proskuneo

one of the words that our word worship comes from is proskuneo. it means to incline towards in attempt to kiss. it's paints a picture of gentle proximity to the Infinite God. intimacy without impediment.

i know this is a cheesy example but you know in the movie Hitch:
will smith is trying to explain to...um... the other guy... how he should approach kissing the girl (who's oddly named after an allergy medication.. not relevant, sorry... but it is wierd though right? anyway...)

he tells him to lean in real close.
"you go 90, she goes ten."

i'm starting to think that God is permanently bent over, inclined in at 90% just waiting for us to respond to His first move, to lean in only a little so He can sweep us away in an infinite instance.

lately, you could say God and I have been doing a lot of kissing.


I'm getting to lead or help lead almost four times a week this last month or so: twice a week there's base worship (one large-ish and typically louder and one that's more creative, quiet and chill), every tuesday night for the Winter DTS intercession times ( it's called a rumble. it's basically an hour or so of nonstop worship and focused prayer ), then often at the local churches on sundays and friday nights, and then once a month we do a HUGE rumble and pray for purity on Maui.




my heart here isn't at all to brag. i'm replete with limitations when it comes to music. i just remember way back to 7th grade Sam just starting to learn guitar; the shy kid who only dreamed of playing for his Creator with maybe 10 people around once in a while, now leading all the time for anywhere to upwards of 100 people.
it's cool to just see the Lord working my simple, small dreams into His infinite plan and i didn't have to seek these opportunities out. He didn't have to, He's got a lot bigger of an agenda than writing songs for me and yet He, the Creator, loves creating. i don't know, He's just so flippin' good...

Purity Siege

Every second - $3,075.64 is being spent on pornography

Every second - 28,258 Internet users are viewing pornography

Every 39 minutes: a new pornographic video is being created in the United States

12% of total websites are porn related;

there are 116,000 search requests daily for child pornography and over 100,000 websites that offer illegal child pornography

90% of 8 - 16yr olds have viewed porn online (most while doing their homework)

(stats taken from http://www.internet-filter-review.toptenreviews.com/internet-pornography-statistics.html)

...this IS happening and someone needs to stand up. it started small. we figured only 7 or 8 of us would be there. we'd meet in a home. maybe have someone play guitar. we planned to do whatever the Lord laid on our hearts. only days before the event, a local church offered us a place to meet and last friday night about 60 people gathered in Waipuna Chapel, worshipping and praying for purity on Maui and in ourselves as well, crying out to a God who can heal our bleeding nation, who gives grace to the humble and who wants so badly meet us knowing that without pure hearts we can't (psalm 15). we continued for two hours or so, one person taking the microphone and leading us intercession, followed by another and then another and so on...

the next morning, roughly 30 us were there, a hundred yards or so outside of a porn shop that recently opened in Kihei. two of our group went into the shop to meet with the owners and explain what we were doing there, crying out to God for His grace to abound and His love to fill the shop and all who go near it. they explained we weren't standing in condemnation and we weren't. many of us had struggled with pornography in the past and none of us more fallen or finite than the other. we all need God. we all need redemption. the owner, to our surprise, had no problems with us being there and asked us to lay hands on him and pray for him on the spot (in a porn shop!!! HOW AMAZING IS THE LORD!) we prayed for him, his family, that he'd prosper and that God would just reveal Himself more and more to him.
outside we stood in a line and fasted our eyesight for an hour, wrapping snow white linen as representative of righteousness. we prayed. we worshipped. we cried out for God to simply come down, to have mercy. the book of Ezekiel tells us that God is looking for people to stand in the gap so that's what we did. our sin reaps destruction. our sins of pornography, abortion, homosexuality, sexual perversion WILL have consequences and God is desperately longing for someone to care about our nation as much as He does. the cops came. they wanted us to leave the premises because we were a distraction to traffic (understandable) but then they noticed they recognized some of us. a fellow officer of theirs teaches self-defense classes and is a Christ follower. some of his students were leading this purity siege and immediately the officers hearts were softened. they told us it was no problem and if we needed anything just give them a call.

i don't know how many cars drove by. i don't know how many people honked their horns, how many of them for what we were doing, how many against, how many were just wondering what the heck was going on = ) and it doesn't matter. the point is we stood and God showed up.

we are hopefully going to continue doing this once a month at various places, sometimes for God to end pornography and sex trafficking, sometimes to end abortion, but always for God to pour out His mercy. it wasn't a protest and i pray it never appears to be. this is what we're doing to stand in the gap for Maui.