This blog has long been a mix of ministry, personal updates, and thoughts, so you all probably won’t be surprised by this, but OJ has challenged me (Suz) to write a 7 day blog series on parenting.  This is a little intimidating A) because I have children and B) because I am a parent.

A) With a 5, 3, and 1 year old, is it possible to write 7 days in a row???  I guess we shall find out.

B) You know the day you try to share “parenting wisdom” is gonna be the day your children poop their pants, throw public tantrums, and bite someone else’s child.  There is truly nothing as humbling as marriage and parenting, but since I’m in good company when I boast in my weakness (2 Cor 11:30), I guess I’ll give it a go…

Starting at the Beginning…

Like anything else that is a long-term project, parenting is a mess unless the goals or target is always within sights.  The arrow has a long way to go before it hits the bull’s eye, but it all starts with identifying the target.  So when you picked their eye color, determined their height, and chose their IQ, what did you have in mind?  Oh, right.  We didn’t do that.  Because they’re not really ours.  They’re His.  So what’s His goal?  Here’s what Mal. 2:15 says in regards to you and me, i.e. “Mom” and “Dad.”

¹⁵ Didn’t the Lord make you one with your wife? In body and spirit you are his.^[a] And what does he want? Godly children from your union. So guard your heart; remain loyal to the wife of your youth. (emphasis mine)

Our kids are really His kids.  This is a word that is incredibly heavy, because it means (yes, it REALLY, REALLY does mean this) that we will stand before the Great White Throne and answer for whether or not we shot our little arrows at God’s target.  It is also incredibly freeing, because God always provides all the resources needed for what He’s ordained.  I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again.  He may not have ordained our job choices, career, our ministry choices, our geographic location, etc.  That all depends on how much our lives are submitted to Him.  HOWEVER, the raising of Godly kids is FOR SURE at all times ordained by God and under His provision, if we will take hold of it.  He is FOR our marriages (once married) and FOR our children.  He will provide everything needed for this task, because it is what He’s ordained and what He’s seeking:  Godly children.

Mal. 2:15 is a treasure trove in that it points us to the very, very first starting point for raising godly kids, which is the marriage.  But that is a whole different blog series, so I’ll move on the my original point.

Setting our Sights…

Godly children (or “offspring” in other translations) can be given this NT translation:  disciples.  God is seeking for us to make disciples of our children, whole-hearted followers of Jesus.  What incredible, beautiful vision!  What a lifetime achievement!  What hope and glory!  There is nothing optional about this!  This is why He knit these little people together…He is seeking to hold them close to Himself for all eternity!  How ludicrous to parent toward  polite behavior, academic or athletic achievement, or financial stability, when we have instead this glorious target, to make disciples who bear the image of the Beautiful One?  That’s what we got saved from, wasting our lives on that which is nothing in eternity.  All those other things are things that “…the heathen chase after…,” but “…will be added unto you…” when you seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness.  Mat. 6:31-34.

So what’s at the heart of being a disciple?  It’s very simple; it is submission.  This is the target we are aiming for, to present to the Lord children who are submitted to Him (this is, after all, what it means to call Him “Lord” Rom. 10:9).  This is a goal even better than obedience.  Immature, insecure, fearful people can obey, but it is the volitional response of a mature person of dignity to submit.  To obey is to do what someone wants, to submit is to want what another wants.  It is a bending of one’s will and relinquishment of agenda out of honor and love; it is beautiful and powerful.  It is Jesus’ posture toward His Father as described in Phil. 2.  This is why the Bible tells children to obey, but wives to submit.  We are, after all, preparing our children to be the Bride of Christ.  We aim the arrow by bringing them into obedience (honestly, that’s hard enough, eh?), but the target we are eyeing is that they would mature into lovers of Jesus, sharing His desires and acting on them at all times.

So what does this mean?  And why is it so doggone difficult?  It means war.  Or didn’t you know that the devil is roaming about like a lion, seeking whom (which of your children) he may devour (1Pet. 5:8)?  If you didn’t know, I hope I just scared you real good.  Because if you have children and don’t know you’re in a war to the death over their souls, there is no time to waste.

Tomorrow:  understanding the battle.

Well, hopefully tomorrow!

Today is a big day for the McDowells. We have become FULLY CONVINCED that Jesus was talking to us when He said, “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you…” Jn. 20:21. After these years of training, we feel the weight of the love for the world that drove Jesus to bring deliverance to those who had NO HOPE. Paul sums it up: “For the love of Christ compels us…that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.” 2 Cor. 5:13-15. But to understand how we got here and what’s different about today, I have to tell you about…

Yesterday.

Three kids and six years ago, when we were married, we printed on our wedding program Isaiah 61, figuring that whatever Jesus was about, we wanted to be about, too. At the time, we were being rocked by His ministry in our own lives, as He set us free, healed our areas of broken-heartedness, and planted His good news in us. We boldly proclaimed to the congregation (to paraphrase): “This is what we’re about! Slap us upside the head if you ever find us doing otherwise!” We meant it. In between then and now, here’s what we’ve been up to:

