Author: Jana

Shook out of Slumber

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Shook.
That is the word that keeps reverberating through my spirit. I have been Shook. Chuck and I got away for a few days and in our attempts to unplug I took a “random” book that brought me to tears. Then to sobbing. Then to repentance for small thinking and living. The next day, we watched a “suggested” movie that Crystal had sent me a while ago. It was hanging out on my To Do list and kept grabbing my attention. This movie, like the book, had me sitting in the Lord’s presence in tears.

Why?

The stories of radical love and radical faith shook me. Shook my comfort zones, shook my lagging faith and actions, shook my weak love for God and others.

Here is only one story out of many.

A Christian husband and wife left Iran to find refuge in the US. After just a short period in the states, this wife pleads with her husband to return to Iran. The husband was incredulous. Why would she want to return when it was so hard to even live and they faced the threat of death, rape, prison, and other horrible things just for sharing their faith?   Her response was sobering.

“There is a satanic lullaby here and all the Christians are sleepy. And I am feeling sleepy.”

I trust those words shake you like they shook me.

Are we awake to our Living Jesus?
Are we willing to convert our rights and comforts into devotion and obedience to God so that others might see Jesus lifted up?

I am asking myself these same hard questions. It boils down to this. Christ’s life is the role model of sacrifice. Why then does my life look so self-absorbed? How about yours? How do we rouse ourselves from the satanic lullaby to respond to His voice of life-giving love?

The Spirit shook me awake. I can know no longer be satisfied with lukewarm living. Everything is under review.

Father, help us spur one another on to truly live for heaven’s purposes. Amen

*Pictured: a brick & mortar Church that never took root, as seen in the “Sheep Among Wolves” movie. It is now a popular tourist destination for many Muslims.

Shook Out Of Slumber

/ Jana

Shook.

That is the word that keeps reverberating through my spirit. I have been Shook. Chuck and I got away for a few days and in our attempts to unplug I took a “random” book that brought me to tears. Then to sobbing. Then to repentance for small thinking and living. The next day, we watched a “suggested” movie that Crystal had sent me a while ago. It was hanging out on my To Do list and kept grabbing my attention. This movie, like the book, had me sitting in the Lord’s presence in tears.

Why?

 

The stories of radical love and radical faith shook me. Shook my comfort zones, shook my lagging faith and actions, shook my weak love for God and others.

Here is only one story out of many from the movie.

A Christian husband and wife left Iran to find refuge in the US. After just a short period in the states, this wife pleads with her husband to return to Iran. The husband was incredulous. Why would she want to return when it was so hard to even live and they faced the threat of death, rape, prison, and other horrible things just for sharing their faith?   Her response was sobering.

“There is a satanic lullaby here and all the Christians are sleepy. And I am feeling sleepy.”

I trust those words shake you like they shook me.

Are we awake to our Living Jesus?
Are we willing to convert our rights and comforts into devotion and obedience to God so that others might see Jesus lifted up?

I am asking myself these same hard questions. It boils down to this. Christ’s life is the role model of sacrifice. Why then does my life look so self-absorbed? How about yours? How do we rouse ourselves from the satanic lullaby to respond to His voice of life-giving love?

The Spirit shook me awake. I can know no longer be satisfied with lukewarm living. Everything is under review.

Father, help us spur one another on to truly live for heaven’s purposes. Amen.

*Pictured: a brick & mortar Church that never took root, as seen in the “Sheep Among Wolves” movie. It is now a popular tourist destination for many Muslims.

What’s In It For Me?

/ Jana
 

 

If we are honest, this engine is always humming in the background of our lives. It is, after all, part of what helps us survive.

So, let me get straight to it. The Restore Intensive is February 19th. What’s in it for you is a long pause with the Lord. Maybe you have done the hard work in your heart and now the question is, “What’s next?” Restore is next. You will have the opportunity to explore how you can rethink and rebuild places in your life that look a lot like ruins, or underdeveloped landscapes.

Soar is March 5th. May I be candid? In our staff retreat yesterday we identified that our annual women’s encounter is for kittens and lions, and everything in between. It is for women who have been shut down, shut up and shut out of their own voice for so long that they don’t recognize themselves, or God.  And it is for lions who have grown in their love and life with God so that when they roar the enemy shakes.

We gather all these women, different ages and stages of life, different walks with God, churched and unchurched, and then we do the most important thing together. We seek His face.

