Revolt Towards

Many teens believe they'll die young

Surprising finding raises fears fatalism is a self-fulfilling prophecy

I read this article today and thought it was interesting to see the onslaught on today's young people. While this could be some dastardly plot conceived by the enemy of our soul, I lean more to ourselves as our own worst enemy—this fatalism as the bi-product (aka consequence) of the decline of the family where parents work more than nurture, colliding with our techno-communal society where we never foster off-line relationships and all in a world where mass-media beckons mass-consumption that still leaves us all empty.

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A surprising number of teenagers — nearly 15 percent — think they're going to die young, leading many to drug use, suicide attempts and other unsafe behavior, new research suggests.

The study, based on a survey of more than 20,000 kids, challenges conventional wisdom that says teens engage in risky behavior because they think they're invulnerable to harm. Instead, a sizable number of teens may take chances "because they feel hopeless and figure that not much is at stake," said study author Dr. Iris Borowsky, a researcher at the University of Minnesota.

That behavior threatens to turn their fatalism into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Over seven years, kids who thought they would die early were seven time more likely than optimistic kids to be subsequently diagnosed with AIDS. They also were more likely to attempt suicide and get in fights resulting in serious injuries.

Borowsky said the magnitude of kids with a negative outlook was eye-opening.

Adolescence is "a time of great opportunity and for such a large minority of youth to feel like they don't have a long life ahead of them was surprising," she said.

The study suggests a new way doctors could detect kids likely to engage in unsafe behavior and potentially help prevent it, said Dr. Jonathan Klein, a University of Rochester adolescent health expert who was not involved in the research.

"Asking about this sense of fatalism is probably a pretty important component of one of the ways we can figure out who those kids at greater risk are," he said.

The study appears in the July issue of Pediatrics, released Monday.

Scientists once widely believed that teenagers take risks because they underestimate bad consequences and figure "it can't happen to me," the study authors say. The new research bolsters evidence refuting that thinking.

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Read complete article here.

The Heart Is The Doorway

The other night, I was in Torrance where Kim Walker was leading and Danny and Sheri Silk were speaking. While everyone was singing, I saw this picture of a heart, with both sides pulling apart like two french doors on a weekend morning. It was then that I heard "The mind is the gate, but the heart is the doorway".

I had heard Bill Johnson talk a few years ago about you and I being the gate of heaven. (Genesis 18:17: He was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.") and the mind residing as gate of hell—when Christ tells Peter, "And the gates of hell will not prevail against you", he was speaking of the mind because He later tells Peter, "Get behind me satan for your mind is not full of the things of God, but full of the things of man". James 3:15 also says, "Such 'wisdom' does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil." The war wages in the mind, trying to get get control of our heart through unbelief. But why?

Because our heart is the door by which Jesus enters. The outworking of the Spirit of God in our lives comes and shows us the need for Jesus and once we chose to walk this journey, we need to renew our minds daily so that the doors of our heart can be open to Jesus daily.

Revelation 3:20
Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.

This verse has been so misconstrued over the years to be seen as a call for salvation when really, this is a call to us in the Church. Jesus is knocking on your door and my door because we've put Him outside. With each knock on the door of our heart is a resounding call for intimacy with us, His friends.

When I saw the doors of the heart open on Saturday night, it was an entry point. A point of welcoming, where I could host the Presence of Jesus. For all that I long to see and do in my life, to write new songs, run with new ideas, tell untold stories and to see bodies, minds and hearts around the world healed, delivered, fed and redeemed—it all can only come from opening my heart to the person of Jesus. Each and every day. In every possible moment, when I'm waking, working, eating, resting, playing, dreaming. 

The heart is the doorway, friends. I pray for all of you who glance and read over this, that you would find your heart opening up. Maybe your door is a heavy steel one right now, or maybe it's a nice sliding glass door—either way, the point is to open wide the doors and let Him in. Because it doesn't end there. He doesn't just sit there staring at your soul. He actually wants to dine with you and I! He wants to share your favorite meal with you, have food fights or maybe it's just to come in have a good beer and share life. Open the doors to see His face and don't be surprised by what He does!

