May 2023 Monthly Summary

This month, I felt led to try a different procedure for writing my monthly summaries, for the sake of focus, clarity of communication, and to save time. As I took notes and journaled this month, I starred important sections rather than transcribing them that day. Then at the end of the month, I went through and transcribed the majority of what I still believed to be consistent with the themes God highlighted to me this month. Though I still ended up transcribing some things directly and had about 30 pages of notes from this month once all was said and done, I feel that it’s a better monthly procedure. I hope that in this post and in future posts, God will increase the clarity of my writing because I was willing to make this change.

Refreshing through Cooking Projects

This month, I’ve been spending a lot of energy getting the first and second draft of my doctoral thesis research proposal together. In order to have the stamina to continue making headway on assignments, I took breaks to do what I love: cooking projects. In a season where God is using lots of cooking imagery to invite me to create resources and curriculum that the Church can use in the future, meeting God in the kitchen was a way to celebrate change.

To be honest, living in the less intense pace of life I’ve fought to establish feels a lot like the culture of Italy. It made me wonder this month if the reason that Italians have such impressive longevity is because they value and celebrate life consistently. I’m convinced that cultures that savor life teach their citizens to enjoy living and people develop more healthy lifestyles as a result. God has gradually been forming a near-Italian love for life in me through dreams about Italy, encountering Italian culture in media, studying Italian over the last 6 months, and inexplicable cravings for Italian food (completely the opposite of my typical preference). I’m grateful for opportunities to develop ministry out of the overflow of Christ’s abundant life, and the way it adds joy and life to whatever I’m pioneering.

This month, I explored joy in the kitchen by experimenting with:

• Shapes of Watermelon
• Apricot Rose Syrup (With apricots, pears, and fresh untreated yellow rose petals)
• Grape Juice (Clean, add water and lemon juice, blend, and strain)
• Shapes of Puff Pastry for Danishes
• Fresh fruit and coconut smoothies
• Strawberry Milk (including dehydrated strawberries)
• Miel de Melón (added with mint to tea)
• Learning how to use a gas grill (vs. Charcoal)
• Candied Almonds and Pumpkin Seeds
• Smoky Kimchi Fried Rice
• How to use Creme Fraiche
• Dabbling with Prophetic Cooking: Summer BLT bowls
• The right amount of salt to use when frying a ribeye

In May, God continued to use cooking imagery to speak to me about nurture, specifically as it relates to Korea. It makes me wonder what Korean ministries I will eventually encounter, because it feels like I’m being prepared in advance.

Out Adventuring

I spent a lot of time exploring this month, through Adventure Days! Back in April, I started a practice of celebration called Adventure Days on my Mondays off, which is made up but based on Sabbath. Essentially, there are 3 rules for Adventure Day.

1. No housework
2. No homework
3. You absolutely must get outside (weather irrelevant)

God provided some outstanding weather this month and opportunities for adventuring to places like:

• The Seattle Japanese Garden (for my birthday)
• Ballard Locks
• Magnuson Park
• Gasworks Park
• The Wing Luke Museum

One of my favorite parts of this month was getting to act my age and go to the beach! One of the hardest parts of developing an independent ministry and growing into maturity so quickly in the Lord is that the challenges that arise are so intense that I sometimes find it hard to relate to people my own age who have gone through fewer significant challenges. God has provided mentors, mature friends, and other support along the way, but the road is still remarkably narrow, and I have limited life experience to draw from. In order to not miss out on the joy of being young, I have to be intentional to act my age, which means carving out time for spontaneity and being less composed. Turning 29 this month felt like the juxtaposition of two truths: 1) I’m still relatively young and in formation 2) The high calling on my life requires a lot, and has already shaped me tremendously. As I pass through an important transition year, I’m excited not just about what lies on the other side, but about every good thing God is doing right now.

Family and Friends

This Memorial Day, I was able to celebrate with family and family friends from out of state! It was lovely, refreshing, and odd to have a piece of the Midwest come visit us in Seattle. Playing intense Uno with roommates at Freemont Brewery and grilling together was another great highlight.

Passing Through the Tunnel: Walking Towards Maturity

This month, I had a dream that I believe describes both what God is doing in me and in the Church more broadly.

In the dream, God was in the process of transforming me through a series of close visitations. I was traveling with Jesus a Mature Man, crossing over from one metro platform to another. We got food that symbolized speaking from a place of hiddenness, and went onto work together in peace and cooperation with Jesus being fully patient. In the transformation process, God’s goal was to bring me to full maturity. Even though part of me wanted more intensity or speed, God was so deliberate in getting me to a place of complete freedom that he was more careful with me than I knew how to be for myself. I came out of the other side of the process with Jesus fully restored, and encountered a redeemed pair of people who God had stripped of their wrong way of relating to one another. Jesus and I went to join them and celebrated that the obstacle course of the season had not ultimately derailed us.

