Coming back...in a big way!

Dressed head to toe in princess garb, my sister took the liberty of introducing me one fine evening to the funky and yet “hip” rhymes of an up-and-coming Christian Rap group to which she had been introduced through a childhood friend named Roni. It was a strange sort of performance...Terah with a tiara on her head and in her mother's high heels, a dress far too big for her dragging on the floor. A prepubescent, fairylike attempt at beat boxing could be heard between lyrics as she rapped what she could remember from what she had heard on the cassette tape Roni had played over and over and over. 

Despite her ill attempt to reproduce DC Talk, it seems a few of those lyrics (which I am confident were severely butchered) have recently been stuck in my head. It's one of those annoying little jingles that lingers in your mind and finds itself being hummed randomly throughout the day until you finally realize it and ask yourself, “why on earth am I voluntarily singing/rapping a song I don't know that I learned from my princess sister in the late 80's?”

After unsuccessfully attempting to google the song, I will do my best to relay to you what I remember of it. Perhaps it will help if you, like myself, envision Terah dressed to the hilt, hiking her dress up to her knees with one hand while spitting into the other.

-Part of Verse 1...maybe?

“Little joey was out in the field with his brothers.

Born to fly, he got a coat of many colors.

And that coat given to him by his dad,

sure enough made the other brothers mad.”

-Chorus-

“He's coming back

In a big way.

Coming back

In a big way.”

I hesitate to share this song with you and to discuss the meaning of it to me. I fear it may come across as slightly arrogant. And yet when have I ever been known to actually observe those gentle nudges which most would identify as an indication that the consequences will hardly be worth the experience? Still, please take into account that I am only communicating MY process and point of view as God is changing, dealing, and healing my heart.

After receiving the revelation that I mentioned in my last blog, I began a journey – the beginning stages of which I feel I am still embarking. Sometimes I fear these moments of hope and revelation are so fragile that if I even think about giving them words, they may dissolve and vanish altogether. At the same time, I process verbally and feel the next step in my growth is simply to say what I am hearing. So give me grace as I process with you...even if you disagree.

I recently entered this as my status on facebook - “Vision – give me some new so I don't have to get excited about the old.” While it may scare a certain percentage of those who are reading this, what is really on my heart is what was always on my heart. After several painful and yet liberating conversations over the last two weeks, I realized why I have not been able to get any real vision for the future. It's quite simple really. I have not been willing to receive it. In my heart, I have put parameters and limitations upon the vision for which the Lord is allowed to give me passion. In short, I have said in my heart, “speak to me about anything...just not THAT.” He has accommodated my request and said nothing, which has brought me to the point where I currently find myself...wanting to die.

No, I do not want to kill myself. I have felt for the last few years that I have been aimlessly wandering around...lost to myself and to the Lord – no real direction or sense of self. This has made me miserable – miserable to the point where I have finally begun to die to the desire to control what I want or do not what it to look like. What I mean is that what I really want is to discover something so worth living for that I would die for it. And I do not care if it's something for which I have already died. I want to give my life for something that I know will impact the world in a significant way. Something that will change things and break strongholds and usher in a new era of kingdom reality. I had found that purpose once before and it cost me everything. I hate it for what I I have lost. And yet I have become numb, powerless, and void of all vitality while hating the thing for which I was created.

So I will hate it no more. 

Read a quote the other day... “Never quit anything you can't go a day without thinking about.”

Well, I tried to quit. I really did. But it wouldn't quit me and now as I find myself slowly finding the courage to begin speaking the things that were once buried deep within my heart, a new life and energy is filling me and the hopelessness and depression are beginning to dissolve. Momentum is building and I can feel the movement of grinding wheels within my heart that had begun to rust. It's time.

But what is it time for? I have been asking myself the same thing. This is what I have come to:

• It's time for me to be me. I have been challenged many times in the last month to stop fearing my own shadow and to walk as the son, father, and leader that I am called to be. I have resisted leading in various capacities – partly because I have lacked vision (which was my own fault as I discussed earlier) and also because I did not trust God to protect me from myself and others.
  
