some days I wake up exhausted from trying to fill the space —the unbridgeable distance between whats true and what I’ve chosen as truth, between who I’m becoming, and what I ought to be; space separating me from community and family that l cannot reach.

I have made progress. the distance has changed, maybe—measured in yards now, not miles— but the strands of my hope run fragile and measure short. there’s fear here, and darkness below, and I can hear the voice from the other side of the boy who needs me.

I have gathered my courage. it rests on my chest, burning — and I will leap with it, not jump— even though I know the final gap won’t be bridged, knowing I will be lost because yes, hope and courage are buoyant but gravity is law and I chose to scale mountains knowing everything that goes up must eventually come down.

retrospective is golden, and we’re all faulty memories and secrets — and misinterpretations. and if all the reflection on the other side ever meant was, "I want you to love me.", then all I will scream back at him as I fall will be, "I gave everything in my effort to love you well."

At the corner of a small town lane, in a little coffee shop, late in the dayYou turned around and saw me, Hoping you would make a move. And you walked over and asked my name, but I couldn't say a thing. You grabbed my hand and took me away, I felt like I had wings… You said, "Sit with me tonight?"

If we were dating, I'd touch you, and not just in the private places, behind closed doors and in unlit bedrooms, but  with single fingers, tracing down your arms or with my eyes, still in unbelief that the one across from me lets me kiss their lips in bookstores & coffee shops & theaters in front of everyone, until I had memorized each of your contours well enough to know I wasn't dreaming because I'm pretty sure looking at you, I'd question whether that was really my life.

Be careful not to lose yourself -waiting for somebody else to tell you that you are special. Thats what your mouth and mirrors are for.

The day I realized this, I looked inside to find That I was filled with galaxies of undiscovered wonder. We are compilations of constellations of creative energy - supernovas of light waiting to be released, and as one of my favorite poets once said, all the colors we are inside have yet to be known existed.

I am not yet a culmination. If you must consider me, consider me a crescendo. I am special. I am a high-water mark, but tides still rise and there has never been a line drawn in the sand on the beach that the ocean has not risen to challenge. I am also not finished here.

Supernatural Stories - Preface

Two thousand years ago, Mary went looking for Jesus. Instead she found an angel who gave her an important job - to tell those closest to Him that Christ had risen as He said, and that He would meet His disciples in Galilee as he told them, but they did not believe. After calling them to a higher place of faith in who he was and how steadfast He was to his word, Jesus gave the eleven a responsibility that we as believers carry even today - He said to them, Go into all the world and preach/publish the good news to everyone. Anyone who believes and baptized will be saved. These miraculous signs will accompany those who believe: They will cast out demons in my name, and they will speak in new languages. They will be able to handle snakes with safety, and if they drink anything poisonous it won’t hurt them. They will be able to place their hands on the sick and they will be healed. Shortly after Jesus ascended, and scripture says that the disciples went everywhere and preached, and the Lord worked through them confirming what they said by many miraculous signs. How many times have we all been like the apostles? How often do we know what Jesus says - we know who He is, and we still find it hard to trust him when we need Him most? When our hearts are hardened and our faith is shaken, Jesus - our shepherd and faithful friend is there asking us as he asked the disciples, do you remember?

In these moments, we are given a choice, an opportunity even to choose to partner with heaven over our circumstances and lock eyes with the One who even the winds and the waves obey. Every story in this book is a heavenly response to a “do you remember” moment, and we are more sure than ever that Jesus is who He says He is - that He is good and steadfast. Our inheritance is the good news that when we step out on a limb, He is there - always willing and able to keep us from falling. Our king has yet to fail us and He never will. We overcome by the power of our testimony. This is the gospel. These are our stories.

When Jesus wanted to ask his disciples "Who do people say that I am?" and "Who do you say that I am?" he took them to a place called Caesarea Phillippi. Caesarea Phillippi was famous in Jesus' day for a couple of things. Here was built the sanctuary to the god Pan, the god of nature and second, a cave known as the Gates of Hades, was here. In other words, Jesus took his disciples to the "gates of hell" to ask them if they really understood who he was. He had his disciples stand in front of the gates to the underworld, in the midst of the pagan headquarters for the worship of Pan, to found his church (this is the first time the word ekklesia is used in the gospels) and to give them the keys to the kingdom.

Jesus. Thank you for reminding me time and time again that I don't have to look for you, I just have to look at you - because you are always looking at me. And even when I seem to be staring the gates of hell in the face, may I always plant my feet with the conviction of Peter when you ask, "Who do you say that I am?" and respond that you are faithful and just, that you are my hope and my peace, and you are good.

You are enough that the gates of hell will never prevail against your Kingdom. You will be enough today.