• Prayer Ministry: This is a poor name for it, but “ministering the gospel of Jesus Christ specifically to an individual’s unique areas of need through prophetic revelation” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. Our brains fry when we try to count, but we’ve been privileged to have personal prayer times with several hundreds of people over the last seven years. When the Lord speaks, hearts open, marriages get restored, bondage is destroyed, and the indescribable value of each of His children is made abundantly clear. On one ministry trip, we only had a few minutes to pray for a young Korean woman, but as the Lord showed pictures from her childhood, tears flowed like rivers from her eyes. This young woman had almost never experienced affection in her family, and there was a mighty impact when strangers described to her through a translator her secret pain. We were sent from so far to tell her God saw her, knew her, loved her…and would free her from self-hatred. I can’t forget the older European gentleman who choked when God spoke to his depression and the abusive discipline of his childhood home. He simply believed on Jesus’ power to set him free and was jumping at the end of the prayer time, “I’m free! I’m free!” Like the woman at the well, he ran to tell everybody.
• Evangelism: This has become our burning passion, what we think about day and night! From starting a gospel service for the homeless in downtown Tacoma, to telling kids at the park about Jesus’ love, to sharing with other young moms, to college ministry, to jr. high school ministry…you name it, we like it. I remember one homeless mom who stayed with us with her young son. She listened to what we said with a furrowed brow, taking cigarette breaks outside, and then simply decided to turn her whole life over to Jesus, immediately moving to join a discipleship community. I remember one little crowd of African-American girls who gathered round at the park to hear what God would “say” about them. They were so hungry for a sense of significance, they laughed and jumped up and down when strangers accurately described details about them, and told them that Jesus had great purpose for each of them.
• Discipleship: If evangelism brings new birth, discipleship is the privilege of nurturing the young life into maturity. The folks we’ve discipled over these past years have been lodged so deep into our hearts, we can’t get ‘em out. To have spiritual “kids” who once were practicing witchcraft, suicidal, mutilating themselves, and fornicating, but are now walking in truth, being restored to wholeness, raising godly children, and making more disciples is…well, there just are no words for that kind of joy. We are addicted to discipleship, and feel, looking back, that none of our resources have been better spent than the ones poured into this. We love teaching and training, but that just flows out of our hearts to disciple, to spur others on to fully follow Jesus.
• International Ministry: What is this? Well, just all of the above, done somewhere else. In the past 7 years, we’ve been to six countries, ministered to missionaries from many different nations with teaching, training, and prayer. But that’s just the beginning, because here’s what’s coming…

Tomorrow:

For years, the Lord has been speaking to us about a major move of God among the emerging generation. We see rumblings of this around the country and world, but believe there is something coming never before seen. That’s why we think of everything that’s gone before in our lives as training…we believe that God’s going to bring together all the pieces often fragmented in the church (evangelism, discipleship, restoration of the heart, and prayer) to bring unprecedented wholeness and equipping to a generation marked by unprecedented destruction. Did you know that while in our grandparents generation, 65% were church goers, hearing some form of the gospel, only 3% of eleven year olds today are regular church attenders? American youth are essentially an unreached people group. Witchcraft, perversion, and addiction are normal to this generation, and instead of being the greatest exporter of missions, we are now the greatest exporter of pornography, secular humanism, and materialism. Our nation is now outdoing the unevangelized nations of the world in exploits of wickedness. This sounds dire…because it is.

BUT God is not intimidated. In fact, He’s never been intimidated by sin or brokenness or statistics. On the contrary, we’ve been astonished to learn how tenderly His heart is yearning for all His little ones, His lost sheep, and how little concern He has what for what kind of mire they are in, because the blood of His Son Jesus will wash it all away! We see this generation in the story of the sinful woman in Luke 7, having an extravagant love for the Savior because they will have been forgiven much. But “how then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written:
“ How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace,
Who bring glad tidings of good things!” Rom. 10:14-15

Which brings us back to:

Today:

For these past seven years since leaving the army, OJ has operated our small business. His hard work ensured our financial needs were taken care of, so we could obey as God added babies, seminary, travel, and all the ministry described above to the schedule. Until now, just about every bit of ministry we’ve done has been on our time and our dime, which taught us this: there is no such thing as “ours!” It all belongs to Him! During these years split between the marketplace and ministry, we are so glad to have learned things we couldn’t have learned any other way: hard work, perseverance, total marriage teamwork, and sensitivity to the Holy Spirit to ensure all the kids’ needs are abundantly met. But today, it’s become clear that the need is too great, and we simply must devote all our time to ministry, particularly to the emerging generation.

We thought of all sorts of great solutions to allow us to go into full-time ministry and support ourselves, but God did not care for our good ideas. He has essentially shut every one of them down, and we finally realized this is why: “…how shall they preach unless they are sent?” He’s been gently informing us that we are not the only ones who are burdened for this generation and the gospel, that there are many on this team! It took us awhile to get this idea into our heads; sorry for being slow on the uptake!

We are asking you, if you share this desire, to SEND us to this next generation. OJ has already stopped working full-time out of obedience, and there are more requests for prayer and opportunities to teach than we can keep up with. We’re sending this because we know that God is causing some hearts to leap. If what we’re talking about makes your heart skip a beat, then we want to hear from you! This is the whole church’s calling, and we want to stir up everyone to be ready to care for the new converts God will bring in through the MANY preachers He is sending to the field. We love to share the vision, train, and minister for this purpose! In the immediate, we need a team of partners praying for us, encouraging us, and helping to finance this work. Please consider if the Lord would have you SEND us; we’re dying to go!

…since I’ve written a post.  I haven’t known how to put on paper what’s been going on in our hearts and home.  A couple months ago, OJ and I began a season of fasting and prayer in desperation…just desperation to get the message inside of us out.  Sometimes it seems lodged there, somewhere between the gut and the tongue, sometimes causing indigestion.  We’ve had lots of conversations, and some just FLY.  And others just seem so awkward, like we’re trying to talk around our feet as they are permanently lodged in our mouths.  Feel free to picture that for your own amusement.

