I’m starting to see this whole situation, not as a hinderance and an irritation, but as one of the most amazing things about Jesus. He’s infinite. He has no end. He has depth that makes the greatest sea look like a puddle in a parking lot. He asked me a rhetorical question one night as I stared out over the sunset- “What percentage of the ocean have you touched? How much of the water in the ocean have you seen?” The big-ness of God is overwhelming, there is not doubt.

But what if the journey into the mystery and never-ending goodness of God was enjoyable every step of the way? 

I’m stepping into one of those times as I write this. I look at the knowledge and revelation I have about God and am so un-impressed. I look at the vast expanse of what’s unknown about Him and start to salivate. I realize that I was created to search out the deep places of God and that the reason I exist is to interact with a living, pulsating, swirling ocean of love.

He’s infinite; but He’s available.

The Holy Spirit wants to reveal Jesus to us. He’s on our side. What if we stopped being intimidated by the big-ness and dove in headfirst, knowing that God enjoys our attempts to know Him?

“… let us throw off everything that hinders and fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith…”  Hebrews 12

It really is incredible how much power circumstances have in guiding and shaping our thoughts. It’s frightening how quickly our minds can shift from one idea to another, no matter how concrete the original idea was. When a fire is lit we are happy and warm, then a storm blows it out and suddenly everything changes. It’s the same idea that causes a pacifist to assault an intruder in his home; anti-violence seemed like a good idea until his family was in danger. It’s the same idea that made the disciples doze off in the most important time of Jesus’ life; their commitment was immovable until that warm breeze and sleepy hour crept up.

I’ve been learning about truth. It’s not so etherial and mysterious as some people make it. Honestly it’s really quite simple. (Note: I don’t want to tackle the whole “what-is-truth” debate right now, nor do I want to answer any “what’s-true-for-you-isn’t-true-for-me” garbage. Post-modernism has tried to rob us of the fact that truth is knowable. In that understanding, let’s move on). Truth is found in Jesus and the wisdom and revelation that He carries. That truth, my friends, is more important than my circumstances. His word is more trustworthy than my current emotions. It’s not confined to a certain feeling or a mood or a routine. It’s truth, end of story.

As I said, I’ve been learning about truth, or rather encountering truth. I’m learning how to  grab hold of truth tightly when my circumstances and emotions fly around like a dry leaf in a windstorm. You see, being home (though wonderful) isn’t always easy for me. I can get comfortable and content and lazy. I start to lose some of the zeal and vision that comes so easily in Kona. I start to question things that I don’t normally question and get aggravated by things that used to excite me. What can I do? Hold on to truth. I go back to the original words that the Lord spoke, I go back to the Bible, and I go back to Jesus. He doesn’t change. Oh, at last we’ve found something trustworthy! We’ve found someone who’s consistent! I never worry that God has suddenly, because of bad mood, changed his opinions. He’s so good, so steadfast, and so loving that following Him really is joy itself. Thank God I’m not left to discover my own path or plan my own adventure.

I’ve been learning about a different kind of fire, one that doesn’t get blown out every time the windstorm comes. It burns bright and clear regardless of circumstance. Does God want me happy? Yes. Does He want content? Absolutely. Does He want me fulfilled and overflowing with love? Unquestionable. And I trust that because He wants that, I can trust every word He says without needing to throw out my own clever ideas.

Things on the Kona campus continue to hum along at that mysterious “mundane-yet-world-changing” pace. It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day details and forget that our simple obedience is changing history! I’ve continued to serve musically in the house of prayer as well as helping lead the corporate worship times for the Ohana Gathering (our broader community weekly meeting). I honestly never thought that worship would be my primary vocation, but here we are! I’ve also been developing my inner sound-geek, running sound boards for other musicians and spending my free time learning in the Elevated Music recording studio.

I continue to be blessed daily by my amazing girlfriend, Kandi Holt. It’s been an honor and a joy to grow in friendship with her, and it’s been a wonderful time of personal growth as I learn how to better lead us in this journey. Last month, Kandi and I were asked to speak to a class of roughly eighty students on “Godly Relationships.” It was a bit of a shock, seeing as we’ve only been dating a short while, but the feedback was tremendous and very encouraging. I’ll be flying out to California next week to spend some time with her and her family, and Kandi will be in Minnesota the week after Christmas to be with me and mine. What an exciting time!

I’ve done a little traveling this past month, going to the island of Oahu to lead worship at the YWAM base in Honolulu. I was there with my friend Amy Sollars, who was speaking in the DTS of the topic of the Holy Spirit. We had an incredible time watching the Lord move and speak, partnering with the Spirit of God through worship and teaching. The opportunity to travel to other bases is always exciting and refreshing, and doing it with friends is the icing on the cake.

