#i made a mistake yesterday and uprooted it to see how its roots were doing(good btw i was worried it had root rot lol)

[sunshineram]

my succulents :)

[ftpthemovement]

Comfort or calling? Stop stalling it’s time to ride.

God doesn’t place a calling in your heart and not give you the ability to see it through. Are you choosing comfort or your calling?

Last week I was seeking God to inquire him about a word he gave me a few months ago revolving around FTP. Most people don’t know, but we are closing in on the last few months of our lease here in Kennesaw, and the word he gave me was in reference to what the furture would hold for us. When I asked, I wasnt given a direct answer, so I expressed a lack of assurance to close friends and members of FTP. Since the inception of FTP, God has always given a clear vision of what was to come, and this was the first time where there wasn’t a direct clear cut direction or instruction on what we were supposed to be doing. So I went walking in solitude spending time with God and he began to speak to me.

Often times when God talks to me the most, Its during these times where I’m walking with him in a remote location free from distractions and any input, or out side interference. On this particular day, God placed it on my heart that it was time to uproot myself from Kennesaw Georgia, and move to Las Vegas Nevada to do his will. Cause you know, that’s super normal and all 😂

At first I felt very worried because it’s moving across the nation to a place I don’t know, surrounded by people I also don’t know, to places I’ve never been before in my life. Automatically, my first inclination is to worry. Yet God choose to remind me of a word he sent me around a year ago, when he said, “I’m bringing a raging river to dry sands.” I quickly remembered that I used to walk around a repeat it daily, often times I still do; but I never really understood it until recently. On September 6th, I saw the post come up on Facebook, Circa Sept 6, 2019. Exactly a year later, God was reaffirming his word from exackty year ago, and it lined up perfectly with the message he had just given me! Guess you would have to be there to know the full gravity of the situation, but let’s just say it was all the confirmation I would ever need.

But, in the process of such a massive transition, you obviously have to iron out a few wrinkles with such an undertaking. So, I immediately reached out to Alex and Jordan, who are very close brothers and members of FTP to ask them what they thought. Amazingly enough, they not only supported it, but they felt lead to deployed there as well! Talk about faith in action! I really don’t think you could ask for more than that. God says go, thier answer figuratively speaking was, “Say when.” It’s literally the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.

Obviously all of our intentions are there, but this is when the opposition likes to creep in. See, technically we are still here until the lease is up. We have to manage to somehow raise funding, continue expanding discipleship, and elect overseers to continue our work here in Georgia, while we expand to the west as God has instructed. In the middle we could come up with a number of excuses, fears, doubt, insecurities, distractions, and opposing opportunities in the process. Hence why the topic up top is, “Are you choosing your comfort, or your calling?”

Up until yesterday when I would think about the transition I would start asking questions that I think any sane, logical, rational person would ask. Stuff like, “Where are we going to stay?” “Are we shutting down the businesses we run?” “How do we all manage to uproot multiple families and make it work?” “Where will we work, etc.“ “Where will the resources come from to help make the transition happen?”

Now, everything isn’t complete, but the Lord has already answered about 90% of these questions, and in the coming months we are going to reveal the plan God has placed in motion, and we hope that you share in the vision and take the opportunity in helping be apart of Gods work! But, for now this is where God calls his followers to have faith, and to be prepared to put that faith in action by trusting that he will create the way to see it to completion!

Sounds tough, and it is! Yet, he specifically reminded me of one answer he gave that changed the complete trajectory of all of my thoughts. A question so imperative, that it shifted everything Ive ever known when it comes to following God. What’s that question you might ask?

The question was, “If I choose to stay and not go, would you be mad at me?”

Even reading the question as I’m writing it, it sounds loaded. But in the loving grace that only my Heavenly Father could answer in, I got a peaceful “No.” So, God is calling me to go do his will, but if I don’t go, he won’t be mad at me? Hmm..... I felt a prompting in my spirit to ask God another question. “If I don’t go, can I be just as successful here doing your will as I would be there?” He gracefully and calmly replied, “No.”

