When I was secure, I said, “I will never be shaken.”
Psalms 30:6 HCSB
I am at rest in God alone; my salvation comes from Him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I will never be shaken. How long will you threaten a man? Will all of you attack as if he were a leaning wall or a tottering stone fence? They only plan to bring him down from his high position. They take pleasure in lying; they bless with their mouths, but they curse inwardly. Selah Rest in God alone, my soul, for my hope comes from Him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I will not be shaken.
Psalms 62:1‭-‬6 HCSB

Change brings out treasure from hidden closets, when God is the Author of your change.

This morning as I woke the Spirit spoke to my Spirit, “Put on the prophet’s robe. This is what you asked.” It rattled me.

Over the last few weeks, every day in Gainesville I run into another person who has been changed by the ministry of SOLUM and the Morning Moment. These are ones in the community that I rarely see face to face. At Walmart, Taco Casa, Neu House, Fried Pie and other places, they come up and say thank you. Online, they check inand say thank you. It is more than normal. Almost like they know I am leaving, even though they don’t. It is the Holy Spirit prompting and reminding me that the discipleship and investment of love continues when I am gone.

And the Holy Spirit yearns to express Himself stronger than ever. And He speaks of fresh oil to a weary land. My weariness will pass with rest and exercise and a stable nutrition and home and family time. The deep prophetic anointing will rush to the top a s manifest. It is time. The season of preparation closes and the next season begins.

These are days that require great faith. Stepping into yet another unknown that is secured in Christ.

Moments accumulate value.

For His anger lasts only a moment, but His favor, a lifetime. Weeping may spend the night, but there is joy in the morning.
Psalms 30:5 HCSB

Last evening in parenting group, the weight of how sorrowful moments touch our memories weighed on me. A memory comprised of an event and an emotion has long impact. It lingers for decades. Yet, we can change that emotion attached.

Forgiveness, mercy, compassion, gratitude, hope, faith, and love are powerful forces of emotional and spiritual and mental healing. There is change.

Earlier in the afternoon, another group on relationships included a group of teen boys on probation. One defied the idea that people can change. He reviled the concept. What a tragedgy, if he stays this way. He is blocking hope for himself.

In the new life ahead of me in my changes, I will no longer be in back to back groups changing their lives. A certain sadness and weeping touches me. And then the joy comes.

With less responsiblity for groups, I will have more monents of one on one to see inner healing. That regimen of restoration is precious to me. Memories of instantly changed lives through inner healing and at prophetic healing flood my mind. For 15 years, I stood before and after services and prayed every week for folks. 15×50=750×5=3750+ one on one encounters. That does not count countless hours in Mexico praying for thousands the same way. Now, I will have time again to look you face to face and administer healing grace.

It is the personal encounter with an EverLoving God that elicits a joy in the morning. While He busys me differently, He increases my time and capacity to be a hand of healing. The tests and trials of the strain of the last 7 years as a missionary for broken families prepare me to see great joy.

Change enables grace. Our tough memories can be washed and revisited with improved faith and hope and love and the negative emotion attached healed and the pained person of our past released into the fresh new creation in Christ reality. These are exciting days.

Articles like this one Depressed Pastor Leaders are written and rewritten multiple times a year. We love commisseration. Rarely are there answers, just observations and questions. It is ridiculous to expect happy go lucky to accompany a hard, thankless task. Sometimes leadership is just hard. But it is equally ridiculous to not address the stress. As a counselor and think doctor, I have a box of tools to ward off the evil spirits of depression. The black bile bites, but there is healing in the name of Jesus. Let’s skip the CBT toolbox for corrective action and look to resiliency basics for a pastor or business professional.

Here are a few.
1. Get a good friend outside your church/business and spend quality and quantity time enjoying them. Go fishing. Golf. Watch monster trucks. Enjoy college football.
2. Celebrate family in the church, business, and home.
3. Develop a mentoring relationship with someone who mentors you and someone you mentor. That is two people different than number one.
4. Be active in community. A ministerial alliance, kiwanis, rotary, lions, neighborhood association is a healthy place to connect. Be a community participant. Love where you live.
5. Take care of your personal exercise, nutrition, prayer, devotions, and growth. Be a lifelong healthy learner.
6. Take it to heart to give glory to God. Praise Him and give Him credit for everything.
7. Now, go do the work of the ministry or business to which you are assigned.

I will exalt you, Lord , for you lifted me out of the depths and did not let my enemies gloat over me.
Psalm 30:1 NIV
https://bible.com/bible/111/psa.30.1.NIV

Change never seems fun. Sure, my change agent nature likes it in the end. But the processing of my emotions and thoughts is a killer.

Psalm 30 is one of the psalms that speaks to change. I hear Jesus mumbling these words on the cross, His big change day. Ever had a big change day? My life is full of big change days.

