How often I’ve asked and heard this question asked? In its various forms, the question is our heart’s scream to know what or what more God wants from us?

More and more, I believe the answer comes down to one thing.

Jesus replies, “Love the LORD your God with all of your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. This is the greatest commandment.” (Matthew 22:37-38)

As I am daily ambushed by God’s outrageous love for me, I am more and more convinced that seeking God’s will for my life is the wrong search. But I should search for His will in my life, and His will is the same as it has always been.

He wants you to love Him with all that you are. Your experiencing God depends on you having a sincere and real relationship of love. I am more and more convinced that this is more important than any.thing.else in your life.

Every decision, big or small, everything in your Christian life, everything about knowing God and knowing His will is fully dependent on the intimacy of your love relationship with God.

If this lynchpin is not in place, nothing…nothing in your life will be right.

I remember praying the words of Switchfoot from the very sincere depths of his heart,

“Let me know that you hear me.
Let me know your touch
Let me know that you love me.
Let that be enough.”*

I listened to the song and prayed it sincerely almost 5 times on repeat from my home to the church.  I sat in the parking lot, BEFORE church already preparing my heart in honesty with a basic cry, “God, please let me know that you hear me.  I don’t ask you to solve my problems, my anxieties or my fears.  I merely pray that you let me know that you hear me.”

There are times we thirst for and grow parch for lack of God’s presence.

I remember worshiping and singing to a God I knew loved me, but whom I had needed to just BE with. I remember standing to worship again and choosing to only mouth the words and let them really speak and scream from my heart,

“You’re all I want…
You’re all I need…”

* Let That Be Enough by Switchfoot

I was installing floating shelves in the bathroom
the sight of daddy’s tools draws my daughter
“I want to help, Dadda!”
By this, she means, “I want to see what you are doing,
and be where you are.”
She began to take tools away from my work space
She picked up necessary screws and hardware

She is not helping.
She was in my way.
But my love would not turn her away

Jesus said, “My Father is always at work…the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do ONLY what he sees His Father doing…For the Father loves the Son and shows him all He does.” (John 15:17, 19-20)

My God, I know you are at work around me all the time.
While I realize I am only going to slow you down
and get in your way
I trust that you love me and purposely
show me what you are doing.
I want to join you.
I want to be a part of what you are doing
and be where you are.

Soul, I will address you as the Psalmists do. Oh my soul within me, why do you continue to focus on the discouragement, shame, and self-defeat? Why do you not focus on Jesus and the rest he gives to you? (Matthew 11:28-29) Why do you believe the lies of the Imposter within you? Listen to the truth of Jesus’ words, come to Him, and he will give you rest.

In Jesus, you find your rest. In Jesus, you find rescue and refuge from your troubles. In Jesus, you will find rest you crave and desire. Oh heart within me, you are under the weight of defeat, and you need rest. Only in Jesus will you find rest from self-defeat, hopelessness, and shame. Listen up, soul! You need rest! Only when you are focused on Jesus will you not be be focused on the destructive lies and inner-dialogue.

Oh my soul, come to Jesus this morning [and tomorrow....and the next day], and you WILL find rest.

More and more, I am reminded that prayer is my relationship with God. It is not an element or part of my relationship. It is the largest challenge to my heart right now. I need prayer to be a much larger priority than it is.

Prayer is when my heart, mind, and soul are all focused on God instead of all the things of life I do not control anyway. Because of that focus, prayer is when I truly know and love God. Prayer is when I can be close to God, my Abba and my Lord. Prayer is when and where I can be the beloved one of God.

I realize when I choose to make little time for prayer, I am saying to God I am not truly committed to this relationship. I also realize every life that is greatly used by God throughout all of history and present have a common denominator of a dynamic, fervent, prayer life, and I really want my life to be used greatly by God to bring Him glory and bring more people to know His love and His hope.

