Let's Look at Faith

[Hebrews 11:1 (NLTse)] Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.

So, here I sit at the computer asking God some interesting questions about my life, my future, my calling, and about things I just can't see...Ah, FAITH.
I have a difficult time liking FAITH, because I enjoy seeing things actually happening; and actually seeing things gives me assurance. If I see the chair, I am secure in knowing I can sit down on it. I will even approach it and confidently sit down.

FAITH is like being blind-folded, having someone tell me they will lead me to a chair and positioning me right next to it, telling me to sit down. Now, it really matters WHO I am placing my faith in; who I am placing my trust in; who I am placing my hope in. So now I am really asking myself an interesting question.... Who am I listening to and who am I placing my FAITH in? This world is so backward. Think about it, the physical realm-earthly realm is 100% "real" and the spiritual realm-heavenly realm is 100% unseen. Yet, this "real" world is only temporary and full of smoke and mirrors and the heavenly realm is what is REAL!

So, I am learning about FAITH differently as I ponder this with you...FAITH is the real deal and I need to place it in the REAL God, allowing Him to guide me to sit down in an imaginary chair that will hold my weight because GOD says it will. FAITH in the wrong person (myself, the world, the enemy) will not work, I will still be guided to sit down on an imaginary chair that will not hold my weight because only God has to power to uphold me.

We all have FAITH...the real question and answer is WHO do we place our FAITH in!
There are insane people who have FAITH, and there are people full of FAITH following the world or false gods...they are even willing to die (and take others with them) because of their FAITH.

So, as I put my FAITH upon God, and as I am learning to trust and hope in Him, I can place my FAITH more and more securely in Him and He does grow my FAITH in balance with the amount of trust and hope I have in Him. I am holding on to promises from God because I do trust Him, and as my walk with God has grown over time He has consistently told me to sit and I have found myself sitting comfortably in His presence, waiting upon the Lord.... and I am becoming more and more FAITHFUL and strengthened in my FAITH, LOVE, and HOPE in the Lord. There are things I am told will be mine one day, I look around and don't see it at all, not a shred of real evidence that this will come true. Now because these promises came from God; I have the FAITH to believe the reality of God's Word over the "reality" of the things I currently see myself in.

Then I wonder how to grow my faith. Is it something that I build up, something God can give me, and is it something that I can pray to have more of? I believe the answer is yes, to all three questions.

When I prayerfully intercede for others or pray for my own stuff it helps build my faith. When God stuff manifest in my life and in those around me, it builds my faith.

Since God is the source of all good things, then it is God that gives me faith. I do believe He will either place me in positions and situations where I can "see" the supernatural occur and it will grow my faith, in increasing measures as I see more and more often, and I do pray for more faith opportunities.

There are times when God will manifest things into the earthly realm, in answers to my faith (and prayer) and this will cause me to grow in faith and more confident in my hope of things yet unseen...cool stuff.

I love praying for more faith, more faith opportunities (putting it to the test), AND praying for more confirmations of right-placed faith to make sure I am calibrated and plugged in to what God is doing and wanting to do in and through my life.

Some people may say that it is weak to ask for signs; that Gideon's fleece test is not a sign of a "mature" Christian. Well, okay, I'll take that one, and pray that I grow to the point where I can always simply move in total faith. Not seeking confirmations, or revelations, until then, I'll ask the Lord for wisdom, I will seek His counsel, and I will take bigger bites of faith in the dark. Okay, maybe with one eye open on occasion...getting better at this along the way.

I'd even say that my faith is much stronger and bolder than even 9 months ago, so looking forward to where I'll be in my increasing measures of faith in 9 years from now. Again, cool stuff.

So, where am I at now?

I am more and more willing to have faith in the miraculous, to have faith to pray for the miraculous, and have more faith to want more of the miraculous, even when a prayer for the miraculous previously didn't manifest--it in fact gives me faith to even pray more and for bigger things...how exciting for I want to put all my faith to action now!

Let's hook up and corporately and in intimate settings and seek increased measures of FAITH! You are always welcome to get ahold of me to pray for you, pray with you, to intercede on your behalf...just ask me.

hmmm, curious to get your thoughts and impressions...

Thirsting for More

I am thirsting for more...

Psalm 42:1-2
As the deer pants for streams of water, so I long for you, O God. I thirst for God, the living God. When can I come and stand before him?

I want to be filled to overflowing with the living waters of God. I want the Holy Spirit to pour out His gifts and His strength into my life, so that His will and purposes will come to manifest from the heavenly realm and into my earthly reality.

I want the LORD to impart more of Himself in my life and most importantly THROUGH my life.

The questions I pose…

How are you feeling?

What is your sense of things?

Do you feel there is something going on here in Hawaii in the spiritual realm? If so, give us some specifics…

Have you felt or seen a greater impartation of the Holy Spirit in your life?