When I woke up, I remember being so grateful that God had given me his word that he would continue and fulfill the restoration process, not just for me personally, but for the Church. I believe this dream reflects the Crossover Process God is facilitating in the Church as he redeems national inheritances, restores broken relationships, introduces healthier, purer patterns of ministry, and prepares his Church for War (in every sense).

As individuals, we must ask God for the courage to leave personal history, national history, and generational history behind as we press in through what feels like a tunnel in the Spirit. This tunnel is a squeezy place that leads towards the Mature Person of Christ, causing us to change as we take progressive steps of maturity. Walking through the tunnel requires discipline and a continuous narrowing of who we are and what we are about. Take steps by choice, the Holy Spirit will guide individual self-reflection as he uses both external circumstances and internally prompts our hearts. As more and more people pass through the tunnel, you will see signs of maturity in their lives because their ministries will feel like a Tree of Life. Jesus is restoring his garden and people who have crossed through this maturity process will continue to find one another and build God a new house.

House Reformation: Receiving the Second Wineskin of the Prophetic Movement

As a leader, I will allow the Holy Spirit to show me who has gone through the maturity process. I’m hoping to build and rebuild with people who have allowed God to form them, who aren’t in a hurry but value good fruit.

Values I’m Trying to Instill Through My Ministry

In this season and in the future, these are specific fruit that I hope my ministry will reproduce. I hope that as others encounter the people I’ve invested in, those people will feel like very sweet strawberries that have grown undisturbed for a long time, absorbing the sun (Jesus). I pray that we have the right-sized, smallish, accessible seeds, bursting with opportunity. And that our words have a melty, impactful texture like just ripe strawberry skin.

Among my Team, I hope that we embody:

1. Courage in Doing the Internal Work
2. Worship
3. Purity of Heart and Togetherness (Seeing Ministry as a Team Sport)
4. Leadership and Service
5. Playfulness, Embracing Cultures, and Adventure

A New Day is Dawning

This month, Jesus continued to speak to me about how everything that is illuminated becomes a light (Ephesians 5:13). It reminded me of times when I was a child when I learned from others’ mis-examples, choosing to do the opposite of unhealthy things I saw. Intentionally going in the opposite direction lead me towards a journey of wholeness and eventually, I encountered Jesus. It reminds me of times when in prophetic ministry, I’ve chosen to simply embody the aspect of God’s spirit from an unclean spirit I sense in a place or person, to bring life and light into a situation. Instead of exposing something unhealthy in a person or place through human effort (direct confrontation), the Holy Spirit’s purity in comparison to what was broken exposed what was true about God and others.

Awareness of sin is and always will be an invitation to the Church. Right now, God is causing the light of his ways, his character, and his love to illuminate what the Church has called good and challenge what it’s labeled as weakness. The work that individuals have done over the last 18 months is being revealed as true or false, as decay or life, and unhealthy ways of life and ministry are dying. As the Sun rises and exposes the truth, God is growing a garden that will displace old patterns of ministry so that broken leaders and broken individuals will be healed. He is coming in power to heal and rescue us all.

God will give us new expressions and new ways. He is writing new stories on our lives and wants to redeem our nations.

God will redeem the Church’s understanding of weakness so that again, we will see limitations and awareness of them as a strength (2 Corinthians 12).

Process Avoidance

As I think about signs of decay in the Church, I notice that many have been left unchecked because people have been afraid of change. Process avoidance and small thinking have replaced the Church’s sense of courage and excitement over new growth. Instead of receiving God’s invitation to go on an adventure, some people have buried their talents in exchange for comfort or settled in smallness for false satisfaction.

June 2022: Beware of False Satisfaction

In fearing the loss of relationships, Loss is here and upon us.

Yet even still, God’s grace is available to people who are unsure how to make the pivot into the new season. It may require losing everything or losing a significant amount, being willing to give up what we’ve built wrongly so that our God can restore.

Trusting Each Other with Our Weakness

There is true life that comes from letting go. This month I was talking with a Nabi leader and friend, and needed to address something sensitive about our friendship. I didn’t start in confrontation but asked her to tell me about her current life and ministry, asking questions and generally just listening. I let her verbally process and similar to spiritual direction style listening, asked probing questions when I sensed she was near something weighty. Instead of telling her directly what I was sensing, I steered the conversation so it would come up on its own.

Ultimately, we left secure in our friendship She thanked me for knowing her heart, believing that the sin was unintentional, and not condemning her. We committed to a direction that would be life-giving for us both and would still honor my (most important) value for communication. This conversation made me recognize that when people are used to providing for others, they must be fierce in preserving time for self-reflection. I also realized that I can use my discernment to overshadow others in reflective conversations so that their processing is sharpened. As someone who is primarily a Watchman, I’m learning to ask questions like, “Can I tell you about some things that I sense may strategically derail what God is doing in your life in this season?” and be thoughtful even as I’m clear.

I ended the conversation by challenging her to be more transparent with me about what she needs and to trust me with her weakness. Since this conversation, we’ve been able to collaborate more effectively and it’s been a joy to see God renovate that dynamic.

