After yesterdays blog post, I reflected on the many people I know. I am grateful beyond measure for the richness of their friendship and acquaintance.
I want my readers to know that I primarily write for those within the body of Christ, the Church.
Each person I know is on a path. Some of our paths are not the same and some are quite similar. I don't know about you but I've walked some pretty grueling paths. One of the hardest was a path that led up to the top of Grouse Mountain, which is located on the North Shore of Vancouver. They call this trek the Grouse Grind. There are many people who have and continue to walk up this mountain and some run up it. I've done it a few times in my life (I was not a regular Grinder!) and quite challenging for the fittest person, to which I am not.
To do the grind, you have to keep your eyes focused on the path ahead of you and be mindful of your feet. You are essentially focused on reaching the top. There are no other options really. You can stop and take a breath and there are spaces to do that in the hike, but for the most part, it's a hard incline upwards. Our feet placement while climbing is important. Carefully planting our feet on a sure and solid part of the path is essential. There are times going up the grind where you stop to figure out the best place to take a step.
You have to begin to believe you can do it. That you can make it. Once you begin to doubt it, you begin to get weary, emotions take over and you may end up quitting and begin the decent, which is sometimes harder to do than the ascent. It's here in this place were we can admit that it's hard and that we're having trouble. I know that many times during my climb, I admitted that this was hard and I had to rest, but I had decided that I would get to the top. During the climb many people would pass me and encourage me...cheer me on as they zipped passed me.
We need this in our walk of sanctification. There will be many trials along the way and we need the company of others who are continuing the journey faithfully, not necessarily perfectly.
When I finally reached the top of the Mountain, I stood in awe of the amazing task that was completed, that I actually did it without collapsing. I walked around and looked beyond the trees to the ocean and city below. Beautiful view!
If I had given up, I would never have seen the view through the eyes of gratitude for the work it took. Sure I could have taken the gondola up, but I think I would have missed something really amazing...the climb.
So, I'm reminded of the path that God has shown me to walk. A path that can appear to be quite the climb, with narrow passages, tricky footing, but along the way God has given me amazing friends and family who encourage me, who speak truth, who shower me with grace, who always point me to Jesus...and this is where I find my rest in the climb.
Friday, January 16, 2015
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Another one bites the dust...compromise
Hebrews 12:1-4
Therefore
then, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses [who
have borne testimony to the Truth], let us strip off and throw aside every encumbrance (unnecessary weight) and that sin which so readily (deftly and cleverly) clings to and entangles us,
and let us run with patient endurance and steady and active persistence the
appointed course of the race that is set before us,
and let us run with patient endurance and steady and active persistence the
appointed course of the race that is set before us,
Looking away [from all that will distract] to Jesus, Who is the Leader and
the Source
of our faith [giving the first incentive for our belief] and is also its Finisher [bringing it to maturity and perfection]. He, for the joy [of obtaining the prize] that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising and ignoring the shame,
and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
of our faith [giving the first incentive for our belief] and is also its Finisher [bringing it to maturity and perfection]. He, for the joy [of obtaining the prize] that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising and ignoring the shame,
and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Just think of Him Who endured from sinners such grievous opposition and
bitter hostility against Himself [reckon up and consider it all in
comparison with your trials],
so that you may not grow weary or exhausted,
losing heart and relaxing and fainting in your minds.
so that you may not grow weary or exhausted,
losing heart and relaxing and fainting in your minds.
You have not yet struggled and fought agonizingly against sin,
nor have you yet resisted and withstood to the point of pouring out your [own] blood.
I liken this to biting the dust of humanity. I started eating the dust of the human narrative that I was listening to, rather than the spiritual narrative, the manna of His provision.
*I want to make note here that even in my walking away from one loving community, God provided for me, friends that I still have today. Ones who inspired me to walk with my eyes open, who encourage me to love, create and these friends I love with a tremendous love, and though distance separates us, they are in my heart.
nor have you yet resisted and withstood to the point of pouring out your [own] blood.
As you read further in Hebrews 12 it goes on to talk about discipline a word we rarely like to talk about, especially discipline that comes from God. Does it really happen? Is our loving grace filled Papa one who disciplines? If he is loving and kind, yes, He does.
As a parent, if I let my child run rampant, loose, without teaching restraint and that there are consequences to actions that are disobedient, she will be a mess and I have not done a good job as a Father. If I don't teach her that she is not always going to get her way or everything that she wants, she will grow up entitled and desperate for instant gratification. People would look at me, talk about how bad a parent I am and hopefully someone would take me aside and show me my error.
