It was a sinister feeling, foreboding, eerie, like the clenched throat and stomach you had when you were awash in your first scary campfire story. The tension was mounting about some story of a severed hand which was never found. That tidbit of information was beautifully wound into the factional account that the very place where the flames of the fire leapt into the oblivion of the night just happened to be the last place the severed hand was spotted before it used it’s bloody digits to crawl off into the darkness of the night. Then…"Shazam!" a hand appears from nowhere and screams engulf the night sky!

That was the feeling that settled over me like a mist when I saw Sam, Bilbo and Smeagle at the Gates of Mordor in Lord of the Rings. The journey to Mordor was hard enough, but now a new courage was required of our reluctant heros.

The Dark Lord Sauron’s massive eye was ablaze atop the tower looking…searching…hungry. My first thought was, “man, don’t go in there, that’s nuts!” But in “there” beyond the great gate into the desolate plains of Mordor was the point of the quest, the conclusion, or at least, the next destination.

I have often felt that my soul is a very real depiction of the phantasmal Middle earth. The journey to the center of the soul, to deal with realm of Mordor, to dethrone the Dark Lord of myself who rules with an eye always wary, always watching, protective of what might be lost or exposed.

Truth be told, I think we long to dethrone the powers that rule the Mordor of our souls…we journey towards a God-centric life. We have adventures along the way that seem dangerous, risky, and life giving. There is change in the journey, and the goal of allowing Christ to destroy all the darkness within us through His light and truth propel us when we are tired, angry, lost and unsure.

But then we stand gazing at the massive gates that lead to Mordor. We cast our eyes out across the desolate and seemingly endless desert that stretches depressingly towards that burning eye in the center.

Our feet tremble a bit and then stop. “Do I really want to go there?” “Am I really ready for this last push?” “Is this really necessary, doesn’t God love me the way I am?” The civil war begins inside as the eye searches out our weakness.

All of the other roads we had traveled, though hard, were familiar. I could use the tools I had to survive, improvise, astound and move forward. Yet here, in this place, each trail was unknown, every hill seemingly insurmountable. None of the tools in my kit worked…this is a new desert, a very different desert unlike any land I had ever seen.

Darkness covered everything removing my courage the way an extinguished candle’s smoke races towards an opening. Where am I? Who am I?

St. John of the Cross calls this “The Dark Night of the Soul.” When we come into full contact with who we are, the same way Isaiah did when he was in the throne room of the Almighty. When he got a glimpse of the holy, he saw how unholy he was, he saw how powerfully the Dark Lord Sauron of Self ruled his interior.

The Dark night comes upon you when you have been on a journey, a purposeful journey, of knowing God. Not just doing the religious thing, the church thing, or the right thing, but doing the surrender thing.

When we truly engage the journey of following Jesus we will end up standing before many gates that lead to a place that Jesus longs to cleanse, free, and rule in the Middle earth of our souls. Each new gate, and each new dark night has its own level of foreboding attached to it. Each new dark night opens the gate to a new desert you have never traveled and the tools that got you through the last desert may not be effective in the new one.

Yet one thing remains the same…surrender…trust…light…not trust in some generic god that is here one day and gone the next. Not a weak hope that things will turn out okay in the end…Not a self manufactured light that is unable to shine into the darkest of places. Not a surrender that can easily be negotiated out of when the road is hard.

No, it takes the living Christ, illuminating a path that seems impossible to you in a land that is foreign to you on a journey that seems avoidable. Trusting that no matter how dark it gets on your journey, no matter how bad you look, how battered your body, in your heart you know God will never reject or abandon you. On this journey we surrender our plans and routes regardless of outcome, knowing God is with us.

Most turn around at the gate and never experience the journey to dethrone the king of self that rules over Mordor…and the same never experience the depths of love and light that come from facing those deep fears and going forward in the power, strength and person of Jesus Christ.

There is a reason your old skills and tools don’t seem to help much in this new land. If they did, you would not need Jesus, and until we fully grasp that apart from Christ I can do nothing, the Dark Lord of Self will always remain.

He is okay with some small victories here and there, but to loose the kingdom is where the battle truly kicks up. This happens when we burst through the gates intent on moving forward…dealing honestly with what we see in the recesses of our heart.

The only way we can ever get here, to face what comes out of the darkness, is to hold tightly to Christ, clinging to Him as if he were holding onto us as we dangled over an endless ravine.

If you find yourself at the gates sometime soon…go for it, you will never be the same!

Remember the brightest light comes after the darkest night. God is not done with you yet, let Him move you to the deeper life found only in Him, and when Mordor falls…you’ll be ready for the next adventure!

