. But keep that word in your mind: FREEDOM! See it just like that, or bigger; maybe, like me, you see that word, and “LIVE” in neon flashing lights. That’s where the Father wants you: living life abundantly. Remember, that’s what Jesus said He came for, “To give you life, and that abundantly.” It’s a promise, and it’s your inheritance.

What does living in freedom, abundantly, mean? It means I am free to run, to dance, to LIVE. Nothing anyone says can stop me if I’m doing what God wants. I am not ashamed to do whatever He asks me to do, like David, when he danced behind the Ark coming into Jerusalem. His wife chided him… He didn’t care. He was dancing before and for the Lord, and that was all that mattered. Do you want to dance in worship? Do it! Do you want to run hard after whatever you see He has for you? Do it! You’re free! Let your heart take over and bellow out, “I am free!.”

When you are walking in freedom you are walking in discernment. If someone comes out with a prediction of a day and time for the Rapture, you know your Scripture, you know your Father, and you can rest in the freedom of knowing that only God knows the day and time of Jesus’ return. You can pray for those who are going to be hurt by their misplaced belief, rather than wonder and worry about it. If someone tries to sell you on a plan that’s “too good to be true” you can trust that the Spirit of God will not lead you astray. Always keep a running dialogue going between you and the Spirit, and you will find many pitfalls avoided.

When you’re walking in freedom you are able to reclaim those things about you that were squashed out by schools, peers, and churches. Were you a very creative, artistic child? That’s probably still there, just waiting to be freed from the cage it was put in by an amateur art critic. Do you love or hate fashion, or a particular style? Maybe you’ve been dressing preppy or matronly or executive but that’s just not you. Change it! Express yourself. Be who God made you to be; who He is turning you into is beautiful! Did someone tell you not to have long hair after forty, so you cut it off but feel like you’re wearing a wig? Grow it out! Who says long hair after forty is a no-no, anyway? Paul says, “Long hair is her pride and joy.” (1 Corinthians 11:15 New Living Translation)

What about relationships? Well, you have learned in this walk to practice agape love. You are putting others in front of yourself and not demanding your rights. What you will find is that your close relationships have completely opened up and have come to a level of intimacy and trust that you didn’t know was possible. When you take your rights out of it, when you just act in love towards your loved ones (what a unique concept!), you will find that they begin to act similarly to you. If they aren’t on this journey with you, they might not get it all the time. They might still want their rights, or be slow to apologize. But you have taken a lot of the conflict out by your own actions -- the only ones you are responsible for -- and so the bumps begin to smooth out. You begin to trust more, to feel safe and comfortable. You begin to talk again, share your dreams and what God is showing you, and delve into your spouse’s or child’s or friend’s dreams, too. The level of intimacy begins to strengthen, and one day you will find yourself amazed at what God has done in your relationship without any real plan to “fix it.” It’s just fixed!

I am assuming here that you have a spouse who is saved. However, it’s possible that you were saved after marriage and your spouse is unsaved. Please know that you can’t wait for him or her. Your first obligation is to your Father, and He will ask you about the opportunities He gave you when you see Him face to face. We can pray that by your example your spouse will be led to the Lord. It is possible, though, that he or she will become hostile and feel abandoned as you move out into your own path in the Kingdom. Remember the quote from Oswald Chambers, and leave your loved ones to God. No matter how it turns out in the natural, if you are truly following God and leaning on Him, He will work out your situation for His good.

GOTTA GROW UP SOME TIME

I have a sign in my sunroom, where I have my quiet time, that says, “Happiness is not in the destination, but the journey.” Our entire life is a journey, whether it’s long or short. Just like our physical growth, there is a set path for our spiritual maturity. Some of us may hit puberty before others, or go gray, or enter menopause, but we can’t escape by opting out. Not many of us liked middle school, but we were still twelve, thirteen and fourteen. You can cover your gray hair, but it’s still there. You may have loved your twenties, but nothing on this earth could halt your aging out of them. The same can be said for our spiritual growth. Paul says to the Corinthians, “Dear brothers and sisters, when I was with you I couldn’t talk to you as I would to spiritual people. I had to talk as though you belonged to this world or as though you were infants in the Christian life.” (1 Corinthians 3:1 New Living Translation) The author of Hebrews says, “Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” (Hebrews 5:13-14 New International Version) Peter says, “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation.” (1 Peter 2:3 New International Version)

