Bob Hamp

WARNING: Spoiler Alert.  Do not read yet if you are going to see the movie “Inception” and do not want to know the story.

I saw the movie “Inception” last week, and enjoyed the cinematic aspects of a cleverly thought out, well depicted story.  It is an amazingly well done movie.  It is the idea at the center of the movie that I would like to discuss a bit.

As simply as I can state it, the movie unfolds a plot to change a significant world circumstance, by hiring an expert to enter into the psyche of the man who had authority over this circumstance.  This expert was assigned to penetrate the mind of the man via his dream states.  The concept is that the “inception” of an idea must be planted so deeply in his mind that he considers the idea his own, and believes it with enough conviction to act on the idea, even when the implanted idea seems contrary to what he may have previously believed.  With the need to generate a “new” belief, the team of experts unfolds a highly complex plot to induce a 10 hour dream state, so that within the dream, another dream state can be induced, and then, within that, yet another. Penetrating three levels of his psyche, they hope to implant the idea in a very deep place of his mind.

The rest of the movie depicts the strategies and interplay of not just three but four layers of dream states, and the various confrontations of deep human mental projections, as they collide, while this team of experts negotiates the mental map of the subject, in order to deeply implant a life-shifting, world-changing idea.

It’s a great story line, and the complexity of it is played out and acted superbly.  Here is my problem with it.

You and I know how a belief changing, new idea can be generated and implanted in a moment while we are wide awake.

It’s called “revelation”.

The word “inception” in this movie refers to the generation and implanting of an idea that did not previously exist.  Obviously such an idea must come from the outside of the mind.  The only thing inside our mind, is…well…already there, hence, it cannot be new. If I make a suggestion to you, or give you information that you did not previously have, all you can really do is receive and integrate this information through channels that are…already there, and you guessed it, (maybe because you already knew?) it is not going to be transformational, only informative.

What if communication from God, was just like the same power that created the cosmos?  What if God speaking is a completely different process than human speech?  The book of Genesis (Genesis meaning the beginning of something that did not exist before…) contains the record of God making everything.  The beauty is, that He makes this everything out of nothing. Even more, He does this simply by speaking. The Genesis or Inception of all things and ideas came from the speech process of God.  You know, the same God who is still speaking today.  Follow this thought.

The same God who spoke all things into existence, breathed over His vocal chords and into the inanimate dirt and Adam became. Literally became a self.  A self that did not exist before.  That same Adam had the breath knocked out of him when he decided and committed to the idea that his knowledge could be sufficient to replace the life giving, Genesis inducing Breath of God.  No knowledge, no matter how good, or evil could reproduce the function of the Breath of Life.

God, seeing the trap that mankind was in, invites the nation of Israel to join him at the top of a mountain in the desert.  He tells Moses that if they will hear Him they will also believe. (Exodus 19:9) This is not simply because God is persuasive, it is because the voice of God generates new realities and can cause the inception of an idea that did not previously exist.  His voice can penetrate multiple layers of our psyche and create a new belief that did not previously exist.  And all of this while we are wide awake.

We read in Deuteronomy 8:3 that man shall live by “everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord”.  This tells us that what comes from God’s mouth is more that data and ideas, it is substance, and it is substantial.  That which comes from God’s mouth is enough to sustain every aspect of our lives.  Any biologist will tell you that this requires something new. Today’s life cannot be sustained by yesterdays oxygen and fuel.  It requires the inception of new fuels.

Finally, we see this most important of ideas in the book of Romans (10:17) .  Faith (the substance of things not seen before) comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ.  Another way to say this is that the kind of ideas that deeply implant, change a belief, and thereby change circumstances are generated anew when God speaks and humans hear.

Be careful how you hear this.  If you hear me meaning that you should always follow the advice given by God’s scriptures, you will have missed the difference between our knowledge of good, (or evil), and hearing afresh the breathed and spoken voice of God in your present moment.  When God speaks, He is always creating.  When you hear Him, you are being created again within.  New things are coming and old things are, well, passing away.

I have seen people walk away free from a history of pain or trauma, and I have seen people receive ideas or strategies that change not only themselves but the world around them.  In fact, I see all of these things on a regular basis.  No complex plots.  No negotiating of the human psyche.  No dream states.  I see this kind of deep and transformational changes every day when people ask a simple question.

