HOME #11 (My Story)

This morning I found myself tweeting this message, “Friendship with Jesus Christ is the key  to unlock every prison”.  Then I went back to the task in front of me which was getting dressed and ready for the day.

I began to think that if friendship with Jesus is the key that unlocks all of my prison doors then friendship with me is the key to do the same for people who connect with me today and every day.

When I look at the story of my life, I can see that living as a person who can’t be held under lock and key anymore has been quite a learning process.  I can’t remember a time in my life that I didn’t believe in God and all that my church taught about Jesus.

My struggle has always been with the pressure to behave in certain ways and to say or not say certain things in the course of relating to my world and my Christian community. And it wasn’t just about my conversation. There were things that a Christian shouldn’t and/or couldn’t do or places I couldn’t go because I was a Christian.

From an early age I took on a ton of guilt and shame because my heart and the real me didn’t match up with the behaviour that was expected of me by my church. So, like most of the kids in our church youth group I learned to hide who I really was in religious situations.  Tragically I had no real grasp on the reality that I had an original voice that God had woven into the fabric of who I was… even as a child.

I had an incredibly supportive family and a great school system to explore and make the most of… but I hated myself because I couldn’t seem to find whatever it took on the inside of myself to measure up to my religion.  The saddest part of those years is that I pretty much completely missed the amazing life I could have been enjoying.  What if I could have found my real voice and been activated into a life of reflecting His image into my world by just being myself before my Creator?

So, I lived a lie. My high school experience was lived as two different people. One of them was a well behaved church (religious) kid and the other was what I understood to be the real me.

It wasn’t until I landed at a Christian college that I got real with God and myself. There are two things that I remember saying to God as I left home as a 17 year old to enroll in Bible College. The first was “God, I know this might just land me in hell, but if I can’t discover something real for me in following Jesus during this school year, then I am done with the Church and Christianity for good. I’m sure hell will be awful. But, if all there is to being a Christian is what I have been part of so far, forget it!”

And, the second conversation came about half way through that school year as I cried out to God through tears and from my heart, “God, whether you are glad about this or not, you are stuck with me, failures and everything, because of how much you have loved me and set me from through Jesus, you are gonna have to reject me to get rid of me!” And, he hasn’t sent me away yet 🙂

He has set me free from prisons in my emotions, my sense of self and my life purpose. I want to offer up this prayer:

Jesus, knowing you is the key to unlocking the door to every prison I might find myself in whether it’s one of my own making or imposed by someone else. Words can never express how grateful I am for what you have done by setting me free to actually live. But, I pray that you will fill me and express your heart through me so that people will find that knowing your Spirit through me is the key that unlocks the chains and the bars that hold them captive. Use me to help them find the key for themselves.  Amen

“Home” (formerly ‘My Story’)

I have decided to change the name of the series I have been posting called “My Story” to “Home”. It will continue to be dedicated to telling of my journey of living as a Jesus follower. My desire in sharing it is to inspire you to “really” live & to be activated in the purpose God has for your life.

One of Jesus followers named Luke describes a story Jesus told in Luke 15. Most people refer to the story is as “The Prodigal Son”. You likely know the story & could tell it yourself. I love that story especially because it reveals a picture of our eternal Father & his love for each of us. He is the father who runs to us, hugs us, kisses us & knows how to throw a party to celebrate His sons & daughters whether or not we think we deserve it!

A few months ago I was praying and listening for God’s heart in this story when the most intriguing thought landed… I felt the Lord saying to me; “I want you to love my home more than you love being worthy!”. It occurred to me that both sons in the story were focused on their worthiness… what they deserved. The younger son felt outside the family because he was “unworthy to be a son” and the older son was bitter because he deserved (was worthy of) a party but never had one. In his anger he left his Father’s house and refused to go in and party with the family.

As I continue to share my story in hopes that you will start telling yours, I am going to call it “Home”. Maybe you will join me as I learn to love God’s home more than I love being worthy!

My Story #10

I believe that God has woven an original “voice” in me. By voice I don’t only mean a speaking or singing voice. I am talking about a unique way of introducing life into the world.

