Category Archives: history

first things, part one: how we pray to heal the land

Posted on by February 17, 2023

Kav is sitting at the counter, staring blankly at his toast.

“The air makes my eyes blink,” he said.

I know, kid. Mornings are hard. The air makes my eyes blink, too.

The sun is rising earlier in the mornings now and setting later in the afternoons, and there’s a reckless feeling of freedom and hope that goes along with it after the shortest, darkest days of winter. We still have two months of snow left but we’re on the downhill slope of it and picking up steam.

first things, part one: how we pray to heal the land -- Shannon Guerra

You know what else is picking up steam? Crazy events around the world. I mean, we thought 2020 was nuts, but every year since seems to have taken it as a challenge to outdo the buffoonery of the one before. Talk about things that are hard and make your eyes blink: What can you do about a government that detonates chemical weapons in the heart of its own farmland?

It’s expected to affect at least 10% of America’s water supply. Fish, livestock, and pets are dying, people are getting sick, and many are afraid they’ve lost their homes forever. The mainstream media isn’t talking about it and has been trying to distract us with aliens instead because they think Americans are stupid (and for once they’re not completely wrong). It’s Look Here, Not There, because otherwise people will notice real things that are happening, like names being released of those who visited Epstein’s pedophile island, the beginning of World War 3, and, oh yeah, how the government has drastically escalated the sabotage of the US food supply.

But you won’t know about most of that if you’re getting your news from “the news,” which is exactly what they’re hoping for. Because, look! Aliens!

Since we do know, though, what can we do? How do we heal the land even while entities are actively trying to destroy it?

We can look at our own soil, and go back to the first things: We can pray. We can get in the Word. And we can get the Word out.

As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.

– Luke 8:15

It’s not common anymore, but every once in a while you hear about land that is so fertile you just have to throw seeds at the dirt and abundant, massive crops spring out of it. Giant tomatoes. Huge pumpkins. I’m not talking about the stuff made from junky, synthetic fertilizers; I’m talking about the good soil that has been nurtured and fed through cycles of work and rest. You can practically throw pennies into the dirt and dollars burst out of it.

It’s similar to how there have been seasons that were uniquely favorable for particular vocations or endeavors. You know, those times in history when something was almost a no-fail prospect because business was so good or demand was so high, the connections came together flawlessly and opportunities aligned. Those who raked in the windfall may have taken credit for the massive success, but they really only happened to be placed into it by the grace of God since, in the given circumstances, it would’ve taken a very special kind of idiot to fail.

And this is the time we are living in, for intercessors. And that means you who already know you are intercessors, and also those of you who are tempted to tune me out right now because you don’t think I’m talking about you. But I am.

Other evils there are that may come; for Sauron is himself but a servant or emissary. Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.

– J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

You know what makes fertile soil? Lots of manure, but it has to be stewarded well. And that’s a good picture of our calling in these days.

Our hearts are to be the fertile soil, where situations drop in and we bear fruit no matter what. And that can feel heavy, like striving, unless we remember that we only bear fruit through abiding – and then we realize it is less about doing and more about being.

We are to be in proximity to the Lord, and not as a passive Yes-of-course-God-is-always-with-me knowledge, but as an intimacy that feels the impact of Someone’s presence. You know how when someone walks in the room and you immediately look over because you felt a shift in the atmosphere? You know how when someone across the room looks at you, and you sense it, and you look back? That’s the kind of proximity we’re talking about. We are abiding with the One who changes the atmosphere. His eye is on us, and we are looking back.

Now that we’ve established that, we can move on to the big question we couldn’t answer before. So, here it is:

How can we pray when events feel too big, too hopeless? How can we heal the land?

One obvious answer is in this verse:

…if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

— 2 Chronicles 7:14

And that’s a great start. But if we’re honest, it’s maybe a little too familiar to some of us and way too unfamiliar for the rest.

So what else should we know? How can we pray? How did Jesus equip us for such a time as this?

I read the story of Jesus and the Centurion to my kids this week. You probably know it; the Centurion’s servant is sick and he asks Jesus to heal him, so Jesus offers to come to his house. But the Centurion says that’s not necessary because he understands how authority works: You tell someone to do something, and they do it. There’s no question, no wondering if they’re going to obey, it’s as simple as one number following the next. The man was a leader over a hundred soldiers (that’s what a Centurion is) and he knew what he was talking about.