“So, if I go I’ll be more successful than if I stay, why wouldn’t I go?” I had a lot of answers to that question. It’s probably one the easiest list I could ever come up with. Because of job security, comfort, and fear. Because of being rooted in what I’ve grown accustom to on a daily basis. All of the things I take for granted that would simply disappear if i choose to be obedient. If you really think about it for awhile there’s sooo much stuff that I could list, and go on and on about. As I sat there and thought about every excuse in the book, God blessed me with a wave of insight that came crashing down on me, saturating me with love, insight, revelation and understanding. If you made it this far, stick around because I’m about to share it with you.

🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁

God showed that I can be saved, be doing good works, and still be far outside of his intended will for my life....

Listen.... It’s the times that God asks for obedience, yet we choose to shrink back from it. You might understand examples like, “God telling you to say something to someone, but your scared to do it so you shrink back. Or, you know you should have done something in a particular situation but looking back would have handled it a million different ways, but froze up. All those are good examples, but imagine that times 100 million, it’s that deep of a revelation.

What God revealed is that often time we will ask Him questions, and he will answer them in accordance to the condition of our hearts. Re read that slow 5 times and meditate on it.

Jesus often times does similar in scripture, by answering people’s questions with a question first, to reveal the motive of there hearts. What God was showing me was that when we ask him questions, we often times ask out of good intentions, but it’s filtered through our intended desires. We ask with intentions on receiving what we want the response to be. Let’s slow it down cause it’s really heavy. It means we aren’t really seeking his will, but instead, we are seeking what we want his will to align with it.

This means when asking God, we can have all the best intentions in the world of serving God, but when we ask him for something, we are asking it for self, and he graciously and lovingly gives us the desires of our hearts. But if your hearts will, even though being good, isn’t what’s God wants for your life, is it a life worth living? It may appear to be good, you claim it’s for his kingdom, but if it’s not the mission he’s called you to....?

Walk with me bro...

How many of you have seen visions in your head from God, or felt a prompting in your heart to expand in ways you can’t even fathom, but then you quickly rationalize every excuse of why it can’t happen for you, and you write it off as a day dream How many times have you asked God for something but if it doesn’t happen how you wanted it to, or expected it to, you start questioning if you have unresolved sin, or if you did something not pleasing to God. How many of you reading this are weighed down by your past decisions in life, and they hauntingly become the excuses of your future?

God literally loves you enough, to bless you, save you, bring you into heaven, and you still not have lived the life he had intended for you. Most people I’ve met say, “Well everything happens for a reason, and God allowed x______ to happen to learn from it, so I don’t consider it a mistake. Yet they refuse to take ownership of truthfully considering if they were choosing their will or his!

God meets you where you are, when you turn to him, then He gives you beauty for your ashes. Things happen because you choose his way or your way, second by second day by day. When you’re on track and fully submitted to his will, you will live how he wants you to live. When you choose your will, and realize what you’re doing is wrong, he meets you where you are at. When you turn from your way, (aka repentance) Thats when he puts you back on the right path.

When you take ownership you realize, you can’t be focused on fear and faith at the same time. You’re going to choose one or the other daily. Several times God gives orders in scripture, man choose his own way, and he meets them where they are at. It’s literally the whole entire book. Man chooses flesh, God sets them straight, repeat. God tells Isreal do this, they don’t do it, they repent, he blesses them. You think he wanted them to mess up? No! He wants to bless them, but just as we do, we pursue our own ways, and then ask God to bless them.

Long segway, but I hope it was useful. Point is, how many times have you been given a vision, or felt the feeling and didn’t act? In my experience, JUST MY PERSONAL experience, everything God calls me to do, is wildly uncomfortable, and he always places me in a positions that my faith is required to go further than my flesh has ever been capable of. Meaning, God gives me visions that I cannot complete on my own, that I have to overcome fear, walk in faith, and be wildly dependent on him to complete the mission. Period.

So, what calling has you placed on your heart that you haven’t been listening to? Are you so far past having them that you don’t even ask God anymore? Are you just focused on, watch over my family, help me make it through this work day, get a decent spot at the mall, next promotion, and don’t let me get stuck in traffic?

Or is it, God you know what I’m going through, if you would just give me a sign, I’ll do whatever you tell me? But, then you don’t read the Bible enough to realize, he’s already given you the sign, your mission, purpose and calling, and you would just rather wait on magic to drop from the sky, settling for comfort and complacent over sacrifice and obedience?