Satan fears the power of a praying person (2 Cor. 10:3-5, 7; Eph. 6:10-17), but my flesh is weak and resists the fervent discipline (Matt. 26:40-41; Rom. 7:14-18). There is power in a fervent daily prayer life that is very different from our world’s idea of power.

My God, my Abba, help me make our relationship the greatest priority in my life. Help my heart, mind, and soul paint a stark picture of how absolutely ridiculous it is to pursue anything else more. Help me place nothing, even good things, above you and our relationship. Fill me with desire to be devoted to prayer. Help me entangle with you so that Jesus may live His life through me all the more each day. Grant me a hunger for you. I do not want to neglect our relationship. I need it so desperately.

We are made in the imago dei. Every human being is made in the image of God. This means a great many things. Specifically, it does mean we are all connected. As God is 3 in 1, we are all connected in a great way. There is a solidarity to the image of God we are all connected within.

Think of this!

This means every interaction, no matter how passing or intentional, has an impact. Every smile, hug, and conversation has an impact. Every relationship, no matter how intimate or shallow, has an impact. You may never see a person again, but in that second your smile could impact the rest of their hour or day. It means even your small acquaintance has an impact.

Think of how crazy it is that you, a human being, have the capacity to impact another human being.

What impact will you have?

The phone call still resonates in my head sometimes. My football coach called me the day after the first day of practice for the season. He was calling because I had not showed up for the first day. I was a senior, and I had played for this man for 3 years already. I made a decision to quit my senior year and not play football any longer. I had not told him this; I just chose not to show up to practice.

That action was what made it clear to my coach that I did not really want to play football. The ones who really wanted to play showed up for practice.

How many times have I prayed short snapshot prayers to tell God, “I want to grow spiritually. I want you to use me in ministry. I want to know you more and see you do crazy things in my life, my family, and my ministry.” Yet how many times has God responded with the words of Jeremiah 29:13. “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.“

If I say I want to grow and yet seldom show up for the practice of serious prayer, I am kidding myself. God cannot teach me to pray and speak to my heart and guide me toward growth if I refuse to show up for practice.

We learn to pray by praying and showing up.

Anyway, it was wonderful to be with the men I lived close to for a year and see where their lives were then and now.  My mind went back to a conversation I had with a friend of mine on campus.  She said, “Ya know!  They say the floor almost always becomes reflections of their RA.”  I thought to myself, “Oh no!  That cannot happen.  Nobody wants that.  One P.C. is bad and crazy enough.”  Then I went back to visit them and realized how true that is of ANY LEADER on ANY LEVEL.  If you are like me, you realize how ridiculously humbling it can be.

I went back to find freshmen and sophomores then sophomores and juniors who were IN LOVE WITH THE GOSPEL.  I went back to see the craziest guys on campus then…still crazy…but almost each and every one of them filling some sort of leadership role.  I saw several of them in raw honest accountability groups [ash trays included].  I saw a group of guys who pursued God with all their hearts.  I got to see a group of guys in love with Jesus at the very core of their being but who are looked down upon as the “unorthodox” group.

My last day there, one of the guys came up to me before I left for the airport and said, “PC, I just went to an interview for [a large Christian summer camp], and the guy asked me, ‘Who is one leader in your life you have respected the most and why,’ and I said, ‘PC Walker, my RA last year.”  He said it was because I lead in a way that built a relationship he respected, and then it was as though I stepped back to watch them grow.

I had no idea.  I was just getting close to my guys and letting them get close to me…the real me.

No matter what level of leadership you are in…even if you do not think you are a leader (you ARE), WE ALL PASS A BIT OF OURSELVES ONTO OTHERS.  That is the great inevitability of relationships.  We all have INFLUENCE to give and receive, to pass on and take on.  Its as easy as creating relationships.

I was washing dishes, and Bryleigh came into the kitchen saying, “I’m putting on make up, Dadda, to be pretty.” I asked, “What?” in that way fathers do when they know exactly what they said.

“I’m still putting on make up. I’m not pretty yet, Dadda.”

