This month was beautiful and confusing. As I navigated interviewing for different jobs, I joked with a close friend about the sensation of being excited about the possibility of one role one day and feeling like I was disillusioned and excited about something else the next day. “Is this what indecision feels like?“, I asked her. She laughed because indecision is her daily bread. As someone who has always been pretty self-aware and motivated, I knew what it was to become irritated with double-mindedness, to slow down and be patient with people who need more time, but not to legitimately lack this degree of clarity for myself. The process of being completely unsure and being led gradually in the right direction was an eye-opener.

February in a Nutshell

Once again, I’m summarizing the highlights of February based on the goals the Lord gave me in November.

• Quality of Life:
  • Conserving energy at home and elsewhere, more boundaries training. People grace (to relate to people with a high degree of favor/influence) and boundaries growing at the same time (proportionate pace).
    • During this Reformation season, more compassion to see people as Jesus’ house, Jesus’ pet projects. More freedom to empathize but stay out of the work, blessing the process but unwilling to get involved.
  • Focusing on nutrition and the body. Lots of imagery of God nourishing me in dreams, lots of deliberate time in the kitchen and exercise at work.
• Community:
  • Going on a retreat to Whidbey Island with my Church’s Outreach (Homeless Ministry) Team
  • More time and joy with roommates and friends
• Expanding Skill Sets
  • Starting to learn Italian! Wooed by the movie “Luca”, dreams, the rhythm of the language, and the similarity to Portuguese. We’ll find out if it’s just a language to learn for my personal interest or one of the 12 languages that will be part of my shared ministry. It’s a little daunting to start something new, knowing that there have been times when I start a new skill only to have God telling me that it’s not the season or that I need to stop because I’m overextending myself and he’s content with what skills I already have. Either way, I have a good feeling about this, and the pronunciation feels natural.
  • In general, learning about resources related to supporting low-income people, myself included. In slowing down and owning my own needs, more grace to relate to average people’s experiences, which has meant a deeper sense of community and greater range.
• Holding Salt/Developing Resources:
  • As a Prophet:
    • Receiving from Sarah Wren’s Healthy Prophetic Level 3 course
    • Being encouraged by my South African Prophet Friends
      • Scribing, Synthesizing, and Sharing our words and declarations over nations. Helping our leader develop pure guidelines for the national prophecies that come out of our workgroup
    • Very gradually getting back to a place of extravagant curiosity (my default setting) now that I no longer feel like I’m treading water
    • Inner Healing:
      • Increase in Extreme Inner Healing Encounters in Atmospheres of Worship
        • Feeling liquid pressure inside my chest as a sign that Holy Spirit has internal work to do
        • Allowing extreme visitation, deeper yielding → Trusting God that it won’t be more than I can handle, and letting nearby friends know so they can help me come out of it well
          • Example: The physical sensation of God knitting back together pieces of my insides. The sensation of different pieces of my heart being sucked together by a vacuum tube at the center of my chest.
    • The best part of this inner healing season hasn’t been any ministry appointments, but having healthy leaders at my local church and a longer period of modeling, receiving
    • Reminding Myself: My portion in this season is joy, safe pasture, ridiculous favor with people, recompense in time + honor + finances + holistic wellbeing (physical + Spiritual, not just mental + emotional), God generously filling in missing pieces in experience/skill sets that I will need
    • Greater signs following me into work, to the point where my new boss noticed (Mark 16:17-18). Spiritual sensitivity and people grace increasing with intensifying accuracy (“feeler” gift, emotions is growing in layered depth). Church friends increasingly asking me for input to help them parse their extreme encounters.
    • Involuntary Sleep Training is back (my prophetic “normal” of dreams, semi-conscious encounters, and Watchman middle-of-night wakeups). Specific themes related to being instructed to call in the promise, reassurance, the vibrance of God’s life (Gen 1:20), and more.
• Locally:
  • Out of the acclimation stage and into what feels like a stability period of being in Seattle. The timing of how long this period will last is unclear, but I’m definitely no longer just adjusting. Shifting into strategy mode, figuring out how to use my skill set most effectively. Will be following up on leads related to supporting teen ministry and “Praying for the Nations” prayer group at my local church.
• As a Doctoral Student:
  • Exploring strategies for writing books and theses

A Beautiful New Workspace

This month, I finished getting furniture for my apartment. I finally have a dedicated place I can study, pray, worship, and prophesy. I spend about as much time communing with God and writing in my hammock as standing at my desk. I’m thrilled that it can be disassembled and thrown into a case for outdoor adventures and when guests need a place to sleep.

Who Jesus has Been to me in the Storm

Earlier this month, I was delighting in finally falling into stable rhythms, excited about my new job at a bubble tea shop down the road. And yet, just as I was finishing setting up my workspace upstairs, I was notified that because of a renovation being delayed at the store’s new location, they would not be able to afford to keep me. I would need to start looking all over again.

*Cue exhaustion tidal wave*

After the obstacle course of the last 12 months and needing to bring in rent money, I had no energy left to start over. Around this moment, Jesus and I officially entered into an Ezekiel 47:5 “waters have risen above my head” experience.

 ⁵ Again he measured a thousand, and it was a river that I could not pass through, for the water had risen. It was deep enough to swim in, a river that could not be passed through. ⁶ And he said to me, “Son of man, have you seen this?”

Ezekiel 47:5

On the one hand, I knew this day was coming. It felt like a natural step in the progression of growing greater trust in God. It was also timed at the moment when I would need the most help, and was fully out of my own strength (which admittedly, took a while, because “survival mode” has been a default setting in my life). I’d already experienced these overpassing waters in other areas of my life, but due to the amount of change in such a short time period, I was just hoping to catch my breath. God wasn’t unaware of my exhaustion, but he used this opportunity to show off just how well he loves me.

When my strength failed, I was not alone. A friend swept in with overflowing joy, helping drive me around to 3 separate neighborhoods to drop off resumes, visit the library, and have fun exploring. We didn’t just take care of business, we got gelato and told stories and jokes. And as the Lord had reassured me of his intimate concern for my needs, he dismantled my fear of lack to such a degree that I am just not afraid anymore about how he wants to work things out in my future, across the board. Seeing God so fiercely show up to advocate for me is changing me. It’s not immediate, but it goes deep.

He has already provided a new job. I already have a paycheck coming in in the next week, and I only have to work 4 afternoon/evening shifts a week to make enough money so that I can focus on what I love most in the mornings: prophecy, my doctorate, and developing ministry work with youth. Ironically, he’s worked it out so that my living expenses are very low, and I will be able to save more money a month doing less stressful work than I was able to save in my last 18 months of teaching. Bigger than that, my tolerance for disruption is growing. Just like in June, God is still showing me kindness in unexpected places and showering me with desserts.

Moments of his Goodness

This last round of insanity reminded me of significant moments in the last year where how Jesus responded to my circumstances through dreams was perfect. I get the sense that this February was a month of heart health for me and a lot of people. For that reason, I wish everyone could know that this is really what God is like.

• In May, Jesus stood in the gap in maturity, honoring my sacrifices. He was a mature man who honored me, with the heart posture of someone who would wash my feet.
• In August, he told me to keep my chin up and let me feel how proud Heaven was of my courage. He declared that he would repay me for long-term dishonor against myself and the women in my family, with the imagery of various significant people from earlier life lined up to apologize.
• In January, he gave me dreams about deep healing, saying that his finished work would be worth it, like chocolate. He healed my eyes and gave me lots of help.
• In February, he was excited like a child. He told me to just watch how he will call back in the promises he has for me. He gave my spirit an opportunity to sense his excitement for the finished work, and egged me on, asking me if still wanted the blessing.

Sacrifice, Insisting on the Right Amount of Time to Build Properly, and Holy Passion

As I have been job searching, I have intentionally chosen to pass up other opportunities so that I have the time to heal and build towards ministry with youth properly. Honestly, my decision to sacrifice for the right reasons has baffled my family. They know that at my best, I have a lot of capacity. And they don’t always understand why I would choose an uncertain future in faith rather than just pick a job that would earn me as much money as possible.

But I don’t want to just be paid in money. I want to be repaid in time: time to grow, time to receive, and time to be a human being before these dreams of ministry become a reality. The decision to invest in ministry sacrificially is tied to my greatest dreams and my identity. I’m driven by holy passion to invest in what I love most. As someone who uses time as a love language, I’m spending the best of me, my most productive morning hours, to see these things established. I’m working afternoons and evenings so I can afford to give away the best of me.

At work, at Church, and in other places, Lord has surrounded me with communities of people who invest in me and treat me right. It’s redeeming a standard of ministry in me so that I will only be able to reproduce that same kind of wholeness. Building quickly or under pressure will not have the effect of giving my children the same kind of abundant life as if I let the Lord build it (Psalm 127). Besides, he has promised to come to collect me at the right time, when it’s his expansion timing. Even though other people have tried to rush me prematurely out of the desert, I will wait until he calls me out. I think of what I want for my children and how protective I am of giving them the right time to grow and develop, to emerge into the men and women God would have them become. I must imitate that.

