It took two and a half years, but I finally finished reading Les Miserables (insert wild, nerdy rejoicing). In it, I read about a major cleanup operation – the saturated underground sewer system in Paris.
It was a formidable campaign; a nocturnal battle against pestilence and suffocation.
The operation was complicated; the visit entailed the necessity of cleaning; hence it was necessary to cleanse and at the same time, to proceed…They advanced with toil. The lanterns pined away in the foul atmosphere. From time to time, a fainting sewerman was carried out.
Still with me? One more little section:
At certain points, there were precipices. The soil had given away, the pavement had crumbled, the sewer had changed into a bottomless well; they found nothing solid; a man disappeared suddenly; they had great difficulty in getting him out again.
— Victor Hugo, Les Miserables
The project was tackled in 1805 because one man was willing to go into the putrid darkness and do something about it.
His name was Pierre Bruneseau. He did what needed to be done in the place and time he lived in, willing to be the cleanup operation and go into the dark when others shuddered at the thought of it.
God nudged me as I read it. What would happen if each of us took this approach with prayer?
What would happen if those darkest, most hopeless places, institutions, and people were tackled in prayer on a level that no one has had the grit and persistence to take on before?
What if we prayed – really prayed, with bright, life-giving detail – over those who’ve grown wild, refusing to admit fault, admit reality, admit their own weakness? What if we were brave enough to picture what it would look like if the darkest businesses were replaced with those that breathed life in a community – and then we prayed it into existence?
A friend said this in a sermon and it stuck with me: The presence of fire in the Bible often symbolizes the presence of God. The fire on the mountain, the burning bush, the pillar of smoke, the tongues of fire that could not be contained in a room.
His presence sanctifies, purifies, covers, and brings light.
Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.
– Hebrews 12:28-29
The light yoke of responsibility, maturity, and surrender are only a breath away. The heavy yoke of filth and blackness costs so much, and lies to those who are in it that the effort to take the deep breath of surrender isn’t worth it. What if we made the road smoother through prayer that refuses to give up on them?
I’ve also been the one who was lost, and losing, and needed someone to fight in prayer for me. Many of us would not be who we are today without those who fought the darkness for us.
We have loved ones stuck in this kind of mire, and this is where the fight comes in for those of us who love them and are tempted to just wash our hands and give up on them. Giving up seems easier to us, just as it seems to them, because the pain of disappointment after raised hopes is so hard to bear.
But this stubborn, unyielding prayer is where we fight, because the decision between hope and despair is where the battle rages. This is where the outcome of victory or defeat is decided. And we should take someone with us, because even spiritual proximity to the morass can threaten to suck us under, too. We can be the powerful loving ones, clinging to a healthy vision of the one who is lost in darkness, refusing to let it go.
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.
– 1 Peter 5:8-9
We cling to this hope and pray it into existence regardless of the blackness that pulses and threatens. We could fade away and give up, but heroes run into the battle and not away from it. Our loved ones need us to be those heroes – because they too are meant to be heroes, and that’s why the enemy fights so desperately for them.
That enemy whispers, “Give up. Lower your weapons.”
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.
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.
Homeschoolers! Looking for a way to make science fun? Vin initiated Science Friday with our kids a few years ago and has been sharing the links online for a while, but he just moved it to its own Substack where you can findall the links every week, for free, all in one place. It’s super cool – tell your friends, but maybe not your insurance agency.
Interested in alternatives to traditional cancer treatment? Here’s an amazing testimony. And if you’re looking for a book on that topic, I just finished World Without Cancer by G. Edward Griffin this month and highly recommend it.
A few weeks ago in our prayer meeting, an elderly friend quietly said, “The Lord likes bravery, and our willingness to do hard, new things.”
I think she’s right. And we can do hard things. But often, we’d rather not.
For example, raising poultry is a lot harder than just buying eggs at the store once a week. It’s not convenient, but it is ideal, because once you know what goes into your supermarket eggs and meat and how the food supply has been repeatedly attacked in the last few years, you’ll have the motivation to do hard things. (Or at least to start looking for a local egg source.)
But it’s easier not to know, and that’s what we often opt for. Learning is pretty dangerous because it makes us uncomfortable and nudges us toward action we’d rather not participate in.
And we can’t learn everything at once – this is a long journey we’re on, and I’m nowhere close to arriving – but every year we’re learning to do things differently to align more with the values we claim to believe in.
Such as, slavery is wrong. No brainer, right? But when was the last time you (or hey, your church) bought something that was substantially cheaper than the alternative because you didn’t want to pay more? When two almost identical items vary that much in price, it’s usually because one of them was made by someone who didn’t get paid for their labor. If I had a dollar for every time in the last twenty years my kids received slave-made trinkets from their classes at church, I’d have enough money to adopt three more kids.
People need to know. There’s so much we need to know.