I was reminded today that compromise is a dangerous game that we play. I think compromise is that sin that clings to and entangles us...it's that hindrance or encumbrance that we haven't thrown off, which begins to make room for more weight and soon disillusionment sets in and it confuses us to the truth.
We are so lazy. (I am preaching to the choir here...me!) I have not yet struggled and fought agonizingly against sin, nor have I yet resisted and withstood to the point of pouring out my own blood. Have you? Would you? Would you hate sin so much in your life that you would cry out in anguish? Would you wrestle with it with great intensity? Or would you compromise? A little here, a little there? Bend the rules here, bend them there? This isn't an easy scripture to read without doing some self reflection and ask the Lord to examine our lives...I know that this is something that I do when I read this. I realize that I am far from perfect, and that I'm a work in progress and it humbles me and keeps me desperately clinging to the cross...exclaiming to the Lord..."Lord Jesus, help me to not fall away from your precepts, your glorious ways...which are so much better than mine!"
Further in Hebrews 12 Esau sells his birth right his inheritance for a meal. A meal! He compromises for something he desired. He had a desire that birthed into something so great that he would sell his birth right for it. What a devastating choice.
Where do we do that in our lives? I sold my birth right! Yep, I did! When I was 30 years old, I decided to give birth to my own desires. The compromises were little to begin with, but they began to grow bigger and bigger. I began to believe the world's voice over God's, I began to believe God created me gay, I began to believe that grace was enough, and God loved me and accepted me as a gay man. These compromises took root and I began to water them and it pulled me away from a loving community that I was in, and I began to believe that they were just backwards, homophobic, unloving and that they had failed me. They didn't! I failed. I walked away, they didn't.
I liken this to biting the dust of humanity. I started eating the dust of the human narrative that I was listening to, rather than the spiritual narrative, the manna of His provision.
*I want to make note here that even in my walking away from one loving community, God provided for me, friends that I still have today. Ones who inspired me to walk with my eyes open, who encourage me to love, create and these friends I love with a tremendous love, and though distance separates us, they are in my heart.
I sold my birth right, my inheritance for a lavish meal of sexual expression and false identity. And I was extended grace, like the prodigal son, when I returned. God threw a party for me by surrounding me with an amazing community of believers...a crowd of witnesses, the glorious ones to whom is all my delight! (Psalm 16) These men and women, young and old, are here to encourage and keep me on the path of life. I need them and they need me. We aren't called to put our trust in them or our faith...that belongs to God, but they know their place in spurring me on, and I know my place.
So today, as I read yet another one, who has bitten the apple of compromise, my heart breaks with sorrow and grief and I won't callus my heart to not feel the disappointment and the hurt that this causes and I cry out for my brothers and sisters to stand firm in the faith, the race set before them.
Looking away [from all that will distract] to Jesus, Who is the Leader and
the Source
of our faith [giving the first incentive for our belief] and is also its Finisher [bringing it to maturity and perfection]. He, for the joy [of obtaining the prize] that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising and ignoring the shame,
and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
of our faith [giving the first incentive for our belief] and is also its Finisher [bringing it to maturity and perfection]. He, for the joy [of obtaining the prize] that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising and ignoring the shame,
and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Just think of Him Who endured from sinners such grievous opposition and
bitter hostility against Himself [reckon up and consider it all in
comparison with your trials],
so that you may not grow weary or exhausted,
losing heart and relaxing and fainting in your minds.
so that you may not grow weary or exhausted,
losing heart and relaxing and fainting in your minds.
Thursday, January 08, 2015
Right Side?
We all wanna be on the right team! The right side, the one that wins! We'll do anything to be on that team right? We want to be upheld for our views and our thoughts. We want to be on the right side of culture. We don't want to offend or rock the boat. We want to stand up for injustice and be unafraid of oppressive bullies.
But what happens when being on the right team, the right side, means you will be insulted, torn apart, bullied, spat at, misinterpreted, misunderstood, talked about, beaten and put to death...kinda like being on Jesus' team!
What happens when being on the right team, the right side means; you holding to a view of holiness which makes you culturally awkward. Your conviction and views go contrary to the 'new way of thinking!' You're told you have to get with the times, be generous and spacious. Use new descriptive labels of identity, even though it makes you uneasy and you just don't know why, and all for the sake of being viewed as more welcoming.
I've been pondering these ideas as I read so many blogs. Whew there are a lot of blogs out there, trying to re-frame old ideas and old thoughts. Package them in new ways to make it more relevant and with the times, so that the young adults won't leave the church!
I sorta think that's hogwash! Now please, bear with me for a minute. There are revivals happening in other countries, where the church is growing at amazing rates and yet in the west it appears its in the decline.