God what are you saying to me right now.

I enjoyed the movie “Inception”.  This is not a criticism of a movie, or a religious rejection of some perceived “evil”.  This movie was an amazing display of multiple talents and ideas, and very well done.  At the core, this movie simply showed us, when cut off from revelation as an option, we are left with the need to amass knowledge and strategy and to work complex levels of thought processes, in order to attempt what God can do with a syllable.  And no matter how many layers deep the characters went, the best they could generate was still death.  The movie was a great portrayal of the inadequacy of man to be his own source.

The beauty of growing up is that our world gets bigger.  We see things we couldn’t see before, and we see old things in new ways.  I am interrupting the series on thinking like a child, because today….this is how I am thinking.

In the last five weeks, my wife and I have covered a lot of geography.  More than covering geography, our world has gotten bigger.

In the last five weeks, we have gone from Texas, to California to Michigan, to Colorado, and will soon head back to Texas.

In California we were a part of a conference with an international ministry reaching out to hurting people around the globe.  The vision and the people were captivating, and very God-like.  The Coastal highway was also captivating, and also very God-like.  It stretched on seemingly endlessly, and the beauty, though constant was never the same from one mile to the next.

Back to Michigan, we spent time at a big church in a small town.  I could quote numbers to you, but when I say big, I mean their hearts and vision, much more than seats filled on any given day.  Riverside Church in Three Rivers, Mich. is changing the world they inhabit, and in many ways, they are doing so, simply by inhabiting.  They allow God to inhabit them, and then they just leak everywhere they go.  Lives and neighborhoods are being transformed.  Because they are people about filling hearts, they fill seats.

God gave us a fun surprise connecting us for the Fourth of July with a friend from Texas, who also happened to be visiting family very near to where we were.  It was a meaningful time of connecting more deeply hearts that were already connected.  His family property consisted of acres of well tended nature.  A river ran through it.

Moving north we spent time with my family in Kalamazoo.  These are the people who have known me the longest, and I suppose then, they are people that I have known longer than anyone else.  It was a sweet time of relaxation and laughter.  Oh, and hamburgers!!! The farm was beautiful.

From there, Jackee and I went north and spent two peaceful days on Mackinac Island.  No motor vehicles are allowed on the island, so bicycles, horse drawn carriages and feet were our method of travel  It was a bit like going back in time…somewhere, if you know what I mean.  We were surrounded by the Great Lakes, and a culture that was deeply familiar to my soul.

From there it was “cousins dinner” with my sister and her daughter, and my cousin and his family.  Again, these are people who have been in my life a long time. Two days with my mother and her man, Mark followed, and the time was relaxing and enjoyable.

And then, my thirty year High School Reunion.  This was an event I had looked forward to, and dreaded at the same time.  Who I was in High School and who I am today, seem to have so little in common, other than the fact that we inhabit the same body.  (of course even that looks a little different than it did thirty years ago.)  I wanted to go not so much to see specific people but to see this new version of me in an old context and discover just how new I am.  I ended up enjoying lots of people and not thinking very much about me.  I guess this is proof that I am different, because the old me was exceptionally self-conscious.  I had tons of fun, re-met lots of people and was reminded of lots of memories.

From there we jumped time zones again, passing through Albuquerque, New Mexico, and on to Colorado, where we are are staying with an amazing family in Lake City Colorado. (This, and Ouray, should be on your “I-should-see-this-before-I die” list.  And make sure you plan enough time to really “see”.  Here it is possible to look for an hour and still not see.)  The beauty is truly beyond description.  The family we are with and the connections we make through them are uniquely God-guided.  The places we have gone with them, stretch your visual perceptions beyond your ability to take it all in.

Yesterday I spent the day with a local pastor helping out at a nearby christian camp.

I know this sounds a bit more like a travel journal than a blog.  But, now for the blog part.  Here is what I have learned.

God is winning.  He is WAY further ahead than we might think.  If we only see our immediate circumstances, it is easy to think with David, “why are the unrighteous winning?”  Well, they aren’t.

