Day 53

It has been an interesting day. If I were one who gives themselves to the ‘IHOP’ vernacular, the most accurate description of my present state would be to say that I am “messed up.” So pardon me, I am having difficulty forming complete, deeply theological sentances. However, today, I have had one epithet of God rolling through my head. It is actually one of the few times in scripture that God gives a direct revelation about His nature and character. I will submit it to you with no thoughts of my own and allow you to meditate on it if you so choose. If you get any fantastic revelation, please let me know...I need all the help I can get...

The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation." (Exodus 34:6-7)

A shout out to the Night Watch kids...

Here is a short thought, completely off subject. Umm.. I love the people on the night watch. I love them I love them I love them! I love the fact that there has been an exponential increase of bloggers in the night. In examining this phenomena, I have found three reasons why I think this increase has occured.

1) People on the night watch are ridiculous, interesting and fun. No I am being totally serious. these are some of the most wonderful people that I have ever met in my life. Check out Jared Diehl for randomness and hilarity, oh yeah, the booorgeeous pig is quickly becoming a classic. (And if you ask, I'll tell you the real story of what really happened in Prague...)

2) People on the night watch love jesus a lot. They sit for hours every night thinking about him, meditating, studying and worshiping him. Any one who does that for any extended period of time must be brimming with revelation. For the great theological revelation check out Amanda Beattie, and if you want to read some fantastic poetry and prose, check out Jonathan Barclay.

3) Because of the 90 days of concercration, and the 'no talking in the PR' rule, we are craving interaction, story telling and sharing our lives with other people. If I had to pick an explanation, this would be it. If I can't talk to Victoria, Kyle, Kacie or Zach to find out what has been going on in their lives, all I have to do is check out their blog. And there it is online for all to see.

Now, of course I have day watch friends. And there is a whole daytime blog community with Sliker and Steeno and Shawn and Randy et. al. But let's face it, who reads that stuff anyway?

All that to say, I love the night watch kids.

Day 47

Tonight, the Lord has been kind in the way that He’s been dealing with me. I am certainly getting those tender words in the wilderness that I asked for last night. Tonight He brought me to my life verse and just kept reminding me of what He has done for me and who I am called to be. It is amazing that one tiny verse in the bible could contain both my past and my future, my testimony as well as my calling. I hope it is not too forward, but I will share it with the five or six people who read this blog. Psalm 118:17,

“I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.”

That’s’ it. My entire life can be summed up in one sentence. It’s the beauty of simplicity.


For anyone who knows a little of my story, you can understand the weight of this verse. But the long and short of it is this, when I came to IHOP two years ago, I had a severe bi-polar disorder. A disorder like this is incurable and my best hope was to be medicated for the rest of my life. From the time I was ten years old, I was severely depressed and suicidal, but two years ago I was supernaturally healed of this incurable disorder. One day I was in the prayer room crying out to the Lord for healing and I felt like the Lord said that He wanted me to break the curse that I had spoken over myself. He wanted me to say, “I don’t want to die, I want to live,” the number of times that I had said, “I want to die,” over the course of my life. I estimated that I had probably said “I want to die” 10 times a day from the time I was ten years old. When I calculated it out, it came to 46,450 times! I thought to myself, “what have I go to loose” and gave it a try. So I sat in the back of the PR with a calculator and said “I don’t want to die, I want to live” 2,000 times a day for three weeks. I don’t know how or when the change happened, but I know that I had my last episode on February 17th 2005. People who know me today would have no idea that I was ever sick.

And the second part of the verse? The rest of my life is devoted to declaring the works of the Lord. You can call me a messenger, a forerunner, or a voice; it doesn’t matter. My life is about calling people to behold and bless the Lord; calling people to be fascinated by the only person that really matters. And that’s it. Everything else is secondary.

Day 46

Pardon me while I blow the dust off of this blog. Yeah, it’s been about a week, and really, if anything, I am more disappointed in myself than anything. I started this blog to hold myself accountable to meditating and beholding and blessing the Lord. Well, I could make the excuse that it has been a very tough week with a lot of relational/emotional dynamics, but really, that should have drawn me into meditating more. So, I have no excuse. But I will share a beholding verse that I am hoping will be very accurate in the next few days Hosea 2:14,

“Therefore, behold, I will allure her, I will bring her into the wilderness and speak comfort to her.”

