1. Frequently check to see
   if you’re trying to get something from your spouse
   that you can only get from your God.
2. Dying to yourself
   will bring life to your spouse.
3. One of the best things you can do for your relationship is to talk about it openly and honestly with each other.
4. You can hide from your father
   and you can hide from your mother,
   but you cannot hide from your spouse.
    
   (Consequently, one of the goals of marriage is to provide a place of such safety that you and your spouse can be “naked and not ashamed” (Genesis 2:25).)
5. To love is to see all your spouse’s faults and flaws
            but to look for God in their heart.
6. God brings our spouse into our life
         to reveal to us those deepest wounds in our heart
               that He wants to heal
               and we want to ignore.
7. Read a book on marriage every year. Together.
   My favorite still is The Mystery of Marriage by Mike Mason.

Upon reflection, I would add one more crucial item to this list:

8. Forgiveness is the oil that lubricates your marriage. Apply as needed.

You are my life, my very breath,
     my Hope when all around was Death;
misguided, still you help me turn.
     Yours is the heart for which I yearn.

My treasured pearl, my soothing tune,
     my noonday sun, my midnight moon,
my gentlest touch, my sweetest balm,
     my fondest friend, my peace, my calm.
My waking shout! My bedtime song—
     who knew that love could last so long?

Forever yours, forever mine.
     Together to the end of time.
My hand-in-hand ’til death do part.
     So prized you are within my heart!

I stopped a while and thought of you
     and then I thought of Him who knew
          how blessed would our union be
     and thanked Him for His gift to me.

     So, I had a name of power and a vague memory of admiration.  This alone would not suffice.  I had to learn (or re-learn) about this man.  And so, I dug out my copy of Taliesin and began reading it.  No, I went far beyond merely reading it.  I studied it.  I took notes.  I meditated on what I was reading.  And Taliesin came back to life before my eyes!

     How easy it would have been if I could have accepted his identity as mine.  But I could not.  God knew there was a core belief around which I had woven my life that needed to be obliterated.  Yes, obliterated.  It was so central to my identity and, in God’s eyes, so very, very inaccurate.  Nothing but violence could dislodge it from my core.  The core belief could be summed up in one word, the name I had given myself: nemo, the Latin word for “no one.”  In my own eyes, I was a nobody.

     Taliesin challenged that.  If I truly believed this was the name God had given me, then logically what I read about him had to be applied to me.  This much seemed obvious to me.  But what I read shook me to my roots.  The more I read about Taliesin, the more I realized I did not even remotely view myself in that way, nor could I imagine ever attaining to his stature.  Upon finishing the book, I pushed away the thought that I was Taliesin.  I remember arguing with God, that this person, Taliesin, simply could not be who God thought I was, that He was mistaken.

     God’s response to me was simple and immediate.  “I have brought this book to you once before, and I am bringing it to you now.  It was your identity then, and it still is, and I’m not going to change My mind.”

     Which meant I needed to change my mind.

     That was almost seven years ago.  These days, the most I can say is that I’ve made peace with God’s name for me.  I guess I’ve made some progress, but for the most part I am still a skeptic.  Truth is, some part of me hopes that God is right, despite my own incredulity.  I cannot deny the fact that He spoke both “Taliesin” and “Taliesin fulfilled” to me, but I am uncertain how to interpret what He said into my life.

     Let me give you some idea of what a little nemo like me is dealing with, in order to try to illustrate how my situation ties in with Joseph’s at seventeen.  Here are the first three quotes regarding Taliesin from the book:

“Though small you are, Taliesin, and weak in your leather coracle, yet there is virtue in your tongue.  A bard you will be, a maker with words, renowned as no other from the beginning of the world.” (p. 35)

“A rare and special child, to be sure.  I have named him Taliesin.  He will be a bard of uncommon skill and knowledge—perhaps the greatest among us.” (p. 66)

“Taliesin may well be a king one day, but he will be a bard first and last.  And that is how he will be remembered—as the greatest bard who ever lived.” (p. 131)

High praise for sure.  But who could live up to such lofty proclamations?