This May, when God gave me a choice between the head and the heart for my birthday. Choosing the heart and internal wellness is what brought me to Seattle. While I couldn’t know that at the time, I’m glad it did. So many leaders and organizations miss this crucial piece, full of the excellence of Jesus, spiritually overflowing with signs and wonders, but out of touch with God’s heart. They are limited in their capacity to reveal his heart to others. I want my [future ministry and bio] children to have the wholeness of Deuteronomy 6:5, and I want them to have such grace with people that people run to them to know God. This sense of holy passion for youth (0-18s) to have greater access to Jesus keeps me sacrificing towards the goal of developing a holistically healthy, spirit-led youth ministry that overflows with the life of Christ.

Lately, I’ve been getting to do what I love most in being a friend to youngish, 20-something believers in my local church. They are learning the gift of prophecy, having intensifying dreams, and learning to love Jesus not for the signs but for intimacy and the depth of his character. I love being with them. I love getting to be the person they ask questions, being the backup person to text when they have extreme encounters and need help because it was scary, or want help with interpretation. I’m teaching them that there is no contradiction in Jesus’ humanity and his divinity. I’m reminding them that the closer they come to God, the God of Perfect Wholeness, the healthier they will be, and the more tangible their humanity will be to others.

I love being an approachable Prophet. I believe that leaders should be the safest people in the room. They should be able to say to the people, “Practice on me, prophesy to me” when they are afraid to take risks and have such relational credit built up that people come out of their comfort zones to meet them. In love, they should be able to cover, support, and encourage. Good leaders can point people back in the direction they should go, calling them back into their right minds. There is no shame in admitting that you need help or are vulnerable. This kind of love also restores people who have been damaged by the Prophetic. It reminds me of times I’ve doubted the Prophetic because of how people have harmed me, but then spend some time with prophetic friends who are also full of the love and life of Jesus. Every time I walk away thinking, “Surely, Jesus must be real” (Rev 19:10).

Whatever God establishes is healthy, safe, and good. It’s full of freedom, love, deep intuitive oneness, resonance, and understanding. We are never too big that he can’t cover us, and we are never too broken that he can’t put us back together again. Out of God’s love, there is an absence of fear, control, and misunderstanding because people press in to see how Jesus sees themselves and others.

Jesus, you have my yes. For whatever crazy things you want for me.

Digging Deep: Strategy of Reflecting on What I Want for My Children

There have been various times this month when I have been at a loss for words. I have not known how to answer complex situations or make sense of external pressure, especially when there are power imbalances. It has reminded me of David facing Goliath: feeling so comparatively small, yet knowing that God is with me.

I have discovered that when I don’t know how to speak, there is a simple way to find clarity and direction, based on how God made me. When I don’t know how to react, I just reflect on the love that I have for the children that God will give me in ministry. I think about what response would be in their best interest. It instantly matures and clarifies me. It instantly gets my eyes off my own feelings and allows my experiences to be transformed into something greater. This love is the place of my greatest wisdom, humility, and favor with God and man. It reminds me of how Jesus set his joy before him before and during the cross, and how in his story, God is making every wrong thing right. It makes me realize that Jesus’ capacity to overcome sin and answer in perfect purity must have been because of the immeasurable depth of his love. He was unwilling to do anything that would have caused his people damage. And he carried out his mission to the end. I am grateful that I have a purpose to wake up for every morning and feel a little sorry for people who aren’t living from that place of purpose. In my life, God will see generations of children in the nations established.

Maturity: Being More Honest about Sin

This month, I felt God prompting me towards greater honesty when it comes to a healthy understanding of leadership, especially when it comes to how we address the faults of those we love.

When we are young, it’s easy to believe that everything we see on someone that isn’t from God is from the enemy. And in a strictly logical sense, that is true: the enemy is the one who provides the material for every wrong and evil thing. But there are also times when what is not good on a person isn’t just the enemy…it’s them. The things they’ve partnered with, the things they have deliberately chosen. When I was younger in my walk with the Lord, I used to think that every Watchman dream I had about what people were struggling with meant that they were being harassed…only to later realize that sometimes those dreams were about what they’d chosen. And I’ve struggled to know how to respond when people aren’t just victims of evil, but active and willing participants. To my great horror, there are moments where I’ve seen God’s best plans for people alongside Satan’s best plans for their lives, almost like two diverging stories.

Once maturity comes, I think there is room to be a bit more honest about the partnership between human beings and the demonic. In Jesus Christ, there is room to admit where we have been corrupted by evil. It takes a degree of taking responsibility for sin that many people fear, because of anxiety about rejection and exposure. Still, God is good and like David, he restores those who repent earnestly and from the heart. When you look at a person’s life and the fruit that comes out of it, you can sense when there has been genuine repentance. This is the reason Jesus died: not just for the people who sin unaware, but also for the times when all of us have sinned on purpose. God can rescue anyone and restore many things, and when there is true maturity, there is accountability, confession, ownership and comprehensive turning from sin, acceptance of consequences, internalized wisdom from failure, and transformation that leads to the fullness of God’s life.

When I think about what it means to learn from failure, I think of my dad. Within our family, he initiated a running joke that he has failed at everything he ever did. If I’m going to be completely honest, it’s not terribly far from the truth. When I was younger, I saw the negative way that he and my other parents lived (parents + step-parents), ran in the opposite direction on purpose, and ended up finding Jesus. But just like the Book of Ecclesiastes, my dad’s many failures have softened him and allowed him to walk away with wisdom. Though our relationship was strained when I was younger, because of the way God has transformed his heart, we can now talk and laugh about just about anything. His willingness to be honest about where he has struggled in his life formed me as a young adult to be unafraid of failure. He’s always encouraged me to never sell myself short, and I think that in addition to what I’ve inherited from him as an adventurer, a writer, and a scholar, his encouragement has been the basis for a lot of my courage. He is sacrificially honest and wants more for me than he has had for himself. In spite of his failures with women, he redeems himself by encouraging me to know my worth and advocate for it.

When I encounter people who are still afraid of making mistakes, I always wish I could send them to talk to my dad for a little while. In wisdom, he’s become a good counselor because he can relate so well to people who are struggling with the weight of sin and condemnation. His life reminds me of times when instead of condemnation, I needed nurture and people who would be patient with me in the long process. It makes me think of how sometimes the Lord gives us glimpses of where we’re going in advance to measure us, so we’ll know what internal work to do and have a vision for the outworking. He allows us to fail, measuring us and letting us know our faults in advance so that we have a chance to do the work. He does that because he loves us and doesn’t want us to fail when the real thing comes. Still, just like my dad has needed to genuinely change in order to grow, we all have to choose to sacrificially lay down our lives to develop the grit and wholeness for leadership.

If I’m being honest, there are still circumstances in my life with seemingly impossible solutions. However, I’m confident that when every person does their part to grow into maturity, God finds ways of showing up.

Holy Passion: Stewarding the Responsibility of God’s Emotions

Just a little earlier in this post, I shared about how having a sense of purpose that is related to my calling and identity has motivated me to continue sacrificing towards the goal of developing a holistically healthy, spirit-led youth ministry that overflows with the life of Christ. However, I don’t think that having that sense of clear identity, calling, and purpose is something that God reserves for specific people. I believe that God wants to use people’s emotions to teach them how to commune with his heart for specific communities he’s called them to invest in.

In the West, the idea of fellowshipping with God’s emotions can strike some people as intimidating, especially when they have come from cultures where numbing emotions or emotional detachment is common. While Western churches are right to focus on the mind of Christ (excellence and strategy), while they do well to focus on God’s power (intensity and reformation), they tend to miss God’s power through emotions. People who are afraid of exposure or seeming unhinged can be skeptical that humans can even fellowship with God’s emotions at all. Western Christians have at times failed to understand how God purifies our emotions, overfocusing on emotions as a negative path to temptation rather than a holistic aspect of Jesus’ life.

Other people fear the cost of engagement, rightly recognizing that sharing Jesus’ burden for different communities will require a deep level of commitment. Instead of viewing fellowship with God’s emotions as a blessing, a gift, and a prophetic responsibility, Christians arrange ministry into a series of disconnected appointments and duties.

Whether we like it or not, Christ’s ministry was emotional. He laid down his life for his friends, not for abstract responsibility (John 15:13). God’s invitation to Israelite captives in Babylon was emotional because their hearts had become disconnected from his purpose.

“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

Jeremiah 29:13

There is a much greater danger in dismissing your emotions or seeing emotion as primarily negative. Realistically, Satan understands that humans have emotions, just as God does. When we fail to surrender our emotions to God and allow God to purify them, instead of being led by holy passion and godly fire, Satan uses our emotional detachment to corrupt us by other lesser loves. Realistically, it’s holy passion that keeps you from apathy and sin when it would be much easier to compromise. When it comes to our hearts, neutrality is an illusion: holy fire is the only thing that prevents decay.

