Category Archives: Deep Restoration

Rest and Renewal

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“By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.” Genesis 2:2-3.  These versus are the foundation of what has been known through history as the Sabbath.  Exodus 20:8 says, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy,” which is one of the Ten Commandments God gave through Moses.  There is a lot of misunderstanding of what the Sabbath truly is and what it was meant for.  Many treat the Sabbath as a day for going to church and keeping holy by going to worship.

Jesus reminds us of an important fact, however, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”  There is a misunderstanding that points to what it means to really keep the Sabbath Holy.  As Jesus says, it was made for man.  How do you truly keep it Holy?  That is by resting.  By taking time to just step away from the busyness of everyday life and to do lists.  Letting your soul rest, letting your spirit rest, letting your body rest, and letting God come in and restore and renew you.  Something we all need.

I’m not advocating staying away from worship and your church families.  I believe this is still an important part of our life and having connections with others in the faith, but we still need to set time for ourselves to unplug from the matrix and as John Eldredge reminded me at his latest Men at the Outpost event, to just think about nothing and let the soul do nothing but rest.

Be honest with yourself, when is the last time you truly experienced a Sabbath in this sense?  Experienced a day where you could just completely rest from the norms of everyday life.  The problem is that in the society we live in today, we are constantly bombarded.  Bombarded with information, with to do lists, and demands.  Think about how many WiFi, radio, and cellular signals that are just filling the airwaves.  Information is everywhere and our society is all about getting things done now, done faster, winning and winning faster (whatever that means).  It is an unrelenting barrage and quite frankly, most of us never take the time get away from it.  Think about it, how much anxiety would you feel if you were told you could not touch your cell phone or any other technology for a day or weekend.  I’ve felt it.  It’s difficult.

This is one big reason why I have just grown to despise the big city.  I literally cannot stand the city any longer.  It is too much chaos.  Too much busyness.  I go when I need to, but the more I can avoid it, all the better.  I know many of you won’t see eye-to-eye with me on this, but it’s just the way I’ve grown to see things.  My wife and I decided nearly 10 years ago to move away from the city and did so, and now prayerfully, eventually will settle into our own land in the country to just give us space and peace.

In “The Holy Wild: Trusting in the Character of God,” Mark Buchanan stated, “Most of the things we need to be most fully alive never come in busyness. They grow in rest.”  Our lives need rest.  God gave us the Sabbath so that we could have rest.  Again, it was made for man.  And as Buchanan said, you cannot fully come alive in busyness.  If anything I find that continued busyness pulls you away from life.  It pulls you away from keeping guard over your spirit, soul, and body, and your heart, mind, and will.  You can’t actively engage and walk with God if you are constantly caught up in busyness.  You can’t be fully prepared for spiritual warfare.  You can’t gain the counsel your heart needs.  You can’t have restoration and healing of your heart.  Again, you can’t come fully alive.  The glory of God is man fully alive.”

I think this is such an important aspect of our lives.  Stepping away from the chaos and the constant coming and going.  As John Eldredge likes to say, unplug from the Matrix.  I was talking to one of my brothers at church a couple of weeks back and he shared with me that someone counselled him to take a weekend to just get away.  Even leave his Bible, maybe bring a journal and just get away alone.  The restoration and power of that is so rich and amazing.  It’s something God intended for everyone of us.  Real rest from everyday life.  Real restoration of the soul.

Take some time to think about this.  If you are thinking to yourself, “I just can’t drop everything and get away,” that right there is an indication of just how connected we are to the Matrix.  Trust me, I’ve felt it too,  but God is also stirring in me the need to change this way of thinking.  I need to make it more of a habit to unplug and rest.  Yes, there are responsibilities and things that need our attention, but we cannot neglect our hearts either.  If we get so lost in everything, we can’t watch over our hearts.

“Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life” (Proverbs 4:23).  I quoted this verse last week, and it’s very relevant.  It can be so easy to lose heart and shrink to complacency.  To just let life run you down, but as this Proverb states, the springs of life flow from our heart.  We have to care for it.  We cannot neglect it.  Part of caring for it, comes from rest and seeking God for restoration, for healing.  This is an offer to every single one of us, but we have to choose whether to accept it.

So again, just think about it.  When is the last time you truly had a Sabbath?  Truly had rest and was able to do nothing and unplug.  I realize that even when I go to the beach as relaxing and wonderful as it is to sit in front of the ocean and watch it do it’s thing, I still don’t unplug.  When I have been hunting, phone is still in my pocket.  Wild at Heart was my first time truly unplugging.  It’s what we need, otherwise, why would God have even made that time.  If He rested, I’m pretty sure we need it too.  Think about it.

Restoration All Around Us

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Spring time is upon us once again, well for those of my readers in the Northern Hemisphere at least :).  This is such a great time of year.  The temperatures begin to rise, baseball begins, and we begin to see things come back to life.  We see trees begin to bloom, we see flowers begin to grow.  Green returns.  Life returns all around us.  Restoration has begun.  I was sitting outside the other day as I watched the dogwood trees begin to bloom across from my house and God reminded me the awesome metaphor that Spring is for Jesus Christ.  It is a constant reminder year after year of the works of Jesus and God’s continual pursuit of our hearts.

