Its Friday night.  10.28.  And what am I doing.  I am walking in a semi-straight line.  Back and back forth back and forth back and forth.  It’s been this way off and on for the past three or so hours.  What in the world am I doing?!?!?!  Its Friday night!!!!!  Why am I walking back and forth crying out to someone that I can’t see, that I can’t literally feel when I reach up to Him, why am interceding over a city instead of going out on the town, doing the rounds at the nicest restaurants, the hippest bars, the streets where the coolest people hang out?  Yet I am hear in a dark room with a couple candles and a guy wailing out to the creator on the piano.  And it’s worth it.  It’s worth it. It’s worth it.  I was made for this thing and this thing only. I was made to gaze only on him, I was made to love this man, my maker, my creator, my lover.  So I walk back and forth before the throne of the One who was and is and is to be, because there is no other, I bring him my family, my city.  I bring Him the nations that my heart yearns for and I cry out “Jesus come and have your way, bring home the prodigals, release those in captivity, heal the brokenhearted. Draw them in kindness, draw them in intimacy, unveil their eyes, so that they can gaze at you and see you for who you really are”.  If you think that this is easy you are so wrong.  Its not.  Its not easy to stay up till 3am so that you can play the piano for 2 more hours while trying to listen to what the Father is telling you to sing over the city.  Its not easy contending for a city to be changed under the crazy passionate love of Christ.  Its not easy, but as C.S. Lewis say of Aslan, he is not safe but he is good.  And that is what I live for.  The goodness of God, the passionate embrace of my lover, the wantings of God for my city.  Its not easy but its not work either; Its nothing but pure trust, pure obedience, and yes even a but of pure foolishness. We must remember though that He already did the work, the world will be filled with the Glory, every knee will bow, His kingdom will be on earth has it now is in heaven.  So I will continue to gaze.  I will continue to call out, I will continue to stay awake through the midnight hours, but only because my God, my lover, my maker is true and the world will know.   And I with Jesus will call them to come.

To everyone:  Please read this carefully and methodically.  I believe that Jesus will use the prayer and worship that we release to Him to change this situation……So to get right to it…….I am currently in school getting a degree in political science, and one of my classes this semester is “Human Traffiking and Contempory Slavery”.  A sobering subject and quite a party killer!  But seriously this thing is so on the heart of God guys, many times in the middle of class I am crazy close to weeping because the Presence and absolute love of God falls on me for his people that are literally(and spiritually) in slavery!  We have to be a part of what God is doing in this, I believe so desperately that us crying out to the Father in the midnight hours we can put a stop to this!!!!Some numbers for you……

-       27 million people around the world exist has slaves (sex slaves & labor slaves)

-       800,000-900,00 NEW people(children of Jesus) are enslaved every year.  80% are women and 50% are children.

-       selling people is the 3^rd largest criminal activity in the world, behind selling illegal drugs and arms.  The Int’l Labour Office estimates this generates $32 billion per year .

-       Every year 1 million children forcibly take part in the commercial sex industry.

So something that is crazy, and I think just another showing how God has stratigicly placed the Burn.  The other day in class my professor put up a slide showing the “routes” that sex traffikers take victims across the US.  The first thing that I noticed was how many of them are where Burns are located or are close too!!!!  Here is a short list of some of the cities

Seattle, Sacramento, Denver, Dallas, OKC, Mineapolis/St.Paul, Houston, Detroit, Boston, NYC, Richmond.

These are just the major cities!  Most likely, by their proximity to bigger cities, I would guess that every single Burn city has human trafficking go through its limits.  And mind you this is only the routes for Sex Trafficking in the US, this doesn’t even include those that are forced into labor.  Human Trafficking is something that is happening in our communities, not just overseas!! We need to be lifting this up before the Father!! His children(literally those under 18) are being sold for Sex.  His children are being sold to be nannies, and maids, and to pick crops.  They are constantly physically, verbally, and sexually abused.  We must open our eyes to this, bring this before the Father and plead and interceed for those who can not!!  We need to pray that the routes that are taken in and between our cities would be abolished and that the Love of the Father would overtake the traffickers and pimps and that instead routes of the His Presence and His Love would be established!I know that is hardcore guys,, but we need to be hardcore and we need to listen to the heart of the Father for his children.  We can be a part of  downfall of Trafficking just by Burning!!!  Let God Arise and his Enemies be scattered!!!!

I have tried to sit down and write this blog about the Burn last weekend several times, even while sitting in the Burn and trying to process and journal……nothing…….

Maybe that’s good, maybe I am trying too hard to come with something that sounds good and that everyone will like and comment on. Then I can feel good about myself and how I am advancing the kingdom through praying and worshipping and writing a really really inspirational blog. My, what an excellent Christian and follower of the Way, I am (I will say to myself while falling asleep in my bed tonight).