This conversation reminds me of another time this month when I was coaching a prophet on my Youth and Young Prophets team.: I knew that she needed to take a more active role in the group and was experiencing fear that had led her into hiding. Through conversation, I probed some of the emotions that were surrounding her hiddenness. Organically as she talked it through, she noticed their own patterns, changed her social media pictures, and took a more active role in the group. God inspired her to change and my role was to simply highlight the grace available for it. I had to be direct, but only in small doses and towards the end of the conversation once the person had done most of the processing/internal work. The outworking of the solution happened entirely without me.

In general, God is calling his leaders to trust one another with their weaknesses. This will require the Church to be more honest about its flaws but also, more gracious. We can only truly support one another when we know each other more fully. Instead of hiding our sins and presenting only a polished external appearance, we will need greater heart transparency in private, in public, in social media, and in storytelling.

Days of increased persecution are coming. God is forcing the Church to focus on deep, healthy relationships because we as a Body are going to face trying times, and we each need to have friends in our corner who instead of judging or condemning will actually pray. As individuals, we must receive health and wholeness in our relationships and communities so that God can give the church strength and endurance for the days to come.

Ministry Developments: Victories

May was a creative, exciting, confident, and nerve-wracking time! The pressure of external circumstances allowed God to form me and my teammates in the right ways.

Currently, am I facilitating various ministry spaces. Some of those spaces include:

• A bimonthly video chat/prayer chain group of about 12 prophets, for the sake of social support
• A peer-to-peer mentoring group of about 13 scribe prophets, focused on sharpening through writing
• Youth and Young Prophets Network (YYPN): A core team of 6 Prophets called to prophesy over youth and young prophets God is raising up in the nations.

Additionally, I participate in:

• A 10-person prophetic community led by a prophet/Apostle in Capetown, South Africa. God often does a work of cross-pollination between the leaders in this group, my ministry, and vice versa. My influence in the group has to do with elements related to writing national words, curriculum and facilitation, administration, and a heart for apostolic strategy.
• The adult volunteer team of a 40-person middle and high school youth group at my church in Seattle

In May, God separated the mission and vision of each of these spaces even further, tailoring the curriculum, norms, members, and pacing for each space. Just as I was chafing to have more opportunities to teach, he provided opportunities for me to teach about identity, share activities I’ve already created, and shared ideas for even more.

Youth and Young Prophets Network

The majority of my victories this month come from working with my core team for Youth and Young Prophets Network (YYPN). This month, our team:

• Received our first dedicated Intercessor who is committed to praying for me as a leader and getting covering our ministry. I am so in awe that she has visited and loves my city (Seattle) like I do. Seattle can be hard to love, but the land/territory here carries a grace for inner healing ministry and hunger for encounter that God is redeeming from decades of witchcraft.
• Noticed a trend of God healing any personal or family history of broken romantic relationships. He has literally visited every member of my team and is coming in force to rewrite their stories. Given that our mission and vision is all about healing God’s family and focused on generational restoration, God wants us to receive so that the grace for healing will overflow out of everything else we do. The Truth is, God will never build a movement without healing and restoring the people who are associated with it. It’s wild to see God bundle us together to receive healing and his reward, and to be blessed together as a ministry family.
• Prophesied over Denmark with leaders from that nation, collecting prophesies related to youth to send with a team member who will be ministering there soon.
• Developed routines for Intercession to support our teammate while she is on the ground in Denmark. Saw my teammates respond with genuine heart engagement, without jealousy or competition but with excitement, joy, and singlemindedness, committing to supporting our friend in prayer.
• (I) started receiving dreams about God’s heart for the Church and longing for Scandinavia. I was really grateful that as we’ve chosen to engage, God has given us all the revelation we need.
• Received strategy from God surrounding conversational intake appointments for people who are interested in learning more about our ministry.
• Received strategy from God about self-reflection inducing, encounter-focused quarterly Core Team Training and Refreshing Sessions
• Volunteered (2 members) to take the lead in synthesizing prophetic words over previous nations. Met and received 1:1 coaching on writing twice, with bite-sized assignments and lots of modeling.
• Received strategy for our summer break and seeing in the Spirit assignment

We believe that God has called this ministry to be a catalyst for a movement of young people who devotionally experience encounter as a life-giving, daily part of their pursuit of the Lord. As of today, we will continue to meet monthly with leaders to prophesy over the youth of specific nations. And simply wait for strategy on the Lord.

While this ministry will wear many hats and names later on, its scope and purpose is something I described as an example in my article on knowing watchman timings and seasons. My personal conviction and connections to the work are something I describe in my Identity statement.

As I spoke with my mentor this month about the joy of seeing this ministry take its first real steps, she encouraged me to enjoy this season of my ministry being a baby. Just like parenting, she reminded me of the grace and joy available in each season, and the importance of laying the right foundations while it’s young.