As I have shared many times before, Jesus offers healing and restoration by our faith in Him.  Isaiah 61 shows that he came to heal the brokenhearted an set the captives free.  He came to restore us.  We all know very well that we are born with a sin nature that covers every part of us.  We inherited this since the fall.  We are born into a world of sin and because of this nature we are in constant war with the world and with ourselves.  We weren’t designed for this sin nature though.  Man chose the world over God.  Adam chose Eve, this brought the fall of man.  Since then, God has been pursuing us to restore us.  He has been after our hearts to restore them to the good they were meant to be.

So I look at Spring.  I look at life returning.  I look at the new life around us and it just reminds me of the beauty of God’s pursuit of our hearts and the beauty of the restoration of our hearts.  All things made new.  The dictionary defines restoration as “renewal; revival; reestablishment” and also “the return of something to a former, original, normal, and unimpaired condition.”  That’s what happens when Spring rolls around.  Plant life is renewed.  The circle of life continues.  Life is reestablished.

Isn’t that exactly what God is doing with our hearts through the finished works (life, death, resurrection, and ascension) of Jesus?  I think so.  We are given a new nature in Christ.  Because of his finished works we are made new.  Our hearts are restored to the glory they were intended to have.  Ephesians 4 tells us to let the Holy Spirit renew us and to put on our new nature to be like God – truly righteous and holy.  Because of Christ, our sin nature is shed.  We can put off the old man, if we choose to drive a steak in the ground and seek His will above ours.

This restoration happens a little by little, every day that seek God and we have to make th choice to do so.  We can’t just walk around saying, “Yep, I’m saved” and then not seek Him for the healing we need just like I talked about in my deeper dive into the stream of deep restoration. Jesus began the restoration of my heart over the past few years, but it wasn’t until I decided to fully surrender that it just completely changed my heart.  Now today, I have to continue seeking Him.  I have to ask God to restore and renew every single day.  I ask for the full works of Christ over my life everyday.  I ask for the the counsel, comfort, strength, and guidance of the Holy Spirit everyday.  I thank God everyday for creating me and choosing me just as he chose all of you before He made the world.  It’s what I pray for everyday now.  I need restoration every single day.  We all do.

Again, we are all jacked up in some way.  God shows me new things all the time that I need His counsel and healing through.  Because of the wound of our sinful nature, we will always have to battle until we come to our full glory with Christ in Heaven and join him at the Wedding Feast.

Just think about all of this.  Look at everything around us as we see new life sprouting everywhere.  As we see the natural world around us become restored.  It’s an awesome feeling to know that God is working on hearts in the same way.  Restoring us to our original, unimpaired condition.  What we, as His image bearers, as his sons and daughters, were always meant to be. Jesus is making all things new and that includes us.  Our restoration begins with our walk with God.  As  Leanne Payne states, “The soul is restored through union with God.”  Walk with Him and seek an intimate relationship through Jesus Christ and He will bring you to restoration.

Diving Deeper – Deep Restoration

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Jesus stated his purpose on Isaiah 61. To heal the  brokenhearted and to set the captives free.  If you look at his works one of the primary things he offered was healing. The blind could see, the deaf could hear, the lame could walk, and so much more. He offered healing and the works were a parable to what he offered all of the human race. Jesus came to heal, to restore our hearts to what they were meant to be, but fell from. He offers this healing, this deep restoration still. In teaching the stream of healing, John Eldredge described the stream as the supernatural presence or Jesus within our hearts and his willingness to go into our hearts and heal our brokenness.

We all have wounds within us. They are the result of circumstances or things that have happened through our lives and often times we let it define our existence.  Even those that believe and many across modern Christianity don’t focus on or even teach that Jesus offers more than forgiveness of sin. He offers healing and restoration from our sin and to free our hearts from the bondage that it can keep us in. His desire is to give us our whole heart back. Many do not recognize this or even seek it. I sure didn’t for a long time. I just looked at it as a part of who I was, but never thought to seek Christ for healing and restoration.  Believing and actually seeking his are two different things. The demons in Scripture show they know and believe who Christ is, but don’t seek his offer, yet they fear him.

Okay, I want to take you on a little journey to look deeper in to the deep healing and restoration that is offered in Christ.  As I mentioned, we all have broken places in our hearts.  Jesus assumes this to be the case, that our hearts our broken.  In Luke 4:18, we see that when Jesus begins his public ministry in Nazareth, he reads from Isaiah 61.  Out of all of the Scriptures he could have quoted, he goes for this, which says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor, He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed.”  Jesus is offering freedom and healing.  He is out to restore our hearts to be whole again as they were meant to be.  As they were before the fall of man.  He assumes we are already broken and has been sent to heal all of us.  That’s the core of his mission.  Yes salvation is critical, but it is restoration of the heart of man to what it was always mean to be and this is a critical piece missed by so many in the church today.

As with the other streams (Walking with God, God’s Intimate Counsel, and Spiritual Warfare), the stream of Deep Restoration, Deep Healing, is something that I never even thought about.  Never thought about getting into the core of my brokenness.  Never even acknowledged my brokenness to any degree.  I just figured I was a wreck in many ways and did my best to either hide those places in me or move through life without letting it take hold of me.  This helped lead to the false self, to addictions and fears, worries and anxieties.  Things that I just started to accept as a part of who I was.  I never sought Jesus through any of this.  I was what many of us see today, a surface level christian, if even that.  Never knowing what Christ had to offer me, I never truly sought Him in any of it.