Processing Me

“Boy did he make a mistake taking ‘that’ job!”

During a time of great change, I heard that one. After faithfully serving TG&Y Stores for ten years, the company sold to a rape and pillage chain. They gutted the inventory and tossed the people. My friends and I were the people. 28,000 families took the hit across the USA. But it was my family for whom I feared.

Each day another friend found work at another company. I had a closer contract to be the last to lock the door. The pain of losing friend after friend was monstrous. A risky job with a local hospital seemed more appealing than waiting out the funeral. Slow death is hard.

Prayers were fervent and shaky. How would my family survive? At the time, Dian and I had two children. Change could not be avoided.

TG&Y was a great company. Friendships were good. During those years, the Lord had built a Bible study inside the company and many miracles happened. Big miracles happened. People found hope and healing. My income was good and provided well. The job was a learning experience every day. Why, Lord?

The community was being built strong. In the same years, our neigherborhood had developed a Bible study and again, miracles flowed. Would all this stop? Did God quit loving us?

Deliverance?

A co-worker had the paper open to classified jobs that morning like every morning. I had quit looking and was just praying. Seemed like I was going to have to move to another state. Increased automation and company mergers made my job more rare every day. There were maybe 10 in the city and they were all filled. But, there it was. A local hospital needed someone like me.

Many appplied. My boss and my shift mangers all applied. I applied. I was hired. Background checking told me it was a nightmare. The prior manager died of cancer and the shop had gone to pot. Systems were shaky, routines were disorderly, the employees were untrained, and management was ready to outsource to fix it. Hiring me was a last chance shot at resolution. This did not sound fun. It wasn’t. But it meant I could stay in the city with my family and that was important.

Be Still Heart

The next days were horrendous. Why did a good thing seem so painful? Friends were gone. These people were fearful. There was no team, just survivors thrashing. My faith was tested to the max. Had I been delivered out of a bad situation into a worse situation?

Subtle messages broke through. Inside this chaos were faithful believers, who had prayed for deliverance. It seemed our prayers met. The Lord placed me here to help me and them. We were in this together. And He prevailed. And my enemy, slewfoot, the evil one, lost.

A New Career

At this hospital chaos, the Lord built me into a new man. Change was necessary to grow me. Today I am facing one of the biggest changes of my life. At 63, when I would love to retire and have the resources to do that, my friends and I are called to yet another change. It is not just me. Families I love deeply are losing me as pastor, though we remain friend. I weep over and over and cry out to my Saviour, “Is there not another way? What about Plan B? This is not fun, Jesus. I thought we were friends?”

All of those prayers and more crash into my soul and the Holy Spirit replies, “Take the next step. This is good for all. Trust me again and watch what I do. I am faithful. I will watch over and care for all. This is right.”

He lifts us from the depths. He will not let us fall. We will not fail.

To those I love I write, “The Lord is with us. Each of us will grow. Walk with me and we all will see. Our enemies will speak evil. Even good people will say hard and condemning words. They are wrong. God is in charge and they need to shut their hearts to evil and open to good and see the salvation of the Lord.”

Morning Moment
In a conversation with the Father concerning futures, this verse in Haggai is relevant to me. Many versions attempt translation. Most vary in how they see it. Consider that tremendous scholars struggle with this verse. To apply a verse is to extract meaning alongside the Counselor, the Holy Spirit. Walk with me a moment into application to your future.

1. The Father is consistent and works by principles. His ways are consistent. His intentions toward us are consistent and for good.
2. There is a timing to delivery of every promise of God.
3. All the promises of God are positive in Jesus.
4. Relationship and obedience are important in accessing the full extent of a promise of the Father.

The present season will be more splendid than past glories, and in this place and time I will give my people prosperity and peace. The Lord almighty has spoken. Haggai 2:9

You will not find a version that says exactly these words. They ar e my application version. The words are spoken first literally applying to the second temple to be built in Jersusalem after years of captivity. The Father wants to give you glory in your life after captivity, pain, addiction, anger, grief and loss. It is His heart. Will you let Him? Can you believe He can give greatness to you? Even after such hardnness of life. Then walk with me.

The glory of today may differ than the glory of yesterday. Have you had greatness that you no longer see? The Father is more concerned with your heart than your actions. Greatness and goodness and glory are not measured in dollars and things but heart and influence. He wills His kingdom to come. His kingdom is not of this world. What greatness and glory does He wish to do through you? Greatness in family? Friendships? Fellowship? Faith?

As a young man, I witnessed and participated in great moves of the Holy Spirit personally and in the local churches. I still do, but differently. In my life I have been a part of building a 5000 member congregation multiculturally, seeing a city-wide move in fathering, building a mission feeding 20,000 meals a month and more. That was then. This is now. It would take the rest of my life just to tell you the miracles of the past of my life. What could be a greater glory? A stronger prosperity? A deeper peace?