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2014/April/Revival-in-Land-Once-Hostile-to-Christ/
http://www.charismamag.com/spirit/revival/14745-the-biggest-revival-in-history
We can't say that's because we aren't relevant enough, or our music isn't loud or interesting enough, or that we haven't been adopting an affirming view on certain sin issues, or that the we haven't been seen as loving. Maybe the decline is that we are so gorged in instant everything that when it doesn't happen for us in the time we want, we get disillusioned and we throw everything away. We haven't gotten what we've been looking or asking for. If God makes us wait...then what? If we don't prosper in the way we think we should materially? What happens when someone calls us on our sin? Run or Repent?
Most times we run. I ran! I felt the Church didn't care for me in the way I needed, didn't meet my need, I didn't change in the way I had asked God to change me, and it just felt like being in Church meant my life was just one big NO! You can't do that...you certainly cannot do that...absolutely no to that!! So I threw that out, and walked away from friends, people who loved me and I adopted the cultural descriptive label...GAY.
Everything is permissible, not everything is profitable. What was permissible? Everything? I was free to make choices and decide how I was going to live, but not everything that I chose was profitable or to my benefit. A lot of the things I did, now have scarred my life and I live with some of the ramifications of my actions. The things I yoked myself to, people, riches, envy, covetousness, sex, self reliance, now a constant washing away. Adam and Eve made choices...oops, that's where it all began...free will and a decision that propelled us into 'born sinful'.
So can we get back to a vibrant Church? I think yes! But it means we repent. We begin to take every thought captive, we run with perseverance, we stay on the path of life. We unite together in love, doing whatever we can to be at peace, we hate sin as much as Jesus did (in our own lives, because the plank is always bigger in my eye). We become unafraid of others loving us well and calling us out of deception and submit rather than run. We authentically speak the truth with all the grace and mercy we have been extended. We refuse to bow to cultural gods and we rise as royal priests, heirs! We throw away attraction and embrace authenticity. There are no smoke screens, huge speakers, massive lights in Iran or Northern Africa where revivals are happening...and Christian's face the greatest persecution there...and they are still accepting Jesus.
What do they get that we don't? I don't want to answer that...but maybe they see their life as not their own? Maybe they get the fact that every part of their life is submitted to one true God? Maybe, just maybe they don't love their life so much that they aren't afraid of losing everything...and I mean everything. Can we say the same?
Could I not love my gay identity so much as to sacrifice that on the cross of Jesus, giving it and every part of my sexuality to God, to define in His Holiness? Rather than taking on that descriptive word so I am relevant to the world around me...so I could build bridges or foster generous spaces?
Psalm 16:5-7 read-
You, Lord, are all I want! You are my choice, and you keep me safe. You make my life pleasant, and my future is bright. I praise you, Lord, for being my guide. Even in the darkest night, your teachings fill my mind.
We are sometimes so afraid of being on the right or wrong side and yet God says there is a right and a wrong side...and I can't package that in a nice decorated and pretty present, it's truth, and when we get a revelation of that truth we find kindness, love, mercy and grace, which is eternal. That is my prayer for the Church. That we wouldn't love our lives so much...that we aren't afraid to throw off every hindrance, and run a good race...and that we would love God more than ourselves...and turn to Him in every situation that we face.
But what happens when being on the right team, the right side, means you will be insulted, torn apart, bullied, spat at, misinterpreted, misunderstood, talked about, beaten and put to death...kinda like being on Jesus' team!
What happens when being on the right team, the right side means; you holding to a view of holiness which makes you culturally awkward. Your conviction and views go contrary to the 'new way of thinking!' You're told you have to get with the times, be generous and spacious. Use new descriptive labels of identity, even though it makes you uneasy and you just don't know why, and all for the sake of being viewed as more welcoming.
I've been pondering these ideas as I read so many blogs. Whew there are a lot of blogs out there, trying to re-frame old ideas and old thoughts. Package them in new ways to make it more relevant and with the times, so that the young adults won't leave the church!
I sorta think that's hogwash! Now please, bear with me for a minute. There are revivals happening in other countries, where the church is growing at amazing rates and yet in the west it appears its in the decline.
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2014/April/Revival-in-Land-Once-Hostile-to-Christ/
http://www.charismamag.com/spirit/revival/14745-the-biggest-revival-in-history
We can't say that's because we aren't relevant enough, or our music isn't loud or interesting enough, or that we haven't been adopting an affirming view on certain sin issues, or that the we haven't been seen as loving. Maybe the decline is that we are so gorged in instant everything that when it doesn't happen for us in the time we want, we get disillusioned and we throw everything away. We haven't gotten what we've been looking or asking for. If God makes us wait...then what? If we don't prosper in the way we think we should materially? What happens when someone calls us on our sin? Run or Repent?
