He Overcame the World

This month, Jesus just kept showing countless ways he he had overcome the world. As I contended for Jesus’ light yoke, he kept showing me just how narrow the door has been for so many people in the last season. He helped me develop better balance and boundaries in processing intense emotions privately so that I can be more authentic with friends, from a place of clarity. Overall, developing better boundaries has helped me recognize more readily when groups of people are facing spiritual intimidation vs. when assuming the issue is just mine.

God bless the narrow road! Even as I consider the challenges my friends have faced lately, I am grateful for the process. Because the narrow door belongs to God, and he is good, it will be worth it.

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.

Romans 8:18

At the same time, I want to be sensitive to honor my friends for just how hard things have been. No matter how well individuals have responded to challenges, there is no denying that this last year has been difficult. Even still, I believe that God has fresh insight, fresh courage, and fresh mercy available if we need his help.

Singing over Jesus

When things have become difficult this month, one of my favorite things to do in private is to meet Jesus on the cross, and sing over him. While I sometimes see images him visually on the cross, more often I just sense him near to me in my room. Adoring him for everything he was willing to go through, seeing him delight in that cost being acknowledged, watching it sink deep and him just rest in knowing that he has my heart. When nothing else is going well, I love knowing that I can still make him smile in the “uneventful” moments.

Letting Go of Fear

This month, the most challenging work God did in me was bringing me out of fear.

I sought the Lord, and he answered me;

he delivered me from all my fears.

Psalm 34:4

I realized that when it came to worrying about the future, fear was what kept me in self-defense and shadowboxing against accusation. After a year where accusation came from so many unexpected sources, finding the root was powerful.

In these moments, God keeps reminded me that he is the same “God who Keeps by Heart Safe” from June.

So far this year, God has brought me out of:

• Fear of Loss
• Fear of Being Misunderstood/Disappointing People
• Fear of Lack
• Fear of Failure/Inability to perform
• Fear of the Unknown
• Fear of Isolation

I have a few more fears that I still need delivered from, but I know the Lord will finish his work.

As I do the inner work to be fully well, I love the preaching by Bill Johnson near the 11 minute mark on this song. So helpful!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlTYgVi-PFE&ab_channel=IvetteRamirez

As God continues to bring me out of fear, he has been talking to me a lot about the courage to lead from the heart. I have some things that I have been processing and writing, but am waiting to get a little more perspective before I share.

Offering God Our Hearts

This month, I have noticed several instances where individuals or groups struggle to meet God in his deep emotions. With numbness or fear cluttering their capacity to connect, they seem conflicted in the desire to give more of their hearts, not entirely sure how.

I think the solution to this problem is simple. In worship, we need to offer him our hearts.

My heart has heard you say, “Come and talk with me.” And my heart responds, “ LORD, I am coming.”

Psalm 27:8 NLT

If you offer God your heart, he himself will pour out the grace to transform it. You don’t have to try harder to stir up emotion. He knows that you desire to connect with him. Give your heart away and know that he will keep it.

 I WILL give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

Ezekiel 36;26

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

Jeremiah 29:13

If that feels too scary, an intermediate prayer would be: “Lord, show me how trustworthy you are.” When we struggle to trust God because of our past experiences with people, we can trust that he knows exactly how to redeem all of it. If you invite him to show you that he is good, he will.

Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.

Psalm 34:8

Internal Shifting Again

What an adventure it is to follow God! Next week, I will be in Scotland again visiting my friends, and I could not be more excited to spend time with them. Getting a chance to travel again makes me think about this concept of movement and transition more generally.

Earlier this month, I had a dream where I was literally shaken awake by the reverberating words of an angel, telling me to remain alert. Following this dream, I became more aware of internal shifting happening in me that feels like preparation for whatever is happening next. Essentially, I feel like I’m gearing up to start over, but waiting on instructions. Moments like this, I’m glad I gave God permission to make me into a blank page and write a new chapter.

Prophetic Storytelling: Fall 2022-2023, Prophets of the Blank Page

Favorite Things in October

Favorite Books

I borrowed copies of all these books from libraries.

The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt

This month, I found unexpected solidarity in reading The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt. While I didn’t initially expect to have a lot in common with Eleanor Roosevelt, it was a surprise and pleasure to realize that she actually started life as a timid person. However, God kept putting her in challenging circumstances, she was motivated by the needs of the people around her to work towards change. Among various social reforms, she helped develop the United Nations out of her lasting conviction that war is fundamentally evil. Reading this book this month helped me process fears that I didn’t realize were there. She is so transparent in talking about how she developed much of her confidence in her 30s and 40s, and that for her, it was about time and exposure to risk. I know so many people who disqualify themselves too soon, and wonder why God would have included them in his master plans. Her story reminds me that we don’t have to feel strong to make a difference.