There are real women telling real stories of real mess and how God showed up. It gets honest around here real fast.

So if your starving, stone cold, or white hot, both of these offerings are for you. Hope you’ll join us.

Raring to go,
Jana

What’s In It for Me?

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What’s in it for me?

If we are honest that is an engine that is always humming in the background of our lives. It is, after all, part of what helps us survive.

So let me get straight to it. The Restore Intensive is Feb 19. What’s in it for you is a long pause with the Lord. Maybe you have done the hard work in your heart and now is the question, what’s next? Restore is next. You will have opportunity to explore how you can rethink and rebuild places in your life the look a lot like ruins, or underdeveloped landscapes.

Soar is March 5, 2022. May I be candid? In our staff retreat yesterday we identified that our annual women’s encounter is for kittens and lions, and everything in between. It is for women who have been shut down, shut up and shut out of their own voice for so long that they don’t recognize themselves, or God.  And it is for lions who have grown in their love and life with God so that when they roar the enemy shakes.

We gather all these women, different ages and stages of life, different walks with God, churched and unchurched, and then we do the most important thing together. We seek His face.

There are real women telling real stories of real mess and how God showed up. It gets honest around here real fast.

So if your starving, stone cold, or white hot, both of these offerings actually are for you.

Ready to go deep!
Jana

Is Grace Enough?

/ Jana

My 92-year-old dad’s health is rapidly declining. My dog just had surgery and we are awaiting test results to see if it’s cancer. My kids are each going through their own wrenching challenges. My husband’s job has been erratic. And on and on it goes. What’s your list look like?

This is just the obvious stuff. The next layer is even more tender. There’s the grief of losing my mom and the anticipated grief of losing my dad soon. The fear and helplessness of not being able to influence my children can take my breath away. The decision fatigue of managing so many things at the same time sometimes leaves me wanting to run away at best, or zone out and binge a show at worst.

And underneath all of this is my love for God. And the love from God.
I have to stop and pause. I have to stop and remember. He is the way maker.

More than a great song lyric, He really is the one who makes rough places smooth. His light leads through the darkness. He takes me on well-worn paths and to uncharted trails. He guides me through the fire, through the flood. He sets me high upon a rock.

He leads me to green pasture. To rest. To settle. To focus again.

Since I know that nothing is a surprise to Him,
since I know He plans ahead for me,
since I know that He is always with me,
I can turn to Him, see His face, hear His voice, and understand what He wants to show me in these very harried moments.

Today, He says that life is a gift. Don’t waste it by complaining about what is wrong but look for the good, His goodness in the moments.

Today He says that my faith in His provision is my gift to Him. Regardless of the swirl, He has already provided for me and I “get to” watch and anticipate His movement in my life.

Today He says that grace is a reality for me to pull on, to expect, to stand on. It is a divine presence in every situation. I can bank on it.

Last year, God gave me this beautiful revelation about the word grace as represented in Hebrew letters. Hebrew letters are pictures that reveal a much deeper meaning. The word “grace” is literally the letters that mean “beautiful camp.”

The Israelites were a nomadic people so they would travel and then set up tents in a circle close to each other. They would overlap the tent cords on the outside circle of the tents to form a barricade from animals and invaders. Then they would open up their tents to the inside of the circle so that they could freely visit, the children would play safely inside the tent circle. More on this later.  However, God gave me the phrases:

Protection from without.
Provision from within.

That is what I can expect and hope and trust and rely on when I say I need grace. His grace.

God’s protection from without. God’s provision from within. He’s got me, and you, fully covered in grace. I truly am in good hands. And so are you.

Is Grace Enough?

/ Jana / Leave a comment

My 92-year-old dad’s health is rapidly declining. My dog just had surgery and we are awaiting test results to see if it’s cancer. My kids are each going through their own wrenching challenges. My husband’s job has been erratic. And on and on it goes. What’s your list look like?

This is just the obvious stuff. The next layer is even more tender. There’s the grief of losing my mom and the anticipated grief of losing my dad soon. The fear and helplessness of not being able to influence my children can take my breath away. The decision fatigue of managing so many things at the same time sometimes leaves me wanting to run away at best, or zone out and binge a show at worst.

And underneath all of this is my love for God. And the love from God.
I have to stop and pause. I have to stop and remember. He is the way maker.