• It's time for me to speak. I have resisted articulating up until this point the things that are really on my heart because I have been afraid that I will get excited about them and that others will too. I have also been concerned about the negative response of people who are still too wounded or bitter to hear vision that is really no different that what was always on my heart.
  
• It's time for me to be passionate. I have been totally lifeless in my pursuits over the last few years and if I am totally honest, it has been on purpose. I know that I will give myself fully to the things which bring me passion and that my passion will be infectious, causing others to give themselves to the vision as well. This has scared me and caused me to intentionally limit my commitment to the things that have been on my heart.
  
• It's time to put all my eggs in one basket and reorient my life. This is the hardest and most scary part of the process. I need to begin to make decisions for my future and the future of my family/community that serve the purpose of accomplishing the vision that the Lord has placed upon my heart. Divine order must come to my life in a way that draws all my efforts away from self-preservation – fleshly attempts at establishing a financially stable future and godless plans for the size and timing of the growth of my family. I understand that when directed by God, these things are not wrong. And yet I confess that very little of what I have done in these areas has been for any purpose other than to remove me from the discomfort of having to trust him with my everything.
  
• It's time to die. If I am really to discover something worth living for, I must also be willing to die for it. It's time to give myself so fully to a cause that I am willing to lay my life down for it daily. And I believe I have rediscovered that cause.
  

So what is the cause? As I have already mentioned, it is no different for me than it always was. The stripped down version is this: I desire to raise up a discipleship based community whose primary purpose is two fold: to usher in the kingdom of heaven in Lancaster City and to facilitate the forming of longterm teams who will possess the nations for the kingdom of God.

Discipleship? Yes! Community? Completely! Transparency, vulnerability, confrontation? You bet! What about fathers and sons? Essential! House of Prayer ministry? I don't know how it looks, but yes! Prophetic Ministry? It's who we are! But isn't that what I always talked about and pursued in the past? Yeah, it is.

I don't understand everything that has happened in the past 5 years but as I have quoted a million times from John 12:24 “Unless a grain of seed falls into the ground and dies, it cannot bear fruit.” The reason I have been hesitant to pursue these things up until now is because they are familiar, and familiar things are also scary. Especially when my attempts at them have seemed to fail. I have also hesitated because I have lacked a revelation that I am once again laying hold of for the first time...in a LONG time.

-Cue the rap-

“Little joey was out in the field with his brothers” – that's me. I'm joey. “He was born to fly, he got a coat of many colors” That's my destiny. “That coat which was given to him by his dad” -

-Pause-

There it is. Did you hear that? That coat – the mantle of authority, destiny, the purpose of my life – was given to me by my Dad...not by my parents, my friends, or my enemies. No ministry companion or regional/church leader gave me that coat. My coat came from my heavenly Father and therefore no one can or has been able to take it from me! It's mine! Dad gave it to me and it's mine!

“And that coat given to him by his dad, sure enough made the other brothers mad.”

-Pause again-

Oh man. Joey had a destiny and a purpose that provoked his brothers and made them angry. They didn't want him to achieve the revelatory dreams given him. I think his reckless and unbridled zeal not only irritated them. I believe it convicted them. They wanted him to fail and did their best to ensure that he would. Granted, Joseph was young and immature and wreaked of pride, but the process of God in Joseph's life was carried to completion and through many opportunities to suffer, Joseph was raised up to be the leader of a nation and the salvation of his family. My point is not so much to identify who the angry brothers are in my life, but simply to stress that though he could be stripped of earthly popularity and significance for a time, no one could possess the blessing given by his father. Destiny and divine purpose could not be stolen. And no stupidity on Joseph's part, nor jealousy from his brothers, nor external circumstances could keep Joseph from enduring a horrible process that to most would have looked like a roller coaster ride of potential successes followed by absolute failures. Now, you tell me...whose life does that remind you of?

But tell me something. Did the process destroy Joseph's destiny? Were the dreams forfeited or wasted by the circumstances Joseph endured? Or were they meant to purify the heart of the man who was meant to fulfill them? Whether in a pit in the ground or a jail cell, I have certainly felt at times over the last few years that I had somehow gone from a blessed son to a slave and fugitive. I have felt forsaken and lost, bound up and forgotten. But then the chorus...

