“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

C.S. Lewis

Okay, so you have probably seen this quote before if you are a regular reader of this post, but it keeps coming to mind in different contexts. C.S. Lewis is speaking to desire here, but desire is largely shaped by our understanding of what is possible.

If I am honest with myself, I don’t think I really expected that much from Christianity in my first couple of decades of walking in the faith. I would have told you that I had huge expectations, but what I’ve found is that I was operating with a very thin understanding of what is truly available.

About a dozen or so years ago, I began to be introduced to some new categories that were always meant to be part of my spiritual heritage. While they were all mentioned from time to time, I don’t ever recall them being emphasized or taught as a primary “category” of my faith. Once I started to learn and walk more fully in these categories, I was very angry at first. Angry, and then brokenhearted.

Why didn’t anyone ever tell me any of this?

Dallas Willard refers to Christianity for most consisting of little more than a lifelong lesson in sin management with a get-out-of-hell-free card at the end. I would love to disagree with him, but I simply can’t.

I am beginning to understand there is so much more. There is a power, nobility, and essential nature to every one of our lives. Some of the new categories I have been introduced to are:

Spiritual warfare
Sonship
Conversational intimacy with God
Healing/restoration
New name/identity
Calling

I’ll spend the next few posts talking about some of these categories. I still feel like I’m a gangly young teenager in many of these areas, but my growing understanding has powerfully changed everything about how I live and it is wildly affecting the Kingdom role I am playing.

I spent the last weekend diving deeper into these categories with 50 men. There is a life that the Father intends for all of us that is way beyond what most of us have hoped or dreamed. Certainly beyond what most of us have been taught. I have tasted and seen dozens of my spiritual countrymen enjoy a first course at that extraordinary banquet feast this last weekend.

"The sleepers are awakening… and not a moment too soon."

Our enemy prowls. He has pulled the wool over our collective eyes. Time to start thinning the veil and unleashing the intended glory we were all created to offer. Our marriages, our fathering, and all that we lead in the enterprises we’ve been given stewardship over, hang in the balance.

Are the categories mentioned above, part of the everyday expression of your faith?

Have you been made aware of them? Have you been taught and trained?

Do you have the courage to pursue what is truly possible as a co-heir of the Kingdom?