Here’s what we’ve been talking about.  THE GOSPEL.  Is it, or is it not, the answer to every single one of your problems, my problems, and your neighbors problems?  OJ and I are contending that it is.  Contend with whom?  Well, here’s the catch.  Contention always comes with those who most agree with us.  Stick with me for a minute.  Recently I was beginning to introduce a woman to the Lord, and i told her in the middle of other sentences, “God loves you.”  Before I could go on, she murmured, “I know…”  as if that was already covered.  I looked at her with her sad face, tired eyes, and hopeless demeanor, and shot back immediately, “No, you don’t.”  There was nothing argumentative in it, whatsoever.  It was a simple statement of the most obvious fact at that moment.  If there’s anything that this precious lost one did not KNOW, it was that God LOVES her.  Because if God really LOVES her, then…well, a child could figure it out…her problems are solved.  Imagine a woman being pursued by suitors.  If an illiterate foreigner in a far away land loves her, that’s nice, but there are some obvious problems.  Or if a mentally unstable janitor with iffy residence history loves her, there may be some kinks to work out in her life plan.  Or if a  workaholic businessman with a summer bungalow and hallitosis loves her, there could still be significant worries.  You get the picture.  But if GOD loves her, what exactly does she have to worry about?  And so it was very easy to say, “No, you don’t know that God loves you.”

Everybody has problems and the world is full of destruction.  And so, as we know from the Christmas story, God had thousands of angels show up to fill the sky and make it ring out with the news…the NEWS…THE NEWS THAT GOD WAS, RIGHT THEN, BRINGING PEACE TO MEN.  The news that as much as humanity has proved itself the guiltiest possible race, having reveled in every crime imaginable in every corner of creation over and over and over again…just when it seemed creation could no longer put up with the unutterable wickedness that is our human history, God announces GOODWILL, the unthinkable.  Jesus, our peace.  Our PEACE.  Either He is or He isn’t.  I’m telling the lost that He is.  But most of us are still praying for peace, as if someday they will find it.  JOY TO THE WORLD!!!  Either that’s what came or it didn’t.  But why are we still hoping to someday find joy?  Where is the joy?  DId Jesus come, or are we still praying for that?  Life abundant, rivers of living water, everlasting life…these are the things that Jesus said we would have if we come to Him.  He also healed the diseases of all who came.  These are Jesus’ words, not mine!  Jesus didn’t make an invitation to come to Him, so we could join the club that prays for peace, and tries to have joy, and wishes they were more loving.  He spoke simply to simple people (these quotes are from Jn 3,4,5):

He who believes in the Son has everlasting life…

He who believes in Him is not condemned…

You must be born again (born of the Spirit).

…whoever believes in Him should not perish…

…Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst.

…he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.

OJ and I began to confront the questions raised by Mark 16 and Jn 14:12-14, where the Lord talks about the works that will follow those who believe.  But here’s what really came up for us when we got honest, was that while the works Jesus mentions expose our unbelief because they are tangible evidence, the unbelief is really rooted much, much deeper than that.  When it comes to the basics of the GOSPEL, (take for instance the quotes above), we have so much unbelief.  The unbelief is so deep, so pervasive.  Because if we have been born again, given everlasting life, are not condemned, don’t miss how simple this is…we should not be perishing.  We should not be thirsty.  We should not be dying, because we’ve passed into life.  But most of the time, we find ourselves getting together seeking some water for our thirst, praying over all that’s perishing in our lives, and feeling condemned.  For goodness’ sake, the only people I’ve ever heard talk about feeling condemned are Christians!  These are the issues we can claim to believe without ever realizing that we don’t, at least not fully.  Unless someone confronts the distance between the EVERLASTING WORDS OF LIFE that we say we believe, but come drivelling out of our mouths powerlessly as religious platitudes.  Unless someone does like I did for my unsaved friend with the sad face who claimed to know that God loves her.  “No, you don’t.”

So for OJ and me, we’ve decided to jump in fully.  To say to ourselves, “What exactly is the problem?”  Is it not simply that in some way, we do not believe Jesus?  Because how sad?  How angry?  How to feel like a failure?  How to be hopeless?  How?  If even one of those statements Jesus said is even only mostly true, how do we live in sorrow, depression, and anxiety?  What exactly is the problem?

Jesus is so clear.  so simple.  “Why are you afraid?” He asks the men on boat as the storm throws water into the boat.  He is LORD.  He is LORD.  He is LORD.  What problem?  What disappointment?  What failure?  What sorrow?  What anxiety?  He is LORD.  There is only one problem:  it is unbelief.

Final note:  trying to believe is not the same as believing.  A simple way to know if we believe is to survey our life to find out how much of it depends on God being real.  Like if God’s not real, it will go bust.  The heroes of faith Jesus thought worth mentioning in the NT (thinking of Bartimaeus, the woman with the issue of blood, the lepers…note the common thread of desperation) held NOTHING together.  These were folks who were so unable to cope with the extent of their perishing that if Jesus was not real, they were done for.  One of the greatest obstacles to true faith is a lack of desperation.  When we can cope with the level to which we are experiencing perishing (be it marriages, our children, our finances, our health, our heart-brokenness) ourselves, then we can throw prayers of unbelief out all day long.  But when we can’t go on any further unless He breaks through, when we actually need Him to be real…this is where we find faith.  God bless you!

