So its been about 8 months since I wrote that we were moving from the San Francisco Bay Area to New England (email me for the password). And to be honest, we still don’t have any idea what God has us doing here: until 3am this morning.

At our house, we’ve recently had to go to God in prayer around moving home to Louisiana. We had a recent visit there that left a very noticeable impression on us about picking up everything and moving there. Long story short, the Lord revealed to us that as true as that impression was, now isn’t the time for many reasons. The one reason we didn’t get any clarity on at that time was why were we in the place we’re living in New England.

Praying for Insight on New England

The initial lease we were in was only for 8 months, as we came in during another couple’s lease. Not knowing if we would renew or not, we never really took the opportunity to make this place our own and figure out how to make the most out of being here. But now that we have more clarity for where we’ll be for the next year, our conversation with God changed from, “Where are we supposed to be right now,” to, “Okay, since we’re supposed to be here, why do you have us here?”.

When I got home from work today, I called my father-in-law to talk about this new found passion I had to get involved in woodwork, carving. I was on a plane from Halifax, Nova Scotia to New York’s JFK airport about a week ago. And the lady next to me was reading a book about a guy who moved to Alaska at the age of 49 with a set of tools to build things from wood. He found a plot of land where he lived for over 30 years, and built everything from wood while he was there. For some reason this was quite fascinating to me. So I knew that my Father-in-law would have some insights for me as a carpenter, on how to get started with this hobby.

While chatting with him, he told me that he had been hearing from God about us getting plugged into a local church home, and how that may be a good way for us to join the local community. So I told my wife about it, and she agreed that this was something we should look into. Now, our background on traditional church isn’t the most positive on the outside, but our experiences there had the most influential hand in shaping where our faith in Jesus lies today.

Our Experience with Traditional Church

Like many, my wife and I grew up Catholic. Specifically, in the New Orleans, Black Catholic tradition. But more recently, and post-marraige, we were very involved at a large, non-denominational church in Mountain View, California from 2007 to 2009. On my way to work one day during 2007, a homeless man came up to me along my routine walking path to the office and began to prophesy to me about this church, saying that me and my family are looking for a church home, and need to see this pastor at this church. And as anyone who encounters a person they’ve never met that accurately describes their life would do, I took Mike the homeless guy seriously and looked up this church.

To us, and where we were during our walks with Jesus, everything seemed great at this church. But there came a point when God started to speak to us while we were there about some of the things that weren’t right about the church. So we went through all of the proper channels to communicate these concerns to the right individuals, but to no avail. We got the run around, and our head pastor had created a policy that due to the size of the church (6,000 members), he doesn’t meet with “individual church members” in private any longer, but has appointed staff to meet with members by request, who then relay any pertinent information back to him. We had meetings and everything fell on deaf ears. The Lord told us to leave the church that summer. Six months later, we heard from some family of our who still attended that the pastor abruptly resigned due to “certain moral failures”.

Since then, our experience with major church organizations has been limited. We haven’t been members of a church home in over two years. And with the baby, we haven’t physically been to a church since my wife got pregnant back in 2009. Since then, the Lord has anointed us to pray, teaching us how to listen to him directly instead of through a pastor. Many major life decisions have had to be made in our house on our own conversations with God, as we haven’t had an intermediary, like a pastor or a spiritual mentor of some sort. So we’ve become fond of the idea of communicating with God on our own, but until today, I never connected that with this newfound passion for woodwork and building, and also with why the Lord has us in New England.

The Revelation

About an hour ago, I woke up and began to pray, asking God for more understanding on everything that’s happening and what I’m feeling. The Psalm that came to mind was 139:23, where David prayed to God asking him, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:”. I just wanted to make sure that my intentions were pure in this whole thing, and that anything that I was saying, doing, or believing that wasn’t of God, I wanted Him to convict me of it so that I could repent, change, and move on to what He has for me. And almost instantly (which rarely happens in my experience), He started to show me a prayer schedule, and different themes for each day of the week.

He told me how the reason I resonated with that man who went to Alaska with no family and built a house that was sustained for a long time, and still is there today, is that he wants me to build the same type of house where I live, but spiritually. The whole time, my carnal, limited, human mind kept thinking physical, physical construction, so much so, I think I still want to take on woodwork as a hobby. But the Lord showed me early this morning that He was referring to spiritual building. And just as the man used one material for all of his home, his cooking utensils, his furniture, and everything else, God wants me to use one material as well: prayer.

He showed me how he wants me to build a house of prayer in Newton, centered on intercessory prayer for the following topics:

1. The Marketplace (jobs, workplace)
2. New Orleans, California and America
3. The Youth
4. The Jews and Israel
5. The Black Church
6. Marriage and Married Couples
7. The Local Church (Boston and New England)

Conclusion

About a month ago, I wrote about how the Lord had been revealing to me the different stages of prayer. And if I were to write that again today, I would include a fourth: praying on behalf the things that God has incorporated into your life experience. Now, for many, this won’t make sense. But for the mature Christian, it should. This is God’s way of making sense of everything you’ve been through. We’ve heard the cliche phrase, “without a test, there’s no testimony.” But that concept applies here as well: every situation you’ve been in, God had you there in order to experience it and understand it, so that once you come out of it, the passion you have for people in that situation is genuine and greater than someone who’s never been in that situation.

I’ve learned that the spirit of prayer is given to us as we cry out to God in uncomfortable situations. I’m excited to be able to put to use the frustration and passion he’s given me for these areas, along with the understanding He’s given me in these areas, to help build his Kingdom in these areas. Spiritual building, making the fallow ground fertile in preparation of our King.

Now let me go because I have to get some sleep for work tomorrow, and also pray to receive revelation on the spiritual implications of Jesus being a carpenter, and Paul being a tent maker (Acts 18:1-3). More to come. Over and out.