“He's coming back in a big way. Coming back...in a big way.”

The son turned slave and jailbird becomes the leader of a nation. His destiny and birthright have not been stripped from his life. People and circumstances could not deny Joseph what had been given to him by his Father. He came back – in a big way.

So here I am. It's as if I am standing in front of a mirror and picking the coat my Dad gave me from off the ground and trying it on again. It's been there all along. I thought someone had taken it or that I had lost it. Perhaps I had done something to deserve it being stolen. But what I had forgotten is that my destiny came from my Dad. He doesn't regret giving it to me and has been guarding it for me. He made it to fit me, and me alone. And there it is. Will I put it back on?

I'm coming back...

OPERATION UNDO – makes “myundone” UNTRUE

A couple years ago, four badly bruised and yet determined sons went on a week long journey up and down the coast of California. Following the leading of the Holy Spirit, we knew only that our flight was set to land in San Francisco and that our time frame was about a week. Everything else was open for the Lord's direction.

Now, each of us had our own idea of what we would do, where we would go, and how it would look: My priority was to make it to LA in time for the Azusa Street Revival Reunion, Matt wanted to visit his aunt and tour a vineyard, Mark was excited about heading north to the Redwood forests, and Jed had Berkley on his heart. Yet with all our differences, I think we would agree that though we didn't know exactly where the Lord would lead us or what we were looking for, we were each hoping to find some piece of ourselves which had died in the war we had just endured.

I feel it important to mention that there are still those who would debate over the cause of our war. They search for a person or group to whom blame can be attributed and long to present their peers with a satisfying answer. I have found that those who are still trying to figure out the “why's” and “wherefores” are generally still confused as to who was fighting who and in most cases lack the details and insight that may or may not help cure their desire for closure. All would agree it was messy. We who were directly involved in the battle, however, will attest that the external expressions of war were and are far easier to understand than the wrestling that began on the battlefield of our hearts and spirits – no less bloody, no less messy...and in many ways, far more devastating.

Carrying this devastation in our hearts, the four sons to varying degrees found their agendas for this trip to California being realized. A trip to Beringer Vineyard in Napa Valley was beautiful, though to Matt's disappointment, we unfortunately arrived just moments after tours were no longer being given. Our trip to Berkley, our intercession at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge and on the coast of northern California's Redwood forests, and our stay in San Francisco's infamous, ridiculously expensive, and absolutely gorgeous Fairmont Hotel stand out to me as highlights of the trip.

One night, after hours of driving, we found ourselves at a seafood restaurant near Modesto in Monterey. We were tired, irritable, and especially frustrated this evening because we could not agree on where we were to go next. Funds were limited and we needed to hear from the Lord as to what his agenda was for the remainder of the trip. Should we drive south overnight and make it just in time for the Azusa Street Revival Reunion? Or were we just being overly spiritual and wasting our time on a long trip that would no doubt exhaust all of us? One of us ordered a drink while another went to the bathroom.

Eventually, we decided to scratch the trip to LA and stay the night in Monterey. It was no easy decision and to my estimation at the time, took entirely way too long to agree upon. Still, just as we decided we would not be driving to LA, Matt got a text on his cell phone from Verizon that gave expression to the fears and emotions we were all feeling and scared to death to admit. As I look back on this evening, I realize that we each were being given an opportunity to face our greatest fear in regards to not only the trip, but the war we had been fighting as well as any sense of destiny we had embraced for our lives. It cut to the core of each of us – though all but one of us laughed it off as a freak occurrence. The truth is, the text would not have hurt, nor would it have struck fear in our hearts had it not been the very word which we were already using to some degree as the definition for our identities. The text read: “Operation FAILED.”

Failure. We are taught as children that failing is an essential part of learning and thus succeeding. Yet there is not a single word that can devastate a heart more than when “fail” is declared over one's destiny or heart passions. We were too scared to admit that we really believed we were failures. But the truth is, I think we all felt we had failed to successfully complete our mission on some level or another – whatever that mission was...For me – every mission, and entirely. Then this text to confirm it all – Operation FAILED!