Most times we run. I ran! I felt the Church didn't care for me in the way I needed, didn't meet my need, I didn't change in the way I had asked God to change me, and it just felt like being in Church meant my life was just one big NO! You can't do that...you certainly cannot do that...absolutely no to that!! So I threw that out, and walked away from friends, people who loved me and I adopted the cultural descriptive label...GAY.
Everything is permissible, not everything is profitable. What was permissible? Everything? I was free to make choices and decide how I was going to live, but not everything that I chose was profitable or to my benefit. A lot of the things I did, now have scarred my life and I live with some of the ramifications of my actions. The things I yoked myself to, people, riches, envy, covetousness, sex, self reliance, now a constant washing away. Adam and Eve made choices...oops, that's where it all began...free will and a decision that propelled us into 'born sinful'.
So can we get back to a vibrant Church? I think yes! But it means we repent. We begin to take every thought captive, we run with perseverance, we stay on the path of life. We unite together in love, doing whatever we can to be at peace, we hate sin as much as Jesus did (in our own lives, because the plank is always bigger in my eye). We become unafraid of others loving us well and calling us out of deception and submit rather than run. We authentically speak the truth with all the grace and mercy we have been extended. We refuse to bow to cultural gods and we rise as royal priests, heirs! We throw away attraction and embrace authenticity. There are no smoke screens, huge speakers, massive lights in Iran or Northern Africa where revivals are happening...and Christian's face the greatest persecution there...and they are still accepting Jesus.
What do they get that we don't? I don't want to answer that...but maybe they see their life as not their own? Maybe they get the fact that every part of their life is submitted to one true God? Maybe, just maybe they don't love their life so much that they aren't afraid of losing everything...and I mean everything. Can we say the same?
Could I not love my gay identity so much as to sacrifice that on the cross of Jesus, giving it and every part of my sexuality to God, to define in His Holiness? Rather than taking on that descriptive word so I am relevant to the world around me...so I could build bridges or foster generous spaces?
Psalm 16:5-7 read-
You, Lord, are all I want! You are my choice, and you keep me safe. You make my life pleasant, and my future is bright. I praise you, Lord, for being my guide. Even in the darkest night, your teachings fill my mind.
We are sometimes so afraid of being on the right or wrong side and yet God says there is a right and a wrong side...and I can't package that in a nice decorated and pretty present, it's truth, and when we get a revelation of that truth we find kindness, love, mercy and grace, which is eternal. That is my prayer for the Church. That we wouldn't love our lives so much...that we aren't afraid to throw off every hindrance, and run a good race...and that we would love God more than ourselves...and turn to Him in every situation that we face.
Tuesday, January 06, 2015
Did God save me so I could enslave me?
Psalm 16 descriptively talks about how our boundary lines have fallen in pleasant places and that God make known to us the path of life.
This chapter is rich in it's imagery and depth of our call to faithfully walk dependent on God. No where in this chapter does it say that all paths lead to God, nor does it read that we can have our cake and eat it too.
God didn't save me so that I could enslave me. In 2005, when I wasn't necessarily looking for God, He found me and called me out of a Gay identity, called me out of Egypt. I recently re-read my journal at that time and it is amazing that one week I was adamant that I was Gay and why couldn't people just get over it already and acknowledge that fact and the next week I was overcome with God's presence after hearing him tell me "You don't have to go back to Egypt!" I knew this call out wasn't going to be easy, nor was it going to miraculously turn all my attractions toward women only.
I began to faithfully steward my sexuality and sought out healing ministries to help heal some distorted thinking and views. Mainly, I needed Jesus and I encountered him, over and over again in my neediness. It wasn't necessarily only the ministry programs that helped, though I highly recommend them, but what I found was they constantly redirected me to look and find my healing in the person of Jesus, the Faithful Father God and the good work of the Holy Spirit who gives wisdom and revelation.
My sinfulness was taken by the sacrifice on the cross. I was free...or was I?
For quite some time I have been reading multiple articles and blogs and thoughts on the issue of homosexuality. A complex issue that is front and central in the Church today.
Who's on the right side and who's on the wrong side? Have we interpreted the Bible correctly, or incorrectly? Exegetical and hermeneutic words are being questioned, people's lives are being dissected, there are ideas of 'third ways', 'shades of grey', 'generous spaces', stories upon stories and I wonder to myself, WHY ME?