From my earliest memories I have been part of a family and a community of people who know God exists and more than anything else they want to be at peace with how they are supposed to relate to their Creator.

The biggest gift of my life was being born into a family who introduced me to Jesus Christ. Now, wait a second before you figure you already know where I am going with this…

In some pretty fundamental ways I feel like I am just really beginning to get what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

I didn’t realize until recently that one of the most important treasures that I can find and share with God is my voice, my way of expressing my heart. For me, it happens when I listen to music, play an instrument or sing. When I find and express my voice, especially when I am focused on my heart and not distracted, I come to the moment with a genuineness that washes over me with the understanding that life is real and I am alive. There is something else that happens… God meets me there. Many times I plan on the meeting. But, most of the time I am surprised as I become aware of the the presence of God’s Spirit just being in the moment with me.

Often I wonder what He wants from me. But, with the eyes of my heart I peak over at my Creator and He just seems to be enjoying the music… weird, eh?

But, frankly it’s nobody else’s business because this is my voice and I am expressing it with the One who made me and still has a purpose for me. That purpose starts in our enjoyment of each other’s voice.

You see, I am coming to see that when I worship God with my real voice, He is able to come and begin to bring His voice to me and it is there that I can be set on fire and be a bright refection of His image in my world.

More than anything, I would love to see in my lifetime a movement of people young and old who have found their voice and discovered God there.

I believe that is what Jesus Christ showed us in his birth, life, death and victory over death.

To be honest, all of creation is waiting for you and me to raise our voices and make it our business to shine the image of God once again.

 

My Story #9

Some people seem to have this sense of self confidence that says to rest of us, “I have my opinion but I do respect your right to be wrong”!

I am not one of those people. In fact, for my own good I could have used a little more of that attitude in my younger years.

We are all complex people with our own reasons why we act in our unique ways. But, there are many moments that I look back on in regret that I didn’t fight more for myself.

I do happen to be a Jesus follower. He has welcomed me into His family and His restored way of life… “real freedom”.

As I have journeyed through my life as a Christian, I must admit that God has done lots of tearing down and rebuilding in me.

Much of the rebuilding has been in teaching me to understand myself and what my original design was to be.

There are people all around me worth fighting for, sacrificing for and even laying down my life for… beginning with myself.

There is a revolution you and I have been summoned to join. It is laying all “falseness” and “fakeness” aside and jumping over the edge into the creative fire of God’s design for us as individuals. Our hope of survival in life is only found in Jesus Christ. The Bible calls it the “mystery hidden for ages… Christ in us the hope of glory”!

I am worth fighting for and so are you!!

My story #8

The Loft Sessions – Walk in the Promise

I grew up at 82 White Street. I was given beautiful gifts by my dad and mom. One was their determination to take me into consideration in the late ’70s as I approached my high school graduation in 1980. My dad had received many opportunities to pastor churches in “better” places but we stayed there on White Street allowing me to finish high school years in the school system where I was at home. What a huge benefit that was to me. Thank you!!

Another gift was showing me the world of art. This is the dimension… the reality where I am at home and at peace. My mom was in love with music. It was most definitely her happy place. She meshed that into the way she raised me and nurtured the same love in me.

As I sit here this morning and write while listening to beautiful music by Jeremy Riddle of Bethel Music   I am being swept away into the realm where it all comes alive and the grave clothes unravel and fall off of me… music… art… creating with The Creator.

Will you come with me into this place? Will you let yourself go and free fall to soar on the breath of the Spirit on the wings of the art woven in to your very being?

Our Creator has knit creativity into us. At our response to His invitation it sparks to life and lights the world in a million expressions.

There is a growing congregation of us who have gathered around the world unknown to each other and yet we are waiting for you to express your art as you fall in love with the Son and His kingdom again.

I can’t wait!!

 

My story #7 “Awesomeness”

I know that God the Creator has been having a private conversation with me my whole life. I didn’t always know it. But, I understand now that I have never been alone.