In supporting Christians and Apostolic/Prophetic people, we must be leaders who pray for God to impart his emotional burdens for people groups into their lives. We as students must ask God to align our emotions to his: in the heights and in the depths (Psalm 36). We must strive to holistically desire God and allow him to use our emotions for his good (Psalm 63).

As Westerners embody Christ’s emotions, they will be better equipped to relate to Latin American, but also Middle Eastern and African spirituality.

In training and supporting generations of Prophets and Apostles:

1. What would it look like to teach people the process of how to receive God’s emotional burdens well? What opportunities exist for communal prayer and investigating holy discontentment? What clues about calling and purpose exist in what grieves, irritates, surprises, or energizes us? In the West, what ministry opportunities could exist for altar calls, laying on hands, abiding in God, and pursuing his heart?
2. What would it look like to teach people to steward the burden of God’s emotions well? To give them examples not just of biblical prophets but modern leaders who were motivated by holy emotion, and the progression of how they sought God over their lifetimes? How can we support young and emerging leaders to make sense of their life stories, their identities, and their callings? How can we support them to take strategic steps to investigate their purpose well? How can we support them in the embodiment of Jesus, to become the best “living stories” possible (Psalm 139:16)?

Favorite February Movies

This month, one of my favorite movies was El Sueño de Ayer, a movie focused on the history of Mambo music and based on Latin American Magic Realism (my favorite genre, alongside sci-fi). In the movie, Dámaso Pérez Prado, a Cuban Mambo mastermind, comes back to life in the metro of Mexico’s capital city and starts to look for a woman whom he had lost many years before. The movie isn’t exactly PG, but the soundtrack is fabulous and it’s a story of redemption.

Here’s Mambo No 5, one of Pérez Prado’s most popular compositions, in case you’re curious:

Favorite Quotes from February Books

Like January, I’m pulling the best quotes from these books and unpacking them so it’s clear why they were special!

The Clockwork Muse: A Practical Guide to Writing Theses, Dissertations, and Books by Eviatar Zerubavel

Have you ever read a book and thought to yourself, “This is exactly how I think?” In reading Eviatar Zerubavel’s Clockwork Muse as a student this month, I felt so understood by Zerubavel’s focus on time as a concept and abstract imagery. As someone who is highly wired to think about time and speaks in abstract visual metaphors a lot, he speaks my language. I’m reading this book in preparation for writing my doctoral thesis, and later on, other books. I’ve been writing regularly since I was about 9-11 years old and have plenty of journals from over the years, but I feel like it’s finally the season of life where these ideas about book composition are accessible and not terrifying. I’m going to use this thesis process as a time to figure out my rhythms and explore what strategies will work well for me in the future.

Given how much I’ve been talking to the Lord about reformation lately, I love how Zerubavel compares book composition to house structure. I love how these quotes all have a subtle bent toward redemption and how God redeems mistakes.

On the Importance of Not Rushing the Process

Although you may very well end up producing acceptable, and sometimes even good, manuscripts in only one draft, you may never et to find out how much deeper, more sophisticated, and more polished those pieces might have been had you revised that first draft two or three times. As anyone who has ever painted a room knows, althought we eventually get to see only the last coat that has been applied to a wall, it is actually the extra coat underneath it that usually gives the final product its somewhat richer texture.

pg 47-48

On the Connection between Writing Multiple Drafts and Finding the Gold in People

As Mario Vargas Llosa puts it, “the first version is written in a real state of anxiety. Then once I’ve finished that draft …everything changes. I know then that the story is there, buried in what I call my ‘magma’. It’s absolute chaos but the novel is in there, lost in a mass of dead elements, superfluous scenes that will disappear…It’s very chaotic and makes sense only to me. But the story is born under there.”

Speaking My Language in Sensory Visual Metaphors

By producing several drafts from start to finish, you will also maximize the quality of what you produce. If you distribute your creative “highs” and “lows” across drafts that are written months or even years apart, you can acheive the kind of smooth, high-quality consistency once usually tries to achieve when spreading butter or jelly on a slice of bread.

pg 52

Chasing the Dragon by Jackie Pullinger

This month, I read Jackie Pullinger’s Chasing the Dragon. I found that her level of commitment to the people of Hong Kong was effective because it mirrored Jesus’ emotions. I also loved her sense of humor, and willingness to talk about her awkward moments in early life, formation, and ministry. The way that she describes English, Hong Kongese, and Americans in the 1960s/1970s is particularly hilarious to imagine since I know background information about each of those communities and the specific time period. It’s like being told a story about interactions between your mutual friends. I also found that her experiences in helping Hong Kong’s citizens get off heroin is very similar to what my church’s Outreach Team (Homeless Ministry) is experiencing in supporting Seattle to come off fentanyl, which is so inexpensive that it has quickly outpaced the region’s use of meth, heroin, and cocaine.

Steal like an Artist: Things Nobody Told you about Being Creative by Austin Kleon

People probably start reading this book because it’s accessible, but stay because Kleon packages his simple ideas with such remarkable integrity. This book should be read at least once by everyone who considers themselves creative, and at least twice by everyone who is too intimidated to give themselves that label. I imagined Jeremiah having a glass of wine when Kleon encouraged his readers to enjoy captivity.

“All you need is a little space and a little time–a place to work, and some time to do it; a little self-imposed solitude and temporary captivity. If your living situation doesn’t allow for that, sometimes you can find solitude and captivity in the wild.”

Worship this Month

This month, I’m labeling the worship songs that cycled through my spirit and mind during the day and night with the names of God that I attributed to him in each one. I’m sharing these little details because it adds a layer of complexity that invites other people to seek and find him in music.

“God, the Incomparable”

“God who Makes Every Wrong Thing Right”

“God Whose Promises are Better than We Expected”

Finding God in Secular Music

“God, who Alone Knows the Future”

I chose this song with a sense of humor because of the title, but it kept me because of the rhythm and Luis Enrique’s good looks (lol). For those who don’t speak Spanish, the lyrics are all about uncertainty related to the long-term trajectories of our lives. While the context of the song is about romance, the lyrics introduce uncertainty as a much larger theme, with our lives as stories.

“God, who helps me become the Person I’m Supposed to be”

Growing up, I heard a lot of Neil Young, the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, and other folk music taking short and long rides in the car with my dad. After a long chat with my dad this month, I stumbled upon this song and felt it summarized what God was doing more broadly in his people during February, as a month of heart healing and reformation. It hit me with a wave of nostalgia, one foot in the past and one foot trying to imagine/re-imagine the future. This song reminds me of growing up, learning from our mistakes, and doing the best we can to be the leaders our children need us to be. God, would you give us the grace to be the men and women of your dreams.

Prayer Requests

• Grace to be in alignment with God, navigating the burden well
• Clarity, sharpness, proportionate action, and proportionate rest
• Wisdom, favor, and revelation for thesis preparation

In January, I finally internalized my bus route to and from church…and then moved!

January in a Nutshell

In December, I described the specific goals I felt God highlighting to me for the next 6-18 months, namely: quality of life + balance, community, expanding skill sets, developing maturity, and holding salt + developing resources. Since so much of my current season relates to these choices, I wanted to give a quick recap of January through the lens of those goals.

• Quality of Life:
  • Moving to a new apartment in another part of Seattle (more below!)
  • New job (more below!)
  • Museum Days at Seattle’s National Nordic Museum
  • Finishing up doctor’s appointments + health checks
  • Scripture: Enjoying reading Psalm 119 as if it were a reflection of different stages of life-long discipleship, different things the author gleaned across life seasons
• Community:
  • More time spent hanging out with local friends
  • Connecting with new housemates over a game night
  • Zoom catch-ups with friends overseas
• Expanding Skill Sets:
  • Outreach Ministry: Walking as a team towards a greater emphasis on Worship + Prayer in homeless ministry
  • Instructional Design: Finishing a simple portfolio of work samples, setting aside time next few months to work on more expansive projects, instructional design outside of Higher Education
• Developing Maturity:
  • Celebrating ministries who prioritize the holistic well-being of the Church
  • Considering different approaches to Spiritual Warfare
    • “Jesus, what kind of Warrior do you want me to become? What is the outworking of that warfare?”
    • “How do you want me to steward my gifts?”
    • “Who do you want me to learn from in this particular season (the only season I’m letting myself focus on right now)?”
    • “What counts as growth?”
  • Worship: In January as I waited for God to give me a new song and a new expression for life in ministry, I spent a lot of time in stillness simply worshipping him for who he is. These are some of the names that I called God, based off of the routines for worship and connecting with him that I described in December.
    • “God, the Dauntless”
    • “God, the Oil that Doesn’t Run Out”
    • “Jesus our Truth, who was called “Deceiver”” (John 7:47)
    • “Jesus our Peace, who was accused of being demonized “(John 8:48)
    • “Jesus, the Resurrection, and the Life “(John 11;25)
    • “Jesus, whose word is Whole”
    • “God who finishes what He started”
    • “God, who is creative in his Leadership”
  • Major Themes in Dreams: Leadership, Boundaries in ministry (becoming better at articulating to others what they can and cannot expect from me), Thriving relationships in the Church
• Holding Salt + Developing Resources:
  • As a Prophet: Teambuilding amongst a group of Prophets I’m gathering called to Youth work
    • Starting to develop rhythms for scribing prophetic words to support my Prophet friends in South Africa
  • Locally: Auditing/Observing a Class on the gift of prophecy taught by friends at my local Church to understand their philosophy and culture. Continuing to focus on building relationships and learning about Seattle as a city.
  • As a Seminary Student: Positive feedback from friends, and professors as I test out the direction I hope to take my thesis in advance of writing a 10-12 page research proposal. Agreement that the area of emphasis (understanding contemporary Christian mysticism, framework, and common language for encounter) is timely, important, and strategic work.