Her transparency reminds me so much of my friend Robin. I met Robin back when I was just 20 and studied abroad in Chile. It was my first time leaving the US, and where I met Jesus. Robin is one of my longest term friends, and I think it works because we are opposites held together by silly memes.

Robin is one of the most legitimately patient people I know. She is so deliberate that it drives me nuts sometimes. She has taught me a greater respect for the process that change takes. And in some small way, I’ve helped her relate to her husband, who is a lot like me in temperament. She tells me that in knowing me, she’s become more direct and less easily intimidated.

When I have friends who baffle me, Robin is one of the first people I go to in order to unscramble what could be going on. In the time that I’ve known her, I watched her meet her husband in Chile, start and end different jobs, move multiple times across continents, and have a baby. I’m looking forward to the day I can see them all again in person.

Storyworthy by Matthew Dicks

Another book that left a deep impact this month is Storyworthy by Matthew Dicks. This book immediately caught my attention because telling dumb stories is such a big part of my relationship with my dad. When we talk on the phone, we normally give updates on projects we are working on, I tell him a little about my seminary homework, and we share a few dumb stories (the weirder, the better).

Beyond just the topic, this author is a former teacher who regularly experiences nonsensical things. While he has found that his crazy life has given him plenty of material, he actually believes that the every day moment stories have the greatest healing/emotive power. As someone who also has had a crazy life, I agree.

This book is the most accessible book I’ve ever encountered on writing. It’s about as accessible and small pieces as Duolingo (for language learning). He goes back and forth between instruction in writing short stories and telling stories with exemplars from his own life. Reading this book has helped me slow down and be more present.

Befriending Our Desires by Philip Sheldrake

Initially I noticed Befriending Our Desires because it was the most controversial read on the list of potential book choices to read for a seminary course. When I encountered the book later on while searching for another resource, I decided to check it out.

I was not expecting to find such a vibrant discussion of vocation and how God draws us by our own interests to not just relationships, but meaning more generally! Sheldrake’s use of language is masterful and respectful in discussing sexuality. The author uses imagery of intimacy and mystery to holy-challenge the emotionally numb and those who gnostically reduce the body as an object versus something that God created intentionally. I would recommend this book to any adult who wants to understand God, relationships, and vocation more holistically.

You and Me Together Forever: Marriage in Light of Eternity by Francis Chan

I am rereading You and Me Together Forever: Marriage in Light of Eternity by Francis Chan because it is singlehandedly the best marriage/relationships book I have found to date. God has clearly been preparing me for marriage at some point in the future, yet I can’t say that it’s my focus right now. Nevertheless, I love Francis Chan’s eternal focus for marriage and ministry. He openly owns that neither he nor his wife are particularly similar people, but their marriage works because they are both so focused on their shared mission that they don’t have time to get derailed in division and selfish motives. I remember that when I first read this book in 2019, it revolutionized the way I did friendship because it made me really consider how much friend drama I was facing was because friends were simply not aligned to God’s plan for my life. As I’ve progressed in ministry, I have noticed that the friendships that flourish are ones who bless and celebrate the new callings God is developing in me (and vice versa). The friendships that fail are the ones where individuals simply cannot bless what God is doing (for a variety of reasons, including immaturity). Especially at a time when I’m thinking about responsibilities so far outside of my own individual capacity, I’ve been encouraged this month by friends who have a similar mission OR simply can share in the excitement of what God is doing among Youth and Young Prophets. My most precious friends are those who know their calling well enough so that we can mutually co-endorse one another, and use whatever gifts we have to support one another’s calling in the Kingdom of God. While some of these alignments may have initially seemed unlikely, God has used them to produce fruit that neither I nor the other person expected at the time. Based on what I’ve been seeing in the Spirit, I believe that God will put increasingly favor on unlikely ministry partnerships in the future.

Inexplicable Peace: God is Pouring out Grace on Individuals and Organizations for Unlikely Partnerships

Favorite Quotes and Verses

You know, it’s been years that I have been looking for a vocabulary word that would describe how God woos people into the right direction as he pulls them with cords of love. I have watched God form and reform us to fit into his ultimate purposes more often than not. I love witnessing that reformation work! This month, Jesus invited me to know him as Witness, delighting with him in simply in being an observer of what he is doing.When I think of the grace and truth Jesus flowed in, I think of Leadership as simply witnessing his life emerge in them.

