Revelations

My NAME is the LORD...
       ‘…Here am I, send me…’

            My friends. I find myself having been somewhat unfaithful, keeping you in silence concerning my team. SO much has conspired in the past weeks that there is little more I can do than praise God.

            By His grace we have met the right people.

            By His mercy we are on our way to represent Him in Mongolia.

            By His sovereignty we find ourselves under the hand of His favor.

Team Mongolia on retreat in the Angeles Mountains

left-to-right: Uncle Lloyd, Miles, Stefan, Geoff, Blake, Kyle, Frank, Jeremy

            Though many, the trials have served only to refine us as we have sought His face… The dross consumed – as Job spoke of a merciful God saying: “But He knows the way that I take, and when He has tried me I will come out like pure gold!” He knows the way we are taking! Suddenly the trials have become our dearest friends.

            We find ourselves praying prayers for revelation of the holiness of our God! We are the subjects of a good King, we are the children of a good Daddy. He WANTS to reveal Himself to us! In all He does He does so only that he might be known by us. So we find ourselves aligning our lives with the very cry of God (to be known) by saying: “Lord! We want to know you! Here we are!” And in many ways I understand the boldness and danger in that prayer. When we pray, “Lord, show me yourself,” we have to be prepared to lay down our favorite idols, our agendas, and our precious little wrongs and make room for a God who does not share space with idols.

When Isaiah saw the holiness of God, well… he got messed up (Is. 6). God completely made him trip. He fell to the ground, terrified, completely undone and abandoned to fear screaming “I’m dead!” God had used Isaiah’s mouth as a prophet to speak the words He desired… and yet there was Isaiah freaking out and screaming: “My lips are unclean!” In front of the holy triune God even Isaiah’s best must have seemed more worthless than vomit. We see our sin best when we see God’s holiness best. But He, even in His holiness, has not dealt with us as we deserve – He has not repaid us for our sins (Ps. 103). It was only by God’s cleansing that Isaiah was able to stand and say “Here am I Lord, send me!” And so, the call: in light of God’s holiness you’re only a dead man, but when God touches your lips and says “clean!” there is a mobilizing, breath-taking, impassioning, consuming wind that pushes you to muster the words, “Okay Jesus, whatever you want - here I am! Please make something if You can! Anywhere for You Jesus - send me!”

“Lord.” The Church loves that word… or name… or punctuation… or whatever it is. “Good Lord,” “We just pray Lord, that you would come Lord, in our lives Lord, because we need you Lord,” “Lord of my life,” “Lord of this church,” “Lord of Lords,” “Lord, I ask Lord, that you would do this Lord and do that Lord,” “Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord,” “Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah.” Punctuations are so unimportant that most languages did not develop them until just a few hundred years ago. It’s the last thing you actually need to make a sentence function. Is “Lord” just the comma to sloppily organized sentences in your prayers? Do you actually need Him in order to function in holiness or is His name just the spice to your carefully concocted prayer-recipe? Brothers and Sisters… be careful when you throw around the name “Lord.” Since when you do you submit yourself to a higher authority. For every Lord there is a throne, and for every throne there are subjects, and when you recognize that you are not lord, but that God is, you are proclaiming that you must step down from the throne of your own heart, becoming a subject of the true Lord, allowing Him to take over, to reign unchallenged to do whatever He wishes in your life with no opposition from you.

                        He says:

                                    “My NAME is The Lord! That is my NAME!

                                                My glory I will give to no other,

                                                nor my praise to carved idols.”

Is. 42:8

He does not just have the mere title of “Lord” but He reigns so supremely over everything that He has declared that His very name is “Lord.” He so embodies what a Lord is that He actually names Himself “Lord.” Lordship so encompasses the nature of His being that it is Him – He is Lord, His very name is Lord. And when you call Him Lord you are saying, “Your glory doesn’t belong to me or anyone else, and your praise doesn’t belong to anything else.” When you call Him Lord you communicate to Him that you are waging war on everything else vying for that place in your life.

