Let God Loose

WOW!!! Two months since I've posted anything at all and the world is still moving along!!! Ha! Shows how earthshaking my opinions are, huh?? I will just get to the point. I haven't posted in that time because God has been doing some major overhauling in my heart and soul. I mean MAJOR overhauling. And it is difficult to write when that is going on. Not to mention another thing that has been a major change: we now have our 3 new children from Uganda, and THAT has really been a challenge. Even though the number of children we have increased by 50%, the noise and energy level has gone up about 3000%. Mix all of this in with God revealing to Melissa and I new ways to raise our children, and God really pulling out all of the garbage out of my heart, and you have the perfect recipe for, well, not blogging. I am sensing it is time, though, to start sharing. I think the most incredible thing I have learned over the last 2 months has been that I was living my life completely out of a mindset of fear. Everything I did was fear-based. Everything I was doing to raise my children was fear-based. My relationship with God was fear-based. But God doesn't just show us the garbage and then leave us stinking. He is showing me how to live from love. Now this isn't as easy as it sounds. In fact, when one has been living out of fear for years, there are times when living out of love just seems impossible. But of course, God likes impossible. God shows up in impossible. And that is just what He is doing.

That brings me to something else I am seeing. My relationships with God and my family and my friends are more important to me now than I would have ever imagined. One cannot love in a vacuum. There must be others present there. And here is where I feel like our whole society is coming apart, and where I think the church (the people of God, not a building) MUST rise up and fill in the gap. If you look at our world, relationships are just getting RIPPED. The modern-day church (the organization, not the people) doesn't even come CLOSE to allowing relationships to form and build and bear fruit. We have got to realize that coming together and faking smiles and singing some songs that make us feel good and hearing a sermon isn't changing the world. It is NOT CHANGING THE WORLD. I hope everyone heard that. It isn't. The only thing that is going to change this world is the love of God. God has established the earth for mankind to co-labor with Him. The only way for mankind to get the love of God is to get it through God's mankind. And the only way that happens is through relationships. Relationships cannot be fake. You can't build them in an afternoon handing out tracts. You can't build them with a weak pat on the back and a meaningless response of "I'll pray for ya." They take time, and they take effort, and they take courage, and they take patience, and most of all they take love. I feel like God is really calling His people to begin to really connect. It is time for those who have the love of God burning in their hearts to open up their homes and get together with a small group of others. You don't have to have everything in common. In fact, it's best if you don't. You don't have to "learn" anything except each other's stories. The only "agenda" has to be allowing God's love in to do what it does: Change the world. You don't have to have a Bible degree. Jesus' most significant witness in the New Testament was a demon-possessed maniac who had been born again and delivered all of about one hour, and Jesus sent him out to tell about what Jesus had done for him. The next time Jesus went through that town EVERYONE wanted to see Him, even though the time prior the whole town asked Him to get out. What happened? One man told his story. He changed the world by releasing the love of God. And that is what it is time for us to do. I wonder what would happen in our churches if there were a thriving collection of small groups who all came together and simply released the stories of God's love that were occurring in their groups. I bet we wouldn't be checking our watches wondering if we should eat Mexican or Chinese. I bet we would actually see what happens when we listen to Jesus and simply do what He shows us to do. I bet we would actually begin to EXPERIENCE the love of God instead of just talking about it. That sounds like heaven on earth to me. Let's get together. Let's get real. Let's let God loose. Let's let His love change the world.

Different Perspective

Different Perspective

Isn’t this how we see the world?
Don’t we seem to get it backwards?
We think the reflection is what we really see
When it is what is reflected which makes our spirits leap
Rather I should say it is WHO is reflected
If He is reflected at all
But no, He is reflected in all of us
But especially those who choose to look into that Mirror and see
That what we see with these human eyes is not the true reality
But the One that we look to with our spirits to find our meaning and our purpose
The One Who shows us who we were really meant to be
The One that gives us His life and sets us eternally free
Isn’t this how we see reality?
There is a world that is much more real than the one we see with these eyes of ours
It is much more real than this mere reflection we call life
For He alone is Life, He alone is Love,
He alone is real and all Truth comes from only Him
Isn’t it funny how we see the world?
Don’t we seem to get it backwards?

K. Duane Carter 8-2-08

I wrote this because I have been very frustrated at the lack of power and presence in modern day Christianity. It really doesn’t look like anything I read about in the Bible. Of course then the next “logical” thought is, “Maybe it doesn’t exist if you don’t see it.” Well, I know who planted that thought and that is when I asked God, “Why aren’t we seeing this real Christianity?” That is when He showed me that we will never see it as long as we look from our perspectives. That is why the people of Jesus’ day missed Him, too. They were looking for grandeur and power and majesty. They were looking for a conqueror who would destroy their enemies and set up an earthly kingdom. Aren’t we guilty of the same? The real kingdom of God begins in loving our neighbor as ourselves. That is it right there. When we start looking at life from this perspective, then we finally begin to see the REAL stuff we have been looking for all along. It is all about relationships. It is all about real relationships based in a real love given out by a real God and a real Savior and Friend and a real Spirit Who ache and long for people to be one with Him. When we enter this place, then that is when we enter into what our true lives are meant to be. Everything else will flow from this.

Is being right better than having a relationship?

I don't like posting on things that I am currently wrestling with because I am the type of person who wants to have the answer perfectly in order before writing it down; however, I feel that these thoughts have to be released today. I have just finished "The Shack" by William Young and I am currently reading "Messy Spirituality" by Michael Yaconelli and there is a deep theme in both of those books that speaks of how God is much more interested in our relationship to Him than He is in us getting all the rules right. Now this really cuts against the grain of how I am shaped, but what fascinates me is how God is right now, every day, testing me in this same area. Am I going to yell at my child for breaking something, or am I going to offer forgiveness and love and establish a deeper relationship? Am I going to be determined to be right in front of my wife even if it means a heated argument, or am I going to forfeit that right and establish a deeper relationship? Am I going to condemn someone for falling short of God's law, or am I going to establish a relationship? Am I going to take God's place as judge, or am I going to take my place as a bridge helping people who are standing on one side of the chasm away from God and lead them to Him? Am I going to speak words of criticism and judgment, or am I going to speak words of hope and healing? I am not talking about "tolerance" here and I am not talking about condoning evil. I am talking about living like Jesus amongst evil and REDEEMING it (that word means to free something into life by the way) instead of bashing evil to death and in the process bashing people to death. The choice is simple: life or death? The power and the love it takes to choose life and relationship is the hard part, but only if I try and do that on my own. In fact, it is impossible to do that on my own. Jesus, let Your love flow through me and nothing else. Let Your truth flow, let Your life flow. It is only through Him that we can live this out.
One more thing that I have to say. I read one of the most profound things I have read in a long time last night. Mr. Yaconelli wrote, "People who pretend have pretend relationships." WOW. No wonder our world is full of people who feel hopeless. We live in a society (especially in church society) where we pretend to have it all together. My most hated question in church is "How are you doing" and the response "Fine". It is time for transparency because only in transparency are real relationships built. Only in transparency can the church finally become a people who actually ATTRACT others instead of repel them or, even worse, reject them. It is time. It is time. IT IS TIME.