First of all, the presence of God, in the geography we crossed was over-whelming.  You know how superlatives can begin to leak?  I really mean OVER-WHELMING.  It reminded me of my smallness, in a good way.  What I saw over-took me.  It helped me to know that the task at hand, (changing the world) is in very capable hands, and they are not mine.  The God who can craft with a breath, the California Coast, and the Rocky mountains is certainly capable of overcoming human damage, and restoring His Kingdom on this earth.  I like Him being so big.

More than all this amazing geography, the biggest thing I saw was that God has His people positioned exactly where He wants them.  From the President of an International ministry, to the local EMT, who doesn’t really know, yet, that she is really a pastor, God is up to something.  In every one of the above locations, I encountered God’s people.  Placed, positioned and prepared to be Him in the place and moments He intended.  These are people who are changing the geography they inhabit.  Loving and acting in the very real arenas of human existence and suffering, God moves through them, without them trying to sound like Christians.

God has leavened the world, and if I only see my little corner of it, I may think He is behind on His job.  I would be wrong.  I am encouraged.

In the early years of our marriage we took our children to Michigan where my brother-in-law took us water-skiing.  Without much thought to my kids in the boat, I took a few pretty lame turns around the lake.  It had been a while, and I never had been that good at water-skiing, but I was having fun.  I just was not very impressive.  Or so I thought.  When I got in the boat, all the kids were wide-eyed.  They told me that they did not know I could walk on water.

Children are amazed.

A visceral response to that which is unfolding in front of you, amazement is the state of seeing something new, something huge, something out of the ordinary, something that transports you out of the ordinary.  It is a response which removes your focus and thoughts from the mundane, and causes your pulse to speed up, because your mind has been shifted, or enlarged, or both.  Amazement is a response which imposes “thinking differently” on you.

The opposite of amazement is boredom.  I heard one teacher say that all boredom begins as spiritual boredom.  The person who is difficult to impress has lost touch with some of the most meaningful facets of reality.

Bigness.  Beauty.  Love. Sacrifice.  Generosity.  Vulnerability.  Joy.  Infants.

When one can view any of these works of art, and fail to be impressed, the meaning of life and your engagement with it has begun to fade.

I woke up today to see the sun climb over the mountains and touch the lake.  As we drove around the lake I found myself unsure of which way to look.  We stopped more than we drove.  I couldn’t stop staring at the mountains and the sun and the lake.  I couldn’t take it all in, yet was hungry to take in more.  It was amazing.  I saw some people drive by, just looking straight ahead.  Did they not see?  Or had they seen before and assumed then that they would see nothing new if they looked again this time?

Amazement is an overwhelming awareness.  This is HUGE.  This is BEAUTIFUL.  It’s not so much something you feel, as it is something you allow to invade you.  It is a way that the external climbs into your awareness, and moves you to be less self-aware. Or perhaps more aware of a healthy orientation of your self.  You are a part of a much larger truth.

Children allow the amazingness of the world to invade them on a regular basis.

“Look mom, I found a snake!”

This is the same kind of heart that responds with open-ness and allows God to invade.

“Look mom, God found me!”

Amazement is the root of reverence.  Not necessarily the silent stillness that we associate with reverence, but the mind-shifting awareness of God in all of His Bigness, Beauty and Love.  The awareness that moves us outside of our neurotic self-awareness, and into an orientation that allows us to open our hearts and be invaded.

We often find this description in the Gospels as people listen to the teaching of Jesus.

“They were amazed at His teaching.”

I think that made Jesus happy, not because He needed the validation, but because it meant that their hearts were open and being invaded.

I always remember the first time I went to church after receiving the new birth.  I walked into this place, so amazed at the people around me who had known and lived what I had just received.  How lucky they were!  How seasoned they must be at this kind of life.

Then one of my friends pointed out the deacons. I was in awe.  Until they told me this;

One of my friends said, “they have been saved so long, they’re not that excited about it.”

I was amazed!!

What I had just received the previous week, was the most amazing thing that had ever invaded me.  And these men were bored with it!?

I asked God right then.  “Please God, don’t ever let me get like that!”

Children are easily amazed.  They see bigness all around them, and know how they relate to it.  Their hearts are open to the excitement of finding a snake, or having another birthday.  Amazement keeps our hearts open, and an open heart is primed to receive.

