You Had a Bad Day.

There are bad days. There are days when things go wrong, or everything does, pushing your heart into perpetual, erratic flight, and stirring a heavy ache that clings to your temples. There are days that you try to push through, but end up blocking out with piles of blankets as you nestle into the welcoming lap of your mattress, and sleep. Emotionally exhausted, physically spent.

But there's something else about bad days, and if we could remember it, I think we'd discover the loads we carry are impossibly light. Because here's the thing about bad days: they are ripe with opportunities for grace.

Yesterday was one of my bad days. I had been mistakenly informed that I wasn't working, when I was, resulting in a surprise call from my manager as I sat at home, still in my pajamas. I arrived at work disheveled and half an hour late. After work, as I drove home, not paying the slightest attention to my speedometer, I was pulled over and given my first ticket, which will most certainly come with a boost in insurance payment. By the time I went to bed, I felt as if someone had pulled the plug on my heart, draining every last ounce of energy from it.

But you know what else I remember about yesterday? I remember how God calmed my heart when my manager called, bringing peace in the midst of a mild panic attack as He whispered, This isn't your fault. I remember driving with my windows down, sunshine blazing down from blue sky, turning the music up loud in joyful noise as I sang the Earth is Yours. I remember sitting shakily in my car as red-and-blue lights flashed behind me, and God looked down, not with eyes of disappointment but of love, and promised, I will provide. I remember saying aloud afterward, as I drove toward downtown, "You're going to have to do better than that, demons. I'm still happy." I remember swinging at the waterfront, singing more quietly than before, You know me, and feeling God wrap His arms around me.

And as I write it all down, I realize once again what I already knew--even on the worst days, God's grace outweighs the bad. Every time. All it takes is for us to open our eyes to see it, and open our hands to receive it.

Because Really, God Says It Best.

So now, those who are in Christ Jesus are not judged guilty. Through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit that brings life made you free from the law that brings sin and death. The law was without power, because the law was made weak by our sinful selves. But God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son to earth with the same human life that others use for sin. By sending his Son to be an offering for sin, God used a human life to destroy sin. He did this so that we could be the kind of people the law correctly wants us to be. Now we do not live following our sinful selves, but we live following the Spirit.

Those who live following their sinful selves think only about things that their sinful selves want. But those who live following the Spirit are thinking about the things the Spirit wants them to do. If people’s thinking is controlled by the sinful self, there is death. But if their thinking is controlled by the Spirit, there is life and peace. When people’s thinking is controlled by the sinful self, they are against God, because they refuse to obey God’s law and really are not even able to obey God’s law. Those people who are ruled by their sinful selves cannot please God.

But you are not ruled by your sinful selves. You are ruled by the Spirit, if that Spirit of God really lives in you. But the person who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Christ. Your body will always be dead because of sin. But if Christ is in you, then the Spirit gives you life, because Christ made you right with God. God raised Jesus from the dead, and if God’s Spirit is living in you, he will also give life to your bodies that die. God is the One who raised Christ from the dead, and he will give life through his Spirit that lives in you.

So, my brothers and sisters, we must not be ruled by our sinful selves or live the way our sinful selves want. If you use your lives to do the wrong things your sinful selves want, you will die spiritually. But if you use the Spirit’s help to stop doing the wrong things you do with your body, you will have true life.

The true children of God are those who let God’s Spirit lead them. The Spirit we received does not make us slaves again to fear; it makes us children of God. With that Spirit we cry out, “Father.” And the Spirit himself joins with our spirits to say we are God’s children. If we are God’s children, we will receive blessings from God together with Christ. But we must suffer as Christ suffered so that we will have glory as Christ has glory.

The sufferings we have now are nothing compared to the great glory that will be shown to us.  Everything God made is waiting with excitement for God to show his children’s glory completely. Everything God made was changed to become useless, not by its own wish but because God wanted it and because all along there was this hope: that everything God made would be set free from ruin to have the freedom and glory that belong to God’s children.

We know that everything God made has been waiting until now in pain, like a woman ready to give birth.  Not only the world, but we also have been waiting with pain inside us. We have the Spirit as the first part of God’s promise. So we are waiting for God to finish making us his own children, which means our bodies will be made free. We were saved, and we have this hope. If we see what we are waiting for, that is not really hope. People do not hope for something they already have. But we are hoping for something we do not have yet, and we are waiting for it patiently.

