Free at Last!

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while. Leading the youth and young adult ministries at LWC is quite the juggling act sometimes. Oh yeah, I forgot to include the youth and young adult ministries at MFM (Mason Family Ministries).

MSM began as a children’s ministry, then it became a youth and children’s ministry, next Monday, we make the split to youth and young adult ministry because my oldest offspring, my little baby brown eyes, my tiny twirping songbird turns eighteen!!! 18!!! XVIII!

Could it be that my loins have effectively produced an adult life form? Could it be that she’s reached an age where she could tell me where to stuff it and run off with Joe Somebody and get married and live in a rusty old double-wide somewhere down in the hollers of West-by-God Vajinya? My gosh, she could join the army, teach the poor origami or even ...no she’d never.....but what if she did... start punching holes in a perfectly good suit of skin?

That’s exactly what the little weasel did. I reminisce:

It was early Sunday morning and we had gathered ‘round the fire for our usual hour of pre-church prayers and hymns. The air was filled with the peace and presence of Providence along with the smell of fresh eggs and bacon sizzling in the kitchen. Matthew was fiddling with his bow tie as he sang softly the tenor. Brittney opened her Bible for the morning reading as my lovely wife shed her apron and knelt beside me. Just then, the oldest heir to the Mason family fortune elegantly swaggered into the room with what appeared to be a small tumor protruding from the exterior of her right nostril. At that point I felt led to lay hands on her and rebuke the shimmering neoplasm. Faith welled up in my spirit as I shouted “Come out! In the name of all that is good and wholesome and Anglo Saxon Protestant- come out!”

Nothing. The nodule remained.

“Father,” she whispered. “The jewel that thine eyes hath perceived an abscess is in truth an adornment of my liking. These many years have you tended to my soiled linens, filled my stomach with choice morsels and yet tended to my soiled linens again. Now, hath come the time for me to tend to my own soilment. So shall I choose to garnish my olfactory region with such an ornament of glamour and worldliness ” she asserted.

“Yes my child,” I replied in humble tone. “But as the filler of thine stomach I protest. Now remove the steely beast at once.”

“But Father,” she pled. “Am I not of such age that the right of penetration is mine alone. Are these mucous membranes not my own?”

I am so full of bulldust!

In reality, Suzan was poking a make up stick in her eye, Matthew was griping that there wasn’t any milk, Brittney was still being yelled at for not getting up, the dog was barking, the TV was blaring and my dress socks were missing in action. Just then, the perpetrator enter my room unannounced and for some odd reason kept her head turned away from me the whole time she chatted with her mother about hairspray or something. In a flash, she was back up the stairs and out of sight. Then, as usual we all sat in the Jeep – me yelling at Sue about being late and Sue yelling at the kids about what she was going to do with Kendall if she didn’t hurry up. Eventually the princess emerged and ducked quickly into her limo. I glanced in the rearview and barked something about how she was old enough to get “left behind” next time she left me waiting. Then there was a whisper and one of those womanly glances between the queen and the princess. You know those looks that say, “I’m not hiding anything, really.” My demand for an explanation was met with a confession that Kendall had punctured her sniffer the night before in her own version of the shot heard 'round the world.

Freedom, what a concept.

In reality, I don’t really care what she does with her nose; she’s the one that picks it. However, I do care about what she does with her freedom because freedom abused leads to bondage.

It’s been so refreshing to see the people that God is bringing to the Verge Life. Many, who know the pain of mishandled liberty. Thankfully, their Heavenly Father loves them enough to arrange a leadership team that knows the way out.

One of my all-time favorite verses is 2 Cor. 3:17:

Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

I’m here to tell you, the Spirit of the Lord is moving at Verge Life and I sense a time liberation coming for many who feel trapped in the snare of addiction, fear and religiousity. That’s what Jesus came for right, to set the captives free? The good news is He’s the same yesterday, today and forever.

“GOD WANTS YOU FREE!”

Those are the words that keep echoing in my spirit these days.

Galatians 5:1 says,
Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.

So, here comes freedom. I believe it. I sense it. Find somebody wearing this world’s chains and get’em into church on Saturday night! Find someone on the verge of a breakdown and let’s lead’em to a breakthrough!!!

Let's do everything in our power to focus on the main thing, giving God a FULL HOUSE!!!

Carry the cripple!
Rise above the crowd!
Penetrate the resistance!
Just get'em where the word is being preached and the power of God is present to heal!

What an exciting time to be alive doing what we get to do! Let’s ride this wave all the way to the beach!!!, thanking God that there’s a Lighthouse in Gloucester keeping us on course!