I recognize that later on, I will need more help to raise this ministry, apart from the people already gathered or covering us. When that day comes, I want to come under leaders who will act as healthy grandparents, carrying the same heart as I carry for the ministry but from a different perspective. I do not want to come under mentors who are absent, expecting me to do ministry independently but lease out a plot in their community garden. I want support from leaders who are protective and want to build the garden with me.

The question I am asking people who demonstrate interest is, “Do you really have a heart for this?” And ‘Are you willing to share the cost of the process?” God can expand people’s hearts for the work, but they must ask.

Ministry Developments: Challenges

• Early in the month, frustration and feeling trapped in not knowing what to do with my Prophetic Teaching gift. As I pressed in to strengthen my existing partnerships, God opened new doors of opportunity and revelation (for activity design). But it was a squeezy, irritable set of weeks where I just wanted room to run.
• Not knowing what to do with Sensory Overload in Watchman Gifting, especially when it comes to timelines. Moments when I get sensing words of knowledge about individual’s insecurities, how patterns in their lives formed, how they feel about it, and what’s standing in the way of them dealing with it.
  • Times where having this much info has made me overly accepting of others’ poor treatment of me. Having to learn to make choices to advocate for myself, remain appropriately distant, and even detach from what I’m sensing for my own peace.
  • Love is contributing to the conditions that will allow people to make a healthy choice. It is not taking on too much responsibility for others’ choices or lowering the standard in ways that ultimately harms their development.
  • Times where I sense in detail where people will be at in their development in multiple years (reading their timeline). Managing my own frustration about others’ timings being delayed or lengthy challenges me to learn a whole new level of grace.
  • Learning to read timelines horizontally and vertically. “I see that you’re on the right track to be aligned to this greater aspect of what God is doing in this movement, will take x amount of time, will likely overlap with what is happening in this sphere or nation…”
    • Figuring out how to say less, despite wanting to communicate the big picture of how it squares with what God is doing with the Global Church, within nations, within organizations, teams, or individuals. Learning how to manage what I say despite seeing what feels like too much. And sometimes wishing that I didn’t know things, especially when it’s overwhelming or disturbing.
• Forgiveness and Healing Earlier this month, I had started to want to exclude 2 nations from this movement/ministry, because of the wounds I received there. It’s not glamorous, but I was internally running like Jonah from the prospect of their participation for several weeks. God continued to speak to me about 2 nations that earlier in the month, I had started to want to exclude from this movement/ministry (not glamorous, but true). I have told God many times that he has permission to build this movement as he wants. But because I was hurt, he had to reach me in other ways.
  • God’s response was to send 2 members of my team dreams about the nation having a redeemed role since I didn’t want to hear it. In his gentleness, it was almost as if to say, “Don’t be afraid to allow them to participate. Watch what I will do.”
  • This internal wrestle is happening at the same time as God is redeeming the side of my family most closely related to these two nations, specifically from famine, poverty, and the effect of being refugees/rejected from these places. It’s all linked.
  • Within the same 48 hours, as I repented for internally running, he sent itinerant leaders to my Church from this region to co-minister with an American couple, modeling healthy relations. I confessed the situation to the woman minister, and she prayed over the place in my abdomen where I was still holding tension due to the effects of all this. She had me look into her eyes until the softness of her eyes reminded me of a friend from that region who I love. She repented on behalf of her nation, reminded me of the best of what her nation is known for (its redeemed identity), acknowledged in humility that her nation is small and in need of other nations’ help, and asked for my forgiveness. When I woke up the following morning, it was clear that I still had some deeper layers to sort out, but because of her prayers, there were no longer any open wounds.
  • The next week, I was on a ministry call with another leader from this nation and for the first time, we were able to receive from one another with less miscommunication and greater ease. He had come out of the harshness associated with this nation’s fallen identity, provided more freedom for God to lead the call’s participants, and seemed to legitimately be able to help.
    • Through this ministry call, I saw very clearly why this nation must be involved, because of the intensely fruitful effect it has on my mind. I am wildly sharp and creative in partnership with leaders from this place. I’m going to believe that if God causes healthy alignments, it will be with individuals who have come through the maturity process and are embodying their nations’ redeemed identities. And it will no longer be dangerous to go back.

Personal Process: Victories

In a nutshell, in May I started to feel the grace returning to go at a greater speed. God has said that by narrowing my focus/assignment in each ministry, utilizing cross-pollination, and making room for others to shor in April is here today!are the burden, I will be able to endure well as the speed picks up.

Realistically, the goals for this season (a la December 2022) are still:

• Quality of Life + Balance
• Community
• Holding Salt + Developing Resources
• Expanding Skill Sets
• Developing Maturity

However, the gradual release into leadership that I prayed for in April (Prayer Requests section) is here today!

The gradual release I prayed for (Prayer Requests) in April is here today!

Other great fruit this month came in the form of:

• Having Prophet Community Support when I was in need (vs. insufficient help)
• Thicker skin and less sensitivity to rejection
• Faster and Better at pivoting to reset my rhythms, letting ideas for ministry and writing result from rest, creativity, and joy
• Courage and stamina to continue holding the standard
• Greater balance with chores, work, writing, and mealtimes. I have the tendency to hyperfocus on things I love (like writing), to the point of getting so lost in the process that I forget to eat. This month, I had the discipline to prioritize the essentials in spite of what I love more.

