Month: May 2023

I am finishing up my 27th year of staff for Ichthus here at KSU, after 4 1/2 years before that as a student leader. Three and a half years ago, I effectively restarted Ichthus when I left what-was-then-Ichthus, which took a new name. (If that sounds confusing — well, yes. Yes, it was.) But whether old or new or in-between, the vision that has driven me is one of God doing something big and wonderful here in Manhattan, far greater than just Ichthus. I believe he has promised it, actually, in 1991, clear back in the days when my understanding of God’s voice was much less developed than it is now, and has reconfirmed it, sometimes quite vividly, in 1995 (“even when you feel like a grasshopper among giants in the promised land, walk the way of Caleb and Joshua”), February 2005 (“open the floodgates of heaven,” one of the most powerful personal experiences of God’s presence in my life), and (differently) 2015. This most recent season (2019-now) has found me praying more than ever and pursuing the same vision trying specifically to learn from the great disciple-making movements happening throughout the world right now.

It’s an interesting thing to keep believing in something when the years keep going by and the road has more twists and turns than I could possibly have anticipated. (Thirty years of marriage and five kids, the oldest being 25 now, is part of that. There are lots more parts.) How badly do I want it?

So I still believe God is going to do something big and wonderful here (beyond the many wonderful things he has done over the years in so many lives–what an amazing job I have.) City-wide. Flooding this town with the good news of Jesus, transforming lives, healing and restoring and rescuing and being in his proper place of Lord. I do. Even if I move or die before it happens.

This poem represents some of my personal wrestling to keep believing that, particularly in this last season, when Ichthus is smaller and the most promising things seem to keep getting nipped in the bud by Covid, generational things, and who knows what all else.

(The Elijah references are from various parts of his life in 1 Kings 17-19 (also see James 5). And I’m heading into sabbatical starting next week until August 1, which will be an extended time at the “brook.”)

What’s the most important day of your life?

Today–because it’s the only one you’ll ever live in.

I’d say the dominant theme/lesson of 2023 for me so far is living in the moment. Learning to live in the moment, present, right here, right now. Not past regret. Not future planning. NOW.

It relates to what Dallas Willard said, “Hurry is the great enemy of the spiritual life in our time,” as fear-laced hurry (and that’s what makes it “hurry” and not just moving rapidly) takes one out of the moment.

It links to the concept of “flow,” similar to yet broader than what I often experience in writing poetry.

It is connected with my dawning realization that the underlying Master Compulsion in my OCD, within and behind most every other counter-thought or action I take to gain relief from my bursting fearful or guilt-laden thoughts, that which I am tempted to practice nearly every moment of every day, is something that fundamentally moves me OUT of the present moment into a sort of fruitless meta-thought.

It is the next step in maturity (I *think*? This is grasped by faith only) in the task of learning to actually live by the Holy Spirit, in an actual relationship with the Living God more than a quasi-religion trying to figure things out/apply principles from a book. (The book in this case being the Bible. I am quite confident not everyone gets caught in this trap.)

Anyway. This one’s about that. I liked the word “crucial” with its etymological ties to both “cross” and “cross-roads.” Words are so cool.