As always, my friends, I want to encourage you! The daily choices and decisions we make will one day be the testimonies we tell our children! What seems mundane and monotonous to the world may be tipping the bowls of heaven in the spiritual realms. We are called to faith for the future and faithfulness in the day-to-day. Ask the Lord for His perspective on your daily-planner. You may to shocked to hear His report.

What people mean when they say that someone has a father’s heart is that the person reflects the Father heart of God. They care about people and situations like the Heavenly Father, showing compassion, grace, love, and other perfect paternal qualities. What I noticed recently, though, is that there are sides of God’s heart that don’t get as much attention as the fatherly parts. Let me illustrate with a story…

About a month ago, I promised my little buddy Asher that I’d get him a present for his 6th birthday. I was traveling at the time and had totally forgotten until he boldly walked up to me last week and said, “Uncle Ben, when are we going on our date?” The man knows what he wants. I smiled, borrowed his mom’s van, and drove with him to Target to let him pick out a toy. Before we left, however, I established the rules: “The price limit is $15. You’re not allowed to whine and complain and beg for the $148 Lego set. $15 is the max.” As we walked into Target, however, I was bracing myself for the worst. I live with Asher and have observed his strong will and his demanding tendencies. I saw visions of him screaming in selfish tantrums and me screaming in horror at my inability to do anything about it. You see, though I cry at injustice and hold babies, I’m clueless as to how to be a father. What if he cried? What if I needed to discipline him? Panic.

That’s not what happened, though. Asher surprised me, quietly but excitedly running to different sections to check out what toys fell in his $15 price range. He didn’t complain about anything, though it was impossible not to notice how he stared longingly at the massive Geo-Bio-Space-Cowboy Deluxe 5000-piece Lego set (for the low, low price of $179.99 plus tax). He also, however, seemed interested in this little plastic gum-ball machine. He looked at it for a while, then muttered to himself, “Too much.” It was $18. I thought for a couple seconds, then pulled him over and told him that I’d get him the gum-ball machine if he wanted it. Again surprising me, Asher calmly explained that it was above the price limit, and that he would keep looking for something cheaper. I don’t know what happened, but his gratitude made me want to buy him a Mercedes Benz. I loved that He was thankful. I didn’t give much thought to his health, his grades, or his college fund. I just wanted to give him a gift. I repeated my offer, and this time he took it. He had the box open before we reached the door.

I know that God is the perfect Father. But in a simpler way, maybe He’s also the perfect uncle. What if He just likes giving us gifts? What if gratitude pulls at His heart more than our demands? I desire the Father’s heart, but I’m happy to have the Uncle’s heart, too.

Kona is home now, it’s as simple as that. Every time I get back I’m reminded why I chose to commit the prime years of my life serving here. It has nothing to do with the weather or the scenery, as my Minnesotan friends will think; it has everything to do with the community of people the Lord has here and His desire to make Kona a training center with international influence. I’m continually blown away by the things that Jesus is doing and the people He brings to accomplish them! Even though the majority of my close friends have dispersed to different regions around the globe, the YWAM base in Kona is still a revival hub.

On a personal note, I am definitely entering into a new season! Besides stepping into a full-time roll with the prayer and worship department, I also removed myself from the ranks of eligible bachelors. When I landed back in Kona I officially asked the incredibly beautiful Kandi Holt to be my girlfriend. Anyone who knows us knows that I’m definitely on the winning end of this relationship; I kept getting texts and messages from friends saying, “Wait she said yes to you?” Someone had to settle. It wasn’t going to be me. If you’d like to donate towards the “Dates-To-Somewhere-Other-Than-McDonalds Fund,” feel free to click the “Donate” button to the right of this text.

What an amazing time! God is on the throne, the Kingdom is advancing, and a girl likes me. Be blessed!

Ladies and gentlemen, things have changed. Gone are the days of apathetic lifestyles leading to ineffective transformation. I’ve just spent the past couple weeks with the most radical group of people I’ve ever known, and in ten days we witnessed a move of God in Southern California that is continuing to shake the region. Revival in America is not only possible; it’s arrived.

