authority.

a son without authority is a bastard. 

this morning after i had coffee with a good friend, i was thinking about sonship and about many of my friends. most of my friends and i have had a hard time with our father-son relationships due to wounds inflicted by us and them (and society). one of my buds was talking about the lack of a father figure in his life and this morning that thought came to mind. 

we who are believers have become sons of God (Rom. 8.14; Gal. 3.26). however, there are many sons, who have failed to come under authority. authority is a tough word for those with failed fathers. we have a hard time listening and obeying those who we see as flawed. however, this is a wrong attitude to have. now authority is not limited to parentage alone, it deals with a much deeper issue. 

authority is really about coming into submission. funny thing is that submission is really about love. when you subject yourself to others you have allowed for others to be in authority in your life. not to have domination over your life but actually to release one into freedom. it would be easy to say that we only need to come into the authority of the Spirit of God, however, as we are people and not understanding of the way God works, we need a means by which we are reminded of this authority. that is why God has provided his people as a means by which we can come to understand authority.

if you are unwilling to submit to another person, you first become unwilling to love them and in return you have become a rebel. you have become a rogue. you have become a prodigal. you have become a bastard. a fatherless child. an unauthorized son. only the son who submits has the ability to know the fullness of the Father's heart. only the son who comes into authority, understand how submission is equated to love. 

although you can be a son without having authority, you will be limited in your empowerment and your influence in the father's kingdom. Jesus became this perfect example to us. he submitted himself to his Father in heaven. And similarly to the world in which he lived. he humbled himself and came under the authority of humanity by clothing himself in it, never limiting his power, instead empowering himself to overcome all things. it was that authority to both things in which he was able to reveal both love and purpose of the Father to all others. he was empowered to do miracles, healings, forgiveness, etc. 

so the question is not how i can live for me, but how can i live (and love) for the authority that i am under, whether God or a father. 

- peaks out.

P.S. More to come.

rez day.

today is a day that we can celebrate life. it was today that we celebrate that Jesus is alive and that he has brought life to us. 

i find great consolation knowing that my savior is a God who has brought life. can you imagine what kind of life one would live without the power of the resurrection? without death being overcome, there is no hope. without life we are stuck in the status quo of eternal monotony. however it is only the interference of true life that we can escape this. i am so thankful that Jesus is life and that he dispenses it to us. 

he is risen indeed. 

- peaks out.

hush...

so i was in my car on the way back from an unfruitful gift returning trip and all of a sudden something hit me. 

i was just driving in my car, oh so gingerly not rushing to get back home, merely just cruising. i even took the back way home for a more meaningful experience than coasting along the concrete path called the interstate all the way home. in the midst of my return to suffolk, i was struck by this ridiculous song. something about it just clicked deep in my being. it's called hush by waterdeep. 

as the song continued i began to survey all that God has been teaching me. in the midst of my scorched places, i have seen new life, i have found more out about myself and about God. i learned about worship, i learned about longing. today, i stand before you completely and utterly moved in that scorched place. during this time period, i think God was trying to deal with me on a deeper level than i imagined. this level is sonship. earlier in the process i am undergoing i was reading in colossians 1. in that passage it talks about Jesus being the firstborn of all creation. well actually the antecedent is The Son. i began to read the entire chapter substituting all the personal pronouns with the Son. it was crazy. i began to see what happens and what is contained in sonship. it was beautiful. i didn't understand what God was trying to say then, but when i heard that ethereal voice expanse the space i knew that God was trying to get me to see that i am a son. 

at this moment of realization of being a son and this lullaby singing over me, i wept. this is the first time in about 38 days. i have been such an emotional deadzone, that this and that put together brought it all together. then of course it started to rain. in my state of being a son of God, i regained a childlikeness that has persevered. i began to think that as i was shedding tears in sheer amazement of sonship. God was raining or in my mind shedding tears as well for he knew that his son was coming home. it was an overwhelming experience and then tomorrow i am to celebrate that the Son resurrected. oh the wow. 

oh hush little children don't you cry. Jesus is going to die and bring us all back to life. here are the lyrics to hush, i hope it gives you a sense of sonship or daughtership: 

when you feel like the days just drone on and on and on 
and you feel like the nights are quickly gone 

and on the inside your heart is gaping wide 
and on the inside you feel like no one's on your side 
well, I Am

when you thought you could rest, but you found out you were wrong 
and there's another need another battle 
another one more thing that comes along 

and on the inside 
you hear the fall but you hate the falling sound 
and on the inside 
you can't pick another broken piece up off the ground 
well I know 

hush little baby don't say a word 
Daddy's gone and bought you a great big heaven to rest in 
He's bought it with blood and put the seal in your heart 
it'll give you the hope you need to get up and start again 

when all the things you thought you left behind are still hanging on 
and everything you try to do right ends up all wrong 

and on the inside everyone else seems basically fine 
but on the inside even they won't let go of the dead and cling to what's alive 
well I AM