Personal Process: Challenges

• Limits to Study: Narrowing My Focus
  • This month, I had to reduce the scope of my research proposal to about 25% of my original goal so that I can limit it to just 110 pages. God provided grace for me to receive truthful feedback from my professors, and they were very helpful.
  • He used our conversations to force me to think about what it is I really want to study, stripping away any elements of obligation, inviting me to lay pieces supported by false responsibility down so that I can just do what I love.
  • God forced me to consider how to continue exploring the remaining 3 categories (75%) in cheaper, less scholastic, but ultimately more life-giving ways. Grief and truth over not being able to be a student forever.
  • Still, I cried some clarity/truth tears because I realized in great detail that I will never have enough time on the earth to satisfy my hunger to learn everything. I consoled myself in remembering that I will have eternity in Heaven’s Library and that I may return to academia (on Earth) later on as an adjunct professor. Again, he’s having me leave the good for the sacrificial great, and specific assignments.
  • I know that life moves fast and I have other things to do, but it was scary to feel like I don’t know what to do with my mind. God is probably having me let go in order to receive better things, and I hope he gives my brain something good to chew on so I’m not hopelessly bored.
• Giving Up Languages: Letting go of Italian and Portuguese
  • This is another one that kind of killed me. This month, God told me to abruptly stop learning Portuguese (which I’ve been learning for one year), and Italian (which I’ve been learning for 6 months). He told me to let go because he wants to leave room for other people to help, and because his goal was to have me absorb the grace on the languages.
  • Part of me really wanted to keep going and be challenged more, but I feel that it’s right to release it. And I’m wondering if there will be a right time for me to pick them back up again. 
  • I have experienced times when he tells me “no” or “stop” only to bring back a subject (or region) later. And there are plenty of things I have to restrain myself to not learn yet because I am one limited person, and it will take a lot of people’s help and learning, not just mine. For example, Seattle is full of people who care about native plants and foraging. Part of that worldview/skill set would help what God is doing in France. Am I allowed to learn it right now, though I’m curious? No. I have to keep a moderate workload if all these things will emerge out of joy and rest, which must happen for them to grow up healthy. So am I free to learn every fascinating thing that crosses my path? Regrettably not. Maybe in the future, most certainly in Heaven. 

Worship

Names for God

Where I spent most of my Time

These are the most impactful, overarching names this month. These are the names that filled the majority of our conversations, have been most transformative to me personally, and have influenced the tangible texture of May.

Jesus, Tree of Life

As I met Jesus as a Tree of Life this month, I felt that he was increasing my capacity to be a Tree of Life too. He is much more adept at meeting people where they’re at, both by increasing the level of grace and giving me time for extended practice.

• He’s helping me discern just the right amount people can handle, breaking it into small pieces they can handle
• He teaches me how to recognize health and wholeness so that we do not export brokenness abroad.
• He teaches me how to guard the health of this movement and is unwilling to let anything bad happen to it.
• He teaches me how to recognize people who he is leading into the new thing and what support they will need to refine them.
• He shows me how to develop the right activities, conversations, and trust so that this movement will take its first steps and grow into maturity

God, My Storehouse

This month, God showed me that from now on, I will need to leave the majority of my skill sets in storage and just pull out what I need to complete each assignment. I’m encouraged that the Church is called to store up her capacity for right timings (Song of Songs 7:13). I feel that God is both expanding and reorganizing my insides, making me into a storehouse. It feels a little like what I imagine to be Jean PIaget’s process of accommodation in developmental psychology: I feel like God is reshuffling me. The question of “What do I do with myself?” is “Leave your many facets in mostly good condition, but in storage”. 

I’m grateful that God has added many things and given me time to explore. Regardless of the context of learning, there is nothing that can replace time in the secret place with the Lord.

Day by Day

These are names that I gave God in discrete moments during the month, but ultimately related to the overarching names.

• God who Comes to Test Hearts
  • God who watches to see who is willing
• God, My Victim
  •  You can’t fully be a grown-up unless you recognize your role in the cosmic drama, your sins that held him there
• God of the Finished Work
  • Not just God of the Long Process, but God who finishes. Longing for process completion so much I could moan.
    • Step beyond “God of the Long Process”. You actually have to believe that God finishes what he starts.
      • God personally committed to overseeing the entire process of my maturity, and so protective. “My Fearsome God.”
      • Jesus keeps it so upbeat and playful. He is so gentle with reassuring me that he cares about my concerns, but that he knows what he’s doing and it’s going to be great. Gleeful, childlike joy. Exuberant. God is pretty proud of himself in advance for whatever the plans are. Even if I know in part, going still wait until does it. It’s only fun when he’s the one to unveil things with a flourish. He loves being the one to present his handiwork, and unveil things with a sense of pride. Why should I take that joy away from him? A little longer in the dark, so long as he steers me.
• God who is Full of Integrity
  • God whose actions are consistent with who he is. God who is full of favor and kindness.

