Tag Archives: life

Crux of the Matter

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Life and LegacyAt Capturing Courage we have been grappling with sorrow these last few days. Some sad things have taken place and we’ve simply found ourselves before the Lord – disillusioned, sad, questioning, in shock.

Concurrent to this I’ve been working on Workbook 3 of our Walking in Spiritual Authority course. Now spiritual authority is all about waging war of sorts. It’s about standing firmly against what should not be happening, and yet, and YET the real fight… is a fight for life.

Sorrow, I find, brings me right back to the crux of what we are about. Who are we in the world? What are we to be about? How might we engage and advocate?

While it takes a certain kind of strength to reconcile death, it takes a completely different kind of strength to fight for life.

At CCI we are engaging the fight for life.

Spiritual authority played out correctly brings about more life, greater strength, deeper affirmations. Just to name a few.

It’s not about keeping others low, its not about micromanaging lives, its not about any kind of say or permission.

It’s all about expanding our opportunities together, its all about engaging that risks to give our lives away, its all about lifting everyone around us to that next level.

We agree with what the enemy is saying about us (and others) or we agree with what God is saying about us (and others), simple as that. This is spiritual authority either gone bad or done right.

The choice is up to each one of us. Where we agree with the enemy we end up with death. Where we agree with the Lord we end up with life.

You and I declare the second witness.

What are you agreeing to?

 

Missing Uganda

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adventure and privilegeIt has been a year since I’ve been to the eastern parts of Uganda, and I am missing it and the people dearly.

Men and women who if we lived in the same neighborhood I’d have been having tea with them on a regular basis.

How could a year have gone by just like that?!

Moment after moment is replaying through my mind. I am particularly fond of the time Edith scolded me for smelling so bad and in exasperation instructed me in how to wash. (I’m sure she now thinks westerners don’t know how to wash). It is true that when I was there I stunk like a pig twenty-four-seven.

It didn’t matter how much I washed, I couldn’t get that smell from my body. Of course, washing in cold water for weeks on end wouldn’t have helped any, but most of all I am convinced it was my body ridding itself of our bad western diet through my pores, (next time around I’ll have to detox before I go!)

I’m missing the boda-boda rides. Henry was a fantastic driver and I came to trust him explicitly. I learned how to sit tight, lean in, relax, and leave the driving up to him.

When on the freeway with a semi-truck passing close enough for me to reach out and touch it, I became a master at sitting tight, leaning in, relaxing, and leaving the driving up to him.

Never flinching, not reacting, moving in sync, allowing my body to lean in tandem with his around the curves and through the round-abouts as if I’d done this every day of my life.

The day we went through the sugar-cane fields and he let loose on the speed was the best. And as much as I tried the next day, I couldn’t get him to go that fast again (the big boss was with us that time).

When Henry took me to meet his ‘moms’, without a seconds hesitation and the minute I got close enough each one threw themselves on me with arms wrapped tight around. Greetings that still warm my heart a year later.

And every week I think of Pastor Irene. With her passion and zest and fire, coupled with wisdom and prophetic care and gladness.

The day we were heading down to ‘Jordan’ and she gave me her pumps to wear and they fit perfectly was a tickled-pink kind of moment. When we reached this body of water in which many have been healed all I could think was, “Gosh I could use some healing.” But knowing I wasn’t dressed or prepared to clamber in the pond and dunk myself seven times I reasoned, “Maybe if I just swish my hand in the water a touch I’ll get a bit of healing.”

So that’s what I did. I bent down at the waters edge and swished my hand for a half minute. Walking back to the village Pastor Irene said to me, “Thanks for blessing Jordan.” To which I broke out in a laugh. For while I was hoping to draw blessing from Jordan from her perspective I was blessing it.

It was this kind of give and take, blessing and being blessed that was so rich in Uganda. Thankfully we are experiencing this same kind of blessing in our team at Capturing Courage International. Where initiative and offering of selves to something bigger than all of us has us rich in bounty of each other.

And even though I’m not ‘out there’ at the moment, it’s just the same in all the weekly correspondence with our colleagues in many places overseas. Just these last five days: with India, Pakistan, Mozambique, Kenya, and Uganda. Where the hearts of forward thinking, hard working, sacrificial lives given over leave me in awe.