So think about this.  John Eldredge points to some critical things in teaching this stream.  Look at our lives.  We have places where we have silly addictions whether it be food, collecting things, or any of a number of just off the wall things, we have wild fears and anxieties, maybe the dark or heights or small spaces, we may worry a lot about a lot filled with heavy anxieties.  There are so many things in us that we have, but we never try to get to the root of what causes any of that. Often times, those addictions or fears get so big in our lives that they begin to run our lives.  Again turning to food when we are depressed, maybe turning to pornography or other sexual additions.  You name it, something is there in each of us.  It all comes from our brokenness, but we have to take time to try and get to the root of it.  Why do we have those and can we ever heal from them?

First, the enemy knows us.  He knows our brokenness.  He knows those young places in our hearts.  Where things come up, such as being around family or being called to speak as examples and then we are all of sudden 9 years old again.  He uses those to try to set up shop and keep us in bondage in our wounds.  In our brokenness.  He comes to steal our hearts, to kill our hearts, to destroy our hearts.

Many in the christian faith will immediately say, “Oh that’s sin, you need to repent and ask forgiveness.”  It’s more than that though.  Yes, sin can be a big part of it.  But simply asking forgiveness is not going to heal it.  You have to get to the root of what the issue is, you often have to go way back, because a lot of this stems from wounds we received as children.  You have to go there.  You have to go deeper.  “The great weakness in the North American church at large, and certainly in my life, is our refusal to accept our brokenness. We hide it, evade it, gloss over it. We grab for the cosmetic kit and put on our virtuous face to make ourselves admirable to the public. Thus, we present to others a self that is spiritually together, superficially happy, and lacquered with a sense of self-deprecating humor that passes for humility. The irony is that while I do not want anyone to know that I am judgmental, lazy, vulnerable, screwed up, and afraid, for fear of losing face, the face that I fear losing is the mask of the impostor, not my own!”  -Brennan Manning, “Ruthless Trust”

I’ve always remembered the thing we are taught about being saved.  About asking Jesus into our heart as our Lord and Savior.  I made that profession of faith when I was about 13 and was Baptized.  Being saved and asking Jesus to be Lord of our live gives us the opportunity to now be fully healed.  This is only the beginning though.  How can you be fully saved if you have not allowed Christ in to heal you?  You have to invite him in.  I never did that.  Being so, I was never fully saved or healed.  Again, Christ came to free us and restore our hearts.  To restore us to the men and women we were always meant to be.  So, I had a great deal more to go myself.  Still do.  When I began to get into Scripture daily 4 years ago, the wheels began to turn, but I had a great deal more to go.  I had to learn to really walk with God.  I had to learn to seek Him.  I had to allow Christ into the depths of my heart to surface my wounds, agreements, and sin so that I could finally and fully repent for everything hidden and be healed.  I could finally be restored.  I could finally come alive.

To heal, requires our full surrender.  Our full surrender to God’s will.  To fully trust him and who he says that we are to him.  A.W. Tozer says, “God rescues us by breaking us, by shattering our strength and wiping out our resistance.”  We have to open our hearts to Christ.  To let him in deep within our hearts and pull out those wounds.  I first felt this at in the weeks leading up to Wild At Heart Bootcamp.  When I was spending each day in prayer and felt like God was pulling me somewhere.  He was pulling me first to unplug from the Matrix.  Once at Wild At Heart, I fully let Christ in.  He came into the depths of my heart.  Pulled out things that I either did not want to acknowledge or even forgot about, but had fully defined my brokenness.  Christ took me there.  Then I had to acknowledge them ask forgiveness for allowing those wounds to define me and living in them and then forgiving those that brought me there as well.  Renouncing the agreements I made and bringing the power and works of Jesus Christ between us.  God opened my heart, gave me the eyes to see, and the ears to hear.

Healing is different for each one of us.  God is still doing a work in me each day to pull out those wounds so that I can renounce them and healing from them and be restored.  For each one of us, healing happens in different ways though.  Look at Christ’s work, especially in healing the blind.  He never heals a blind person the same way.  He may touch them, rub mud in them.  Healing is always different.  This parrables the healing we are offered.  We are all unique in our creation and Christ wants to heal us based on our own uniqueness.  We have to invite Christ in however.  Invite him in and pray for healing and restoration of our whole heart.  This is after all what God has been after since the fall of mankind.  He has been after our hearts.  Restoring our hearts to the glory that they once were.  Christ is the doorway to that restoration. He is the answer to it all.  He was nailed to a tree and shed his blood so that we can be free from our sin, from our brokenness.  He was resurrected to conquer death and give us a doorway to restore us to the glory God created us for, and he ascended to Heaven to show that the enemy has been defeated and all authority in Heaven and on earth is now his.  We can now be made fully alive and restore.  When we are healed and restored, we are fully alive.  As Irenaeus says, “The glory of God is man fully alive.”  Come alive and be restored.  Christ is out to set your heart free.  Let him set you free.

I Want To Be The Real Deal

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Being the real deal…Being Authentic.  What do those words say to you?

While you ponder that, I would like to take you on a journey to look down deep inside yourself.  There is something that every single one of us has had as a part of our sin nature. That is our fig-leaf.  We have all been posers in some way.  I don’t care who you are.  It’s been an inherent part of our nature since the fall of man.  Genesis 3, what do Adam and Eve do after their sin and they now realize they’re naked.  They sew fig leaves together to cover them selves.  They hide.  Ever since then, this has been such a huge and inherent part of us has humans.  We are posers!