The word “prevenient grace” describes God’s work of wooing us before we are even aware of his activity.

This quote describes how God pours out grace to make himself available to children long before they have any capacity to respond to him. This is the grace that rests on communities of faith to share Jesus with children who haven’t yet made the external decision to prefer him.

I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love. To them I was like one who lifts a little child to the cheek, and I bent down to feed them.

Hosea 11:4

This is the same grace that is available to adults to seek and find him. To find him again and again for the rest of their lives.

Draw me after you; let us run. 

Song of Songs 1:4

Source: Karen Yust, Nurturing Child and Adolescent Spirituality, pg 99, “A Child’s First Dance with God”

This activity of being wooed and made to be an object of delight before you have done anything makes me think of Proverbs 8:30-31.

God’s Wisdom in Proverbs’ 8 is often portrayed as a Woman who considers human beings as her own children.

Wisdom as a Child

While the marriage imagery in Proverbs 8 between Wisdom and God is beautiful, I actually prefer the alternate translation.

You see, in verses 8:30-31, Wisdom is described as a child!

I can just imagine God’s childlike wisdom flitting around with him throughout the earth. If delight is available, a child will find it. I love this translation because it shows us that maturity is childlike.

Favorite Dream

One of my favorite dreams this month had to do with imagery about maturity and immaturity.

In the dream, I watched a man and a woman singing in synchrony a soul music/R&B style duet. They sang:

“Then we were intentional / then we were knowing,

Then we were thriving, and listening, and growing…”

After the couple finished the duet together, a redeemed, mature Kanye-like character picked up the song without dropping a beat. He flowed into a section of rap about wisdom, learning from mistakes, society, and maturity in general. He wasn’t arrogant, but was simply invested in the flow of the lines and in music and a story bigger than himself.

This month, I’ve literally wept over my lack of maturity in some areas. As God gives me grace to keep growing into adulthood, I know he is making it available to others too. I loved this dream because I personally believe that Kanye is a textbook example of an immature prophet/prophetic person who needs a lot of inner healing/help. So to see Kanye flowing in a song that was much bigger than himself was glorious. God can do that for all of us.

Favorite Silly Videos

This month, I’ve been watching Pasta Grannies videos. I once found these videos during the pandemic, and have continuously watched them since, as the grandparent characters are so lovable. Essentially, a British film crew goes through various regions in Italy and records older Italian men and women who prepare their region’s signature dishes. It’s a delight.

Probably because it relates to that sense of generations and family, God used imagery of Italian food this month as I developed more balance. This spring, he used imagery of fast food to talk to me, because of the accelerated pace. In the summer, he had me practice asking for the food I wanted and leaving the wrong restaurants. In the summer, I also had dreams about asking people to share their food or bringing food from faraway places (like Asia) to share with a group. This fall, I dreamed that he was sending various people to bring me food and other necessities while I rested and focused on wellbeing, with the tone of “let me provide for all your needs.” Since January, I’ve had dreams of cooking with Jesus, and lately, I have been cooking to serve a crowd. In my most recent dreams, I’ve been passing through a buffet line and receiving plenty, but in a more relaxed sense. I’m excited to see what provision looks like in the next season, as Jesus and I continue talking about food.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGh4loD_QiA&ab_channel=FOBOSPLANET

Secondly, I spend plenty of my cozy winter/fall time with fireplace sounds playing on the background. When I’ve needed to do homework or write blog posts this month while tired (*cough cough*), the sound of the flames licking up the wood helps me stay grounded.

Favorite Worship Music

Prayer Requests

• To have a joyful, delightful, restorative time with my friends next week in Scotland
• Agreement that God will continue kicking out all my fears
• Blessing on whatever the next chapter holds

In Christ,

Haley

This September, God has been pouring out grace upon grace for inner healing. I’m tremendously grateful, even though it’s been a grind. One of my favorite parts of September has been spending Fridays with my sister, going thrift shopping, adventuring outdoors, watching movies, and getting dinner. Even though I’ve had to be really careful with my budget lately, spending time with her has been well worth it.

Watchman Intercession for Young Prophets

This month, I’ve spent the majority of my time in Intercession for God to establish young prophets on the Earth. While I’ve written watchman prophesy on this topic before, in the more glamorous moments, intercession gave me the capacity to write about teaching the gift of prophesy within schools and churches and instructions for apostolic centers to establish training on the office of the Prophet among youth.