Also, the Spirit helps us with our weakness. We do not know how to pray as we should. But the Spirit himself speaks to God for us, even begs God for us with deep feelings that words cannot explain. God can see what is in people’s hearts. And he knows what is in the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit speaks to God for his people in the way God wants.

We know that in everything God works for the good of those who love him. They are the people he called, because that was his plan. God knew them before he made the world, and he chose them to be like his Son so that Jesus would be the firstborn of many brothers and sisters. God planned for them to be like his Son; and those he planned to be like his Son, he also called; and those he called, he also made right with him; and those he made right, he also glorified.

So what should we say about this? If God is for us, no one can defeat us. He did not spare his own Son but gave him for us all. So with Jesus, God will surely give us all things. Who can accuse the people God has chosen? No one, because God is the One who makes them right. Who can say God’s people are guilty? No one, because Christ Jesus died, but he was also raised from the dead, and now he is on God’s right side, appealing to God for us. Can anything separate us from the love Christ has for us? Can troubles or problems or sufferings or hunger or nakedness or danger or violent death? As it is written in the Scriptures:

“For you we are in danger of death all the time.
    People think we are worth no more than sheep to be killed.” Psalm 44:22

But in all these things we are completely victorious through God who showed his love for us. Yes, I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor ruling spirits, nothing now, nothing in the future, no powers, nothing above us, nothing below us, nor anything else in the whole world will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

-Romans 8

This is for You.

There's something I want to tell you. It's important, so listen up.

I see Jesus in your eyes. I see the way His Spirit lights you up from the inside when you talk about the things you love. I see the anointing, written on your forehead. The mighty warrior He has called you to be. The mark of Heaven sealed on your heart, on your arm. The promise of victory. The promise of  life.

I believe in you. Because I know the God who stands behind, and goes before. I recognized His voice when He said to me, That is my son, that is my daughter, in whom I am well-pleased. He called you out by name. He smiled as He said it. And I smiled, too.

I see you, and you are beautiful. Just like your Father.

Looking [Through the] Glass.

The rooms of our hearts are filled with mirrors. Every experience, past, present, and potential, held up to those walls of reflection--our faces, our emotions, our thoughts, staring back at us. We weigh, we analyze, we calculate, the impact of the world on us. Plotting out a thousand maps to determine the most convenient highway to happiness. Our choices driven by the question, How will this affect me?

But the rooms are dark, the mirrors distorted. Deceitful above all things. And there is a Man, who stands at the door and knocks. We are afraid to let Him in, because there is a sledgehammer in His hand. He wants to shatter the mirrors and replace them with windows. He wants to fill our rooms with light.

So that, instead of looking into and seeing ourselves, we will look through and see the world. We will no longer ask How will the world affect me?, but How can I affect the world? 

We will forget about ourselves, and in doing so, we will finally be able to see what He sees--all those broken and beautiful hearts strewn like wildflowers, torn from their roots and dying in the sun.

It will be inevitable, what happens next. We will fall in love. We will gather, and we will plant. Together with Him, we will restore the Garden that was lost. We won't wonder about happiness; we'll have already found it.

All Together Now.

I've been saying we a lot lately. I used to have the opposite tendency; whenever I read Scripture or sang songs to God that used the collective terms of we or us, I'd often personalize it to I or me. It was what I needed at the time--for God to pick me out of the crowd, call me by name, focus in on the individual strands of hair on my head. I needed to know that He saw me.

But God is drawing me into a new season. He is opening my eyes to the bigger picture, expanding my vision to line up with His. This is the season of the Church, rising up with one Body, unified in the Spirit. This is a season of the severance of the denominational and ideological binds that have for so long divided us. This is a season of the fulfillment of Jesus' prayer:

"I pray for those who will believe in me, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one. I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." (John 17:20-23). 

Complete unity. Does it sound impossible? It should, because it is. But I've said it a thousand times, and I'll say it a thousand more: Our God is a God of the impossible.

This is bigger than you, and it's bigger than me. God is raising up His sons and daughters in this nation, anointing them with a deeper passion to dive into His mysteries. I've heard testimonies of God moving powerfully in the lives of friends in different states, different cities, simultaneously. And I've witnessed His power moving in this city--in different churches, different denominations. Because the truth is, there is no difference.