The kids and I have been sick for the last week or so, presumably with swine flu.  It really hasn’t been that bad, in our case.  Pretty mild, considering all the hysteria.  But it does last awhile, and we are definitely getting stir crazy without our usual routine of activities…

Anyway, I needed a lot of help, and the Lord is faithful, of course.  Here are the things the Holy Spirit’s been reminding me of today:

1.  I’ve totally been forgotting to play worship and dance with the kids!  After all, how can I accurately teach them about God and not have celebratory dancing involved???  (This is why being a mom is way better than being a pastor). Granted, there’s not a lot of energy around here for dancing, but it was worth spending the little bit we had…sets us all a-right.  This reminded me that…

2.  I am sick and tired, and that’s all right.  I can still have joy.  That’s just life on the planet Earth.

3.  There are times when there is no chance the house will come within a mile of what you’d call “clean,” but if it’s alright with Jesus, it needs to be alright with me.

4.  I need breakthrough.  If I am fed up with myself when I don’t get it the first try, I will definitely never get it.  Jesus is not fed up with me, so here I go again, a-hunting after holiness!

5.  Do not try to correct a three year-old for being loud and repeating everything he says 5-10 times.  It does not matter that it drives me crazy.  Get a different car and drive somewhere else.  He’s three.

6.  Speaking of loud, there are three of them and we haven’t been out of the house substantially for days.  It’s going to be loud.  If it’s not loud, they’re asleep.

7.  Speaking of sleep, they need more than I think when they’re sick.

8.  Speaking of thinking, Nutella’s a good idea for getting sick kids to eat.

9.  Speaking of Nutella…mmm.  Now, you may ask if that was really something the Lord reminded me of.  I don’t know.

10.  If Ihave unbelief about mycalling, I’ll live angry.  This has two sub-reminders:

a. If Iforget my calling, others will not remember it for me.

b. If I have unbelief over my calling (or obedience to the Lord’s instructions), I will probably primarily concern myself with people who do not believe in my calling.  I will become angry with them, as well as being angry in general.  Unbelief is always wrong (both sinful and inaccurate).

If something’s pressing against you (fear, unbelief, anger, hopelessness…), mighty warrior of God, press back!!!  You’ll win.  Judges 6:12-14

I have seen the look on many women’s faces, the pain and emptiness of wanting children but not being able to have any.  Tonight, I can’t sleep, wanting to yell to the Lovely Lady, the Bride of Christ:  This is true barrnenness, to have not made disciples.  Just the other day, I heard another new mom say to me, “I never could have understood what it meant, until I actually had her (the new baby)…”  The power of that transformation is forever and undeniable, and nothing could ever take that new mommy and daddy back to childlessness without utterly wracking their souls.  They probably would rather die than be childless again.

For more than 25 years of my Christian life, I was utterly disconnected from this command of the Savior, to go and make disciples.  The crazy thing is, I had no idea that I was.  Strangely. it never occurred to me to ask myself if I had ever made a disciple.  It wasn’t that I meant to miss the fundamental purpose for my being on the earth.  Once again, STRANGELY, it just didn’t occur to me.  Even looking back I can’t explain it.  I don’t know that I ever thought about it, but if I did, I guess I thought that somehow that was the function of the church, to disciple people.  You know, like evangelism equals inviting people to an evangelistic event, discipleship must equal inviting people to attend church.  No, make that a small group.

Just as no parent in their right mind would think a school could substitute for his and her love and discipline, hoping the message on Sunday applies directly to Johnny Appleseed’s life and that he will somehow achieve sanctification and maturity without any intentional development is just plain bonkers.

This is a painful story to share, but it displays just how disconnected I was.  In college, while overseas, I led a roommate to the Lord.  Well, I invited her to church with me, and there she (I thought) received the Lord.  I cannot remember now how clearly I ever articulated the entirety of the gospel, giving her a chance to believe and repent.  I don’t remember if I explained how to be born again to her clearly enough that she could articulate it to someone else.  I shared much with her, in bits and pieces.  I shared scriptures with her, as things came up.  I was extremely attentive to her, and I loved her with all my heart.  I took her to church.  I was a devoted friend, and I did the best I knew how.

Fundamentally, I also abdicated the commands of the Lord to a body who was never supposed to carry them.  The little branch of a branch of a church plant with 20 or so excited young believers that represented “where I went to church.”  I think she did begin to follow the Lord, but I never took responsibility for the newborn baby who’d been placed in my care.  I was reactive to her, like a friend to an orphan, but I did not take her in.  I did not consider the foundation that needed to be laid, oversee her development, pray her through to the other side, or even know that I should consider doing any of those things.  I thought that the church did that.  She was utterly unprepared to return to her spiritually dead home after our year overseas together and no longer follows the Lord at all, as far as I know.  I still cry out for mercy on her behalf, that God would send someone to do what I did not.

As I said above, discipleship is like parenting, in many ways.  One, there is a joy in it that will change you forever, and an empty barrenness in a life devoid of it, whether that is recognized or not.  Secondly, it is the filling up of your spiritual home, the lines of your eternal generations, your inheritance forever and ever that will go on to bear fruit long after your body is dead.  It is fundamentally what we are made for, and life without it is a dull form of misery.  There is no thrill like discipling someone hungry for truth, nothing like speaking the faithful words of scripture and seeing confusion turn to clarity, despair to hope, brokenness to wholeness.  When you disciple a woman whose never known a loving family, you may have changed the future of her children from agony to health.  And her children’s children, and so on, and so on.  When you rescue a young person from secular social justice and teach them the gospel, you may have just opened a gateway for thousands to come to salvation for all eternity, rather than getting fed for a few years.  Discipleship is true ministry.  Every other form is a shadow or facet of it.

Discipleship is what Jesus did.  It cannot be done by a church or by a small group.  It is person to person, requiring sacrificial love and faithful truth pouring out from the discipler and some humility and hunger from the disciple.  It is utterly simple in concept, and utterly impossible in practice except by the empowerment of the Spirit.  It has a bad reputation for having been done so often in the flesh.  It cannot be done by a teacher from the podium.  That is nice, but it is not discipleship.  It is a shadow, because it requires little love from the teacher, and little humility from the student.

