Living Love

Well, it seems my writing and personal journal writing this past year kinda bit the dust. All good intentions flew out the window in what was a very difficult year on many levels. In retrospect, I was managing life, but that was about it.  There wasn't a lot of capacity or reserve to do much else.  Living with someone with a Chronic illness can put excess pressure on the whole house, and I learned much in this season about myself and my own propensity toward 'dark days'.  I had many upward moments (the ups!) in the midst of the down (dark) days, and as I look back I have chosen to cherish all the days, all the moments, because I was alive and God gave me breath.  Each day whether easy, difficult or just plain neutral was a gift to us and we can either forget all about it or we can learn and grow from the experience.  I want to grow.

Entering into 2018, I wondered..."Will life look any different? What will life look like?" and as I thought about it, I began to see that all God is asking for me at the moment is to live love. Not so much a focus on love living, but to live love out of His empowerment for His glory. You see my understanding of 'love living'  is to think that everything will be rosy, dandy, and of my choosing.  That somehow I can love living through experiences that I make and yet I want something deeper than experiential opportunities.  I was to live love, despite the circumstances that I may face whether good or bad.

It's a manifesto of sorts, to proclaim and declare that one will live love rather than love living.  To some this will sound rather redundant or you can't have one without the other, or the later is a by product of living love, but I think if we decide to seek first the Kingdom of God and ALL his righteousness and choose to live love in every situation, circumstance and experience, we can in the good times and the difficult times learn in very essence the art of loving life.

Practically speaking, I think it looks a whole lot like the fruits of the spirit: Kindness, gentleness, self control, patience, goodness, joy, faithfulness, peace...and the greatest of all...love.

Choosing to live love means to be cloaked in love...and we can't have this fully unless we are seeped in the Holy Spirit.  Declaring each day the Holiness of God our Father, who extravagantly loves.  Asking for the fullness of our day..."Give us this day...", guarding against evil, sin, patterns of selfishness, walking as ones forgiven and ones offering forgiveness...and laying down our lives to serve only one master...God. (Matthew 6)

To live love is to radically choose the opposite of how we may feel on any given moment and to choose to depend fully on the empowerment of the Holy Spirit who is revealing Jesus, who equips us with everything we need to live life to the full, not for our glory or fame but for his.  To God be the Glory and furthering of His Kingdom.  AMEN

Fathered?

Fathered?

I was reminded today, the importance of a fathers heart toward his children! The legacy of a good father is providing them with attention, affirmation, affection, endurance, humility, respect, mercy and most of all love. 

Being rooted and grounded in this...it allows us to do much good in the communities around us.  When we know how to Father rightly, we can also extend a fathers heart to the fatherless.  Today I listened as a well know advocate for social justice was honored by those to whom he was known to.  Colleagues, Officiates, Pastors and family members.  A common thread was that you either loved him or you hated him.  

It was difficult for many reasons to sit and listen to the Eulogies.  I won't go into great detail, it's hard to listen to humanitarian accolades when at the foundation everything is flawed.  

I truly believe that the BEST form of social justice, humanitarian activism comes from having a deep awareness of a Father's/Mother's heart.  (You can have this even if you have never physically raised a biological family) This begins by making peace with your past.  If you can't stand up and confront your past, you will never walk free in the future, which takes guts, courage, honesty, integrity, respect, confession and forgiveness (and many other attributes).  It means that you look back, you recognize the lack and you move in a different direction.  Not pretending it ever happened or make light of it...but rather, in honesty look it in the face and make peace with God, your self and others.

If this never happens, you continue the cycles those previous generations walked out before you.  Sure you could probably look like all is well, but at the end of the day...do you?  As you re-cycle the past instead of doing something different, you offer quite the challenge for those who are looking to you to leave a legacy or an inheritance (which is not about gold or silver).  We can do good works, we can make a difference, but when there is no foundation, these accomplishments through time will whither, die and be forgotten. 

For nearly 3 hours, I listened to all the GOOD this person has done and yet he missed the mark which saddened me greatly.  Life is but a vapor and he chose to fulfill worldly fame instead of looking at what really mattered...being a father. I listened to a different challenge today as I sat applauding the bravery of honesty by a son.  It was refreshing and truthful.   It took a son to speak truth that didn't cause merriment; rather it produced gasps and the shaking of heads.  Heads of those still stuck in the niceties of appearance, desperately hiding the past and present wounds, so not to appear ‘broken’ in any way, fearing the words of man, rather than fearing the words of God.