More than a great song lyric, He really is the one who makes rough places smooth. His light leads through the darkness. He takes me on well-worn paths and to uncharted trails. He guides me through the fire, through the flood. He sets me high upon a rock.

He leads me to green pasture. To rest. To settle. To focus again.

Since I know that nothing is a surprise to Him,
since I know He plans ahead for me,
since I know that He is always with me,
I can turn to Him, see His face, hear His voice, and understand what He wants to show me in these very harried moments.

Today, He says that life is a gift. Don’t waste it by complaining about what is wrong but look for the good, His goodness in the moments.

Today He says that my faith in His provision is my gift to Him. Regardless of the swirl, He has already provided for me and I “get to” watch and anticipate His movement in my life.

Today He says that grace is a reality for me to pull on, to expect, to stand on. It is a divine presence in every situation. I can bank on it.

Last year, God gave me this beautiful revelation about the word grace as represented in Hebrew letters. Hebrew letters are pictures that reveal a much deeper meaning. The word “grace” is literally the letters that mean “beautiful camp.”

The Israelites were a nomadic people so they would travel and then set up tents in a circle close to each other. They would overlap the tent cords on the outside circle of the tents to form a barricade from animals and invaders. Then they would open up their tents to the inside of the circle so that they could freely visit, the children would play safely inside the tent circle. More on this later.  However, God gave me the phrases:

Protection from without.
Provision from within.

That is what I can expect and hope and trust and rely on when I say I need grace. His grace.

God’s protection from without. God’s provision from within. He’s got me, and you, fully covered in grace. I truly am in good hands. And so are you.

 

 

God’s Good Gifts in 2021

/ Jana

When the Lord says “Follow Me” the adventure is indescribable!

Here is a brief highlight of God’s beautiful presence among us in 2021:

Laura Collins’ vision of a ministry school just keeps blessing as we celebrated the Graduation of Kingdom Access First Year Students.  All of the local students returned for Second Year.

Jana was thrilled to ordain two new ministers for Kingdom work.

Our band of merry women, and some faithful men, transitioned us to a beautiful new location at Baum Drive that also hosts other ministries and businesses. What a joy to support other women as they go after their dreams and callings.

And life transformation? There are no words to capture what happens when people encounter the Living God at retreats, small groups, events and classes. We consider it the highest honor to create a space for the Holy Spirit to radically heal and set free and change the trajectory of people’s lives.

GT’s first-ever matching campaign was a humbling success. Watching God’s people join the vision of GT with their finances truly strengthened our faith and resolve.

And 2022?

We are ready for one or more interns, specifically looking for social media experience and video/podcasting savvy. If you know someone that could fill those spots, please send them our way!

We are building marriages through a retreat and small groups.

We have brand new events for those ready to do intensive heart-healing work.

We are preparing ways to influence a distracted and lukewarm culture.

We are raising up more leaders to use their voices and walk in their callings.

Thanks to the matching campaign, our studio will be up and running for those gifted in music and podcasting.

For myself, I am ready to pour out through spoken and written words as well as through music all that God has walked me through in recent years. I have several projects that I am praying will come to completion in 2022.

As I said, “follow Me” are wonderfully loaded words. I would not be anywhere else but with Him in all these things.

Thank you for being a part.
Thank you for inviting other people to come to the table.
Thank you for living your God-life out loud.

He is our one true gift and prize. I can think of no reason to do anything, to be anything, to want anything greater than enjoying being with Him.

He is all the motivation to live this life full steam ahead.

May you dream dreams that only God can fulfill.

Jana

Thanks, Mom.

/ Jana

Today I licked the icing off the beaters and said out loud to no one, “Thanks, Mom.”

Thanks for letting me lick the beaters from so many cakes and icings as a child. It’s one of those traditions I passed on. And there are no children around me to fight over who gets the spatula and who gets the beater, but still, I remember.

Thanks, Mom, for teaching me the “why” to cook. I had to learn the “how” to cook after a left her home, but what I learned was the love expressed through a homemade spread of favorite dishes. To be honest, I know I don’t cook the way she did. In fact, her frequent thing to say when eating the Jana version of her dishes was “well, it’s different.”

Yes, that is a kiss of death from the judges. Smile.

But now, making my dishes, still differently than hers and laughing as I hear her kiss of death comment, I am grateful. To know that more than one way can still be the right way. To know that I can honor her recipes and methods on some die-hard dishes like Thanksgiving dressing and cornbread, and to know that I can discover my own flair with equal success.