- peaks out

frisbee golf.

a simple game: woods, discs, a chain and metal basket. who would have thought that this guy could dispense such joy. 

i have found that my favorite past time is this crazy game called frisbee golf (or disc golf by the pros). it is a really great game and i just can't seem to get enough of it. i am not a fantastic player, but i enjoy it. i love that when you have a pastime, that you often realize it isn't so much about doing or playing, but more about what you aren't doing or playing. i can escape so much of the dizziness of my mind when i am focused on chucking that disc between the four overshadowing oaks on hole 4. or maybe it is about clearing the bog by tomahawking that disc as hard as i can.

this game to me has been such a great detox from life. i encourage you that if you don't know about it or haven't experienced it. one, either get ahold of me and i will go with you, or two, check it out sometime. 

too much work, not enough play. but i am changing that slowly. 

-peaks out

scorched places.

so for about a week now i have been experiencing something like nothing i have ever known. a numbness in my emotional sphere. 

i have to explain myself for i understand that this sounds complex. i am a sensitive, extreme person. in that, i often have found myself to be violently passionate whether it is extreme anger or it is soulful sobbing. i have never feared emotion. however, i realized that the deeper side of emotions, which transcend the platonic emotions that we normally contrive, have been moved and touched in my life. there are deeper emotions, i think ones that are only experienced in the spiritual part of our being that reject extremes and instead cause balance to occur in us. i have been in this furnace of sorts that have been bringing my extremes to become dull. i have been rather frustrated with it all; however, i know that this is a good thing to find more balance in my extremes. 

this verse came to mind as i have felt scorched over by God's presence. "and Yahweh will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. and your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of the streets to dwell in." 

i was just amazed at this relevant verse right now. as i have felt scorched and numb to a degree, i am finding encouragement in the fact that  those burned, numb places will be satisfied and then life will begin to grow and that through that, i will be rebuilt, the right way and will be able to restore others lives. 

God is resetting my life, emotions, and changing me up. I am eager to be a extension of reparation and restoration. 

- peaks out.

being not doing.

so as of late i have shunned the world of blogging. the main reason is that i have been doing more than being. 

let me explain. i am a doer by nature. i am pretty driven. everything i do it normally has an expediency about it. i walk like a speed walker. i talk like an auctioneer. i think like a computer. i read like a fiend. i am just always trying to work so hard to do so much. probably on the deeper level i am really trying to find worth, value, appreciation, respect, etc., from the things i do. what a worldly concept, that you are only as valuable as you consume and produce. this is an area that i have been weak in for years. i constantly revisit this conundrum and find myself staring at it in the face today. 

so the Lord totally reminded me of this teaching i heard when i was a sophomore in college. this teaching was given by a worship leader that i highly respected and admired. he began to talk about what the difference is between being and doing. he talked about how a good father doesn't care whether you do or do not. he cares about you regardless, because he is your father. he likened this to God and that God doesn't expect people to do stuff for him, but he desires them to be who they were created to be. the incredible thing about this thought is that he returned to genesis 1 and showed about how God created in the "be"ginning. although this was a bit corny, as he spoke it really began to unravel. 

look at the words that begin with "be." beginning, begat, belong, become, before, being, believe. all of these words start with being. this speaker was by no means negating doing the work of God, but being must be the antecedent to doing. he really challenged my thinking about this and realized that we were never called human doings. we are called human beings. because we exist without work. this is where we must return in our lives to be synchronized with Yahweh God. Yahweh is the personal name of God that speaks of his name meaning the all existent one or the always being one. when we be we will become like him. when we buy into the thought that being is about becoming in alignment with God in his existence. 

the words in English about this: being, be, is, are, were, was, etc. are all called "being" verbs. "being verbs" are about a state, not an action. they actually are normally equalitative. what you "be" is what you are. the word "is" or "be" interestingly enough thus acts as an equal sign. if you say that is this. then that equals this. these are syntactical principles of our words and also our lives. 

Shakespeare said it beautifully. "to be or not to be." we are all confronted with that in our lives. so be, don't do. 

- peaks out.

my recent thoughts...

So I have been putting this off since Sunday and I decided that instead of living in fear of what these concepts could bring, I am going to embrace the things the Lord has been showing me recently. These thoughts started when I was supposed to have a night of worship for our church. I had decided to do a little teaching before the time of music and singing. As I began to survey this topic, God couldn’t have led me any farther from where I thought I might go for a discussion of worship. I wanted to share it with you, because God has been really dealing with me about not communicating what he is doing in my life. I hope you can look past my stream of consciousness thinking and my writing style. I typed this as fast as I could, so please bear through it. I love you all.