Life went on. Or it tried to. The process of God over the next three years of my life was painful and difficult to endure. But it brought a healing to my emotions that little by little restored my ability to trust God and His people. Slowly, I began to believe that maybe...just maybe I was more than a failure and that my destiny was perhaps not completely lost to me. Even so, there remained within the pit of my stomach the haunting echoes of a word which my spirit would not release – FAIL.

Last week, I was feeling particularly pathetic (for reasons not worth mentioning in this blog), when I got a timely phone call from Matt. It had been a long time since we had connected and there was a lot for us to share with one another. I suppose that deep within my heart I sometimes find myself searching for a means to medicate the ache of past failures when given the opportunity to express myself and to hear the hearts of those brothers who fought by my side when everyone else abandoned us. This conversation was no different. Once again we found ourselves exploring the ups and downs of the last few years. I cannot give words to the deep breaking and healing that must be endured once betrayal on this scale has been experienced. Despite our most valiant efforts to violently address the issues of our hearts, learning to trust again is a slow process and requires a significant amount of time. Many times I have felt that I reached the completion of my healing only to encounter a person or a situation that challenged my notion of healing altogether and caused me to wonder if I had grown at all. It is amazing how quickly the heart can retreat within itself in an attempt to find safety when a perceived threat draws near...almost independently of our emotions at times – my heart was here and now it's gone. Where did it go? Why?

I have never been very sympathetic when ministering to people who claim to have no control over their heart or who are strangely disconnected from their ability to decide when it opens up or closes down. I have extended no patience to individuals who claim “I just shut down, I don't know why.” I am quick to answer, “You don't just accidentally 'shut down', you CHOOSE to shut down. So CHOOSE to stay open!” I realize now, however, that there is a deep wounding which can cause this sort of breakdown between the heart and the soul. It is not healthy and is a sure sign that healing is desperately needed in a place very deep within ourselves.

As Matt and I shared our thoughts, I became very aware of the aforementioned “F” word. My spirit ached for a reason to believe that I was more than a failure. And yet in my hurt, I found no convincing basis for which I could justify extending myself that grace. As Matt and I discussed my brokenness in this area, he shared with me a word that deeply penetrated my heart. It was timely and came in a way that met my deep need to hear God speak something that could break the power of the verdict spoken over me through a text message in California. It had to come in this particular way and it was a word that silenced the questions in my heart, the need to make myself relive the past in an attempt to find another thing for which I could apologize, another person to whom I could repent, another answer for the person who refuses to let go or who insists on judging people they barely know concerning matters that do not include them. So I'm sharing with you now the heart of God for me and also for you if you have found yourself relating thus far to the things I have written. In a text message from AT&T Matt recently received this message...

“NOTHING TO UNDO”

I cried and cried as Matt shared these words with me. It was one of those times when I found myself moved very deeply by words I didn't even know I needed to hear until after I felt tears streaming down my face. I suppose if one is unable to determine precisely how to unlock his disconnected heart, he will neither be able to choose when it will open up and gush as it is finally given room to breathe. And gush it did.

My heart let out a sigh as feelings of relief and peace washed over me. Finally! To hear the words that no man could have ever spoken in a way that was meaningful to me. Nothing has been left undone and therefore there is nothing left to undo. Case closed! I am not a failure and I am free to pursue the passions of my heart, the destiny declared over me by God himself. This chapter is complete and there is nothing left for me to undo. I can feel like a son again.    

Trust is Worship

In the beginning of my previous blog, I was trying to articulate something that Jason Upton managed to do in a few words from his newest CD.  You can apply it however you want:  Walking through the fire, enduring the processes of God, while embracing his dealings, when you gave till you were broke, with blind obedience that threatens to cost you everything, in the midst of great transition, when you can't see what's next and have no idea how the situation will be resolved, when it hurts to breathe and nothing makes sense.  In betrayal, failure, frustration, disappointment, and heartache... 