Questions and Verses

• On Hiddenness How much did Jesus have to be prepared in private before he could handle the weight of the cross? What did that process look like?
  • Jesus manages to calmly tell the disciples three times that he must be killed and raised from the dead (Luke 24:7, Luke 13:33; Matthew 16:21; Matthew 17:22; Mark 8:31). What was it like to develop the kind of faith and loving trust in God that would allow for such an epic trust fall? He would have really needed to trust that God would raise him up, something we all must do time and time again before we do it for the last time.
    • One day on my deathbed, I want to be able to thank God for such an adventure of a life that we got to live together. And then, I want to have such peace as I make the last trust fall and find my way back to him. Lord, help me live well so that I can die well too.
• On Navigating Jealousy Is Jesus telling Peter in John 21:22, “If I want him to remain alive [immortal] til I come, what is that to you?” an example of Jesus calling out Peter’s jealousy of the intimate relationship he and John have? John was with Jesus at least part of the time at the crucifixion, and Jesus entrusts his mother to him. Even though Peter, James, and John all saw Jesus transfigured, was there still anxiety in Peter about not being loved enough? John received various visions that became the Book of Revelation. They seem to be competing with one another for intimacy with Jesus, both racing, trying to beat one another to his tomb (John 19:26, Luke 24:12). How may the tension between these two men have allowed room for other dysfunctional patterns to form in the church? What does it mean to allow one another to be individuals and have individual relationships with God, even as we all long for intimacy?
• On Reconciliation with Ourselves How did Jonah willingly give himself up to the crew on the boat? How much of Jonah’s rebellion was tied to self-hatred?
  • Jonah never seems to get noticeably upset. When he’s angry, he just seems to be quietly angry. But God still calls him out either way, because he knows his heart. I love how this book is short and relatable, and invites the reader to have God search their heart, ending with a question.
    • God called out the self-hatred, internalizing anger by the end of the story, “angry enough to die”
    • Jonah can’t manage to love or have any kind of solidarity with the Ninevites not because they were his known enemy, but because he was full of self-hatred
      • On Avoidance and Fear of the Internal Work Tarshish means “nowhere” according to some scholars. Was Jonah running from himself? Could the story be considered an allegory about facing the parts of himself that he does not feel like facing?
• On Isolation and God Providing People Over Years How isolated was David in the beginning?
  • Which elements of David’s identity/story did God form through:
    • Experience (ex: Shepherding sheep)
    • Family background (Solidarity with the Vulnerable, illegimate birth, adoption by God), and
    • Choice (repentance or fear)?
• On the Safety of Hiddenness How did God use compassion, pity, and hiddenness to form Joseph as a Redeemer?
  • I can so relate to Joseph this month not just in choosing to forgive, but in being grateful for hiddenness. I do not have to deal with the curses of other prophets or jealous people and can thrive in the shadow of God’s wings. During this season, hiddenness is a very safe place to be, and much easier to maintain the quality standard of what God wants to do in my ministry. I actually am more productive now that I’ve been able to be in the past because facing so much opposition was exhausting. The invitation to remain strategically hidden reminds me of what it feels like to glide under waves instead of stand against them. There will be a right time for greater visibility, but for right now all I care about is seeing these things grow, in purity.

Favorite Worship Music

Miracle of the Mind -Amanda Cook

When I sing along to this song, part of it is drama and karaoke and part of it is just gratitude for how far God has brought me in the restoration process.

I normally start the song like I’m singing along to the Little Mermaid’s Part of Your World, like I’m singing a conversation with myself. And then I normally yell-sing the next line, “Overriding everything!” because the lyric calls for it and giggle for a bit before rejoining the singer.

Joy (Reprise/Live) – Vashawn Mitchell

This song is another unexpected treasure I ran into this month. It’s a reprise of Vashawn’s Joy that I remember singing in gospel choir. Having the song recorded in South Africa where I have so many friends and with the addition of a female vocalist who embodies the eagerness of the Church for greater wholeness is perfect for this season.

Yet – The King Will Come

I love the honesty and vulnerability in this song/video from The King Will Come. It reminds me of moments where other people haven’t given up on me in my process and have remained patient and committed. When I think of the love that it takes to respond to trauma and remain consistent in the long process, this song reminds me of God Who is Committed. It challenges me both to receive for myself and receive greater capacity to love people (and leaders) who are still pretty broken. I’m pretty sure God just wants to create conditions for people to be willing to receive healing, and I can relate to how intense he is in seeing better for us, but also for the next generation. I hope that as God continues healing the Church and healing leaders, he will teach us all that it’s okay to want more of what’s healthy and better than what’s currently available. I hope he will use this season to position Apostles, Prophets, and everyone who remains engaged with the Holy Spirit to help heal the world.