There are riots from New York to California. London. Belgium. France. Brazil. Mexico. Thailand. China. Korea. Palestine. Ferguson. For all who insist on quoting Dr. King, lets remember he also said, "Riots are the language of the oppressed." It seems as if the entire world has had enough of oppression. There is so much chaos and pain, and yet there is hope hovering over my heart that God is faithful and will not allow pain to come without something new to be born from it. Please don't misunderstand, I am still angry, but I am even more convinced of God's goodness. I believe God's Kingdom is being forged even now on the inside of this crucible, and in God's Kingdom, injustice and inequality cannot stand. Declare with me an invitation for heaven to invade the heart of every believer and burn away anywhere ignorance, hate and fear has found a home.

To the increase of His government, and His peace there will be no end, for He will reign with fairness and justice, and the passionate commitment of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will bring this to pass Is. 9:7

We have to get over this idea of being conciliatory. Of having the proper tone. Of not wanting to make people uncomfortable. What if tearing down the empire, calling out the bad intentions of our ancestors and disrupting the friendly comfort of our local church is the whole point? The social order is what is broken. The social order is what Jesus came to upend. And the social order is bigger than any one of us. If we are trying to be empathetic to the oppressors then it makes sense that we’d need to be understanding of empire, and of course our institutions of church will need to line up to that understanding. But I’m pretty sure that’s not what Jesus came for.

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Redeeming a Sound

A little over a year ago, I heard a talk entitled Redeeming A Sound from Dan McCullough, a renowned charismatic worship leader and songwriter. To be quite honest, it wasn't anywhere near as riveting as some of the other messages I heard in the same time period, but for some reason, the title stuck with me. Redeeming a sound. Redeeming a sound. Redeeming a sound.

Fast forward. One of the very first words I heard this school year was on the subject of redemption. Lacey Thompson referenced Isaiah 61, reminding us that shame is no longer our portion, because we have been redeemed - not restored. When something is restored, it is repaired to the condition it was in before it was damaged or broken but redemption... Redemption is so much sweeter than mere restoration. Redemption looks like this - in the places I was robbed or I blew it, when God redeems us, we get a double portion in that area in exchange for any shame we carried. 

I've had anxiety issues for so long (even before they were diagnosed), that I'd almost forgotten there was a time when I wasn't affected by them. In retrospect, mine was a gradual regression, from an effervescent and outwardly expressive youngster to a young adult who spends most of his time carefully hiding away, worried about perception, rejection, and inadequacy. It started with accepting the lie that what I had to say was better swallowed than spoken, and grew in every facet of my life until I started to accept an uneasy complacence in my silence, and before I realized what happened, even the thought of opening my mouth caused my voice to shake and when I would try to sing anywhere but in a room by myself, it was like someone was squeezing off my voice at the root.

Something was/is definitely broken, and I think it no stretch of the imagination to say that the mere restoration of my voice would be worthy of celebration. But God is so much more than that. God is not just the restorer of the broken, God is the God of the redeemed.

So my journey begins, to re-claim the voice that has eluded me for so long. This is the year that a new sound in me will be released, and Holy Spirit has been guiding me to the places where I left or sacrificed integral parts of myself at the altars of public opinion - often times without even knowing. Yesterday morning, I drove to an old school of mine that was the site of so much hurt and pain for me as a child. It was there that my voice was first stifled, that I started to believe standing out was not okay, because all it seemed to get me was bruises and abuse from both my peers and sometimes teachers. I pulled into the parking lot with eyes filled with tears, and drove around the school to view what had once been a scene of my ostracization and misery. I could see the scenes replaying in my head,  but this time, Jesus was there. I parked in front of the building and cried, telling the people who I'd thrown away so much of who I was born to be, that I forgave them and then I forgave myself for making idols out of the approval of people.

From there I went to the church where I was discipled me as a boy (and later dismissed as a leader) that I purposely avoided since, sat in the sanctuary of my childhood with my guitar and began to play - no performance necessary, before reading the last couple of chapters of The Shack and weeping uncontrollably. Why am I sharing this? Its because hurt doesn't just go away when we refuse to look at it. Just because we don't acknowledge our past, doesn't mean it doesn't continue to haunt us. But the promise of the Gospel remains - that God will not allow pain to come without something  new being born from it. I know this now, and not just in my head, but in my heart.

Last year, I realized the power in standing my ground in the face of things that terrify me, and now I'm going back to face all the giants that caused me pain - that I sacrificed my voice to, because I want my stuff back, and as a Son of the Kingdom, I'm demanding what is required of a thief - that they must pay back seven times what they stole, even if I bankrupt all of Hell in the process. 

I know that I can slay any giant that I can look in the eye. And this one, like so many others to come is going down.

Oprah: Your definition of God? Rob Bell: Like a song you hear in another room and you think, "boy, that sounds beautiful but I can only hear a little bit." So you start opening doors and rearranging furniture because you have to get in that room and hear that song and when you get in, you find the knobs and you turn them all the way to the right because you think, "I have to hear more of that." And then you open the windows because you want the people in the next houses to hear.

Whoa...