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For more on opening the door, read my post from Sept 08.

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Jesus

I don't have any amazing title for this post other than "Jesus".
Why, you might ask? Because I am in love with Jesus anew.

This morning, I was on my way to meet Joey for coffee and I put on John Mark McMillian's song "Kiss Your Feet". I began to weep in the car, torn up by another new revelation of Jesus. I've been finding myself in the Song of Songs and the woman who washes Jesus' feet with perfume and her hair. Even the story of Mary and Martha, just to be Mary at the feet of Jesus. For reference, John Mark sings:

I dreamed I kissed your feet
Between the cigarette butts
On the side of fourteenth street
I got down on my hands and my knees
With an alabaster jar

I dreamed I'd bleed with your praises
Just to make the world
Smell like your grace again
I got down on my hands and my knees again

And I'm crawling on the floor
Just to find you now
To tell you how I feel I'm falling all over myself

The aching and groaning for Jesus is not something new, but there is a newness about it all that I welcome and find that it's a groan in me that I ache so much for my friends in the Church living aimlessly, with no direction, no focus or just plain apathy. I do feel like I'm crawling on the floor some days as of late, just to find Jesus. But to be at His feet! Words cannot contain. Motions and movements can't express what I have in me. The hardest part is making this love transferable—if I could only even give a drop...a DNA sample...amount of what I feel to those who have never felt it, I would give my life. 

I pray we all find the groanings with us. To be in the secret place, just be honest in your frustrations and your longings, your desires. God doesn't respond to religious prayer: "Oh Jesus, lamb of Nazareth, King of All Kings, Holy Lord, we welcome thee..." Also - God has already knows the Lord's Prayer—there is nothing new about this prayer for Him. But what God does respond to throughout Scripture is honest, gut-wrenching, groans. Even the Spirit intercedes for us with groaning. Any parent, will respond to the screams of "DADDY HELP ME!". Even silence can be deafening to a parent, where the silence can be alarm to a parent when they don't hear any sound or movement. 

May we be a people who fall in love with Jesus again. If you don't know where to start, reflect on His goodness in your life. 

» Get in your secret place: Your car, nature, worship, wherever and ask Him to meet you.
» Focus on what He HAS done and IS doing. Not on what He hasn't DONE and ISN'T doing. 
» Seek the God behind the burning bush. Not the burning bush. 
» Bring your authenticity. Not religiosity. 
» Bring your groaning, your frustrations, your aches and questions. Not empty words. 

I leave us this weekend with Paul's groans in Philippians. Oh, that we may know Him! Not the burning bush, but the one behind the burning bush—to not just get the power, the signs and the wonder, but to meet the epicenter of the supernatural:

"...Ohhhhhhh, That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death..."
- Philippians 3:10

Pursuing the Face of God

This is from my journalings from a few weeks ago:

It took me awhile to find Him tonight. I was frustrated. Where was He? What did I do? I'm in a season of waiting on You and You decide to disappear too? It was like pushing through a lot of thick curtains or something. That's the only way I could describe it. But then, He said "I'm here."

I realized that was me pushing in, going in farther than I've had to before. Not that it's the farthest I will go. But before I could get to the deep things of Him, we had to clear up deep stuff in me. A work in progress. But a progression that has started, nonetheless.
 

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I have recently been reflecting on things like covenant with God, deeper intimacy and meeting Him face to face. There has been this knowing that God has been wanting me to press into a deeper place and feeling like I was standing at the edge of a pool, knowing the things I'm needing from Him will only be garnered in the deep. As my friend Maggie so eloquently put it, "You don't get turtle floaties. You just have to jump!"

A few weeks ago on a hike to Two Trees in Ventura, overlooking Ventura County, I decided to take that jump, relinquishing whatever control I thought I had. This has led me into the Song of Songs to see Lover and Beloved, as well as Moses' own encounter with the burning bush.

Exodus 3:2-4
The angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed.

So Moses said, "I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up."

When the LORD saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here I am." 