It would take hours to document the ridiculous testimonies that came from our time in Orange County, but let me give you the broad-stroke painting. Around 120 YWAMers from Kona, Hawaii and 120 from Denver, Colorado descended on Huntington Beach, CA on August 15th with enough faith to believe that the Jesus People Movement in the 1960′s was waiting to be revisited. We came declaring that God wasn’t ready to abandon America; in fact, He was ready to awaken it! Sleeping on church floors, showering in an alley with a garden hose, eating from food lines – these are a few of the privileges we enjoyed! Every morning we met and worshipped Jesus, telling both heaven and earth that the Lamb is worthy to receive the love of our generation. We would share testimonies of what the Lord had done the previous day, which proved to be a daily reminder that the power of God is active in our midst. Every day we’d hear stories of salvations, healings, super-natural encounters, and power. In the two weeks we were all in Huntington, we estimate around two hundred people gave their hearts to Jesus. We would walk up to people on the street and just start declaring the love of God to them. Men, women and children would begin weeping and literally say, “How can I get this love that you’re talking about?” We would sing worship songs on city buses, followed by a full-on, public declaration of the good news. The beaches began to buzz as everyone starting talking about the “Jesus People” that wouldn’t shut up about the goodness of God! Physical healing broke out in mass, too: broken arms and ankles, scoliosis, even diabetes fled at the name of Jesus. In America.

Every night we hosted tent meetings right across from the beach. Worship and praise ushered in a time of preaching the gospel and sharing testimonies, always ending in an opportunity to accept eternal life with Jesus. Without fail, every night ended in new brothers and sisters entering the Kingdom. People from all over the Orange County area started to show up, some saved and some unsaved. The whole event was supported by local churches, giving us the ability to instantly connect new believers with a local body. These churches all laid aside personal agendas and ambitions to come together for the sake of the gospel – let’s not miss the significance of this! The charismatic Pentecostal preacher spoke after the evangelical worship band played, all on the stage set up by the local Presbyterian congregation! The pastors of these local bodies joined us by Huntington Pier for ocean baptisms, as well – around 30 new believers decided to come out and make the public declaration that they were dead to sin and made new in Christ!

It’s not over, either. Thirty students and staff from our Circuit Riders crew have decided to move to Orange County to continue ministering to the lost, preaching the gospel, and encouraging the local churches. This is not a short-term missions trip that ends with a cute powerpoint and emotional goodbyes. This is a response to the urgency in the heart of the Father to win back His backslidden children. In His mercy, God has held back the judgement we deserve and is giving us a chance to return to Him; and when you’re as good as my God is, it doesn’t take much convincing.

As I visit Minnesota and then return to Kona, I have nothing but gratitude and amazement in my spirit. The gospel is enough. His love is real. Revival is now.

I would have told you a year ago that I was totally surrendered to the Lord. I wasn’t. I’d like to tell you I’m totally surrendered to the Lord this minute. I’m not. But the beautiful thing about my journey with the Lord is that He only holds me accountable to the level of conviction and surrender that He releases. He won’t usually take a heroine addict and, directly after conversion, release burning conviction for littering. In His kindness God is longsuffering with our immaturity. Psalm 103:13 says, “As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him.” He looks at my current condition, pities me, and releases grace. As I learn more and more about relinquishing control, there is zero condemnation about past mistakes, only renewed conviction to more forward in submission.

This past week the School of the Circuit Riders had a woman of God come and speak with us who models surrender more than any other person I’ve ever met. She taught with such authority because she lives it. Living among the poor and wretched in the slums of Hong Kong, she has submitted every area of her life to Jesus and has, in turn, seen more Kingdom advancement than most people dream to be possible. Her message wasn’t about building a kingdom, however; it was about forgetting about yourself and embracing a crucified life. Only by choosing service and suffering will we find the fullness of what Christ died for. By laying down the right to steer our own ship, we find the good Captain lead us to places that we didn’t even know were on the map.

I don’t claim to be the world’s leading expert on surrender, or the foremost authority in submission, or even an expert on humility. I’m a simpleton who has started to give up the reins to my life, and a witness that it truly is the best way. Control is lame. God is good.

I really don’t have accurate words to describe the atmosphere of our community here on the Big Island. From the moment our 250 students arrived, we have been visited by a divine touch from the Holy Spirit. Every worship time is electric. Every class time is powerful and paradigm-shifting. Every outreach brings in massive fruit. It is a new day!

In the past week we have seen over twenty-five people give their lives to Jesus on the streets of Kona. To give some perspective to that number, I have lived in Hawaii for over two years, going on outreaches weekly, and have never seen one person saved. The gospel has gone out and people have been reached, but there have always been walls up in the hearts of the local people. No more! In obedience to a word of the Lord we went with the majority of our students door-to-door in different neighborhoods in Kona, offering to pray with anyone who wanted it and telling our neighbors that Jesus was alive and wanted to know them personally. It sounds old-school, but when the soil of a man’s heart has been tilled by the Lord he becomes willing and able to receive truth.