Just like that new mom who “didn’t know” until she did it herself, I didn’t know who I was until I began discipling.  Ladies who’ve run with me know that the joy it fills me with literally makes it impossible for me to sit down while I share the Word.  They may not know that I find it impossible to pray for their wounds without weeping, impossible to speak hard truths without shaking, impossible to watch them fall without aching, impossible to stop loving them.  Discipleship is hard, for sure, like parenting.  I have been resented, resisted, and at times, totally rejected.  AND I do not regret one minute of it.  Probably most of the occasion was given by my own (blundering) mistakes made along the way.  Either way, I could not stop wanting any one of those ladies to win, no matter what.

I’m telling you the truth, you don’t know who you (in a good way!) are until you are discipling. It’s what we are made for.  I’m so addicted that I have to get up in the middle of the night and try to disciple the cyberworld through a blog.  Maybe I’ll be able to sleep now that I’ve had a heart to heart with the Beautiful Bride here on ojandsuz.com.  :)  So go make some disciples, teaching them everything He commanded us (Mat. 28:19).  I guarantee your prayer life will go through the roof, your maturity and sanctification will accelerate, your humility will skyrocket, and your joy will be full.

Finally–I’m SO THANKFUL to those who have discipled me!  Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Today is Ariel’s birthay.  Five years ago today, just about the time I write this the life of the most delightful girl I’ve ever known hung in the balance as light and dark clashed in the heavenlies.  The doctors’ report:  prepare for her death.  The Lord’s report: [I] have taught children and infants to tell of [My] strength, silencing [My] enemies and all who oppose [Me].  Ps. 8:2.  She had been born with Meconium Aspiration Syndrome, whisked away from me before I could hold her, and put on ventilators.  By this time of her first day, her lungs had collapsed twice, and the airlift team from the best children’s hospital in the Northwest was on the ground at Madigan Army Hospital, preparing her tiny body for transfer.

OJ and I had been married for only 14 months at this point, filled with excitement over the birth of our first baby, the baby we couldn’t wait for, though everyone said to give ourselves a year before conceiving.  We were filled with zest and excitement for life and the kingdom of God, raring to go, considering returning to our alma mater to minister to the students there through Residence Life so OJ could get a Masters Degree.  We were all optimism, and the thought had never crossed our minds that sorrow could take our hearts and destroy them right in front of us.  When the staff finally made us understand how sick Ariel was, I think there was a gasp heard all over the country, maybe even the world, and hundreds of knees hit the ground.  Her precious life…a cry rose up to God from all around.  My father wept in Chicago, my sister alerted the intercessors at the House of Prayer in Kansas City, and OJ made a phone call to our pastor and leader in Tacoma, leaving a message on their answering machine.  “Brian, our baby’s really sick…please…”

OJ and I had already been so transformed and impacted in our brief time in Tacoma, we knew it was a special place.  In fact, we were chomping at the bit to get back to our former lives and tell them all we had learned.  We’d already probably offended most of our friends with loud proclamations and preaching, certain everyone would want to hear the good news of freedom in Christ.  We were who we were.  We had pulled our car up to the take-out window, and gotten (we felt) enough for ourselves and everyone we knew.  We were getting ready to pull out and attempt to deliver the goods when Ariel’s birth happened all wrong.  There was a place in our hearts God wanted to access fast, and there’s no way there except by severity.  Desperation.

I remember the moment that the spirit of despair landed on me.  I was semi-prone in the hospital bed when OJ brought back the news of the second collapse of her lungs, and I remember the moment.   I remember the panic.  I remember the fear, which was knowledge of a sort.  There had been a little whisper of a question somewhere deep down for the hours previously, but at that moment, I knew she was going to die.  There was no more talking or listening or hearing for me.  I was not me anymore.  I was just there.  I was in that state when OJ was rolling me past the maternity ward doors to the NICU.  They opened and Brian came walking miraculously through, having been passed through a multitude of military checkpoints with no valid pass.  I couldn’t look up to see his face, but I remember his hands, which were at my eye level in my wheelchair.  They were shaking, and I heard him say, “We asked the Lord every which way, and every time He said this baby’s going to live.”  Those words were like drops of water in my mouth, cracking and burning with dryness.  That was the day I became addicted to the clear voice of Lord, and my ears became dull to anybody else’s opinions.

OJ left me in the care of my midwife, and took my mom and Brian to Ariel’s room.  Numerous hospital staff buzzed around in addition to the blue-smocked chopper team, and a nurse spoke to Brian as he entered, “You have to help these parents understand that the baby’s going to die.”  Elizabeth had called and someone had pressed the phone to my ear so I could hear her sob, “Listen, Suz, listen to this…”  She held her phone out to the prayer room, where hundreds of intercessors were lifting my baby up in prayer, and Misty was singing, “Ariel, breathe…Ariel, breathe…”  Ariel, Lioness of God, name for Jesus’ beloved city…Ariel was a burden that would not lift, and those praying, I later came to find out, literally could not relent.  The Spirit was carrying a cry in the room that only increased, and no one could move on.

