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July 8 - July 20, 2023
“As hard as the initial trauma is,” she said, “it’s the aftermath that destroys people.”
Denial heals nothing,
The epicenter of our being is the deep longing to aspire for things that bring us life, to plan for those things, to take hold of them, to enjoy them, and start the cycle over as we aspire toward new things! This is the essential craving for life given to us by God. Let’s call this capacity the Primal Drive for Life.
We tap into our deep reserves to endure years of suffering and deprivation. Then one day our heart simply says, I don’t care anymore; I’m done. We abandon the fight and go off to find relief. I fear this is what’s happening now on a global scale.
Human beings are at the same time both resilient and unpredictably fragile,
This is the trauma cycle. We rally in the face of harm, and when the harm subsides, we live in denial of it and go off in search of some taste of Eden. When our efforts are thwarted, rage surfaces—which is common to trauma responses.5
Trauma sensitizes you to more trauma and brings to the surface past trauma. You don’t get used to it; each new crisis simply piles on the stress.6
This is more than a moment in Jewish history. It is recorded for us as one of the great analogies of human experience, our journey from bondage to freedom, from barrenness to the promised land. Ultimately, it is the precursor to our journey of salvation, from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God.
The great alarm the Scriptures are sounding is that our longing for life to be good again will be the battleground for our heart. How you shepherd this precious longing, and if you shepherd it at all, will determine your fate in this life and in the life to come.
we only sort of want God; what we really want is for life to be good again. If God seems to be helping, awesome. We believe! If he doesn’t . . . well, we’ll get back to him later, after we chase whatever we think will fill our famished craving.
The first stage of the coming storm is this: we’ve all run off to find life and joy following years of stress, trauma, and deprivation. But it isn’t working; it won’t ever work. We return to our normal Monday through Friday disappointed, and disappointment will become disillusionment. And disillusionment makes us extremely vulnerable...
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The loss of hope and dreams suffocates the Primal Drive for Life.
God wants to make his life available to you. Remember—he’s the creator of those beautiful places you wish you could go to for a sabbatical.
The life of God is described in Scripture as a river—a powerful, gorgeous, unceasing, ever-renewing, ever-flowing river.
“Where the river flows everything will live” (Ezekiel 47:9). Everything will live. This is what we want—to live, to find life in its fullness again.
There is so much life flowing from God that it flows like a river no one can even swim across—a superabundant outflow of life! This life is meant to flow in us, and through us.
In order to tap into the River of Life, we begin by loving God in our longing for life to be good again.
Nearly all of us have been chasing relief in a myriad of hopes, plans, and dreams without first turning to God. So we need to enter the longing, feel it, become present to it, and in that place start loving God. Choose him.
The message shouted at us from every side is, “Get upset! You really ought to be upset about this!” It wears a soul down.
Story is the way we orient ourselves in the world. Story is how we figure things out, bring order and meaning to the events around us. The story we hold to at any given time shapes our perceptions, hopes, and expectations; it gives us a place to stand.
We are living in a story, friends. A story written and being unfolded by the hand of God. Despite what the world is shouting at you, the story of God is still the story of the world.
The story of God, the story of Jesus Christ has been, is now, and always will be the story of the world. This is so important for the friends of God to keep in front of us; it’s one of those things to put on a sticky note on your refrigerator or bathroom mirror: the story of God has been, is now, and always will be the story of the world.
the battle right now is for the narrative; who gets to frame the story for you? Either it will be God, or someone else. If you are “alarmed,” something has drawn your attention away from the story of God. Let your fears, anxieties, anger, or rage alert you that you’ve been taken hostage; stop and get your bearings.
Jesus wants us to understand that it is the powers of hell that are trying to overpower us, to crush the human heart—especially the hearts of his followers. The strength God urges us to ask for is a combative strength, a strength to win the fight, to overcome.
“Eighteen is the new twelve. Our students are emotionally underdeveloped.
