Tag Archives: better together

Capturing God’s Heart – Relationship – Volume 14

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Living the Christian life is not about formula. It is not about rules or procedures, it is not about right or wrong even. Christianity is about a living relationship with God, with Jesus Christ, and with our Holy Spirit.

“For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” Romans 10:4

“But if you are led by the Spirit you are not under the law.” Galatians 5:18

Living the Christian life is about entering into a relationship with God, growing in that relationship, and finding out what our new friend (God) likes or doesn’t like.

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Walking in Spiritual Authority – Part One – The King’s Heart

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Your particular gift set, your experiences, your story and your unique personality are perfectly matched with the needs of this day and age. Learn how to completely settle into your own life and then into how to give it away.

This course is for those who want to do more with their lives for God and for others. It is for those serious about leveraging all of who they are for The King, the Kingdom of God and for people, the great loves of The King’s heart.

Your life is currency. How might you invest it? Learn how to express it.

Part One: The King’s Heart & Understanding Authority

The entire conversation about spiritual authority must solidly reside within the context of the Kingdom of God and the work of Jesus Christ. In Module One: The King’s Heart we dig deep into the character of God and how everything about who we are can reside within the light of Christ.

  • the King’s heart | the Kingdom of God | Lex Rex | becoming indispensable | value and worth | fullness of God | process | alignment | shining | ambassador of God | sowing and reaping | judgments | intimacy | strength | influence | transparent | safe | bold

In our humanity our understanding of authority is often skewed and misrepresented. Not only have we been hurt by authority in the past, but many of us shrink from authority. In this we leave our legacy of co-regents in the Kingdom of God aside. It’s time to unpack Godly authority and take it on for ourselves.

  • overview of authority | natural authority | positional authority | specific authority | cautions about authority | church authority | spiritual authority | growth | experience | authority gone bad | transformation | anointing | assignments
 

Spiritual Authority is all about representing the King of Kings. It is about working out His will on this earth. It is about stepping up, taking the land and restoring to God’s original plan the details of our lives and our communities and this world.

Before we can know authority we must know its author. Risking to open our heart to the King of Kings, risking to have his heart opened to us we are equipped from deep inside to live authority that mirrors him and expresses him. That place where all things are made new.

 

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, and Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Isaiah 40:28-29 ESV.

 

Please Note that we have this course written for a North American audience and also specifically written for our overseas indigenous colleagues.

Contact US for information about the material specific to you.

Community

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make your own communityFour years ago I asked six people if they would be a prayer support around me. At the time, with the little bit I knew as I looked ahead, I knew I would need others close by. And so with fear and trepidation (and with no one I knew ever having done this), I asked, and they said yes.

What I didn’t know at the time, was how very important it was to set them in place.

For what I couldn’t see were the difficulties to come. Difficulties of the end of my marriage, separation from my church and the dysfunctions there, the stress of moving and of adjustments, and of entering into influence and leadership like never before.

As my personal board of directors, these folks have been the backbone of my own personal growth and stamina. Bringing feedback and perspective that I didn’t have they have made possible forward movement through many difficulties, and have become catalysts for many successes. 

The original six individuals have shifted some, four are still alongside, with others still making up the original six, and then some.

What I didn’t understand at the time, was that these amazing individuals would become intimate witness’s to my life and more importantly to who I am and my character.

They have stood and supported and challenged and cautioned every step of the way. Without these ones…

All this to say: Gather people around you. Take a risk and live out loud in the presence of a few key people.

We cannot move forward without support, not without the frank honesty of faithful people, nor without the power of prayer poured out on one’s behalf.

To the team at Capturing Courage I say this again and again, “Get one or two prayer supporters tucked in close.”

It is a hard thing though, I get that. We are not used to being vulnerable, of stating our present realities be them good, bad, or ugly (and trust me, they are just as often bad and ugly as good).

But the power in community cannot be underestimated.

Years back, during some crushing years of addiction I began deliberately building community around me. Somehow, even then, I saw that without people close by, I would be stuck in victimization and less-than living.

We are better together, and we dare not discount the power of others in our lives.

And if there were a strategy, I would say the process of gathering those about us has to do with our Past, our Present and our Futures.

We all have representatives of our past. Those who have known us through many stages and graces. For instance, one on my team has known me since I was eighteen years old. She has seen my youth, and my growth, and my hardships, and my development through and through, and has always affirmed and confirmed and encouraged and challenged my inner person so very deeply.