God’s revealed so much of this to me in my life over these past years and especially the past few weeks.  Through Wild at Heart, I was able to allow God into my heart deeper to further expose the poser inside of me.  The false-self.  The Ransomed Heart guys shared the analogy of an iceberg.  10% of the iceberg is above water, while the other 90% hides below.  This correlates to our motives and behaviors.  Our behaviors are the 10% on the surface, while the motives are all hidden. I wrote last week about motives and what drives them.  We have to examine those to really get at the heart of how we act and how we portray our lives.  Do we portray a false front or are we authentic?

There’s many ways that we pose or put on the false front to hide.  For me, God pointed right to my reserved passivity.  For many years I have hid behind my quietness and not willing to take a stand and be a voice.  I would speak-up off from time to time, but often would stay back.  I hid behind that as a strength.  Of being to be observant and only speak when needed.  Someone once told me I was tough to read.  Never really let that sink in until this time when I really looked at my heart.  That really told me that I was hiding.  I was putting on a false front and not living authentic as a man.  I was always the nice guy that just got along.  Easy to capitulate and not put up a fight.  God had another way for me though and he has been working on my heart to show me all of this.

People hide in a number of other ways too.  Either way you cut it, the surface behaviors you present to the world are driven by motives that are hidden.  We have to be able to get to the heart of those motives and know what they are before we can address them and really begin to grow and shed that fig leaf.  One thing they shared with us is that deconstructing the poser in us is huge in realizing our brokenness and where we need restoration.   When we shed that poser a cool thing happens.  We lose our ability to bullshit our way through life anymore.

As for me, I want to be the real deal.  To be the authentic man.  God wants all of us to be the real deal.  To shed our false-self.  To put off the old man, our sinful nature and come alive.  To be authentic.  It can be a very difficult journey to do so.  To really get at the heart of your brokenness and seek God for the restoration that you need.  I recommend you get away from your regular life for a day or two.  Escape into solitude and just commune with God.  Go in the wilderness or somewhere and let him get at your heart.

“Christ has truly set us free” (Galatians 5:1).  Because of this freedom we have in Christ, we can shed the poser.  We can put off our old sinful nature and come alive in Christ.  Ephesians 1:4, “Even before he made the wold, God loved us and chose us Christ to be hold and without fault in his eyes.” God made us and knew us before creation.  He made our hearts to be real and to authentic and to be good.  Jesus is the picture of full authentic masculinity.  He is what each us could have been if we always put God first through everything in our lives.  And I mean everything.  “Let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God – truly righteous and holy”  (Ephesians :23-24).

My call to everyone today is to let go.  Let go of the poser and the fig leaf that we all hold on too.  Search for your authentic self.  Let Jesus into your heart and he will restore you through all of your brokenness.  Trust me, he will restore you.  I would pray that if you have not taken a look down this path, that you try to.  Have faith the journey and where they Lord takes you.  Let him lead you.  For men, I would highly recommend you pick up the book, Wild at Heart by John Eldredge as a starting point.  For Women, I would highly recommend you pick up Captivating written by John and his wife Stasi.  My wife read this book and loved it.  Transformed her life.  Great starting points to really get down into your heart to restore it and come alive shedding the fig leaf we all hide behind.

This is not an easy journey or a quick journey by any means.  It’s been a long 1 1/2 year journey for me and now that God has really take hold of heart since the Wild at Heart Boot Camp, he has me on fast forward.  It’s a journey of restoration that Jesus has for each of us.  He came to save us from our sins yes, but he also came to restore our hearts.  To be made new and to be the people God intended us and created us to be all along.  I challenge you to take this journey if you have not.  Come alive and become the real deal.

SetFree

Let God Father You

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I have come into a lot of growth over the last couple of years.  Learning more about God and growing in my faith in Jesus Christ.  One of the biggest things I have grown into is learning about God as my Father, my true Father.  My life has gone through a series of twists and turns in the fathering I received.  Events growing up led to a mix of seeing my earthly dad as a great man, while at the same time coming to terms recently that I was never fully initiated as man nor received the full validation I needed and that every boy needs coming into manhood.  I married early and pulled away from the family.  As I neared my 30s, things began to change in how our relationship grew stronger.    We spent some great times just hanging out and talking.  Then all of a sudden, he was gone.  I’ve shared this on many times, but it ripped my heart out losing him the way we did.

So what to do with all of this.  Not having my dad any longer I was lost.  I grew in my faith and it began to have a lasting effect on my life and my family.   I looked to God as my father now and I have wanted to grow in knowing him.  Something changed in me recently though while at Wild At Heart.  Before, I was looking to God as a backup father.  My dad, gone, so who do I turn to.  Ephesians 1 tells us that God is the originator though.  He adopted us into his family as sons, as his sons and daughters.  Verse 4 says, “Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ.”  He is not the backup plan. He was my Father before I was created and has always been, and will always be.  God desires to bring us into Sonship with Him.  To allow him to Father us.

Morgan Snyder from the Ransomed Heart team shared some pretty remarkable things about this and has some awesome audio about Sonship on the Ransomed Heart site.  One thing He mentioned is that God is orchestrating a rescue of us.  Our earthly dad was meant to point us to the father, but never sufficient to take the Father’s place.  This is just a small snippet, but it’s pretty profound.  The invitation of the Father is to be his son.  He wants to Father us.

