A Season of Deep Soul Searching
A pattern of deep soul searching has begun among the inheritors for whom I provide fathering leadership.
The pattern began to form in December but deepened as we entered the new year with greater intensity. The pattern isn’t tied directly with the political turn toward wickedness, as you might suppose because that isn’t a political battle in the first place. The pattern is unlike any of previous “turn of the year” examinations of personal goals.
No, this is a trend by the Spirit toward a profound upheaval of soulish sources, examining internal limitations to accelerated maturity. This trend reveals that Holy Spirit “going there” with urgency, indicating what He intends to do within these inheritors to accentuate their continued preparation for what is coming next.
No one should attempt to “go there” unless and until Holy Spirit takes him there. Only God should plumb these depths. Only God knows the prescriptions for treatment when the surgery goes this deep.
Dr. Don Lynch, The Psychology of Redemptive Restoration
The “going there” references the deep of God going to the deep in them. That is, places left alone that must now be revealed are no longer “someday” on God’s calendar of events. The urgency of what is coming next calls for the urgency of what God intends to resolve today.
Identity Crisis and Restoration
I do not know what happens with people who lack authentic fathering leadership.
When this kind of identity crisis comes, the fathering leader provides stability and a context for the crisis. What God is doing is part of a procedural progression that leads to a proposed or organized and anticipated outcome.
A spiritual father understands the moment within that context of Divine intention, and the fathering leader shares that intention. The fathering leader shares that context. What God did before leads to this, and this leads to something greater. It is all for the good of the inheritor as well as the inheritor’s place in the progression of God’s eternal purposes.
The fathering context says, “God is up to something big, but God is also up to something personal. God is up to something global, but God is also up to something intimate. God is ruling in the mysteries of history, and God is ruling in the mysteries of my belly.”
The individual in-process feels utterly helpless before the issues that the crisis reveals. The inheritor also feels displaced during the surgery the Great Physician does to effect healing and restoration. The moment of deeper surrender to God releases a sense of detachment from what was embedded.
“I awakened a new person,” the inheritor cries.
Blind and Disabled Saul Becomes Paul
When Jesus yelled at Saul in front of all his friends, knocked him down, and thundered into the atmosphere surrounding him, Saul entered a crisis of the soul, unlike anything he had experienced.
The suddenly of that moment went as deep as the subterraneous that governed his identity. The God-crisis challenged everything that had motivated Saul up to that moment.
Jesus blinded him. Jesus shocked and shook him to the point he did not eat or drink. Jesus “limbo-ed” a man so thoroughly that the man abandoned any hold he had on himself.
“You do not know who you are, Saul,” Jesus says, “But you will know when I’m done with you. Why have you been persecuting Me? You have exhausted yourself resisting My strong direction-turning interventions. You are strong-willed, but I have come to overwhelm you to the point that you will live as if your former self was someone else.”
Redemptive Restoration is Radical
What happens in the contemporary forms of “me and Jesus” evangelicalism has little to do with the plan of God for the eternally and hopelessly warped souls of men.
Jesus did Saul of Tarsus a big favor knocking him down and out! Saul submitted to the blow that blew out all four tires upon which his identity was riding. Jesus sucked all the hot air out of his balloon and grounded him. Jesus cut open the entrails of his religion and exposed the cancer of his hatred, malice, and pride.
Thank you, Jesus! Three days of utter oblivion in the soul but heavenly restoration in the spirit.
The real issue is, “What will it take to get you ready for that level of transformational restoration?”
Redemptive restoration is as destructive as it is restorative. A reconstitution isn’t a session with a makeup artist or a haircut specialist. This Divine juggernaut isn’t about facial exfoliation.
In these moments, Jesus isn’t healing a sunburn or dealing with an adolescent acne outbreak. The drill down in these moments of deep soul searching exposes what nothing but the Cross can transform.
Paul shouts, “I will glory in nothing save the Cross of Jesus Christ!” When you come through this, and you will, you will understand what those words mean.
These are moments when the essence of you meets the Essence of God.
Awakening and Redemptive Restoration
Contrary to prevalent churchism presuppositions, revival does not come to prove certain doctrinal idolatries or systematics are correct. Awakening will not arrive to contribute overwhelming results to what you learn at a church-growth conference. God will not finally get around to proving to everyone that you are the one that is right and favored.
No, when revival comes, it will not come to you to “show’em all that God knows we are the chosen.”
God will not arrive with Glory to fulfill your vision for your church, underwrite a new building program, or let everyone know that your worship songs have angels falling over, weeping with envy.
God sends revival to revive what has died or fallen into a death-like stupor. God comes to touch stupified people. God comes to overwhelm human beings with Himself. When God does that, He redemptively restores His original intentions in people and places.
God does this with such power that His Remnant influences the existing culture with kingdom culture. He does so in a way that people live in a heightened awareness of God–what should be the norm for every kingdom ministry.
We often respond in this same way with God as contemporary churchism. We are concerned with how well God is doing His job of being God. We wonder when we will get a Divine breakthrough for our dreams and faulty assumptions of personal purpose.
When God shows up, He never fits into the churchism agenda. When God goes deep into our souls for redemptive restoration, He never seems to reckon with our expectations.
God never seems to measure up to our expectations until our expectations measure up to Him.
The Groaning of Awakening
We can fully expect God to go deeper than ever before:
- This is a global conflict with hell like none in history;
- This is a global confrontation with the Antichrist spirit for control of international governmental power;
- This is a showdown with goat nations moving against Israel and her allies;
- This is a Leviathan and Behemoth alliance against liberty and kingdom culture;
- This is a targeted attack against fathering nations marked by God to preach the Gospel of the kingdom;
- The answer to this usurpation initiative, a kingdom reset against an antichrist reset, is the Remnant. The Remnant is preparing to enter a New Era Reformation.
Surrender it all to God. Doing nothing isn’t surrendering. Surrendering is the deepest place of intentionality where the strength of your will meets the will of God. It is Gethsemane. It is the olive press. It is the crucible of the soul where the brilliant lights of your present priorities and values dim down to night light glow and the noonday sun of His eternal intended purposes for people and places blast like lightning bolts into the hidden fractiles.
These are the words of Jesus to Simon Peter while all three apostles slept in the Garden of His personal Gethsamane to provide eternal, global redemptive restoration:
What, Simon, could you not watch with Me for one hour? Watch and pray lest your spirit enters into an experiment with your capacity to maintain faith and faithfulness or lapse into failure. Your spirit is in readiness, but your flesh lacks needed resources to sustain or endure.
Matthew 26:40-41
A strengthened soul must match with a willing spirit at the point of passion for purpose.
- “I wannabe” won’t cut it.
- “I intended to” is a failure.
- “I was going strong until Gethsemane forced me to see what obedience would cost.”
- “I thought I would score high on this test, but I went into avoidance behavior on the first three questions because my preparation fell short of the severity of the test.”
Some seasons test the mettle of men to the point that previous champions weep like little girls, and men of physical stamina stand about like zombies from the horror of war.
The modern world says, “It shouldn’t be this hard.” And the most remarkable display of this form of cowardice comes in the contemporary forms of churchism.
To make a break for this season of historical upheaval, to arrive at the finish line of destiny in victory, you must make decisions to carry the Cross daily because you already surrendered to the hammer that nails you on it.