Last night I watched a baby crawl across the dining room floor.  Behind her was her two year old sister.  Behind her was my friend, Mary.  I am not going to tell you Mary’s age, but let’s just say she is my age, whatever that might be.  In a room full of adults she crawled right in line with the other children.  I liked it.

Children are playful.

Playful is the quality that sees the world as something to engage, rather than simply observe.

Playful is the quality that sees joy in ordinary circumstances, and is eager to squeeze even more joy out of any given moment.

Playful is the quality that keeps children from taking themselves too seriously.

Sometimes it is the very quality that so tires out the adults around.  Children seem to have an insatiable appetite to play.  Adults seem satiated.  But I fear it is not play that has done this to them.

I was in a setting where some folks were hearing the Lord speak personal words for people, and then sharing them with the individuals in the room.  The words were intensely personal, and were so deeply true that it was clear God was speaking.  One of the people approached me and looked at me.  She kept looking at me and finally she just said, “Play!”

“Play, play, play, play play,” she kept repeating, “the Lord wants you to play.”

I thought I had gotten the message when she got to the punch line.

“Children don’t burn out when they are playing, that is something adults invent”, she said.

Play engages the heart as well as the mind.  It connects to other people.   It engages aliveness in a two way exchange.  It allows playmates to feed joy and life to one another.

A year or so ago our staff took a half a day to go play.  In a time of intensity and heaviness, I found myself playing air hockey.  And then shooting baskets in a row of other staff members, trying to outshoot one another.  Laser tag, bowling, the list grew.  By all standards I should have been getting tired.  Instead I was laughing, and found my energy level increasing.  In some cases I was laughing so hard that my head hurt.  I felt my heart beat again.  I felt a connection to people I seldom saw.  I felt the flow of life.

I think playfulness is at the root of joy.  It is the soil in our soul which allows joy to take root and grow.  It keeps us constantly aware that we are children and we have a Father.

Some people own games or toys and they work hard at them, while others seem to be able to play in the midst of a simple conversation.

Play is not about the activity nearly as much as it is about how we approach the activity.  Competition can be fun, or it can be mean-spirited.  Games can be about playfulness or they can be about insecurity.

I am certain fun is a fruit of the Spirit.  I have seen it in Galatians 5.  Love Fun Peace, patience…

John Wimber had a great way of describing the inclusiveness and engagement of the power of the Gospel on earth.  During times of intense ministry he would hand over the reigns to those nearby, give a few simple instructions and then remind us all.

“Everyone can play.”

I think he was on to something.

“When I was on chemo, and all those other medications, I realized I had lost my curiosity,” he said. 

Mark sat across the patio table from me, as I sipped my coffee in the cool of this Michigan morning.  As he described this strange time of his life, I began to ponder.  Pondering turned into intrigue and intrigue into realization.  Curiosity had just done it’s work in me, even in that moment. 

What I pondered was this question; what  role does curiosity play in the life of a human?  It took me a while to realize that asking myself that question was part of the answer.  Curiosity makes us ask questions.  But let’s zoom out for a moment.  Mark had said it was this state of curiosity-less-ness, that had led him to make a significant course change.  He had been miserable without it.  Why would the absence of curiosity make one miserable?  (at least those of you out there who are curious, are wondering that…)

To answer I began to realize all that I received on a daily basis from the gift of being curious. 

I wake up and wonder….and so do you.  If you don’t,  consider the options.  Some wake up and dread.  Some wake up and assume.  Some wake up and believe there are no new questions to ask, or no new discoveries to discover. 

I wake up and wonder.  What will change today?  What, or who will I encounter?  Are breakthroughs, surprises, or new horizons somewhere ahead in this day?  What about as the day goes on?  That person, over there…what are they thinking?  What is their story?  Why do they look, sad, happy, or apathetic?  What will the sunset look like?  Will it rain today? 

The point, I believe, is living with the realization of limitless possibilities and remaining aware and alert to them.

I considered starting this blog this way:  Today I woke up and I knew everything.  How boring!

To lose curiosity means to lose interest, intrigue, learning, growing.  It means to assume that nothing new can come your way.  Yawn.  Would you want to tell a curiosity-less-ness person your life story?  They would yawn, and look around, certain that you have nothing of worth to stimulate their bored cognitions.

