WHAT’S GOING ON WITH PETER

So something I recently realized I don’t really do is write about what is going on in my life. Like, for reals and not all dressed up in poetic rambling or endless semantics disregarding the normality of the mundane and ignoring the fact that sometimes people just want to hear real talk.
So I decided to do just that. This is me, just me, talking about my life: the strange and the serious, the mundane and the magnificent.
But where do I start? I guess it wouldn’t make much sense to start a whole lot earlier than the beginning of the year so we’ll try that out and see how far I get.
January 1st, 2017.
I was celebrating with friends, some new, some not, the goodness of the Lord at the last worship time at OneThing conference hosted by IHOPKC in Kansas City. It was the second time going to this conference and if you ever get the chance, I highly recommend it. There’s no better way to end your year and start the new one than learning about the Kingdom of God and worshiping our Father. Anyway, at this time I was feeling all sorts of different emotions and struggling with all sorts of ideas that my feeble mind had given me reason to ponder.
I was still struggling with feelings of doubt in regards to God’s power, and why I didn’t see more of it. Keep in mind that at the time I was in a ministry school focused primarily on cultivating and utilizing the spiritual gifts the Lord has given us for ministry. But I didn’t see enough to prove his power. Every instance of a healing, every testimony of his grace never satisfied the demands in my mind for more proof, more proof, more proof.
I also was dealing with the effects of a broken and unresolved relationship that had ended the year before. I knew that I need healing from it but I resisted because healing meant stepping past the wreckage and the smoke of regret that I had become so comfortable in. It meant the future. I was still in the past.
But nevertheless January was a good month for me, as was the rest of the winter. God showed me more of his power, more of his love, and led me into greater depths of his presence.
HarvestNet School of Supernatural Ministry (the school I attended from September of 2016 to May of 2017) was such a Godsend for me. For so long I had hungered to be launched into ministry, a desire that was birthed in me since I was 12. In the past I had often wondered how the Lord would lead me into the calling he wanted me in. I waited, sometimes passively, for his hand to lead me to the place and the people he wanted me to go to.
Was it Africa?
China?
The streets of New York City?
The art scene of LA?
Instead, he laid out the first stone for me in Lancaster, the area I grew up in, an area that has grown close to my heart, an area desperately in need of a move of God. He brought me to a school that was in its first steps, the beta stage, and I was one of the guinea pigs in a class of 17 others.
Are you sure this is it God?
Why can’t I go to Redding?
Why can’t I go to Kona?
But this was from the Lord.
In a class of 17 people, four of them were from different stages of my life, from when I was 7 years old onward. Most of them I hadn’t seen in years upon years. Yet here they were, in the same small school as me. (one of them from the relationship that had ended a few months before)
Crazy, really.
But that’s God.
Through all of the yearning and the learning of that school I think that I grasped one thing.
All I want is God.
That’s an easy of enough thing to say, but keep in mind I could have said “all I need is God”.
Now that’s more politically correct.
I NEED him.
He’s my breath, the song on my tongue, the reason I live, the sustenance for every passion that rages within me.
But I knew that already.
I knew I needed him.
You can need water and still hate drinking it.
No, I needed something more than need.
I needed to want him.
See, I wanted a lot of things.
I wanted answers to my questions, I wanted a girl who would affirm my worth, I wanted my writing to be recognized and revered, I wanted to be popular, I wanted this, I wanted that.
Desire is easy, obsession is not.
I wish I could tell you about a moment, magical and pure, that the Lord met me in an incredible way and silenced my doubts, calmed my fears, and installed an intense desire for him, but sadly, that’s not what happened.
Instead, through thousands of trials and triumphs, tears and aches, moments of clarity followed by moments of doubt, and endless prayers and lessons from heaven, I learned that if you do one thing right in this life, it’s to surrender all you have to him.
Surrender.
So many times he would whisper this in my heart, and I would resist, knowing that I would lose control if I gave in to this simple request.
But day after day, surrender I did.
Some days it would be sweet and freeing, like a warm wind in early spring.
Other days it felt like a nightmare.
But slowly, surrender became a part of me.
When I woke, surrender was there, inviting me into the day.
When I went to sleep, surrender was in my dreams, telling me to stop worrying and start getting excited about the things my precious Jesus was planning for my life.
If surrender could talk, it might say one thing: “Begin to get excited.”
So I did.
The winter passed by and after an international trip with the school I graduated.
There.
I did it.
I was past.
Right?
I remember telling everyone while I was attending the school if they asked me what I was doing after it ended that I was not worried and I knew that the Lord would have something for me after it ended.
Well it ended and nothing was on the immediate horizon.
Like, nothing.
And I heard two simple things from the Lord in regards as to what to do. “Wait, and receive.”
So I began to wait, every day, for one hour in the morning, and try desperately to allow myself to simply receive from the Father’s hands.
At first, it was like pulling teeth.
At first, it felt like religion.
And then the Lord came in a way I can’t quite explain, and I’m not sure it would do much to try and explain what happened here. But know this, if you want intimacy with someone, you have to spend time with them, talk to them, and pursue them.
Intimacy requires action.
So it is with the Lord.
Anyway, the summer was pretty great. There was a lot of working (shoutout to my awesome coworkers), lot of celebrating, good amount of exploring (maybe more next time?), and an incredible trip to Europe with two amazing friends at the very end of it all.
And right now, I’m left with one thought.
The thought is this: what would happen if I actually get to know, for real, the God of the universe?
What does authentic relationship with him look like?
Could I walk with him like Enoch?
Could I see him like Moses?
Could I talk with him like Elijah?
Could I depend on him like Jeremiah?
If his eyes are searching for a person whose eyes are fully set on him, has he found that person yet?
What would it take for me to be that person?
What would it take for me to truly know him?

In other news I currently am doing second year of HarvestNet School of Supernatual Ministry, it’s going really well, I’m attending Threshold Church, helping out at The Living Room, helping act in and direct a small play by Piercing Word (look em’ up) as well as working and trying desperately to stay sane. I feel like it’s a lot and right now I’m trying to make my schedule and my time reflect what’s important in my life. I’m not entirely sure what that means, but I’m excited for what the Lord has for me in the future. (if it includes a book deal and a beautiful woman to love I can’t say I’ll hate it but hey it’s just a suggestion Lord thanks)

Also in other news Jesus is real.
Really real.

Believe it.