tell it where to go
We got our Christmas tree last weekend. We always get a real one, usually from a friend’s property. Our options in Alaska (outside of a store-bought tree from the States) are limited though, and we pretty much just have spruce to choose from.
Or so we thought.
This year we thought we were getting the same thing. Just like normal, we wandered the woods in 5 degrees, complained about the cold, and argued about gaps in tree branches. Just like normal, we finally chose a cute tree, Vin cut it down, and we brought it home.
But then, in the process of balancing it in the tree strand and stringing it with lights and garland, we were punctured in 473 places by the sharpest needles I’ve ever encountered on an evergreen.
I know it looks sweet, but this is no normal Alaskan spruce. This is the Great Alaskan Assault Spruce, cousin to some mythical arctic cactus and capable of stabbing you to the point of bleeding before you’ve finished hanging the star on top.
On the bright side, if an intruder comes, we’ll forego grabbing the 9mm and just shove them into the tree.
Not everything is what it seems, yeah? Things have been less and less normal over the last few years, and we’ve seen things that we thought were normal be exposed as utterly corrupt. And we’ve also seen others rise from quiet anonymity to be positively savage in fighting that corruption.
In this season, the Lord is offering us a chance to see ourselves as we truly are, too. Because the Church has underestimated itself for a long time, selling itself short and ho-humming the hopelessness of everything when in reality, God has offered us both the power and responsibility to steward these days for the Kingdom in ways that cause the enemy to shrink back.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.
– Ephesians 1:3-4
But overall, the Church has been shrinking back, instead of the enemy. That’s why we’re seeing what we’re seeing. Isn’t it time to change that? Because we can. We have no business pussyfooting around these issues like a shrinking violet when the Lord has given us the capability of being a Great Alaskan Assault Stealth Cactus. (Or Christmas tree. Whatever.)
I saw this quote on social media recently: “I used to be afraid of the dark until I learned that I am a light and the dark is afraid of me.” And it’s true, although we often act otherwise.
It goes along with something else I heard recently: You are a thermostat, not a thermometer. Meaning, you are not simply reading and responding to the environment around you; you are changing the environment around you. You influence what happens. But it’s like rowing upriver – we have to actively choose to be the influence we want to see, because otherwise we will just passively contribute more weight to the boat that others are trying to row upstream.
So we need to act like it, not passively reacting to everything and pleading in our prayers all the time, but decreeing and declaring and commanding and taking dominion. We’re not bossing God around; if anything, we’re bossing creation. And that’s what He told us to do.
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
– Genesis 1:28
You have given [man] dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet.
– Psalm 8:6
Wait wait wait, Jesus has dominion over everything, right? Let’s talk about this for a second.
To him be honor and eternal dominion.
– 1 Timothy 6:16b
To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
– 1 Peter 4:11b
Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.
– Jude 24-25
And yet He gives us dominion and authority, too. How does that work? Lookie here, just a few examples:
Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you.
– Luke 10:19
...for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
– 2 Timothy 1:7
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
– Ephesians 2:4-9
So He has all authority, but He also gives us authority, too. If you’re a parent, you know how this works because we live it out all the time.
For example, we brought the Assault Spruce Christmas tree into our house and we have authority over it (and all its prickles), but we also handed some authority to our kids and put them in charge of decorating it. They came to me occasionally to ask about certain ornaments, but I am not decorating the tree; they are.
I gave them authority to put things in places where they weren’t before. And that’s what God has told us to do, also.
We don’t expect our kids to constantly ask us for things we’ve taught them to do for themselves. A kid who has a license and keys doesn’t need to ask their parent to drive them around everywhere anymore, right? They just need permission. And God has given us both the keys and permission for many things that we are still pleading in our prayers for.
Could it be that in some of our praying, we are asking Him to do things that He has already shown us in His word how to do ourselves?
What if we declared our dominion? What if we spoke to creation (like He did, and like He told us to) and told greed, fear, abuse, illness, corruption, injustice, and other forms of evil to go away in the name of Jesus? What if we acted like we actually believe what we say we believe?
What if, instead of pleading in prayer for fraud to be corrected, we spoke to the spirit of fraud/deception/treachery/etc and commanded it in Jesus’ name to be gone from our local and national elections? What if we commanded blackmail and bribery to be ineffective? Our enemies are not flesh and blood, but the people perpetuating fraud are driven by spirits that we have authority over, if the Bible really means what it says. We can tell them where to go.
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
– Ephesians 6:12
Maybe that seems too charismatic or Pentacostalish to you. But do you believe the Bible means what it says? Because we’ve got to stop messing around, wasting time with wimpy prayer.
Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let him who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? declares the Lord. Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?
– Jeremiah 23:28-29
The state of the world has become disastrous, but God has given us tools to do something about it. Why are we still asking Him to cart us around to all our activities when He’s taught us how to drive and given us the authority to do it? There’s the car, kid. You have keys. Use them.