There are moments as a father, which are weightier than others, and you have to be present enough to catch. This is one of those moments.

I realize my daughter has dug into her mother’s makeup bag because it is fun to do what mom does, but her statement struck my heart in a way I would not pass over. This was an opportunity.

“You do not need makeup to be pretty, Bryleigh. You are so pretty.”

That was not hard to say nor did it take but a few moments of being present enough to seize. My 2 year old playfully saying, “I’m still putting on make up. I’m not pretty yet, Dadda” was an opportunity to be a Dad before there is an emotional belief behind that statement.

I am not against my daughter putting on make up (later), but I am vehemently against my daughter ever believing she needs makeup to be pretty.

My hero finally rests in Abba’s embrace for his Father was very fond of him.

Can I come speak at your church, retreat, camp, or event this summer or fall? I would love to chat about those opportunities. Click over to my SPEAKING PAGE and we can figure something out.

Every man, single, dating or married is called to be the cover for women around them.  For the fact is that we are called to protect women.  This is not to say that women are weak and all that crap.  Men are still called to be a cover for their sisters in Christ.  We are called to be honorable and protecting of their spirituality, their conditions of heart and emotions.  We are called to stand for them and be there for them as men willing to fight for our sisters’ heart, spirit, body and soul.  No woman or girl is just a woman or girl.  Each woman is still a member of the body of Christ, and no matter what relation that woman…any woman has to you; be it your mother, your sister, your girlfriend, your friend, or even the girl whose name you don’t even know. No matter what role any woman plays in your life, she is still your responsibility.  This is not a matter of ruling over, but a matter of honor and protecting.  As a man, I am called to cover, protect, and honor the heart of each woman.  To fight for and protect each woman’s condition of heart, mind, spirit, and body.  Why do men wait until they’re in a relationship to start realizing this stuff?  Why have I sought so hard to be a ‘man of God’ my entire life and failed to realize I am not just called to respect and honor the girl I was interested in at the time?  No!  If I am a true man of God, I am called to honor, protect and cover EVERY woman.  No woman is just a woman.  Each woman is my responsibility.  I am my sister’s keeper!

The gospel is lavished and laced with LOVE. If you know the gospel, you know you are loved. If you spread the gospel to others, you spread love. Oh how I long to love. I really wish I loved better…loved more.

It really is hard to love everyone. “Loving your enemy” is and will always be a difficult task, but why are we so quick to run from that challenging call? I am beginning to think it is not that the Church is “no good” at it as much as I would say Christians have been conditioned to not even try. Christians have walked further and further away from the challenge to love OUR dark side of life, and we do it by HIDING. By pretending.

For too long, we have believed and maintained hope by pretending that things are not as bad as they are. We have reduced the church down to a Sunday morning event rather than an EVERYDAY community. We are content to put band-aids on every Sunday, go to ‘church’, and walk away with gaping wounds nobody is willing to believe actually exist.

Church is no longer an everyday community where we honestly face evil happing in our CHURCH every day; issues like abuse, marital rocks, terminal sickness, cyber-adultery, depression, flat-lining-self-esteem, doubt…sin! We are more and more reluctant to face the issues of everyday, and we leave ‘church’ to be a Sunday morning EVENT! We have to realize that there IS evil in our church…OUR CHURCH COMMUNITY…everyday community.

If we don’t, we will watch the gospel remain a sermon that is a part of the Sunday morning event. There IS hurt, evil, and sin in our church community…in our world. We have to realize that our relationship with Christ is not intended to COVER UP the dark side of life, but rather to illuminate a path THROUGH IT! [Tweet that] We have to realize we are called as the church to be the hands and feet to love and stand before the pain. To take on the dark side of life instead of pretending it is not there. We cannot be afraid of the pain. We cannot hide from the sin, hurt and evil in our church.