Or maybe its just proof that what I really know is nothing. That God is high and lofty and I am not even a worm. That His Presence, His Glory I cannot describe with all the pretty words in the world. I feel like I try every blog, every month to put into words what is going on at 3am and Jesus comes like never before. But really I can’t, my words will never be enough. My thesaurus I can just toss in the fire, cause all the intelligent and alternative words in there are just crap(literally) to what and who He really is. We have but only a slight glimpse a shear glimmer, but this is what I’ve seen…..

Jesus always amazes me. He confounds me, astounds me. His grace is too much and his judgment to little for those whom He has called to himself. But He is good and true, I am beginning not to know fully, but rather accept. I find myself wondering what He has in store, certainly something crazy, something foolish to those who are on the outside looking in. No eye has seen no eye has heard. I guess there is a lot that I am finding out that I don’t know. But I know this thing above all: that His Glory will cover the earth like the waters cover the see. I just don’t want to toss around those words. They are powerful, they are nation shaking, they are generation saving. They mean that Heaven is coming down. That Emmanuel will once again be here, not just in spirit guiding and leading us. It means that HE is going to reign. And that is what it is all about and that’s all I need to know.

I’ve had a whole day and a half to process. I am one of those people that have to think over and over and over before the light shines through, the mist lifts and God speaks. My heart is aching for my city. Maybe a little bit more today then it did on last Saturday before all this happened. I wish that I could say that I didn’t see it coming, the “oh my god how could this have happened” thoughts didn’t enter into my head once.

I knew the guy that was the shooter. Matthew Murray, 24 yrs. I went to church with him when I was growing up, we were in Sunday school together; we went on some mission trips together. My family has known his family for years and years. As I remember him, he was always troubled, he was always violent. When I was five we were in Sunday school together and during playtime he hit me over the head with a wooden block. I’ve never forgotten that and many times within the past several years Jesus has prompted me to pray for him. In the last couple years I would get random email from him, mass emails that tirade against Christians and how they don’t live like Jesus. When I heard that it was Him, I sadly was not shocked. I knew that he did not have a positive relationship with YWAM, that he had been kicked out of the DTS. But I’ve stopped asking the question ‘why God’ when stuff like this happens. God is God. Sin is in this world and the consequences are bloody and ugly and painful. But God is faithful, just & good, in spite of us and how we managed to wreck it all. I now ask God ‘what’. What can I do differently, how does your image in me demand I respond. Jesus you are my breath, so be in me while I act in this messed up world.

This morning when I was praying about this all God led me to a couple places, and randomly they all fit together. At first I opened to Hosea. The ultimate love story, the ultimate story of redemption, an allegory of us and Him. An odd place to be led during a time of death but I can’t get my eyes off of Hosea 2:19-20 I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice, in loving-kindness and compassion, and I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. Then you will know the Lord”. His love. His covenant. His word. His everlasting promise towards us. He will be only who He Is, and then we will know the Him. Just a page before this passage is Daniel 11:32 The people who know their God will display strength and take action.” WE ARE NOT INNOCENT BY-STANDARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We have the authority to take our cities, we have the authority to take our families, we have the authority to take our workplaces, we have the authority to take nations. We are children of the most high God. We are inheritors of a kingdom which has no end. Yet we stand and do nothing. Do we not know Him, although we claim to? If Jesus is true,if He is who he says He is. If the bible is true, if it is really the story of God speaking to us, calling to him, to his light, then it is all true. I can’t know God and not take action. What happened should not be a surprise to those that live in the Kingdom. To those that are burning before the Fire of Him with their lives. Peter, John, Paul and all the others throughout history who give themselves for Him would not be surprised. They had seen Him; they knew Him and they took action. They counted the cost. Let us not be surprised when the kingdom of God suffers violence. What we are doing in our cities, in our homes, in our lives is the KINGDOM. It is principalities that we can only see with the eyes of heaven; it is the rulers of the air that we can only breakthrough with our songs. The kingdom of God suffers violence and the violent take it by force (Matt 11:12). We must be violent. This what Jesus is saying right here and right now.

We must violently love the wounded. We must violently love those in captivity. We must violently love those who hate us. We must violently pray. We must violently release the sound of heaven. We must violently sing the song the God has given us. We must violently demand that Jesus come. We must violently demand that the Kingdom be on earth. This is not a game. The kingdom of Jesus is not a spectator sport. We are bringing heaven to earth and that is a violent undertaking because we are laughing in the face of the prince of darkness that has ruled this earth and proclaimed with everything that we have “NO, THIS PLACE IS NOT YOURS AND YOU HAVE NO LEGAL CLAIM. THE BLOOD PAID THE DEBT!!” We are turning back history; we are proclaiming our inheritance. We are warring and war is violent. We must be tenacious. We must be persistent. We must take action. Because this place is ours and we must take it back.