I have been misunderstood many times. I have felt disappointed, bruised, broken, guilty, sad, angry, rejected, etc…

In my life I have also been celebrated, loved, hugged, kissed, thrilled out of my mind, accepted, promoted, honoured and respected as well.

But, I have never been alone.

If I take the most honest look at myself, I have to admit that I have even been more ready to condemn and reject myself than my Father God has been willing to walk away from me. It has been His patience and kindness toward me that has given me the strength to always try again.

Many of us are waking up to God’s appointment of us through a burning love

for  Jesus and His way of living (His kingdom).

He has designed us and given us life so that we will be walking signs of His awesomeness. 

But, the way of entering that awesomeness is not what I expected. Much of the journey that I have taken would probably have been labeled a “waste” by many people. The question the “friends” of Jesus asked on that day when the woman broke open her treasure and poured it out on Jesus was “Why this waste…?”

I used to care about that question. But, I don’t anymore. In order for a plant to grow, the seed must die

In order for me to live in the awesomeness of my 

destiny, I must smash my treasure (dreams, hopes, agenda, ambitions, etc…)

and pour it out in love on Jesus.

That is “why this waste…” 🙂  

Do you honestly think that your Creator and lover will abandon you? You are his artistry.

My Story #6 – Grade 5 Sunday School and Weapons of War

I had a memorable dream several years ago. I was part of a group being led on a tour of a historic battleground. As we made our way along the smooth paved pathway, there were carefully placed stacks of weapons all along our route. I saw piles of rifles, automatic weapons, along with swords, shields, maces, axes, etc.

It seemed to me like there were weapons from the different ages of world history.

As our tour guide was in the midst of her rehearsed speech, she made a special announcement. She explained to us that this was a special day at the battlefield exhibit and on this day we would each be allowed to take one of the weapons of war home with us. It wasn’t going to be the weapon of our choice. But, she and the staff would give each of us their choice of weapon for us.

I was handed a leather bound book, it looked like a journal. I was immediately disappointed! A book?? Out of all of epic weapons stacked all around us, all they could manage to send home with me was a book? In my bitterness, I decided to untie the case and look at the book.

As I looked inside the leather cover, I discovered that it was a bible. But, it wasn’t just any bible. It was a gift edition I had received from my Grade Five Sunday School Teacher, Mrs. Sears. It was a reward for memorizing and reciting the books of the Bible. I knew that’s what it was because the inscription inside the cover had the words she had written there in her own hand writing:

“Sin will keep you from this book, but this book will keep you from sin.”

I have discovered that book several times throughout my life and fondly remembered Mrs. Sears. She was a tough cookie and you didn’t mess around in her class. But, she poured out her love on us and into our lives. I have often read these words she wrote more than thirty five years ago. I can still smell that musty classroom and the wooden folding table and I can remember her distinct voice. I had no idea at the time that she was spending her time with us every Sunday morning because she loved us and wanted us to never fear this world knowing that the Lord would never leave us or forsake us. She volunteered her time and energy and endless patience in order to open our eyes to the best thing in life… “Because of Jesus and all He had done, we could be friends with God.”

I’m still not sure exactly what she meant by the words on the inside cover of my gift Bible. But, I do know about sin and the hundreds of times I have failed and how much darkness has made me feel separate from my Creator.  And I have learned that my only hope for survival in life is knowing what God has stored up in His word for me.

Yeah, I do believe that the Bible is God’s word. But, I don’t want to ever forget that it  would have no power or authority unless it had come from God and unless it leads us to know Him in a deeper way.

So, I guess the moral of my dream is that the best weapon of war I can ever take into my life and my home and be skilled in using is God’s word.

This life is war and we can’t be surprised when we have to fight for our lives against ruthless enemies. We never know when hardship will strike and try to take us out. But, our God does something crazy for us along the way if we will open our eyes to it. David talked about it when he penned the words in Psalm 23:

 “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.”

Thanks King David and thanks Mrs Sears. You both helped to change my life!

My Story #5 – For God’s Sake, Be Yourself!