Thanks, Mom for the beauty of folks gathered around a table. These days my table is filled with friends more than family. It is a happy and a sad reality.  The changing seasons take getting used to, but she taught me, without ever saying a word, that Jesus loves to hang out and dine with friends. Some of my hardest and most tender conversations have been over a well-prepared meal.

I wonder sometimes if every time we dine, we re-enact the Lord’s supper. Bread, drink, friends.

Thanks, Mom. I understand better why you cried when you made Granny’s coconut cake the first Christmas without her. I did the same thing with your beef stew and oatmeal cookies. And yet we cook. Because we love. Because we remember. Because it’s worth the effort.

Thanks, Mom.

Thanks, Mom.

/ Jana / Leave a comment

Today I licked the icing off the beaters and said out loud to no one, “Thanks, Mom.”

Thanks for letting me lick the beaters from so many cakes and icings as a child. It’s one of those traditions I passed on. And there are no children around me to fight over who gets the spatula and who gets the beater, but still, I remember.

Thanks, Mom, for teaching me the “why” to cook.  I had to learn the “how” to cook after a left her home, but what I learned was the love expressed through a homemade spread of favorite dishes. To be honest, I know I don’t cook the way she did.  In fact, her frequent thing to say when eating the Jana version of her dishes was “well, it’s different.”

Yes, that is a kiss of death from the judges. Smile.

But now, making my dishes, still differently than hers and laughing as I hear her kiss of death comment, I am grateful. To know that more than one way can still be the right way. To know that I can honor her recipes and methods on some die-hard dishes like Thanksgiving dressing and cornbread, and to know that I can discover my own flair with equal success.

Thanks, Mom for the beauty of folks gathered around a table. These days my table is filled with friends more than family. It is a happy and a sad reality.  The changing seasons take getting used to, but she taught me, without ever saying a word, that Jesus loves to hang out and dine with friends. Some of my hardest and most tender conversations have been over a well-prepared meal.

I wonder sometimes if every time we dine, we re-enact the Lord’s supper. Bread, drink, friends.

Thanks, Mom. I understand better why you cried when you made Granny’s coconut cake the first Christmas without her. I did the same thing with your beef stew and oatmeal cookies. And yet we cook. Because we love. Because we remember. Because it’s worth the effort.

Thanks, Mom.

 

Look Full on His Wonderful Face

/ Jana

Jesus Christ is the great leveler.

He creates a level playing field regardless of who you are and where you are.

The shepherds had very little regard or wealth.

The devout carpenter and virgin teenager were simply willing to believe.

The Wise Men knew how to use their intellect and science to follow signs.

The Angels knew the greatest miracle of all was happening

What they all had in common is they personally encountered Jesus.

Not just know about him, or sign a card, or put him in a line up of greatest teachers, they encountered Him.

Mary was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit and conceived Jesus, then went on to deliver her deliverer.

Joseph was led in a dream to not only receive Jesus as the Son of God, but also to protect his new family in a second dream.

The shepherds had the gift of interacting with the heavenly host singing great news.

Wisemen were led by stars in the sky and also in a dream to find Jesus.

All of these God-breathed moments led them to Jesus the person.

The King. The Life changer

God moving into flesh.

I have the seed that’s been planted in my heart in recent weeks.

The notion first came from author Baxter Kruger who talks about what it meant for Jesus to come to earth. We sometimes reduce it to the forgiveness of sin. I know that language, the forgiveness of my sin and your sin, is monumental, earth-shattering.

But Kruger explains how the man in the woman in the garden, when they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they lost their sight of the loving Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They lost the reality of Presence they had enjoyed up to that moment.

Now blinded, they groped for something to put in place of the true, beautiful, loving, joy-filled, all-providing God. Kruger calls their feeble but deadly replacement, Adam’s god.

Little “g” god.

With increased knowledge of good and evil, they also discovered selfishness, consumerism, hatred, evil, division, deception, lust hopelessness hiding, shame.

Truly they had “fallen” so far from the place of total love, total adoration, the total provision in the presence of the living God, the beauty of the Son, and the power of the Spirit.

God’s solution to disrupted love was to repair our sight through a newborn king. However, Jesus coming in human form did not mean that he was unscathed. God in flesh did not somehow give him a magic bullet to dodge or minimize real life on planet earth.

Our lives on painful planet earth.

