Comfort in the Heights
Last August, I moved to a house near Greenlake to be closer to my church. The peacefulness of the lake reflected water and washing imagery that squared with dreams about both what God has been doing in Seattle and in my own life. When I met with the Lord in the mornings, I would slowly walk around the lake in one of two directions. When I needed to personally process something, I would walk to the left, in the direction of many birds. On those days, I’d sit near the still benches, watch the ducks, and move slowly. When I needed to process or pray for something for my church, region, or the nations, I’d walk faster and to the right. On those days, I would often end up climbing into in a life-guard’s chair and thinking about what it means to meet with God in the heights.
As I have walked these paths the last six months, I’ve taken on various projects and come to a place of greater integration. I started to notice in January that it no longer mattered what direction I walked, because I was able to process what I needed to process outside of those times. What began to matter most was a sense of movement and the freedom that I had found with God in the high places. Instead of feeling like my freedom was context-dependent, I felt that I was free to soar in the spirit regardless.
At the same time, greater evidence of the need to move became impossible to ignore. In my case, that movement means beginning the process of changing housing so that I can be in a more settled and insulated place for the year ahead. Having right boundaries and the capacity to meet with God without disruptions is so critical in this year of continued shaking. As we continue to meet with God, he is teaching communities how to soar above the noise and call atmospheres into alignment with Heaven. The Church must practice stewarding the authority it has been given as we enter into a period of increasing international influence. Locally and internationally, changes aren’t happening *to* us but *for* us.
Free to Move
This month, I contemplated these things as I was getting ready to spend time with God in the library. I wanted to soak in the *rare* winter Seattle sunlight but was having trouble finding a bench that was sunny enough. Half joking, I asked the Lord to redirect the sun so I could still enjoy it. He directed me to a patio table in a high place, tucked away from foot traffic. Once I sat down, the angle of the sun shifted. Glinting off the window panes from the nearby building, the reflection provided plenty of light.In that moment, I really felt the Lord reassuring me that if I made a step into the unknown, he would provide for me.
“Will you meet me in the Unknown?”
In this year of stepping bravely into the unknown, some of us are at a crossroads and have to choose to take the next right step. It’s a choice that you may logically understand the need to take, but aren’t all that thrilled about. In processing this season, there is the temptation to either shut down and not process emotions that come from directional changes, or make such a big deal of them that we are unable to move.
There is freedom in telling God what we need, and security in that he knows what we need already. For those who are willing to step forward and upward, he will find ways of directing provision to you if you are willing to acknowledge that staying in the same place is no longer an option. His methods and plans are higher (Isaiah 55:8-9).
Trust that if he’s calling you to step forward, there will be provision for the move. His loving kindness can do much more than redirect the sunlight, he can move entire mountains for our sake.
Ministry Developments
- This month, I spent 3-4 sessions a week in the library writing Chapter 1 of my thesis. God gave me clarity to transition the chapter design from small to large context (ie, one ministry, Seattle, the Pacific Northwest, the US, and the globe) to deeply describing my ministry context and a problem-solution framing
- Out of the blue, God inspired a friend who is trained in copy-editing to edit my chapters. In the summer, I had told him, “I don’t know if I need a copyeditor, but if I do, please bring one.” This was a great reminder of how God provides for us specifically based on the needs of our season.
- 3 new people became interested in joining Generations of the Nations and will be attending our February meeting.
- God encouraged me that if I make my way to the high place, he will form a table of people around me. I believe that this image relates to how God is challenging communities to meet with him in collective prayer and intercession. As a result, the strategies of I have adapted the strategies of Generations of the Nations and how I pray with friends locally to suit this season. I strongly believe that prior to building new expressions of ministry, we must collectively focus on intercession so that new expressions can be birthed in purity and wholeness.
- Attending a retreat with my church’s youth ministry and leaders
- Seeing even nonChristian friends encourage me to make a housing change. In encouraging me to trust my senses, they went out of their way to speak in my language using word choice related to spirituality. I was touched by their willingness to use my language, and it reminded me that in relationships where there is love and trust, code-switching is normal.
Worship
Music
Verses
- Psalm 16
- Psalm 101
- The blessings in Deuteronomy 28, being the head and not the tail (Deut 28:13)
Names of God
Each month, I give God a name that aligns with scripture and how he revealed himself to me that month. This month, I spent the majority of time knowing him as,
“God, who Dwells on the Heights”
“Heaven is my throne,
Isaiah 66:1
and the earth is my footstool.
Where is the house you will build for me?
Where will my resting place be?
2 Has not my hand made all these things,
and so they came into being?”
declares the Lord.
He alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.
1 Timothy 6:16
For the Lord has chosen Zion,
he has desired it for his dwelling, saying,
14 “This is my resting place for ever and ever;
here I will sit enthroned, for I have desired it.
15 I will bless her with abundant provisions;
her poor I will satisfy with food.
16 I will clothe her priests with salvation,
and her faithful people will ever sing for joy.17 “Here I will make a horn[b] grow for David
Psalm 132:13-18
and set up a lamp for my anointed one.
18 I will clothe his enemies with shame,
but his head will be adorned with a radiant crown.”
The Lord is exalted, for he dwells on high;
Isaiah 33:5-6
he will fill Zion with his justice and righteousness.
6 He will be the sure foundation for your times,
a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge;
the fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure.
Media
Books
God Here and Now, Karl Barth (1964)
[On behalf of Christ] is the Church charged with this proclamation. And so it has no boast of its own. This message is as new and foreign and superior to the Church as it is to all the people to whom the Church is supposed to proclaim it (yes). The Church can only deliver it the way a postman delivers his mail; the Church is not asked what it thinks it is thereby starting, or what it makes of the message. The less it makes of it and the less it leaves on it its own fingerprints, the more it simply hands it on as it has received it–and so much the better. The Church is also not asked whether its own power, faith, skill, and knowledge are adequate for the transmitting of this message. It is required simply to use all that it is and as best it can, but it must put all this completely and without reservations in the service of this message. And the Church is not questioned about the visible or invisible, great or small success of its deeds. It is supposed to toss its seed about, only let it see to it that it is this seed, like the sower in the Gospel, in the holy thoughtlessness for which Goethe once found fault with this sower. Its way is shown to it. It only needs to go along with it. He who founded and sent it out, and continues to be found and send it out, bears its responsibility. Let it but go along that path. Let it but live in that commission. Surely the Church need not then worry about the coming day.
The Church exists by living for this commission. Thus, it does not exist as an end in itself. It has no line of retreat into a churchly subjectivity. It feels neither into preaching nor into the sacrament, neither into exegesis nor into dogmatics. It strikes forward when it preaches, and it strikes forward when it baptizes and celebrates the Lord’s Supper. Its exegesis is assault and its dogmatics is also assault, or else they are not worth the time and trouble they take, nor the expsnive paper on which they are written and printed. The Church does not escape into prayer either, but it prays in order to work. And for just that reason it will also not escape from prayer into all kinds of relief work or politics. The reason why it does not escape is that in no respect is it there for itself. It exists alone for the message of God’s free grace. It goes with it into the whole world; with it, and for its sake, to make it concrete and clear, then certainly also in the form of relief work and (let us hope, clever and bold) political decisions. It delivers the message as God’s message “to all people”. Therefore the Church itself is there for all people.
Again, the Church is not asked whether or not the people accept it, or whether or not it deserves their confidence. It is not asked to account for their piety or their godlessness, for their orthodoxy or their idolatry, and therefore not even for the stand the people take with respect to the Church. It is not asked whether it might lose itself in being there for the people. It has no diplomacy or strategy to carry on with respect to them. “When Jesus saw the people, he was moved with pity for them; for they were tormented and exhausted like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36). That is the only thing that counts and is interesting and urgent. The people are “just people”, as they have always and everywhere been. They are tormented and exhausted because, in their piety and godlessness, in their orthodoxy and idolatry, they have no shepherd and they go astray. The shepherd they lack is Jesus Himself, and therefore the message of God’s free grace. When Jesus saw these people, He was moved with pity for them. There, in His discipleship, is where the Church belongs. It is simply there for these people. Otherwise, it cannot be there for God. It cannot be the Church at all, except by repeating the great turning of God, to which Christians as well owe their existence, towards the trespassers and the lost, and thereby making the free grace of God visible. In this sense, the Church can the Church only as the people’s Church; and only as the Church for the people, and in the midst of the people can it be a confessing Church.
Those to whom this message is addressed are simply the people, the quite ordinary people, with their serious and their childish concerns and needs; with their confused consciences, their dullness and illusions. Anything else besides just going to these people is certainly not the commission of the Church. If the Church does not love the message of free grace (if it stands apart from people with too many scruples, if it meets them with too many reproaches), if it is afraid of that message and is too pious and moralistic for the people, what is the Church then? Nothing, nothing at all!
Movies
Land (2021)
I loved how this movie told one woman’s story of choosing life over death despite tremendous loss. It also reminds me of how grief can be tied to physical places.
Prayer Requests
- Grace, ease, provision, and logistical favor over every move I need to make this year
Age of the Unexpected 