Tuesday, March 31, 2009

24-7 Vision

In getting our 24-7 prayer room set up, I found this "poem" that was written by Pete Greig from the first ever 24-7 prayer room. This was and is his vision for this movement. I hope that it will become our vision and focus as we move together in prayer.

The Vision
So this guy comes up to me and says "what's the vision? What's the big idea?" I open my mouth and words come out like this…
The vision?

The vision is JESUS – obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.

The vision is an army of young people.

You see bones? I see an army. And they are FREE from materialism.

They laugh at 9-5 little prisons.
They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday. They wouldn't even notice.
They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the west was won.
They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations. They need no passport.
People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.
They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.
What is the vision?
The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes. It makes children laugh and adults angry.
It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars.
It scorns the good and strains for the best. It is dangerously pure.
Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation.
It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games.
This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause.
A million times a day its soldiers

choose to lose
that they might one day win
the great 'Well done' of faithful sons and daughters.

Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night. They don't need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: "COME ON!"

And this is the sound of the underground
The whisper of history in the making
Foundations shaking
Revolutionaries dreaming once again
Mystery is scheming in whispers
Conspiracy is breathing…This is the sound of the underground

And the army is discipl(in)ed.

Young people who beat their bodies into submission.

Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms.
The tattoo on their back boasts "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain".

Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes. Winners. Martyrs. Who can stop them? Can hormones hold them back?
Can failure succeed? Can fear scare them or death kill them?

And the generation prays
like a dying man
with groans beyond talking,
with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and
with great barrow loads of laughter!
Waiting. Watching: 24 – 7 – 365.

Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules. Shaking mediocrity from its cozy little hide. Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fasting essentials. The advertisers cannot mold them. Hollywood cannot hold them. Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.

They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive
inside.

On the outside? They hardly care. They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide.
Would they surrender their image or their popularity?
They would lay down their very lives - swap seats with the man on death row - guilty as hell. A throne for an electric chair.

With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days,
they pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.

Their DNA chooses JESUS. (He breathes out, they breathe in.)
Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus.
Their words make demons scream in shopping centers.
Don't you hear them coming?
Herald the weirdos! Summon the losers and the freaks. Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes. They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension. Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.

And this vision will be. It will come to pass; it will come easily; it will come soon.
How do I know? Because this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God. My tomorrow is his today. My distant hope is his 3D. And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great 'Amen!' from countless angels, from heroes of the faith, from Christ himself. And he is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner.
Guaranteed.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Something I should have posted 2 weeks ago

LISTEN TO U2's NEW ALBUM!!!!! IT IS GREAT ALL THE WAY THROUGH, BUT "MAGNIFICENT" IS JUST THAT!!! ENJOY THE WORSHIP!!!!! I ALSO LOVE "I'LL GO CRAZY IF I DON'T GO CRAZY TONIGHT".

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Tragically Uninspired

Why am I so busy? Why to I let my mouth write checks that my body can't cash? Why do I do nothing for myself? If I did do something for myself, what on earth would that be? Carey said the other day that working out was the only thing that I do for myself, I never thought of that. But I don't work out for me, I work out for my health, so I can see my kids when they get older, so I can maintain an acceptable physical appearance. It is not like it is a release or something I look forward to. I pretty much constantly question if the little bit I do helps anything at all. But I had no witty comback for her assertation, because I don't have anything. I am sitting here jealous of all those people who have something, I am even jealous of the ones who don't have time for their something, because at least they have something.

In childhood, I set my life up around sports, and boy did I love them. It was my release, they helped straighten me up when I was screwed up, they gave me something to look forward to, they gave me easy and set friendships that already had something in common. But now that I am aging, and there aren't really any sports for me anymore. Sure I could go play some basketball, but I never really loved it in the first place. I coach baseball and football, but that has made those into more of a job than a release. I suck at golf, absolutely hate running (and it's not a real sport anyways), and can't really think of anything else to talk about as a sport to turn to. I play fantasy sports for a release and to replace the activities, and I love to play them, but they are not really satisfying. And the friendships are with random people who I never see and really never interact with.

So now I am nearly 29, with no release, and no time for one anyways. And I am not sure which is more pathetic.: I have no one that I really talk to or that I have nothing that I do to talk about.

***************

I wrote this almost 2 weeks ago now...and couldn't post it. This is not a cry for help...this is not a begging for pity...this is not a call for friends...this is just where I am. I do not know how to change it...it is a journey...it is a process...it will be personal...it will not be my doing...it will all be God's.

I will take your prayers. And for that I thank you