The world, the created world is a reflection and expression of the One who made it.  Therefore it is filled with infinite possibilities.  Colors, sounds, ideas, all combined in endless ways, waiting to delight anyone who is looking.  If you cease to be curious you cease to look.  If you cease to look, you cease to see.  If you cease to see, your heart will begin to shrivel.  You can know the Truth and the Truth will set you free, or you will assume you know the Truth and you will have become blind. 

For sixteen years I practiced counseling in a closed room.  For sixteen years I was asked this question.  “How can you stand to sit and listen to peoples problems all day long?”  The funny thing is, every time I was asked this question, I realized that I was not aware that I was “listening to problems” all day long.  I thought I was exploring.  I was exploring people and their personal roadmaps.  I was exploring the intricacies of human histories and human souls. 

More than exploring, I was on a discovery mission.  Where was God in their story?  What kept them from seeing Him?  When would we find the key that would allow them to find Him again?  Was today the day they would see?  When would God step in?  I was always waiting and watching for His next move.  Infinitely curious, and always peering around the next turn.  Is He around this turn?  Is He in this conversation? 

It was the curiosity and the questions that kept me from viewing my situation as “listening to problems all day long”.

Curiosity and faith seem to be cousins. Curiosity is the expectation that you are just about to see someting you have never seen before, and the impetus to strain to see it.  The more I pondered, the more I realized that without curiosity, people perish.  The Bible tells us that without a vision people perish.  But without curiosity they may never direct their eyes to see the vision. 

As I asked these questions, I realized that this is at least one of the things that Jesus meant when He said to approach Him as a child.  Peering eagerly, certain you will see something you have never seen before, and because of this certainty, straining to get the first glimpse.  And as soon as I realized this, I began to ask more questions.  What else does it mean to approach Him “as a child”? 

I am going to write about the other things that have come to mind.  Do you wonder what they are?  Me too, and I can hardly wait to find out.  Isn’t curiosity fun?

I was ambushed one evening while teaching a worship team about the value and the power of hearing the Living Voice of the Living God.  We had finished the teaching portion of the evening and had moved into a time of practice.  I believe God is always speaking and He is always doing so with intent.    So we were being quiet, and asking God what He was saying to us at that moment.  Soon, simple yet powerful words were being shared in this room.  Then, the leader of the team looked at me.

“Bob”, he said, hesitantly, “I am hearing something, but it makes no sense to me.”

Always the teacher, I assured him that he should risk it, and trust that what he was sharing would mean something to someone in the room.  It was then that I was moved from being the teacher to being a child.

“Okay”, he said, “this is for you.  I feel that the Lord is telling you to never forget the second service revelation.”  He uttered these words and then looked sheepish, because on their own, they sounded vague, unclear, and even a bit religious. To me, they were like a laser beam into my soul.  These words to me were specific, and encouraging, while simultaneously revealing a place of real need in my heart.

Two weeks prior, I had been asked to speak in our church services.  At the time we had two services.  As one of my first times to address a large crowd, I was nervous.  During the first service, I stumbled a bit, and walked through the initial steps of overcoming the jitters.  I felt I had done poorly. I was very conscious of me.

During the worship time of the second service, I was asking God for help.  It was amazing that while I was asking God to strengthen me so that I would do a better job, He actually had a better idea.

“Bob, look at these people as people that I love”.

I sensed these words rising up from the deep recesses of my spirit.  My mind put language to them, and I began to see differently in that moment.

I don’t know how you think about hearing the voice of God, but I always describe it as hearing my own thoughts only they are much smarter than I am.  When I “heard” these words, many things happened all at once.

Most important, a shift happened inside my heart.  When God speaks, He is creating things.  He was not just advising me, He was adjusting me.  Love began to fill my heart.  It was amazing that as I experienced the love of God for others, my self-consciousness disappeared.  It was not that I thought of me in such a way as to not think of me any more.  It was this awareness of God, and His love for people that displaced all these angst ridden thoughts of me and my potential mistakes.  I was not just thinking of people…I began thinking of these people.  The people in this room.  Those on my right and left, behind me and all around me.

As my compassion rose, not only did I find myself significantly less self-conscious, I felt something else.  I felt power.  Not the kind of power that makes you feel special, rather the kind of power that makes you feel infinitely prepared.  The sense was that all I had to do was open my mouth.  Something building in me was just waiting to come out, and it was bigger than me.