For those of you who have been following my story, I would love to hear yours! If you are already telling it in a blog or some other way, please let me know 🙂

I met a friend of mine almost 30 years ago. His name is Karl Ingersoll. He was a youth pastor near Jamestown, New York at the time. I had just finished my second year of Bible College and was touring the North East USA with a music & youth camp counselling team. We were on the road recruiting students. But, I was on a desperate search to find God’s calling for my life.

Karl spoke into my life on that night. We were standing in his youth room with about 5o of his youth group students. It was loud and chaotic and we were watching four of them play fooseball. I had never met him before. But, he was asking me to tell him my story. So I laid it out there and he intuitively picked up on the fact that I was aching for some peace over the issue of finding my way in life as a young adult.

I don’t remember all that he said to me in our 10 minute conversation. But, one statement has stayed with me to this day. He said,

“I think you are a great guy and you are going to speak into people’s lives.

God’s gonna use you. Just be yourself. That’s His call for you… be yourself.

It’s gonna be great!”

There was something about that moment that broke something on the inside of me. It was like someone walked by my prison cell and slipped me the key to break out into freedom.

The journey hasn’t been easy and there are lots of haters in the unseen world and maybe a few in the seen realm that have come against me. But, I am still being myself and it has been great! It’s all to Jesus credit and glory. He has never left me and always fills me back up with hope and grace whenever I turn to Him.

And I just want to say today, “Hey Karl!, ‘Thanks buddy’!”

 

My Story #4

I was the fourth of five children. Maybe I picked up my “go with the flow” style from having two older sisters and an older brother. I quickly learned that the best way to be happy was to stay out of trouble and the best way to do that was to do whatever other people expected of me. I don’t believe that anymore… but, I have to confess that it is still my default game plan when I let myself run on “auto pilot”.

So, as a boy I embraced faith in Jesus and the Bible as God’s word I think mostly because that is what I was expected to do. Really, as I think about it now as I have completed the first half century of my life, I have spent most of my time living up to other people’s expectations. What a trap! But, I am learning how to be free.

I did pray “the sinner’s prayer” when I was eight or nine years old. I don’t remember exactly. You can’t find the sinners prayer anywhere in the Bible by the way. So, whatever you need to say to God about your own mess is your business. It will still be the sinners prayer and it qualifies 🙂

I was raised to believe that once I prayed the “sinners prayer” admitting my sins to God and asking Him to forgive me, I could then feel completely secure that He would do just that and He would also purify me from all guilt and dirtiness. That was amazing to me! Best of all I wouldn’t have to go to hell. That place of torment was reserved for the devil, his angels and everyone who didn’t pray the prayer! I can’t remember anyone saying those exact words to me. But, that’s the way I saw it. Even though I wasn’t sure I was going to like heaven I was fully convinced that hell was out of the question.

This was all happening of course in the emotional (and probably psychological) storm of discovering that I might not get to be with God or my family (I was convinced they would all make it) in Eternity. Pretty confusing stuff! But there was one more “mind twisting” hurdle for me.

As I listened to Christians around me talk and I tried to listen to my dad’s sermons a belief was engraved on my mind. From what I could gather, my family and my church believed that once I had become part of God’s family in His kingdom, I could still be bounced out of there if I committed sins and didn’t get them confessed and forgiven right away.

So, as I gained more independence and had more chances to do things my parents didn’t now about which were sinful and then had to lie to cover it up, I was sure that I had been expelled from God’s family more times than I could count. Throughout my teen years I would let sin and guilt stack up until I couldn’t handle it, knowing that I wasn’t a Christian anymore. I don’t know how I became such an authority on my own status in God’s kingdom. But, I was pretty sure of myself and I was confident I had walked away.

So, when the terror of going to hell and/or the heavy load of guilt got to be too much I would come clean to my parents and God of course and get reinstated as part of the family of God again. It sounds so strange now. But, that was the way I experienced my relationship with God.