The word for face here is the Hebrew word panîm. It is used almost 2000 times in Scripture. In the book, Hebrew thought Compared with Greek By Thorleif Boman, he writes, "Panîm means God's face, properly the side turned toward one, then the face of man or of God...since the face is the uncovered part, it reveals the personality: embarrassed children involuntarily hide their faces in order to hide themselves...It is characteristic of the Greeks (and we) think in the concept face of the person who is seen: what is looked at; but the Hebrews by using panîm think of the acting subject: I turned toward someone."

Moses saw the burning bush and that it actually wasn't burning, but it was him panîm ('turn(ing) aside") to see what was actually causing the burning that caused God to pay attention, turning aside Himself, and call out to Moses. How much of our lives and how often does the Church spend time looking at the 'burning bushes' in our lives—miracles, signs, wonders, even if that means looking at church, ministry and laboring for the Kingdom—rather than turning aside to see the One behind it all?

The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friends. Exodus 33:11

Boman writes of this verse, "...the subject Jahveh who bestows His grace upon Moses to come near to him and to give him clearer revelations than any other man. These sentences cannot be reversed, so that Moses ascends to Jahveh and speaks with him mouth to mouth, face to face and as a friend." (Emphasis added) In other words, God draws near to us!

I'm in love with the One behind it all. I don't have all the answers to life's biggest questions, let alone my own questions. But I know that I have to go deeper still. There are no kiddie floaties or life jackets. Rather, jumping into the depths by laying down frustrations, bitterness towards God, letting go of the questions along with the hopes and longings so that all I have is Him.

"I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine."
Song of Songs 6:3

"...Swear to me that if you find my beloved you will tell him I am hopelessly lovesick."
Song of Songs 5:8 (God's Word Translation)

Jesus, be near us all this week and coming weekend. Let us fall deeper in love with you, deeper than it was yesterday. Lift the veil from our eyes and give us all a new glimpse of you to love you more!

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Reference: Hebrew Thought Compared With Greek, Thorleif Boman.

The Apocalypse That Never Came

Here is something I wrote today for my book The Remnant. The premise being that the Apocalypse was to have taken place ten years ago, but it never happened and life went on. Now your eyes are being helped open...

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THE WORLD WAITED FOR THE APOCALYPSE BUT IT NEVER CAME

"Don't you see? It was never about the Apocalypse or the end of days or even the end of our world as we knew it. The religions of the world—Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus—all of them prophesied across the ages that the ultimate salvation was to extricate ourselves. To escape this mortal life. We braced ourselves and yet the end never came.

But when it had all passed from us, something beautiful happened! We were given new eyes! Even the simplest mind could have told you what we had all already known, that people live more comfortably with fear. But our new eyes, if we were willing to open them, revealed that you and I and each of us living on this planet, had been completely unaware of the freedom contained inside of us. And it was then that we saw the fear that had imprisoned us for all these thousands of years. The fear of truly embracing all we had been given. The fear of truly living in this moment, right here and now.

It is not to say we are now free of suffering. Even now, the darkness still seeks to keep the illusion. Suffering trudges on. Your loved ones will still die, you will still have heartache in your relationships, friendships and circumstances and beyond us, there are still millions around this world starving, exploited, diseased and in poverty. There is still evil among us. And even now, even after all of this, there are those that wish to enslave each and every one of us from realizing the possibilities of that freedom. But possibly the greatest evil of all is that people like you and I still choose to fear the freedom that has been exposed to them."

Pray With Africa

 

  

Pray With Africa is a viral movement to inspire people to connect across continents, to pray each other’s prayers, and to put those prayers into action. It is about building relationships and bridges between here and there and changing the world through prayer. Their hope is to inspire millions of people to pray together harnessing not only the immense power of prayer but also the immense power of a worldwide community working together to make a difference.

There are already plenty of people around the world doing that very thing. Instead, Pray With Africa is asking people to pray with Africa—to be in relationship with others across the world and, through those relationships, change the world for the better.

See an awesome video here on Facebook.

Check out their website.