You must start as a newborn, and then you grow up. With perseverance and obedience, you will grow up into a father or mother in the faith, a warrior for the Kingdom. But you can’t jump ahead. You can’t be like a typical child, and start counting down for the next birthday the day after the present one. You have to grow, and this kind of growing only happens one way: up. If you, like the prodigal, decide to take what is not rightfully yours, you will stop growing at that point. Paul likens it to an athlete training for a race and then running it. You can’t run it without training, and you can’t skip from the starting line to the finish line without running the entire distance in between. Some of us may be faster than others, some might be early or late bloomers. But you can never grab the gold ring without first putting in the effort.

One day, though, you will wake up and realize that you are in a vast expanse. All around you is open space in which to do whatever you want to do. You can eat of all the fruits in this land. You can run and dance and laugh. Your spirit is in tune with the Spirit of God, and you want what He wants. While the enemy never stops tempting and taunting you, you have spiritual eyes to discern it now, and your sword is sharp and your armor strong. When you find worry or fear sneaking up on you, you seize it by the throat and throw it back to the pit from whence it came. You don’t relish the battles, but you have the confidence that you can fight them, because you trust your General. “To live is Christ, and to die is gain.” (Phillipians 1:21) Are you super human? Nope. But you are living with a super human God!

I realized the other day that it has been a long time since I felt fear. It was a strange realization, since it’s hard to see a negative. But I realized that the last time I was truly fearful was in August of 2011. I have honestly never in my entire Christian life gone that long without being afraid. I was so overwhelmed with the goodness of God that I stopped mid-stride; more than likely my mouth fell open in surprise!

This book hasn’t been written to show you what it looks like when you’ve “arrived.” I haven’t arrived, and yet I’m here. I’m in that expanse, and am finding that, even in the challenges and frustrations of life on this planet, God is always with me and I can always listen, hear Him and follow. I have no idea what the future holds, but I can tell you one thing with a certainty. I will live it. And I will live it in such a way that when I stand before Him He can say, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”

I don’t really like the movie Braveheart because it has a sad ending. But it has an incredible theme of freedom throughout. This scene is one that you should keep in mind as you weigh the cost of pursuing freedom (emphasis mine):

William Wallace: I am William Wallace! And I see a whole army of my countrymen, here in defiance of tyranny. You’ve come to fight as free men... and free men you are. What will you do with that freedom? Will you fight?

Veteran: Fight? Against that? No! We will run. And we will live.

William Wallace: Aye, fight and you may die. Run, and you’ll live... at least a while. And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willin’ to trade ALL the days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they’ll never take... OUR FREEDOM

You can live all your days just as you have been living up til now. You can be safe, and perhaps happy sometimes, and be productive and maybe successful in the world. But you have a chance to be so much more, to live a life of adventure and purpose in God that can only come when you don’t let the world and the enemy take your freedom. Real freedom, the kind you fight and die for. Will you? Will you join us in the vast expanse, in the Kingdom of our God? You will be most welcome…

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. Using the analogy of a child growing up, at what age do you think your spiritual maturity falls?

2. This is a lifelong pursuit. Are you willing to make that commitment?

3. What would your answer be to William Wallace’s last challenge?

An Excerpt From

CHAPTER ONE

Byrd’s Creek, SC

August 4, 1860

“THREE HUNDRED? DO I HEAR three hundred?” The auctioneer looked searchingly over the small crowd huddled under umbrellas. The stone steps of the small courthouse were slick, puddles settling where the masons had failed to even the surface. A dozen had braved the weather for the spectacle, but of those, only three were bidding. The rest watched, sympathetic eyes on the young man whose heritage was being sold out from under him.

A rotund man in a black suit flicked up his hand quickly, face stoic.

“Three hundred to Mr. Tunney. Do I hear three fifty? Three hundred and fifty dollars for choice farmland?” Once again he scanned the crowd, stopping briefly on each of the three who had entered the fray. A tall, middle-aged man with a burgundy coat and top hat raised his eyebrows and nodded. The auctioneer nodded back.

