Today while reading Matthew 5 with a very grumbly tummy and feeling a bit light-headed, the Lord put some new emphasis on a few words in this verse:

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (justice), for they will be filled.”

Matthew 5:6

First, before I get to the real thing He showed me, the word that is translated as “righteousness” here is also the greek word for “justice”.  Stick that in your noggin and let it bounce around for a second as you continue…

The Lord emphasized “hunger and thirst”, and had me paraphrase it (as the NAV - New Aaron Version) like this:

“Blessed are those who purpose to endure hunger and thirst
as a currency by which to request righteousness and justice from the Lord;
because the Lord is going to give it to them, even more than they ask.”

Now, with “justice” bouncing around in your head, go and check out this call to a 40-day fast by the Lord through Lou Engle.  Lou’s intense, but having gotten to hang around with him some back in 1997-1998 via some Prayer Storm/Rock the Nations stuff, I trust his heart.

Also, I want to encourage you to jump into this fast any time between now and July 7th - and I want to do so with a reminder of this principle shared by Jesus in Matthew 20:1-9+:

Just because you start late, doesn’t mean you will get less reward, or that your work was worth any less in the eyes of our master, the Lord Most High.  Maybe you’re reading this on July 4th - just do it.  And, hey, this fast isn’t about you anyway - it’s about destroying the works of the flesh that has been so busy and successful “casting off restraint” for the last 40 years.  I believe that the hundreds or thousands who join in this thing in the last hour with the other thousands across the globe who endeavoured to press forth from the beginning will be one of the keys in realizing a breakthrough from heaven.

“Okay, so, Aaron, you’re saying that little people down on earth should actually attempt at provoking a response from God - isn’t that a presumptuous and dangerous heresy?”

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
2 Chronicles 7:14

The Lord is longing for you to try and provoke His response.  Let’s try it.

Last November I was asked by the company which employed me as a Systems Analyst/Developer (computer programmer) to go and work in a tire factory for an indefinite period of time.  Robin and I had just gotten serious about getting completely out of debt and were praying and discussing strategies and business ideas to see how we would be able to do that as quickly and efficiently as possible - and this opportunity was, well, opportune.

I moved about 6 hours north of my bride and beautiful children for about 7 weeks - my first extended time away from them - ever.  Until that trip, I had only experienced the emotion of “missing someone” one other time in my life, and couldn’t honestly say that I knew what it even WAS to “miss someone”.  Well, working 12 hour days and being stuck in a hotel was enough to allow me to come to first-hand knowledge of what “missing” was.

During that time, I was able to spend a lot of time in prayer and private worship (though it was very hard not to just “veg” to the TV every night, alone).  The Lord gave me a clear vision of what He wanted me to be doing with my life.  No time-frame, but a very strong impression with some very clear tasks and purposes.  When I told Robin about it, she responded with a resounding, “Yes - that is the Lord.”  The “title” the Lord summed it up with was “itinerate worshiper” - but not necessarily in a nation-wide sense, but in the sense of serving the Body of Christ in a particular region.

Within weeks of being back home in Arkansas, the Lord created opportunities for me to do exactly what He showed me as examples of what I would be doing in this new role as a “worship facilitator & equipper”.  Robin and I had discussed this with NO ONE at the time, and the exact examples were coming to pass.

 The Almighty was up to something… [Read "Burn the Bridges, part 2"]

Much to my bride’s surprise, I agreed to go to a conference in Kansas City in early March 2007…

We have a lot of very dear friends in Kansas City serving at the International House of Prayer (IHOP) as intercessory missionaries - some since before the actual IHOP prayer room was even going.  And, the Lord had drawn us into relationship with some of the leadership from (then) Metro Christian Fellowship through their Master’s Commission internship and a beloved brother in the Christ, Zach Drinkwitz.  However, when IHOP first began to explode, I was really turned-off by the folks who were always “running off to Kansas City for their next fix.”  It was like, man, come on guys, the Lord is in Alma, Arkansas, too - let’s press in.  But, honestly, there wasn’t much pressing - and honestly, although I didn’t judge IHOP itself, I allowed reluctance to turn into something way too close to rejection.

So, there I am, standing in the back of the sanctuary (at the Forerunner School of Ministry - FSM) in Kansas City during a worship/ministry time after the Word was given by Mike Bickle.  Honestly, I couldn’t even tell you what he had taught about.  I’m worshiping, singing new song to the Lord - both scripture and my own thoughts, prayers, and praises, when a very third-person thought breaks in and says, “Burn the Bridges.”  Immediately I knew that the Lord was speaking of my vocational investments - four years of college and almost two years as a programmer, coupled with the birth of three children in three years equals six years of deep, painful challenge… “Burn the Bridges, Aaron.”