What does this do for our hearts and our lives when we allow God to father us?  One thing I can say for sure is that you feel alive.  Aside from addressing my wounds, the thing that made me most alive in my journey at Wild At Heart was truly learning that I was God’s son and that he believed in me as a man.  I heard one of the guys say that it allows us to be young again.  I believe this to be true.  In coming alive, I feel like I can do anything again and allowing God to Father me is leading me in a pretty awesome direction.  He’s initiating me into adventures and what feels like a new beginning.  I noticed my overall demeanor has changed.  I think it brings us to a point to where we just enjoy life.

We need to seek Sonship and seek God to Father us each day.  Know that we are our Father’s son and he loves us and believes in us.  Whether or not you had a good relationship with your earthly dad, coming to God as the Father is on a whole new level.  He has a name and identity for us. Spend time in prayer with him and get to know him for who he is and he will tell you who you are.  I’m paraphrasing, but George McDonald said that it’s better to not know the Father than to have learned him wrong.

Being a son was a the center of Jesus’s life.  He sought the Father for everything he did.  He came to do the will of the Father and new he was the apple of his Father’s eye.  He was one with Him In John 14, Philip asked Jesus to show them the Father.  Jesus replied that anyone who has seen him has seen the Father.  They are one.  We are the image bearers of God and God desires us to be drawn into Sonship with him as well.  In John 17, Jesus’s invitation is to know the Father through Christ.  This is the path to eternal life.  In Romans 8 Paul says that all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.  So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves.  Instead you received a spirit of sonship.

The invitation is right there.  God desires to Father us.  To bring us close to him as his sons.  God has rigged the world so that it does not work, apart from him.  Without him, things fall apart.  With God, there is life through Jesus.  The enemy has used many tools to draw us away from this.  In our wounds with our earthly dads or other men in our lives. The enemy hates the father son connection and is out to destroy it.  Look to the Father though and he will reveal the Truth to you.  Look in his Word and all he has shared.  He desires for us to be drawn to him as sons.

As you grow in Sonship and I am still growing, you’ll be amazed at the ways God will Father you.  He will come at you directly.  He will also use other people in your lives to Father you.  I have definitely found this to be true in the guys I’ve connected with and the conversations I’ve been able to share with others.  I may not have recognized it all before, it God’s definitely showing it to me now.  It’s pretty amazing to see.  There’s a place for us all in the fellowship of man if we open our hearts to the Father and let him in.

Seeking the Counsel That We Need

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In this world we are filled with joys and sorrows.  We have things that happen to us through the years that seem to define who we become, whether right or wrong. We suffer from wounds that drive many of the choices we make and even the sin we live in.  Those wounds often get buried deep in our hearts for a long time.  We hide behind our fig leafs and those things never come to the surface.  We don’t let anyone in and then we let those wounds define a false self in us and for the world to see.  This could be wounds you suffered from your parents, siblings and other family, anyone else around you.  When they hit you as a kid they hurt.  You may not realize it, but they really begin to take hold of your life.

I’ve suffered through many of my own wounds.  Many I suppressed for a long time.  I bared a great deal of weight on my shoulders and tried so hard to prove myself in my family life and work life.  I realized I was missing a key part of it all.  God.  I came to believe in Christ long ago, but it was not until my 30s until my life really began to point more seriously toward him.  Now at 36, I’ve crossed a whole new bridge as I’ve come to realize that I really needed Jesus to get down deep into my heart to uncover those wounds so that they could be brought to the surface and nailed to Cross for good.  Jesus wants to restore our hearts.  He came to make our hearts new.  We have to be willing to let him though.  We have to open the door to let him in.  He opened the door to our salvation already now we have to let Him come in and heal us so we can walk through that door.

While I was in Colorado, Jesus dove way down deep in to my heart.  I had wounds in there I never wanted to admit or let out, but things that completely defined the false self I became for the first part of adulthood.  It hurt like I had never hurt before.  The thing was, this is exactly what I needed.  I needed the Lord to dig into my heart.  As I walked in communion with him I heard him initiating me into the man he new that I was. The man that I was meant to be all along.  I was never fully initiated into manhood and grew up faster than I should have.  Now I could hear the Father calling me HIS SON.  I was HIS SON and he called me out to be the warrior and the man I was meant to be.  Truly amazing the intimate counseling that He offers us.

Ephesians 4:23 says to “let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes.”  I think I referenced this in my last post, but it is so true.  If you let the Holy Spirit in.  If you let God into your heart and into your wounds he will renew your thoughts and your attitudes. Verse 24 says, “Put on your new nature, created to be like God – truly righteous and holy.”  When we allow him fully into our lives to counsel and heal us, we come closer to the Father.  We are his image bearers and being renewed in him gives us our new and true nature.

This does not just stop with my trip out to Colorado though.  I now know I need to seek God’s counsel for so much more.  When wounds begin to resurface or when struggles come that seem to pull me down, I know I can walk with God and talk with him.  He will pull me from the struggles I find myself in.  None of us have to live in the dark places of our wounds.  Many choose to, but we don’t have to and Christ set us free from the enemies grip on us and our wounds.  We are told in Colossians 2, that Jesus disarmed the angels of darkness.  We don’t have to bound to them any longer or let them dwell in our wounds.  Christ won that battle.

God knows our hearts (Luke 16:15).  He knows exactly where we are in our life and Jesus came to restore our hearts.  In order to do so however, we must let him come to where we are and into our wounds.  He won’t leave us there if we trust him, though.  The pain will be temporary and you will come alive from that.  I’ve never felt as alive as I do right now and I’m fired up to where God is leading.  I needed his counseling first in order to come to where I am.