Dei Gratia
MC

Do you remember when it happened? When you realized you were not little anymore. The mysteries were slowly being solved, and wonder began to dissipate like steam from a kettle.

As wonder diminishes, responsibility increased and the mysterious form of wonder turned into the be-puzzled type of wonder.

When wonder starts it’s exodus from our souls, it leaves behind an empty space that we instantly begin addressing with items created to entice and products that come with a promise larger than the cosmos to fulfill every need, desire or want.

But they don’t and we are left with a bunch of wonder-less stuff that really doesn’t matter in the meta scheme of life.

Have you noticed that we even lose a sense of the Divine wonder we once had. In the book of Revelation Jesus deals with their loss of wonder. He says,

"I have this against you, you have abandoned the love you had at first." Rev. 2:4

The people were doing many of the right "religious" things. In fact Jesus said to them,

"I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary." Rev. 2:2-3

Isn’t that wild. It sounds like they really have their doctrine down. It seems like they are testing people’s teaching to make sure that it is good and true. They are even enduring hard circumstances for the name of Christ…come on, honestly, don’t they sound stronger in their faith than you or I?

Yet Jesus was going to remove His incredible blessing from their midst because their hearts were cold. They had lost the wonder that comes with fresh and new love, unspoilt by time, definition and circumstances.

Two thoughts immediately hit my brain. First, it seems that all the Bible knowledge in the world, even if it is right, doesn’t guarantee a relationship with God that is alive and relational. There is a knowing deeper than knowledge about God, it is to be in relationship with Him, to know and to be known by Christ. This is a transformational knowing. This knowing can grow cold and wonder-less if we don’t pay attention, and keep doing the things that breathe life, mystery, love and knowing into the relationship, be it with God or others.

The other thought was one of grace. I am thankful for grace. Grace to me is the key ingredient of wonder. Grace allows me to come back to God when my heart has grown cold, and wonder has slowly been leeching out of my soul. Grace levels the playing field again, reminding me God longs to be in a wonder-filled relationship with us, and nothing can separate me from the love found in Christ.

When I understand grace, wonder is all around me. But that grace is not only about the grace given to me by God, but what truly keeps my mind focused on Christ is when I extend that grace to others. That is amazing, that is a wonder.

Perhaps the church at Ephesus (the one addressed in Revelation 2:1-7) that had lost a sense of wonder, lost it because their focus was diverted from experiencing and extending the incredible grace of God to others, and instead got focused on scrutinizing the letter of the law. Life, freedom and wonder are found in living and extending to others the Spirit of the law.

Paul tells us that a life focused on the letter of the law brings death, but a life surrendered to the Spirit brings life!

May you experience light, grace, life and wonder this Advent season,

Dei Gratia
MC

I just re-entered reality…Do you know that transitionary frame of the moment when you are between two worlds, the world you just came from, and the world you normally find your existence in? This last week I was with a group of kids from our student ministries program at SVA.

It was a wild week with kids from every kind of background, and quite a spread of ages. We headed North early Monday morning to Diablo Lake, unloaded a bunch of canoes, and put everyone in them; most of whom had never been in a canoe, and definitely had not been in a situation where you needed to team with another person so intensely to get from point A to point B!

After about 5-6 miles on Diablo, we arrived at Diablo Dam and had to have our canoes portaged up and over the Dam and drop us in Ross Lake, our destination for the week of camping, canoing and fun!

It was kinda rainy the first day, but slowly each day dawned brighter than the day previous. We found rock cliffs to jump off.Some were ready to leap into the unnown, while others had to take some time to warm up to the idea of hurling their bodies off a cliff a long way down to the absolutely clear water below!

The week would be a week to read through Colossians together. It was great to see some Jr. Highers reading a chapter of Colossians in the morning…again at lunch…and then to go through it all together at campfire…the Logos slowly creeping into the conscience and sub-conscience of each kid, no matter where they were at spiritually.

We had canoe wars, sinking each others canoe, relays, prayer for each other, and even 3 baptisms during the week! God always moves in the most un-mapable people and the most surprising of ways!

What makes these canoe trips so powerful for me personally is that these old- beat up canoes – that we have been using on retreats for years, are the same canoes that I paddled when I was 19 years old on my first canoe trip to Lake Chelan in 1983…that was the trip that forever changed my life…that was the canoe trip that I sat alone upon a rock- looking up the lake and told God, "Okay…I’m done,…I give up…I am wholly yours for whatever you want to do. I will go wherever you want me to go…I will do whatever you want me to do.

After that canoe trip, I did one more year at Central Washington University, then I transfered to Bible College, and I have been church planting ever since. Before that trip I was planning on being a high school music teacher…after that trip I began a God-centric adventure that is still going on today.