In the less glamorous moments, intercession has looked like allowing God to pull me into the depth of his emotions. On a practical level, this has meant:

1. Confessing my own personal sorrow over hope deferred , receiving healing from honesty, and being equipped by God to steward the depth of his lament. Meeting God in travail for the many children the Church has lost by poor stewardship and robbery (ie, tears) and riding the waves as they come and go.
2. Confessing my own personal anger over communication problems, releasing forgiveness and growing more humility so that I can be trusted to carry the depth of God’s purified anger.
3. Lots of early morning/middle of the night wake ups where I’m woken up with holy discontent that turns into a prophetic word, a song, or part of an assignment to pray. To be fair, God has allowed me to wake up fully rested at 4am plenty of times, and is equipping me to ride the wave well.
4. Lots of intercessory assignments for people and organizations in my dreams.
5. Embodied physical symptoms that are related to the church’s stewardship of youth (ie, reproductive system). Commanding my body into wellness as a sign of what God is doing in the Church.

This intercession assignment started in August when Jesus brought me to Psalm 36 as an invitation to meet him in the depth of his emotions. To know God in his full range of justice, we must let him take us to the depths.

Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens,
    your faithfulness to the skies.
⁶ Your righteousness is like the highest mountains,
    your justice like the great deep.
    You, Lord, preserve both people and animals.
⁷ How priceless is your unfailing love, O God!
    People take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
⁸ They feast on the abundance of your house;
    you give them drink from your river of delights.
⁹ For with you is the fountain of life;
    in your light we see light.

Psalm 36:5-9

Relentless

With my friends, I’ve needed to be much more honest about the real cost of being in intercession in this season and in the past. I’ve had to explicitly tell people what I need (solidarity in the grief, prayer. And I’ve needed to simply stop giving, flattering responses when people dismiss the intensity of my experience and God’s intensity over this. In choosing to not roll myself off the altar of intercession too soon, I’ve seen God start to gather others who have the same heart to see this movement established. In the Spirit realm, I am digging in my heels and absolutely wont stop until I see young prophets established in their offices in the flesh.

I’ve inspired by Hannah and Tamar’s unrelenting pursuit of breakthrough.

¹² As she kept on praying to the Lord, Eli observed her mouth. ¹³ Hannah was praying in her heart, and her lips were moving but her voice was not heard. Eli thought she was drunk ¹⁴ and said to her, “How long are you going to stay drunk? Put away your wine.”

¹⁵ “Not so, my lord,” Hannah replied, “I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the Lord. ¹⁶ Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief.”

¹⁷ Eli answered, “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him.”

¹⁸ She said, “May your servant find favor in your eyes.” Then she went her way and ate something, and her face was no longer downcast.

1 Samuel 1:12-18

²⁵ As she was being brought out, she sent a message to her father-in-law. “I am pregnant by the man who owns these,” she said. And she added, “See if you recognize whose seal and cord and staff these are.”

²⁶ Judah recognized them and said, “She is more righteous than I, since I wouldn’t give her to my son Shelah.” And he did not sleep with her again.

Genesis 38:25-26, Methods are extreme but relatable (meant to be a story about an audacious woman. Seems to have resulted in favor though, because she was a foremother of Christ.)

Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. ² He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. ³ And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’

⁴ “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, ⁵ yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”

⁶ And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. ⁷ And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? ⁸ I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

Luke 18:1-8

In order to steward the intensity, I’ve needed to start learning new patterns of balance to not take on heaviness or rawness, but see the big picture. Normally when I’ve experienced intercession like this, it has been short term (1-2 day) assignments for specific people or organizations. This episode has been closer to 6 weeks, and is directly related to my calling and identity. Beyond just calling, I talk about how my experiences have contributed to this intercessory burden in the article I just wrote on the office of a Prophet and Apostolic centers, in the section called “Responsibility of Prophetic Youth Leaders.” Personally, my calling towards this issue started with receiving a motherhood mantle at about 12-13 years old (much earlier than I really knew what to do with it). To this day, children’s wellbeing is the only thing that can drive me to tears in under thirty seconds. It is the only issue that will cause me to dig in my heels in protest and where I am most likely to turn into a terrifying mama bear. In an apostolic sense and in terms of risk, children’s wellbeing is the only thing I’d be willing to give my life for.