“God never said that the journey would be easy, but He did say that the arrival would be worthwhile.”  – Max Lucado

Unplug…It’s A Must

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Have you ever stopped to just realize how dependent we are on technology now.  Do you even remember what life was like before you had a cell phone?  It’s amazing how our society has changed so much in the last 15-20 years.  We have become a society that is absolutely addicted to technology, particularly our cell phones and tablets.  Yes, they provide a great way to stay in contact with each other, but have you ever just stopped and thought about just how much they run your life.  And with that, it can begin to take you away from things that God wants you to experience with Him or with those around you.   We’ve been guilty of this sometimes in my house, where we just spend too much time in our phones and less time communicating with each other or just spending time.

Hear’s an example of how addicted we are and it did not hit me until the Wild at Heart Boot Camp.  The very first night, we were asked to turn our cell phones off. Now no body said anything, but John pointed to something there.  Inside us, and I know I felt it, our hearts almost gasped.  It’s like our minds are telling us….Noooooo!  That’s how addicted we have become.  Our lives are ran by our technology.  We see it on the road with people constantly on their phones driving…guilty here!  Walking around a store or in the office, people are always in their phones.  We just cannot let go, there is always something to connect to; a meeting or what have you.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love technology.  It has enabled me to share my thoughts with so many people though this blog.  It enables me to stay connected with friends and family all over the world. It can, however get very dangerous though if we let it run our lives.  If we just spend our time obsessed with social media, email, internet, and apps, we miss so much in this world.  We forget how to relate and connect with people on a personal level and not just through text or status updates.

Simple solution y’all….Unplug!  That’s all there is to it.  Take some time and just unplug from the world.  My 4 days unplugged in Colorado was something truly amazing.  Something I desperately needed for my heart and my sanity.  Take some time, whether it’s a day or a weekend.  Turn off the phones, tablets, and computers and get away.  Go somewhere.  May go camping, hiking, fishing, or hunting.  If you don’t care for the outdoors, go stay in a hotel away from everything.  Get in the car and just hit the road.  Do something disconnected from everything.

You will be surprised at the clarity you get when you do.  Take in the world around you.  Spend time with God in complete quite and solitude.  It’s unreal how much you’ll realize that time was needed.  I don’t get enough of these moments, but I will be making more of these moments.  We all need it.  Get away and refuel.  It will do your soul a lot of good.

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Healing the Broken

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We are all broken people.  We all have lives that are filled with wounds and jacked up places that when you get down to the deep core of your heart will break you down.  I don’t care who you are.  If you have never allowed those things to come to surface to reconcile and renounce them, then you can never fully come alive and break away from that struggle.  Your heart can never be set free.  If you sit in your daily life and just let things be, one day, it will either all blow up in your face in some way.

There is one answer to your brokenness.  That answer is God.  He wants nothing more than to restore you and pull you out of that struggle.  He will go right into the heart of it all to pull you from the fire.  He is orchestrating and rescue of your heart.  We have to be willing to repent, let go, and forgive.  Find it in ourselves to let it all come to light and drive forward from that. Psalm 147:3 says, “He heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds.”  Job 5:18 says, “For though he wounds , he also bandages. He strikes, but his hands also heal.”

Now you may read that last verse if you’ve never heard it and think, whoa! God wounds us and strikes us?  That sounds like a double edged sword.  Why would he want to wound and strike us.  Well, I’ll tell you why.  Sometimes we need to return to our wounds in order to be bandaged and healed.  At Wild At Heart, John Eldredge shared that God is raising the fatherless place so He can heal and restore us to Him.  When we have been wounded in our lives, sometimes it takes the need to go back to that place in your heart.  To feel that pain again, in order to bring it out and be able to truly renounce it and be healed from it.  It’s not easy to do by any stretch but often it may be necessary if we are just filled with junk that just will not come to the surface and we continue to make our agreements with the evil one there.

I’ll share something from my own experience here.  I’ve gone through some ordeals in my life.  Junk in my early years that lead me to seeking validation from my wife as opposed to God and then with the loss of my Dad 5 years ago, to be in a world of just utter brokenness.  When I was unplugged from the world and sitting in total prayer and communion with God, He brought it all out.  Things I never thought would come to the surface, I never even thought about in my story, or would never admit to even myself came to light.  God reached right in and pulled it out and said “here you go.  This is what you need to deal with.  This is what has made your false self.”

But then He said, “this is not who you are, though.  You are more than this.  You are a son ready to come alive, you are a son ready to do battle.  You are a son…You are MY SON. ”

God reached right into me.  He broke me down to my core like I never had been before, but then allowed me to be healed.  He pulled me from where I was and where I had been in my life.  He brought me to life like I had never been before.  He brought me into sonship and showed me that He wants to Father me the rest of the way.  To let go of all the junk and let Him Father me now.  Let Him be my Dad.  He is my true Dad after all just as He is for all of you.

In his book “Waking the Dead,” John Eldredge shares that “The work of Christ in healing the soul is a deep mystery, more amazing than open-heart surgery.”  It is absolutely amazing.  Something we can never fully understand in our own fallen wisdom, but it is most definitely true.  The Lord has many ways that He will reach into lives and heal us.  He takes our heart in pieces and puts it all back together again.  It’s quite amazing to see and be a part of.  To know that we are loved that much as God’s children.  He will will pull us from wherever we are and makes us new.  We just have to be willing to say to God, “Yes Father, I will let you heal me.”