So I began to sing a new song about burning the bridges - and no sooner had I sang it that it was echoed from the platform by the singers on the worship team.  We’re talking like 1000 people and probably 60 yards away.  “Okay, Lord - you have my attention.”  Then it started to sink in - He really wanted me to burn the bridges; He was asking me to just drop it all.  I began to cry, and my thoughts and my heart turned into a sand-covered, grumbling child of Israel and I cried, “Lord, You didn’t bring me out this far to take me back again….. did you?  Why, Lord!?!  Why?!”

Again, I began to sing my sobs and my thoughts to the Lord.  Again, those sentiments were echo’d from the stage by the prophetic singers.  I turned to Robin, and gently put my hand on her cheek and turned her head towards me and asked, “Will you be poor with me?”

“I’ll be poor, as long as you’re really WITH me,” she replied, which even drove the jagged spike of reality of what I had lived like for the last 6 years - the time I had invested, the long nights, the neglect of family, the place of prosperity we had come in to, and now the Lord was asking me to go back to that place of uncertian finances… well, poverty was the word in my thoughts.

 ”Lord, why would you take me from poverty as a full-time minister, to poverty as a self-employed entrepeneur student, to prosperity as a programmer who is still ‘ministering’ and serving as you allow, and now back to poverty?!  Why, Lord!?”

“I’m not taking you from a place of poverty, to prosperity, to poverty.  I’m taking you from a place of ‘not really trusting me’, to another place of ‘not really trusting me’, to a place where you are going to have to trust me fully.”

Robin and I prayed and talked A LOT that weekend, and on the way home, we made plans for me to quit my job as a programmer, start finding my way out of the business partnership I was in with our computer store, and just to trust the Lord and see what opportunities He would provide for ministry and finance.

Here we are.

When I was about 8 years old I had a dream.  I can still remember the dream - at least what it looked like.  It was just a progression of solid colors: red, blue, black, green, white, repeat - with instrumental (or at least non-lyrical) music playing the entire time.  When I awoke the next morning, I can remember feeling like the dream was significant enough that I needed to tell my mom about it.

I told her, and she grabbed paper and a pencil and made some notes, and affirmed that she, too, felt like it was very significant.  The next Sunday we took her notes to my “Super Church” pastor (Ruby Short) and our senior pastor (Ronnie Moore) and shared.  A time of prayer ensued and a message in tongues came forth (from Bro. Moore, I believe) and then the interpretation came through Sister Short.

 The simple gist of it, as best as my 24-years-ago mind can remember was this: “I (the Lord) am going to use Aaron (me) through music to change the nation.”

 So, here I am, about one-hundred “He’s Still Working On Me” sunday-morning-specials-prior-to-age-twelve later and, wow, twelve years of worshiping the Lord with my guitar and voice (in public and in private).

 It probably doesn’t get much more “Beginnings” than that, for me.  Well, unless you count me walking around at age two with my Bugs Bunny Carrot microphone with built-in amplifier singing “Uhl fly ‘way - Oh! Glory!”.

The call of the Lord on Robin for prayer and intercession is strong, and her prophetic giftings and pastoral heart are intense.  I can think of no one else in the world that I would want standing beside me, partnering with me in the place of prayer and ministry to ”pre-believers” and to our Family of believers.  If life, the kids, and I would let her, she would probably spend half of every day in the place of prayer.  I believe the Lord is going to make a way to that place for her.

For whatever reason (because it certianly isn’t a spot-on voice or guitar virtuosity), the Lord has anointed me to help others encounter and connect to Himself through musical worship.  A friend recently described that anointing in this way (paraphrased):

“Aaron, there are few people I’ve ever met who have the ability to create an opening in the heavens when they lead worship like you do.”

Please believe me, I do not say that with any (read “much”, or “I hope”) pride.  I fully understand that it is absolute nothing that I do - no routine, no intensity of private devotional times, etc - that has allowed me to, in any way, “obtain” this anointing.  I pull my guitar out of its case with a sense of incompetence every time - knowing that if the Lord doesn’t show up, I won’t even be good entertainment (and some times that happens, and it’s confirmed - I am not very good entertainment).

But, even having said that, I do believe that very attitude has come from things spoken to me and over me through the years, and that the Lord desires to impart that anointing to all believers in the Body of Christ - whether they are worship leaders, musicians, singers, or not.  The Lord desires worshipers who just want Him, and know that they can only get Him if He decides to be gotten (”We love because He first loved us”), and then they decide to go after Him (”Draw near to <Him> and <He> will draw near to you”).