Embracing Weakness

Embracing Humanity, Human Limits

Honestly, January was challenging, and felt a bit like emotional fracking, grit, and endurance through the tension between where I am and where God is taking me. In January, Jesus used my weakness mysteriously to help me relate to a variety of people as a person and in ministry more effectively than I would at full capacity. I had to intentionally dismiss messages I’ve received in charismatic ministry contexts where people use the Holy Spirit as an excuse to try to be superheroes, disregarding their own limitations and the limitations of other humans. I’m inspired by the way that Jesus embraced his humanity, and didn’t let being fully God stop him from being fully human.

Empowerment vs. Usury

As someone who has often come off as more mature for my age, resetting expectations with elders continues to come up, not just in the family but related to experiences I’ve had with leaders in the church. There are times when at work and church, my gifts have been used to serve leaders’ visions in ways that are draining and unhealthy. And as someone who often comes off as strong despite being very sensitive, I’m choosing to simply be a woman and celebrate my sensitivity as a God-given gift. Resetting boundaries with people who are not careful to value my limits has therefore been a theme this month. As I let external events and outcomes belong to God, I’m just focusing on the part that belongs to me. In this season, God keeps bringing me healthy leaders who are able to invest in my life. As someone who is very community and structurally minded, God has given me rest by bringing me leaders who do not need me to build anything for them but have healthy structures and systems in place already. I’m choosing to remain in a posture of receiving instead of leading for as long as it takes to thrive and as God reclaims these gifts.

More Effective in Relational Ministry

Many times this month, I physically felt like half-strength coffee, and allowing God to use my weakness seemed unnatural. I’m not used to simply receiving from people, but I was beyond shocked by the degree that God used my need to help me connect with people who were experiencing homelessness, loss, family disruption, or drug addiction. By the end of January, simply receiving and allowing God to use my weakness has felt gradually less awkward, gradually more refreshing, and ultimately like being rooted and covered.

New Job: The Strategic Wisdom of Doing Less (This Season)

In January, I also interviewed for some part-time positions that would give me flexibility while I finish my doctorate. For me, this act of finding a low-pressure employment atmosphere is part of the process of coming out of chronic-over-functioning and unhealthy expectations I faced in the classroom and in earlier life.

I have ultimately accepted a job working at a Bubble tea shop just a 7-minute walk from my new house. The business doesn’t open til noon, which will give me mornings free for prophecy, seminary, developing Instructional Design portfolio projects as I have energy, and writing. It’s run by an alert and kind Taiwanese Christian businesswoman who appears to value her staff well. I believe that by working alongside her, I will become that much savvier at following the leadership of Asian elders and leaders. I’m hoping that whatever measure of gifts I possess will add to her work, like Joseph. She is trusting me to start out in a slightly more challenging role, brewing the tea and making the boba for about 30 hours/week. I’m excited for the creative aspect of this work, and how it will give me the freedom to keep growing in ministry/studies.

Quality of Life: Next Steps More Generally

In the coming months, as I settle into rhythms for work, life, and school, I’m hoping to gradually start volunteering with teen’s ministry at church, investing in the work my church is already doing. I’m also looking to spend more time adventuring with friends on weekends. In general, I am hoping to fill in gaps in my knowledge/experience that exist as a result of growing quickly. Based on the specific timelines I’ve seen in dreams, the next 6-18 months is a season of gathering a variety of pieces to continue exploring new expressions for ministry, like collecting items off a buffet.

I am believing that as I continue to walk through the process, I will experience gradually less tiredness and the life that God establishes in my insides will work itself outwards into open opportunities for ministry. I am choosing to move at an intuitive pace and to trust my own sense of timings. As with other life seasons, I will know when I’m ready for more, and organically feel the need for a challenge. I don’t sense that I will want to move again until my doctorate is completed, and perhaps will look for a position pioneering things God has placed on my heart for Holy Spirit-led Youth Ministry. I don’t know how much or when Instructional Design will factor in again, but will sense more as I walk out the process. When restlessness turns into birthing, God will prepare the right doors to open and send me off in clarity.

You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.

Psalm 139:5

Your ears will hear a word behind you, “This is the way, walk in it,” whenever you turn to the right or to the left.

Isaiah 30:21

Moving to a New Apartment

Just last weekend, I had the chance to move into a new apartment that has been a healthy change of scenery. Just as it became clear that the next season of wellness would require more independence in living arrangements, a friend shared a listing for a Christian group house with women from churches around the city. My next step in moving to a new city was to seek out such an opportunity, in order to make new friends, and because living in a Christian shared house has been on my list of things to try for a while. I didn’t expect the opportunity to come so soon, but it’s been a welcome adjustment. House responsibilities are organized and divided fairly, the women seem to be friendly and laid back, my room will be freshly repainted soon, and the location is ideal.

I was happy to discover that at 15×17 ft my room is more than large enough to lay down several air mattresses for when guests come to visit, should they wish to stay here. Generosity and hospitality are important values of mine, so this really matters.

Lastly, the rent is more affordable than I would have dared dream of (half of what I’ve seen for comparable places). Having more affordable rent is what will allow me to work fewer hours and in a less intense role.

God is Reforming His House: Declaring a Standard of Investment in the Well-being of the Church

Last month, I shared about ways God has spoken to me through dreams about Jesus as the Bridegroom of various nations in ways that are specific to what the Holy Spirit is currently doing in those cultures. I began to share how the season of receiving and embodying these ideas has been weird, beautiful, and painful. In hindsight, because of my early calling experiences that relate to the well-being of the Bride symbolically (habitually finding wedding rings, anyone?), I probably shouldn’t be surprised that as I actively stepped into my calling, some of these dreams and events would kick off.

This month, Jesus has been loudly sharing about how he will make the holistic Well-being of his Church a foundational part of the second wineskin of the Prophetic Movement. I hope to share a word on that topic soon as I lock into rhythms for work, school, and ministry. As the Lord has unpacked things I’m still processing, it’s caused me to reflect on dreams and experiences I’ve had about the spiritual and emotional well-being of the Church in different nations.

A Year of Solidarity with the Bride

Around this time last year, directly after leaving my job in obedience (January 20th), I had an intense encounter that set the tone for the work of gathering and scouting God had me do in later months in the nations and future ministry. In the dream, I heard specific personal instructions for ministry and I saw imagery of God collecting sheep and some words in Spanish. The message felt un-openably sealed until God showed me the specific portions of scripture out of Ezekiel 34 in my Spanish bible that carried the same imagery.

“‘Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: ⁸ As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, because my flock lacks a shepherd and so has been plundered and has become food for all the wild animals, and because my shepherds did not search for my flock but cared for themselves rather than for my flock, ⁹ therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: ¹⁰ This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am against the shepherds and will hold them accountable for my flock. I will remove them from tending the flock so that the shepherds can no longer feed themselves. I will rescue my flock from their mouths, and it will no longer be food for them.

 “‘For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. ¹² As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. ¹³ I will bring them out from the nations and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them into their own land. I will pasture them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines and in all the settlements in the land. ¹⁴ I will tend them in a good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing land. There they will lie down in good grazing land, and there they will feed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. ¹⁵ I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign Lord. ¹⁶ I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice.

Ezekiel 34:7-10

Since around that time, I began to experience increasing dreams about the welfare of the Church in different nations.

For example, in January 2022 I had a dream about the Church as a woman getting mauled by an unhealthy Shepherd in Germany. Just a month ago, I had another dream about the Church in South Korea getting assaulted by spiritual warfare from a spirit of sexual perversion. I am intentionally not sharing the majority of the nature of these Watchman dreams, but suffice it to say that the Lord is coming in power to deal with the abuses against his Church, now and increasingly over the next several years.