I wanted to not be nervous…God wanted to fill me with Him.  I like His idea better.

This was the “second service revelation” that my friend had encouraged me to “never forget”.  I had not shared this with anyone.  He had no way to know of the experience I have described.  Just as he could not have known of the experience, he could not have known how small I would have made that experience without him speaking those words to me that night.

“Never forget the second service revelation.” he had said.

The irony is that I would not have forgotten it.  I just would have spent it poorly.

You see, until that moment, I thought it had been God’s answer to my prayer.  I was asking for help to be competent for a sermon, on a given day at a given moment.  And until that evening, weeks later, that is how I received God’s response.

“Thanks God for helping me that day”

How like God, to give me much more than I know to ask for.  And how like me to mistakenly only receive what I asked for.  Without that evening of prophetic training I would have spent the entire revelation in one place.  That night I realized God was offering to help me live that way.

Today, when I stand in front of people, whether one person or a thousand, echoing all around my thoughts is the constant reminder.  “Never forget the second service revelation.”

Look at the people around you through the eyes of a loving Father…allow His compassion to fill you, and allow this to be the power by which you operate from now on.  Never forget…

I am standing in the grass in the beautifully groomed yard, with my daughter next to me wearing the dress of her dreams and tugging my arm eagerly.  She is twenty, and she is five. She is a woman, and she is a girl.  Either way she is beautiful and she cannot wait to step out and turn the corner.

At the end of this short walk is the man of her dreams.  They have not seen each other all day, and they have waited almost two years to taste the warm satisfaction of a first kiss.  Did I mention she is tugging at my arm eagerly?

Twenty four hours earlier we had stood in this spot to rehearse the order and structure of this short walk and this huge step.  The atmosphere was joyful and fun.  The bride and groom-to-be couldn’t keep their eyes off each other.  And I couldn’t help but notice.

I began to consider the miles of distance covered by this short walk down the aisle.  And then it hit me.

I have played almost every role possible in a wedding.  I have been a groom, and I have been a musician.  I have been a groomsmen, a best man, a casual attender and I have been the preacher.  I have pronounced a few “man and wife” in my recent years.

In all these roles I have been increasingly taken with the beautiful picture God has given us in the wedding ceremony and all it’s ritual.  And especially recently I have enjoyed the breathless anticipation and final arrival of the Bride.  Everyone stands, and the picture of Jesus united with His bride is played out in the hearts of another man and wife.

But these twenty-four hours I was playing a brand new role.  At the rehearsal I stood by the side of the much-anticipated, well prepared, radiant bride.  I hugged her a lot.  I just felt like it.  I held her back when it wasn’t time, and I walked when it was.  As we practiced walking the aisle together I found myself whispering in her ears.  I whispered thoughts about her life, and thoughts about tomorrows ceremony.   I told her how proud I was and how beautiful she looked.  I told her some things to expect and how to think about these things.  I liked it.  I could guide her one more time.

The next night arrived and we stood in the same spot.  Her dress was beautiful and her mind was on her groom.  I hugged her a lot.  I just felt like it.  She talked eagerly of the next few moments.  This was a moment I had always seen from the other side.  The bride was about to be revealed.  And I was bringing her from here to him.

I realized at that moment, that, although my title was father, I was playing a role I had not seen in this oft-repeated ceremony.  In the same way that the anticipation of the bride and groom, and eventual union represented Jesus and His bride, it was my job to walk by her side and guide her until they were together at last.  It was my job to whisper in her ear and help her to navigate the path from out-of-sight to in-his-arms.  It was my job to hug her a lot.

Jesus said to His disciples, “I am going away and I will prepare for you a place”  this statement was a part of the marriage ritual of a young Jewish boy.  Chapters later Jesus said this. “I am going to send you another comforter”.  In essence He was describing the coming of the Holy Spirit, the on-earth presence of God, walking along side of us and whispering in our ears.   He was telling us that someone would walk us from here to there.  He sent someone to walk us down the aisle until we arrive at the side of the Bridegroom.  I think He feels like hugging us more than we realize.  I did.

It’s happened to me twice now.  The first time was a disaster, the second was a celebration.  Both times, God showed me something amazing.