We WILL be bloodied by the contact, yes! But we will be the community we are intended to be, the community which goes beyond being pumped with spiritual adrenaline on Sunday morning. Sunday morning is a congregation, but the church is an EVERYDAY COMMUNITY!!

Because God will ENFOLD AN HONEST STRUGGLER IN LOVING ARMS.  The good news is that hatred of God and others decreases as Christ takes the heart inch by inch, but it comes only through honest and passionate struggle with God.  We may be a new creation, but we are not a perfect creation.  The war over hatred and sin may be won ultimately, but the battle to replace hatred with love will be over only when we see Jesus in flesh.  We can and will be angry with God, but have to be honest without reserve.  We must understand the Holy Spirit will not allow a bottomless cup of anger to exist, and most often the heart will be engulfed in love when we are honest with God.

You are successful, PC. No matter what anyone else says or expects of you, if you will remain obedient, faithful, and passionate, you are and will be successful.

Trust this, PC. Trust it and allow your aching heart to be affected by what I am saying to you.

I have given you this word:

SUCCESSFUL

You are my son. I am very pleased with you. You have been obedient and faithful through your ache and dryness. PC, you are successful and I have wired you for this success.

I DEFINE YOUR SUCCESS, PC. No one and nothing else defines your success. If you remain obedient to the things I have wired you for!

I love you, PC. I have never left you. I have never been far off from you. In fact, your aching heart has been so much closer to me than you even realized.

We will be lovers once more. I have your heart. I always have. Even when it aches, it has always been mine. I am proud of you, and you are successful, son.

He told me “We’re very proud of the ministry we have here.”
“We have worked very hard to build a well-oiled machine.”
He went on to describe what I could only assume to be
parts of his machine and turned to ask if could see myself as a
part of his ministry, and I wish he hadn’t asked.

You see, some people build ministry
like a well-oiled machine.
They put in all their time, money, and people in hopes
that the machine will produce
the right produce, the right person, the right number
beware when your ministry becomes a well-oiled machine
for machines have not hearts

And some people build ministry like a well-oiled machine
that keeps breaking down.
They put in all their time, money, and people
and the machine will not produce.
Take courage, my friends; it is still a machine
and machines have not hearts

Machines have no need for miracles
they only ask for miracles
and then operate in ways to make miracles unnecessary
Machines are built with big budgets and bigger buildings
and I wish I could write these words in braille
so someone could feel what I’m saying

You don’t need God
to build a machine

But worship is for the broken ones
smart enough to know how foolish they are
It is for those who have tried and found life lacking
but are not content to confess that ‘this’ is all there is

If is for those wearied of wondering
if our crying hearts might drown us
but know that our tears are telescopes to heaven
looking through trembling lenses for hope
and deeper senses of home

It is for those who don’t need church
to be a menagerie of saints but an emergency room for sinners
it is for those whose shadows are faint
from finding too much light

Worship is for those who will step out onto nothing
hoping to land on something
because accepting that you are accepted
is a perception of yourself not everyone can afford
it is for the wobbly and weak-kneed
who have let loose the luxury of denying a handout
of amazing grace

It is for those who chose a path
though straight and narrow
is still rugged and beaten
you are still on the right path

Worship is for phobic confessor
who could never match the projections of the pious
but know that perfection is a gangly wire
no one could ever walk

It is for the child who holds
that heaven is full of five year olds
sparing themselves the futility of proving themselves
to people who will never speak your language
of half cartoon, half boo boo, half “Daddy, I love you.”
Three halves make one
more than whole

Do not accept yourself as you should be
but as you are because you will never be as you should be
Quit rinsing your filthy rags in gas station bathrooms
as if hand soap and make believe
will make them believe you belong;
but you belong.
You belong to a kingdom
belonging to people not trying to cleaner than they are
You belong

Worship is for the sin-soaked and the broken
who are loved and outspoken
knowing unworthy is not the same as worthless

It is for the paupers
who have made peace with their flaws
It is for those who have prayed in silence
but have never ceased to pray

Worship is for you
do not for one second take your gift for granted
make sure it is contagious
because while it is yours to have
it is only valuable in its giving away

be sure your every conversation
leaves a sensation of love
because this is where the mighty descend and the lowly rise
to comprise what we all crave

Worship is standing on the lip of the Grand Canyon
with a contagious tour guide tell you to
“Look at THIS! Look at THAT! Look at THIS! Look at THAT!”
and if the Grand Canyon is only a faint shadow of God’s glory
you have to wonder, “What must HE be like?”