Basically, as I started I thought I would go to some of the well known places about worship, you know, psalms, the tabernacle, all things that every good worship major comes into contact with in school. However, as I began to look into the word worship, I found that the first mention of the word “worship” was in a rather strange story. It was Genesis 22.5, which is the story of Abraham, Isaac, and how God had asked Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac.

As I read this story, I am pulled so many ways thinking about a father having to kill his only Son. The emotion, the pull, the dissonance that was created in that moment where God asked Abraham to give his promise bearing son up. That is what Isaac what, the fulfillment of a promise God had spoken to him. In this situation there are few things that need to be identified as contextually important before I explain what God revealed.

Let me define this word “worship” according to the Hebrew mind and language. The word used in Genesis 22.5, is the word “shahkah,” this word means to bow lowly and to worship something that is superior. In the eastern culture where this story occurred it was imperative for a person who was lesser (in class, age or in title), to bow in reverence and respect to the superior person. So in that culture the whole concept of worship and bowing was more about attitude than a mere action. It was the consideration that you would adhere to a person who was greater than you.

So we have Abraham who is going to worship (attitudinally) the Lord with his son. This introduces another concept in middle eastern thought. Progeny is one of the most important points in that life. For in your ability to reproduce was your ability to spread your name, your beliefs, your life through the extension of your children. This father-son relationship is obviously a theme that recurs in the Bible constantly, always about fathers and sons.

Another contextual concept that appears is the whole concept of covenant. Both sonship and sacrifice were covenantal approaches to life. Sonship fulfills covenant as the son is the promise. And then the sacrifice is a necessity for all who are in covenant which returns to the garden where Adam and Eve had to have a sacrifice for God to have mercy on them and their disobedience. In the situation of a covenant, there is a need for a specific place and time for the sacrifice, and most sacrifices where made upon an altar, again which occurs in this story of Abraham and Isaac.

Now for a little more ground work, we can see and can understand the culture of the day was centered around the deity and thus, when you worshipped a deity, it was all encompassing. In this sense, worshipping a deity, or giving homage or honor was about everything that you do. Every action was correlative to your religion. This eastern mentality believes that everything is spiritual. That every “non-spiritual thing” we accomplish or practice, it has spiritual value and purpose behind it. Everything is spiritual to the ancient near eastern person. This reveals that worship to their mindset would be holistic, involving every parts of who they were.

Due to the fact that we were created beings created by a creator God, who poured out into creation, we find ourselves either holistically worshipping God or worshipping something else. This would basically fall into the category of idolatry. Anytime we are worshiping something besides the Lord, we are committing idolatry. The interesting thing about this concept is that idolatry is not about an object, it is about the failure to listen and hear what God is saying and doing, because if we did, we would have no need for a substitute.

So this is where hearing is juxtaposed into worship. Throughout people’s experiences in the Old Testament and even now, we find that worship occurs when God reveals himself to individuals, and they respond to that revelation. Isaiah 6 is a fantastic picture of this as Isaiah sees the Lord high and lifted up and then he both presents himself for service and for cleansing. This worship attitude/lifestyle comes full circle as we begin to understand that the revelation of God occurs through his Word, his people, and his Spirit. When we come into our lives of serving the Lord, we see that we must hear what he is saying, no matter which of the mediums he might use. In the case of Abraham, he spoke to him through his voice.

As Abraham heard the voice of God and had an attitude of both reverence and fear of the Lord, he was able to hear all that was said and then to act upon it. Although he heard that his son must be sacrificed, he was still able to obey the Lord by having faith and coming into agreement with the promise of God that even if God took his son, God will still extend his family as the sands of the sea and the stars of the sky. As we hear the Lord in our lives, we begin to worship, through obedience.

Only through obedience would we be able to surrender to God. To obey God is definitely a challenge to all of us as we are uncertain of the outcome. However, the remarkable think about obedience is that we are able to be okay with submission to the Lord. As we begin to submit and surrender we end up seeing that my submission to God is not just about submitting to him, but also to others (his people). We come into relationship with others and respond to them as they begin to speak into our lives. We are able to totally surrender to God and yield to both him and others in our worship.

Worship takes on this individual approach and this communal approach, for as I worship God, I am affecting everyone else that I know due to the outflow of my life. There is no worship that is solely toward God. Worship must be experience both in one’s personal life as God works in and through them, however, if those things are not dispensed to others then what is the purpose and benefit. Worship is about me and about us.