We know it’s the Lord’s will to bring justice, goodness, and righteousness to our communities, so we need to stop praying as though we need to talk Him into it. We don’t have to talk God into His will. We need to declare His will over these situations and start putting things in the right places again. We can tell them where to go.
It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
– John 6:63
The real battle is one of hopeful expectation and confidence in the face of discouragement, knowing that God has answered and is answering all these things, despite what we see and feel. He sees success and joy ahead for us even when we don’t see the answer yet. He is not afraid for the future; He knows where all the pieces go. Our job is to agree and partner with Him in putting them there.
We can exercise our authority and know our faith is working in the things we can’t see just as much as we believe the things we can see: Just as I can see these stitches building up in my knitting. Just as simply as you know the dishes are clean when you wash them. Just as you know the bed is made and the gas tank is full and the chickens are fed and their eggs are collected in the basket. If you are praying, you know the unseen things are impacted as firmly as you know the silverware is put away and the ornaments are hung on the tree.
Much of life is simply putting things in new places: The words go here, the hugs go here, the laundry and books and phone calls go here. We know how to tell things where to go physically. We need to remember that we can do the same thing spiritually, too: This healing goes here, that trauma goes away, this injustice is exposed, that lie is dissolved and replaced with truth.
You are putting things where they need to go when you pray. We have so much influence in the world around us just by believing what He says and speaking it out in prayer.
So we pray for the soft landing in repentance, to make it easier for the lost to return by our interceding and declaring. There are so many who need to return.
But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.
Jude 20-23
In our prayer we can ease the overwhelm that keeps people from repenting. They are afraid of one more difficulty, one more responsibility, one more burden and change. We speak ease and a clearing of the way for them. We pray that the Lord would bring us to simplicity, draw our eyes to the hills, above the overwhelm, so we can see clearly how to pray.
Yes, we need miracles. But also yes, we can prepare the ground for those miracles to happen.
Yes, things are more than they seem. But you are, too. The enemy takes you seriously because Jesus takes you seriously: You have the Lord’s ear, and His heart is always for you, His eyes are always on you, and He is blessing you with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.
You are changing the culture and your community in your steady, faithful steps as you walk in truth, doing the things you know to do, and doing more as you grow in that knowledge. Your obedience is making a difference that will be felt by your kids and their kids. Your prayer is moving upstream of the problems and addressing them at the root, cutting them off from trickling down to the next generation.
You are making a way for righteousness to thrive, because you know how to put things where they go.
Praying for you,
Shannon
P.S. Links for you this month!
This is an incredible interview from Man in America with Dr. David Martin (don’t be fazed by the unfortunately sensational headline). I love that they discuss many of the things that no one seems to be saying out loud, and they strategically address some of the wholeness issues we need to be equipped with in the days ahead. Totally worth the time to listen.
Looking for Christmas gifts and need to save some $$$ while checking several people off your list? Don’t miss the wholesale option for our books. This isn't a sale, it's just how we've started doing things: Buy a minimum of 15 books and get 40% off your order. That's it. (Premium subscribers only have to buy 10 books to get the same discount.)
Ever read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens? We’re starting it next week in Gaining Ground and we’d love to have you join us! We’ll be reading about 25-30 pages a week for three weeks, finishing right before Christmas.
Can you treat pneumonia, bronchitis, earaches, and the flu naturally? Often, and it’s worth trying. Wish I’d known this years ago, but when we know better, we do better.
If you want to teach your kids about economics and free market principles, this looks like a great curriculum for all ages from Tuttle Twins and it's 50% off this week. They have a free lesson download so you can check it out, too.
Hey, what’s the best fight scene in a movie using an unconventional weapon? Your answer must be given in Clue format, like this: Dorothy, in Oz, with the house. :) The Movie Fight Club is going strong and yours truly won her first fight last week (whoop, whoop) and that’s the question I posed. We’re having a ton of fun arguing about movies and if you’d like to join us, there’s a new winner every Friday and a new question every Saturday.
Should the government decide what you can sell from your garden? Should they decide what you can buy from someone else? This is an amazing speech-turned-article by Joel Salatin delivered at Hillsdale College on the inefficiency of government involvement in food creation and commerce.
What’s really going on in current events these days, and what are our communities doing about them? Vince says some of the quiet things out loud in this post.
Need some motivation and encouragement on why we homeschool, and why we need to emphasize communication in all forms (reading, writing, and speaking) along with wholeness? Leigh Dundas gives a terrific example here of someone who is on fire and brilliantly articulate about one of the most important issues of our time (language warning at the end). The enemy for too long has leveraged every institution of communication — education, news, entertainment, social media, etc — to spread his purposes, and we in the Kingdom have under-communicated and kept mostly within the walls of our homes and churches. No more. Get wordy and verbose, friends. Lean in to what you love and learn how to share about it.