Implications for Ministry Partnerships

The journey of sensitivity the Lord has formed in me for the Church’s well-being has overlapped with my passion for supporting immigrants and refugees, current ministry with individuals experiencing homelessness, concerns for youth and young prophets, women, and safe-guarding work as a whole. For this reason, in the future, I believe an enormous factor that will determine what ministries God does or does not allow me to partner with will not be about denomination or doctrine, but the level of commitment organizations have to the wellbeing of the Church. At this critical hour, I believe that God is calling his Apostles and Prophets to a more central place in Church leadership to guard the witness of the saints as the Church globally experiences more persecution. We cannot afford to fail to invest more greatly in common people in the Church.

During this time of wars and rumors of war, of endurance and the faithfulness of God, we must have healthy Apostles and Prophets who are committed to the wellbeing of the Bride. For that reason, as I evaluate ministries and models of leadership, I cannot afford to partner with groups that see the physical, emotional, or spiritual needs of common people as secondary. These are the people for whom Jesus died, and if we aspire towards Christlikeness, we cannot build ministry structures built on celebrity or disconnected ministry offices/appointments that are divorced from other parts of the Body.

In Leadership for General 5-Fold Ministry, I am impressed by:

• Servanthood instead of Celebrity
• An empowerment/investment model of relational ministry (applying a Latin American cultural lens).
  • Commitment to deep honesty + authenticity as well as the messy reality of serving people.
  • Walking a long process of inner healing, deliverance, and thriving with people vs. transactional ministry appointments.
  • Embodied, in-tune leadership and structures that follow in holistic alignment and support a relational approach.
• Intergenerational, lasting faithfulness vs. a solitary, generational moment
• Finishing instead of starting
• Celebrating Christ’s power in weakness

In my current church, I admire how leaders do not hide or hold back their emotions from the people. I watch as they own their limits so others aren’t expecting too much, but position themselves to be celebrated for what they do have to share. Their approach to brokenness is to be relentlessly human. Clarity, compassion, humor, fun. They are mature and love maturity in others. The outworking of their vision is nearly inevitable because they embody their vision and remain in their first love with Jesus. First love and deepening intimacy can’t be faked.

In Leadership for Apostolic and Prophetic Ministry, I am impressed by:

If embodiment is important for leaders within 5-fold ministry, how much more is it important for the Apostles and Prophets whose decrees shape nations? These are things that impress me in Apostolic and Prophetic ministries.

• Embodiment When an Apostle or Prophet gets perceives the “life words” (identity –> calling) that they are called to embody by God AND know how to diligently apply it in healthy and life-giving ways. Healthy embodiment demonstrates a marriage of revelation and stewardship that heals nations and groups. Because a leader has taken time to perceive and own the implications word has for every aspect of their life, it bears increasing fruit in multiple seasons. They have been formed by the word; it is magnified in their life and a cornerstone of their integrity.
  • I’m using the word “Embodiment” instead of Integrity because if you’ve chosen Jesus, integrity comes by the Transfiguration, embodying more of him. You’re called to increasingly embody the one who is living inside of you. 
• Relational Grace When an Apostle or Prophet can find the gold in a challenging person or group or nation, and call it forth instead of getting distracted by the mess. When Prophets know how to leverage relational grace to build bridges and extend the Kingdom. 
• Humility + Servanthood When Apostles or Prophets can rightly relate to others in the 5-fold rather than needing to be the loudest voice. Reformation for legacy, for worship, for leadership that starts in the inside and works its way outward. Lord, let Reformation start inside us.
• Prophecy as Revelation of Jesus When Apostles and Prophets use prophecy to reveal Jesus to a region, an ethnic group, or an individual, in continuation with the historic witness of the prophetic Church. Addressing matters of national governance only to the extent and in the ways that point people towards his Kingdom, his standards, his heart for wholeness, and his purity.
  • Personal prophecy as a fruit of worship, grounded in God’s love for and vision of the person. Giving words out of the overflow of God’s heart vs. disconnected, transactional words.
• Empowering + Covering Youth Standing as a community of wise elders to model, support, cover, and release children and youth to hear Holy Spirit. Like a friend in Texas who recently shared how his church covers children to prophecy and do healing ministry with the homeless, leaders who want to create safe ministries for youth to be supported and sent out.

God is Reforming His House: Relational Strategy for Spiritual Warfare and Apostolic Building

Understanding Spiritual Warfare: Four Views by James Beilby, Paul Rhodes Eddy, Walter Wink, David Powlison, Gregory Boyd, Peter Wagner, and Rebecca Greenwood

This month, I read Understanding Spiritual Warfare to process my own beliefs about methods of spiritual warfare. As someone with an apostolic bent within a personal and global reformation season, I felt the need to do a deep dive into these ideas. This text is academic with some accessible ideas, and was a treasure trove for my thesis.

Partnering with the Spirit of Adoption through Story-telling and Releasing Relational Grace

As I read this book, I kept reflecting on my own beliefs about building in healthy ways. In general, in a post-colonial restoration age, I believe that God is inviting prophets and apostles to learn how to work more effectively with the Spirit of Adoption. The Spirit of Adoption is what drives out the Orphan spirit. Both the people group and the apostles/missionaries must choose to surrender to the Spirit of Adoption for successful relational alliances to be formed.

When you start building in a region, it should start by love and relating to a people group as a servant and guest. As God opens a door to build and grow there, you should proportionately grow in Christlikeness as your ministry flourishes.To release grace for a region when you speak with audiences or individuals, I would start by telling stories of people I love in that region that reflect how much God loves them.

Pet Peeve: Spiritual Warfare without Proportionate Building or Corresponding Structures

As someone with an Apostolic bent, I get irritated when Prophets do spiritual warfare but do not reflect changes in their ministry’s policies or structures. Without aligning the structure to displace whatever principality you want to dismantle, you provide room for the demonic to increase and harass the vulnerable. And without aligning your ministries’ policies and procedures to your overall ministry vision, you get increasingly fragmented, disconnected ministries that do not pull together as a team. To borrow a sports metaphor, “the best defense is a good offense”. When Prophets do spiritual warfare without the healthy, corresponding apostolic building, it feels lazy and reckless.

In order to model God’s long-standing faithfulness, I believe that Prophetic ministries need to have a proportionate balance of inner healing (cleansing) and deliverance (fire). There must be deep, long-term relationships with people established, to give permission and credibility to that work.

Direct power encounters with the demonic are necessary but should be just a fraction of the work, employed at strategic times to set a region/church free. They should focus on principalities and leave individual people out of high intensity crossfires, regardless of their good or bad choices.

On Active Participation

“History belongs to the intercessors, who believe the future into being. If this is so, then intercession, far from being an escape from action, is a means of focusing for action and of creating action. By means of our intercessions we veritably cast fire upon the earth and trumpet the future into being. It is no accident that the seven angels of the Apocalpyse make ready to announce the scenes that follow as a direct result of prayer.”

pg 67 –> I personally found Walter Wink’s views on the nature of Satan to be 100% off, but he hits something meaningful here in his description of the Church’s responsibility for active engagement in God’s work.

On Resisting or Receiving Reformation

“The Word of God must be found and heard among all the welter of voices of Scripture, tradition, creed, doctrine, experience, science, intuition, the community; but God’s word is none of these alone, or even all of them together. Jesus is being nudged by God toward a new, unprecedented thing, for which no models existed. No one else could have helped advise him. Scripture itself seemed loaded in the opposite direction–toward messianic models of power, might, and empire…What irony: everyone in Israel knew the will of God for redemption–except Jesus. He was straining to hear what it was as if he did not know.”

pg 55

“Satan’s task was far more subtle. He presents Jesus with well-attested scriptural expectations that everyone assumed were God’s chosen means of redeeming Israel. Satan presents to Jesus the collective messianic hopes and by doing so, brings them for the first time to consciousness as options to be chosen rather than as a fate to be accepted. Tested against his own sense of calling, they did not fit. Jesus could perceive them to be “yesterday’s will of God”, not what was proceeding out of the mouth of God.

pg 55

Making Peace with the Circumstantial Necessity of Consequences and Loss

Run with the Horses by Eugene Peterson

The more I read this book, the more God used it to heal me from a situation of watching individuals descend into exile in plain sight. In Chapter 12 and 13, the Lord comforted me with a picture of how he creates beauty and flourishing from challenges.

For a long time, I have wondered, “What do I do when I have to watch someone [an individual or a group] go through an exile?” This is a question I’ve struggled with a lot in the past as I watch family members go from bad to worse, and something that the enemy used a lot to wound me in earlier life. Given how sensitive I am, I have often found myself crying tears for people who are not yet crying for themselves, in anticipation of what I sense is already here or coming. I am much happier when God exposes sin and the people simply address it, but I recognize that extreme circumstances are sometimes a necessity when people ongoingly harden their hearts. It’s tragic because I want so much better for the people I love than exile.

In Eugene Peterson’s unified teaching on loss and wholeness, he helped me understand and accept the necessity of God using circumstantial consequences for people’s good. In these chapters, God revealed the proportionate necessity of extremes and his sovereignty in determining outcomes. This has made it easier to worship God as the God of the Long Process at a time when I have to let go and receive restoration for myself.