I can’t get this verse out of my head. Its literally been haunting me for months now. In it Jesus says, “ Peace. Peace to him who is near and peace to him who is far. And I will heal him” (Is 57.19). Its getting to me because it’s the story of the pursuit of a lover over time and space and distance. It’s the bible in two sentences. Its eternity in one word- Peace. He pursues us when we are near and he pursues us when we are far. He calls to us peace. Not the “happy holidays” peace that we smack on our faces around this time every year, but Shalom, the True peace that extends to a wholeness in every aspects of our lives. And it is in this place that he heals us. Its in this place that he draws us to His heart, calls us His beloved. We are spending these hours upon hours just sitting hear, resting, soaking, interceding and its because He came, He pursued us, and He is healing us. And as we are here shifting the heavens, changing our cities, bringing the kingdom…..(really think about that for one moment, what the really means)……he is calling out peace my beloved, come back, I’ve forgiven your wicked ways. We are shifting the heaven so that His peace can come and reign. We are changing our cities so that they can be cities of His Presence. We are bringing the Kingdom so that we can come and reign and have His rightful place! That is why I sit for hours. Because I am responding to the ancient yet modern lovers call to come and Be. Once again I’ve come back to him, to His name, to his Presence. Once again my heart is weeping with anticipation because I’ve seen my lover and there is no turning back.

Let me prefes with saying that I am sick. I feel like crap. If I was’nt burning this weekend I would be in my comfy bed under piles and piles of down comforters sleeping away in the quite discontent of Nyquil. Sometimes you come because you have to. Because are you obliged to, because you have set the whole thing up, and all the candles are in your car. But man…..i can say that when He comes…….its so worth it. It so worth it hear him speak in power and might, and in the silence and quite times. Just to say “I love you my child. Its worth it, keep on going on right beside you., don’t get discouraged. I love you.” His presence is the only thing, that’s just all there is too it. Its worth having to lay down and sleep on churchy chairs instead of my own wonderfully comfy pillowtop mattress. I love this man called Jesus. I love my creator. I love my maker. And even more then that……He desires me, He loves me. And that is worth dragging myself her for. Its those late night hours that I absolutely love. Not that I am always up for them, No I usually fall asleep on the floor right in the middle of some prayer. It is the most restful sleep that I ever have, but still I wake up very often. And its in those moments stuck in the rhelm between dreams and reality my mouth seems to let loose the prayers of heaven. Prayers that I might never pray otherwise. I am praying what I am seeing and perceiving, things that take me several moments to realize that they were in fact just dreams and not reality. But they are the dreams and words of heaven. They are bits of the spirit man that has not fully come into its own in my real life, but in the dreams and visions and in the night he has full control. Jesus may this spirit man come more and more. May he invade my reality. May he invade the light of my day and fully inhabit

Ten days ago I stood in the ruins of one of the original churches. I walked the road that Paul walked. I prayed the prayers of the saints of old for Unity and Fire.

It says in the Psalms “ Ask of me and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, the very ends of the earth as your possession.” As I travel around the world doing the work that I believe He has called me to I often think of the implications of this verse. In Turkey over the past two weeks the cry has been no different. I want this nation. I want it recognize its destiny and calling and more then anything I want the presence of the most high God to dwell there.

It’s all about the Restoration. The Restoration. The Restoration. Restoring the things of the Lord, the promises that He made to His children. I am just so convinced that singing and prayer over a nation changing the destiny of that nation. In the end we are only asking Jesus to come and do what He already loves to do. He longs to save his children; He loves to extend his hand of mercy and kindness. He delights in us. He wants His glory to cover the earth.

My time in Turkey was probably the most full trip that I have ever taken. And it was good, amazing, God-covered, history inspired, and glory bringing. We went to a lot of the “tourist sites”, but our mission was not to sightsee. Our mission was to reignite the ancient fire that burned in those places. One of the places we went to was Perge, the town (now ruins) with the oldest Roman amphitheatre in the world. It is here where the ruins of one of the oldest church is. The feelings that I had being in that place are nearly indescribable. It’s where time when destiny meets history, time stops for one brief moment…….My prayers are intermingled with those that where said in antiquity…..“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you will know the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints and what is the surpassing greatness of His power towards us who believe”. I pray that the ancient wells would be restored. I call out and say that Turkey you are that bride of Christ, a friend of God and a chosen child.

My team burned before the Lord for 55 straight hours. We joined together with Christian workers from all over Turkey. This was a big deal. These people know more then anybody that Turkey is at a crossroads, a breaking point. These people have toiled for years without fruit. They are at this point: they know that intercession, worship and prayer are their only option. They must seek the presence of God and out of that place will come more fruit then they ever imagined. The Glory has come and will come and everything will change.