            So in my prayers of: “LORD, show us your glory.” I am actually saying, “Lord, come mess me up! I deny everything else any right to have control in my life – I am stepping down from control and I am putting you on the throne of my heart. Strip me of all the things that keep me from living in full-on abandon for you. Hold nothing back, wreck me and rebuild me so that I have nothing left to say but ‘okay Lord, I will go, send me!’” So careful when you call Him Lord… even the demons call Him Lord and recognize His Lordship (Mark 1:21-28; Mat. 8:29; Mark 5:7) – but rather than the rebellious fallen, may it move you towards the obedience of a faithful subject. He is not a treacherous lord, but a Lord worthy of the title – since He has done great things!

            I suppose I just want you all to know how serious that prayer is. I’ve been praying it a lot… so I am expecting huge things from Jesus. I am glad that He is the Lord and that He is on His throne, reigning unchallenged. We are expecting to get messed up. We are expecting the furnace of affliction that refines those who say that Jesus is Lord of their life. There is so much refining to be done in my heart… so much dross that must be consumed.

            Can I just say that I am SO wildly thankful for the prayers that have been going up to God on behalf of my team for the last three months? I have seen prayer in a different way… If I thought I valued prayer before then now prayer is a totally different thing – since there is a God listening. I want to share a few encounters my team has had with your prayers!

- In a 5-day period, about 10,000 was processed (nearly 1/3 of my teams budget)!

- At our team commissioning, a fellow Biolan asked us if we needed any hiking gear at all – which we had prayed over the night before, since many of our guys don’t come from a backpacking background and so in don’t have their own equipment. He’s providing three backpacks and other equipment.

- Geoff met a man at church who led Backpacking DTS with YWAM for several years and was a wilderness leader and guide for several years in Morocco, Spain, Fiji, and Colorado (among other places). He came to a team meeting and explained everything we would need to know about outdoor survival.

- Our team went out to surrounding high schools and shared the Gospel with High School students… We were shocked to have shared the story of Jesus with High School juniors and seniors who would reply, “Wow, I have never heard that story before.” You don’t need to go to Mongolia to find people who have never heard that Jesus died for them.

- We went on a team retreat to Cedar Glen in the Angeles national forest last weekend. Dr. Lloyd Peckham joined us – a linguistics professor at Biola and missionary to Irian Jaya and the Philippines. He taught us all sorts of survival techniques and skills. And at the end of the night he broke bread with us and gave a prayer of blessing. He rose at 4am, hiked the 3 miles back down the trail, rode his bike to an adjacent mountain and began doing hill-repeats with a team he intends on riding across the country with this summer.

- We have only $2,717 left to raise as a team! In 2^1/2 months God has used supporters, garage sales, and donations to bring in over $28,500! ---- That is RIDICULOUS! Praise God!

So, if you will – partner with us in prayer! It has been one of the most wild blessings to have become the subject of your prayers and support. 7 men aren’t doing this – the church is doing this. We are going as extensions of the body of Christ and of Christ Himself. God has put His anointing on His Bride (The Church) to preach good news to the poor, and to carry the news of His Lordship to the Least, the Last, and the Lost. And we have answered the call of His Lordship saying “Here am I Lord, send me.”

Team Budget: $31,403.⁰⁰

Deadline - %100 by May 20^th --- deadline has past

            Current: $28,686.⁰⁰

Needed to reach %100 - $2,717.⁰⁰

--- having done the math, this is about $500 for every member of our team (not leaders), would you consider if God may be calling you to support just one member of Team Mongolia financially?

Mongolian customs and sayings to remember:

1.) “God bless you and may your mustache grow like brushwood” is said after someone sneezes.

2.) Do not throw trash into a fire… why? Because it is disrespectful to the fire.

3.) To show another person the sole of your foot is considered extremely rude.

4.) It is not uncommon to see friends of the same sex (mostly men) holding hands.

Oh the stories we’ll share!

Bless you!

- Kyle

P.S. Tonight we are excited to go and cook for our friends at Mongolian Church! My Brothers and Sisters at the church are becoming so dear to me that I am convinced that I will continue going in the future!