While OJ, Brian, and my mom warred for her inside the NICU, I sat whimpering in a separate waiting room.  The room was quiet and dark and then something like a silent wind blew through, and my soul passed out of a cave.  A thousand weights lifted off of me, and physically I lifted my head, not realizing till that moment that I hadn’t previously been able to.  In a moment, I went from knowing that Ariel was dying to knowing, with certainty, that she would live.  I looked at the midwife and said, “She’s going to live!”  She said soothingly, “That’s right, honey…”  And I corrected her, “No.  You don’t understand.  She’s going to live.”  I asked them as soon as they walked through the door, “What happened in there?  Everything is different.”  They replied, “We rebuked the spirit of fear…”  That was the day that we put on our armor, took up the sword, and became freedom fighters.   For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.  II Tim 1:7

We bowed our heads to pray together, and my heart began to remember the things the Lord had told me about this baby throughout the months of loving her in my growing middle.  Sweet things, like that she would have red hair.  Powerful things, like that she would be used for salvation in Israel when He spoke Zech. 12:10 to me, long before I knew that my little one would be pierced and that I would know a taste of mourning for my firstborn.  Encouraging things, like that we were a family marked by joy and she would be full of laughter.  It was that last remembrance that tightened my stomach, and I nearly yelled out loud as I understood the scheme to destroy our little family’s joy just as it was getting started.  To sideline us, stop us, gut us.  I remember being righteously enraged, and proclaiming Psalm 8:2 over her.  I remember a peace so profound, and a joy so deep coming over the room that we literally could not pray any more.  All there was to be done was done. I remember looking at one another, wondering what to say, when they came to bring us to say goodbye to her before the airlift.  Babies often don’t survive that trip, they told us.  That was the day we broke ties publicly with the report of men, boldly telling our girl that she would be just fine…

There are a hundred other stories, like how they told us she would be weeks in Intensive Care and instead she was home within days, and of bringing Ariel into the midst of our church Body a week later…how we all wept and cheered for the miracle in our midst.   But there’s one more that I only just learned recently since moving to Kansas City.  Many people have remembered praying for Ariel, that night all those years ago, one being the prayer leader of the session.  He recalled it clearly, and told me of the burden of the Spirit, about not being able to get the people to stop praying, about the unction on it.  And so for more than an hour, they sang and prayed and beseeched the Lord God Almighty…and then suddenly, he said, it lifted.   All there was to be done was done. I asked what time it all took place, and sure enough, it was just about the time we were sitting in that little room, smiling at one another.  That was the day Ariel was born.

Next time some erring evangelical caught in scandalous sin pulls the “David and Bathsheba” card, take a moment to clarify that David paid for his sin with the death of his child.  Though he was ultimately atoned for and forgiven, God’s judgement for David’s outrages still came down, and his son died.  David’s reaction:  to rise up, wash, and worship God.  David considered God merciful, knowing he deserved much worse.  He deserved to lose everything, and was thankful for his light sentence.

Also, David’s repentance followed his sin being revealed to him in private, not to the public.  That’s just called “getting caught.”  This is in contrast to folks who, upon getting exposed, compare themselves to David to explain why  they should not lose standing almost in the same breath as they express their regret.  This is not repentance.

There is no self-pity or self-preservation in true repentance.  Only worship at the mercy of God for not giving out the full measure of wrath that is deserved.  So when you hear someone grasping for their kingdom with one side of their mouth as their druel and self-pity drips from the other, please release King David from this posthumous association.

Hey, church.  Let’s acquaint ourselves with biblical repentance.  Our salvation depends on it. 

And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Luke 1:17

When I was in college , I sung an oratorio by Mendehlssohn called Elijah. Three hundred plus singers, a jawdropping baritone in the lead, and a full orchestra (I was just one of the three hundred, definitely.)  We only performed it 2 or 3 times, but I wept every time.  Rehearsals preceded it for months.  Three hours of scripture pinned to staff and bar by a rare genius.  I can still come to tears just mulling over some of its moments in my heart.  Like when the whole frantic choir cries out full volume to Baal, to be met with total silence.  Or when we sang through the earthquake, the tornado, and the fire, only to finally hear His voice in the still quiet.  Or when Elijah shoots back with the authority of God at King Ahab after his whiny accusation that the prophet is a pest to Israel, NOT I, AHAB, BUT YOU… YOU TROUBLE ISRAEL.  Your sin, your compromise, your false peace and promiscuity leading these blind and foolish people down to death.  YOU TROUBLE ISRAEL.  Moments of pure triumph, even though he was one against hundreds of thousands.

Just memorizing the songs (scripture verses), God would confront me.  When the children of Israel cried out to Baal, I was shaken up at the fortissimo infidelity, and wondered about singing the words myself when it dawned on me that they were truly supplicating a demon.  (I determined this was okay as I would not myself be speaking to said demon.)  I remember sharing my consideration with a friend, who looked at me with a mocking look, and said, “Or maybe they were just talking to a carving?”  This friend was, as were most of the students at my excellent Christian college, mostly unfamiliar with the Bible.  But I was too immature to realize that and just felt stupid at the time.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom…  Ps. 111:10 I guess I could probably think of a lot of times that fearing God has made me feel very stupid in company.  Anyone who fears God can.  But God does not have an agenda of rescuing us from that situation.  On the contrary, He’ll let them come to drive out the fear of man.  Fear of man and fear of God are like oil and vinegar.  They don’t mix.  I tried really, really hard to do it, especially in college.  Picture your hand on the bottle of House Italian about to drench your salad.  I shook that hard, but it still didn’t last.  The question for that friend and most of the church is simple, “Why do you put forth opinions about anything when you don’t know what God says?” It’s an honest question, not a rude one.  “Doesn’t that scare you?” Back in college I couldn’t have asked the question, because it presents a test that I was failing at the time.  I loved the Lord, but my fear of God level was looking low next to my “love His grace” and “thankful for His blessing” gauges.  Saved, but frequently stupid.