In the last week I have been suddenly transported to the wilderness. I should have known. I have had some things come together in a serious way i.e opportunity to walk out in my calling etc. Two weeks ago, I was talking to Esther Myung (a wonderful woman, devoted intercessor and really prophetic) and telling her about what the Lord was doing and she said, “Oh, the Lord is going to take you to the wilderness because He always wants you to come to a new level leaning and limping.” Great. Not what I wanted to hear. The leaning and limping is taken from the Song of Solomon, “who is this coming up from the wilderness, leaning on her Beloved?” Yeah, I kinda hoped that she would be wrong, but this week has proved more barren in prayer and frustrating in my job than anything I have gone through this year. I’ll throw this out for the nerd-core kids; the best description of my week is the story of Sisyphus. You know the guy who is doomed to push a rock up a hill over and over again for all eternity?

Anyway, there is good news. It is in the wilderness that God promises to speak comfort to His people. One translation says that He will speak kindly to her there. I certainly need some words of kindness and comfort. He has allured me to this place, I trust His leadership and I know that He will be faithful to speak words that will comfort my soul. He knows just how to lead me and I trust that I will come up from the wilderness leaning on my Beloved and fully in love.

Day 38

I just had an amazing conversation with Kevin Samuel. Kevin is a great friend of mine who has a heart for the entertainment industry. He was going to go to film school, but, like so many of us, was re-directed to IHOP first. So tonight he tells me that the Lord is downloading ideas to him about a screen play. At this, I start freaking out. While Dave Sliker is calling forth the 'wordcasters' send forth the word of the Lord on the Web, I have been praying that the Lord will raise up playwrights and screen writers with the word of the Lord. Forerunners and messengers to the entertainment industry who can stand on the platform of the media and declare the knowledge of God to billions of people across the world. This is something that the Lord has had me praying for months, and so I am so excited to see it starting to happen here in KC.

So I am offering a challenge to any of my aspiring writer-type friends. Put down the short story and try writing a play. Try your hand at dialogue. Try a film script complete with camera shots. No seriously. Jared Diehl. I am calling you out, instead of improv-ing your next film, write a full script, I think it will be a rewarding challenge.

And who knows, maybe in the future, I might have a 10-min play contest?
Any takers?

Day 37

While I might have been silly on Friday, that mood was quickly put to a stop. Starting on Saturday night I have been under a major attack, specifically dealing with my identity. The only reason why I am sharing this is because I think that the only people who read this are friends and/or intercessors. I need prayer! I am being beset with lies and falsehoods on every side, but I know that the Lord wants to give me the spirit of truth. Ps 51:6,

“Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden parts you will make known wisdom.”

This verse gives me confidence that the Lord desires that I have truth just as much as I do! That is an incredibly comforting thought. So, seriously, if you think about it, pray for me. Eph 1:3-6: This is my identity. This is what I need to remember. I am blessed, chosen, holy and without blame before Him in love, adopted into His family, a recipient of His grace, and accepted in the Beloved. Yep. That pretty much covers it.

I hope that your evening/morning is blessed. Remember that you too are accepted in the Beloved!

A random thought for a random week...

Yes, I know. I haven't blogged in a while. trust me it has been a crazy week. Last week, I am just a mild-mannered intercessory missionary/FSM student and this week I am a mild-mannered intercessory missionary/FSM student/Lighting Director of IHOP and oh, by the way, did I mention that we are doing this on LIVE TV? Yeah, it's been an interesting week.

But by far, the most interesting thing that happened to me, happened yesterday. Around 4 pm I get a call from my friend JD. He has something to bring me and wants to know if I am home. I say, yes and he comes over with 8 pounds of mild Cheddar cheese. You might be saying to yourself, "Wow, that's random." It's amazing, I was saying the same thing. Well, here's the story. JD works part-time at a dairy farm and the sweet old lady that he works for decided to give him 50 pounds of cheese as a thank you. 50 lbs. is a lot of cheese. What can you do with 50 lbs. of cheese? Give it to your friends, I guess.

So JD leaves and I return to the 8 lbs. of cheese now sitting on my counter. And I begin to think, "What can I possible do with all this cheese?" Now here is the interesting/disturbing thought. Honestly, as I looked at this towering pile of dairy on my counter, my first thought was, "If I were Jared Diehl, I would make a movie about all the things I could do with this cheese." I caught myself and laughed out loud. It is amazing how pervasive the night watch culture is.

I would call Jared and share this veritable cornacopia of hilarity with him, but he is out of town, so the movie idea is out. Does anyone else have any ideas of what I can do with all this cheese?

I promise, next week, I will return to my normal devotional self.