Hearing from God: Life in His Voice

In the Beginning... God created everything we know and everything we don't know yet... all by His speaking it all into existence. You gotta admit, that is pretty cool stuff!

Jesus, divinely God, and also man in the flesh said, “... For I say only what I have heard from the one who sent me, and he is completely truthful.” He had the CLOSEST relationship possible with God as man. Over and over Jesus spoke of how he only obeys what the Father has spoken, moving in healing and ministry as God directed. Jesus never went somewhere God did not precede him in word.

I so desire to move in absolute intimacy and congruency with God's voice... that would be cool stuff!

In our lives, God speaks into our lives, into our situations, into our circumstances, and He speaks to us. Are we listening, have we ears to hear? Are we so caught up into our “stuff” and into hearing from other sounds that we have cut God off? Hmm, something to ponder and chew on.

There are many hindrances to our hearing from God, and hence receiving life from His voice.

Man, you gotta admit that the world is very loud and very distracting. The TV, radio, print media, all those things challenging God's perspective and God's will for the earth. What we got right now is now what God spoke; it is what we have spoken.

Yeah, so often my own flesh speaks so loudly and I am so familiar with it that I easily respond to the desires of my flesh. I am selfish; I am mean-spirited; I pass along the other side of the street from the needy. I am judgmental, and I am unforgiving... my flesh is self-destructive and carnal only wanting pleasure and self-fulfillment. There must be one serious reason that the Lord speaks of the dangers of the flesh so much...I am fighting against my flesh so much.

The enemy of God is dead-set against us. They don't want to bless us, or even want us to follow them. They want to use us up like fodder and food. They hate what God loves and God loves us. We are hated. Even the biggest sinner is not loved by the enemy; they are just being used up.

My conscious disobedience; making choices contrary to the Word of God, and to His voice is also another way I've shut down the life in God's voice. Silly really, to know what is right and make a decision to go against what is right, perhaps it's the discomfort of having to apologize; of having to make a tough choice; a big sacrifice; or because there are sins that I love committing...of course I can't hear God when I have put in earplugs by being willfully disobedient.

All God has ever wanted from us is an intimate relationship with Him. He created us to show love, and to enjoy evening walks together, talking as intimates; Creator and His created. He so wants to walk with each of us in the garden again... like in the very beginning.

In this intimate relationship He wants to be conversational, wanting to not only hear what we have to say, He wants to share the many wonderful things He has to say to us and about us... He loves us.

God continues to speak to us; sometimes it is directly through His Word—the Bible. It one long and fascinating love story, and it is us He loves.

His Word also says to pray without ceasing. Prayer is the means to intimate conversations and develops and intimate relationship with God. That is cool stuff// Prayer is direct conversation with the Creator and if we train ourselves up and even open up to the reality that God speaks we may even sense or hear His still small voice.

I don't hear an audible voice, it is a clear sense of something and I am getting better and better at discerning when it is God, when it is my own flesh, the world, or the enemy. His still, small voice is not something that happens everyday, but nearly so.

God will also speak through the prophetic words and counsel of others... each part of the body has a function and we need to be open to it...

Choose to live a life striving to hear God better and better. Strive to be open and obedient to what He says and look for more opportunities to practice “hearing”. Get with others to pray and ask God for clarity and you will seek Him and find Him when you seek Him with all your heart... fun stuff.

Irresistible Revolution #2: Freaky Jesus

I had an epiphany:
I am a Jesus freak because Jesus was a freak. Ha!

But that's because the revolution is irresistible.
You must be wondering: What revolution? And why is it irresistible?

The revolution is the one that Jesus started when he stood on the mount and delivered a sermon with radical, "freaky" directives.  And it's irresistible because it's so freaky that it's funny... or more succinctly put, it's fun. It's a movement that laughs.

Check out this directive from Matthew 5:38-42
38"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.'[g] 39But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. 41If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. 42Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

Thanks to Jordan's sermon last night, and my cool footnoted Bible, I realize now that the whole "eye for an eye" rule was a rudimentary measure that God gave his people to limit the extent of their retaliation. But people came to use this measure to justify seeking revenge for the injustices they faced.  When Jesus came along, he corrected this misunderstanding by invoking the principle of love.

I'll admit, when I first read this passage, I thought Jesus was saying that we should let ourselves be used and abused. So naturally, I didn't particularly care for this part of his sermon!  But when Jesus tells us not to resist an evil person, he is NOT saying that we should let people trample all over us.  We were not created to be doormats for others to wipe their dirty shoes on!

Instead, Jesus introduced a new way to deal with injustice. The old way was to confront wrongdoers by teaching justice rather than love. (Well, depends how we define justice... I think "the world" sees them as separate concepts)

This is Shane Claiborne's (author of The Irresistible Revolution) interpretation of Matthew 5:38-42:

"When hit on the cheek, turn and look the person in the eye. Do not cower and do not punch them back. Make sure they look into your eyes and see your sacred humanity and it will become increasingly harder for them to hurt you. When someone tries to sue you for the coat on your back and drags you before the court, go ahead and take all of your clothes off and hand them over, exposing the sickness of their greed. When a soldier asks you to walk a mile with them and carry their pack, don't throw your fist in the air like the Zealots, just walk with them two miles instead of one, talk with them and woo them into your movement by your love."