Keep that in mind as we look at one of the wild things Jesus said:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

– John 14:12-14

Why did He say we would do greater things than He did? I’m not totally sure, but I think at least partly it was because He knew we would be living in days that required greater things. In Biblical times they had corrupt leaders, too, but they didn’t have governments detonating chemical weapons on their own land and poisoning entire water systems. They didn’t have our dependence on electricity and other utilities. They didn’t have the threat of nuclear war.

So let’s look at a few things Jesus did that we may be able to apply to greater things in prayer:

  • He did many things multiple times: raised the dead, fed the multitudes, cast out demons, healed the sick, made the blind see, made the deaf hear, made the lame walk.
  • He calmed the seas. And this is interesting because in Matthew this story is shared just ten verses after the story of the Centurion that we just talked about, and He asks, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Sorta like He was asking, Weren’t you paying attention? You need to start applying this.

And we do, too.

We can pray and direct wind currents, and command contaminants to be gone. We can take authority over the principalities and powers that have corrupted our churches and institutions. We can pray purity into contaminated water. We can pray for eyes to be opened and evil to be exposed. We can pray for the deaf to hear and people to come to know Jesus like never before. We can take authority over our food supply and cancel the works of the enemy who continues to sabotage it.

That same enemy will hiss at you about how foolish this is. His snarling accusations are a cover for the terror he lives in because he knows what happens when God’s people pray with authority. He knows what happens when people know the Word and say “It is written.” He knows what happens when people stop worshiping their own comfort and what other people think about them, and start doing the things God tells them to. He knows he loses ground fast. The fields are white for harvest.

For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

– 1 Corinthians 1:25-29

Not only did Jesus say we will do greater things than He did, but He emphasized twice right after that that when we ask in His name, He will do it. This isn’t about us being in authority over Jesus; this is about us being a conduit for His authority. He is eager to grant prayer that is aligned with His will. So it only becomes a question of knowing His will, and that goes right back to abiding and being in His word.

So now let’s look again at that scripture about healing the land, because things are starting to come together:

…if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

— 2 Chronicles 7:14

Alright, we’ll take it one piece at a time: We are called by His name. We are humbling ourselves, unafraid to look foolish to the world. We are learning to pray and seek His face; we are in the Word and living in what it says. And we are turning from our wicked ways…wait, wait, wait.

We’re not that wicked, are we? Let’s put aside the obvious sins for a minute and consider: Have we worshiped our own ease? Have we abdicated responsibility and authority to others (like the government, or even church leaders) that we should’ve been doing ourselves? Have we slacked off in intercession? Have we thought “pray without ceasing” was a well-intentioned but unreasonable suggestion, instead of a clear command?

Ohhh. So maybe we do have some wicked ways to turn from. Maybe there’s more room to move.

The best time to do it was years ago, but the next best time is now.

The good news is it’s a fast repentance; no hoops to jump through, no paperwork to fill out, no waiting in line. Jesus, we’re sorry for worshiping what was comfortable. We’re sorry for waiting to intercede until the pain hit too close to home. We’re sorry for neglecting the harvest.

We’re ready to go back to the first things, so we can do greater things.

There is a move afoot, a reckless feeling of freedom and hope that is picking up steam. The One who shifts the atmosphere and has our eye is eager to teach us how to be better conduits of His authority, shaming the wise, and uprooting the evil in the fields that we know.

Part 2 is coming next week, and it’s about reading the Bible and filling the pantry of our soul. Subscribe here to get it right to your inbox.

it’s not breaking down, it’s beginning: powerful perspective for your new year

Posted on by December 26, 2023

Hey friends,

This time last year I was sitting on my bed, tapping out words for the December newsletter, just like I’m doing now. But last year, I was frustrated because December had not gone according to how I had planned. I was stewing and praying and typing, and then Kav came into the room crying because he had crashed while sledding and broke his arm.

And then our December really didn’t go according to plan, because if you’ve been reading since then you know that our world changed that day when medical tyrants tried to hold our son’s emergency care hostage to force our capitulation to illegal pressure and abuse to him and our family.

Long story. Lots of trauma. Super eye-opening, too: We realized that not only was the medical establishment as corrupt as some said, but also that tons of self-proclaimed Christians are okay with that and happy to participate in it. We were even accused of child abuse by some for not simply caving to demands to relinquish our patient and parental rights. It is an upside down world when people somehow think they hold the moral high ground by abdicating both their critical thinking skills and their responsibility to protect their children – and demand that you do, too – in exchange for trusting a disgraced medical regime with every financial incentive to abuse both its authority and the children put in their care. We are not ignorant, unsuspecting, or weak-willed parents, and we will not become so just to make those who are feel better about their own decisions.

So anyway, I guess you can see I haven’t really softened my stance on this.

I bring it up though because anniversaries of trauma and pain can be hard to get through. For some reason many of us have almost a superstitious fear about them, as though something else bad might happen around the same time of the year or that we’ll somehow have to relive the ordeal. The memories carry deep pain laced with other feelings like betrayal, confusion, anger, regret, and fear. So much fear. Fear from the event, and fear of the future. We fight fears of repeated pain, or accumulated pain, and we brace ourselves for the next blow.

Right after we went through that last year, we had a major windstorm. Windstorms here aren’t unusual; we had another one just last week, so this time it came the week before Christmas instead of the week after. These were good ones, though, with gusts up to 85 miles an hour, zero degrees plus windchill.

Last week it shook our house and flexed the windows. In the upstairs bathroom during one of the biggest gusts, the mirror on an interior wall wobbled and rattled. The stovepipe, a new addition this year, whistled in varying keys as we sat around the table putting the latest Christmas puzzle together.

And the noise, oh my gosh. As a homeowner all you can think is, Is the roof okay? What is that weird sound? We prayed that none of the trees would fall on the house or the coops, and that nothing would blow into a window.

It was the same kind of anxiety I felt after the 7.2 earthquake a few years ago. We had aftershocks for months and I prayed for our foundation, the walls, and the future. We could see a little damage – we had cracks in our walls like everyone else – but I was more concerned about damage that we might not be able to see.

And isn’t that what trauma really does? Because it’s not just the memories and the pain, but it’s also the fear it creates of what we cannot see in the future. Usually, we didn’t see the trauma coming in the first place, and we worry that there’s more where it came from.

During a day full of aftershocks, the Lord confronted me about it. Hey Love, what if the shaking isn’t damaging the house? He asked. What if it’s actually making it stronger? What if it’s tightening things instead of loosening them?

What if your worrying is doing more damage than anything else?

Huh, I thought. That’s not how I’m used to looking at things; I’m used to expecting things to naturally deteriorate or depreciate. But He reminded me that He is the one who leads us from glory to glory, who led the Israelites through the desert and kept their clothing and shoes from wearing out, who tells us not to be anxious, and commands us repeatedly in the Bible to “fear not.”

His ways are not our ways, and He reminded me of it again during this windstorm. What if the shaking isn’t hurting the roof? What if, instead of picturing in my mind that the wind might be loosening things, I realized the wind might be driving things closer together?

What if, during emotional storms and trauma, the pain that makes us feel like we’re falling apart is actually adding newer, stronger elements to us? What if we believe in God’s goodness so strongly that we know He will take any attack from the enemy and use it for our good, and suddenly we look at the future with hope instead of fear?

You know what fear is? Fear is our willingness to take the weapon out of our enemy’s hand and attack ourselves with it, saving him the trouble.

So what if we stopped falling for it?

The fearless person is completely free. Nothing can threaten them.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

– 1 John 4:18

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

– 2 Corinthians 3:17-18

We’re not ignoring reality. We’re influencing it, just like He told us to.

We’ve been listening to the wrong teachers and the wrong messages and the wrong thoughts for a long time. We’re used to decay, destruction, the next shoe dropping, the slow and steady unraveling of creation. But that’s not the Word says. If we walk in the attitude of It’s only going to get worse, we haven’t been paying attention to what’s actually in the Bible.

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.
They shall build up the ancient ruins;
they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
the devastations of many generations.

– Isaiah 61:1-4

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, it says. This is the same scripture Jesus read in the temple, declaring it fulfilled. And this is the same Spirit who is in us.

It’s not decay. It’s strength, He says. It’s not breaking down. It’s rebuilding.

It’s not a super easy way to look at things after a lifetime of assuming the worst. But the Lord told us His ways are different from ours, and over and over in the New Testament we read about the work of faith. Unbelief comes easy; falling for lies is easy. But aligning our thoughts and attitudes with God’s truth requires a discipline that we need to start walking in.

We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

– 1 Thessalonians 1:2-3

“But what if…” the enemy hisses. Don’t go there, though. Don’t take the bait. Thinking on those what ifs will never prepare you for anything but more devastation. The enemy is trying to get you to take the weapon and stab yourself with it. He’s holding out poison and hoping you’ll choose to drink it.

When we command our thoughts this way rather than letting them run amok with whatever fears the enemy tries to feed us, we are partnering with God in building up the ancient ruins, and raising up the former devastations.

And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia.

