Learning to Be A Son - Ted

Many men will need to deal with their sonship issues. Some will need healing, some will need to repent, many will need both. Women will need to learn to be heirs. This concept is usually presented in scripture as a father/son picture. Many grown adults will need a childlike humility. Most gentiles will need schooled in Hebrew thinking, most people immersed in western individualism will need to rethink in mid-eastern family and community ways. Democratic thinking must give way to realizing the kingdom is a monarchy. Being a son in God’s Kingdom must be learned. But God is patient.

I wish that being a son was a natural process. But it is not. For the most part, being a child has many natural aspects. We all started as babies and grew: all of us age, and some of us matured. In the natural world, little boys are called son and girls daughters. For the fortunate these children grew up with parents, the historic “nuclear family”: a mother and a father committed to a permanent bond. Many grow up with only one permanent parent. Some with none. More and more of us grow up with multiple part time parents. Having a healthy, permanent parent/mentor relationship with an adult who has begotten you in becoming increasingly rare. Many people today have been more spawned than parented. The male having released his seed with no commitment and the female whose instinct appears to be simple to reproduce rather then to rear her young.

The fortunate have an advantage in being able to translate their natural childhood experience into a kingdom “leg-up” in learning to be an offspring of God. But all of us are on the learning curve somewhere. Kingdom ways are not natural, God’s ways are not our ways. The abused and wounded must be healed, our ignorance of God and His kingdom need to be filled up by wisdom and revelation of Him, our stupidity transformed by knowing Him.

Understanding our identity is key. It is the key to joyful kingdom living. This understanding defines success. “Sons of God” means friends with Christ. Kingdom sonship is more than a vocational journey, it is a family experience. Service in the kingdom is not a job, it is a lifestyle of “learning the family business”. It is a friendship walk with Christ. This service is not servitude.

Because of our fallen human condition, we are at a disadvantage and handicapped in our sonship experience. Our natural experience does not usually lead us to joyfully volunteer to work hard for our parent just because. We want rewarded, or maybe feel put out because we’re asked, or worse expected to behave or perform in a certain way. We want to “grow up” and be independent. Western individualism cherishes independence. It is equated with freedom. True freedom is so much more than independence and the personal liberty to do or not do. Freedom speaks to bondage and imprisonment.

As a son, we have continuous access to the Spirit of God. Where the spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. There is also fullness of joy. There is no bondage or servitude. No slavery or imprisonment; just a life giving, father and child relationship. As we mature to be just like our Father with kingdom benefits and rulership in and with Jesus the Christ.

In Search of Fellowship - Paula

So after recovering from the move a couple of weeks we went in search of fellowship. Ted got on Google and searched for Prophetic, Five Fold in Nashville. He found the Nashville House of Prayer (NHOP). In searching the sight we didn't find any Sunday services but found that it was hosted by the Belmont Church which had Sunday services. We Goggled the directions and went. The Belmont Church is downtown Nashville. The church is on Music Square. On the way to church we passed ASCAP and BMI along with a plethora of music publishing companies. The worship was great; up at the right of the stage was there was an artist with an easel doing an incredible chalk drawing. One of the many ministers shared of his ministry at the prisons maximum security section and death row. There was a great message on Mercy and its necessity in our lives. Overall it was a really great experience. There was lots of outreach and talent in the church. So we decided to go the Thursday night NHOP meeting. It was a small gathering, but after an hour of worship and an hour of prayer, the people who attended told us that most of them attended Grace Center in Franklin. They also mentioned the upcoming meetings with Larry Randolph, Bob Jones and Don Potter. So we again went back to Google Grace Center Franklin and found the directions.
Grace Center has a 9:30 am to 10:30 am "Soaking" session. Absolutely wonderful!!! The message was about Thanksgiving again an excellent word. Speaker made the point that if Thanksgiving was an event we have missed the point. It needs to be a lifestyle. We came home totally refreshed. The "Soaking" is like a spiritual sauna. I was even more relaxed than if I had spent an hour in a physical hot tube and sauna. We had opportunity to visit with half a dozen people and greet the pastor Jeff Dollar who prayed and prophesied a return to us. In visiting with various people they had come from Redding, Toronto, Brownsville, and Kansas City. Brenda Maddox has been telling us about an influx into the Nashville area.
So this morning we went back to Grace Center to "Soak" and attend the gathering. On my way into the building I noticed the "Soon To Be Healed" signs. The pastor Jeff has been reading John G Lake and is stirred with the relationship between spiritual hunger and the manifestations of Gods power in the earth. Out of worship the thing that sparked in my spirit was not that I don't have more of the miraculous because I am not hungry for the miraculous but my hunger needs to be centered on a hunger to manifest the glory of God. Is my life manifesting the glory of God? I don't want the grace to get more from God, but do more for his glory. God deserves more out of my life than what I have already done.

So here we are in Tennessee

This is one of God's "suddenlys" with in less than 60 days we went from living in our five bedroom 3500 square foot home for the past twenty three years in Idaho to a two bedroom 1100 square foot apartment in Nashville, Tennessee. On September 11th my manager at Dell sent out an e-mail apologizing for the short notice, but he would be at a managers meeting for the next few hours. A couple of hours later I got another e-mail saying there was a All Hands meeting from 3:00 pm to 4:00 pm. This is not the way to announce good news. I went home for my lunch break and asked Ted how he would like to moved to Poland. (A couple of years ago God put establishing a home in Poland in our hearts) When I showed up to the All Hands meeting they opened the meeting by announcing that Dell were closing the Twin Falls site and were offering transfers to anyone who wanted to transfer. One of the locations they were offering was Nashville along with Oklahoma City. Back in May we had just found old friends Dave and Brenda Maddox. We had lost track of them several years ago, but we called to and found out they live less than 10 miles from the Dell Nashville site. We felt that Nashville would be where we were to go. So here we are.Like most of God's "suddenlys" God began working on this move several years ago, but we had no clue what he was up to. It was time for Ted and I to take a six month sabbatical after Ted had recovered from a major bout with Multiple Sclerosis where his vision, speech, equilibrium, and emotional stability were all affected. Once we completed the sabbatical it was clear that were not to return to business as it was before we took the sabbatical. We began the process of turning over the pastorate of the Winepress Christian Fellowship to Tobby Kennedy who had been our assistant for years. So when the news came that it was time to relocate we were prepositioned.

Isn't God good.

It is always easier to recognize God’s dealings with us as we process it in context. You know what is said about hind-sight being 20/20. It is really more than just hind-sight: it is contextualizing God’s providence and recognizing that all things do work together for good. And that is not just our short term feelings of good. But the long term good of His kingdom.

I recognize that our grace to be in Twin Falls and in a position of responsibility in a local assembly had been waning for some time, maybe several years. It is difficult to admit that even as a prophetic person, short-sightedness concerning our own circumstances seems to be more the rule in my own lives than an exception.

Oh that Father would open the eyes of our understanding to understand Him better. Holding on to even what God may have given yesterday, including expectations for others held in a loose hand, with a loose grip. Faith is not always manifest in a tenacious stubbornness, especially when I fight against the Lord as He wants to take away and not just give. Praise Him for His grace to loose, the grace in failure, the grace to be emptied and be empty.

For me, I have found a great joy in the lightness, weightlessness, of being somewhat empty. I am learning to lower the expectations that I place on myself and balance and manage my expectations in general.