Where we take turns following each others lead. Where phone calls are for the express purpose of praying for nations and praying for each other. Where emails are for the express purpose of preparing for further training, and of strategizing together. Where Facebook is for connections and visioning and simple heart care back and forth.

It is a way of doing life where we draw strength from each other, and where we are making commitments to common visions and goals. I’ve hardly words really. All I know is, this work doesn’t feel like work to me, it feels like worship.

This kingdom of God come to earth, this reign of God played out as we simply declare ourselves for each other. It is rich. Very rich indeed.

Capturing God’s Heart

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Colossians 3-16Every month CAPTURING GOD’S HEART is sent direct to Indigenous Pastors and local Lay Leaders around the world.

Click the Button below, to receive GOD’S HEART direct to you.

Bible Studies with basics of theology in topical form, GOD’S HEART is filling the void in Biblical Training for the many Pastors in rural areas, who simply have little to no access to Biblical Training.

“Cyndy,thank you you so much for the word COMPASSION. Am blessed,I have understood what it means,my heart has not remained the same.May the good Lord continue to use you.”

“Greetings, Today we have shared Volume 3, FORGIVENESS. Really God has touched people’s hearts!”

“Thank-you so much for the Volume 1. It’s real Bible Study!”

“May God’s grace give you all the wisdom you need as you take us through the living word. I am happy that the word of God gives me strength. True freedom is essential and profound. Your teaching is indeed reawakening.”
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“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” Colossians 3:16

Thoughts – Taking One Day at a Time

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Cyndy's Latest Book

“The first time I met Cyndy I knew there was something special about her; she has a graceful presence that emanates her love of God and humanity.   Every morning for the past year I have eagerly checked my email to be inspired by the “thought of the day” and I am simply delighted that they are available for all in print form.

This book is an outpouring of what is close to her heart: not just a collection of her daily thoughts but a series of careful meditations within the soul. Each page presents an encouraging and insightful glimpse into Cyndy’s personal journey of discovery. Many of these ideas are forward-thinking and challenge the very nature of our lifestyle. With life’s ever increasing speed, these thoughts act as a gentle prompt for us to dedicate time just to think. It is in these rare moments of processing that we often realize what matters most to us, and then recognize that we’ve been completely preoccupied with something less important.

I have known Cyndy for a few years now, and every time we meet she just makes me want to be a better person. After reading this book, I’m sure you will feel the same.”

Lynn Matson,  Consultant

Capturing God’s Heart – Life – Volume 18

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Today is a new day. It is a day of expectation and a holy hush about all that will take place.

There is excitement in heaven over this day and every day. For every single day is a gift.

“Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good!” Genesis 1:31

Life is something to be celebrated, welcomed and fully enjoyed. Like a savory meal or a cool drink on a hot day, like a beautiful flower in the midst of a dull landscape and like the rainbow in the sky after a storm, every single day is to be relished and enjoyed to the full.

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Capturing God’s Heart – Prophetic Lives – Volume 17

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In Job 9:33 we read, “If only there were a mediator between us, someone who could bring us together.”

Job had been talking about the utter lost-ness of his position. That no matter how much he tried, no matter how well he kept the law, no matter how perfect he could manage to live (and he did live an innocent life before God), it didn’t bridge that gap between him and God. We find Job’s heart crying out for a mediator between himself and God.

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A Mixed Bag

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P1330497 compressedEvery once in awhile my body doesn’t feel so good. This has been one of those weeks.

Over the years, I have my fair share of health concerns, although I rarely mention them.

All of this to say, my brain is not working so well this week. And so my writing feels flat and blah and I hardly know what to say.

Can you tell I am rambling…

It’s been a week of mixed emotions.

Sneaking over me in grand waves of giggles has been the sense that there is something exquisite about being human. That there is an opportunity, while we are on this earth and in these bodies, to delight, to relish and to make the most of something that is in limited supply.

I can’t explain it anymore than that. It’s just a growing and definitive awe of life that is threatening to overwhelm me in fits of joy.

On top of this, has been another giggly realization that this is one amazing time in history to be alive! This too is sweeping me away in grand expectation.

The emotion of these feel to me a gurgling spring of joy and delight, (I really don’t have words for them).

At the same time I’ve been feeling sick. Tired and with a foggy brain, my ‘normal’ productive self has been less so, and it’s been a bit discouraging.