As I read these chapters, Jesus told me, “When you aren’t called to be part of the solution, don’t be”. There are times when God separates us (like Jeremiah), so we don’t have to watch. Related to my own difficulty watching, Jesus simply said, “You enjoy safe pasture. You leave the reformation work to me.” I am trusting that God will continue to walk alongside people even when I can’t.

Another Great Quote – On the Relational Nature of Jeremiah’s Ministry

The theological ideas, historical forces, and righteous causes that touched Jeremiah’s life never remained or became abstract but were worked out with persons, persons with names. He never used labels that lumped people into depersonalized categories. It can come as no surprise to find that there are more personal names in the book of Jeremiah than in any other prophetic book.” 

pg 164

Favorite January Media

Movies + TV

Love it or List It, 2008-2023

This month, I found myself watching a lot of Love or it or List it as I contemplated how God was reforming his house in the nations. It’s not just the friendship between the co-hosts that I admire, but the visuals of transformation and hope.

After Earth, 2013

This month, I saw After Earth as an allegory about a father guiding his son to safety through the dangers of the fallen earth (sin). There is a lot in this movie (even to an extreme) about overcoming fears and surrendering. Still, some of the meditative practices seem more related to Eastern spirituality than Christian mysticism (think Jaden Smith in Karate Kid meets sci-fi). Nevertheless, a lot of good ideas in this film.

Books

Here is just one more book I didn’t reference yet but was valuable this month:

A Non-Anxious Presence by Mark Sayers

On the Inevitability of Change in Our Current Global Moment

Historians arrange passages of time into eras. Eras traditionally are shaped around the rule of an empire or ruling class, which establishes an overarching big story or narrative. Big stories are created and communicated primarily by those in power to justify their rule. History shows us that an era tends to be dominated by influential individuals who shape its thinking, key events that determine it’s direction, movements that embody it’s longings, and artists who capture it’s mood.

However, there are moments when ages overlap and eras mingle in a hybrid transitional moment. Thus, gray zones contain the influence of more than one era.

Videos

Following the leadership of my friend who runs our church’s Outreach ministry, I found myself focusing on listening to testimonies as a way to defy this month’s sense of increasing spiritual warfare, discouragement, and tension. In particular, these were really lovely.

Worship This Month

Prayer Requests

• Favor for humility, teachability, and joy as I start a new job in February
• Clarity and healthy balance for work + school + life + ministry
• New growth at the right time, courage to remain in receiving mode for as long as Jesus thinks is necessary
• Joy (across the board)

Another year has passed, and I am here to worship. In 2021, I used tools to visualize how God changed my plans. In 2022, the theme was more like, “What plans?” Lol.

Remembering 2021: A Year of Acceleration and Change

I’m quietly laughing at the title I gave last year’s summary, “A Year of Acceleration and Change.” If last year was acceleration, what was this year? In hindsight, I would now probably say that 2021 was about exploration and preparation.

2023 is Coming

In this section, I’m processing 2022 and preparing for 2023 in words.

Honestly, I’m in awe that God got me through as much as he did in 2022. It was an incredibly beautiful, incredibly hard year. When I look back, I can see how much worship as a lifestyle protected and strengthened me. When I look back, there was no point this year where I wasn’t pressing in for some kind of help. And no time when I didn’t receive a response. God always came through to be my most consistent help.

As the snow falls in Seattle and reminds us all of how God comforts the Earth, covering it with purity as a blanket, I’m excited for the promise of a new year. I’m hoping for a more settled 2023 with opportunities for strengthening and beauty. When I think about how God answered prayers for permanence that I’d struggled to articulate, I’m in awe.

The Lord’s love never ends; His mercies never stop. They are new every morning.

Lamentations 3:22-23

For myself and for others, I’m believing that in 2023, we will continue to experience fresh mercies. I’m believing that the most important work I did this year was in secret, with the Lord. I know that he will continue to guide us faithfully into the unknown, honoring our hidden sacrifices.

For 2023, my goal is to be able to have a delightful time no matter what happens. To be able to look squarely in the face of increasing good and evil, unfazed by any of it because of the strength of my worship and God’s glory. To be that much more single-mindedly focused on Jesus: who he is, what he wants to do on the earth, where he’s at in situations, and how he’s calling me to respond. If 2023 has obstacles, I plan to game the system and use every last one of them as an opportunity to worship God.

2022 in Themes

In this section, I’m processing 2022 in thematic patterns across the calendar.

Across the calendar, the span of my 2022 could be broken into 5 parts.

In January – March, I experienced PREPARATION.

In March – June, I was TRAVELLING / SCOUTING (for the future).

In June – July, I was STUDYING.

In August – October, I was HEALING from long-term concerns.

In November – December, I was putting down STRONG ROOTS in a new community.

~2022 in Self-Portraits

In this section, I’m processing 2022 in pictures of me.

At the risk of vanity, I’m going to take a moment to reflect on how self-portrait photos tell the story of important moments from this year. In May, I compared how much I’d changed in the six months between October 2021 and my birthday…From left to right, each of these moments symbolized an important moment. I was in preparation for change, and I experienced who God was in the open place.

In the last ~6ish months, I have another set of 5 photos I’d like to share. Each of these symbolized another turning point moment. From receiving care, to being taken seriously as a leader, to reconnecting with family, celebrating the faithfulness of God in the face of obstacles, and being settled.

Today, I’m grateful to be in the right place and at the right time. I know what it is to follow God wherever he leads; I will do so in the future. But for now, celebrating Christmas with my family and getting to enjoy familiar traditions and renewing rhythms is just right. If so much can productively change in a year, I can’t wait to see what next year feels like.

In particular, the picture I took at seminary makes me laugh because I’m making nearly the same facial expression as a photo from when my sister and I were 18 months.

2022 in Places

In this section, I’m processing 2022 by places.

This year, I’ve decided to remember 2022 in Places. I’ve chosen this for my year because of an

• abundance of travel
• increasing dreams God has been sending me not just about nations, but cities
• being challenged by a prophet friend to record every single place I set foot

In 2022, God brought me from one Washington (DC) to the other Washington (State), from East to West coast and *everywhere* in between. While I’m hoping to enjoy safe pasture in one place for a while, next year’s geographical itinerary belongs to God. I know that he will find ways of giving me rest, but I also know that my life doesn’t belong to me.

January – March: Washington, DC USA

January

February

March

March – April: Glasgow, Scotland

April: London, England

May: Munich, Germany

May: Singapore

May – June: São Paulo State, Brazil

June – July: Alexandria, Virginia

July – December: Washington State

Seattle, Washington USA

July

August

September

October

November

December

2022 in Worship

In this section, I’m processing 2022 in sound.

Lord, let me measure my year in sound. This year, I picked one worship song that defined each of my months. Generally, I sourced these from my monthly summaries, but for the few months where I didn’t track my monthly worship, I picked a song in hindsight that corresponded to that month’s themes.

If you want to explore how each song related to what God did that month OR other worship music that corresponded, I have the monthly summaries linked.

After I wrote this, I took a journey through the year’s setlist, worshipping Jesus using each song for all that he did this year. I’m pouring out all the oil from this last year so that I can receive the fresh oil he wants to reveal in the new year.

January – Trust, Jonathan Ogden, England

February – Congratulations, Ada Ehi, Nigeria

March – Thank you for the No, Rebekah Dawn, Kenya

April – In Your Midst, Allie Paige

May – Quen Tá Certa é a Maria, Minha Vida é um Viagem, Brazil

June – Do you Know the Way You Move Me?, Cory Asbury

July – He Understands, Chandler Moore

August – Where you Are, Leeland Mooring

September – Come Alive, Hillsong

October – Reckless Love with Spoken Section about Defeating Fear, Steffany Gretzinger + Bill Johnson

November – Miracle of the Mind, Amanda Cook

December – Show me Your Face, UpperRoom

Reviewing the Last Decade

In this section, I’m processing the last decade by timeline and by theme.

Very recently, I realized that 2022 marks exactly a decade since I graduated high school. As I was considering the amount of change between now and age 18, I decided I needed to make a timeline to visualize just how much change has occurred in my friendships, Church life, family, career, geography, and schooling. For every ‘x’, a significant change happened. As you can see, 2012-2022 was pretty nuts.

I remember a prophetic word I got in November 2021, where the speaker described God’s intentionality in moving me through so much transition in such a short period of time. “Even though it felt like being funneled through a tight place very fast”, he said, “God needed to move you through many different things so that you’d be ready for what is coming.” The word finished with the promise that God was bringing me into a time of rest and safe pasture, which is what it has felt like in coming to Seattle. I know it won’t last forever, but I’m making the most of the slow time while I can.

When I look back, I can recognize the extreme way that God moved me over the last decade, but *especially* in the last 6 years. Between multiple degrees and relocations, I became accustomed to living at such a pace that it became my norm. While I imagine that the next decade will hold a lot of change, I’m pretty confident that the way I internally process it will be different than in my teens and early 20s. As I survey the last 10 years, I’m actually pretty content because I know that even if there are challenging years on the horizon, I know how to press into God in the midst of disruption. I’m looking forward to all that God does in 2023 onwards!

2012: New beginnings

2013: Adventure + Salvation

2014: Re-integration, Old and New

2015: Pressing In despite Ennui

2016: Adventure Meets Endurance

2017: Leadership

2018: Flourishing

2019: Nightmare Year + Fresh Mercies

2020: Techx-ploration, Reformation

2021: Depth but Change Looming

2022: Disruption

Epilogue: A Prayer for 2023

In this section, I’m preparing for 2023 in prayer.

Lord, in 2023, please just keep being as faithful. You already know what you’re doing, and how you will respond. You will comfort the Earth in the midst of shaking (Jer 30:17). You are a God of peace even in times of war, and you have what it takes to manifest your glory in complicated and sublime times.

Jesus, be the light of our lives. Glorify yourself in our lives and help us fully seek you. Give us enlarged hearts so we can run in the way of your commandments (Ps. 119:32). Help us live and move from you, from your settled peace (Acts 17;28). Father, reveal more of Jesus. Spirit, lead.

Seasonal Growth: December in a Nutshell

In order to share the highlights of this month, I’m going to examine it through the lens of the current, seasonal goals I shared in November.

• Focus Audience: Family. I’m grateful for permanence in this season, to be able to celebrate familiar Christmas traditions with my mom and sister. This time of year, I often take my mom with me to Christmas Eve service, surgically share a package of Sour Punch straws with my sister at the movies, and go out to eat instead of cooking on Christmas. The taste of mandarins and pomegranates, the sight of decades-old sequined red velvet stockings, and quiet nights with dogs falling asleep next to you on the couch.
• Giving or Receiving: Receiving from Church
• Emotional Tenor of December: Going on a seeking process with the Lord. A little bit like turning over rocks, looking for crayfish.
• Progress towards Seasonal Goals:
  • Quality of Life + Balance: Reducing stress by selectively abstaining from media. Enjoying the company of the seals and otters (my favorite creatures) at the Seattle Aquarium. Meeting new people, Slow Saturday mornings, and cozy evenings with a book or seasonal movie.
  • Community: Formally became a member of Mosaic Church. Met leaders and was able to offer my skill set in a way that was well received, going low and slow to build relationships. Joined the Outreach team (which I really enjoy), and life group. Found a mentor who not only understands what it is like to be a Prophet but can help me develop balance in this season. Noticing opportunities for future ministry (including the prophetic), but mostly just focusing on building relationships.
  • Holding Salt + Developing Resources: Prophesying in a Prophetic team over what God is doing in different age ranges of Youth. In Private, recording every word Jesus says about new wineskin Prophetic + youth (spoiler: lots of content about healthy communities).
  • Expanding Skill Sets: Understanding how Russian + Chinese + US foreign relations history is affecting current economic conditions and the spiritual well-being of each nation. Transitioning to Instructional Design as the next step in my career (more on that below).
  • Developing Maturity: Enjoying the freedom to remain silent. Plenty of thoughts on what God is doing on the Earth right now, things I’m discussing with him privately, but not under pressure to share.

Revelations of Jesus: Worshiping the Servant Bridegroom

In December, various experiences in worship caused me to reflect on the glory of God.

Incarnational Leadership and Prophetic Ministry: History and Preparation for an Age of Embodiment

As I kept pressing in for more of God, I found myself falling into a structure for worship this month that helped heal some of the raw places of the past season. I’m sharing it below as a tool to help others heal from their own 2022 challenges.

Worship Process

1. Identify: First, identify how you are experiencing Jesus in this season or moment.
2. Thank: Thank Jesus for sharing that part of himself with you.
   • “Jesus, thank you for showing me this. Thank you that you know what it’s like to _____” (shared experience).
3. Name: Turn the revelation of who Jesus is into a name. For example, do you feel like God is taking you through a long process of formation? Call him, “God of the Long Process.” This step of giving God a name is similar to the way that various biblical characters named God. It demonstrates active attention to what he is doing.
4. Worship: Find music or some other avenue to worship him for that timely expression of his character. Through your active worship, take time to give him glory for being [Name of God].
   • Because you have identified with that aspect of God’s character, when you worship God for who he is, the worship will result in greater inner healing.
   • It will also have the effect of giving Jesus glory that he didn’t receive on Earth. As Christians, we have the privilege of honoring Jesus with honor he should have gotten, retroactively. Make it your mission to be someone who worships and participates in the restoration of Jesus’ inheritance.
5. Practice and Reflect: As you practice this exercise, you will gradually develop a posture of seeking solidarity with Jesus’ experiences. Let it become a constant treasure hunt for more of him, greater solidarity.
6. Extra Stretch: Listen Ask Jesus what names he’s calling YOU in this season

Here are some of the names I’ve given God/Jesus/Holy Spirit this month, based on how I’ve known him. Many of them relate to his Servanthood:

• “God who was a different kind of Leader than they expected him to be”
• “God who left a comfortable career to be led into the Wilderness”
• “God who let your family call you Crazy”
• “God who left what was considered glory in ministry to die to receive the kind of glory that comes from Heaven”
• “God who is more worthy than my Children”
• “God who called us Worthy of the Sacrifice”
• “God who took the indirect path as an Apostle and didn’t despise the Narrow Road”
• “God, the Unshakeable”
• “God, My Legacy”
• “God, Our Bridge”
• “God who Holds Me Back”
• “God of the Long Process”
• “God, My Transformation”

There are other names, but I’m keeping them to myself because that’s what you do with a close friend.

Seeing the Bridegroom in the Nations: Looking for Christlikeness

It is no secret to my closest friends that for several years now, the Lord has been using marriage metaphors to talk about what he is doing in the Church. In the past few months, Jesus has been giving me dreams where he appears as a Bridegroom of a Nation, to demonstrate what he is doing in that country.

For example, in September, I dreamed saw Jesus as a Belgian man, planning a future for his family. He built on the history of his nation and was interested in making history available to children.

I saw him in October as a Filipino who was locked into synchrony with his Church. In a place of skin-deep comfort, I saw him at peace, sitting with her side by side.

In October, I also saw him in India as a Protective, Honorable spouse who honors Women. I saw him take on responsibility so his Church wouldn’t have to.

In November, I saw Jesus in Italy. He was a father figure who knew not just the needs and quirks of his own children, but all of the children in the neighborhood. He cared for animals and vulnerable creatures in general.

I believe that these dreams are not just a reflection of what Jesus is doing in the nations, but how he wants his Church to strategically put on Christlikeness. Right now, the World is looking for people who look like Jesus. In 2023, the only leaders and groups who will make it through the fire are those who have bought oil in worship, transforming into greater Christlikeness. As God continues to strip and refine the Prophetic Movement, he is reclaiming prophecy as a tool to make us more like Jesus instead of buying us more of ourselves.

On a Personal Level

For me personally, these dreams have been part of a several-year process where God has given me the weird, painful honor of using my life as a Prophet to model what he’s doing in his Church (the Bride). While he’s used marriage metaphors and national prophecy to teach me about my own preparation for marriage and family, the most important thing I’ve learned is universal: The Nations will only recognize the Church by its Christlikeness. They will not see him otherwise.

Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

Isaiah 60:3

Significant words about marriage, family, and ministry can only be confirmed and established by the Christlikeness of the people of God and groups connected to them. In the same way, the real presence of Jesus can only be proven to the nations by the embodiment of Christ in his Church. Lord, make us the men and women of your dreams.

The Need for Purified Choices

This month, I’ve increasingly noticed how Jesus isn’t just calling his people to think of their own happiness, but of his legacy.

There are some choices that you can only rightly make when you think about the glory of God. In this season, some of us have been trapped confusion and doublemindedness, struggling to hear God clearly for next steps. Realistically, the only thing that cuts through the noise is focusing not on your own emotions, but what will win Jesus greater glory on Earth. When you make your life about God, he transforms you so that you can participate in the reward. In failing to surrender to God, there is a unique kind of tragedy available to us, in getting what we want only to realize that it doesn’t satisfy.

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

Matthew 6;33

I have found the need to think about Jesus’ legacy this month in submitting to Jesus’ plans for my timeline, geography, friendships, employment, and interests. Since my life isn’t about me, I have found that my satisfaction has come in allowing God to make the adjustment.

You Must Rest to Finish the Preparation

I see some individuals in the middle of the maze, like a person halfway done putting on their boots, grown tired. Like a man who is bone-weary; aware that he wants the reward on the other side, yet undecided about whether he will actually submit to the process. Exactly halfway between where he’s come and where he is going, tempted to just unlace the first boot and stay comfortably at home.

Yet do not forget: To undo the former progress costs just as much effort as it takes to put on the second boot.