Yet, He wishes to do greater, more, and exceedingly abundantly above all I can ask or think. He moves to give greater presence in our present.

I have also lived through pains of rejection, misunderstandings, mistakes and messes while living in the moves. Maybe, you have had disappointments? He looks to give you greater good.

These are exciting days. Churches are failing. Families are a mess. Violence is rampant. Anger seethes. Depression prevails. In such a time, a move of the Holy Spirit will do much good. Believe for a greater glory. Believe for a deeper peace. Believe with me for a fresh prosperity of mind, heart, will, emotion, spirit, soul, body, relationships and provision.

Step into this moment of promise with me. Apply the verse to your life and family and city. For me and those joined with me in the local church, I say this:
Hope C : my people – my place – my time.

This is the people to whom I am joined in Jesus. Some are online and some are onsite. It is something new. Join a people that is a church.
This is the place He is happening for me. Take your place. Quit looking fir somewhere else. Enjoy this place and change it to look like His kingdom.
This is the moment, the hour, the time of His action and appearing in my life. Seize it.

What about you?

​The fire of life is a consuming agent meant to cleanse and strengthen.  It sure does not feel like it when you are in it. 
Oh, trouble’s a ton, or a trouble’s an ounce, Or a trouble is what you make it. And it isn’t the fact that you’re hurt that counts, But only how did you take it.  Edmund Vance Cooke
A good friend and mentor reminded me this morning that when God is prepping us for good things, the enemy launches defensive attack to stop us.  Jesus knew this in the garden and prayed for us. In  my struggle to stay on top of issues instead of buried by them, I needed that loving reminder.  Maybe it can encourage you also.
When Jesus prayed for us in His last recorded prayer before his execution on the cross, He prayed ‘a full measure of joy’ along with a commission to live in this world “as it is not as we would have it” (Serenity Prayer – Niehbur).
He let us know that the systems of the world will hate us.  How true is that today? Education, government, politics, arts, even benevolence would like to crush the heart of a believer in Christ.  Even knowing that it is only the presence of that heart of genuine compassion birthed in Christ that is the eternal engine of dignity and hope in the very world that rejects Him. 
It is the heart of real Christianity that sees there is neither male nor female nor black nor white nor EU nor USA in God’s family.  There are just people for whom He died and lives and unites.  It is the real heart of Christians that treats all with dignity even in disagreement.  And it is that heart that is hated because it convicts and convinces of mistaken living and imperfect obdience.
“I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them.  I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world.  My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.  They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.  Sanctify them by  the truth; your word is truth.  As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.  For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.

John 17:13‭-‬19 NIV
When you read this prayer, pray it over yourself and your leaders.  Pray in agreement with Jesus.
Father, I agree with Christ as He stands in front of You on my behalf right now. Fill us with the full measure of His joy  that is unspeakable and full of glory.  The joy that shines bright in the middle of a lost and distorted generation filled with violence and greed and self fulfillment.

Your word is a lamp to us, a light to our path in the dark.  We are hated for living Your word and heart. Days can be cold.  Never let our hearts get cold to reach out with hope and life in Jesus. No matter the rejection, the lack of gratefulness or persecution, never let us be bitter or cold.

We are not of the world any more than Jesus is  of the world.  My prayer is not that you take us out of the world but that you protect us from the evil one.  Sanctify us by  the truth; your word is truth.  As you sent Jesus into the world, you have sent us into the world. We accept and acknowledge our selection and calling as hard as it may be. For us Jesus sanctified Himself, that we too may be truly sanctified, equipped, and set out for this special task each and every day.
Stand strong, a generation separated from God needs you. You are loved and appreciated in the highest court of heaven by the King of the Universe.

This morning I read through Nehemiah, Psalm 5 and Proverbs 5 before entering the study. The impression that God protects His people in mercy and justice was overwhelming. To follow a mistaken course of living like the fool in proverbs 5 living in lust and adultery ends up in loss of years and loss of reputation. To marry into unbelieving relationships like the men of Jerusalem does the same with children that do not know their heritage.
Simultaneously, those that have followed a mistaken course of living are still overseen by God’s mercy and given opportunity to repent and start fresh. Everything is forward.
Yesterday in the meetings at HCIPHC, the minister looked into my eyes and said, “Go forward.” I knew exactly what he meant. On May 22nd, I recorded a video “Get Up and Go Forward”. I had been in fasting for some time and the Holy Spirit was screaming these words and continues to pummel them into my soul.
Get up and Go Forward. Don’t dwell on the mistakes of the past or the life lived yesterday. Whether it was great, good, or groaning, find the future.

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