Mixing this very insecure approach to knowing God with my game plan of staying out of trouble by simply living up to everyone’s expectations turned me into a “Chameleon”. The definition of a chameleon is:

“a small slow-moving Old World lizard with a prehensile tail,

long extensible tongue, protruding eyes that rotate independently

and a highly developed ability to change colour.”

That was me. I had a highly developed ability to change colour! This is where my two names came in handy. Dana became the worldly “unchurchy” party guy with my school friends and Dan became the clean living, polite, Christian young man. I began to realize that I really wasn’t either of them. But, I couldn’t seem to let go and share that with anyone except for a few of my friends (who had no idea what they were doing either) and as I mentioned before I felt I could open up a bit with my sister Dawn. Somehow I knew she understood and would never reject me.

What I didn’t know is I was never rejected by my family or God. I wasn’t expelled or bounced out of His kingdom at all. Jesus was with me every step and every minute of each day. I just didn’t know it was him.

to be continued…

My story #3

I remember those early years of development and I smile. Sometimes I laugh when I think of the wide range of life skills I and all of my friends were learning… tying my shoes, counting, reciting the alphabet, saying please and thank you, shaking hands, keeping my elbows off of the table when eating and of course learning to pray and that included how to properly address Jesus in prayer… In my world it was always “Dear Jesus”.

Of course there were times when the wiring would get a little crossed and I would raise my hand in class and call my teacher “Mommy” or I would find myself raising my hand at the dinner table to get permission to speak forgetting that I wasn’t at school anymore and no one at our crowded table was going to notice anyway.

But, my favourite memories of those times that still can make me laugh are the few times when I would answer the phone and instead of saying “hello” I would begin the conversation with “Dear Jesus”. I was so embarrassed. But, the adult on the other end would always get a good laugh out of it and they would tease me with comments like, “Wow, you are going to make a great pastor someday!”

I also learned about the Bible and all of the intriguing characters found there. From the beginning life has been on fire for me. There has always been something to figure out and I can’t ever remember a time when I didn’t have a list of things I was thinking about. It seems that God just “hard wired” it into me to want to find peace through understanding people and the world and then to enjoy the music and rhythms of life so that I could share it and make everyone sing and dance… well maybe not dance (dancing was forbidden in my religious world). It never really made sense to me that I wasn’t allowed to dance. I always wondered how Bible people got away with it and I couldn’t! Well, at least I got to marry a dancer 🙂

Needless to say I have loved stories from the beginning. I loved my imagination and I still think it is the best gift God gave to us. The best part of life for me is creating with the Creator of it all. I think one of the greatest evils in the world is the lie that God is all done with creation. I believe He is inviting us to help him create new futures and explore new possibilities.

Back to the story…

I am rambling a bit… I know, but I am sort of avoiding a very troubling and confusing subject from my first years of discovery. Learning about heaven was the best. But, hell really messed me up.

The story I was taught included an epic ending for all of us. I began to understand that not only did I need to figure out life here on earth but I was also going to have to prepare for forever. There was this thing called “Eternity” after I die and it was either going to be amazing or it was going to be pain and torment forever!

So began a journey in my imagination that continues to this day. I wonder about life after death a lot. I have thought a lot about what was on God’s mind before anything or anyone else existed. At what point did it become necessary to have a lake of fire which would become the eternal home for me (if I am not found ready for heaven) and the devil along with all of his angels? Or was the existence of that place of torment inevitable? As I already mentioned, I have been blessed or cursed with a vivid and nonstop imagination! Just be glad you don’t have to live with me!!

As a young boy I do remember cherishing deeply my friendship and love for God and feeling so secure in His hands. So, when I began to find out about my own day of judgement and that I might not be with Him forever I honestly didn’t know how to process the information.

Somehow I knew in my gut that God knew who I really was and in the end our friendship would win the day. I would reassure myself in my bed at night that even though I committed sins sometimes and technically I deserved to go to hell, God knew I was a good kid and Jesus would work things out with His Father and an exception would be made for me. I wondered sometimes if I would be the only one who gets into heaven even though I’m not supposed to be there.

to be continued…