Come on bro!! Excuses are void in the kingdom of heaven, act like you knew! Don’t be the guy who gets so far off path that you say you believe, but don’t seek Gods will daily, so you walk around professing God, but living nothing like what he’s called you to live. You’re better than that.

So, what’s the answer to this ridiculously long blog?

Fully submit yourself to Gods will daily, no matter how crazy it may seem to others. Use me as an example if you need to. If you know me, I’m not the trophy boy for exceptional Christian. I’m what most churches would call a heretic, a false profit, or lost in sin. Yet, all I eat sleep and breathe is doing Gods will daily. My point is, people will always have an opinion, even the people who thought they were closest to God, killed his son, and the prophets who came before him! Christ rebelled against their man made religion, called them a brood of vipers, prob some more stuff, and then went on to reveal love, care, generosity, forgiveness, and compassion! A little different example than what they had set. He goes on to show mercy trumps sacrifice, and forgiveness and love conquers all. He literally displayed the example of what it means to be his disciple for all to see, when he picked up his cross, took on the sin of judging hypocrites, and said “Father forgive them, they know not what they do!”

Yet in this world, being a true disciple is a stumbling block for most religious people. It’s the very ones who claim to know him the most, that continuously persecute his elect. So, if you don’t look like mans religious church, and you don’t look like the world, you might just find that your walking on the narrow path with Jesus, that he himself said very few will find.

So don’t choose the ways of the world and they will hate you. Don’t seek to align yourself with mans religious customs and narrow viewpoint, they will hate you too.

For they fear what they don’t know, and kill what they can’t understand. Blind guides, full of judgment, an outward display of selfish insecurity, masquerading itself as righteousness. They’ve been judging themselves their whole life, because it is all they’ve known to do. Some past judgment on the world, others understand the word enough that they don’t pass judgment on the world, but comprehend the word enough to pass judgment on the church. Yet when they do so its a perversion, because they do not know love, so they lack the truth. They themselves can’t even look in the mirror and love themselves, so they cannot rightly ever loves others! When they look in the mirror they see sin and not their savior. So they outwardly reflect their shortcomings onto others. Claiming to be free, yet they tie a burdensome yoke onto others that they themself cannot carry, because they have skeletons they cannot bury. Depraved bunch in high positions, appearing to be Shepard’s, but they are like chaff in the wind, being thrown to and fro, judgment to judgment. If the words I speak aren’t from God himself, then let this day be held in account for all to see, so that the motives of my heart be displayed for all to bear witness.

Take the time to seek his will, and you to will find yourself on a similar path. But in this walk of righteousness remember, God won’t place a calling in your heart and not give you the ability to see it through. You just have to have the courage to bring it to fruition.

So in closing, are you choosing comfort or your calling? Search your heart man of GOD, the end has yet to come. Will you have the courage to follow his will? Fear is for the fire lake, be bold and courageous, you’ve been called to go and spread the good news of the gospel, baptize in the name of The Father, The Son, and the Holy Spirit! You have been commissioned!

Stop looking for the approval of man, and rest assure in your approval and right standing in God through Christ, who sacrificed everything for you to be set free! Let God himself be the only judge you consider in your pursuit of his calling. Go to where the pastors don’t preach, and where the teachers won’t teach. Go be a light in dark in the dark, a city on a hill for all to see. Stop settling for tradition, and go complete Gods mission! May his spirit rage inside of you, calling you to relentless actions of faith, being bold as to laugh in the face of fear, and courageously walk out your destiny. God be with you always even until the end of this age. Don’t do, be. because you already are.

From the front lines, -ES

[yoyo-inspace]

HDM HOLIDAY EXCHANGE GIFT

A little bit late, ran into some troubles yesterday, but here it is! I was prompted with soft protective Dadsriel and this is what came to mind - it might not be particularly soft, and it's only reluctantly protective - and Asriel isn't even referred to as a Dad even once! 

Hm. I still hope I managed to hit some of the right notes to fill this prompt.

This has not been beta'd, or edited a lot, so all mistakes are mine.

For @anxiouss-princess on tumblr. I hope you enjoy! :) 

@hdmholidayexchange - thanks for a fun exchange!

Can also be found here on AO3. 

Rotlaust Tre Fell

Summary:  A storm hits Oxfordshire that makes the forest shudder and that whips the rivers into a frenzy. It’s not a night to be outside. 