While I don’t need this movement to be established immediately, it is so very personal that I am committed regardless of how long it takes. I will see the movement not just breakthrough into the earth, but will spend my life raising it into maturity, so help me God.

Within a social group of about 20 prophet friends I’ve gathered, leaning into this intercessory calling has helped my friends have language for what they are experiencing. At least 3-4 other prophet friends have been open and honest about the travail they are facing for their nations and spheres of influence.

We’ve been honest about things like:

• Times you prophesy something more extreme than you expected, the shock and even horror of that.
• Times you are in deep travail and have to ride the wave of mourning.
• Times you are in holy anger and absolutely cannot relent of addressing something that roils God.
• Times you are extravagant in worship and extreme, and you can’t hold it in. Or where you indignantly feel that Jesus requires/is worthy of such a more dramatic response, but no one is brave enough to extravagantly worship him.
• Times where you are more free than everyone else in the room, flitting around like a bird, and they have no grid for you. Times when your freedom is offensive.

As others have expressed similar grief for the state of youth, the prophetic, and rising degrees of witchcraft on the earth, we’ve set a date this week to prophesy and intercede together.

Apart from shared grief or righteous indignation, “Hang in there, God hears it” has been the most helpful response from friends so far. Even so, I’m looking forward to and declaring the day when this ministry repopulates the desolate places of the earth.

1“Shout for joy, O barren woman,

who bears no children;

break forth in song and cry aloud,

you who have never travailed;

because more are the children of the desolate woman

than of her who has a husband,”a

says the LORD.

2“Enlarge the site of your tent,

stretch out the curtains of your dwellings,

do not hold back.

Lengthen your ropes

and drive your stakes in deep.b

3For you will spread out to the right and left;

your descendants will dispossess the nations

and inhabit the desolate cities.

Isaiah 54:1-3

Remembering How His Grace Has Been Sufficient, Perfect Pacing

Once again, I cannot help but to be grateful for God’s pacing this month. In the slow time, Jesus is showing me just how robustly he wants to set me up for the future.

Even as I wait and aspire towards patience for the next door to open (lol), I cant help but think about God’s strategic timing. He wooed me so strategically in the Spring, getting me on my own so that he could show me that what I want actually matters. The trust we built there was the foundation of all the inner healing, adjustment, travail I’ve done since then. The work isn’t done, but he has been beyond faithful in every season.

“Therefore I am now going to allure her;
    I will lead her into the wilderness
    and speak tenderly to her.
¹⁵ There I will give her back her vineyards,
    and will make the Valley of Achor^[a] a door of hope.
There she will respond^[b] as in the days of her youth,
    as in the day she came up out of Egypt.

Hosea 2:14-15

He is wooing you from the jaws of distress to a spacious place free from restriction, to the comfort of your table laden with choice food.

Job 36:16

He brought me out into the open;

He rescued me because He delighted in me.

20The LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness;

He has repaid me according to the cleanness of my hands.

21For I have kept the ways of the LORD

and have not wickedly departed from my God.

Psalm 18:19-21

One of the songs that has been most frequently rattling around my Spirit this month is “Thank you for the No” by Rebekah Dawn (out of Kenya). In typical African parenting fashion, the theme is mostly about God’s kindness in tells us “no” or “wait” firmly. While Western culture doesn’t generally like having limits, God loves us enough to reel us in and do things in the right progression.

God is right in his timings, he is right in his placements, he causes us to be fruitful regardless of the season and circumstances. At this point, I’m believing that even if I hang out in the Pacific Northwest longer than I want to, God knows exactly what he’s dong and it will be the best for me.

While patience is not my natural strength, when I let God frame the waiting process through the lens of forbearance, it changes everything. While patience feels depersonalized, forbearance is patience as it applies to people’s growth and development. From what I can tell, “Not giving up on people” has been my natural bent since even before exiting the womb. When the waiting process starts to involve people I care about, I can wait.

Worship

This month, I finally had more courageous to start experimenting with the beginnings of prophetic worship on my guitar!

Back in February, I packed up my guitar in February in preparation for travel. A friend kept it safe for me for several months, and I picked it up again when I passed through DC in July. I waited until I was done with final papers for seminary summer courses, then started trying to pray in the confidence to be a novice at something entirely new.

Ultimately, I found freedom to come out of a performance mindset when I gave myself permission to “play” guitar. For me, that meant just experiment with the instrument, the fretboard, informally exploring. From that exploration mindset, I was able to remember what it feels like to improvise from my high school days playing jazz bari sax (a much more enjoyable experience than the high pressure of performance clarinet, lol). Ultimately, I’ve started to remember what muscle memory feels like, when you just let your fingers play the instrument and take your eyes off your hands to enjoy the process. What a metaphor, eh?

