A Life Worth Living

On November 21, 2015November 21, 2015 By happyreignIn JoelLeave a comment

It has been almost six months since we decided to move to the Middle East. Many have asked of how we ended up living and being involved in one of the most “difficult” and “hardest” regions on the planet. The simple answer is that it was all His idea. Both my wife and I have felt that our lives haven’t been our own for a long time. When you have this deep conviction it is easier saying yes. Our no has been Crucified with Him. We get people praising us for living what seems like selfless lives. The honest reality is that we are doing what makes us come alive. He has orchestrated our steps and has led us down the road of Love.

We have had the privilege of working with His persecuted Body. Our days and nights consist of hearing people’s journey of Faith. They have had loved ones killed and everything they have worked for destroyed all because of their unbreakable conviction of not bending their knees to fear. I honestly can say that I complain a lot less since I have been here. In the face of so much loss and pain what can I complain about??? Our brothers and sisters have lost everything but the ability to love. The way they have welcomed us to their homes and families is truly humbling.

If your asking yourself what can you do to help or how can I make a difference I say to you is that you CAN love. You can love fearlessly and fully. Start with those around you. Do not let yourself be filled or swayed with fear by the Media and ask your God what He thinks about the Refugees. Ask Him how He sees them and go from there. -Joel

Belief in Something Bigger than Understanding

On September 10, 2014December 10, 2016 By happyreignIn Heather, Reflections & MusingsLeave a comment

I read and hear things being written or being preached but there seems to be vast areas of my life that have become normal to me that I just don’t hear articulated very much. Keep in mind I’m not sharing a comprehensive Christian outlook or in any way am I teaching something that is absolute, but I find myself speaking about fringe things that are sometimes common in riding the life of faith. I just share them to encourage anyone out there to keep being different, keep being abnormal, and keep being courageous enough to be how God created you to be.

This idea came up a couple days in a row and I have/had zero energy to defend or explain it. Let me introduce you to the idea through my paintings first then life later. So I paint. I paint at events, I paint at home, I like to do creative things and appreciate creativity. Often, understandably, people come up and ask me what a painting means. I have seen videos where people do art interpretation three different ways through three different observers and they pull worlds relating to their life experience and personal history from paintings. Even scripture; a sentence may say one thing, but it speaks differently to different people in different seasons. It’s alive; living through inspiration.

Life is more controllable and more comfortable when we interpret things, our reality, to mean one specific thing. It’s logical, it makes sense, and we have right answers. For some reason, years ago, God decided to slide me off the dance floor of right answers and ever since I have been swimming in a vague reality of the truth of love, three dimensionally swirling around every sort of reality and frankly, sometimes I don’t even remember which way is up. In this water I am still dancing but my dance partner doesn’t move just back and forth but now my dance partner–which is inspiration–moves in ways I didn’t know I could follow.

And so in regards to my art for instance. I paint what I see. That’s what I do. I don’t “do” art apart from inspiration. I’m not religious about that or anything, I just lack desire to create things I understand. So I buy a canvas as the home for something I’ve already seen in my head. And in order for productivity to be had, some would say I now have to interpret it and clarify it in order for it to speak. But inspiration speaks regardless of explanations. And so I will go through a whole creative process, of seeing, creating, and passing along, without ever understanding what I’m doing the whole time. It is to my benefit and the benefit of other humans beings around me if I trust inspiration and follow. He knows every heart and every circumstance and is logically far more effective.

Am I against understanding? Of course not, it is the spirit of God. Do I think there is power when we move outside of the borders of our understanding in response to Holy Spirit? Definitely. In my life this applies to more than just art. What about relationships, what about our jobs, what about responding to how God’s created you or something he’s called you to?

There are seasons of my life I don’t understand. I heard a call, responded, I was myself, and left not knowing what God was doing through that and still don’t. At times He’s even reiterated it through other people. “I’m doing more here than you know at the moment.” Okay… I guess I won’t reason away my “productivity” and move on to something else. I’ll just continue being me…here.

Success in this life is so vastly different from anything the world paints as success or even the Christian church sometimes. Success is a relationship. A relationship where you care for the other person’s opinions and feelings, you listen and get to know them, you walk the same direction together, you believe them, trust them, and grow through your relationship with that person, who is the messiah of your life.

I see people sometimes debating decisions between following what they feel like God is saying or what seems to make sense from their perspective. Whenever I hear someone say they chose what they felt like God was saying to them I want to leap and cheer and give hugs and high fives. It comes down to: do you trust him?

I was challenged by God once to worship him, probably more than once, but specifically this one time. I really carried that word. Yes it means sing songs with your spirit, yes that means spend time in adoration, that is worship, but for me it meant something more at the time. How did Christ worship? Did he lead masses of people in songs and singing to the father? Did he try to gather everyone together to petition the father concerning the Roman government and social injustices?

His worship in my eyes was his laid down life; his obedience, his surrender, his yes to the father, regardless of its appearance of success or failure. He lived life in liberty and spoke the truth in order for others to participate with the freedom of life like he was. Christ, through obedience, in his vast freedom, dared to respond and fail according to the eyes of the world. God understands what he’s doing when he calls you into something.

