24-7 Prayer USA: Live, Learn, LoveJoe Steinke - 27 Dec 2011

During Christmas week we're taking a look back over the year and re-blogging some of our favourite posts. This one from Joe Steinke was originally published as part of our US Take Over week back in May.

Joe Steinke, who leads up the network of communities that comprise 24-7 Prayer USA, shares from his heart on lessons he's learning from his son and the spiritual family growing around the U.S.

Live. Learn. Love.

Our highly entertaining and occasionally high maintenance 12-year-old son Devon has taken up seasonal obsessions since he was able to walk and talk. It started with big earth-moving machines, then robots, then dinosaurs, then graduated to more sophisticated things like skateboarding and playing Guitar Hero so well that he could stand with his back to the screen on expert level without missing a note.

His latest obsessions have put him in front of peer audiences while playing original rock guitar instrumentals he wrote, stripping off his shirt and throwing it into a screaming gaggle of adolescent girls at the middle school talent show.

He's also been keen to inquire about the facts of life and went through quite an obsessive season where everything related back to "The Talk," which he had with me...oh my... and then freely announced to everyone that he had had "The Talk" and was in the know now, not to worry!

You see, Devon operates out of a confident freedom that the world is his stage and is to be enjoyed and explored as he grows up and discovers his loves and likes and best things. Some would say he's overconfident and needs a reality check, but I disagree. I actually think Devon is right in stride with what we as hopeful loving parents would want for him.

To live in the present with engaged enthusiasm, obsessively.

To learn who he is and how he's uniquely graced and gifted through experiential discovery.

To love being a son and a friend and a "player" in this world.

What Devon has going for him is his youthful wonder and hopeful imagination. But many of us have had both of these things squeezed out of us by the death grip of our own demons haunting us from our childhood or recent adulthood, choking the "live, learn and love" right out of our suffocated souls.

So, the Kingdom belongs to such as these...Hmmm...

What if the Father's pleasure is to give us back our youthful wonder and hopeful imagination? What if, in Jesus Christ, dwells all the fullness of life and He came to share that abundance with us as a free gift from his Father? What if the first and last and relentless address of the Holy Spirit is to share with us all that we have in Christ Jesus? He will find ways to tackle the cynical, jaded brat in us to the ground, knock the wind out of our sour lungs, and say, "I know who you are, now let Me show you." (Of course, with a smile and a kiss on the cheek.)

What if we've stumbled our way into the Father's pleasure through our failures and funk? Tripping over our own stubborness to a flat-on-our-back surrender. Yes, even laughing about what a fool we've been as tears run down into our ears.

You see, to such is the Kingdom. To the ones who will lay there long enough to say, "All right already! You're bigger 'n' stronger and I'm really, really tired. I'm ready to hear You say the things I need to hear."

What if we've stumbled our way into the Father's pleasure by hacking out little sacred spaces where listening prayer lets holy hunch whispers become audible addresses? Where prayer communities learn to live in the abundance of Jesus' life shared with us. Where spiritual family loves one another with authentic, open honesty and still stays together in graceful communion. Where living, learning and loving recover their innocence in the Father's house.

Let's be that home together where we can, like Devon...

Live in the present with engaged enthusiasm, obsessively.

Learn who we are and how we're uniquely graced and gifted through experiential discovery.

Love being a son and a friend and a "player" in this world.

I'm hearing echoes of a Kansas tune in my head.

Carry on my wayward son
There'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more

I'm going to ask Devon to obsessively figure out the solo and play it for me without stripping his shirt off.