Note:  fearing God is not the same thing as fearing breaking the rules.  This is why folks sometimes known in our culture as “fundamentalists,” can be so extraordinarily unwise, as can folks who work the hardest, strive the most, or seem the most ardent for God.  But immature people will often defend their compromise by pointing to the religious as if they’re proof of the foolishness of zeal.  God’s equations always prove true.   Don’t worry about how hard someone seems to serve God.  If they truly fear Him, there will be wisdom.  If there’s a lack of wisdom, there’s a lack somewhere of the fear of God.

“Doesn’t that scare you?” I recently overheard a man postulating about homosexuality and the church at my gym.  While I worked out, I read Ps. 119.  Ps 119 is super repetitive, just perfect for a born fool like me.  Or didn’t you know?  Folly is bound up in the heart of a child… Prov 22:15a.  One thing you can be sure of every person you meet, they were born a fool.  And they still are, except where the discipline of the Lord has driven it from them.  This is something you already know if you’ve read Proverbs.  I may sing, shout, sway and pray, but if I hate the discipline of God and ignore His precepts, I’m just a fool gonna live foolish.  This explains a whole lot of church (the wise amongst us will say to ourselves, “This explains a whole lot of my life.”).

Here is the other thing that explains a lot of church.  The rest of Ps.  111:10:  “…a good understanding have all those who do His commandments.“  This is why many students at excellent Christian colleges can be so unfamiliar with their familiar Bibles, and why seminary can be so wholly unproductive.  You don’t gain wisdom by merely reading or even studying the Bible, but by doing it.  In other words, if you don’t come to it already bowed low in your heart, fearing God and forcefully subjecting your thinking to His, you won’t get much out of it.  You can faithfully read it for years, but still be as foolish as when you found it.

Back to my story.  I was reading Ps. 119, thinking about this guy’s personal thoughts on gay church-goers which he was making public, and shaking inwardly for him.  I had a picture of a Bible, dusty on a shelf in His house, in a version he couldn’t understand.  “Isn’t he scared to spout opinions with no idea what God says?” He was not scared.  Not at all.  I was grappling.   How could he not be scared?  My heart was broken for him.  About my age, and already a failed marriage and a toddler girl he and his ex throw back and forth, and still spouting ungodly opinions like he had something to say.  And the perfect answer sitting unconsulted on His shelf.  This is the plight of the fool.

Lest anyone be concerned that I somehow think myself better, I have to tell you the truth.  I majored in foolishness.  No, literally.  If we could define foolishness (or one glaring aspect of it) as thinking you have something to say while willfully ignorant of what God’s said, then I really did major in foolishness.  I was a philosophy major, and even in my immature state of shaking the salad dressing, even I picked up on a few problems during my time in that esteemed department.

Number one problem:  it was understood that only stupid people accepted authority of scripture as establishing anything as true.  Sure, that was fine for a catechism, but we are thinkers and this is not sunday school.

Number two problem:  most of the people in the department were personally obnoxious to some degree due to their superiority complexes or social ineptitude, or became so with every year advanced in study.

Number three problem:  in the esteemed intellectual laboratory, all faith was placed in our own human abilities to lead us to the right conclusions.  The concept is that if the thinking is challenged rigorously enough, this must work.  Except that once again, we are just our own human standard.  Just as the alpha male monkey who struts his stuff inside the cage is still only comparing himself to other monkeys, while two year olds make fun of him just outside the glass.  Augustine and a few other Christians on the shelf knew our minds were not supreme, but as students we were not taught this, but to study them and then determine if they were right.  See the conundrum?  Why not just wear t-shirts saying, “I am God, except while I’m in church”?  If only the Philosophy department had one foundational class that explains the Biblical concept that pride equals foolishness, maybe people wouldn’t waste their lives searching after something their own heart condition guarantees they will not find.  But then maybe there wouldn’t be a Phil department left; I don’t know.

AAAAAAAAuuuuuuuuggggggghhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  The tragedy of spending hours, months, years reading, studying, poring over the thoughts of ungodly, unsanctified, (many of them) God-hating fools (Ps. 53:1, Ps. 14:1), and neglecting the WORD HIMSELF.  It stirs me to, well, to cry out for wisdom.

³¹ The ear that hears the rebukes of life
Will abide among the wise.
³² He who disdains instruction despises his own soul,
But he who heeds rebuke gets understanding.  Prov.15

Oh, God, send the righteous rebukes my way!  I long for your wisdom.  I long to obey, but my thoughts are futile apart from your instruction.  Send me truthspeakers, send me wise leadership, open up your secrets to me!  And then clarify my mind, in the Spirit of Elijah, to tell the truth in the face of the compromised, undiscerning, confused Christianity that proclaims peace without obedience and forgiveness without fear of God…

¹⁶ But to the wicked God says:
“What right have you to declare My statutes,
Or take My covenant in your mouth,
¹⁷ Seeing you hate instruction
And cast My words behind you?
¹⁸ When you saw a thief, you consented^[a] with him,
And have been a partaker with adulterers.
¹⁹ You give your mouth to evil,
And your tongue frames deceit.
²⁰ You sit and speak against your brother;
You slander your own mother’s son.
²¹ These things you have done, and I kept silent;
You thought that I was altogether like you;
But I will rebuke you,
And set them in order before your eyes.  Ps. 50

My son, if you receive my words,
And treasure my commands within you,
² So that you incline your ear to wisdom,
And apply your heart to understanding;
³ Yes, if you cry out for discernment,
And lift up your voice for understanding,
⁴ If you seek her as silver,
And search for her as for hidden treasures;
⁵ Then you will understand the fear of the LORD,
And find the knowledge of God.
⁶ For the LORD gives wisdom;
From His mouth come knowledge and understanding…  Prov 2:1-6

…with the kindest Man the world has ever known.  How could I not be?