Growing up, like every human alive, I wanted to know if I was loved.  I think we all find some way to try to get this question answered.  Proving our competence through performance, proving our attractiveness through relationships, or proving our cleverness through study and knowledge, along with many other methods, offer themselves up as ways that we can somehow feel loved. It is such a strong drive, we often throw our whole being into the pursuit that most seems likely to scratch that itch.

Or, worse, we decide we may not ever be loved, so we retreat from the world, preferring to take no chance that rejection might destroy us.  We find little areas of the planet to inhabit, safety zones where we might minimize risk, and remain untouched.  We are alone, and still unloved, but we have an illusion of safety.  This would have been my strategy of choice.  I was already well down the path of fearful retreat when God reached out and captured me.  Amazingly, He used the acceptance of people as bait to spring the trap.  His family began to love me.

Fast forward on the journey, and I gradually began to shift from seeking love, to discovering who I am and what I was made for.  On my journey, step by step I discovered gold, and jewels.  Funny, I often dream of finding money…ironically I was stumbling on riches as a part of my path.  I discovered that I needed one more shift.  I needed to shift from seeking first self-discovery, to seeking first the Source of my self.  More riches!! It seemed the less I sought the things I needed, the more I seemed to find them.  The more I gave up on trying to satisfy my need for “self-discovery” or even love and acceptance, the more of those very things seemed to come my way.

On my path, the things I discovered seemed to help other people.  My own transformation seemed to open the door for people around me to be transformed.  I worked as a counselor and a volunteer in my church, simply trying to follow that path.  As I let God change me, people around me seemed to be changed as well.  Then the disaster happened.

Our house flooded, and the destruction was overwhelming.  It was far more than I, or even my family could handle.  I looked up from the mud and saw people coming in the door.  By the end of the day, a hundred people came and did for us what would have been impossible for us to do alone.  The most striking thing for me on that day was that the people who showed up that day were connected.  They were connected to the journey.  A family I had prayed with as their child went through crisis, a man I had shared the journey with, a mother who had been abandoned by her husband, and had found family again in the family of God.  Every face was someone who had joined me somewhere on my own journey.  They might have said I had helped them.  I saw them as people who had taught me that I was not alone, and that seeking God’s nearness first really could transform the human condition.

Fast forward again.  We moved and started again.  The sweet and the bitter of starting over, both colored the next several years. Old relationships shifted, and our relational network grew wider.  New relationships began, and my journey brought new people onto the path.  Many of these people now partnered with me as we explored this journey of freedom together.  Years passed, and the moments collected into years.  Then it happened again.  THis time, it was not a disaster, it was a celebration.  I had finished the book I had been dreaming about for years, and we threw a party.  I looked around, and I was amazingly struck by how similar these two events felt.  It was not the nature of the events that was similar.  They could not have been more different.  What was similar was the feeling.  The feeling of looking around at a sea of faces who had joined me on the journey.  A father who had been abandoned by his wife, who found family again, in the family of God.  A young man I had prayed with in the middle of his parents crisis.   They might have said I had helped them.  I saw a room full of people who believe for more and are pursuing with me a truth bigger than us.

But here is what I felt.  I felt two things, in overwhelming measure.

I felt that I have found the thing I was created for.  That I am walking out my destiny as well as I currently understand it.  Like a child returning to his family, I felt that I was exactly where I belong.  Without trying to get anyone to accept me, I felt belonging in a deep and substantive way.

And I felt loved. I felt loved not because I performed, or convinced others to meet my need, but I felt loved because as I stepped into my place of destiny, it is the natural atmosphere surrounding people who are discovering the present activity of God.  People were not fawning, or giving undue flattery, they simply wanted to tell a story of how the intersection of our lives helped them to find more of who they were created to be.  I did not feel loved simply because a crowd of people expressed very kind and gracious things about me.  I felt loved because in the very real-ness of my journey, a number of other people also found their value and their place in the Kingdom, and they simply expressed what was happening in them.  I felt loved because they had received love.

It’s happened twice now…but the sense of how we all need each other on this journey, and what it is like when we respond to each other on purpose, seems to me to be a bit like what heaven will be like.

I like it.

Today’s post can be found at the wonderful blog, known as Destiny in Bloom. Thanks ladies for hosting me today and allowing me to continue to be your token dude.

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