Day 32

Tonight, I am having trouble focusing and, while it could be for any reason, I am going to blame it on fasting brain. That’s right, it’s the first Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of the month a.k.a the Global Bridegroom Fast or the acronym-friendly GBF. So, right now I am at the end of day two, having trouble focusing and just kind of silly. I am reminded of the GBF’s of old, Onething internship circa January of ’05. I remember this one time when we had a group of people in my car, one person was playing the guitar while the rest of us were writing ‘spontaneous songs.’ Notice the ‘’ around ‘spontaneous songs.’ I will now share the one chorus that has been stuck in my head all night.

“It's the Bridegroom Fast! Behold, the Bridegroom is coming! Jesus when you come, bring a cheeseburger! Because we’re hungry for you, and we’re hungry for cheeseburgers!”

O.k not exactly the level of maturity and spirituality that you might have come to expect from this ‘wordcast’, but seriously, I know that anyone who has ever embraced the GBF has had their minds wander to the various types of consumable goods. And now, once again, we see the wisdom of the night watch, because, “where can you get a good burger in KC at 5:30 in the morning?” Seriously.

No seriously, if you know, tell me.

Day 31

Now once again, I am going to post a verse that does not contain the word behold. However, this is a scene that I have been beholding all week-end; the salvation of the thief on the cross. Over the past few days, this scene has been moving my heart more and more each day. It is a well known scene, but for everyone’s sake, I will retype it here. Luke 23:40-43,

“But the other [criminal], rebuked him [the first criminal] saying, “Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds, but this Man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Why is the scene striking me so much? It is because right now, this is the clearest picture I know of the kindness of the Father towards the Son. To explain: Jesus has just been whipped and scorned and beaten. Indeed, Jerusalem rejected Him and sent Him to the cross. It seemed that His life came to nothing; the ultimate anti-climax. Here He is, hanging between heaven and earth, bearing the full wrath of the Father, and yet, even as the Father is turning His face away from the Son, the Father puts enough grace on the heart of a hardened criminal to enable him to cry out for salvation. This is quite possibly the kindest thing imaginable. As the Son was bearing the iniquity of many, the Father allowed Him to see the labor of His soul and be satisfied (Is 53:11). I can just see the look on Jesus’ face, stunned that in the midst of such intense rejection, that one would accept Him. What a kiss from the Father. In a moment when His heart would have been so faint, that Father showed Him that it was not all for naught. What unspeakable kindness!

Day 28

Today was our last day of Synoptic Gospels and after 3 weeks of studying the life of Christ Stephen decided the best thing to do would be to watch the Passion of Christ. I cried for two hours. Then tonight (being Thursday) I led our prayer room team in communion. Knowing that I wouldn't get very far without weeping like a baby, I decided that we were going to do the Finland five. The Finland five is quite simple, although it has a long and illustrious history. Basically what you do it give the group a verse or a phrase and just wait in silence for five minutes. Tonight, I used a phrase that Stephen said in class yesterday,

"When you think about the cross, if the first thing you think about is doctrine (i.e. atonement, propitiation, justification etc), then you have missed the point. When you look at the cross you must think, 'that is my best friend up there.'"

And after that, we waited and minutes ticked by. Silently tears streaked down my face. It is amazing how long five minutes can be especially when you picture yourself standing at the foot of the cross watching the only man who ever truly loved you die. It sounds intense and truly, it is. It is amazing how far He was willing to go to win my heart. I love Him more today than I ever have before. But don't just take my word for it, check out Barclay's Blog, I would like to think that His whole meditation was sparked by the Finland five...

Day 27

Last night in our briefing, we started talking about signs of the times. We were talking about all the things that are going on in Israel, Iraq and Iran et al. looking at how quickly we could see another world war. We were all feeling a soberness on the room. And then one of the guys in the group asked, ‘if we know that all of these things have to happen, wars and rumors of wars and ¼ of the earth dying, then how do we pray?” It was one of those times when you know that you have to pray right now, but when these events start breaking out, what could you possibly pray? Instantly, I felt the answer hit my heart. Salvation. If ¼ of the earth or more will die then we need as many of those people to be saved as possible. Not so that we could have cool meetings and big churches, but so millions and millions of people don’t spend eternity in the lake of fire. For the past two days, I have been gripped to pray for salvation. The Lord does not desire that any should perish, but that all should come to eternal life. That includes both Jews and Muslims, Americans and Asians, everyone. So, the beholding verse of the day comes from this line of thought. It is short and simple. I am making it a declaration on the Web for all to see. 2 Corinthians 6:2,

“Behold, now is the acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation.”

I declare it to a hurting world that is about to tear itself apart. Today is the day of salvation. Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart.