dominance: praying revival into a world on fire

Life has leveled up to a new level of ridiculous. I don’t mean the current events – I mean, they are, but we can talk about that later. What I mean is, there’s a rooster living in our bathroom.

I introduced you to Freckles in the last post. And yes, even inside, he still crows in the morning. Not the first day; he was too injured and didn’t eat or drink for about 36 hours. But the second morning I woke up to crowing at 7:14, approximately twelve feet from my head. The next day it was even earlier, 7:03.

dominance: praying revival into a world on fire

Knightley meowed from the corner of my pillow, and Vin murmured, “Cats to the left of me, roosters to the north…here I am, stuck in the middle with you.”

But this morning was better: Freckles, now acclimated to the late schedule of homeschoolers, waited until after 10am to start crowing. I told you, he’s marvelous.

(Wait, did I mention we also have five quail who’ve been brooding in the same bathroom for six weeks? They need to transition outside but currently their brooder won’t fit through the door because there’s a cage the size of a Prius blocking it from opening all the way.)

So some things have to change. Since we had too many roosters with all the chicks that hatched this summer, we sent two of the lesser-favored ones to (ahem) freezer camp, and in the reshuffling of space and territory, the other young rooster took it upon himself to prove dominance. Freckles got the worst of it; I found him hiding in a nesting box with one eye swollen shut.

And then – because Vin and I clearly still don’t know what we’re doing – instead of removing him that night like we should have done, we handpicked who he should roost with and put him in the coop with the gentlest hens…so we thought. The next morning both of his eyes were swollen shut and his ear was also terribly swollen, because one of them had picked on him overnight.

It’s what chickens do. If someone’s injured, they attack. It’s not exactly Kingdom culture.

That was Saturday, when everything else all over the world escalated. He’s been in our bathroom ever since to recover in safety, with occasional trips the first couple days to the living room for spa treatment (meaning, Vin held him while I swabbed his swollen eyelids with a steamy washcloth and talked to him about his nice complexion) and afternoon excursions during the last couple days to play with the kids in the yard or help the guys change tires because we got our first snow this week.

Our beautiful fall quickly turned to bleak-fall-mixed-with-winter, and we need to figure out what to do about roosters, and quail, and garden pots that need put away. I cannot resolve world events but I can tackle these. So while world leaders strut about a war they helped create to line their own pockets as others pay the ultimate price, I’ve been distracted with the small events in my own territory, watching Freckles make progress as his eyes start to see again.

Is it enough, though? It’s such a small thing in light of so many unknowns and concerns about the future. We can pray deep and wide, but physically I can only reach so far.

And I thought about not sharing any of this at all because people on the internet can be stupid. (Not you, of course. Other people.) Why do you have more than one rooster? You should just get rid of the one who lost the fight. You should do this and this and this…People who don’t bother asking about the size of our flock or other dynamics are happy to throw out all kinds of unhelpful advice and criticism so they can feel like experts. But I’m not here for advice or criticism; I’m just here learning and trying to do the right thing, like most of the rest of us.

(For the record, we have too many hens for one rooster, and I don’t want to eliminate the one who’s nicest to the hens and our family. DUH.)

In the middle of the world threatening to light itself on fire, there’s something visceral and focused about trying to bring healing to one creature, and about not just letting nature take its course but instead being an intentional steward, partnering with God to bring restoration.

Sometimes I am the creature who needs healing, and if I can get the log out of my own eye it makes a huge difference on a wider scale. This right here, where I can touch, is where I do the most important work. When the world is ridiculous, this is where I show it who’s boss: He is, of course.

Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in the way.

He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way.

– Psalm 25:8-9

So I harvested carrots, and pulled ripe tomatoes from the vines growing in the living room, and spent more time listening – really listening – to my kids than I was inclined to after bedtime. I cleaned the gross area under the sink and prayed for other gross areas to be cleaned from our country.

I read to my kids, and prayed with a stranger at the thrift store, and smiled at people who looked like they were in a hurry, because I’d rather be at home instead of running errands, too.

Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.

