A Declaration of Transformation

 

 

                All of my adult life, I have longed for a faithful and committed relationship.  At first, I know that this longing was because of the brokenness of my childhood, and my need to be needed by someone.  However, as God has healed and matured me, much of what I desired and better yet why I desire it has changed.  I know longer see marriage as the be-all-end-all of adult life.  Don’t get me wrong; I believe in marriage, and I desire to be married.  However, I recognize that my desire to be married does not outweigh my desire for a fruitful ministry and business.  I am married to purpose.  There is room for one more in that marriage—but they must be married to purpose too.  I believe that one must be called to marriage as a part of purpose.  If my destiny can sustain marriage, then I would love to marry.  If purpose would be better served if I were single, I am ok with that too. It took about fifteen years to get to this place…but I am finally here.

                What I have found out in this journey to destiny, is that before I can commit my life to anyone, I must first be committed to my own personal growth and health.  I want more than a relationship; I want wholeness, and healing.  A marriage partner cannot and really should not be responsible for giving me that.  Before I (if ever) marry, I want to be transformed.  I want my mind to be clear, focused and healthy.  I want to be able to be intimate (not necessarily just sexual), open, respectful, and I want to love without restriction.  To be that I must do as Paul admonishes in Romans 12:1-2:  I must be transformed by the renewing of my mind.

 How do I do this? First, I think I must be willing to cooperate with what God is doing in my life.  I went through about a year of serious depression in 2009 and 2010.  I went to work, I taught my Sunday School classes, and I worked with the prophetic teams—but I went home every day, shut the blinds and the doors and I laid in bed with the covers over my head, praying to die.  God had closed some significant doors in my life, and I was grieving.  My grief lasted much longer than His desire for me to linger there.  It was not until I accepted His sovereignty in my life that I began to see change in my emotional state.  When I admitted that I was ticked with His decision making, God did as David celebrated in Psalm 40: He lifted me out of the slippery slopes and the miry clay.  I don’t suggest that everyone’s depression can be healed this way, but it worked for me.

Secondly, I have made some vows to myself and my purpose. I fully understand that my destiny is not on me to perform; however, I must be active in my own deliverance.  After all, faith without works is dead.  I want to share with you what I believe my role is in my transformation process.  I call them The Transformation Declarations:

I will not allow how other people love me determine how I love them.  In short, I refuse to take anything personally—even if it was meant to be a personal attack.  I expect the world to attack me; that’s their job.  However, the most pain that I have ever experienced has been because I expected to see love and instead I received evil.  Or I have given love, and received indifference or abuse.  I am not so much of a ninny that I think that people’s behavior can’t hurt me, I just refuse to hold them hostage to the offense.   I have come to realize that on any given day that anyone can be used as a vessel for good, or a tool for evil.  When the enemy of my soul sees me, he does not see me, per se; he sees either a vessel or a tool—and he means harm for either one.  When someone launches an offensive attack on me, it honestly has nothing to do with me.  It has to do with their brokenness, their shame, their guilt, and their insecurities.  They have become a tool for the enemy, and they are deceived into believing that they are out for good.  Consequently, those who are tools for the enemy have no clue that each offensive attack either exposes a weakness or a strength in me.  If it exposes a weakness, hopefully it will send me back to God to be restored and rebuilt; made stronger for the next attack.  If it exposes a strength; then God be glorified. Truly, He will use what the enemy meant for bad and turn it for my good. In either case, I win, because I am afforded the opportunity to love without agenda, or condition—kind of how Christ loves us. 

I don’t have goals to reach, I have changes to make.  I really suck at making goals.  I am really optimistic, so I tend to make goals that are unattainable, and even if they are, if I am not careful I will make the goal an idol, so that if I attain said goal, I am impressed by me; or if I don’t reach the goal, I am riddled with guilt and shame.  Instead, I have committed to trusting God’s promise over my life and to making daily changes to see that promise come to pass.  Today, I made the change of actually writing an entry for my blog, and adding an extra half mile to my daily walk.  Changes become habits; goals tend to become daydreams.  I am working towards a fulfilled life, not a to-do list full of check marks.

I will live in the present.  I have wasted a great deal of time looking at my past, raking through it, and examining it with great intent.  I have done root-cause analyses on the greater issues and made policy based on the outcome, and none of it has done a lick of good for me.  Neither has staring in to my future, rehashing prophetic words, and dreaming of the day that will come.  How many times have I said to myself, “When ____________ happens, then I will be happy?”  Listen, I believe in learning from past mistakes, and I certainly believe in having hope for the future, but neither of those activities will serve me today, and I cannot be a slave to my box of memories, or my chest full of promises. I must wake up each day, and deal with the day is it comes, and live life on life’s terms. God is not interested in my regrets, nor is He interested in my pipe dreams.  He expects me to trust His power in my life TODAY, because that is the only day to which I have access.  God obligates himself and no one else to my future because the work He does in me, will keep being done until I reach my fullness in Christ.