Media

Books

The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis

As I rested in cooking before I gear up to a write a second version of my research proposal, I also devoured this book. To be honest, I found it just as compelling as the Screwtape Letters, because the people who are invited into transformation have such realistic, true-to-today reasons for resisting it. While I dont necessarily agree with Lewis’ abstract rendering of purgatory, I agree with his main idea that the people who want healing will find it, and those who want to remain deranged will continue to destroy their souls despite increasingly bad external circumstances.

As someone who is so prone towards the internal work that I am often tempted to take on too much of others’ responsibility only to discover I can’t do the work for them, the main character’s role as spectator to other people’s conversations with Angels sent to save them reminds me of times where I’ve had to let go and let people make their own [bad] choices or experience the consequences of their actions. As I get older, I’m realizing just how much my love of mercy and redemption has to come under submission to Jesus’ right application of it. Especially in situations where I have words of knowledge, clear sensing about what people are struggling with, I sometimes wish I could swoop in and rescue. But I have to wait on God and ensure that he uses this love of mercy in the right timing, for the right reasons.

In reflecting on this book, Jesus showed me more about his love for people who are absolutely depraved. In a deeper way, I understood God who was willing to come to earth entirely for our sake, having no need of it in himself. God saw the extent of human mess and was moved by pure compassion, because we were such a mess. Completely unselfish love.

If Jesus was the ultimate Redeemer, what can we learn in moments where he invites us into a partial emobodiment of that role? What does it looks like to lovingly choose not to rescue when it’s not in that person’s best interests? What does it look like to love just for the sake of those who are broken, with God’s love instead of human ability?

“Listen!” said the White Spirit. “Once you were a child. Once you knew what inquiry was for. There was a time when you asked questions because you wanted answers, and were glad when you had found them. Become that child again; even now.”

pg 40

“Of course. Having allowed oneself to drift, unresisting, unpraying, accepting every half-conscious soliciation from our desires, we reach a point where we no longer believed the Faith. Just in the same way, a jealous man, drifting and unresisting, reaches a point at which he believes lies about his best friend: a drunkard reaches a point at which (for the moment) he actually believes that another glass will do him no harm. The beliefs are sincere in the sense that they do occur as psychological events in the man’s mind. If that’s what you mean by sincerity they are sincere, and so were ours. But errors which are sincere in that sense are not innocent.”

pg 38

“That is what mortals misunderstand: They say of some temporal suffering, “No future bliss can make up for it,” not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say, “Let me have but this and I’ll take the consequences,” little freaking how damnation will spread back and back into their past contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even before death.”

pg 69

“Hell is a state of mind-ye never said a truer word. And every state of mind, left to itself, every shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own mind, is, in the end, Hell. But Heaven is not a state of mind. Heaven is reality itself. All that is fully real is Heavenly. For all that can be shaken will be shaken and only the unshakeable remains.”

“No one that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.”

pg 75

Christian Spirituality: The Classics edited by Arthur Holder

This month, I read Arthur Holder’s Christian Spirituality… for a class on Historical Expressions of [Western] Christian Spirituality, and man was it powerful! I love books that give strong, contextualized summaries of different ideas. Holder’s summaries of these theologians beliefs about God and human beings are beyond useful to prophets or contemporary Christians trying to make sense of their own mysticism. As a Seer prophet and apostle, I’m hoping to find time to read this book slowly.

“Fervor must accompany reading; devotion supplements speculation; admiration completes investigation; exultation overflows from observation; piety fuels industry; love infused knowledge; humility serves understanding; divine grace illuminates study.”

Bonaventure in Holder

Phenomenological Research Methods by Clark Moustakas

Reading about Clark Moustakas’ model of Transcendental Phenomenology this month was empowering! I loved his framing of phenomenological research focused on affirming the dignity of previously marginalized research participants through deep listening, and how he sees research as an avenue of life and transformation to the researcher.

Next month, it will be a year since I was last on seminary campus, reflecting mightily on time. Since Isaachar timings and sequential elements of prophetic words/blueprints are something I spend the majority of my conversations on with the Lord, I so deeply related to Moustaka’s poetic description of his relationship to time. As someone who measures people, relationships, and most things in time, I’m longing for Eternity so greatly because God will provide us with time unlimited. I can’t imagine what it feels like to have that much freedom, but I can’t wait to find out.

This past year, I have found that there is a speed to price and a speed to humility, but pride can be slow, humility can be fast, just as they can be the opposite. Father, give us the grace to desire you so greatly above everything else that we can keep perfect, fluid time with your Holy Spirit.

Time has forever followed me, held onto me, experiential time, public time, internal time, external time, duration, continuity, intensity, presence. Past times I want to forget, or remember, a present moment that is stuck or frozen or moves too slowly or too fast; a future that holds so many uncertainties, warnings, forebodings, or one that offers opportunities or entrancements.

It was always time that entered each moment and brought me to my senses, splashed coldly onto the realities, or warmly touched and healed what mattered, time that brought the shadow and the light. Time is in my consciousness now, a constant companion, never letting me just be, without time, but standing by forever and ever.