I am beyond thrilled to get to pick up a new instrument. It feels like that kind of season. While I sang in choirs, gospel choir, and on church worship teams for years, I want more. For a season, I had to give singing in a church choir because the small house church I attended (20-30 people) didn’t have one. In that space where I could hear everyone’s voices, God sneakily taught me to identify what he was trying to do in the space and just release the harmonies and singing in the spirit that needed to come forth. It was a charismatic church that didn’t really believe in deliverance, so normally my contribution to worship was mostly singing over people in that room (haha).

I originally bought my acoustic guitar as a way to have more to talk about with my earthly/biological Father, since he plays. At the time, I was hoping that in worship, it would be a way of communing with my Heavenly Father too. Hallelujah Jesus, that is what is starting to happen.

From having fun, these are some questions that have emerged:

• Prophetic Worship over Individuals, Forthtelling
  • What notes symbolize my friends in the seasons that they are in? What do I need to declaratively sing over them, about what God is doing their lives now and in the future?
  • What needs unseated and how can I sing in the Spirit to establish the new thing?
• Apostolic Worship, Forthtelling
  • Could a prophesy for calendar year/season of a nation intentionally be a worship album?
  • What sound needs released over this region to put it alignment to the sound of Heaven?
  • It is already true that certain songs that form the culture of worship internationally/nationally for a season. What if we were more intentional to go after the sound in advance and steward the airwaves? What could equipping prophetic worshippers to steward their nations’ airwaves look like?
  • What could this look like if done on a regional level, and not just focused on the needs of the house?
• The Composition of Sung Prophesies over nations
  • How can the cadence of notes, rhythms, and other composition elements mirror 1) God’s emotions 2) memorable details forth-telling the chronological nature of events in a nation? How can prophetic worship over nations become more specific, as embodied through music?
  • How can prophet musicians build on one another’s sung, specific national prophetic words in a team setting?
• Mass Healing/Deliverance Worship and Song Composition
  • What would happen if we intentionally wrote songs as deliverance, to target particular strongholds? Beyond just the lyrics, how can the entire worship experience [from beginning to end, the physical composition of the space, participation of the people, etc] create a deliverance atmosphere?
  • What could it look like to use prophetic worship to not just for sung prophesy, but as a tool in a sung personal deliverance session? Full disclosure, this came out of a time where I saw a demon in a room and the Lord told me, “Sing at it!” Wild. And do you know what? It worked (ie, the thing left).

Focusing on the Intangibles

To keep my sanity this month, the Lord had me focus on intangibles instead of concrete details as he helps me cast vision for the type of community I want and want to establish. When it comes to the future, I’ve been coming alive more by being led by qualitative measurement (among of life giving power) of prophetic words rather than just factual details.  My discomfort feels linked in irritation to a pre-COVID over-focus in the prophetic movement towards facts/figures rather than the deeper significance of events and God’s heart towards them. Instead of specific details, I’m focusing again on the quality of life that is in Christ.

• Grace. Security. Generosity. Awe. Teachability. When I think of my five closest friends, these are the five traits that they all undeniably share. I’m in awe of the way God weaves groups of people together.
• Importance of Wonder and Worship This poll that describes adults who regularly feel a sense of Wonder by Religious affiliation, age, etc. Not the trends you would expect!
• This article on “The Terrible Price of an Unlived Life”
• Ministry Reset Resetting ministry again to be more like “an excuse to spend time with God and the people we love”
• Boundaries A digital copy of Sarah Crawford’s responsibility splitting Fair Play Cards
• Leadership in the Church, Leadership in Marriage

Quote by Henry Cloud and John Townsend, p96

Hearing God in More Playful Ways

Off the back of greater playfulness with guitar, I’m just moving through my life and inviting God to use some of my favorite means to talk to me. This month, that has meant reclaiming pets, kids’ books, sci-fi, and silly videos as a legitimate means of hearing the Lord. When I’m having a good time, the Lord inevitably wants to join me.

