Freeing My Mind

I need to vent today. I knew once I started the blog this day would come. Maybe it’s the rain. I loathe rain. It was a difficult weekend, nothing in particular, just my internal wrestling. Before I begin and for all future reference, let me say that I know how I “should” be thinking and the truth pertaining to my life and ministry, but my point here is not to talk about what I should be doing or feeling, but to express what is actually going on in my head. My hope is that by hearing my inward processes that you would be better able to understand your own inward process. I find then when I go back and read the writings of past Christian leaders, it’s not their teaching that most influences me, but their journals and memoirs about the internal workings of their heart.

Some of you might be unaware of my story. I’ll give you a very brief synopsis, as it is imperative to understand where I have been to understand where I am. I was raised in suburban Mississippi by amazing parents. My twin sister and older brother were part of the Southern Baptist church since birth. As a young teenager, I was fully entrenched in the Baptist church and even considered a leader in our youth ministry. I attempted to both live and understand the Christian lifestyle that I was taught to abide by. At about 15 years old, I began to question the relationship between what I was always taught about God and what I actually experienced in my life. Case in point: I was taught that Jesus is the Prince of Peace, yet I didn’t experience any more peace in my life than my “unchurched” peers. After wrestling with this for quite some time, I made a decision. I was done with church and I was done with God. Not done in the sense that I didn’t believe in Him or even believe in who Jesus is, but I was done with following the prescribed set of rules and regulations. This wasn’t really a process of time, but an actual decision that I made. I told God one day, “I don’t see You. I don’t feel You. I don’t understand You, even though I have done everything I that I’ve known to do. I’m walking away, God. If you want me, You know where to find me.”

For the next 5 years, I fully entrenched myself into the world. Accumulating, eventually, into a drug habit that began to run my life and a family, as well as future wife, who’s lives were being negatively affected by my all that I did. After a near death experience coupled with a drug overdose, I began to look for answers. One night, after dropping out of college and losing most friends in my life, I said a simple prayer under my breath. “God, it’s been a while. Remember how I said if You want me You know where to find me? Well, I’m still here.” Over the next few months, I decided that I wouldn’t begin to attend church again, but I would began a search within my soul to find God. One summer week I was on vacation with Lori’s family. We were staying in a condo in Orange Beach, Alabama. The night before we were to leave, my future sister-in-law, told us a story about a church in Pensacola, Fl that at one time had people lining up at 8am to get into a church service than began at 7pm. This intrigued me and I decided to find the church, call them and show up at their door that night. This is exactly what we did. We went to a prayer meeting that night. To give you all the details would take up too much time and I’ve already taken up too much space. Suffice it to say, a lady prayed for me in the parking lot of the church around 11pm. I feel to the ground of the parking lot, feeling a power I had never felt. While on the ground I had a vision, although I didn’t know what it was at the time. The Lord spoke to me in the vision and told me that I was, “one of many who will help raise up one of the greatest generations to ever live.”

That night I was changed. I can’t stress the word, changed, enough. It was the most incredible moment of my entire life. In an instant I literally became another man. Over the next few months I began to pray and seek God in a manner that I had never even heard of. For up to 8 hours a day, I would pray, read scripture and spend time in the presence of God. I grew in the spirit very quickly. During this time I also developed a “gift’. (Although at times it doesn’t seem so much like a “gift”.) I was able to clearly see deep-rooted issues within the Church. It became quite a burden to me, as at times it still is. I was surrounded by a religious system that denied the supernatural reality of God. Therefore I positioned my life to promote that reality and to advance the belief in miracles, signs and wonders. This place that God had taken me served me well. Not only did I grow very quickly and experience unexplainable things, but I also was quickly placed into positions of leadership and authority. Soon after Lori and I were married and not soon after that, we moved to Abbotsford, British Columbia to travel extensively with a revivalist named Todd Bentley. After traveling literally all over the world for six months, Awake International was birthed. I was given incredible favor and began, myself, traveling all over the world. During this time, I was still doing what I had always done since my re-birth: teaching on the miraculous realm, hearing the voice of God, and the current reality of heaven on earth. It was an incredible time.

Two years into this season of my life I noticed God beginning to take me through a change. For one, I began to feel discontent with everything around me. I was seeing amazing wonders all around me and favor everywhere that I went, but something inside me was changing. The same feeling I had at the beginning, the feeling of constantly seeing the need for change all around me, returned. Only this time it was different. I didn’t just see the problems, but I began to see the solutions to those problems. I began to seek God and say, “Lord, I know things are changing, but I feel like I’m changing and it scares me. I feel disconnected and seperated. Who am I, God?”  Without warning, He said to me, “You thought I called you to revive, but I’ve called you to reform.” Suddenly, it all made sense. The way I was. The way I thought. Everything that had happened since my first encounter with God. I saw, in an abstract sense, who God had created me to be. A reformer. An agent of change.

I loved it. When I saw it, I embraced it. It was exhilarating to finally understand why I thought the way I thought and saw the way I saw. It was all for a purpose. It wasn’t a problem with me, it was part of my created nature. I did love it, and still do, at least most of the time.

Which brings me to today. I don’t love it today. It’s hard. At times it’s very lonely. I feel like the moments where people actually “get” what I’m attempting to do is so few and far between. If you’ve been reading this blog since the beginning, then you know that I’ve recently gone through an intense internal change. The problem is that it seems that outside of me, things are the same. That’s the life of a reformer. What you see in your heart is always ahead of what actually is. You promote a message, because the living reality of that message is yet to be. You attempt to release a new wine, when the new wineskin is yet to be. You attempt to create a new wineskin when the materials to make the new wineskin are seemingly unavailable. It was so easy when there were so many others doing what I was doing. When my message rested on the principles of the supernatural, it became much more widely accepted. That was fun. Now that my message is one that promotes the supernatural, but not for the sake of the supernatural and not as the core of the message, it’s not as fun yet. Do I ever again get to see the reality of that which I preach or will it be my children?  As much as I want to just stop, to give up, I can’t. As much as I want to say, “Who am I? I don’t have any answers.” I can’t, because I know it to be untrue.

It gives me strength to think about the life of Jesus. The greatest reformer that ever lived. His task was to reform a culture who had no foundation for the message that He brought. Even those closest to Him, had a difficult time grasping His ideas. Was He lonely? I’m sure, at times, He was, but His constant communion with the Father and His belief in what He was sent to do kept Him going. His love. His passion for the people. It made it all worth it. I know it’s worth it. I know my heart is right. I know I’m doing the right thing, it’s just hard. That’s the reality.

And now my inspiration for today. And, yes, I like Taylor Swift.