This truth is the simple gospel of the Kingdom. Our morning training times have centered around the simplicity of the call of Jesus: know Him, love Him, follow Him, testify about Him. There are many facets to these statements, but we’re desiring to keep it basic so we can multiply it wherever we go. A major aspect of our first week was declaring that we will be a people marked by obedience and faith. Hebrews 11:6 says, “Without faith it is impossible to please God,” and we want to please Him! We want to establish a culture that is defined by the things unseen and walked out in obedience to every word and promise of God. We have spent a good deal of time getting before the Lord and repenting of ways that our lives haven’t lined up with the truth of Scripture and for ways that we’ve allowed the voice of the enemy to override the voice of God. When we ask for His mercy, He gives us that and more! The increase of the power and anointing of God has been evident, and we are going to keep charging!

I don’t have time to tell all the stories of salvation (an 89-year-old Buddhist man giving his life to the Lord) or the healings (scoliosis healed on the spot, arches in multiple feet), but I will sum it up by saying that the Kingdom is advancing here! We don’t plan on keeping this in the Pacific, either – on August 15th I will be going with a team of around one-hundred revivalists to Orange County, CA to see another Jesus Movement released in the nation’s cultural capital. We have every reason to believe that this will begin a national movement, so whoever and wherever you are, be prepared to join in!

Simple obedience changes history.

Ten weeks.

20,425 airline miles.

My journey to the Middle East took me to the other side of the world and back again. It took me to a culture and people unlike any I’ve ever known. It took me to hardest and the darkest, and it took into the Father’s heart.

Out of respect for the long-term workers in the areas I worked, I am unable to use the exact names and places (even nations) where my team and I lived for the past ten weeks. What we did in these nations was highly illegal, so I in no way want to jeopardize the safety of the heros we worked alongside. What I can say, however, is that Jesus is winning in the region that for so long has been in the grips of an Islamic occupation. Psalms 24 says, “The earth is the LORD’s and all the fulness therein,” and the Middle East is no exception! This region and these people belong to Jesus, and He is in the business of calling His children home. There are far too many stories and testimonies that come from a DTS outreach like the one I just completed, but I’ll try to share and encourage you with the highlights!

My team and I served in an English Center for the first part of our outreach, teaching the English language to Arab men and women. Though we loved teaching, we primarily used this as a avenue to share the Good News and speak truth to a people groups so desperately in need of it. My students and I took every opportunity to share about Jesus with our Muslim friends, and  after a few weeks we realized that the Gospel of Salvation had been shared with over fifty people! In a nation where proselytizing is illegal and punishable, this was a massive encouragement to us. We kept pressing in for more breakthrough, and eventually we were sharing personal prophesies with our students, encouraging them to become the person that the Creator had designed them to be. There is nothing like telling a Muslim that God spoke to you about them!

We transitioned mid-way through and began helping to establish a long-term house of prayer in the heart of the city. We would meet for three to four hours every morning and invite Jesus into a land where He is rejected. In the Islamic faith, Jesus (or Isa, as they call Him) is nothing more than a prophet; in these morning sessions we worshipped Him as God! We would get filled up with His presence, then from that place begin to cry out for the people and places that we had grown to love.

We soon found, however, that God wanted us to go to the exact places that we wanted Him to invade. We started to public worship in various strategic places, non crazier than the time we started praising Jesus right in front of the oldest mosque in the nation! All public worship is against the law, but worshipping in front of a mosque is, quiet honestly, one of the quickest ways you could think of  to get arrested. Earlier that morning, however, five of us has all gotten the same word from the Lord, so we trusted that His hand would accompany His word! It ended up being an incredible experience – Muslim men would come out of the mosque to come and check out the crazy white people, and eventually ended up clapping and dancing to the sounds of our worship! Videos coming soon!

There are so many testimonies to share, but I’ll leave you with this one. We were wrapping up our last time of open-air worship and decided to go on one last blitz through the downtown area praying for the sick and preaching the good news. I hadn’t gone twenty yards when I came across of young man with a cast on his foot. I stopped and, in broken English and a little Arabic, asked him what had happened. He, in broken English and a little Arabic, explained that he had broken his ankle. I asked him if I could pray for it to be healed, and he reluctantly agreed (In Islam, it is unusual to pray for anything outside of a mosque, and the laying on of hands for healing is a foreign concept). I knelt down on the dirty sidewalk, took his ankle in my hands, and said, “In the name of Jesus, I command this ankle to be made whole. All pain, go. Full restoration in the name of Jesus. Be healed.” I stood up – and so did he. He started stomping his foot on the sidewalk, and after a while began walking around and running up stairs. The Jesus that he denied had healed him completely. See the full story on YouTube!

I’m sure more testimonies will follow, but may this little blog be evidence that there is no place on the planet where God is not wanting to break in and release His kingdom.