Of course, that's exactly where Lyra finds herself.

Title from the Wardruna song - translates to Rootless Tree Fell.

--

Lyra is eight years old when she gets caught out in the storm. 

It’s springtime, but instead of budding flowers and birds coming back from the south, the arrival of spring is accompanied by one of the worst storms Oxfordshire has seen in years. It won’t flood, or so they say, but the residents of Oxford and its surroundings still tie down their belongings and huddle together inside as the rain starts beating viciously against rooftops and window panes. The wind makes the trees creak to the point of branches breaking off, and it whips the rivers into a frenzy. It’s not a night to be outside. 

“I told you this was a bad idea,” Pan hisses, hidden as he is beneath Lyra’s far too thin spring jacket, which is already soaked through. He’s in the form of a dormouse, and his paws are clutching Lyra’s shirt, as if to make sure he doesn’t get blown away. Lyra doesn’t reply to his chastising because she doesn’t want to hear it. Also, it’ll hardly help. 

She really had been planning to be back by nightfall. The wind hadn’t picked up until the evening anyway, so how was she supposed to have known? It isn’t like she wants to be here. She’d much rather be huddling in front of the fire at Jordan, or already beneath the blankets in her bed. Instead she’s huddling in the hole left by an uprooted tree, the roots still gnarly and bent above her. It was the best shelter she’d been able to find. She’s muddy and wet, and she’s certain she’ll get a beating once she returns to the college for ruining her dress. In her opinion, they clearly should have given her a dress that’s more durable. She can’t see why she should be blamed for that. 

“It was a stupid bet,” Pan comments again, though she can hardly hear him over the sound of the wind. However, she knows to what he’s referring. A bet with the townie children, about who could find the first spring berries. 

“There en’t any berries out here anyway, and if there was, they’d be blown away by now,” Lyra mutters and wraps her arms tighter around herself. She’d wanted to stay out looking for longer than all the rest, but once the storm had surprised them, she hadn’t been able to find her way back. Then she’d been sliding down a hill and now here she was, hiding until it was over. In comparison, one of Mrs Lonsdale’s harsh baths didn’t sound too bad. 

“-ra!” 

Both their heads snap up, though Pan hears it clearer than Lyra. “Was that someone calling, or was it the wind?” 

They both listen, and for a moment they’re almost convinced that they were tricked by the noise of the storm, which is still raging around them. 

“Lyra!” 

Pan perks up, enough so that his head is above her collar. There’s no mistaking it. “That’s-”

“Thorold!” Lyra shouts as loud as she can, going as far as to stand up from her little muddy alcove, even if the rain gives her hair another whipping. The hole is deep enough to reach to her chest, but it gives little cover once she’s standing up. She isn’t even sure her voice carries over the howling of the wind. What her uncle’s servant is doing out here she has no idea. She didn’t even know Lord Asriel was expected. Had he arrived while she was out in the woods, looking for berries? Another reason to consider the whole expedition a failure if she’d missed him. She shouts again. It’s impossible to see anything, and if she’s not mistaken the wind has picked up. The trees creak worryingly all around her. 

“Sir, over there!” 

She can’t even make out which direction the voice is coming from. Maybe if she squints and puts her hand above her eyes she can make out figures- or no, those might just have been trees- 

There’s more creaking and suddenly someone appears from the side, jumping down into the hole with her, and hands underneath her arms as she’s not very gently shoved out of the hole with a shriek. Pantalaimon turns into an ermine under her jacket to have a better grip. 

“Idiot child!” 

That’s certainly her uncle, and he’s climbing out after her, faster than she can really register. She can’t imagine why he sounds so angry, other than the fact that she can’t imagine anyone being too happy having to go out in a storm like this. But she thought she hadn’t done too badly! She’d even found cover, all on her own, instead of wandering around the forest, which she’s heard you’re not supposed to do when lost.

She was about to explain all this - rain in her mouth be damned - but she doesn’t get much further than a half aborted ‘uncle’ before he grabs her again. 

“Watch out!” 

There’s a loud creaking, and then Asriel is throwing them both to the side, his arms around Lyra as they roll away. Lyra has no idea what happened, but the noise she hears, a loud thump and creak next to them, is at least loud enough to pierce the roaring of the storm. Her back is against the ground, her face tucked into Lord Asriel’s shoulder as his hand cradles her neck for a moment longer. There’s a strange stillness there, in his arms, and she feels impossibly small. Or maybe it’s just the fact that she’s being protected from the rain.