A Whole New World After Wild At Heart Boot Camp

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The last four days have been absolutely amazing. I had the chance to spend time in the mountains of Colorado and attend the Wild At Heart Boot Camp. It was an experience like I could have never imagined. I am going to attempt to do this Boot Camp some sense of justice in sharing some of my experience. First, if you have never heard of the book, Wild At Heart, it is a book that I would highly recommend. A friend of mine, KC, gave me this book a few years back when I was going through a great deal of life struggle and trying to return to God. The book sat on my desk for well over a year before I finally picked it up in the summer of 2013. When I finally did read it, it was life changing for me and really began to drive my journey. Definitely a must read.

Wild At Heart was written many years ago, by John Eldredge. He heads up Ransomed Heart Ministries in Colorado Springs.The unique thing about John is that he is real. He is not a religious theologian and is truly after God’s heart and helping people find their way to God. John and his small team conduct this and other Boot Camps. They are there in person and genuinely care about the hearts of men and helping them discover who they really are in God’s eyes, the image bearers of God, and discovering the wild and masculine nature of God and themselves. The journey also takes you through your wounds, renouncing and forgiveness of those that wounded you and of yourself, discovering your real name and identity in God’s eyes, becoming the warrior we are meant to be, learning to pursue the beautiful side of God’s image in Eve, and discovering that we are in fact God’s sons and how he wants to Father us into our inheritance in His kingdom.

Let me just say that this is not your run of the mill, hand holding, singing by the fire, men’s retreat. This is a raw and real treasure hunt getting into the heart of a man. The Ransomed Heart team, guides you through a real discovery journey in addition to a great deal of time to yourself to just walk and commune with God. Again it far surpassed anything I could have hoped for or expected. In my time of prayer and being with God I heard Him talking with me like I never had before. He opened my heart, opened my eyes, and allowed me to discover freedom and my true self. Putting aside the poser in me and the fig leaf that has plagued man since the fall of creation when Adam chose Eve over God. If you think I am crazy about hearing God speak to me, you’re wrong. He talks to us, we just have to be willing and open to hear it. All those thoughts that run through your head are not just you. You just have to listen.

Let me get into the setting. We were high in the Colorado mountains at Crooked Creek Ranch, near Fraser, CO at about 8,500 feet. What an awesome and majestic setting with the snow covered mountains rising high around us. Crooked Creek is an incredible place. It is a Young Life Camp and they set it up right. I was completely unplugged from the world for the first time in a long time. That in of itself was incredible. I was able to eliminate all distractions and let my heart experience every aspect of what God had in store. In the time leading up to the trip, I knew the enemy was attacking me. He was pissed and trying to dissuade me. I could feel it in my attitude at times, constant headaches, and feeling anxious and fears. He was relentless, so I had to be relentless in my prayer and arming myself. Getting there was half the battle.

So now I am there. What to expect. First, I was fortunate to be roomed with guys from Georgia. That was cool. Guys from all walks of life. Pastor, retail, emergency services, doctors, and more. All different guys, but all on the same journey of discovering who they were as men and discover everything God had for them. I had the chance to really bond with these guys I now call my Band of Brothers. This is something I never had. Guys I could do life with, so very blessed to have these guys come into my life and share the experience with them. These are connections I look forward to maintaining once home.

Through the experience, I was also able to further discover the larger story I am apart of. How my life plays an intricate part of God’s larger story. There are some, even so called religious leaders and Christians that will say God does not have time for all the small things in our life. I’ve heard this before. Let me tell you, He cares about every single bit of it. He cares if we skate through life in our own small story. He cares about the wounds that help bring us into sin and our false self. He cares about every single bit of. Above all, He has told us our hearts are good and made new because of Christ Jesus. Our hearts are not bad and we do not have to spend life carrying the burdens of our wounds. We can have life, in Christ, and we can live free from the bondage of sin and the religious veil that God himself tore in two, but so many religious ‘christian’ denominations have put back up with rules and false dogmas that are not from God and keep people in bondage.

So let’s journey a little into the sessions we did have. John and his team talked through various aspects of the masculine soul, our woundedness, our real identity, the warrior in all men, the lover in us and the beauty to rescue, and our place as God’s sons and allowing God to Father us as He desires. These guys shared so much Truth from Scripture and then their personal testimonies and struggles in life. It helped to make it all very real and relatable. We spent time in deep prayer together as a group, about 440 guys. Something else I have never really allowed is people to pray over me in a time where I was just broke down. Two team members walked to me, sat with me, listened to my story and then just prayed over me. They genuinely cared and it was something I desperately needed. I have always put on a false self shouldering many burdens that weren’t mine to bare, even acting strong when I was completely broken. I could bare my heart to these guys and my Band of Brothers free from any judgment, and they the same. Words can’t even begin to describe the power God poured into this time.

The greatest part of it all was being able to sit by myself or walk around and just talk to God and listen to what He had to share with me. Those moments of prayer, listening in silence with no distractions , and writing in my journal what I was hearing was incredible. God helped me to renounce my wounds and agreements, discover my real self in His eyes, discover the warrior in me, where I need to better pursue my bride and better initiate and validate my children as they come into being young men and women, and validating me as a man bringing me into sonship with Him. Simply incredible time with the Father. I could go on there forever.

