Since January there has been a turning point for me. I have taken the last 60 days or so and really focused hard on going deep in God’s word and wrestling with the traditions of my time. I am on the journey of asking hard questions to God’s way and His word. It is important for every Christian to ask hard questions and let the word divide bone and marrow, soul and spirit-and be to us, a sharp, living active sword(Heb.4:12; 2 Tim. 3:16)

But division takes time. It takes a daily pursuing of God. I have been ruined( in a good and Holy way) over my own lack of power in my life. I have(the full story to come one day) grown up in church but 10 years ago upon leaving high school and moving to Kansas City. I went through a radical shift upon what is called The Fear of God. The Fear of the Lord is clean, so it has not been a condemning journey, rather it has been of sweetness and life and abundance. I am just getting started in really getting truth in me. Truth is not just read, but prayed into. Truth is no just reading but in doing it. Faith without works is dead. What we lack is both faith and the grace to do the works. Works to be saved, just to feel saved, or be saved, however, is not the right attitude. Bitterness creeps in and next thing we know we are offended. Paul’s bold prayer ‘rooted and grounded..blameless and without offense.” Catch the last part ‘until the day of Christ.’ He is at the door, the judge Himself. He is the only one I need to be aware of. For the ‘secrets of men’ will be judged on that day.

I say this to say that this is the heart behind what I have been writing on in these poems. Its an overflow of the forgiven soul. I cannot get my mind off of stories like Noah and the flood, 2 Peter 3 and the patience of God’s promises. I cannot get off the 1,000 year reign of Christ.

I cannot get off this track of going after God with my whole heart. Our bodies are a temple. Our minds are the battlefield. Our heart is to be guarded..with all diligence. Our faith is to be rewarded in the diligent pursuit of His presence. Choose to fight or choose to coast through this life.

This is really some reflections on the many poems(some 100 since January) that you have been reading. I so value and appreciate everyone who follows and reads this blog. I feel I am just beginning to talk about valuable and eternal truths and things. I seek to love in everything I do.

I had written in ‘Body, Soul, Spirit, Mind and Body-Pt.1’ that it is more of the dynamic that we are not just spiritual beings clothed in flesh. I seek to expound on this more.

I have been reflecting a lot on family and manhood. I have a lot of bad memories of child hood. But I also carry with me the good ones too. One is not better or worse than the other. God clearly values memories because man rarely remembers. Man forgets of the wondrous works of God. Deuteronomy is a very clear example that in just a few generations the children of Israel were forgetting the days of the Exodus. They were hardening their hearts! It goes to show that tangible experience of God’s glory and presence, as manifested in the moving tabernacle(cloud by day, pillar by night), does not equate with closeness to God. Shall we forget that Israel sought to put their lives upon the covenant. They spoke with a ungodly fear: we shall do all that you command. The point of the law is the be the ‘tutor’ that brings us to Christ, that all who have faith shall be adopted, shall be called Sons and Daughters of the living God.

I am forgetting my own story. I am writing about my child hood( as I have for the past 5 years) because it is in that reflection that I find a child still living in me. There are parts of me that need healing and need to grow. It has been a wonderful season of rejoicing in the hard stuff. I had people in my face when I was 18 and had no clue what being a grown-up meant, I had people tell me to do the hard work. And it has stuck. I am doing it still, but there has been expansion on the inside. Do not give up, generation me, do not give up!

Knowing that we are forgiven causes us to forgive. Having mystery as a necessity is key to our walk with God. For it is without satisfaction that we stumble in many ways. It begins with our speech and what we say over ourselves. The love of self is key to loving at all.

I hope you have found conviction(as I am always preaching to me first) and life and encouragement in these poetic reflections. Let us go hard after God for He has truly made a way for us to do so. So many of life’s issues will be settled first upon submitting to the fulness of all that God has. If you do it now, it will not be something you regret as you get older. Be encouraged, that pain is never in vain, it will lead to something great.

I conclude with this: You will start to SEE that all things work together for good, for those who love Him, and called by His name..as you are called, chosen and adopted into the family of heaven. He will show you, and you will see that He is good in your heart, in your spirit, and in the way you look to him( in your body). Praise God, you are fearfully and wonderfully made!