     It is at this point I find that the tale of Joseph’s life comforts me.  No doubt after his two dreams Joseph had many such questions running through his mind.  And if he had been told that in thirteen years he would be the ruler of all Egypt, second only to Pharaoh, I’m sure he would have either laughed at the sheer absurdity of the thought or been crushed by its burden.  Maybe both.

     His decision was to go to those he knew to be older, wiser, and more experienced for input.  Look what it got him.

     So where am I supposed to go with it?  And who could I tell without risking arousing jealousy, without incurring their judgment of me as a braggart?  Honestly, even being as open as I am in this forum is a bit frightening.

     I still don’t know what to make of these quotes.  And there are more—many more—in the book.  God is using them, and they are testing me, even as the word of the Lord tested Joseph until it was fulfilled.

     And so it is that at the end of 2009 I find myself in a season much like Joseph did at the end of Genesis 40, which ends with the phrase, “he forgot him.”  It is a season of feeling forgotten, and another long season of waiting … and waiting … and waiting.  I don’t know how long Joseph was in that Egyptian jail, but it must have looked to him like his life was just a long string of catastrophes, bringing him ever lower in life.  Better to be a son than a slave.  Better to be a slave than a prisoner.  Joseph never forgot the dreams God gave him; they continued to test him, even up to the beginning of Genesis 41.  There is no way he could have fathomed what shape their fulfillment would take, and at this point it seemed beyond the realm of belief that he would even see any of his family again.  But since the word was still testing him (Psalm 105:19), it seems apparent that he had not put the dreams out of his mind; rather, it’s more likely that he could not put them out of his mind, that he constantly revisited them with curiosity and a seemingly furtive hope.  But ultimately, all he could do was wait and see.

     I know about catastrophes.  Ever since God named me, my (formerly) steady career has been decimated.  I did not work for two years after He named me, and I have not worked this year since the beginning of May.  Prosperity, once a close friend, has deserted me—and in doing so, has also deserted my wife and child.  I am Joseph’s cellmate, and the projection of our lives from this point forward—if based upon the past few years of our lives—looks even more dismal.

     However, if my life has arrived at the end of Genesis 40, then by faith it must almost be poised at the beginning of Genesis 41, where all will be revealed and all will come to fulfillment.  I sense that the season of my life I still find myself in will soon come to an end.  And—incredulously—I also find hope growing in my heart!

     And so, on a cold spring morning in the mountains of Colorado, the clear challenge from God to me was that He would answer the question, “What is my name?”  This was evidenced by others around me who were receiving their names from God.

     It is one thing to authoritatively quote scripture as true by faith: “You will be called by a new name that the mouth of the LORD will bestow” (Isaiah 62:2b).  It is one thing to dispassionately cite examples in scripture where the LORD actually fulfilled this promise: ” ‘You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas’ ” (John 1:42).  It is quite another thing for the promise to be fulfilled all around you!

     One person after another told me how God gave them a title (“warrior”, “prince”) or a name (“eagle”, “Neo”, “Caspian”).

     Imagine what I was feeling, surrounded as I was by sincere followers who sat in hushed astonishment at their new names:  My immediate emotion was one of being left out, quickly followed by a strong desire to receive for myself what now seemed much more than inanimate verses, followed by the fear of hearing something less than complimentary—or worse yet, hearing nothing!  To my credit, for once I followed my desire instead of my fear; to God’s credit, He named me!

     There is an entire story behind my encounter with God that day.  Nothing with God is simple.  But allow me to say that though He spoke title after title to me, all of which I thanked Him for, my unrelenting reply always was, “But that’s not a name.  What is my name?“  No title would do; I was determined to be satisfied with nothing less than an actual name.  Only after saying much that He had waited so long to say to me did He bestow upon me my name:  Taliesin (pronounced tally-essin).

     Taliesin is a name that few others know but had a special significance for me in the strangest of ways.  It was the name of a character in a book of the same name written in 1987 by Stephen R. Lawhead.  I had only read the book once, and that had been fifteen years prior (in 1988).  From the obscurity of novels I’d read long ago a name was conjured up, the name of a character I had admired more than any other before or since.  The tale of his life enchanted me throughout the reading, touching deep places in my heart that I could not fathom were there.  I so identified with this man!  I wanted to be him!

     Although I may assume that you have some familiarity with scripture, I cannot assume the same of Taliesin.  So I will relate briefly who Taliesin was (at least within the book that I read).

     Taliesin, which means “shining brow,” was raised along the western shores of what is now northern Wales, what was then a part of the Roman-ruled Britannia.  His education came from the clan’s druid, Hafgan, with whom Taliesin maintained a close relationship all his life.  In early adulthood, he and his people were driven out of their homeland by raiders and forced to relocate in southwestern Britannia, just east of Llyonesse.  Having learned the lore of the druid, Taliesin’s talents were made manifest as he stepped into the role of bard to his father, the king.

     As a child, Taliesin was taught by the druids to visit the spiritual ”Otherworld.”  Upon his first visit, as a boy, he met with one of the Ancient Ones there he called “the supreme lord himself,” who cried out to him, “Come forth, Shining Brow!”  The encounter with this Ancient One proved to be so powerful that eventually Taliesin lost all consciousness until dusk.  His second encounter with this being came at an early point of his adulthood, where the Ancient One revealed himself to be the Lord of the Otherworld—the Lord of all worlds—the Supreme Spirit, the Long Awaited King, and the Giver of Life.  During this encounter, the Ancient One spoke to Taliesin, commanding him to hold no other gods above him and releasing him into a powerful and anointed destiny as poet, bard, and prophet.

     These few paragraphs pale in comparison to the reading of the text of the book, but must suffice in providing the gist of who the man was.

     Each day as I read of the grandeur and grace of Taliesin’s life, my hope and my joy grew—until, at the book’s climax, when he was about to enter the most powerful time of his life, he was murdered.  Suddenly, all my joy, all my hopes, all the places in my heart he had aroused were drowned with his demise, and I was brought to utter despair.

     I had not thought of this man since then; indeed, I could not without suffering depression.  I put him out of my mind; I packed the book away, never to touch it again.

     So when God said, “Taliesin,” my memories of him had softened to a translucent mush.  All I could recall was a fond remembrance and the pain of his death.  I wasn’t so sure I wanted to be named after a man who, at the height of his powers as he was about to step onto the stage of the world and forever change it, was murdered.  In fact, I was very uncomfortable with it and told the Lord so.  His gracious response was, “You are Taliesin fulfilled.”

     Tomorrow, I will tell what were the effects of God’s proclamation to me.

     In some ways, all of Joseph’s life is a reflection of my own.  Most of us remember his life starting at seventeen with two dreams, which he shared with his family (Genesis 37). Up to this point throughout Genesis, all sorts of people—from patriarchs to foreign kings—had been the unexpected recipients of dreams designed by God. Joseph’s own father received two himself, almost as if God was uniquely preparing Jacob to father his most beloved son. But when Joseph told his dreams, the conviction of all of his family was that the dreams originated within the proud intentions of his heart. Such perceived unrighteousness could not be ignored. To Jacob, it warranted a rebuke; to his brothers, it warranted a death sentence.

     Contrary to his family’s belief that he was plotting his own exaltation, Joseph did not even ask for the dreams. Scripture makes it clear that these were not self-indulgent daydreams. He had no responsibility for their lofty and exalted content. Nevertheless, God chose that moment to reveal to Joseph what He thought of him.

     What was Joseph to make of such a declaration? How was he to interpret this? Was it real? Was it indeed a prophetic word from El-Shaddai? Or should it be ignored, put into the pile of other strange dreams that signify nothing? But if from the great God, what then was to be done?

     As a young and inexperienced 17-year-old just coming into adulthood, Joseph had enough presence of mind (or could it be humility?) to realize his need: a need for wisdom, for interpretation, for insight that others could give him. Naïveté was his undoing, but that was neither preventable nor sinful—unlike the response from his brothers.

     Joseph now had two contradictory inputs: one from God and one from his family. How was he to resolve the two and be true to his father as well as the God of his father? He could have outright rejected God’s proclamation, but he did not. And so, “until the time that His word came to pass, the word of the LORD tested him” (Psalm 105:19). Resolution was far off for Joseph, and every significant incident in his life seemed to betray God’s intent—from being sold into slavery to being forgotten by Pharaoh’s chief cupbearer.

     Much of this applies to the life of anyone who has been spoken to by the Lord—including me. What else but scorn and jealousy could come to each one of us when we reveal God’s proclamation of who we are, though we may only be seeking understanding (or even empathy) of said proclamation? Only the rarest of friends can listen with a pure heart. Regardless, it is a difficult and confusing thing to wrestle with your destiny—your identity—by yourself. But it might be a very dangerous thing to ask for input and help!

     After thirty years of walking with the Lord, I was thrust into just such a situation when I pressed God to answer the question, “What is my name?”—a question He Himself had prompted me to ask.

     I will tell you this:  It is a wild and dangerous undertaking, asking God such a fundamental question. His answer will challenge the foundations we have built our lives upon. In many cases, those foundations were put there by us long ago, based on the limited knowledge and experience we had at the time. I suppose something had to be put there, or else we could not go on. Our life rambles along smoothly for years, provided that we preserve those foundations. In fact, don’t we often go out of our way to make certain that our “foundational beliefs” are never challenged?  Subconsciously, we know that if they were revealed to be in error our lives would then collapse like a house of cards. The wisdom of self-preservation says, “You don’t knock the stilts out from under the juggler who has all five eggs in the air.”

     But a life built upon cardboard piers cannot ascend to the heights of skyscrapers. Some of us have reached this place, haven’t we? We try reaching a little higher, building another level of maturity onto our lives, but the foundation won’t support it. We could be satisfied to stay where we are but for the blueprint of our destiny that calls to us unceasingly.

     Paradoxically, at this point, what we want we don’t want. Our foundations must be examined and some replaced to go on. But to replace them means to let go of things in our lives we have grown accustomed to—maybe even things we’ve claimed to be sacred. Will we choose to change or will we keep moving in the same direction, never achieving what we think is within our grasp—what, in fact, our hearts know to be our destiny?

     Thirty years after salvation, I had finally reached the point where I was ready to have my own foundations scrutinized by the God who’d saved me.

     Tomorrow, I will tell the story of how I questioned God, and what came of that.

     I am sitting in semi-darkness beneath a different Christmas tree.  It is far taller; it is heavy-laden with Christmas lights; and it is real, having been cut down and dragged through the deep snows earlier today by me and my dad.  But most of all, it is surrounded by an unnatural quiet.  Voices are hushed, tempers are soothed.

     I am nine or ten, and after so short a sojourn in this world, I have learned that Christmastime is a respite from the war that tears through our family the rest of the year, bringing with it verbal abuse, beatings, torment, humiliation, and terror.

     Once the tree is plugged in, a peaceful reverence spreads over Mom’s face, and Dad’s angry brow smooths.  Silence emanates from the tree, filling the spacious room with safety.  The tree is magical, and I cling to it as long as I can, hoping its spell will outlast its time of visitation.

     At this age, I am ever hopeful for my father’s affirmation and approval.  Anger and aggravation are what I receive—but not in this season.  He is kinder, even more patient.  I still don’t fully obtain what I hope for, but at least there is a pause, which my hopeful little heart interprets as the beginning of an unending movement towards lovingkindness, intimacy, and admiration.  “This time, it will be!” I whisper to myself, nodding my head.  I am making more of it than it is, so hungry am I.  This respite will disappear with the tree in a few short weeks.

     But I cannot—will not—think about that in this precious, precious time of lights:  Christmas-colored lights on a pine, reflected in ten-thousand tiny points of silvered garland, long flowing tinsel, and polished orbs of dark, delicate glass.  Our boring beige walls are bathed in a strange, mottled color—a mixture of variegated lights from the tree of many colors.

     As a boy, I sit on the hearth, my back to the fire, staring at the steady lights, smelling the tree’s pungent scent, and learning the ancient polyphonic carols that are being sung about the birth of the Christ child.  My mom presses a cup of hot chocolate into my small hands with a smile.  I am more than content.  I could melt here forever.

     But hope, frustrated year upon year, will turn to hate, cynicism, and despair over the next decade of my childhood.  I don’t realize this at nine or ten, though; I still think the presence of Christmas can take hold of my family all year long.  I look from red light to green light to yellow light to blue light, letting the placid, unchanging glow of each one penetrate my soul, taking in their peace, their tranquility, willing their peace and tranquility into my life and into my parents.

     Many, many years have passed since then.  It is after midnight, and the world is dark and silent.  My wife and daughter are oblivious, asleep in their beds.  But I stay up, and in a dimly lit room with a decorated tree, I look from light to light, letting their peace and tranquility overtake me as I search the tree, ever looking, ever desiring.  I am so much older now; what can I still be trying to find?  Comfort?  Assurance?  Approval?  Close, but not exactly.  Perhaps it is the unsatisfiable yearning itself that I am wanting to feel, to remember.

     Truthfully, I am looking for something that can neither be articulated nor appropriated.  It can not be found; it could never be found.  If only I’d known as a child, perhaps I would have forsaken the pursuit.  And yet, here I am, five times as old and relentlessly searching still for that which my rational mind knows is never to be found in this tree, in this room, in this house, in this season, in this world, in this life.

     I am looking for paradise.

     I am looking for Christ, my Lord.

Monotonies of verdant green
    we’ve set aside to paint the world
a panoramic, patchwork blaze.

We raise our festive banners high!
    In multicolored hues, they shout:
Rust and maroon, strawberry, tan,
    burgundy, daffodil, carroty, plum,
cranberry, coppery, fiery embers!

With every eager wind we clap
    our vibrant hands in joy
and briskly toss confetti leaves
    which, dancing down, will carpet ground. 

Our early blooms, a pretty show
    of vanity, have passed away,
and fast our leaves flow from our grip,
    down to our bare bark, finally stripped.

When winter bites our naked twigs,
    it’s then we’ll know that death is close.
Yet what is death to us but sleep?
    For spring awakes to greater life!

[Written November 27, 2002]

Fallen leaves in Acadia National Park

At this time some astrologers came forward and denounced the Jews. They said to King Nebuchadnezzar, “… there are some Jews—Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego— … who pay no attention to you, O king. They neither serve your gods nor worship the image of gold you have set up.”

Furious with rage, Nebuchadnezzar summoned Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. So these men were brought before the king, and Nebuchadnezzar said to them, “Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the image of gold I have set up? Now, … if you are ready to fall down and worship the image I made, very good. But if you do not worship it, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace. Then what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?”

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, “… If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”

Then Nebuchadnezzar was furious with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and his attitude toward them changed. He ordered the furnace heated seven times hotter than usual and commanded some of the strongest soldiers in his army to tie up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and throw them into the blazing furnace. So these men, wearing their robes, trousers, turbans and other clothes, were bound and thrown into the blazing furnace. The king’s command was so urgent and the furnace so hot that the flames of the fire killed the soldiers who took up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and these three men, firmly tied, fell into the blazing furnace.

Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisers, “Weren’t there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?”

They replied, “Certainly, O king.”

He said, “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.”

Nebuchadnezzar then approached the opening of the blazing furnace and shouted, “Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out! Come here!”

So Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego came out of the fire, and the satraps, prefects, governors and royal advisers crowded around them. They saw that the fire had not harmed their bodies, nor was a hair of their heads singed; their robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them.

Then Nebuchadnezzar said, “Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who has sent his angel and rescued his servants! They trusted in him and defied the king’s command and were willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own God. Therefore I decree that the people of any nation or language who say anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego be cut into pieces and their houses be turned into piles of rubble, for no other god can save in this way.”

Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the province of Babylon.

(from Daniel 3:8-30, NIV)

It is blazing hot outside, and it’s going to stay that way for a while.  The heat is present to symbolize the spiritual season you find yourself in, for you are inside a blazing furnace, and it’s a place you need to be comfortable with being in for a while.

This place is not the Crucible.  The crucible is brought upon you.  It is used to test an alloy that looks pure, to see if there be anything impure deep within the pure, and (if found) to separate it out, skim it off, and throw it away.  It will reveal any ugliness that has (supposedly) been well-hidden and deal with it.  The crucible is the shaking that is still taking place, the ongoing turbulence that has come upon the world.

You are in a different fire.  This is a fire you chose to enter.  This is the Furnace.

Before you entered, the furnace was portrayed by your Enemy as being your final destruction, where every vestige of your existence (your identity and your purpose) would be vaporized.  All that could save you from it was compromise or disobedience.  Given these choices, you chose the furnace.

Although the Enemy thinks the furnace is his idea, the truth is that it is ordained by God, and He has ordained it for many purposes, some of which are:  to deliver you from your bondages, to equip you, and for intimate fellowship with the Son of God.

You entered this fire with bonds, limitations, and constrictions.  These were mindsets, strongholds, and ‘small thinking’ that limited you, financial bondages, as well as many other constrictions on your time and your freedom.  But the flames are incinerating them without scorching your identity, your character, or your purpose.  That is not to say that the fire you find yourself in is not hot.  It is hot; very hot!  But it will not burn you or harm you in any way.  All of your bondages must first be removed … but the accomplishment of that does not indicate that the time in the furnace is over.  It is not.

Once freed, you will be able to move around within the furnace and converse intimately with the Son of God, who has come to honor and validate you as special, as His brother, who has come to walk closely with you in this very hot place, and who has come to teach you how to endure the blazing fire and move freely within it.  This is a most holy place; His presence there makes it so.

You had every anticipation of complete death when you entered the fire, bound hand and foot.  But you chose it and surrendered to it and to God.  In here, death has truly come, but God is also rewarding you with His resurrection life.

Be encouraged by this also:  Your time in this furnace is drawing to a close, and soon it will be time to leave and enter into a new season.  In fact, there are others in the flames with you who already have their foot on the threshold leading out.  It is that close!  But the time to leave is ordained for each one; we do not all leave at the same time.

Outside the furnace is a new day.  It is a full day of freedom and release, and the first thing the dawning of that day will reveal before anything else is the glory of God.

Once you are outside, others will suddenly crowd around you, closely observing you and your life.  What will they see?  You will be a witness to them of God’s goodness, revealing something they are unfamiliar with.  These are those people who did not enter the furnace because they greatly feared it, even as they feared and hated God.  Your life and your walk will be a testimony to them, and it will change them:  They will turn and glorify God where once they vilified Him.  They will marvel at how you were preserved through the fire: your identity, character, and calling.  They will not even detect the smell of fire on you (not smoke, fire; for you were in a furnace of fire, not smoke).  You will smell clean and fresh to them.  And they will give themselves wholly and completely to God.  By revealing God’s glory, the Enemy’s defeat will be complete.

This is the way of God:  You will reveal His glory, and He will reveal yours.

Yes, the season outside the furnace will also be the time for simultaneously revealing who you truly are.  God has given you an identity and a life-purpose, both of which He has already shown you.  In that season, He will reveal you for who He made you to be.  He will reveal you, He will exalt you, and He will promote you.  You are not of those who promote themselves, reveal themselves, or exalt themselves.  The world system lures all mankind into that behavior and rewards it.  But from the moment God showed you who you were, you have trusted Him to reveal and exalt you … yet He has chosen not to.

What do you do with that?  Especially when many around you seem to be lifting themselves up, testifying about themselves, and crowing about their achievements, while others are stepping on you and over you to get what they want, knowing full well who you are?  How has that make you look?  Like a nobody?  Like a nothing?  How has that make you want to respond?  In like manner?

And yet, you persisted and endured, suffering because you knew that even if no one else knew, God knew who you were.  He affirmed you in secret, and you embraced it and were satisfied with it, so that you did not seek the praise of men.  It was not easy; indeed, there was great pain and struggle, particularly when men started making judgments against you because of their comparison of you to the self-promoters.  That is the test:  To see if the pressure from men would cause you to usurp God’s role.  But you remained humble and patient, trusting the One who would, in due season, reveal you as a son of God to all creation.  For the One who said (even about Himself), “If I testify about myself, my testimony is not valid,”[1] has also said, “whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open.”[2]  That will be the season when you will be disclosed and brought out into the open, when God Himself will proudly reveal you.