Another part of the journey was the adventure. Discovering the sense of adventure that we lose when we leave childhood. Growing up it was all about adventure and discovery. We lose that when we become adults and the world tells us otherwise. There’s so much to see and learn about in God’s kingdom. As part of my journey, one of my brothers and I strapped on snowshoes and headed up the mountain behind us. Probably pushed near 9,500 to 10,000 feet. We met up with some other guys and made the long journey to the top and down the other side. The view of the valley from up there was breathtaking. It was a challenging hike trudging through 2+ feet of snow and tested you physically as a low lander, but we pushed through and made it. God had something special for the few of us that got to experience that.

All in all this was a journey I desperately needed and I am ever thankful that the Father brought me on this trip. I discovered a great deal about myself and feel very ready to go back to the world as a changed man with a renewed since of hope, armed with the armor of God, and ready to fight for my heart, the heart of my family, and to help others discover the heart of God and all God has for them in their lives. I am thankful for the connections and new Brothers.

I firmly believe in the ministry that God has inspired John and his team to share with the world. It’s very powerful and speaking to men and women all over the world. We had guys from Australia, Europe, Hong Kong, and Brazil among other places. People may think they are just about making money, but they are not. The cost paid for the event with all the food, which was awesome, accommodations, and resources was well worth it. It’s not overpriced. They only run a couple of these events a year on purpose, and all money for resources purchased there (books, DVDs, audio resources ) is donated. They don’t keep a dime of that. It’s very real. They invite us all to take the message and resources out to the world to share with others. I intend to do just that. You guys, I highly recommend you taking a look at this book and others they have if you have not. If you have questions about it, let me know. If you feel God calling you to a Boot Camp, go. You will not regret it. This won’t be my last event. Ladies, I recommend you check out Captivating, written by John and his wife Stasi. My wife read it and it’s been life changing. They also have a Captivating events for women in the same type of setting, but geared toward the feminine heart. My wife plans to attend one in the near future. Discover that you are the image of God’s beauty, mercy, and tenderness. You are the final touch of God’s creation.

I know I have shared a lot. This is just the tip of the sword of all I experienced. There is so much more, but I will leave it at this. Men, we are the image bearers of God’s wild and masculine side. We all need to discover this and get out from behind the fig leaf, the poser that we all are behind. Take this journey. Check out Ransomed Hearts website htttp://www.ransomedheart.com. It’s journey I promise you will never regret.

Until next time, God Bless.

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Going Where God Is Calling You

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In just about 3 months, I’ll be doing something I have never done before.  I’ll be hopping on a plane to fly out to Colorado to spend 4 days in the mountains attending a retreat called the Wild At Heart Boot Camp.  This is an event conducted by Ransomed Heart Ministries.  It is built from the book, “Wild At Heart” written by John Eldredge.  If you have followed my blog over the last couple of years, you will have seen me mention this and other Ransomed Heart books.  In my spiritual journey, these have been books that have made significant impact on me as a man and how I have grown in my faith learning where God has called me.  A few years ago, I was a lost man especially in faith.  I have taken many turns in life and after I lost my Dad, I was simply lost.

I first opened this book middle of last year.  It sat on my desk for some time.  A good friend and colleague of mine cared enough about what I was going through and had given me this book.  It took awhile to pick it up, but I think God had me pick it up right when I needed to.  I had gone through Scripture and now it was time really start piecing it together and make more sense of things; of my journey in life, the wounds I had suffered, and the man that God has called me to be.  To understand more about who God is and learning His nature as reflected in men with our adventurous, wild, and warrior heart, and in women with his tender and nurturing heart.  I seem to discover more and more each day as I read and just reflect on things around me.

I have come to realize that there was so much I have been missing in my life.  I had missed on the adventure I was meant to live, to be able to experience and take in the beauty that is God’s creation.  To feel my heart draw close to God’s heart being out in the wilderness as Jesus did, as Moses did, and so many others. This is where we can all draw to God and experience Him in a very intimate way.  When I now sit out the woods on a hunt, I use that time to really draw to God and feel His presence in everything.  Last week, I took a day and went on my own for the first time and just being there in the silence was a truly spiritual experience.

So to add to that, at the end of January, I will board a flight to Colorado for the Wild at Heart Boot Camp.  I am very excited about this event, but also have a lot of nerves with uncertainties over what to expect.  I will sometimes get feelings that maybe I shouldn’t be going or questioning my reason.  I believe this is the enemy trying to stop me.  I will not let that happen and will follow through on where I believe God has called me to go.  Like my friend said and I realized, God had me read this book right when I needed to.  I read Scripture right when I needed to.  God calls us it’s a matter of whether we listen and follow.

I will write more about Boot Camp in my preparations in the coming months and certainly look forward to sharing my experiences.  Between now and then, I pray for my heart and the hearts of all other men who will be attending the same Boot Camp with me.  I pray that God will open our hearts and allow us to fully experience all that he is waiting to show us and have us experience.  I look forward to time in the wilderness to just be there with me and God and for the time of fellowship with the other men that will be there.  I wholeheartedly believe that God has called me to this next step in my journey.  It seems like a big leap, but I am pumped about what He has in store for me.

Listen to where God is calling you.  You never know when He may want you to take that next big and bold step.  He will speak to us in different ways.  I believe He has called me to go the Boot Camp at the perfect time.  Why? Because God’s timing is always perfect.  That’s when He wants me to be there, so that’s when I will go.