“Three hundred fifty to Mr. Byrd. Four hundred?” Squinting as a brief shaft of sunlight broke through the clouds, he saw the disapproval in many of the faces staring back at him. Stealing at glance at young Rafe Colton, former owner of the land being auctioned, he recognized the shock, liberally laced with hatred, in the tall boy’s face.

“Four hundred? Anyone?” He gave a final scan of three men, seeing resignation in two and triumph in the last. “Sold! For three hundred and fifty dollars to Mr. Hugh Byrd.” Pausing for the customary applause, he quickly moved on when he was greeted by nothing but silence. “Mr. Byrd, if you will please go inside, there is the matter of paperwork.” The auctioneer turned on his heels and entered the building as the rain began to fall in earnest. He didn’t want to look out over those disapproving faces any longer than necessary, and he knew the buyer would follow. And why not? He’d arranged the auction himself, and rigged his winning bid.

Sixteen-year-old Livvie Byrd clasped her father’s arm, holding him back. She was a foot shorter than he, petite and usually modest in her actions in public, but she was livid. “Please Daddy, don’t do this. It isn’t right!” Her brown eyes looked black in her anger, the pupils invisible. Her damp chestnut hair was escaping its bun, curling around her face.

Hugh snatched his arm away, straightening his long velvet coat and silk cravat meticulously. “Mariah Colton borrowed money she couldn’t repay, and her only asset has now been sold to satisfy those debts. It is business, child, nothing more.” He began to walk up the stairs, lowering the umbrella against the wind driven rain. Livvie followed after him.

“You’ve left them with nothing!”

Her father scoffed and kept walking. “We left them with more than we should. They have the house, and five acres. The son can farm that land.”

“Five acres of trees, and a house practically falling down around their ears!”

“Trees can be felled, and houses repaired.” He flung open the doors to the courthouse and put out a hand to stop her following.

“By one boy with no money?” she asked, incensed.

“Enough! How they live is no matter to me. Money was borrowed and not repaid, taxes were not paid for three years. The judge declared an auction. I have purchased the land. That is the end.” Hugh Colton slammed the door shut in his daughter’s face.

Holding her small umbrella, she stood facing the door for a long moment. Her cotton lawn skirts were wet to the knee, and Livvie finally realized that she needed to get out of the rain before she caught her death. She turned slowly, finding that the crowd had dispersed, leaving only Rafe Colton. He held no umbrella, so his blond hair was plastered to his head, his clothing soaked to the skin, boots waterlogged. He stared at her, loathing in his eyes. She stayed still, afraid to move, afraid to speak. She’d known Rafe her entire life, but this boy in front of her was a new creature, one born of hatred and despair. Finally Rafe stuffed his hat on his head, shoved his hands into his pockets, turned on his heel, and stalked away.

The rain had stopped, leaving air that felt saturated and heavy, almost steaming in the heat of the August afternoon. Byrd’s Creek, located twenty miles south of Charleston on Edisto Island, held onto humidity like a dog held onto a bone. Surrounded on all sides by rivers and the Atlantic Ocean, the island had more than its share of mosquitoes, snakes and leeches, but no one could deny its beauty, or its rich, fertile soil.

Brushing back a lock of wet hair, Livvie leaned into the heavy front door, pushing it open. The darkness inside the house calmed her, and she placed her wet umbrella in the brass stand by the door with a sigh of relief. The walk back from the courthouse, only three blocks from her family’s two story Charleston style house, had been made through mud-slogged streets. The sight of the gracious double front porches and wide front steps, and the thought of a cool glass of tea, had caused her to pick up her pace, and also to miss the large mud puddle in her path. Her shoes were likely ruined, a fact her father would no doubt point out as yet another reason she shouldn’t have gone to the auction.

“Mama?” she called out, picking up her soaked skirts and shaking them, spraying the polished wood floor with muddy water. She unlaced and kicked off her sodden boots and left them by the door, leaning down to remove her stockings as well. Straightening, she looked down the wide dim hallway, past the curving staircase. The small parlor and the kitchen were beyond, places her mother was likely to be.