It caused me to take another look at my own experience.  It wasn't great in the early years.  I longed for affection, affirmation, attention and love, and if faced with the same experience these men were having 25 years ago, I might have replied with similar words, yet in the last 25 years, I have grown to understand my father, and truly love the man he is.  He isn't perfect, nor am I...no one is.  But one of the pivotal conversations I had with him was when he shared that with me his own reality.  That he knew he wasn't the best dad and he didn't sugar coat it, or make it appear differently.  He called it for what it was and he chose to do something different.  I have learned the value of hard work, to endure, to show affection, and the ability to affirm my daughter because of him.  He is generous to a fault and would give the shirt off his back for you.  He now openly shows affection.  It has allowed me to also walk free of walls of hiding and to be the man I am called to be.  My earthly father will still fail in comparison to my heavenly Father and I too will fail my daughter, yet it is God my Father, who fathers me in the lack.  He is my perfect Father.  This continual growing knowledge of the Father heart of God comes with my own submission and acceptance of Jesus as Savior.  If I know Jesus, I know the Father! 

Yet this funeral today rocked me to the core.  My father’s heart broke within me to see the longing and the empty eyes staring back at me as a son addressed the crowd.  Honest and transparent, yet alone and fragile, walls built up from years of broken promises and empty words, a vow "I will never be like him" and yet shockingly he became the very thing he hated.  I know that full well. 

The experience enlarged my heart for the fatherless, those to whom their fathers are still living, but are emotionally, physically, relationally and spiritually distant.  I saw numerous men and women at the funeral with hearts breaking due to their own lack of being fathered.  It breaks my heart.  

It's time we rise up and speak a different type of social justice awareness, that it really does matter the legacy and foundation that we lay as a father or mother.  But this will take a concerted step toward honesty and courage to bring things into the light, to address and talk instead of hiding behind walls, or through activism. When we've wronged someone, we make it right.  When we haven't made amends or peace, can we even in all integrity stand for social justice and the rights of the down trodden when we have neglected the very ones to whom have been put in our care?  The masks need to come down, the veneers stripped away...the pretense thrown in the garbage...and true men and women calling out for their sons and daughters to come home.  It will take brave and courageous fathers and mothers to lead the way, who aren't afraid of words spoken behind the back, rather more afraid of the God who judges both the living and the dead.

May the Lord be merciful...and kind!  Slow to anger and rich in love.

Rest

How many times does God beckon us to find rest in Him? Or are we too busy or pre-occupied with our own lives to not hear His voice, not taking the opportunity that God our Papa is calling us to.

Today, God totally spoke to me while holding my daughter who just turned one. She was feeling under the weather and was clearly tired and fighting sleep. She was easily brought to tears, everything seemed to cause her discomfort. I recognized this and picked her up and brought her to her room. I pointed to her bed and said it was time for a nap. She looked at her bed, pointed to it and turned her head and began to cry. I could sense that she wanted desperately to fall asleep but was having a hard time calming down. So I held her in my arms, spoke gently to her, softly, reassuring her that Daddy loved her and that she was special, and that I knew she was not feeling well, and that a nap would make her feel better.
She sat in my lap, facing me, arms outstretched and her wee hands on my chest, keeping herself from putting her head on my shoulder. Yet, her little head bobbed back and forth as her eyes slowly closed and opened. My voice continuing to speak softly to her, telling her I knew how she felt, that she could put her head on my shoulder. She continued to fall asleep in that position, until finally she put her arms down, laid her head on my shoulder, let out a wimper and closed her eyes and fell fast asleep. Continuing to tell her I loved her, as I patted her back and stroked her head. I love her so much, and feel for her when she isn't feeling well. As she fell asleep, God spoke through the experience.
I felt as if God was saying, "how often do you do this with me? When you are so exausted and tired, yet you continue to try to please yourself, do it yourself, comfort yourself? When I am speaking love to you, speaking affirmation and beckoning you to just put your head down on my chest and find your rest in me?"

I began to cry, knowing all to well the areas in my own life where I refuse to go to God first. When I know my Papa is tenderly calling my name, saying "Kenny, my son, I love you so much, you'll be okay, I know you'll feel better here with me."

I remember when I was so consummed with getting my legitimate needs met through same gender sexual encounters. When I was so focused on my rights, my desires, my thoughts as a gay man, rather than handing it all over to God, allowing Him to define me, to heal me, to speak to me and to give me much needed rest. When God spoke to me in the wilderness, He affirmed me, called me out of a gay identity, into His healing hands and told me, He would be enough for me. At that moment, I placed everything in His hands. It has been an incredible journey, one that I continue to be on. God my Papa is continually reminding me of the importance of finding my rest in Him. I can easily become busy, busy as a husband, as a father, as an employee, as a musician, artist...the list could continue, yet God continues to call me, speak to me and ask that I find my rest in Him alone and out of that I find my strength to carry on.