Friends, this is so helpful to understand: that weariness you’re feeling, that Not now; maybe later, that sense of being overwhelmed, that Why bother? Who cares?—this is the enemy, not you. When you know that, you’re much better prepared against it. You can more clearly choose to resist. I reject this feeling of Why bother? Who cares? and I reject this feeling that I don’t even want to fight. I do! I choose the strength that prevails! I don’t want to be one of those folks who get taken out at the end.
The world is a dangerous place. This startling fact sharpened the humility and wits of every generation prior to ours. But we live in the gourmet latte generation. The instant-information, overnight-delivery generation. When you return to reality by simply stepping one mile into nature, you are taken back into a world designed to make you a smart, resilient human being.
What would the camera show if it panned down over our lives today to reveal what is stalking us? I guarantee you we would move closer to our Shepherd.
The beautiful resilience Jesus offers us comes from his resources; endurance is imparted to us.
Prayer is reaching into the heavens for what we need. If you have had the joy of hearing Jesus speak to you, if he brings to you scriptures, songs, things that stir your heart, that’s the heavens coming into your natural world. You are tapping into the resources of God’s kingdom. And there is so much more to discover!
We cannot hope to find resilience while we ignore the provision God has for us in the fullness of his beautiful kingdom.
We must find the supernatural graces to guard our hearts against both Desolation, whatever the source, and the riptide pull to draw away from God—or even to give up on God entirely.
Satan is trying to defile the hearts of God’s followers, because this is where the holy of holies now lies. (Here on earth, anyways; there is the true place in heaven.†)
“‘As hard as the initial trauma is,’ she said, ‘it’s the aftermath that destroys people.’”
Desolation wants to make everything a wasteland.
So what is the opposite of a wasteland? Eden! The paradise of God, our first home, with all its lush, glorious beauty overflowing here, there, everywhere!
When it comes to the resilience we need against Desolation, part of our Father’s provision is his Eden Glory—the glory of God in you and around you, giving you supernatural resilience and guarding you like a shield.
God’s supernatural power to overcome shortage and deprivation with overwhelming abundance! That’s his glory; he did it by the power of his glory.
The transformation of your character and the regeneration of your humanity is taking place in you because of the glory of God in you!
Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, I receive your Glory into my being. I receive the Glory that fills the oceans, the Glory that sustains the sun. I receive the Glory that raised Christ from the dead! I pray that your Eden Glory would fill my heart, soul, mind, and strength. I am your temple, Lord; come and fill your temple with your Glory! I also pray that your Eden Glory would shield me against all forms of Desolation coming over my life. I renounce every agreement I might have made with Desolation, every agreement large and small. I choose you, God. I renounce the Falling Away, and I choose you.
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When you are living in an hour like this one, any vulnerability to deprivation and Desolation becomes a high-level vulnerability.
Psychologists have observed that one of the most basic human needs, beginning at birth, is to be gazed upon by another. Mothers throughout the world have been observed spending long periods staring into the eyes of their babies with a characteristic tilt of the head. To be seen is to be real, and without another to gaze upon us, we are nothing. Part of the terror of being lost [in the wilderness] stems from the idea of never being seen again.5
Resilience is bestowed upon us by being adored and by experiencing our deep hunger satisfied with overwhelming abundance.
The only kind of love that helps the brain learn better character is attachment love. The brain functions that determine our character are most profoundly shaped by who we love. Changing character, as far as the brain is concerned, means attaching in new and better ways.
If the quality of our human attachments creates human character, is it possible that when God speaks of love, “attachment” is what God means?12
The goal of Christian faith is so much more than church attendance or holding certain doctrinal beliefs. The destiny of every human soul is union with God.
The battle taking place over the human heart can be described as Satan using every form of seduction and threat to take our hearts captive and our loving Jesus doing everything he can to form single-heartedness in us. This often plays out in thousands of small, daily choices. Which is kind, really; we want to develop single-heartedness before the severe testing comes.
“We’re not having our rathers this trip.”
The fear that began with fear of sickness had permeated into a low-level anxiety throughout the rest of their lives.
It is our inner weaknesses, brokenness, and frankly the “unconverted places” that are going to take our legs out from under us.