And for these last four deliberate years, every time she prays over me, anointing is increased. She is God’s heart poured out into my life. Something that cannot be manufactured but simply received.

Our present is about the inner state of now, and what immediately comes to mind when considering the now of my own life are the men. Strong beautiful men in strong beautiful marriages who are not afraid to have tea with me. Who are not afraid to hug and to pray with me and to remind me that I am loved.

And I realize that (generally speaking) I don’t trust the men who cannot give a hug. Thankfully there are many who can. And in the presence of these men my heart has been healed, and expanded and blessed on time and again.

We are better together. Seriously, what would we do without the men?

Thanks fellows.

When it comes to our futures, we must surround ourselves with experts and those farther along in experience and wisdom than ourselves. We only grow as large or healthy as those we hang with, our worlds must expand; keeping in mind that those who grew us out of dysfunction, are not the ones to grow us into success.

At Capturing Courage we have been deliberately looking for and waiting on those who have incredible gifts to bring to the table. People who by their experience and character expand our own and by whom we are richer. Today, the calibre of people coming alongside Capturing Courage astounds me. Simply wow!

Bottom line: community heals us, community expands us, community challenges us and grows us. Community is rich and people in our lives are the only resource that expands and develops and multiplies.

If you do nothing else, grow some community today.

A Great Journey

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Coaching in CommunityTransitions are powerful yet never easy. Life is full of them, these shifts and changes of landscape and journeying, movement that we must all make in and of ourselves.

Perhaps you are in your own transition, becoming a new creature yourself, moving in new ways, stretching to reach for things you had not reached for before, and others around you are not so impressed, and certainly don’t know what to do with themselves in context of you.

My own journey has been full of people not able to carry on alongside me. And while it has been a disillusioning process with much grief, I’ve learned a few things along the way and perhaps I can validate and encourage what I suspect is your journey as well.

The image that comes to mind is that of a train. You start off from the station, slowly at first, taking an easy pace for some time in fact. Those on board are enjoying the breeze, there is excitement in the air, you are all in this together and things look great.

But then the train catches into the next gear, the wind whips by a little faster, and a few of those on board are not okay any longer. It’s going too fast, the scenery flashes by a little too quickly, there are a few unknowns coming to light, not everything is as sure as it could be, and before you know it a few dear friends have fallen off at the side.

At some point in time the pace picks up even more. And if there wasn’t difficulty enough, you are now traveling through mountains. With cliffs dropping off into hundred-foot drops, with heart-numbing tunnels at which (for some time) there is no light at the end, and with corners that test the stoutest of souls, another number of those who’ve been alongside simply yet hastily get off at the next available stop.

Not only does the train not stop, it actually picks up speed. Now you are really moving. This train is really traveling. Gathering momentum you are out of the mountains and on the long stretches of prairie. While the risks are not so profound, the speed has increased and the destination is not so much somewhere to arrive at, but a process by which to live. And still more drop off at the sides.

At this point in the story, repeat and then repeat some more, repeat and then repeat some more.

The first few times I encountered this kind of loss and cost in the journey, the grief wracked my being for weeks. There was disillusionment and dismay. I would wonder about myself, looking for who to blame and where to launch my disappointments.

But of course, while grieving is always useful, looking to hurt someone as keenly as that hurt is piercing my own heart is never a good solution (and that is an understatement).

Learning to grieve and to let go, allowing compassion to coat all of our relationships simply makes it plain that not everyone can move alongside where we are called to go, and that is simply OK.

We don’t need to fix it, don’t need to manage or manipulate a different outcome.

Grieving creates nimbleness in our hearts. For what this train story does not show, is that at every phase along the way, new people are coming on board.

At every stage there are those who come on board for a specific time and place and gift set added to the journey. They are very rarely those we began the journey with, they are new contacts, new hearts, new souls alongside which we travel.

So while the journey is never easy, it is incredibly rich.

I’ve also come to see that the input of each individual along the way is not diminished by their not being able to stay on the train. Rather the ability to recognize and commend and thank each and every person along the way, opens our own hearts and minds to receive others who have yet to come on board.

Once we release the ones who have dropped off, we can accept and fully embrace those who are set to journey a future piece of our landscape.

I don’t know your journey or your own transitional times, but I do know that the people change along the way. Take this to heart, cry and grieve the loss and the cost, as many times as you need.