– 1 Thessalonians 1:6-7

How do we receive with joy in the midst of affliction? Maybe that’s the real question. We can’t deny the pain and pretend what happened didn’t matter. But we can change what we believe about it and thus change the power we give it. We can do the work of faith, agreeing with God that He is building, not destroying, no matter what the enemy throws at us. We can labor in the love that casts out fear, trusting Him, steadfast in hope knowing that He is good and is working things out for good on our behalf.

I’m thinking about this as we work on the huge 2000 piece puzzle late into the evening. I joke to my family that this is where we solve all the world’s problems, but it’s true: I complain about a piece having nowhere to go, but then realize I’ve been holding it upside down the whole time. I was trying to put it in the wrong way. So what happens when we set our pieces – our thoughts, that is – right again and start looking at things from God’s perspective of truth, power, and victory, instead of our traditional mindset of defeat and decay?

In many ways, we’ve been going about it all wrong. We’ve thought things were delayed when we were early. We’ve mislabeled things as breaking when they were actually just beginning. We’ve accused God of being slow when He is actually patient.

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

The stretching hurts and we wonder why things are not working out, why everything is fitting so badly. But this one shift might be the nudge that shows how the pieces were misaligned – we were close, we had the right pieces all along, but we were putting the wrong ones together.

It looks like the Church is breaking in a lot of areas. But the truth is, it’s reviving. The wound and bacteria have to be cleaned out before it can heal. The Lord has been teaching His people how to walk in His ways, and even though we’ve watered them down so they reflect our ways more than His in many areas, He is calling us to reexamine how we think about things so we can walk in holiness and wholeness, realigning our thoughts with truth instead of just tradition.

We see corruption in so many areas, and here’s the good news: We’re not seeing something new. It’s been there all along, hidden, and is now being exposed. It can’t hide in the dark any longer; it must be dealt with. The eucatastrophe is coming.

The pain we went through a year ago wasn’t a blow dealt to our family. It was a blow to the enemy. Evil agendas were exposed. Lazy, fake Christianity came out of the wood works. The winds shook and the rains fell and the attacks came, but we are stronger and louder because of it, grounded and founded on the rock.

The physical and emotional storm didn’t take anything away from us. As we keep our eyes on Jesus, every wave that tries to bowl us over only adds more strength to our foundation. The enemy always loses, and we always win. The only possible way we can lose is if we fall for his lies, and we know better.

We hold these pieces in our hand and we don’t have to know exactly what to do with them. We know they go somewhere, and we keep asking Him for eyes that see answers.

Often, His answers are beyond our expectations, and better than we ever could have imagined.

No, wait, we think, this piece can’t possibly fit there, I don’t even know what direction it goes.

Try, the Lord is saying. So you do. And even though it stretches you to reach all the way across the table, to believe for what seems impossible, you find that the other pieces are already there in place, shaped perfectly, ready to receive it.

Praying for you,

Shannon

P.S. Want more encouragement and wholeness, right to your inbox? Subscribe for free here.

find the gold: God’s not wasting any time

Posted on by November 7, 2023

No one can waste time like a writer. Not only are we spectacular at procrastinating, but the technology is irrational, the process is laborious, and you’ll never even see most of the words we write. Typetypetype, highlight, delete – poof, they’re gone, outta here, no bueno, tossed in the bin, gone forever. Another day at the desk, and only a fraction of the words written are kept to be shared…eventually.

And then – humor me for just a minute, you’ll appreciate this – there are the days you encounter technical difficulty that defy logic and the most elementary commands of a computer. You tell the document to print, and the printer says there’s a jam even though you can’t find any paper in the track. So you empty the entire contents of the printer and restart; try again, but it’s still jammed; dislodge the mechanical guts of the machine and finally find a microscopic piece of confetti; put everything back together and ask it to print again.

Suddenly the stupid thing releases twelve emails from last year, the entire 911 commission report, the Mayflower Compact, the Magna Carta, and the ancient code of Hammurabi.

And then it says you’re out of ink.

BLANKETY BLANK.

find the gold: God's not wasting any time

Last year when we were releasing the ABIDE series we spent four days trying to upload a proof, and then two more days waiting for the proof to come back, only to realize the file had formatting errors that had to be fixed before going to print. It was a rookie mistake and I knew better. Every time we saved the files, small elements would move and it didn’t matter what browser I used, how we saved it, whether I retyped things or just re-pasted them correctly, they kept shifting out of place (just like this meme).