Jesus opposed both passivity and violence.  Instead, he advocated love. As Walter Wink said, "evil can be opposed without being mirrored."

In times of injustice, the most unexpected element we think we'll find is love.  Love comes as a surprise. 

Criminologists teach that one of the quickest ways to diffuse violence is with surprise, according to Claiborne:
"When victims do something that surprises [criminals], it throws the whole plan out of whack. Jesus is always doing weird things in the midst of conflict, like when the men are about to kill the adulteress, he bends down and draws in the dirt until eventually they all drop their stones. There's that time the soldiers come to arrest Jesus, and Peter pulls out a sword and cuts off a guy's ear. Jesus rebukes him and then grabs the dude's ear and puts it back on. That must have been a little awkward for everyone, especially the soldiers. How do you arrest a guy who just put your buddy's ear back on? Jesus' theological stunts and prophetic imagination surprise and disarm. They make people laugh and catch folks off guard, even folks who wish they could hate him. And of course, there's the dazzle of the resurrection. That's got to be the best one ever. Colossians says that in his death and resurrection, Jesus "disarmed the powers and authorities" and "made a public spectacle out of them." (Col.2:15)"

Claiborne also says that "When someone keeps us laughing, we don't even think to become defensive. We are disarmed by a gentle revolution."


All this has left me wondering: What if we made our enemies laugh!
Imagine explosive smiles instead of explosive anger!  Imagine if we brought them simple, carefree joy!  Then they wouldn't be our enemies any longer.  Duh!

So how do we get someone to laugh with us?
My first guess is that we could start by not taking ourselves too seriously. We could avoid being all snooty & religious. We could be way-makers rather than gatekeepers.

And we would have to exude love.   Love would have to infect us like a contagious disease.

We could hop on Jesus' revolutionary bandwagon by joining the "movement bubbling up that goes beyond cynicism and celebrates a new way of living, a generation that stops complaining about the church it sees and becomes the church it dreams of. And this little revolution is irresistible. It is a contagious revolution that dances, laughs, and loves."

Like being a Christian, it won't be easy, but it will be SO worth it.

"The only thing harder than hatred is love. The only thing harder than war is peace. The only thing that takes more work, tears, and sweat than division is reconciliation. But what more beautiful thing could we devote our lives to? Until the courage that we have for peace surpasses the courage we that we have for war, violence will continue to triumph, and imperial execution rather than divine resurrection will have the final word."
- Shane Claiborne

Miracle Child

In the garden of life
I hold the naked miracle
Of my first child
Against my fertile heart,
Which pulses in gentle rhythm
To a lullaby sung by God.

She is a fresh rosebud
Anointed by the morning dew.
She exhales heaven's warm fragrance
As the colors of this world
Slowly fill her mind.

I am in awe of her beauty,
Intimidated by her innocence.
Lord, protect her, I pray.
Guide me, introduce her soul to mine,
For only you know us both.

He tells me to have courage,
So I boldly set her adrift
On a current of outstretched time.
The cradle of my love,
Certain as the ocean's tide,
Constantly pulls her near.

I will be her childhood harbor
And heaven will always be her home.

(HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!)

Roses Need Da Rain

I was hiking home through da valley,
All stiff from one study session,
When it started to rain.
I was small kine pissed off
Cuz I neva like my laptop get wet.

So I started whining to God.
I know yeah, where da respect!
I told him, "How come you make um rain?
You no can wait til I get home?"

I neva expect one answer
Cuz as you can tell,
I been talking so lousy
Dat I think I was making God sad.

But he wen' sing one funny song
Dat cheered both of us up.
You know da one by Keahiwai?
It's called "Like Roses Need the Rain."
Das da one he wen' sing!

"Roses need da rain, sistah.
Das why I like sprinkle on top you right now.
I've been shining on you so bright
Dat looks like you stay burnt out.

You coming blind already,
Not even watching fo' all my blessings!
I gotta refresh you.
Sistah, you need da rain."

Den God wen' send da wind - 
My umbrella stay cheap, dam ting no can handle,
So it wen' blow inside out.
I stood there getting soaked,
All ready fo' cry,
Wen' I heard God laugh and say, 

"You stay from Hilo or what?

You was born in da rain!"

I wen' laugh too, and den I saw 

Dat da sun was still shining.

Even wen' da devil 

Tried fo' drizzle all ova Israel's joy,
Da earth came slippery and moist -
But it neva come dark
Cuz God was still there.

He showed me dat a little bit of rain
Helps da faith grow.

I no kid you,
God put one rainbow inside my heart!