– Psalm 37:3

Such tiny things. But I want people to be unable to drive through Wasilla without being touched by the Lord and encountering bold love from His people. This is my territory, the land He’s made me (and many others) steward of. This is the place I can touch and cultivate. This is where we release Kingdom culture, ignite revival, and prove Who is dominant.

This morning we were praying about how creation groans, and how creation sings God’s praises, and how creation bears witness to God. We listened to the same song I sang when I found out I was unexpectedly pregnant with Kavanagh, struck with the glory of sober obedience: If creation still obeys You, so will I.

The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.

– Psalm 24:1

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

– Romans 1:20

And as we prayed, I kept hearing the phrase, “Creation, obey Him!” The enemy is bent on destruction because chaos and ugliness don’t reflect the glory of God or draw people to Him. But beauty, order, and strength do.

So in the midst of chaos, when anything I can do feels so small in comparison to world events, I’m pursuing order and beauty and strength in the areas I can reach. Because things here have to change.

I cannot counsel world leaders who beat war drums, but I can finish the tasks on my own desk. I can ask God to heal the wounded while I tend my rooster. I cannot prepare for all the unknowns, but I can pray for people to encounter God in dreams and visions as I bring order to my own house. I cannot root out evil networks, but I can ask God to invade hardened hearts as I wipe the counters and run another load of laundry and pray for those driving up and down the highway.

People are trying to light the world on fire, but what if the fire they get is revival, instead?

The globalists and the terrorists – but I repeat myself – think they dominate but they haven’t seen real power yet. They have no idea what comes of the prayers of those who have favor with the King who turns evil on its head: Communities saved. Culture redeemed. Workers of evil brought into the Kingdom of light.

What if we prayed that way, and the Lord confronted the perpetrators with the blinding light of a Damascus road experience? Because He does.

What if we prayed for those who are fleeing and despairing, and Jesus showed them He is the God who sees? Because He is.

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

— 2 Peter 3:9

For the evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land. In just a little while, the wicked will be no more; though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there. But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace.

– Psalm 37:9-11

It’s another season of sober obedience; our hearts might get hurt in this. But that’s the case in parenting, forgiving, writing, reaching out to others, being a friend, or trying to learn anything new. We might get hurt. None of this is safe or guaranteed.

But letting nature take its course and resigning to not doing anything is an insult to the One who gave everything, even when He knew it would hurt. He hasn’t called us to bury our talents and do the safe or easy thing. He’s called us to level up, even if it looks ridiculous.

He hasn’t called us to act like chickens, but to be saints, a royal priesthood.

 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

— 1 Peter 2:9

It might bring the eucatastrophe we didn’t know we could hope for. We can pray for revival in the face of all the threats and posturing, and watch a quiet uprising that lights the world with a different kind of fire – the kind that burns but does not consume.

We pray rockets of revival and repentance into hearts everywhere, starting with our own. And the whole world will be changed, and we never saw it coming.



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P.S. Links for you!

  • How do we walk in God’s presence, and rest in God, and also be His resting place? What is He calling us to be, and how do we succeed? This is a life-changing teaching from Hayley Braun; her message starts around 1 hour 55 minute mark.
  • Incredible podcast here on hearing God, imagining with Him, and spiritually occupying the land the Lord has put before us, with Lana Vawser and Courtney Kueck.
  • Did you see my guest post at Raising Arrows? It’s on post-adoption depression which I absolutely did NOT want to write about, especially after writing a whole book on it…but we can do hard things. So I did. It’s a super vulnerable post and I hope it blesses you.
  • We just started A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens this week in Gaining Ground. I’d love to have you join us! Don’t be intimidated by Dickens; he’s wonderful and we’re tackling just 35-40 pages a week.

with book: introducing the one I always meant to write

Long gone are the days when I would sit here, hitting these keys until 3 am. But not long gone – in fact, extremely present and frequently of late – are the hours of overtime on the couch after the kids are in bed.

with book: introducing the one I always meant to write

I have forgotten to eat dinner, left bowls of my beloved popcorn untouched, neglected normal writing schedules, and overlooked watering the garden. But this book is alllllmost done in spite of computer disasters and apps that eat landing pages and several unplanned medical appointments including two trips to urgent care in the last month…one for a kid who broke his arm and one for a bigger kid with a cyst who needs oral surgery again.