We need to know Who we’re dealing with and how He loves us, and how to handle others with care. Those are the basics. But also, we need to know that we can do hard things – because if we’re not willing to do hard things, our basics go nowhere.
And this right here is where the rubber meets the road in the Kingdom: It’s not enough say we value Biblical beliefs if we’re still actually living as our own god and worshipping ease.
It’s a lesson I thought I already knew eleven years ago, until I realized I didn’t. We thought we knew what “hard” was: We had four kids and parenting was hard, we’d been married for 15 years and some of those years were hard. The process of adoption – with all of its paperwork and training and fundraising – was hard.
Sailing a boat across stormy waters is one kind of hard. But stepping out of it and trusting the Lord to defy gravity and hold you on top of it is a whole other thing.
So “hard” is relative, and it’s not what’s really important. What the Lord is looking for is our willingness to go to the next level, to surrender and trust Him in a new way, to obey Him in something that requires His intervention and not just our own ability.
Will we mess up? Will we make mistakes? Absolutely, no doubt. But is the Lord unaware of our imperfections and efforts when He calls us? Nope. He knows and is not surprised; He’s not afraid of us making Him look bad. And if we’re honest, we’re not afraid of that, either. We’re afraid we’ll make ourselves look bad.
When Peter risked the ocean, he didn’t care what the guys in the boat thought; His connection with Jesus is what both compelled and allowed him to walk on water. But when Jesus becomes less important than anything or anyone else, we make mistakes and lose our focus, and this is when we start to sink. Ask me how I know.
If we only know Jesus as our savior but not also as our Lord, we won’t step out of the boat. And maybe that’s a good thing because we can’t survive the water without Him.
Are we willing to go to the next level and obey Him in whatever hard thing He’s calling us to next? Will we surrender our spending habits and lifestyles? Will we let go of our insecurities and ignorance-is-bliss mentality?
But if I _____ (shop elsewhere, adopt a child, quit my job, research that issue, stop living with my boyfriend, quit that habit, homeschool my kids, change my business, have that hard conversation, let go of unforgiveness, whatever) I don’t know what will happen. I don’t have the money. What will people think of me?
He tried to do it with the Israelites, and when discomfort hit, they dug in their heels just like we do:
And why have you made us come up out of Egypt to bring us to this evil place? It is no place for grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, and there is no water to drink.
– Numbers 20:5
There is no Starbucks, no Walmart, no cheap poison from McDonalds.
Absolute trust in His love for us is the most critical choice we make, because life doesn’t always make sense. We forfeit control outside the comfort zone where everything operates by a different set of rules. And that supernatural trust is a secure place – Jesus is our security and stability outside the comfort zone, on the water – but the minute we look back to the boat (or the bank account, or the old habits, or anything else) for security, we expose ourselves to sinking.
But we were made to risk the ocean, and walk on water.
It’s not enough to just be on the right side. The conservative patriot who winks at porn is just as compromised as the liberal who advocates for abortion, regardless of whether or not they attend church every Sunday. The one who considers themselves a great warrior or influencer in these days while living in impurity has nothing on the person who lives in quiet, bold alignment with the Spirit, listening and interceding, confident and unassuming in the dunamis the Holy Spirit offers.
When you’re living fully surrendered, the “normal Christians” around you will wonder at your life just as much as those who don’t know Jesus.
Maybe our family wasn’t wrong. Maybe families are supposed to take on huge challenges and come to the end of themselves and learn to trust God for radical healing and restoration. Maybe that’s what’s supposed to be normal, rather than the comfortable, spacious lifestyle that lets us be the center of our own universe.
Living in surrender means we no longer default to convenience. We surrender to living inconveniently because that means living in power, because our bodies are a temple, because our money and time and talents are His, and we’re stewards of the King. Our lives are lived to build the Kingdom, not the enemy’s platform. This is our spiritual act of worship.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
– Romans 12:1-2
We talk about expanding the Kingdom, but if we live to pad our comfort zone – shunning the inconvenient and ignoring the uncomfortable and refusing His sanctifying work in us – we’re merely inoculating others from the Kingdom rather than bringing them into it.
Kingdom Culture ought to be standard Christianity. Radical surrender, service, healings, joy, peace, and exploits ought to be our norm, not the extreme fringe.
Will we turn down a life fit for glossy magazine pages in favor of a life of transparency? What if we traded our shiny packaging for rough brown paper, tied with grace?
There’s room for each of us to grow, and Jesus knows our weakness and our desire to do better. Like with Peter, He asks us, Why did you doubt? Don’t you know that I’ve got this? Don’t you know that I’ve got you?
Surrender prevents our sinking. He meets us in mercy, reaching out to us, and holding our hands as we walk back to the boat together.
______
If you’d like to read my story of sinking and sanctification, Risk the Ocean is now available. You can buy it directly from us, or find it on Amazon, or get it anywhere books are sold.