I want to feel everything and I want to learn how to learn from it.  Yes, I know.  Everything? Yes, everything.  The truth of the matter is, that I have spent my entire life medicating with one thing or another.  I have used food, drugs, alcohol, sex, shopping; even my shame became a salve.  I can even say that at one time, church was a medicine.  I would go on Sunday and Wednesday, get my “high”; I would jump and shout, then return to a joyless existence, really just living for the next service so that I could get my fix.  While I don’t relish the pain of a broken dream, a relationship violated, or a death of someone I love, I do want to be able to face it head on—straight, no chaser.  Then I want to develop appropriate tools—not mechanisms to deal with my pain.  I want to be able to fully connect to the people in my life who can help me celebrate and who can also stand watch for me when I break down. It’s called living life vulnerably, transparently, and it is the only way to learn real compassion, mercy, and empathy for others.

Finally, I don’t want anyone to believe that I have developed a set of pat answers to life.  I don’t think that I have.  It’s more like I am desperate.  I am desperate for the abundant life that Christ promised me, and I can’t have it if I hold on to crazy thoughts, bitter memories, and fantasy faith. None of those things are the truth.  They are compensations and poor assessments of the character of the God I that I love, serve, and call my friend.  That God is a Spirit and must be worshipped in spirit and truth, and that’s where I want to live too. That’s the place that God promises that I will live such a full life that when it is finally time for me to meet Him face-to-face, I won’t inadvertently stumble into the gates.  I will slide into them, arms outstretched and covered in life’s dust, just like a player sliding into home plate should.

A Citizen of a Different Kingdom

2Timothy 2:4  No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs--he wants to please his commanding officer .    

    

            I have to admit that I was elated to see the election come to an end.  I have never been so embarrassed and broken-hearted by the behavior of Spirit-filled Christians from both sides of the fence.  There was petty squabbling and division; acrimoniousness and bitterness.  Some went as far to prophesy the death of America, or arugued that if I didn’t vote for their chosen candidate that I was unsaved, in error, or a heretic. The world was watching us and we utterly failed.

            As I prayed this morning for my own hurt feelings and shock over some of the mud-slinging, The Lord led me to 2 Timothy 2:4.  He reminded me that my citizenship changed on the day that I accepted Christ. My natural body is subject to the rule of the United States, but my spirit was accountable to another Commander-in-Chief: Jesus.

            The President’s job is to uphold the Constitution.  It is not to uphold the Christian agenda. “In God We Trust” only became our motto in 1956—not 1776.  Interestingly enough, that motto only appears on our money—not our Constitution. I digress.  The same laws that guarantees to me  the right to worship in the way that I choose, are the same laws that guarantee the Wiccan to have representation as a religion in the armed forces, or a gay man to teach in the public school system, or a Christian to lead the arguably the greatest nation in the world. As I sit looking at the wedding photo of my African-American sister and my Caucasian brother-in-law on my desk, I am reminded that fifty or sixty years ago it would have been against the law for them to marry in several states because of religion.

            I am a minister.  As such, I am not permitted the luxury pushing my personal opinion or agenda.  I must preach the gospel—in season and out. The God of the bible is never going to be okay with fornication, adultery, witchcraft, gay marriage, abortion or pornography or the legalization of marijuana to name some of the issues of today.  As a Christian, I believe the bible in its entirety; even the parts I don’t like. Trust me; I am not apologizing for my faith.  I believe there is one way to God, and that is through Jesus Christ.  However, if I demand that my President, senator, or other lawmaker uphold the Christian agenda, then I become the very thing I despise—a manipulator; a controller. That’s why I saw voter suppression, and other such abuses of power.  I realize now that I want a Christian President not because he will do as I say—but so that his heart might operate in wisdom (James 3:17), boldness (Proverbs 28:1) and mercy (Is 58:6-12).  I want him to be a Christian so that integrity will mean more than popularity or a controlling interest.  I want him to be a Christian so that he will uphold my right to pray in tongues; serve my church, preach the Jesus of the bible, and write this blog--even as he upholds the rights of people with whom I don't agree.

            The social ills of this world are only a manifestation of symptoms. The real issue is not abortion, pornography or anything else, for that matter. It’s the spiritual war being waged behind each of those issues.  The enemy of my soul desires for me to become entangled in political opinion and debates so that I will be distracted from my real Kingdom assignment:  making disciples, and waging spiritual war against that which is waging war against me. It’s time for me to stop blaming politicians for not curing the social ills, and to start doing the real work.  I must intentionally pray that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven, then I must leave the comfort of my four-walled church and do the work of the Kingdom. I must change the world one disciple at a time. That also means I must address the issues in me and in the Body of Christ instead of trying to legislate the morality of a country.  It’s hard to represent the Kingdom of Heaven if I don’t look, act, or think like its King.  This way is not as efficient as trying to control the government; but it is more effective, and it’s eternal.