That will also be a season of unparalleled expansion and opportunity for you.  You entered the furnace in bondage; you’ll leave in freedom.  And the bondages that held you so tightly will be gone.  Everything that was restricting you from moving in the anointing you were given will have been removed.  The time, the finances, and the ability to do all that God asks of you will be given to you.  You will receive promotion and favor (power and wealth) from man, even as God receives honor and glory and praise from them.  Promotion from man is merely a manifestation of your promotion from God.  Promotion means power, and power means God can trust you—for you loved not your life even unto death (the death that the furnace offers).  At that time, you will have been enabled to handle God’s glory.  You will go to and fro in the earth as you need to without restriction or restraint, subject to Him whom you obey.

That will be the season to breathe.  You have been holding your breath, holding your dreams, holding your most passionate desires, and waiting waiting waiting.  ‘Will it ever come?’ you ask.  It will, and you will breathe.

But that season is still approaching; it has not yet arrived.  This season is fire, and you will not be released to go until you find yourself comfortable in the blazing furnace.  In fact, a part of you won’t want to leave the fire, because the Son of God is so near.  Fear not; He will never leave nor forsake you once you have left the furnace.

The truth is that the anointing and calling of God have always been in you, even in the time of restriction.  You could feel it in your legs (though they were bound) and your arms (though they were tied down).  This is the grace of God, His plan being to fully prepare you before releasing you.  When you walk out of the furnace, the anointing in your feet will lead you where you were unable to go, and the power in your hands will no longer be bound but will bring life back from the dust of death.  (This is an indication of increased spheres of influence, of great traveling, of proclamation, of the laying on of hands, and of healing.)  That will be a season of work; that is, doing the work of God.  The time in the furnace is not work; it is the final preparation.

What is important for now:  Endure the flames!  Walk with Jesus!  Let go of all that encumbers or entangles you!  He is freeing you; you are not freeing yourself.  But, you could still be holding onto things that you can let go of.  So be ruthless—even violent—in releasing old ways of wrong thinking as Jesus walks with you and reveals the truth and new ways of thinking about you, about Him, and about Reality.

What is also important for now:  Release is at hand.  It is fast approaching.  So do not lose heart!  And do not be too eager to move into that season.  As pleasant as it will be, it will be a season of intense work.  Find enjoyment, meaning, and growth in the midst of the heat … until it is gone.

[2] Mark 4:22

I remember thinking to myself as I clambered out of the boat, “Follow him where?”  And off we went—to houses, and parties, and weddings!  What a life!  The wine!  The food!  The respect!  And us right in the middle of it all!  And all the time, the rich and the snot-nosed Scribes being made a fool of by this simple, unschooled carpenter.  Ha!  It makes me laugh just to think of it.  Good times, good times.  Wasn’t it like that in the early days, eh?

Now, I’m not saying it was all play.  You know it wasn’t.  I mean, how astonishing to see that first healing!  To see just a few loaves and fishes feed a hungered mob.  Me and my partners—well, former partners—we even saw Jairus’ young girl brought back from the grip of death itself!  Signs and wonders all around us—and never the same ones from one day to the next.  Follow him?  Who wouldn’t?  This was the life we were made for, wasn’t it?

Ah, but there’s always something that muddies the spring waters, isn’t there?  I don’t know what gets at you, but for me it’s the damn Romans.  Arrogant, cruel, piss-in-your-face Romans.  Soldiers without ethics.  Rulers without pity.  But worst of all, all those Judeans hanging on all those crosses along almost every road we travel … the stench of blood and shame … and even if you look away, there’s still the endless cries of agony.  Was this their game, their pleasure?  Their perversity.

Truth is, it got to me.  Got so bad that one day I started listening to Simon Zelotes’ ravings.  Strange, but after that it wasn’t too long until Jesus decided to send us out—all twelve of us.  There he is, explaining what we were to do and how, and at one point—somehow it seems he picked that time to look at Simon and me—he said we must take up our cross and follow him.  Now, I had not heard that before.  I know I would have remembered something like that.  Wouldn’t you have?  I am pretty sure that “follow me” was all he said the last day the four of us were in that boat.

But as if to drive the point home, he kept on saying it—over and over, day after day.  “Take up your cross and follow me.”  “You must deny yourself and take up your cross and follow me.”  “Take up your cross daily…”  And if we didn’t, we weren’t worthy of him—could not be his disciple!

It didn’t make sense.  We were supposed to lead the Life Victorious, with our Messiah leading the charges until all forms of wickedness were swept away.  The favor of God was upon us!  It was!  Prosperity, honor, anointing—I even walked on water!  We were sought out by the most influential of men.  Why, why did he have to bring crosses into it?  Those damned Roman crosses!  What was the point of “carrying a cross”?  Everyone knows it leads to only one inevitable conclusion:  crucifixion—suffering, agony, humiliation, and a slow and lingering death; the end; no more.  I almost pulled him aside once to tell him that no one was going to want to hear that.  Who would?  I didn’t want to hear that!  I didn’t want to lose all the parties and feasts and honor, the power and miracles and anointing.

You know what I mean, right?  The Christian walk is supposed to be a walk of power, of victory, of overcoming, right?  Suffering is a sign that you are doing something wrong.  Dishonor from men is an evidence of God’s displeasure with you.  Sickness and poverty are His judgment; we favored few have been sent to the poor, the sick, and the outcast to deliver them out, not join their ranks!  How is taking up your cross Good News?

Even in the garden, he was calling me to follow him, to go deeper in as he sorrowed.  I began to question myself about all this, about how far I could follow—even though earlier I’d sworn I’d never disown him.  I was so upset myself that I fell asleep and dreamed—until the soldiers came and took him away.  Then he was gone.

I did follow him to the courtyard, just like John.  Well, not exactly.… No, I don’t want to talk about it.… Hmm.  I wonder.  Was I really still following at that point?  Or just eavesdropping?  Was loyalty driving me?  Or mere curiosity?  Oh, God!  How I screwed up!  This was no party; it was a lynching.  I wasn’t ready to follow.  Not the way he wanted me to.  Take up my cross?  I was running from it … as surely as I ran out of that courtyard after the third crowing.

That whole day was a nightmare.  Everything I had, I lost:  my world, my life, my hope, my future, my self-worth.  I remember brave John’s face when he came back that evening with Jesus’ mother:  shock, horror, and confusion over watching our lord die—and die so quickly!—just hours before.  God had abandoned us.  Abandoned us!  He had abandoned Jesus.  How was that possible?

Do you hear what I’m saying?  Have you ever felt that way?  Utter confusion?  Your most fundamental assumptions about God kicked out from under you and carted off?  Poor?  Wretched?  Hunted?  Without hope, without purpose, without meaning?  That’s where I was.

And John tells me, even as Jesus is dying he’s calling out “follow me” to the criminals beside him, saying something like “follow me into paradise.”  Beyond the grave.  What did he mean?

Truth is, it only started making sense three days later, the day he burst into our little room of bolted doors and windows the way a ghost melts through solid walls.  Oh, we found he was anything but a ghost.  And on the far side of death, raised to a new life with a new body, he still looked me square in the eye after that breakfast on the beach and said, “Follow me.”

“Follow me.”

“Follow me through the good times and the bad.”

“Take up your cross and follow me through hell and suffering and death and burial.”

“Take up your cross and follow me through the end of one life and into the beginning of another.”

Now, I understand.  I understand why he had to say, “Take up your cross.”  It’s the only way to get to the REAL life we all want, the life that God offers us.  The cross we carry is used to kill our old life—the one we’d thought about preserving.  And then, at His command, death ushers us into resurrection.  It still sounds horrific—and it is.  But it’s the “follow me” that gives me comfort:  just knowing that every step I take through hell and confusion and misery and dying, he’s just one step away leading me through it all.

I’ve heard some folks say, “The journey is just as important as arriving at the destination.”  Not me.  Not this journey.  I want to get to the destination of this journey as fast as I can.  Still, I don’t really have any choice—or maybe I should say I’ve relinquished my choices:  I’m letting him lead, and I’m following as best I can.  But on my darkest days, when death is seeping into my well-laid plans and desires, it still reassures me to hear him whisper, “Come, follow me, Peter!”

I am Peter … and I wonder:  Just how different are you from me?