Many emails to the website’s support crew later, Vin finally fixed it all in Photoshop. And the delay didn’t make sense for any reason other than possibly, just maybe, that support team at the website needed to learn about Jesus and prayer, because they got to read pages 44 through 56 of ABIDE volume 4 in advance. Either that, or they desperately needed the recipe for Farmbake.

So much wasted time. But just as often, it’s my own fault.

For example, the file I’m working on lately says “round 4” but that’s a lie because I’ve tackled this book at least twice that many times. But this is probably the fourth time I’ve completely rewritten it, trashing so many paragraphs and pages that were less than what I want it to be. I’m back to those beginning chapters again and honestly, I’m nervous about getting further into it because I know where the story is going, even though I still don’t know how it ends.

I know pain is coming. So I stall and do other work, saving just thirty minutes of the day to tackle this one. Thirty minutes at a time will not finish a book by February – or even May, probably – but some days it’s all I think I can handle.

Which doesn’t mean it really is all I can handle. It’s just that that’s how much obedience I’ve been willing to put into it. So the delay is all on me, and the reward will come as soon as I surrender into really doing the work.

Part of the problem is that it’s a memoir so almost everything is in past tense, but I’m still learning to recognize what happened. And the problem with that is that I am telling, not showing, which is a huge no-no in writerly endeavors. This happened, then this happened, then this happened. It’s not that boring, trust me, but still, it’s telling and not showing. As Annie Dillard says, “You have to take pains in a memoir not to hang on the reader’s arm, like a drunk, and say, ‘And then I did this and it was so interesting.’”

But this is a story that must be told, not shown, and I’m walking the line carefully to protect our kids and ourselves and others who, alas, would not be flattered if I shared in full what really happened. Because also, as Annie Dillard said:

Everybody I’m writing about is alive and well, in full possession of his faculties, and possibly willing to sue. Things were simpler when I wrote about muskrats.

– from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir

Maybe that’s why I write so much about poultry lately.

So I grab a stack of books off the shelf, all highly recommended by someone or other as excellent specimens of memoirs, which are notoriously hard to write well.

I open one: Memoirs by Pablo Neruda. This is at the top of many lists. I thumb through, and…telling, not showing. Not all, surely, but a lot of it. Past tense, this happened, then this, and then this. But not like a drunk; it’s interesting.

I thumb through A Walker in the City by Alfred Kazin, and The Road to Coorain by Jill Ker Conway. Same. Past tense. Lots of telling. But it’s not bad; it’s good writing. I grab a few more books off the shelf, skim through from back to front, read snatches of sentences here and there.

When Vin brings up afternoon coffee I’m hunched over my shelf looking for Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood and cannot find it anywhere. It’s red, I’m sure, but I scan all the red books to no avail, check all the others in case I’m misremembering, and finally find it with a pink spine that used to be red but faded in the sunlight back when my shelf was on the other wall. I crack it open and there’s this: I was ten when I met the dancing school boys… and she’s telling but she’s also right there with me over coffee, and we’re looking back together. And that’s both an answer and confirmation because that’s how I tend to write anyway when I’m doing my best work.

But before I get there, I still have to choose to do the work, any work, and risk it not being the best work because it can’t all be the best. Not all the words that get typed are words that get published. Vin and I have started calling these the invisible words, the ones that didn’t ring as true as the words that came later. Because it takes a lot of words to sort through before the right ones come that are worth sharing with everyone else. It takes a lot of digging and sifting to find the gold.

And that is life: We are learning to live our story in the best way to find the gold. We risk the days knowing that there will be plenty of them that feel wasted, that we don’t want to share or relive. Some of our days are filled with grit and regret, fingers in the dirt full of pain and confusion, betrayal and trauma. Those are the ones that bring us to a crossroads of choosing to get bitter or get better, to lose our faith or to find it. One choice leads us to the gold, and the other makes us the drunk hanging on someone’s arm, spewing things that should’ve been deleted.

The good news is that we can surrender anytime. It’s never too late to let go, and do some deleting. The Lord knows what to do with our surrender. He’s not wasting any of it; every piece of grit refines us into someone who reflects Him more.

Some people come through awful childhoods and become productive, contributing adults, while others do antisocial and even monstrous things. Why?

It is similar to one brother asking another, “Why did you grow up to be a drunk?” The answer is, “Because Dad was a drunk.” The second brother then asks, “Why didn’t you grow up to be a drunk?” The answer is “Because Dad was a drunk.”

– Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear

The wasted days and regrettable experiences are making us into who we are, just as the invisible words are getting us to the ones that tell the story the way it needs to be told. Deciding whether to surrender them or cling to them is what makes the difference.