            That bible that I say that I believe says that 1). That God turns the heart of the king any direction that he wants it to go (Proverbs 21:1); it says that leaders-Godly or not are raised up by God (Romans 13); and it says that I should pray for my leaders whether I like them personally or not (1 Tim 2:1-2). It also says that I must remove the log from my own eye (Matt 7:5); pray for those who spitefully use me (Luke 7:26-36); and be a light in darkness (Ephesians 5: 7-14); not so I can control the hearts of others, but so that I might shine the way towards He that saves, refines, and restores. I must stop doing church stuff, and start BEING the church for whom He’s coming back.

           

An All Sufficient God for All My Insufficiencies

Each morning, I make a pot of coffee, and I try to create enough time in my schedule to actually sit down and enjoy it.  I also try to take that time to meet with the Lord and (tongue in cheek) solve the problems of the universe.  I call that time, “Coffee with Jesus.”

                This morning, my coffee time with the Lord led me to study 2 Corinthians 12.  Although I have read and meditated upon this scripture many times, I have learned not to balk at the familiarity of the passage.  The Holy Spirit can evoke many revelations out of one scripture.  As I read, I focused on particular verse: “(9) my grace is sufficient for you.  In your weakness my strength is made perfect.”  As many may know, I am a student of words.  I like them, and the emotion or action that they may evoke.  Words were enough to create a universe, and their power is enough to destroy any relationship, opportunity, or even a nation.  In this case, the words grace, sufficient, weakness and strength stood out to me.  There, in the midst of what even Paul calls boasting;  smack-dab in the middle of a very descriptive and enviable supernatural encounter with God, was a very simple statement. When I finish recounting any celestial encounters, my favored opportunities, or even my moral failures there is but one thing left: the sufficiency of a loving and kind God.

                The word grace literally means “loving kindness”, “benefit”, or “favor”.  “Loving kindness” is defined in the Greek by the word “agape”, which is also love; but it is the most deliberate and selfless love there is—the God kind of love. God’s unconditional love is what prompted Him to create a world for man to inhabit, dominate, and become fruitful in and multiply.  It is that same love that compelled Him to send a savior in Christ to rescue man when he so epically failed in his attempt at independence.  It is the love that John describes in 1 John 4 when he writes that “God is love.” God is not facsimile of love, He is not a type of love, nor is He the embodiment of love.  Quite simply, yet complexly-- He is love.  His very being is love.  If I took a glass and filled it with God’s love, the content of the glass would not be love—the glass itself would become love.  David explained it well in Psalms 63:3:  “Your love is better than life”.  The mere fact that I inhale and exhale is evidence of God’s love.  Do you know what that verse really says to me?  It says that I cannot be good enough to earn God’s love, and I can’t be bad enough to lose it. His love is, because He is.  I need a minute to pause and think about that.

 His love is sufficient; it is enough. It is satisfying. Back in Psalms 63, David said that God's love sated him like rich food.  So God’s love is like mom’s mac and cheese, pancakes on Saturday morning, or Sunday pot roast with potatoes and carrots.  It’s the comfort that I am looking for when I stand in the refrigerator staring restlessly, because I want only the one thing that will end my craving.  When I finally meet God in the secrecy of my closet; or even in the single mindedness of worship in the sanctuary I am finally full, content, drowsy-eyed, and warm, because I finally got what I long for deep in my spirit. I receive from Him a sense of well-being and surety despite what the circumstances of my life may otherwise indicate. Nothing else can compensate.  That’s why when I sought to satisfy my flesh with food, sex, power, pornography, or work; I was left hungry, irritated, weak and feeling foolish.  Eventually—usually through trial and error, I found that only He can give me peace.

                 Weakness is the feebleness and infirmity I feel when I expend all my energy trying to prove to God how much I don’t need Him.  Oddly enough, it is the fear of being weak that drives me to assert my independence in the first place.  It’s funny how although I know that nothing but God will do, I must often try my own remedies first.  That whole concept is laughable because it is only in my feebleness that I receive God’s strength. When Paul writes about God’s strength, He is speaking of God’s power in the midst my circumstances.  That’s the power that moved to create a universe. It fuels the strength of angels. It is the power that raised a dead Jesus, and it is the power that works in me through the Holy Spirit.  I mature in God only when the circumstances of life overwhelm me. It is then and only then that when I learn to find contentment in the fact that no matter what comes or goes, no matter what I suffer through or lose, God’s love never fails me.  I am never alone, and I am never left behind.   The all-sufficient God is always enough for all of my insufficiencies.