Teddy

My dog Teddy [Bear] is also in the middle of a transition in his life. He’s been in Seattle about a year, but is still adjusting to taking greater risk in navigating our house. For the first 10 years of Teddy’s life, he was with our dog Eloise, a black and white Pomeranian. Ella was demanding, playful, and had a great sense of humor. She also would come find Teddy when he’d accidentally get trapped in the garage, barking until someone came to help him. Yet, Teddy was never helpless. In former times, he could rely on his cuteness for things like treats and extra attention, playing the victim sometimes to get what he wanted. Even though she pretty much set the tone for the their dynamic, she helped him navigate the early stages of blindness and glaucoma by nudging him in the directions he would need to go and embodying a kind of walking trellis when he was lost.

But Ella isn’t here any more. And as Teddy has gone fully blind, he has needed to learn how to use his voice. Left to his own devices, he spends a bit too much of his time disengaged on the couch. He forgets that he was created to be a dog, and neglects to spend time outdoors. He also lurks in the kitchen at all hours, looking to scavenge food when he feels lonely. At long last, he has learned to bark to ask for help! But he still needs help feeling fully confident and free to take risks.

In spite of being blind, I’m forcing Teddy to step up (literally). When Teddy is done going to the bathroom, he waits religiously, patiently perched with his front paws on the first stair step. Yet even when he barks for us to open the door, even we open the door and call to him, he is still scared to step forward and come through the open door.

This is not because Teddy doesn’t know how to walk up the stairs. He learned how to do that (in spite of his blindness) a long time ago. This is not because Teddy doesn’t recognize that we are there to help. Or because he doesn’t want the reward treat waiting for him on the other side of the doorway.

Sometimes Teddy wants to be carried like a baby, scooped up and held tightly against my shoulder. He would rather me walk down the steps, scoop him up, and do all the work for him. Don’t get me wrong, I love it that he still lets me hold him, and if I see him legitimately struggling, I’m poised to rescue. But I really want Teddy to know what it is like to walk forward unafraid, even when he can’t see where he’s going.

And so I go to him. I hold open the door, and I call. But when he lingers for minutes on end, too afraid to step forward, do you know what I do? I close the door. I come back 30 minutes to an hour later, when he finally barks for me to come. And do you know what happens then? Finally, Teddy is ready to walk through the door. He has decided that staying in the same place is miserable. And predictably, he receives the reward on the other side.

I’ll be real with you, sometimes I leave him out there a little longer (when I am sitting in the sun beside him) because being outdoors (in the wilderness) reminds him that he is still a dog. He wasn’t created to sit still and gradually decay on the couch all day. He needs to be outside because it’s good for him, even though he’d rather pass into the house earlier. Because I want to preserve his life, I would rather train him to receive what he really needs than to make it too easy.

Kids’ Books

Wandering around the Goodwill with my sister, I was flowing with Jesus when I encountered this book, and it made me smile. The book is in Spanish. Essentially, it’s all about a boy who plants carrots that no one believes will grow. He takes criticism from his family, community, and others, but just keeps patiently watering them. Eventually, what grows under the surface shocks everyone’s expectations. It’s just heartwarming, and reminds me of the war over hope. As a teacher, I remember a similar book that we would read to the class to give confidence and solidarity to kids who were frustrated that they were still struggling to read. God knows the process we all need.

This book is equally wonderful, silly nonsense. It’s written as a welcome guide to a new baby, upon their entry into the world. The art is all based on the kind of illustrations you’d see on aircrafts “in case of turbulence” videos/pamphlets. In particular, these pages stuck out to me because I know how many people are struggling with the churning, wildness of the season many of us are on with God. It was subtle, pretty wisdom.

Sci-Fi

To my utter glee, my sister suggested we do a book club together reading “The Book of Strange New Things” by Michel Faber.

I love sci-fi. Directly before historical fiction and Latin American magic realism, it is my favorite genre. In it’s expansiveness, Sci-fi invariably reminds me of the unlimited creativity of God. I love how it allows potentially critical, analytical people a chance to re-imagine their worlds by thinking about why things are the way they are, yearning after better.

The main premise of this book is that a man is sent as a lone missionary to a foreign planet, because of their intense hunger to hear the gospel. The book is ultimately about estrangement and romance in ministry relationships, as he has to leave his wife behind. Watching them struggle to connect and stay connected feels like a modern parable.

The book has allowed me to respond to my sisters’ subtle questions about God. It’s also helped me think about loss and the meaning behind serving Jesus when the price feels tremendously high.

Animal Best Friend Videos

God sure knows our hearts. Earlier this month, I had a Watchman dream and prophetic word that uses imagery from one of my guilty pleasures: videos of cross-species animal best friends.