Quite the opposite. He walked in our flesh and blood, he experienced our broken emotions, he was tempted to minimize and criticize, he was rejected and scorned, abandoned, wounded, all the things that you and I walk around with every single day, and yet.

The one distinction that Jesus made as his aim and intention was to experience our human brokenness and yet maintain eye contact with his loving Father.

When Jesus says “I only do what I see my father doing,” I think that means far more than we’ve ever considered. Certainly, more than I have ever considered.

Jesus stared down Adam’s little “g” god, stood in the face of all of the brokenness. By doing so, Jesus opened the way for us also to restore our ability to see, restore our connection to the loving Father. Jesus fixed our eyes so that we might maintain our connection with God, locking eyes with the one who made us, loves us, perfects us, heals, and changes us.

Kruger’s notion of Adam’s god sent me diving into the Spirit. I’ve been just swimming around in the spirit trying to unpack and ask for more understanding and revelation.

I just had to laugh because the Spirit brought me a scripture that he showed me years and years ago.

16 But the moment one turns to the Lord[a]with an open heart, the veil is lifted and they see.[b]17 Now, the “Lord” I’m referring to is the Holy Spirit,[c]and wherever he is Lord, there is freedom.

18 We can all draw close to him with the veil removed from our faces. And with no veil, we all become like mirrors who brightly reflect the glory of the Lord Jesus.[d]We are being transfigured[e]into his very image as we move from one brighter level of glory to another.[f]And this glorious transfiguration comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.[g]

2 Corinthians 3

We, with unveiled faces, all reflect the Lord’s glory.

You, like me, have probably heard this verse many times. Heck, I have taught on it many times…

But today I want to share with you the different angle the Lord is sharing with me. We know when Jesus died on the cross, the curtain in the holy of holy‘s was rent from heaven to earth. Top to bottom, the veil was torn open so that we have access to the holy of holy‘s with God: intimate access, intimate connection, intimate proximity.

I love that reality and I also love the visual picture. But this scripture from Corinthian’s has awakened something different for me recently.

I previously thought that God put up that veil.

When I look through the eyes of Adam, seeing Adam’s god, I see all these fears, formalities and legalisms and rules and laws and efforts and pressure and performance.

Even in the middle of my love for God, I still see how that I sometimes put on God that he is not being who I think he should be.

As I have been listening in the spirit, I realize the veil is what I allow to come over my eyes.

When I experience fear and panic and anxiety and hatred and disgust and disappointment, I have allowed a veil to come between me and the true God.

The moment, the very instant, I turn my eyes on Jesus and look full in His wonderful face, the veil is gone and so are all of the distortions associated with Adam’s god.

The bitterness. The hatred. The smallness. The limitations.

The “I can’t, I won’t, I don’t” fades in the light of the glory of Christ.

The glory of his face, the glory of his love and connection to the Father shines through his face to me, to us.

As 2 Corinthians says, the moment one turns to the Lord with an open heart, the veil is lifted and we see. The moment we look for his face with an open heart we see the Lord and where you see the Lord, there is freedom.

Jesus prayed in John 17:

May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

Since Jesus gave us His glory, the glory the Father gave him, why don’t we experience more glory?

Why are we not looking for glory?

Perhaps our eyes are veiled by Adam’s god?

Whenever we see the Holy They for who they really are, the veil is taken away and we see and share their glory and we become bright like stars in a dark and perverse generation.

My invitation to you this Christmas and going forward is will you look on the face of Christ?

Lock on his eyes.

His look of love.

His look of belonging.

His look at acceptance.

His look of compassion.

I’ve been doing this little exercise with the Spirit of God as I try to embrace this revelation down in my own heart. When I feel angry or anxious or forgotten or unloved or abandoned or fearful I just hear in my heart “this is Adam’s god” and I turn back in prayer.

“Spirit lead me back to the face of Jesus.”

Chuck was praying the other morning for God to replace judging and condemning with forgiveness and generosity.

This is the stark reality between Adam’s god and the Living God.

Adam’s god is all about judging and condemning ourselves and others.

The Loving God is all about forgiving and blessing ourselves and others.

We have the opportunity to turn with an open heart, to remove the veil, and see the Lord for who he is and who he wants to be for us. All that we desire, all that our heart can stand, and all that we were born for, Jesus has revealed his glory. He has placed eternity in our hearts and eternity we will have with him. Come, Lord Jesus.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,

Look full on his wonderful face.