"Trust is the purest form of worship"  Upton

Nah...I'll just sing Him a song

Who is beating who?

I had a pretty crazy encounter with the Lord the other morning.  I'm not sure if it's simply that I'm in a much  more fragile state than I usually am due to being sick and fairly isolated from everything and everyone for more than a week now or if God is just for some unknown reason really getting to the root of some things in my heart that have for a long time gone untouched.  Either way, I welcome his dealings.


I'll spare you the details leading up to the conversation but I found myself yesterday morning explaining to one of my spiritual sons that physical discipline (ie spanks...we were speaking in reference to spanking my daughter) is a very intimate exchange.  He seemed baffled by the thought and openly admitted that he never once felt that it encouraged any form of intimacy between he and his father.  To be honest, I was kinda surprised I said it myself.  It was one of those moments where I was speaking about a topic as though I had spent years pondering it with the Lord and yet the truth is, it was a new revelation to myself as much as to the person with whom I was speaking.  I mean, yes...I know what the bible has to say about God disciplining those he loves.  But I never have considered it an act of intimacy.


I told him that the intimacy and trust comes when my daughter submits herself to me, knowing that my intention is to hurt her body but trusting that I will restrain myself even though I am unpleased with her behavior. She knows that I am stronger than her and have the ability to really hurt her but she trusts that I will not lose control and abuse her.  It is a very intimate interaction.  Do you see the delicate balance?  The required trust?  She fears pain and yet trusts me to unleash my discipline on her backside because she knows that while I can terribly hurt her, there is nothing farther from my heart than crippling her in any way.


It's similar to the way I view Jesus on the cross.  His own father was going to unleash his fury over mankind's sin onto his son.  God's hatred for sin had to be aimed toward his own son and yet the son submitted himself to the destruction of his own body knowing that the Father was in control, knowing him to be a good dad, understanding that if his father said it needed to be that way, then it was for his own good.  He was totally surrendered to the love of His father.  And yet how many times have we considered this bloody crucifixion to be an act of intimacy - even between the father and the son.  How much trust do you think was required of the Lord as he endured the fury of his father?  He must have been totally convinced of His father's love in a way that I certainly cannot fathom.


As I considered all of these things, I began to think about my own experience of being disciplined by my father.  I though about how I felt when I was being punished and spanked as a child, during the fist fights and wrestling matches I had with my dad in my late teens.  I did not feel loved, i felt rejected and hated, despised, inadequate, inadequate, inadequate.  And this became a root of anger in my spirit.  As all of these thoughts flooded my mind, I became overwhelmed with emotion and began to cry.  Realizing God to be dealing with my heart, I closed my eyes and allowed myself to go to those places of my heart where I felt so angry and hurt.  When I closed my eyes, I saw a picture of me beating myself.  There were two me's - one with a whip, and one covered with blood.  I know that sounds strange but it was the image placed before me.  I had a whip in my hand and I was beating a very bloody me into a pulp.  To be completely honest, it felt really good.  Inside, I heard myself begin to cheer - Harder, beat him harder! More.  It's what he deserves!  Don't stop!


The more I encouraged myself to beat me, the more me ripped into me.  I was still crying but it felt kinda good to beat me up.  It felt good to release all that anger and pain, frustrations and disappointments with myself.  After all, this way no one could get hurt but me.  Then I heard the Holy Spirit speak to my heart...."He was trying to beat out of you what he hated about himself.  Look again!"


To my horror, I looked down on my bloody self and did not see me but my children, my daughters, my unborn son, my wife.  All that time while I was enjoying beating myself - taking out my anger and pain and frustration and legitimately feeling relief from it - I was actually beating those I love the most.  I was enjoying mutilating my very own children and wife.  The people I would never for a moment consider hurting.  I guess the point is, you can't separate the two.


I just wept and wept.  I cried out to God and repented for beating myself and confessed that I had done everything I knew to make my dad not hate me but the problem was not me.  The problem was that my dad hated and was disappointed in himself.  I repented for "beating" my wife and children the way my father had done to me and asked God for his healing touch.  To uproot my anger and set me free from my self-hatred.  To let me feel his love for me and to allow that healing to engage with how I love my friends and family.  And may I never...EVER...be guilty of trying to beat out of someone else what I hate about myself.