Inexplicable Peace: God is Pouring out Grace on Individuals and Organizations for Unlikely Partnerships

I love these sentimental videos. While I sometimes watch kitten videos for the cuteness and rescue animal videos for the resilience/underdog story/animal welfare piece, the “animal best friends” videos reassure me that peace is really possible. And that Jesus’ commitment to diversity and solidarity is what heals the world.

For our families, for our nations, for our relationships, we need one another. We need people who think very differently than us. Commitment that is multigenerational, across dramatic differences, and in spite of difficult seasons is like Heaven.

The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the yearling together, and a little child shall lead them. ⁷The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. ⁸The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. ⁹They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Isaiah 11:6-9

Logistical Updates about Being in Seattle

• I’ve started helping my friend Helen as she gathers prophets for Washington State
  • Within the last week, my friend Helen hosted a first meeting to gather prophets for Washington State over Zoom. As I’ve spent time with her over the past few months, it’s been really powerful to watch her lead and get a sense of what that is like from behind the scenes (armor-bearing). She has 7 years in the prophet compared to my 3, and is excellent at giving just right challenges or assignments.
  • Last week, Rebecca King came through to visit us, and it was cool to have her anoint us for the capacity to gather emotionally healthy community locally.
  • Even though I’m supporting her ministry, she heartily believes in my vision for youth and honors the remit God has given me in that sphere. As long as I’m here, she will find ways to help me put my skills to good use. Already when we were in a gathering of prophets and one parent brought their Seer child, I got so much effortless revelation about prophetic youth ministry. Regardless of God’s timings, I finally feel like I have a place in the region.
  • I have a friend who is functioning as an armor bearer for a prophet in another nation, and it feels cool to start being able to compare notes and share the intercessory burden for the two ministries.
• I joined a biweekly local Women’s bible study on the book of Job While I’m still trying to get to know the people in the group, I love the opportunity for discussion. It’s also been a good place for me to learn conversational balance.
• I found a new church! Once I finally had enough energy to admit that I needed something more local, God helped me nearly immediately find a new church. It’s just a ~30 minute public transportation commute, has a range of ages and ministries, believes in the power of God, and is nearly finished with the process of buying a local building. I’m excited to see what the church will turn into. When I attended, it was so packed that it felt like Jesus’ life was spilling onto to the street!
• I figured out how to structure my time better so it honors the order of my callings
  • Instead of focusing on Teaching, this month I focused on Apostolic and then Prophetic writing. This pivot has given me more joy and a deeper sense of purpose. This was the internal adjustment that has led to dramatic changes in content on this site.
  • I’m really excited to write about blueprints for youth ministry, even if I cant immediately see the fruit of them yet. Last March, an established prophet gave me a word about apostolic ministry with youth that was wilder than anything I had a grid for. She talked about decades, regions, relationships, and remit. It shook me to my core. I remember thinking, “I thought that I dream big, but that was WiLd”. Her word held me for the better part of this year.
  • After giving my all to God every day since then to see the vision stablished, I’m so grateful that just 6 months and 10 days later, I have a sense of how to actually start actioning that word (both with regions and youth ministry). I have a sense of the years of progression it will take to build rapport with people and ministries to see these things birthed. It’s amazing to have a timeline and vision for the future when before, I was so shaken. Just beautiful. Who can say what God will do next?
• I’ve been settling into regular collaboration with 3 other prophets for national prophetic words While I love to socialize with all my prophet friends, I picked several close friends who were both interested and emotionally qualified to develop national prophetic words. So far, I’ve gotten their support to add layers to words on Japan, Philippines, Brazil, and Scotland. Among the people available, I chose these 3 people specifically for their humility, forbearing hope, and practice of unconditional love. Beyond just being good friends, God can trust them with his heart for the nations. The nations are precious and deserve this level of care.
• Still haven’t found a job, but it’s been a good conversation piece with the Lord. Based on dreams, I don’t think one will come through until November/December at the earliest. Talking to God about, “What is it that I need in a workplace?” has been interesting after so many years in the classroom. I think ultimately I want room to be valued and be myself, and something connected to ministry.

Prayer Requests

• Grace to navigate the intensity of the prophetic intercession and come in and out of it, remaining fully human. Grace for healthy boundaries in general.
• Patience, wisdom, and alignment to God’s timings
• Freedom to keep exploring different callings, letting it be fun
• The capacity to keep going deeper in community, breadth and depth
• The right next job
• Grace over my Scotland Trip in November

Other Worship I’ve been Listening to this Month

Here are some other worship tracks I’ve needed to abide in this month, in chronological order from the beginning to end of September.