Will you rest in the middle of the process, so that you will have the stamina to finish your preparation process?

Will you remain in the grind, believing that it will prepare you for something beautiful? Or will you check out too soon, only to be unprepared for the next challenge?

You must choose between having two-shoeless feet, or making yourself ready for an adventure.

Decision-Making: Direction for Next Steps with Career

In my life, I’ve needed to let Jesus purify my career goals this month. As someone who has been applying to different Seattle jobs since July, I’m more than ready to be done with the process. Yet, in resting in God, I’ve been able to discern clarity for the next immediate step in my career, regardless of what the future may hold.

I started this process by reflecting on the last 4 major jobs I’ve applied for. I realized that as a person, there were specific gifts God unlocked in me as I went through the application process for each position. I also realized that each job carried a message, and limitations that would be helpful or difficult for me to accept.

In listening to the “messages” I was sending by choosing to apply to each one, I was able to listen for whether they aligned with God’s plan for my life and my long-term goals.

Watchman Prophesy: Navigating Timings and Seasons

Introducing: Instructional Design

About a month ago, I was asking the Lord for more direction regarding my immediate next steps for my career. A local Prophet friend who is also looking for work happened to send me a job posting for a position in Instructional Design (ID), and I fell in love.

The more I explored, the more I realized that a job in Instructional Design would help me develop the skills I need to create e-learning and curriculum for ministry (for adults, for youth, for people of all ages). It builds on tech skills I already developed as a teacher during the pandemic, which for me was a time of career renaissance and exploration. Without realizing it, I’ve already developed skills in digital publishing, multimedia production and editing, assessment technologies, learning management systems, data analysis and visualization, and more. A job in ID would give me technical and applied skills to balance the leadership theory and theology of my Doctor of Educational Ministry degree. It is less responsibility and more income than teaching, which would allow me to focus on finishing my doctorate, filling (mutual) skill gaps at Church, and a balanced life. Due to my advanced degrees, I may end up targetting my search to ID in Higher Education (vs. the Corporate sector), where I will be a more competitive candidate. Best of all, a job in ID would not require me to get another degree, and I can learn all the skills I still need for free online.

In order to supplement my current skills, this month, I:

• Watched free webinars
• Started LinkedIn Learning through my public library (free) to learn software + further skills for ID
• Rewrote my LinkedIn page for ID
• Rewrote my Resume for ID
• Summarized my 10 years of work history between paid and volunteer positions, developing a 10-page Skill bank to use in cover letters
• Started researching skills I will need to develop a digital portfolio of projects using new software
• Interviewed a former Professor within Higher Ed who has been involved in course redesign

Direction for Next Steps: Apostolic Building

Just as God was speaking into my next steps with career this month, so he has been giving me the next step of strategy for Apostolic Building related to Youth + Young Prophets.

You see, about six weeks ago, I was panicking because I needed clarity regarding blueprints for how God wanted to build the next 6 months – 2 years of my ministry. I had the 30-year plan and the immediate plan for this season. However, I needed clarity on the next step of the puzzle.

I am worshipping him today because, in such short December timing, he clarified the 6months – 2 years strategy, including:

• How to support Adult Leaders in various locations in developing their own local programs
• How to collaborate asynchronously as a team
• How to honor Jesus, keep vision front and center to keep a team motivated
• Timings for working with local youth and traveling again
• Logistics of e-learning, curriculum development
• Transfiguration in Worship so I can be the leader that youth and their communities need me to be
• Talking Points for Other 5-Fold Leaders, Denominational Backgrounds:
  • Vision as “Healthy communities, and youth with greater access to God.”

All of this clarity, as a fruit of worship. I’m intentionally not sharing most of the details right now, so that can press in further. However, I just wanted to briefly celebrate the faithfulness of God for removing yet another seemingly unmovable obstacle.

Less Shakeable, Insulated from Evil

As I spent time alone worshipping Jesus this month, I noticed that I have been tangibly less shaken by mess, and by evil. I’ve noticed that without effort, I have not had fear or much internal dissonance when confronted with dark things in media, stories, or real life. Internally, there is a robustness that has come from worship where things that would have disturbed me months ago just aren’t able to shake me as much. About halfway through this month, I realized that degree of insulation is a byproduct of worship.

Now, it’s not like I wasn’t worshipping before. But now, it’s like this is nearly all I do. When I used to wake up with words for nations or specific causes during the night, now I’m waking up in the middle of the night to worship. It’s marvelous.

As a Seer/Watchman, I have struggled at times to know what to do with the part of me that is very sensitive to good and evil. Yet, I’m realizing that the right medication for Prophets who are struggling with hypersensitivity is a greater dose of worship. His beauty is the only thing that medicates our eyes, cleans out our insides (inner healing). and insulates us for war.

This month, I met Jesus in his decision to allow Judas to come very close. To me, Judas represents the broken part of all of us that not only reject the cross but actively sabotage goodness. I’m learning that Jesus could co-exist with parts of people that were blatantly evil without hypersensitivity in feeling all of it because he was in such worship that the evil wasn’t a distraction. Jesus had the capacity to allow evil to come close, so God could repurpose it for good.

Let’s get this straight: God is at war with the Western notion of “thick skin/stiff upper lip.” Instead of letting God’s glory insulate us, Prophets who subscribe to these ideals act in their own strength. They become critical, defensive, and combatant, fearing exposure. They develop boundary issues from false responsibility, remain unhealed, self-numb their emotions, fail to see the gold in people/relate to them, take on unnecessary heaviness, and fight unnecessary battles instead of winning people over.

Instead, Jesus teaches us to embody purity and not flinch at evil. With Jesus’ help, we will be teachable instead of combatant, grateful for those who save us from a snare, and able to discern when people need a gentle word, correction, healing, or something else. We will be connected, relational people who build bridges and aren’t afraid of shaking.

Learning Seattle as a City

This season, God is having me focus on befriending Seattle as a City. He’s given revelation and sent supplemental gifts related to people gathering, mercy, evangelism, and relationship-building (shepherding) because those are the graces necessary for this region. He’s using my friendships, future workplace, and volunteering to outwork these skills. He is having me practice balance shepherding and evangelism with the apostolic and prophetic, in advance of greater harvest he will have me lead.

As part of befriending Seattle as a City, he’s also sharing specific International sister cities around the globe he wants me to connect with and providing new people who touch those regions. He has said that as I and other Prophets in Washington State connect with those people and places, we will experience an exchange of anointings and parallelly synched to shared moves of God.

At Mosaic Church

Over the last few months, I’ve come to see God’s provision in a different way. His faithfulness is in the prophetic words, the clarity, the apostolic blueprints, the relational grace, the word of encouragement, and the hug.

God has been providing for me through my new Church this month. The atmosphere is like an aerosol SOZO (inner healing) session in that so many people are in love with Jesus. I formally joined the Church this month, and have seen Jesus in the people: celebrating my gifts, making room for me in ministry, carefully listening as I speak, modeling vulnerability, taking the slow road relationally without expecting too much. This church demonstrates health in the relationships between people, honors women, and showcases the healthy masculinity of Jesus. While I have been impressed by the Christlikeness of both genders, it’s been uniquely healing for me to watch men unreservedly giving themselves away to God.

Favorite December Books

A Grief Observed, C. S. Lewis

While I have long admired C. S. Lewis for his intellect, in A Grief Observed, I came to admire him for his emotional courage even more. I read this book to process one of my own griefs, and ended up finding a standard for truthful storytelling in loss. This is the kind of emotionally courageous writing I aspire towards, as narrative, as memoir, in general. This is the kind of writing that makes people feel seen and known, like they aren’t crazy for having gone through similar things. I highly recommend it to anyone who needs a friend in processing loss.

Children of God, Mary Doria Russell

The month, I read the sequel to Mary Doria Russell’s “The Sparrow”, a science fiction book about loss of innocence, hope, Christian faith, and God’s goodness. Full disclosure: Before I read this sequel, I read the plot synopsis first, to make sure I would be able to handle the content. To my delight, Doria Russell not just made sense of the loose ends of the first book’s characters, she did so in a way that was beautiful. I love science fiction, Jesus, and socio-linguistics. Reading a sci-fi book noticeably composed by socio-linguist and full of the character of Christ…I was fully at home.

Worship this Month

I love the courage behind Show me Your Face. Seeing his face is the only thing that we as human beings can’t live without, regardless of the cost.

Verse 3 from King of Kings keeps wow-ing me: “For even in your suffering / You saw to the other side / Knowing this was our salvation / Jesus for our sake, you died.”

Lord, give us the same kind of vision to see to the other side of challenges and sacrifice towards joy, as you did.

Prayer Requests

• Practical:
  • Favor and grace with the job-seeking process
  • Order and to keep in pace with God’s short-term timings
• Intangible:
  • Continued heart rehabilitation (abstract, not literal sense)
  • Continued deep roots and relationships forming at Church and within Seattle
  • More maturity