Dedication Down Under

There is a pattern emerging here – first Canada, then King’s Canyon, and now Australia.  All Mercy land.  All places where I have dedicated albums.  Either this is God or I am in a rut!

The dedication of “Life Flow” took place in two different cities, in a simple, yet powerful way.  I was in Australia all last week, staying with some dear friends who have been distributors for my materials there.  The first few days of my visit were taken up with exploring the area, including an invigorating hike up Mt. Warning, complete with lots of bird sounds – I am assuming there were birds to accompany the sounds but they were well hidden - beautiful tropical surroundings, and rocks to climb.  I hear the view is great from the top, but all we saw that day was white.  It was like sticking your head into a big wet cotton ball.

On Thursday I took a day trip to Melbourne, bringing the album master with me.  I knew there was a patch of land I was to visit, and the album needed to be there.  On Friday when I returned to Pottsville, we finished the dedication with prayer and blessing from Brad and Beth, who stood in for the entire nation to impart to the album everything that God desired.  As we spent this time together, I was really struck by God’s heart for redemption and restoration.  Even though that is not the topic of the album, it is there in every word.

The area of structures is one which the enemy tried hard to ruin.  But God’s design and His planning prevailed, and it is blossoming into what He originally made it to be.  This is only the beginning.  But as the beginning, it represents our Creator’s immense ability to take ground back from the enemy and thump him good for stealing what wasn’t his.

Our Creator is pretty awesome, come to think of it.

I am excited about what is ahead of us.  On a more mechanical note, my hope is for the beginning of next week to release the album.  There will certainly be a newsletter, and if you don’t already receive it, you may sign up by visiting my website at:  www.GoBeyondtheHorizon.com.  Click on “News” and then the link for the newsletter.

Dedication of “Structures” Next Week

We are one step closer to release!  These last two weeks I have been working with a superb graphic designer who has crafted a design for the album cover and CD labels.  The masters and first fruits albums have been burned and assembled and are nestled in my suitcase for my departure tomorrow.

Do you wonder where they will be dedicated?  Well, I am not going to tell you that quite yet, but it’s a bit farther away than my favorite hiking spot here in California!  I will be partnering with some friends who took the teleconference and believe deeply in the material.  It will be a precious time of celebrating and blessing the seeds to grow into something beautiful and powerful.  What is very special to me is the friend I am going to see is learning some cool new things about her personal connection to structures.  Go God!!

My hope is to release the album the week after I return.  We will see if that hope becomes reality!  I will send a newsletter announcing it.

The Magician’s Nephew

“When the great moment came and the Beasts spoke, he (Uncle Andrew) missed the whole point; for a rather interesting reason. When the Lion had first begun singing, long ago when it was still quite dark, he had realised that the noise was a song. And he had disliked the song very much. It made him think and feel things he did not want to think and feel. Then when the sun rose and he saw that the singer was a lion (“only a lion” as he said to himself) he tried his hardest to make himself believe that it wasn’t singing and never had been singing-only roaring as any lion might in a zoo in our own world. “of course it can’t really have been singing,” he thought, “I must have imagined it. I’ve been letting my nerves get out of order. Who ever heard of a lion singing?” And the longer and more beautifully the Lion sang, the harder Uncle Andrew tried to make himself believe that he could hear nothing but roaring. Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed. Uncle Andrew did. Soon he couldn’t have heard anything else even if he had wanted to.”  –CS Lewis

The context of this excerpt is the creation of Narnia. Aslan is singing his new world into existence and the humans are watching with a mixture of joy and anxiety. Uncle Andrew, however, was entirely void of joy and only determined NOT to see the picture for what it really was. He was a high and mighty sort of man whose extreme insecurities caused him to be a first-rate bully, though he was only a third-rate magician. And he was a coward to boot. It takes courage to look at things around you that are not what you expected, or don’t into any previously known understanding, or could pose some risk or harm to you. When Uncle Andrew was faced with a situation far beyond him, he absolutely lacked the courage to embrace it. Instead he convinced himself it didn’t exist. We can pity him for being a fool, which is indeed sad. But to me, the far more sobering matter is the ultimate effect of his efforts. He soon lost the option to see anything different.

This illustration has always been a stark reminder to me of the danger in convincing yourself of an alternate reality. You don’t have to like it, you can even been shaking in your boots about it, but do not try to convince yourself that something else is true. While you may not commit an outright sin with your non-reality, you are most certainly contributing to the decay of your perspective. The more you convince yourself the Lion isn’t singing, the more you will lose the option of changing your mind. It is a cause and effect principle based on our denial of the truth.

On a more intense scale we can see the principle playing out with those who override their conscience. It’s there for a reason. While legalism is a distasteful alternative, it is a grave consequence to push your conscience repeatedly into silence. We talk of people who seemingly have no conscience – no inner sense of good and evil at all. There is no capacity to choose one or the other. While there are sometimes more sinister forces at play, much of the time those people get there one decision at a time.