The next thing she knows, Asriel’s getting up and yanking her up with him. It hurts, and she can hear Stelmaria growl as he speaks again. “What the devil possessed you to hide out there?” 

Lyra can’t understand what he means at first. There’s a tone in his voice that she hasn’t heard before, and while his face is hard to see with all the rain, she can’t be imagining that look. It’s not just anger. He’s worried. Despite the situation, and the way she’s started to shiver - or maybe she had been all along - that warms her a little. He never worries. 

Then she catches up with what he’s talking about, and she turns to the hole in the ground which she’d made her temporary shelter. Except the hole is gone, and somehow, the tree that had been lying so kindly to its side, offering her a place to rest, has snapped upright again, as if closing a trap. Lyra stares at the roots digging into the ground where she’d been not a minute earlier. That could have been me, she realises. Buried beneath those roots, and if not pierced by them, then certainly crushed or worse - locked inside a hole in the ground and no one would have heard her. 

Suddenly the shivering catches up with her legs and she can’t quite stand on them, but this time she doesn’t fall to her knees, but is instead hoisted up in Asriel’s arms as he huddles her close. She didn’t noticed growing so cold. 

“Thorold, run ahead and tell them to prepare a hot bath for her,” she hears her uncle say, though he hardly has to shout to be heard over the wind. His voice is already loud enough, and that’s somewhat comforting. The storm is clearly no match for him.

--

Lyra is unsure how she manages it, with the storm thundering overhead, but she falls asleep somewhere before they reach Jordan, and she’s quite groggy as Asriel hands her over to a fussing Mrs. Lonsdale, who immediately sets about stripping off her clothes and getting her into a hot bath, which feels scalding before she grows used to it. At least that did plenty to wake her up, but by then her uncle is already gone. Not that she expected him to stay around bathing her. Mrs. Lonsdale was clearly there for that, scrubbing mud from all over her while prattling on about how irresponsible Lyra is. 

Lyra herself is quiet, though more contemplative than grumpy, and Pan sits on the edge of the bath in the form of a sparrow, just as silent. 

After the bath is done, she’s dressed in her nightclothes, and some warm socks that she’s quite sure are not meant for a child. She’s given another blanket to wrap around her shoulders and then she’s led to one of the guest rooms and sat down in front of the fire. A cup of hot tea is placed in her hands, and she even manages to mumble a thank you to Mrs. Lonsdale, who just scoffs and makes her way out. Lyra sips her tea in silence. If she’s not mistaken, there’s a little bit of honey in it. She never gets honey in her tea. 

Neither she nor Pan have the time to contemplate where they’ve been brought, or take in the presence of large suitcases in the corner of the room clearly marking it as inhabited, before the door opens again. She’s expecting Mrs. Lonsdale, or perhaps the Master come to give her another lecture, but it’s Lord Asriel she sees in the doorway. While he’s hardly in his pyjamas - she’s not even sure she could imagine him in one - he still has a similar blanket to hers wrapped around his shoulders. Lyra wonders if he too were forced into a hot bath, though she doubt Thorold cleaned him off with the same ferocity as Mrs. Lonsdale did for her. There’s silence as he looks at her, and then her uncle turns to the corridor. 

“Thank you, Thorold, you can rest for the night.”

She hears a muffled ‘sir’, and then Asriel enters the room and closes the door, letting out a sigh that’s more tired than any she’s ever heard from him. He doesn’t look at Lyra again but goes to pour himself a glass of- well, something. Lyra isn’t quite sure what, but it’s something the adults drink. Particularly “in trying times” Bernie Johansen, the pastry cook, had told her once, and then he’d laughed when she asked if it was some kind of medicine. Whatever it is, Asriel takes a large sip out of it before he looks back to her. 

“As much as those scholars try to teach you, I suppose outdoor survival courses wouldn’t be their first priority. With how wild you are, perhaps it should be,” he says, and Lyra isn’t sure if it’s supposed to be an insult or a compliment. 