As I shared some of my story, a bunch of the kids began to come up to me one by one to say that they were making that commitment even though they really didn’t know what it all meant. I responded that I still don’t know what it means most of the time, but that God does, and as long as He is in the drivers seat we can glide across the waters of life sure that what we encounter will deepen us, grow us, open our eyes to see the God-reality around us all the time!

Perhaps what was most impacting for me on this trip is that my daughter Emma and my son Liam were there…Jr. Highers on their first canoe trip. I know God was working deep within them, I could see it in their eyes. That brought me right back to being 19 again and re-experiencing the dynamism through their eyes. Watching some of their canoe firsts like: struggling to paddle into the wind…figuring out that the only way to move ahead is to keep the bow pointed into the wind and power it out… that is a life lesson that is still with me.

So often we get tired and let the wind catch us sideways. That will always take us backward, never forward. And what is really amazing is that sometimes, even when you keep the bow of the canoe facing the wind…and you are powering it out…your eye is watching the shoreline, and it seems that you are not moving forward very much…the wind seems so strong…but sometime in life to go forward you need to simply hold your ground…don’t quit…don’t let the lack of movement discourage you. If you do, you will be moving backward and that will really cause you to enter the lake of discouragement!

Other firsts like looking off the rock cliff that seemed to not be so high from the canoe, but when you reached the top you think, "Oh my God this is high!" But by this point you’re committed and you simply jump even though you’re scared. Isn’t that an incredible moment…the pause after you KNOW you’re going to jump and everything inside you is screaming, "DUDE DON"T BE A FOOL!" But you jump anyway, and on the way down you’re thinking…"What did I just DO!"

How about learning to navigate relationships when you get triggered by others, and you are living in such close quarters…that’s life together, life in the church, life with a family. We are all different. We are all triggered by different personalities…yet we are called to a higher kind of living called love.

I was overwhelmed a few times as I thought about all the kids that have been in these canoes on so many different lakes. Learning different books of the Bible, and experiencing God in so many ways. I thought about how many of them have given their lives to Jesus on trips in these battered old aluminum canoes.

They are so much more than canoes…they are portals of grace where God gets you away from ipods and X-box. Away from T.V and all things electronic…a place where you are left with that which is the most scariest realm in the universe…simply you.

To be alone with yourself…your thoughts…your God. Our ADD culture has a very hard time with that, and when we have trouble stilling our minds we get angry, antsy and often give up. But God is good with even the effort! I believe the church would transform at an exponential pace if we would practice silence…centering…dealing with our thoughts…and finding God in the blank spaces between the notes and between the myriad of thoughts that create our reality.

The canoes transport you to a place where God has been waiting for you to come to simply be with Him. To throw away the prayer lists and the what-ifs, and calm your mind, breathe the air, look at the water falls and know that He is.

It takes some trips like this to come to the realization that God actually dwells inside of you…in your heart…and that after a while you can go to that place the canoe took you without a canoe…hmmm, think on that one for a while.

Not every life changes so dramatically…but every life is effected and affected. Many of the kids still don’t get all that Paul was speaking to the church of Colosse…it probably seemed weird, non-relevant, hard to grasp…but they were initiated into the spiritual dimension where the Word transforms degree by degree.

We are a people stuck with the notion that we must get it…understand it all…motivate and inspire! Right? Believe it or not, God is able to use the obscurity of Paul’s letters and transform the heart of a Jr. Higher, even if they were antsy, being funny, puzzled and illuminated! It’s probably time we learn that it is all Christ…all Him. Even when we are at our masterful best at communicating the Truth…it is Jesus only.

I wonder what these kids will do 10 years from now and a couple more canoe trips? Will they change the world? Will they plant churches? Will they create music that morphs the heart. Will they love their spouse with all their heart? Who knows, but there is one mystery that I am sure of….They are definitely more than canoes!

Illuminate Deo,
Monty

During the talk on Release a couple weeks ago, I had mentioned the process of taking some time to go through a moral/spiritual inventory so that you could bring to light the issues, stuff, and hurts that could very well be keeping you from experiencing greater awareness in your life with God.

Here is a pdf you can download of an inventory Download moral_inventory.pdf

This is something that powerfully helps your spiritual alignment. Carve out some time, make this a priority, get out of dodge or at least to a quiet place where you won’t be distracted.

Pray before you begin…as you go through the inventory you will soon experience freedom from some of the events in your life that have been buried, but not dead…as you work through the process of release, years of weight begins to dissipate and the voice of God becomes much clearer!

Illuminate Deo,
Monty