Father, let this curse be broken off of our generation.  Let us be healed so we do not continue the same mistake of trying to beat out of our sons what we hate or are disappointed about in ourselves.  Heal our hearts and allow us to see ourselves the way you do.  Cause it's the only way we will ever learn to really love. 

Jonathan Doesn't Know Jesus...pass it on!

What does one do when their three year old daughter, who often seems to express a more intimate relationship with the Lord than anyone you know, is bleeding from a rash that has taken over her bottom and is literally filling her underwear with blood? I mean, yes...it occurs to me to take her to the doctor and there is an appointment scheduled for the next day. But still, I want her to know Jesus to be her primary pediatrician. I want her to know that Jesus wants to heal her and make her feel good. That he cares about her. So before the dr...what does one do? Pray, right? Lay hands on her and declare healing over her body.

I became particularly conscious of the fact that as I “declared healing” over her body and spoke to the rash and “commanded it to dry up and stop bleeding/hurting” that Keziah was listening to my prayers and receiving them with faith. That while others from my “circle” are familiar with these prayers and words and even say them out of habit, Keziah was hearing them from her father who does not lie to her and who she trusts and believes. Having asked in an authoritative tone for there to be no symptoms by morning of any rash whatsoever, she believed absolutely that by morning she would be healed. She climbed into bed that night and thanked me for praying and reminded me of what I prayed/declared. “When I wake up, my bottom will be all better cause of Jesus, right daddy?”

I went to bed thinking that if I were God, there is no way I would be able resist the beauty of the faith embedded in my little girl's heart. Certainly she would be healed or at least feeling better the next day...despite my own shortcomings, failures, and lack of faith. To my shame, I don't know if I really expected the entire rash to be gone...but certainly better than it was that night as I carefully laid her into her bed because it hurt her just to move.

In fact, I slept in the next morning and didn't even remember the incident. I got in the shower and went through my daily routine. Later that morning, Janelle pulled me aside to tell me what happened. My wife walked into Keziah's room that morning to get her up and give her breakfast. What she found, broke my heart. Keziah was standing at the foot of her bed with her underwear around her ankles. “Mommy,” she said, “why didn't Jesus heal me?” Makes me cry just to write it.

So what's the answer. I refuse to believe it was some lack of faith on my daughter's part. I mean, how many times have you been prayed for or prayed yourself for healing from some ailment but didn't even remember the next morning when the same symptoms were still there – that runny nose or sour stomach or throbbing headache – that though you prayed, you were not healed. No, like me, chances are you popped a pill and forgot you even prayed that prayer. Underneath, somewhere in a dark subconscious place where you aren't willing to even hear your thoughts, there is this very subtle voice that whispers – “Well, I gave Jesus his chance like I'm supposed to and got the results I expected to get. Must not have been his will, I still love him but time to get some real results from the source I KNOW will heal. Pass the meds please.”

But my two and three year olds speak from that subconscious place all the time – and their subconscious place isn't nearly as dark as mine. They haven't learned yet to not want to hear their own thoughts or to avoid their real feelings. They are not ashamed of or afraid of what might come out of them. They simply are – period.

What did Keziah's subconscious place say? “Mommy, why didn't Jesus heal me?” I mean, isn't that the real question? She wasn't asking in a jaded or irritated way. It was an honest, guileless question. With joy and expectation she couldn't wait to drop her panties and see the evidence of God's love for her. So why didn't he? I can hear the question ringing in my ears and I want to know the answer, I really do. I wanna protect her from the feelings of rejection or disappointment that might attack her little heart. I wanna step in and interfere with the theology that I am suddenly aware is being formed within my three year old daughter's heart – that Jesus DID miracles, and LOVED people enough to intimately interact with their issues and problems, that he USED TO BE powerful when he was on the earth as a man and someday will be again...but in the mean time we will talk about Him as if he DOES miracles, and LOVES people, and IS intimate and powerful. And every now and then will see some small example of it that will convince us that the stories we read about WERE true.