“Mama? You there? I’ll need a towel, I’m afraid.” She stood in place, dripping. If her father came home now, he would be furious at the condition of the floor. She listened, but didn’t hear any movement in the house. With a sigh, she reached back and unlaced her skirts, allowing the hoops to stack neatly on the floor as she stepped over them. She quickly went to the stairs and raced to her bedroom. She had almost reached her door at the end of the hall when her parents’ bedroom door opened and her mother stepped out.

Hand flying to her mouth, her mother stared at her, eyebrows raised in alarm. Realizing it was Livvie, she ran her eyes up and down her daughter’s form, seeing her lack of clothing.

“What are you doing, Olivia?” her mother demanded. “Put some clothes on this instant!”

Livvie laughed, giving her mother a damp hug. “I called to you, but you didn’t come, and meanwhile I was dripping all over Daddy’s fancy floors. I’ll change and go gather the wet things.” She turned to go to her room.

“What happened?”

Livvie turned back to face her mother, knowing she wasn’t asking about the condition of her clothes.

“Did he buy the land?”

Livvie nodded sadly. “He did. He bid against Mr. Tunney and Mr. Montgomery, but he got it for just three hundred and fifty dollars…” Livvie let that hang there for a moment, waiting to see how her mother would react.

“Three hundred and fifty… For seventy-five acres. Seems like those good gentlemen might have thought it worth a bit more.”

“Those good gentlemen had no intentions of buying that land, Mama. Daddy wanted it, so Daddy got it, plain and simple. Nobody in Byrd’s Creek is going to go against Hugh Byrd when he wants something.”

“What about Mariah? And Rafe?” Clara asked.

“Mrs. Colton didn’t come. One of the ladies told me she hadn’t gotten out of bed this last month. Rafe was there, mad as a hornet, but what could he do? The judge had decided it had to be sold, and Daddy insisted he wasn’t doing anything wrong by buying it. He said he hadn’t even wanted to leave them the house and the land around it.” One hand on her doorknob, Livvie shook her head in disgust. “That land is all cypress and pine, and Rafe can’t afford any help to clear it. Old Nackie’s the only one left, and he can’t do much physical labor anymore. And that house… Well, I haven’t been there since his daddy died three years ago, but even then it was starting to look poorly. Mr. Colton had been so sick, nothing got done, I guess. I don’t know what they’re going to do.”

Sadly, Clara shook her head. “I can’t rightly say. Did you speak to Rafe, ask him?”

Livvie gave a bark of laughter. “Rafe hates me. He hates all of us. Daddy kept giving his mama loans, knowing she couldn’t pay them back, when all she really needed was some advice and a good manager. Any condolences from me weren’t going to be welcome.”

“You don’t know that, honey. He ought to know you’re not your daddy.”

“I’m a Byrd. A Byrd just took the land that’s been in his family a hundred years and left him with nothing but heartache.” She opened her door and glanced back at her mother. “I’m ashamed of that name today, Mama. As ashamed as I’ve ever been.” She stepped into her room and closed the door.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born and raised in Florida, Jennings spent her early years reading anything she could get her hands on, when she wasn’t spending time in and on the water. She won a prize in the 6th grade for her science fiction stories.

Jennings attended the University of Tampa, graduating with a B.A. in Political Science, and almost enough credits for B.A.s in both English and History. She attended graduate school at the University of West Florida, studying Psychology. She spent time over the years doing various kinds of business writing, editing, and teaching writing, but mostly having and raising her family, homeschooling her children, owning and running a business with her husband, and starting a non-profit.

Thanks to a crazy idea called NaNoWriMo, Jennings got back into creative writing in 2011 and has published multiple works of fiction. She is also interested in instructional non-fiction, and has several books in the works. She currently lives in North Carolina with her husband, also a writer, and two children, and travels extensively with her family, and with her non-profit in Uganda.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

This book was several years in the making, and a lifetime in the “research.” Living a Kingdom life isn’t for the fainthearted, but my thanks go out to those who have been walking it out: my husband Chuck, my kids, Bob and Rita Newell, Suzanne Mumford, Dan and Jen Bray, Sandra Levinson, Jenny Woods, the Beaks, and all the others who have shown me the way or shared their journey over the years.

OTHER WORKS BY JENNINGS WRIGHT

Undaunted Love

QUINN ADVENTURES

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Solomon’s Throne

The Hoard of the Doges

IXEOS TRILOGY

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IXEOS: Book One