Summers of contentment that ended with the turning of the leaves and the returning to the fall school life, before an internal readiness, before my internal time could speak. andmake itself fully known.

And fall seasons too that opened new worlds and enabled slow and gradual meanderings, that brought bolors and shapes that awakened radiant energy and rich experience.

Springs that opened my heart to new discoveries, to the excitement of adventure, to embracings of wind and rain and love. All at once these too were gone, much before I could recognize and cherish the miracles that had awakened in me.

Winters touched my heart and moved me fully into new rhythms of being and relating, into the meaning of chill, into the challenge of danger and adversity, and yet something inside lingered longingly after the sings of spring.

Time, oh time, you come so suddenly, entering my world, shaking and humbling me, teaching me the mysteries and agonies of living.

Time, slow and gradual, swift. andsure, too much of you when not needed, too little in hours of desire.

Time, you linger and endure, you create a sense of now, of yesterday, of tomorrow, forever. You take with you all that is and has been and ever will be.

I want to hold you back and rush through you, to live again, to feel the joy of silence, to answer the unfinished and unsettled within me.

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Videos

This month as God condenses and narrows my focus, I’ve been watching short (30 minutes or less) videos, documentaries, or movies from Cinema Therapy or Omeletto (Youtube). I love the depth of friendship and analysis that the Cinema Therapy hosts bring to contemporary media and the compressed, full-story arches that the producers of the short films achieve. These videos have been just the right size for me to digest and continue to reflect upon during my waking hours.

Cinema Therapy: Harry Potter vs. Bullies

I loved this synthesis of Harry’s journey to overcome his avoidance or aggressive tendencies in dealing with bullies in the Harry Potter series. This video made me reflect on how God has grown my capacity to navigate controlling or intimidating people through a mixture of compassion and pity, and the many little decisions we all must make about how to steward our hearts in the midst of change. The right use of compassion to drive us towards solidarity with Jesus and towards relating to those who hurt us reminds me of John Swinton’s Raging with Compassion, which I hope to read next.

Lately as I continue to reflect on this video, my reaction time in moving towards compassion or pity is getting faster. It’s allowed me to remain present and embody grace’s ability to break off shame. I don’t receive the negative, punitive, fearful, or jealous ways they want to treat me, but I also remain present to the hurting person that feels necessary to use toxic methods to relate to others, or only knows how to relate using control. Remaining separate (rightly distant) but compassionate is helping me both take care of myself and know what to do with my love of mercy and redemption.

I am so ready for the standard among apostolic and prophetic people to change towards an engagement-based, empowerment model of ministry where no one is too weak to be included in the family of God.

I recently warned one of my team members that if she chooses me as a leader and my style of leadership, she should choose it because she feels loved and rightly supported, and because it’s life-giving. Do not choose me because of my anointing, the occasional amount of polish, or because I sound confident. All of those things can be easily faked. Instead, Lord would you give us eyes to judge fruit and not be obsessed by ministers’ external appearance. I so long for God to save all of us (leaders included) from this unhealthy “might makes right”, Harsh Father style of leadership. I believe that God is moving in this season to do just that thing.

Last Birthday

As I turned 29 this month and contemplated the time poverty and scarcity of freedom that so many people live with, encountering this video made me cry. It tells the story of the last birthday of a Father whose terminal renal cancer makes him miss out on watching his daughter grow up within a Southeast Asian context. I so related to his heart for his daughter and his frustration and grief about the limits of his body and the reality of evil/sickness. The horrible way that illness robs us of opportunities to encounter the fullness of Christ’s flourishing here on earth is a true tragedy. Lord, help us to receive your invitations towards life in the little and large moments, knowing that we cannot choose tomorrow.

Music

I’m in a Hurry (And Don’t Know Why) by Alabama (1992)

I randomly encountered this song on social media, and it is the perfect explanation of the time-poverty, production-focused thinking I’m turning away from in Western culture. Just like striving, the song itself is catchy. It uses humor to describe a pattern of hurry-based, directionless toil. Previously, I probably would have taken myself too seriously to enjoy this song while being annoyed at the striving it exposes, but hey, it’s funny. The upbeat chords and Southern culture of the artists allow the song to expose nonsensical hurry through humor. To be honest, this song feels like an invitation to most people to laugh at themselves and laugh at the need to control timing. It also feels like an invitation to receive the courage to let go.

Prayer Requests

• Wisdom, Clarity, and Grace around my timeline for Provision
• Purity of Revelation for my team this summer as we press in for words about what Youth and Young Prophets Network will eventually become
• Right People For God to bring the right people to Youth and Young Prophets, who have the same heart for the work and are motivated to partner with God. For him to give clarity on who should join the Network, Core Team, Intercessors’ Teams, and eventually, Trustees/Board.
• Favor To continue growing in maturity, to experience all the right opportunities as the puzzle pieces come together in me and circumstantially all around me.