He wants us to equip worshipers and facilitate worship and prayer by serving congregations in our region who recognize this need, and by establishing a venue for consistent prayer and worship in the Fort Smith River Valley region.

Our hearts value (and have been captivated) by many other facets of “ministry” (truly read “service”) and by domestic and foreign missions, and we believe the Lord will also provide opportunities for us to help serve or facilitate many other types of ministry beyond what most people think of as a “prayer room” model.  So, try not to stereotype or pigeon-hole what we’re envisioning for our region - we don’t want to recreate any other model or ministry; we want what the Most High God wants for our region, and we intend to contend with Him for “His Kingdom come, His will be done” in the River Valley, in our state, in our nation, and in our world, “like it is in heaven”.

Robin and I felt like the Lord was asking us to go to an internship in Kansas City at the International House of Prayer (IHOP), but we weren’t positive (read this post about “Hearing God”).  We were positive He’d asked us to do the unthinkable and humiliating thing of “Burning the Bridges” of our full-time, secular, vocational support, but we didn’t know if moving to Kansas City for some training was a definite part of His plan for our family or not.

We had a choice: do the internship in August, do the internship in May, or don’t do it at all.  We had told people that we were trying to decide whether to go or not, but we didn’t mention August vs. May to anyone at this point.

It was a Sunday night - THE Sunday night - the night before my last day as a computer programmer for Wingfoot Commercial Tire, and Robin and I were having some “couch-time” in the living room and decided, “We have to get a clear ‘Yes’ or a clear ‘No’ from the Lord about this.”  So, we asked the Lord for that very thing.  “Lord, either open the door or close it.  If You want us to go, You’re going to have to provide a way for us to go - financially, logistically, emotionally, everything.  We know that we can ‘plan our way’ but You will have to ‘order our steps’.  Let Your will be done and Your kingdom come in the lives of the Jacksons, Lord.”

Ok… so… no audible voice or anything.  But, we went to bed in unity, knowing that it was really in His hands (…ahem… feeling pretty good about our prayer, as if it made us completely confident it was in His hands - is more like it).

The next day, there was a pretty constant flow of co-workers coming by my cubicle.  A consistently asked question was, “So, how are you going to support your family again?”  To which I could only say, “we’re just going to trust the Lord and do the things He wants us to do, and trust He’ll provide through a combination of the people’s generosity and/or obedience to the Lord, or through ‘tent-making’ as He leads me… blah blah blah.”  Which I’m sure translated to many of them as, “I have no idea.  I am a slacker who is going to let my family starve.”

My programming peers took me to lunch, at which the same question got asked a couple of more times, followed by the same awkward, “..oh.. okay.”  (Don’t get me wrong, they were great and gracious, and maybe it was my self-consciousness reading into it some.)  Then, when we got back to the cube farm there was an e-mail waiting for me.  It was from someone who had gotten our ”Vision Casting letter” and felt like the Lord asked them to give a gift to us.

Read “May Day” part 2.

[continued from "May Day" part 1] 

They wanted to pay for the entire trip to Kansas City.  The tuition for the internship, the travel, our monthly living budget while we were there - everything.

The Lord had asked me to create three budgets for the internship, if we were to go: an “abase”, a “normal”, and an “abound”.  I told the donor this, and they asked me to send all three budgets to them, and they felt like the “abase” was a little “too abased”, and they agreed to write the check for the “normal” version, plus the Kansas City related expenses.

Of course, there’s always something - and Robin and I had been very torn over what to do with our house in Van Buren.  Do we fix it up and try to sell it? rent it? It was hard to imagine being able to pay two sets of house payments for four months, but, we also didn’t have the cash to spare to try and do the repairs and things we felt necessary before renting or selling it.  Well, the donor said, “I also felt like you were worrying about what to do with your house in Van Buren, and the Lord doesn’t want that to be a distraction - so, I’m going to pay that mortgage for the four months, too.”

Wow - that looked like a great big, “Yes!” from the Lord to us.  But, to top it all off…

The donor had a vision from the Lord that prompted them to do all of this, and in that vision the Lord was saying, “May Day! May Day!”  Of course the immediate assumption when you hear that is, “Help! Help!” but they asked the Lord what that meant and He told them two things: ”Urgency!” and “The day in May.”  When they relayed that to us, it immediately bore witness in our spirit as all of the above, “We need to go as soon as possible, which is the internship that starts in May, and we were glad to have the help.”