He doesn’t misunderstand social security. He doesn’t misunderstand your expensive education. He doesn’t forget your history in that area of your life. He doesn’t not see your inadequacies or your frustrations…or your lack of understanding. But he didn’t wait for any of those things before going ahead and communicating with your heart anyway. He knows all those things and understands them completely and still believes in you, and his ways that often offend others senses of normalcy and propriety.

There’s a whole unseen spiritual reality that you are already fully blessed in. There’s a liberty in everyone’s life that’s been paid for. There’s belief in something bigger than understanding. And there’s risk to be had, and fear to laugh in the face of, regardless of having anything to show for our sowing, our response, our journey of love, or our choices.

And…I’m not waiting for understanding to come. I get to continue to enjoy the ride, I get to continue to go, to listen, to speak, to create, to express, to pray, to rest, to enjoy and he is perfectly able to lead me, shepherd me, teach me, and guide me. He’s always with me whether or not I understand. Like a kid in the backseat not aware of a lot of the dynamics that go on the world of adults, I will enjoy the wind in my hair, the sun on my face, and leave the driving to someone who created the car, knows the way, and has invited me to come along for the ride.

The Fear Of Total Acceptance

On June 24, 2014June 24, 2014 By happyreignIn JoelLeave a comment

I am convinced that the thing we most fear isn’t rejection but TOTAL ACCEPTANCE. There I said it. At least that is what my fear was…and sometimes still is. You see for me growing up in a religious environment where it was suggested and subliminally ingrained in our minds was that no matter what we did, how many hours we prayed and fasted it was never enough. I still felt dirty. God was still Holy on His blessed mountain and I was still a million miles away. If I was going to make it to Heaven surely it was on the off chance that God was focused on Jesus waving His bloody-nail imprinted hands drawing the attention to Himself so I could slip through the pearly gates. Then it happened…then He happened to me. About 7 or 8 years ago it was my time, my turn to be wrecked by Grace. I was on the Heavenly Hit List and He revealed Himself in me, to me. The Scandal of the Cross turned over all my tables of religious failed efforts on bettering myself. He showed me an aggressive unrelenting Love that simply would not let me continue on living with the roller coaster religion of one day being up and feeling loved followed by the next day of me feeling like I was not good enough for Him. You see the Good News is that we have ALWAYS been more than enough for Him.

So why do we often respond with fear in the face of total Acceptance and Love?? I am sure there could be numerous reasons. But at the core of it all I believe it all comes down to Trust. I remember when God whispered in my ear and said,”Joel, all of the problems that you think you have can be taken care of by simply trusting me.” I mean wow! To think of a God that is so in tune with all of our emotions and so intricately woven in our day to day activities, that He always wants to make Himself known in every area of our lives. I will never forget when Heather my wife said to me,”I want to know all of you.” Honestly scared the sh*@ out of me. I could feel fear surrounding me. Why?? Because for Heather to know all of me would involve me being VULNERABLE. And that is where for many the rubber meets the road. Not only with relationships with loved ones but with God Himself. We have become experts in hiding…hiding behind religious masks and behind tough exteriors of independence. But through His love He is still coming down to us searching and calling us by our name like He did with Adam. Where are you?? Who told you you where naked?? Who has said that you are not good enough for me?? Who has filled your head with nonsense and saying that I am not more than enough for you?

My question is: Will you let Him in? Will you Trust that He is good? Will you let Him love you?

-Joel

His Rest Was Never At Risk

On June 7, 2014June 7, 2014 By happyreignIn Joel1 Comment

His rest celebrates perfection. His work is complete; the fall of humanity did not flaw its perfection. (Heb. 4:3 the Mirror Translation)

Each day I am more convinced in the totality and perfection of not only what Christ did but in WHO he is. He has always been the Lamb slain before the foundations of the world. The solution was there before the problem, our forgiveness came way before our repentance. There is this Capon quote that I absolutely love. It reads: Creation is just as miraculous now as it was at the beginning, because redemption is present at every moment and every place throughout every part of creation. The creation and redemption are one act, not two. In the moment Adam and Eve eat of the fruit of the tree, they are redeemed. Not by that act but by him who made them. And therefore everything that happens after that is a proclamation of the gospel. Francois du Toit says: God saw more than his perfect image in Adam, he also saw the Lamb and his perfect work of redemption! I mean wow!!!

Growing up in the Church I always heard what God was about to do or was going to do but few rarely boasted in what He had done already. Religion always seems to put the good things of God in a far distant future. It thrives on distance and delay. Somehow Religion has made boasting through a language of lack as being “spiritual.” I am really excited about seeing how many have been waking up to the blissful reality of what Christ accomplished! Many when hearing the Good News feel life jumping inside of them. The truth is that the Good News is not a Message of something that they haven’t heard but it’s something that Religion tried to cover up. True Faith recognizes what has ALREADY taken place! In the beauty of this growing revelation we are not only finding who Christ is but we are also finding who we have always been… accepted and chosen in the Beloved before time!