A random thought, during 55 hours of burning:

What is the price of a nation? Is it worth staying up all night, pacing, standing, and laying down, jumping. Waiting in the stillness. The Time has come. The dawn is breaking and the King is coming.

A random thought, reflections on the call to prayer.

The sound of the Mullahs sounded this morning at 4. Yes, 4am. Screeching the sound of Allah, the sound that entangles millions of people around the world. The call to prayer. Five times a day. Reading the Quran into the atmosphere, into the hearts of people living here. I woke up and I was praying. I didn’t even think about it. That is the battle that is in this place. The darkness, the overwhelming sounds of the darkness that pervades the lives of all that live in this land. The darkness is thick, the deception takes hold and an entire culture lives in shame. Rejection came long ago when a man called Abraham choose another son, a younger son. The inheritance placed on the younger instead of the elder; a most shameful act done in the culture where honor is everything. Generations upon Generations of people are formed to live in shame and rejection.

But the good news is that the darkness has never been stronger but the desperation of the people has never been more intense. Jesus is reaching down into the hearts of His people and He is literally showing up. We pray hard for visions and dreams because it seems that that is what God is using to break through here. God uses others ways of course but sometimes it would seem as if there is no other way. There is so much bondage so much deception. An entire culture, an entire religion based off of shame and rejection. They don’t believe that they are loved; they don’t believe that they can talk to God. So we pray for God to show up in dreams and vision and reveal himself. And he is!!!!!! He is showing up!!!! Muslims are being brought into the kingdom because they have had a revelation of the Jesus. They are so hungry. They are seeking and He is revealing and He is answering the cries of their heart, even if they don’t know what they are asking for. He is coming. My Lord has called you. He has redeemed you. He has chosen you to walk among the loved and favored of the earth. Those whose hope is found on a wooden cross and the blood of a lamb, those whose called to walk in Light. The Fathers love has been restored and as called you back from your life in the wilderness, your life will now be spent resting by the steams of the living one, the majestic one, the holy one.

I really do apologize if you feel like I still have not told you what that crap I did for two weeks. Really I could give you a blow-by-blow itinerary but in the end it would all boil down to this. God giving me and my team a heart for His children in Turkey, understanding the darkness and then forcing the Light into it. Its about him, all we did was go and pursue Him and intercede on behalf of His people who can’t do it themselves. We asked that His Presence would come because in the end that’s all that matters. The Presence is the only thing that will change the nations. His Presence is the only thing

I will remind the Lord.I will not rest until your name is exalted.I will not rest until your kingdom comes Is. 61 What in the world happened? All of the sudden it seems like everything has clicked, the pages have turned and people know their God. This is His people walking before the throne and sitting and staring. It’s such a place of rest. A place of security. A place where we were meant to live. In the midst of this my heart is burning. My heart is a wreak. Jesus is putting His Heart in me, and what a crazy concept that it. I can’t talk. I can’t sing. I can’t do anything but stare. And what is coming out of this. What am I going to do? What is my plan, my goal? The fact is that I don’t know. I can’t plan my life any more because all I want to do is be in the Presence. All I want to do is stare and call others to stare with me. I want to beckon the world to stare with me. That’s all I have. I can’t say anymore because all I want is One Thing. And my words are rubbish but Jesus this is my vow. I will not rest until your kingdom comes.

It’s a Small place. A Dark kinda claustrophobic place. A place where Jesus is. What does this all look like?!?! Burning before the holy one of Israel. What the heck, I feel like I don’t even know how to describe it. Ask me what it looks like to see Jesus show up. I close my eyes, shake my head, and continue to pray and sing only “holy”. Because that’s all I know how to do. That the only way that I see that we will come. I don’t have the answers that I have been screaming for all my life, the answers that I feel echoed around my by well meaning friends who only want to know their maker. Can it be that simple? Cut the crap. Stop the meddling. Stop the working. Stop. Stop. I want to know the unknowable; I want to touch the untouchable. And I can only pray, I can only seek His presence, the very thing that I can’t even legitimately explain or rationalize. I fall to my knees and I say Jesus come. I can’t see you but come, I can’t explain you but come, I can’t prove you but come. Take my generation. Take my heart. Burning One I just want to Burn before you.

All I can sing right now is, “I don’t understand your ways”. This isn’t mind you a crisis of faith. It is rather an establishment of faith. In the midst of pursuing Jesus in the midst of seeking him and his presence I have come into a place not of knowingness, but of unknowingness. I don’t understand his ways. He is faithful H is true He is Holy He is Glorious He is righteous. I know these things not simply because the bible says they are true, but because I have seen the reality of them at work in my life. I can’t get the Celts out of my mind, once again. They say the holy spirit as a wild goose, mysterious, uncatchable, but always worthy of the chase. This man that I love, this unknowable man who made me. He is mine, and I am his. And I will chase.