And we’re not quite done yet because, just for fun, we’re considering a new book distributor at the last minute.

But hey, friends…let me introduce you to the baby I’ve been pregnant with for eleven years.

“It burned me from within. It quickened; I was with book, as a woman is with child.”

– C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

risk the ocean: an adoptive mom's memoir of sinking and sanctification

This is a memoir of my post-adoption journey through the chaos of mothering and homeschooling six kids in the midst of multiple special needs and my subsequent depression and sanctification as I learned to surrender. If you read Upside Down and Oh My Soul and wondered what was really going on behind the scenes, it’s in this book.

Because we never know how far our dreams and callings will take us when we start pursuing them. The initial rose-colored ideas only get us ankle-deep along the shore, digging our toes in warm sand, before reality sinks in and we’re up to our ears in work we didn’t anticipate, opposition from out of nowhere, obstacles we don’t know how to solve, and expenses that threaten to suck us under.

At some point, we have to decide if it’s really worth the sacrifice to turn our vision into reality. And if it’s a daydream, maybe it’s not worth it. But if it’s a calling – a mission – then it’s a different story.

This, friends, is a different story.

In 2010, Vince and I started a process we didn’t know how to finish. We had four kids, a three-bedroom house, and two old vehicles. We lived frugally with one main income, one micro-business, and a little in savings. And God called us to adopt two children with special needs, bringing them home two years later to freedom, a new homeland, and our family. For good, forever.

And then hell broke loose.

We didn’t know what it would cost, or what it would take out of us. We didn’t know what we would gain, or how it would change us. We didn’t know how the story would end.

And I hate to spoil it for you, but years later I still don’t know how the story ends. We still live this story every day. But here’s what I’ve learned, and am continuing to learn, in the process:

We can talk about following our dreams all we want, but our calling is only achieved through giving up what feels safe and comfortable. It involves scary things like obedience and surrender, and letting go of our preconceived notions and penchant for control. We have to move out of the comfort zone and do hard things. We have to risk the ocean if we want to follow Him as He walks on water.

When we move out of that comfort zone, God may allow us to discover more about our own brokenness than we ever wanted to know. This is especially true when our dreams and callings entail facing someone else’s trauma in close proximity.

And I won’t lie to you – in our own weakness and brokenness, sometimes we look at the waves and can’t take it anymore, and we go under, to be refined like a rock worn smooth in the agitation of violent surf.

The sanctifying process might chafe you raw, until you think you can’t take anymore.

Doesn’t that sound fun? Still want to sign up?

The thing about obeying God in these big, scary callings is that it’s not about what we’re doing at all. It’s about what He ends up doing in us. Because as we follow Him in one task, He will lead us to another, and another, and another. And we discover that we’re not just called to a mission, but to a character of obedience – like children who watch what their Father is doing, and then they do it, too.

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.”

– John 5:19

It turns out that achieving a dream is not about tying things up in the pretty bow we always expect, because redemption and achievement rarely look like a Hallmark Christmas movie.

They usually look more like God moving in deep and lasting triumph in spite of everything the enemy throws at us.


Risk the Ocean is now available for preorder. All preorders from our site receive a free download of the book in PDF, and will be signed by me and shipped on September 19th. Order more than one book, and there will be swag tucked in, too! Bookmarks, stickers, magnets, something fun and marvelous. I’ll figure it out soon. :) Thanks so much for supporting our family. xo

for the one who’s tired of waiting: a kindling post

Hey friend. You, the tired and worn out one. You’ve been pushing, pushing, pushing. Waiting for momentum. Unsure of what tomorrow will look like. Not sure how to plan for it. Trying to be faithful in these moments, but there’s so much to be faithful in that you’re not sure if you’re doing it right, or giving everything the proper attention.

for the one who's tired of waiting: a kindling post by shannon guerra

The Lord sees and knows. He sees where you’ve taken risks that seem foolish, and where you’ve obeyed but the results don’t seem to make sense. He sees your wrestle with striving, and your desire to just be and abide.