In the midst of the sobering effect of this illustration is the joy of God’s redemptive power. There are some who may reach a place such as Uncle Andrew and never return. But for many of us, this verse is a constant encouragement for us to grow: “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

To me, this verse speaks of the literal change of our physical mind, the rewiring of thinking patterns, the changing of perspective, the growth of our spirit and soul so we can embrace the will of God and the nature of His fingerprints in our lives. Continually we need to pursue a greater level of renewal, so as to continue moving upward in the health of our mind and the ability to see the truth. When you are faced with a reality you don’t want to accept, remember Uncle Andrew and then ask God to transform you through the renewing of your mind and give you the courage to face the day and emerge triumphant!

www.GoBeyondtheHorizon.com

“Structures” Teaching Recorded!

There was great celebration today!

It always feels good to finish a recording session, and it feels even better to feel good about the recording.  I haven’t finished editing yet, so I can’t give any final opinions on that one.  The acid test is always whether or not you still like what you said a day or two later.

Meanwhile, today’s recording session was a glory story about the primacy of God’s timing, which was incredibly apropos for a teaching that talks about synchronizing with God’s timing!  I had actually planned to record the teaching last weekend, on the last day of the year.  It was a bust.  Major.  I showed up and gave it a good push, just in case it was something I needed to arm wrestle through, but it became quite clear that it wasn’t right.  God was not in it.  So, I went home and ended up re-writing an entire portion of the teaching which improved it significantly.

I set a new date for today – subject to change, of course.  But today was night and day difference.  The words flowed.  The concepts came together.  I believe it was a good delivery and so far, the editing necessary has been light.  That’s always a good sign!

It is amazing once again how much it matters to be in alignment with God’s time, and I think it is especially important in this season.

Meanwhile, tomorrow I have a morning call with my graphic designer, which I am looking forward to.  We will brainstorm some ideas on the album cover and CD labels, and then it will be back to editing for a few more hours.  My goal is to release the album in early February.  I will release it on CD and hopefully as an audio download.

So, if you feel led, please pray into the rest of the process, as well as the dedication of the teaching to God.  I have not decided yet what that will look like.

If you would like to receive a notification when the album is completed and available for purchase, please sign up for my newsletter.  Here is a link to the sign up page:  Beyond the Horizon Newsletter.

The Wisdom of Lincoln

The Second Inaugural Address

“‘Woe unto the world because of offences! For it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh.’

If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove and that He gives to both north and south this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him?”

By the time of the second inaugural address the country was torn asunder by war.  Lincoln had been re-elected, but it was a tough fight and his reward was another term of gut-wrenching presidency.  In the beginning of the war, his chief concern was preserving the Union, whether that meant ending slavery or not.  The issue of slavery was secondary.  But as the war advanced he became more convinced of the evil and more public about abolishing it.  His second inaugural address is transcendent in its grasp of the core struggles of mankind.  Perhaps this is why it is the one engraved next to the Gettysburg Address in the Lincoln Memorial.

In the first line of the excerpt you will likely see that he is quoting Jesus.  We can believe that Jesus was well aware of the reality of the broken state of humanity.  Offences will come.  There will be pain and wrong doing, it is inevitable in a world of sin-stained free will, but woe to the one who does it.  We still, after all, have a choice and a responsibility and each one of us, without exception will give an account for our behavior.  Lincoln, too, saw the reality of our nature. Divisiveness and prejudice were not new.  Neither was greed.  He was clear-headed and precise in his connection between the sin and the consequence.  What astounds me about his conclusion, however, is that he also justifies God’s nature in the punishment.  This is the bone on which most of humanity chokes.  We find it much easier to make God the bad guy.

And not only does Lincoln justify God, he clearly states that it takes nothing away from the divine attributes we ascribe to Him, the inference being that God is being as majestically Himself here as anywhere else.  And when we think of God as the Just Ruler of the Universe, it makes sense.  But when we are the ones being judged, especially if we are caught in a corporate judgement, it’s not a facet of His nature we like to think about.

As I ponder this dynamic it leads me to the issue of parenting.  God takes great risk by leaving us options.  Do you think He likes to watch us blow each other up or destroy His beloved creation?  Yet, He has not turned us into puppets.  He is a Father, not  Mr. Stromboli.  He puts us into situations where we have to make choices.  A parent may give their teenager the keys to the car with instructions of how to get to the library, but when the car leaves the driveway, the teen has a choice. Library or … ?  The parent doesn’t remove the option to fail, but if the kid messes up, he or she will get punished.  It’s an essential part of growing up.  When faced with a crossroad, which branch will you take?

God does this with us, only on a larger scale and with much more at stake.  Will we be a slave or a son?  What will we do with the options we have?  How will our decisions impact our lives, our communities, our nations?  As adults we have a whole lot more power than a set of keys and a few bucks in our pockets.  The Civil War didn’t happen overnight.  Individual men and women made a lot of bad choices, many of which were part of an accepted lifestyle.

So, while we must recognize the righteousness of God in punishment, we must also remember His wisdom in parenting.  Think about the options He has given you and what does it look like to be a son?  Let not the offence come through you!