The world presses back the stretching mom with her little ones into irrelevance and ignominy, but her eyes see something eternal.  She fights a tide of “You’re nothing, you’re irrelevant, you’re not doing anything.”  Some days it’s a rip tide, threatening to tear her under, and God help her if there’s no one there to see.  But she loads all the little ones on her back and presses against the tide, driven by something this world does not count for much.

And so she presses, sure there must be something for her if she keeps on.  She’s got her own weight to get through the crowd, and also the crawling weight of the little ones, who are never still.  She’s pushing through unseeing, unwelcoming systems and people.  Without any words, they tell her that she will miss everything, be busy wiping a nose at just the right moment, that she’ll try to run and chase the Teacher, but the children will stumble, and together they’ll be left behind.  But she keeps trying and pushing, just in case there might be something for her.

And then when she gets close, the guys in charge rebuke her.  “There’s no time.  Go back.”  But her heart is saying, “They’re wrong!  I know my children matter.  I know they do…”  But what can she say?  She’s just a mom, her arms are aching and the kids won’t last much longer.  Soon, she’ll need to nurse.  Did she try so hard for nothing?

Then…His voice, undignified.  “Stop it!  Stop it!  Let them through!  DO NOT FORBID THEM!”  And the brown, tender carpenter is running toward her, now, eyes on her small son.  “Bring them to me…”  And the heavy babe who’s about to break her arm has wriggled to the ground to leap at the One with the strong voice and the gladness in His eyes.  She rubs her bicep and hears her daughter whisper, “Mama, I think He likes us…is He glad we came?”

And everyone has to bend down and strain to hear what He says, because he’s low to the ground, level with the little ones.  She holds her breath because He’s talking to her son.  “Now, here you are.  I’ve been looking for you.  Will you help me talk to the people?  Climb up here in my arms, what a strong little warrior you are!  All of Jericho could not stop you, eh?”

And then, loudly:  “Here is the heart that I’m looking for.  Here is the Jew who is ready for the truth, the one who will believe.  This is how the kingdom works.  A heart that has not yet been hardened by pride into independence.  But who is soft to love.  He does not try to provide for the Father.  He only brings needs.  He does not explain why he is right.  He’ll just receive what I say and believe it completely.  He’ll obey immediately, just because I said to.  When he doesn’t, he’ll know he’s wrong and he’ll come back and cry in My arms about it.  When I tell him I love him, he will love Me back.  That simple.”  Well, those weren’t His exact words, but He spoke, “…of such is the kingdom of Heaven…” and she was intimately acquainted with his bright-eyed prop.   She watched as He set her son down, and gasped when he immediately lunged for the Teacher’s staff and climbed up on a rock to imitate Him.

But the Teacher only laughed and turned to her daughter.  Now, he had her little girl’s face in His hands and she gave back a dazzling smile.  In the crowds she hears whispers, “Such a beauty…”  There had been no such whispers a moment ago, when she was pressing through the crowd.  But then her daughter had not smiled like that for at least a year, since their money had run out.   Jesus was whispering to her daughter, pointing to the heavens and saying the word, “Abba…”  He touched her hair and began to count, making her daughter giggle.  “It would take a thousand years!” she cried, in their private conversation.  “I tell you the truth, little beauty, He has counted them all.  He is Abba.”

She looked down and saw her dress was wet with her tears now.  Could this be happening?  She had been right about her children.  They were important, the Teacher thought so.  Still the little wrinkle between her eyes remained.  Would her children remember everything He said to them?  If only she could write, she would record it forever.  What if they didn’t even remember meeting Him?  Then the dancing, burning eyes were looking straight into hers.

“This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time,” declares the LORD.
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.  ³⁴ No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the LORD.”

Why did the words of Jeremiah ring like a bell in her when He spoke them?  Had He even spoken it out loud?  Had anyone else heard it?  She choked in the shock and pleasure of His attention, trying to form words.  She understood.  The Holy Writings…for her.  The ancient prophecies…about her children.  The temple rulers would strike her for such blasphemy.  But she knew:  Whatever this Teacher said was true.  The women of old had sung songs of victory and praise, and that was what she had in her heart…Miriam’s, Deborah’s, and her own all mixed together.  But all she could get out of her mouth was to point to the children and say to Him…  “Yours…Rabbi…we are always with You…”

It would never be appropriate for a woman to express love to a Rabbi, she wouldn’t think of it.  She remembered to drop her eyes.  But in her heart, the tide had turned and she was rushed forward, pressed back no longer, and every other voice had become insignificant.  Even when the Teacher was tried as a criminal and hung on the tree, her devotion was fixed.  He was perfect, she knew.  The kindest Man who ever was, and everything He said was True.

Many waters cannot quench love,
Nor can the floods drown it.
If a man would give for love
All the wealth of his house,
It would be utterly despised.

Song of Songs 8:7

After Judah’s bloody nose:

“Judah, your face is all bloody.”

“NO, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is.”

“NO, IT’S NOT!!!!!!”

“Well, Judah, you can’t see it because the blood is on your face, and your eyes are on your face.  But we can see it, because our eyes aren’t on your face.”

On marriage:

“I’m gonna be a wife, but you can’t marry me, Judah, because I have to grow up.  And then another grown up man is going to come and ask me, and then we can be married when we’re both grown ups.  And you have to grow up and ask another person who is grown up and then you can be married.” -Ariel

“Yeah.”  -Judah