But the real point: keep your heart open and your life nimble to welcome and embrace those who will show up at that next part of your journey. They will bring something that the others could not bring, something that you will need for that next step.

Incredible bounty

When It All Goes Wrong

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P1230385 compressedI’ve been thinking about when it all goes wrong. Except ‘wrong’ needs to be put in quotation marks.

Much of what we don’t like about life, much of what ruffles our feathers and steals our satisfactions are simply the anomalies that we haven’t counted on and have no control over.

The food doesn’t taste to our liking, its either too sweet or to sour, too rich or too bland. The pillow doesn’t squish just right, too much or too little. The bed is too soft or too hard, too narrow or too big. Bedding, too light or not light enough.

That person looked at me the wrong way, or didn’t look at me at all. The driver is too crazy or too slow or too rude or too quiet.

The day is too busy or too boring, too long or too short. Shopping was a nightmare, that gal got my drink wrong, that fellow cut me off. It was too expensive, they didn’t have it to my liking.

The sun is too hot, the clouds are too many, the rain is too much. The day is too gloomy, the room too cold, the fireplace too hot…

The unspoken expectations and standards that mark how well our days go, how well our month has been, and whether we will be happy within the next 30 minutes or not…

“Wrong” has so much power to change our moods and affect our experiences,

But what if there is not a thing wrong?

… What if nothing is wrong?

I took a trip to Uganda in November of 2011, and am preparing to head there once more in less than a weeks time.

Over the course of my months between these trips I’ve been thinking about how really, when we travel to another country, another continent and another culture, that in essence everything goes wrong.

And yet, nothing is wrong.

Yet to some, it would surely feel wrong.

We are used to our specific food, the way we eat our food, the time of day we eat.

We have routines around washing and bathing and personal hygiene and care.

Standards of personal space, travel needs, of interactions with strangers and general expectations of safety.

And so much more

What if all that is tossed to the wind. What if all that you expect is not to be. What if everything you are used to is simply a figment of your particular culture? What if everything was flipped upside down. How might we manage?

Well? or not so well?

When all of the ‘normal’ that we are so accustomed to is stripped away, what would you really have, and what would you really need?

I tell you, very little.

After 22 hours of travel, simply having a bed to sleep in is heavenly. No matter that the roof is leaking onto a corner of the bed. No matter that you are sharing the room with a stranger. A bed is all one really needs!

Nothing is wrong

Awakened to a new day, washing means a 3X4′ outside concrete ‘closet’, with a wooden slat door, an old car door for a roof, with a basin of hot water (that someone has just worked over a stove to produce for you), two small nails to hang your clothes on (the ones you have taken off and the clean you are going to put on, not to mention your towel)….  Hot water and that bit of space is all that is really needed.

Nothing is wrong

And what about going to the bathroom. First we find out ‘bathroom’ means nothing. Neither does ‘restroom’ or ‘washroom’. Each of these greeted with a blank stare, and with ones mind scrambling to express the need, ‘toilet’ comes to mind.

“Toilet?”

Directed to a hole in the ground, the communal neighborhood toilet, thankful to have brought my own toilet paper…

Nothing is wrong

Is it different? For sure

Do I need to fix it? No

Nothing is wrong

A few years back now I separated from my husband, but did not leave the family home for some time (far longer than I would have ever imagined!). I simply moved a single mattress to the Den floor and made that my abode for what turned into nine long months.

Squashed between the piano and the desk, with a foot of space on one side and about three feet at the bottom, that 9’X4′ space became the little bit I could completely call my own and the only part of ‘home’ where I felt safe.

It was quite wrong. Friends of mine upon entering that space would well up in tears, appalled at my living conditions. Bless their hearts.

Today, I am SO glad for those months in that little space.

Those months stripped me forever of having to have anything a certain way ever again.

All the things I thought once mattered, don’t matter whatsoever.

Whatsoever!

Nothing is wrong

During my month in Uganda I’ll be visiting ten communities. Moving to a new location about every three or four days, staying with the people, refusing ‘nice’ only needing safe, I’ve no idea what my accommodations will be,

But I know it’ll be good and fine

And nothing will be wrong

And when  nothing is wrong we have ample space for joy and delight and fellowship and community.

When nothing is wrong, our eyes are open to see all that is right

I can hardly wait