Then: Thursday was my birthday. And oh my the wishes poured out and upon me! And I’ve nothing other than profound humility and gratitude for so much love poured my way.

I spent the day just as I wanted. Had no plans beforehand (other than an empty day), and made it up as I went. A supremely perfect kind of day for me.

And in my gallivanting birthday day, I wore myself out. And as I write this, am a bit lonely, (ill health always leaves me feeling lonely).

All this to say. Being human is in fact a grand mix of highs and lows. How there can be such great expectations, such amazing and profound delights and gurgling joys, alongside bodies and minds that don’t work as well as we like, and in the midst of tired and weary souls, I don’t know.

But it is how it works. For all of us. This I know.

All in all, (and this is what makes it all okay), is that God is deeply in the mix of all these concurrent and seemingly contradictory realities.

In fact, it is because of God that these realities exist. Mixed emotions are in fact, what God is all about.

God is the original passion, the original sorrow, the original energy, the original weariness.

God is the author of emotions and in order to know God, we must know emotion.

The older I get, the younger I feel. And it is primarily because of emotions, (I am more emotionally intelligent now, than I was at 12 or 20 or 30 years old). Once familiar with emotions, we are able to connect with anyone.

For beyond all of our stories, are emotions. Our stories will not be the same, but our emotions, they are the same.

And in the war over words, if we can read between the lines, and see to the heart of the matter, read the emotions, we are well ahead of the game. The world will be ours.

Without emotion, one of our primary knowing systems is cut off, and we are impotent.

Comfortable in emotions, we find intimacy with ourselves, intimacy with God, and intimacy with others.

Understanding

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P1240873 compressedNot the heart. “Not the Heart!”

There is an interesting sentence in The Message’ book of Mark 6. It had been a day of miracles. Jesus had turned five loaves and two fish into enough food that fed five-thousand people, and with leftovers.

The disciples were sent across the lake on a boat, the people were sent home, Jesus took some time to pray. Up on the lake came a storm. And there came Jesus, walking toward them on the water.

Obviously the disciples were terrified as Jesus came closer to them, and yet once close enough he assured them of who he was and not to be afraid. And then he climbed into the boat, which immediately brought the storm to an end.

And here is where we read, ‘They were stunned, shaking their heads wondering what was going on. They didn’t understand what he had done at supper. None of this had yet penetrated their hearts.”

Did you read that? ‘None of this had yet penetrated their hearts.”

Isn’t that the way.

We can have miracles all around us. There can be God in our midst. The uncountable come to stay, and yet we don’t let it penetrate. We don’t get it.

When I think back over my years, that stone wall of my heart, that was bondage for me.

It was a wall thick with judgments about the way life is to go. Laden through with self-righteousness, it was like a mesh of re-bar and concrete. And into that mix, was a stance of defensiveness against vulnerability; an inability to have anything ‘touch’ me.

Thing is, we can either spend our energies opposing God, opposing miracles, opposing health and healing, or we can use our energies to allow vulnerability; to drop our guard and to stop managing by ourselves.

But of course, this is a huge risk. For starters, we will never be the same. For miracles of heart and soul, life and limb, have nothing of control in them whatsoever.

So if we want control, I guess we do without the miraculous.

Surrender is key.

We might rather have our hunger. We enjoy rather, our drama and illness and disease. We like our self-righteous stances of less-than and poor-me. After all, what would we talk about, if not for our troubles?

We say we want the fixes, we say we want things to go better, we say we want health and healing, but our hearts are stoney, cold and indifferent.

We refuse to be comforted, we hold tight our paradigms of ‘this is a bad cold world’, and… we get what we expect.

It’s as though we want the miracles, but we don’t want to be changed. Just like the disciples amazing things can be happening all around us, but we’ve hearts and eyes that cannot comprehend.

Let it go. Allow the living God to penetrate. We must put down our best thoughts and our own understandings, put down our drama and our self-pity, put down, on the table, our stony hearts.

Where we demand justice, to allow grace.

Where we hold tight to death, to allow life.

Where we must be right, to allow uncertainty.

Where we condemn, to allow new paradigms.

Our hearts will be changed. The things we once held to so tightly will fade away. We won’t understand much, but we will be free, healthy, and whole.

How might we allow the Spirit to touch our hearts today?

