a·bun·dance /əˈbəndəns/
noun
a very large quantity of something.
Who could blame us? It seemed like we were hearing encouragement at every turn. A larger national ministry had invited us to shadow them at one of their regional events. We seemed to have unprecedented circles of people interested in what we were doing. There were some new advocates that seemed able to open up much larger pipelines of attendees. A couple of us were even operating with unprecedented margin heading into the event.
Why would we expect anything other than there being a lot more men at our boot camps. We considered the idea of moving to a larger venue, maxing out our current location, and even toyed with using tent camping to grow the current capacity. Surely “more” meant bigger and larger numbers of attendees. “More” was clearly in our future and we needed to prudently prepare for the inevitable.
Several weeks before the event, however, we were at historically low levels of sign-ups. Had we misinterpreted what we were sensing and hearing? On a conference call with our intercessor team several weeks before the boot camp, one of the things we heard is that “more” might mean something different. It might just be abundance beyond our wildest dreams, but more in terms of depth than bigger numbers. Sign-ups really started to accelerate after that call and we ended up with 46 men for the weekend. Not at capacity, but close to typical sign-up levels.
We ended up finding out how much “more” the Father had for us:
- More breakthrough for the men, earlier in the weekend
- More understanding of taking jurisdictional authority over the camp
- More profound covering, protection, and understanding through the intercessor team
- More conversational, confident, and real presentation of the messages
- More significant sense of sonship from the Father for our entire team
- More camaraderie and sense of team as coheirs of this Kingdom work
- Unprecedented partnering with the men relationally with clear steps for connection ongoing
It was way “more” than we could have hoped or dreamed. But it was even more than that.
With much clearer understanding of sonship…
just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us…
…we fully claimed more of our heritage. As co-heirs, sons of God, who were uniquely created and wonderfully made to bear one aspect of the Father’s profound glory different than all other members of His creation, we countered a lie:
more of Him in less of me
The right equation is something far different than we have been taught to believe. In terms of the new heart given to us and our new identity as the redeemed, what we really need is…
more of Him in more of me
A pernicious lie that has neutered and numbed us and our spiritual brethren was exposed. What we need are men, leaders, fathers, mothers, offering more of themselves… in more of Him. There is a rising strength I feel in that statement that I didn’t fully understand until I ventured out from under the shroud of the other. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23), but He made a way for us (Rom 3:24). As the redeemed, the Kingdom needs more of us in more of Him. As Steven Pressfield says:
“Don’t cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you got.”
I think that fully grasping this “more” means we are now ready for the other. Expand our territory… we are ready for more!
- What does “more of Him in more of you” look like in your life?
- What areas of your life need “more of Him in more of you”?
- What is it costing you and others to not be realizing the full weight of that?