So in this thinking, let’s take it all back to Abraham & Isaac. In the sense of doing God’s will and purpose by submitting to his voice, Abraham, was both taking an individual approach to worship and he obeyed God, however, his son Isaac was going to be encouraged and blessed by his father’s obedience. This example revealed that submission was on Isaac’s part in and through Abraham. Crazy that although Isaac didn’t hear God himself, he heard his father who in relationship with the Lord was able to reveal the Lord to him. Isaac and Abraham were about to see God reveal himself again to them through obedience and submission to God’s voice. Through this story, we are watching showing how his relationship works with us. That as we believe his covenant promises and agree with him and what he is saying, we are able to watch our sacrifice become a promise fulfilled. Then we watch God reveal himself to us in a new way of provisionary goodness. Abraham put himself into a position of willingness and an attitude of worship and therefore he saw his worship affect both he and his son for all time.

Let’s take this passage to a new level of understanding: Romans 12:1-2. I know it is a super common passage, but I can’t help but to think that as Paul wrote this under the Spirit’s working, that he wasn’t recalling Abraham. Most of the book of Romans chats about Abraham. Why should Romans 12:1-2 be any different? Well Abraham went to present his Son to the Lord, he was taking action on his son to worship, even when Isaac might not been okay with the whole concept. He trusted his dad. Well God now decides to reveal that we get to present ourselves to him in a living sacrifice. I was blown away to think about how God basically was saying that he no longer needs us to kill ourselves for him, but instead that he wants us to worship him by living all the above concepts of relationship, sonship, covenant, faith, obedience, surrender, etc. It is a reasonable deal for us to listen to what God is trying to do in our lives.

We come and holistically present ourselves to the God we know has promised us life and life more abundantly even if it takes our sacrificing our desires, dreams, promises, because we know that as we obey his voice, his people, his Word that we will not go wrong. Worship is that place where it is all about life and life with God enwrapped in it. I love that worship through music and singing voices this so well. The extension of our hands communicate our surrender, our voice sings truth that agrees with his truth, our faith comes alive as we realize that God is right there in the midst of it. Our experience becomes ones of revelation and response. And our response could be acing a test, loving our friends, sharing the gospel, or any other outpouring you can think of.

There are so many things that come into play with what I am learning. For instance, we are dealing with a formless God (dt. 4) who is jealous of us when we worship anything but him. We are looking at the way Israel was worshipping God individually and through a person, instead of knowing that now God has sent Jesus as our Isaac so that all may be able to experience life. Unless a seed falls to the ground and dies, there is no life. We also have to consider Hebrews 4 where we can realize that God is totally approachable and we can talk to him about what is going on in His voice, his people, or his Word.

Romans 12:1-2 uses a different word for worship: proskuneo. This word means that basically worship is about service. I love that God totally wrapped all these things into it: we can’t serve until we are able to recognize and have an attitude of whatever you are saying God, I am down with it. I will do it, no matter the cost.

Anyways, this is a lot of ramblin’ about God’s heart to mine and from mine to yours. 

night vision

so last night i was pulled over by a cop. 

first let me tell you that i have a hard time with law enforcement. i always have this sense that they are out to get everyone. i know this is probably untrue, but in my experience, i have always gotten the raw deal. nonetheless, last night i was in a pretty populated area, and this cop weaves over behind me and throws his lights on. 

as i saw the blue, i tried to think what i could've gotten pulled over for, and upon reflection in 1.3 seconds, i couldn't think of a single thing. my mind raced and my heart pumped so much blood to my body that my extremities probably turned red as a ferrari. all of a sudden, a bright toned voice said "license and registration please." As i fumbled in the dark of the my car and my wallet (which is really overloaded with receipts and cards), the officer said to me, "are you an owl." his thought totally distracted me from getting my license, cause i was so randomly blindsided by that comment. he went on to say, "are you a cat or something?" at this point, i had given him my attention instead of getting my license. i answered no, he then continued in the most sarcastic tone i have ever heard and said, "can you see in the dark or do you have night vision." at this point, i was was offended at his condescension. i obviously didn't have night vision. all this to say, he was trying to tell me that my headlights weren't on. 

i laughed so hard when he went back to the car to look me up in his computer. i seriously had to contain myself because i thought, who says that? why so sarcastic? i know it is kinda dumb to not have my lights on, but my car is weird and you can turn the dash lights without the headlights, so i had been in brightly lit areas, so i had no clue (nor did the other 4 people in my car). 

all this to say, i don't have night vision. but watch out for those sarcastic cops, and refrain from telling them that you not only have night vision, but you have x-ray vision cause that was my smart aleck comment i wanted to make to him. thank goodness i didn't, cause i probably would have a ticket right now. he was merciful and i was grateful. God has night vision and he has mercy. thanks goodness. 

- peaks out.