Imagine

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doing with lessI’ve been on a minimization quest for some years now.

With death-by-stuff the norm in North America, it is a quest that can take some years and quite a bit of process.

So every six months or so, I take a good look around my home, peer into the bookcases, rummage through the closets, and generally get rid of at least a box or two of stuff that I simply don’t need anymore.

With every box gone, I feel lighter and freer.

Enough is enough.

Some months ago I stayed in another’s home for a few days. It was a beautiful home. Well laid out; brick-a-brack nicely placed with multiple memories represented here and there and everywhere.

It really was quite nice, and yet at one point in my stay, as I really looked around and really took in the stuff, there was a distinct sense of panic and claustrophobia.

I remember what it was like, to care for that much stuff.

To dust that many pictures.

To clean that many items.

To manage and care and steward…

Some years back now, I had the privilege of cleaning out the home where my Aunt and Uncle had lived for 20 plus years. It was one of the best things I ever had to do, for in the process I came starkly to the reality that when we die, 97% of the stuff we have, will mean nothing.

NOTHING.

NoTHing.

Not A Thing.

But we spend so much time on things. So much energy on stuff. So much…  I’m pretty sure it is choking out our lives.

Where there might be action we have care-taking.

Where we might have passion we have pretties.

Where we might have meaning we have must-haves.

Imagine, rather, that your home had only 1/2 the stuff in it.

Imagine your walls 1/2 clearer and cleaner than they are now.

Imagine your closets 1/2 emptier and freer than they are now.

Imagine your floor space 1/2 more open than what it is now.

Imagine

Just imagine.

Quiet Deep Inside

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creativity and joyCreativity is a hard thing to grasp, and even harder to really go after.

I can always tell when there is some great piece of writing beneath the surface of my day, because I avoid writing like the plague.

There are always a number of things I can do rather than invest in the writing I am to actually be about.

My most favorite distractions, eating and television. Oh, and facebook.

Not that any one of these things are bad in and of themselves, yet when I circle around from one to the other and then back again, I can be sure I am simply avoiding creative work; avoiding digging into the deep of my spirit and soul to share and to put words to the latest thing pressing through me.

Reading a book earlier in the week, I was reminded that work is sacred.

It jumped off the page at me. Just like that. ‘Work is sacred’

I wanted to get away from what it was telling me. I wanted to pretend that it didn’t stand out at me so boldly and with such conviction. But it hasn’t gone away. And won’t go away.

Because I get it. I get that the work that any one of us are to truly be about, is a sacred act. A place where we step out of the ordinary and we enter into the holy.

This is the way writing feels to me. And when I am most tapped into the words I am to be putting to paper, I often feel overwhelmed with awe and that I must remove my shoes or get on my knees, for I am on holy ground.

So why do I avoid it? Why, when writing a book, do I spend 20 000 words skirting around the thing I most want to say? Why, when it is time to write a blog, do I sometimes make yet another cup of tea and find some other little thing to do for a time?

I don’t know about you, and how your work plays out in your life, but in mine, I think I am simply afraid. Afraid of entering into holy, that place in the true center of the work given me; afraid of the glory of God changing me.

Deep calls unto deep,

…and a lot of the time, I just want to stay shallow.

I imagine the greatest artists and sculptors and writers over the centuries, and I wonder how they got past the threshold of magnificence in their work. How did they enter into that holy, quiet and damning place in the center of their being?

All I know is that the only viable and useful work, comes from this place.

All the rest, is a sham, a pretend sort of work. Just great enough in its own way to make us feel good about ourselves, and just great enough in its own way for others to applaud us.

But the artist knows when they are not really producing the real goods.

It is time to get real quiet deep inside, make friends with what is there, and invite it and facilitate it out and into the world.

We won’t ever be the same.

And neither will the rest of the world.

Capturing God’s Heart – Difficulty – Volume 10

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Today I am sharing about Difficulty, and some of what I have come to find about the Lord through the hard things of our lives.

We all have trouble in this life. Each of us experience things that are simply difficult. In fact the Bible speaks quite a bit to difficulty. Jesus said this:

“I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

I used to think that God was going to fix all my difficulty. That the overcoming that Christ spoke of was to do with the stuff of this world. That God was simply magic applied to my life. That I could pray and all of a sudden the hard stuff would go away.

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