"You were all baptized into Christ, and so you were all clothed with Christ. This means that you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. In Christ, there is no difference between Jew and Greek, slave and free person, male and female. You are all one in Christ Jesus. You belong to Christ, so you are Abraham's descendants. You will inherit all of God's blessings because of the promise God made to Abraham." (Galatians 3:26-27) 

Therefore:

"Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought. Just as each one of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to us. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves." (Romans 12:3-6, 10)

And:

‎"Do not owe people anything, except always owe love to each other, because the person who loves others has obeyed all the law. Do this because we live in an important time. It is now time for you to wake up from your sleep, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The 'night' is almost finished, and the 'day' is almost here. So we should stop doing things that belong to darkness and take up the weapons used for fighting in the light." (Romans 13:8, 11-12)

A bit overwhelming? But that's not even the beginning. Read Colossians 3:11-15. Read the book of 1 John. We are a family. We are an army. We are a body. We are one.

A revival of love is stirring in the hearts of God's children. I have heard it; I have seen it; I have felt it. And I'm learning I'm crazy enough to believe it. Believe with me. The Spirit of God is calling. And if we answer, we will take this world by storm.

Like a Little Child.

It's time to drop the cynicism. We've given it a fancy name, but it's really only an intellectualized word for unbelief. And it is a poison, saturating our veins and crippling our bones.

Where is your child-like faith, sons and daughters of the King? Have you so quickly become weary of doing good?

We blame it on our environment. We blame it on the music. We blame it on the people. We blame it on the lack of results. And it causes me to wonder: Since when have our circumstances weighed heavier than the promises of God?

Since you tried to accomplish My promises in your own strength, His voice answers me.

Dear children, Daddy wants to lift us up on His shoulders, miles above these mountains. He is waiting for someone who is unafraid to believe. Someone who doesn't expect to fail as they take that first step onto the ocean's churning surface. Someone like you.

Only, give Him your doubt. That jaded look in your eye. That voice in the back of your mind that whispers impossible. Rebuke the lies, and let His truth set you free.

Dear God,

Thank You for not giving me what I want. Thank You for refusing me when I plead, and whine, and question You. Thank You for never giving in, even when my heart falls to pieces in my hands.

Because looking back, I can see. How the things I wanted would not have satisfied. How the alteration of one detail of my life might have brought me to a different place than this. (For the place You have brought me is beautiful.)

You didn't give me what I wanted, because there was something better. I didn't know it, couldn't believe it, at the time. I crawled in the dust, parched with thirst. I clung to the hem of your robe, tugging, and begged for Egypt. For the place where my human reasoning told me I would be safe, though in reality it was only bondage, in reality the Enemy would find me there.

You could have let me go. You could have given me over to the fickleness of my heart. Only, You didn't. Instead, You said No, again and again, and I thought I will die in this desert.

But You sent manna from heaven. You brought water from stone. You came as a pillar of cloud, as a column of flame. And all the things I wanted turned insubstantial as mirages, in the fierce and marvelous light of what was best.

And so I thank You, Daddy. For ways that are higher than mine. For giving me bread when I ask for a scorpion. For giving me life when I deserve death. For never letting me go.

For the Least of These.

God has filled my vision with the lives and the hearts of His people. I have tasted and seen that we are broken. We are jaded and divided and bitter and frustrated and depressed. We are a thousand miles away from where we want to be. The strongest of us are birds with tattered wings and only the saddest of songs left to sing.

This is where our story starts. In weakness. In desperation. In impossibility.

But I am not afraid, because I know what happens next. How God pulls us out of cages and drops us into sky. At first, freedom feels like falling. But the wind will catch your feathers, Beloved. The wind will send you soaring.

A new strength is coursing through my own brittle bones, and it is coming for you. You have been chosen. You have been called by name. In your fragmented heart, I have seen beauty beyond description, and your Father is bringing that beauty to the surface. He is pulling up water from the deep wells of your being, the places you have long forgotten about. That water is the name He gave you on the day He called you His own. It is who you are. It is your purpose, your anointing, your destiny. By the power of the Holy Spirit, and for the glory of His Kingdom. Claim it. God is with you, mighty warrior. You were born for such a time as this.

Revival doesn't start with the masses. It doesn't start in the public arena. Revival starts right here, in the secret place. Revival starts with you.