He’s not impatient or annoyed by you constantly asking Him if you’re doing it right. He’s not shaking His head and tsk-ing, wishing you’d get your act together and stop bugging Him.

He’s a good, good Father.

He loves your heart that continues to press forward in obedience and surrender, especially when you don’t know what it looks like exactly or how things will turn out.

You can trust Him to tell you what you need to know when you ask Him. And you can trust Him to give you what you need when you ask Him, too.

For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

— Luke 11:10-13

These peonies should’ve bloomed over a week ago but we had the rainiest, cloudiest, gloomiest June I can ever remember. We’re almost halfway through the summer, and it’s still cloudy.

And there’s a word in them for those who have been waiting:

The Lord is still shining on your situation. I know it seems like it’s taking so long and you’ve almost given up hoping and praying and watering and expecting, but your answer is on the cusp of blooming. Do not cut it down too early. Don’t give up on tending it. He is putting things in order, and answers, solutions, and breakthrough are going to start unfolding faster than you can believe.

You can trust Him.

Yes, He’s teaching you perseverance. But He’s not teaching you to be miserable, resigned, or crestfallen.

He’s teaching you how faithful, loving, good, and creative He is.

Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old.

Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

— Isaiah 43:18-19

So you have been waiting and waiting and waiting. And now this: Just a little movement, so small it’s almost insulting. One petal unfolds, sticking out awkwardly, while everything else is still tightly closed.

Is this a joke? Doesn’t God know you need so much more? You have been running and running, and this small bump of a reward doesn’t even come close to what you were hoping for.

But can you praise Him in this small thing? Can you shun disappointment for a minute and refuse to listen to the lies of discouragement long enough to thank Him for this movement?

You want to, because future movement depends on it. Our worship will make the difference between this thing firing up or fizzling out.

And hey, friend…of course it doesn’t look like it should yet. Things are just getting started.

Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. And count the patience of our Lord as salvation…

— 2 Peter 3:14-15a

You know those things that don’t make sense? The ones that aren’t adding up right: A plus B ought to equal C but instead it’s equaling negative five or something. Even though all the right components are there, it still isn’t turning out right. Why have things been so slow, so small, when you know they should’ve been so big?

Did the Lord forget?

Is He angry with you?

Did He decide you don’t really deserve it?

No.

He’s growing your wings.

He’s teaching you to see, and to be alert, and to recognize that some things around you are not just what they seem.

He’s making you strong, and preparing you for exploits.

Things will speed up soon enough, and when they do, you’ll be ready because you surrendered to this process of growth and preparation.

For who is God, but the Lord? And who is a rock, except our God?—

the God who equipped me with strength and made my way blameless.

He made my feet like the feet of a deer and set me secure on the heights.

He trains my hands for war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.

You have given me the shield of your salvation, and your right hand supported me, and your gentleness made me great.

You gave a wide place for my steps under me, and my feet did not slip.

— Psalm 18:31-36

It doesn’t make sense because you are only seeing part of what’s going on. And part of what you’re seeing is misleading and meant to discourage you. Don’t fall for it.

Just like stepping on the scale when someone else is putting weight on it, the numbers you are seeing aren’t the full picture and many of them are false. Don’t put all your trust in the numbers or other things you can see. Put your trust in God who hears you and knows you and answers prayer. He is answering it. Don’t let discouragement cause you to give up when victory is so close.

Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in the way.

He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way.

All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.

— Psalm 25:8-10

The Lord sees those things you’ve been quiet about and trying to be brave for. He knows you’ve been inwardly wilting, trying to stand tall but feeling like liquid inside, unsure of how much longer you can go before collapsing.

He has no intention of letting you collapse, though.

And He’s not playing games, testing to see how far you can go. He knows. He’s not some scientist experimenting on you like a lab rat.

He knows how far you can go.

So He’s preparing you to be there.

Think about that for a second.

You can trust Him with change, and with your future, and with your family as you get there, and beyond.

You can trust Him to be good to you during the whole process.

Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father’s Son, in truth and love.

— 2 John 1:3


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