Asriel picks out a book from a rucksack he’s placed on the floor. To her surprise, he then comes over to her in front of the fire and sits down next to her. It’s strange, she thinks, to be on such an even level with him. She hasn’t seen him in at least sixth months, and this wasn’t exactly how she’d imagined their reunion going, but it’s still nice. Her eyes dart over to Stelmaria, who’s settling with closed eyes by the side of the fire. She doesn’t look all that wet from the rain, but Lyra knows that Pantalaimon is cold, with the way he’s wrapped around her shoulders as an ermine again, and so she imagines the snow leopard must be too, despite that thick fur. 

“Lyra, are you listening?” 

Her uncle has her attention again as she looks up at him, clasping her cup of tea with both hands and taking a sip. Her eyes are wide and he looks tired. He’s always ferocious or determined. She doesn’t know if she’s ever seen him tired before. She nods, and he sighs. 

“Good. Now, you know very well that you’re not supposed to go far away from the college,” he starts, and there's an exasperated tone in his voice that makes it clear that he believes it to be an inevitability that she will anyway. Usually he’d have given her a scolding. Lyra hides her grin behind her cup, though with the look he gives her, she can tell she wasn’t successful. “But if you’re determined to be a disobedient wild cat of a child, then at least you could do so without risking your life. You can read, yes?”

A strange question, and Lyra has to fight the urge to roll her eyes. She tends to go quiet in the presence of her uncle, but right now it’s a little bit of a relief, to not have to speak. He seems to be able to get her meaning anyway, because of course she can read. If only to be able to read his postcards.

“Excellent,” he continues and places the book he picked out before in front of them. To Lyra’s surprise, it’s a notebook - a very nice one, in leather. And it’s completely empty. There’s a pen in his hand. “Then let’s make sure there are no repeats of today’s stupid mistake, shall we?”

What follows is the strangest lecture Lyra’s ever received. Lord Asriel is the one writing and drawing, though he shows it to her as he goes about it. He teaches her about how to find her way if she’s lost in the woods - look for the direction of anthills - how to leave trails that won’t be destroyed easily, what marks to leave. He also teaches her about what berries she can and can’t eat, which mushrooms she shouldn’t touch and what snakes are venomous. Lyra doesn’t think she’ll go out into the woods any time soon - the image of being crushed underground is still haunting her - but if she ever did, she’d be a lot more prepared for it. 

Somewhere halfway into his speech about how to find the nearest source of water, Lyra nods off, though she’s tried her very best to stay awake. When she wakes up again, briefly, it’s as Lord Asriel puts her down in her bed. She tries to say goodnight, but she’s not sure if she manages before falling back asleep, Pan curled up next to her. 

--

The next morning she wakes up, and she feels unusually warm. Glancing around her, she notes that this is because she has double the amount of blankets than usual. It’s with certain surprise she realises that her uncle must have given her his. The thought makes her smile, but not as much as when she turns to her nightstand and spots the leather-bound notebook lying there. She reaches out and grabs it, opening the first page, the one before all Asriel’s notes about woodland survival. 

To Lyra. So that she’ll live to reach the age of nine, for which this was a birthday present. Regards, Asriel.

It’s short, but more personal than she’s used to, and Lyra grins wider than she remembers doing in weeks. 

Later, she finds out that Lord Asriel already took the train to London early that morning. While that does fill her with some disappointment, it’s not as harsh as it usually is when he leaves without saying goodbye. She stays inside the whole day, the scholars having given her the day off, and she spends it reading through her uncle’s notes and looking at the quick sketches of leaves and mushrooms. When the time comes to sleep again, she clutches the book to her chest, as if she can soak up the words into her skin. 

“We’ll show him, Pan,” she says and Pan glances up, a sleepy house cat curled up next to her on the bed.

“Show him what?”

“I’ll make it all the way to age ten. By that time, I wager I’ll be an expert, and he’ll have to move on to teaching me about surviving in the North, where there en’t no anthills. After that, he’s sure to bring us with him next time he leaves, don’t you think?” 

Pan mumbles something vaguely pessimistic and Lyra ignores him, as per usual. She falls asleep clutching her notebook and imagines going on a grand adventure in the North, where there’s less mud, and certainly no uprooted trees out to kill her. Besides, if there were, her uncle would surely be there to save her. Lyra, however, is determined to not let that happen. Next time, she’ll make him proud by saving herself.