Sure, I have come up with little reasons that help me rationalize the disappointment I feel when my prayers are not answered, the sick are not healed, the dead stay dead. When the babies miscarry, the cancer comes back, the ministry falls apart, the friends abandon, the father betrays, the breakthrough doesn't come, there is not financial security...again. I tell myself that I must not have been praying in accordance with His will, or that it was more about the journey and the process than the destination, perhaps it's my immaturity or lack of faith or an unspoken sin issue. Maybe it's the spiritual atmosphere over the region, curses or jealousy being directed towards me, the judgements of friends and enemies. None of these alibis put my heart to ease. The closest solution to the divide between what I believe about God and what I experience comes from the deep, dark, subconscious place inside of me that eeks out...“It's cause I suck!”

Well that exposes some things, doesn't it? It should suffice to say that none of these answers are gonna make any sense to my daughter who just wants to know why Jesus didn't heal her bottom. And the growing ache inside of myself warns me that if something doesn't change, she will come to the same conclusion as her broken father...that she sucks. I cannot bear that I would pass that on to her. She is not the problem. But what is? It's easy to come to the conclusion that the one doing the praying/declaring – ME – is the problem but even my own theology takes into account that God is bigger than my crap. God knows my heart and sees that I want him. That combined with my daughter's innocent and significant faith ought to be enough, right? Even my wife was there and agreeing and declaring. And she is one of the most pure people I know so even if I am totally a waste of space, my wife certainly has me covered.

I am aware that however I choose to answer Keziah will shape how she sees the Lord for a significant part of her life. How I respond to her still being sick and bleeding even though we agreed as a family for her healing is no small matter. She will believe what I tell her and will repeat it to those she knows. This is a defining moment for her. Why did Jesus not heal her? Right or wrong, this is what I did. I tried to be honest with her and told her that I didn't know but that the bible talks about a persistent woman in the bible. I asked her if she knew what that meant and she rolled her eyes at me in a way that suggested I was insulting her intelligence and said, “yes, daddy. It means she lied.” “Not really,” I explained. I told her that the woman wanted something and wouldn't give up or stop asking and so that's what we would do. We would keep asking for her bottom to be healed. Lame, perhaps, but I didn't have time to process through everything and give my gut answer. Which was a good thing cause at that time, it would have been only to tell her that her daddy sucks. My Keziah is discerning and looked into my eyes in a way that communicated my answer was not good enough but that she would accept it for now cause she could see that I at least honestly believed it.

The rash is still not gone.

This conversation will be had again, I know this for certain. Any day now she will ask me why Jesus didn't heal her bottom and when she does, I think I will tell her some form of this...

When I remove the darkness from my deep, subconscious place, I hear myself ask this question. Do I know Jesus? I'm fairly certain that I do not. Not for real. Not the way I can know Him. It's a question that doesn't come with anger or self hatred or condemnation. It breaks me and makes me cry. It's a relief. It's a relief to know that the answer is not that I suck. It's a relief to know that He is not as mean and severe and begrudging and disappointed as I have painted him to be in my own heart. It gives me freedom and a desire to know him more – the right way, the way he can be known. To love him. Sure, it smarts a bit to hear myself say these things. What will the world think when they find out that Jonathan doesn't know Jesus and believes he sucks? But when I consider the posture of the Lord's heart as I write this and I fix my gaze on his face, I see that he is not upset with me. He is weeping too. Cause he so badly wants me to know him as he really is – not as I'm afraid he is. He so badly wants to breathe life over the dead and broken parts of my heart. He wants to heal Keziah's body. The problem is that I gotta let him. I gotta get to know him. It's so easy to serve, so much safer. But it's right to love.

I'm not sure what Keziah will think or how she will process through all that. I'll obviously have to re-word it so she can understand, but I pray that it provokes a hunger within her to know him as he is. And that she will be graced with the humility to identify when she is responding to a harsh God she has created through her life experiences, rather than a loving God who has carefully formed her life experiences to reveal his true nature.

It's so easy to serve, so much safer. But it's right to love.