How did I get caught up in the whole wave of homosexuality?...YET GOD!...For years I have been writing, posting, sharing, living out my faith in a way that I believe God has called me to live. I am still brought back to the wilderness when God spoke clearly to my feeble cry. In that place I built an altar of remembrance. Who am I to question the almighty God, creator of all things. Who's ways are so much greater than ours...mine!
When people within the church read articles and they forward them to me, because they are intrigued with the messages, I quietly stop and exclaim...and "YET GOD!"
A God who is able to do exceedingly more for me than I can ever imagine. I cannot question that or dispel it.
No magic formula, no miraculous program...but God! Who in the midst of my continued struggle, defines me and gives me purpose, who shows me faithfulness, who pours out mercy and grace through the work of Jesus and propels me to persevere and continue on the race set before me.
So I'm bold enough to say, "God didn't save me so I could enslave myself to the sin of homosexuality!" and in my leaving the gay identity, God didn't then say to me "Kenny, I know you and formed you and called you out of being gay, but I've changed my mind and you really are gay, because I've noticed your attractions haven't changed enough!"
It's a thankfulness, that I am no longer enslaved to any sin, though I am sinful! That the course and trajectory of my life is a narrow path, where few make it, not a great big field where everything is acceptable.
It's this amazing love the grounds me in faithfulness, so I can love well enough, so I can be faithful because God is faithful, and where my life is defined not by my sexuality, or my ideas of gender, but rather by the one true God, creator of Kenneth Peter Warkentin, who formed and imagined me long before my parents ever did.
This chapter is rich in it's imagery and depth of our call to faithfully walk dependent on God. No where in this chapter does it say that all paths lead to God, nor does it read that we can have our cake and eat it too.
God didn't save me so that I could enslave me. In 2005, when I wasn't necessarily looking for God, He found me and called me out of a Gay identity, called me out of Egypt. I recently re-read my journal at that time and it is amazing that one week I was adamant that I was Gay and why couldn't people just get over it already and acknowledge that fact and the next week I was overcome with God's presence after hearing him tell me "You don't have to go back to Egypt!" I knew this call out wasn't going to be easy, nor was it going to miraculously turn all my attractions toward women only.
I began to faithfully steward my sexuality and sought out healing ministries to help heal some distorted thinking and views. Mainly, I needed Jesus and I encountered him, over and over again in my neediness. It wasn't necessarily only the ministry programs that helped, though I highly recommend them, but what I found was they constantly redirected me to look and find my healing in the person of Jesus, the Faithful Father God and the good work of the Holy Spirit who gives wisdom and revelation.
My sinfulness was taken by the sacrifice on the cross. I was free...or was I?
For quite some time I have been reading multiple articles and blogs and thoughts on the issue of homosexuality. A complex issue that is front and central in the Church today.
Who's on the right side and who's on the wrong side? Have we interpreted the Bible correctly, or incorrectly? Exegetical and hermeneutic words are being questioned, people's lives are being dissected, there are ideas of 'third ways', 'shades of grey', 'generous spaces', stories upon stories and I wonder to myself, WHY ME?
How did I get caught up in the whole wave of homosexuality?...YET GOD!...For years I have been writing, posting, sharing, living out my faith in a way that I believe God has called me to live. I am still brought back to the wilderness when God spoke clearly to my feeble cry. In that place I built an altar of remembrance. Who am I to question the almighty God, creator of all things. Who's ways are so much greater than ours...mine!
When people within the church read articles and they forward them to me, because they are intrigued with the messages, I quietly stop and exclaim...and "YET GOD!"
A God who is able to do exceedingly more for me than I can ever imagine. I cannot question that or dispel it.
No magic formula, no miraculous program...but God! Who in the midst of my continued struggle, defines me and gives me purpose, who shows me faithfulness, who pours out mercy and grace through the work of Jesus and propels me to persevere and continue on the race set before me.
So I'm bold enough to say, "God didn't save me so I could enslave myself to the sin of homosexuality!" and in my leaving the gay identity, God didn't then say to me "Kenny, I know you and formed you and called you out of being gay, but I've changed my mind and you really are gay, because I've noticed your attractions haven't changed enough!"
It's a thankfulness, that I am no longer enslaved to any sin, though I am sinful! That the course and trajectory of my life is a narrow path, where few make it, not a great big field where everything is acceptable.
It's this amazing love the grounds me in faithfulness, so I can love well enough, so I can be faithful because God is faithful, and where my life is defined not by my sexuality, or my ideas of gender, but rather by the one true God, creator of Kenneth Peter Warkentin, who formed and imagined me long before my parents ever did.
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