You are not a worship singer, a backup vocalist, a drummer
a guitarist, a basist, or a sound tech
You are a worship leader
You are a tour guide to God’s glory
So stand and shout for all who will listen
“Look at THIS! Look at THAT! Look at THIS!”

These cities were to be a place for people who had killed another to escape. It was not a place to go be innocent and free of guilt. It was a place of protection. Why protect the murderer? These places were for them to escape those who avenge the victims. It was God’s justice. Wait, what?

God knows our revenge is always more emblazened and severe. God protects from unequal severity of revenge. The murderer, though in refuge, remains under judgement for his wrong. That is until the acting priest dies. (ps, another interesting reality is that the cities of refuge were always maintained by the priestly tribe. The mission of the cities of refuge should be the mission of pastors, ministers, and followers of Jesus.) Like us, they were under judgement until our High Priest died to free us from under the burden of judgement.

Yesterday, I was contacted by a ministry to my neighborhood (Oak Park/Tahoe Park). The ministry is called, City of Refuge Sacramento. While it is not a hiding place for murders, it is a place to reach into a community to which high crime and poverty is attributed. It is a ministry which attempts to infiltrate in community to make efforts toward this freedom out from under the burden of the judgement.

CIty of Refuge – BT FInal from Better Together on Vimeo.

Many of us are excellent organizers, promoters, strategists, leaders, but we are poor pray-ers. Many of us rely on our gifts and talents instead of God who gave those gifts and talents, and that reliance and power is in prayer. Where there is little prayer there is little power.

Prayer is not an element of our relationship with God. Prayer IS your relationship with God. [Tweet That]

Do I want a powerful new relationship with God? Do I hunger and thirst for deeper spiritual filling and vibrant ministry. I can go nowhere God is not already (Ps. 139:7-12). I cannot escape his presence, but I can entirely miss him.

God, allow my heart to be affected by this word.

The word passion means “to be affected by” [Tweet That]
Think of the things you are passionate about.

You are passionate about those things you are most affected by, and that may be just about anything. When I think of the picture of my life and its passions, I want to create a picture of how ridiculous it is to be more passionate about anything other than Jesus Christ and his presence, his love, his grace, and his Spirit.

Does prayer affect me? When I pray, do I come from a place where my heart is affected and affectionate, or are they words without thoughts?

Does my time in God’s word affect me? Do I read the things I read wanting to allow myself to actually be affected by what I read, or am I just reading words without thoughts?

Is my life affected by the love of God today? Not effected, but affected. The former I do not control, the latter I do. Do I allow my heart and life to be affected by the gospel? Am I truly passionate about my life with Christ? Does it affect me today? Do I allow his grace to affect my emotion, my choices, and my thirst for MORE?

These are the true questions of passion.

Jesus does not let them off easy. He challenges them to realize it is not Jesus who needs to give them more faith to love and forgive. They need to understand that it only takes a little to do so much. Even the smallest amount of faith is plenty to forgive if a person is willing and wants to forgive. There are risks of course! We are called to love in a fallen world. We will forgive and love at the risk and inevitability of seeing more pain. But we MUST love and forgive. We must be willing to give at least a little faith. It goes a long way.

Now remember, these thoughts came through a struggle. (Tying it all together) This came after expressed HONEST struggle with God. I believe God honors our struggle and despises our tepid, lukewarm droning. We are not preschoolers who walk straight lines because we are attached to a rope. God honors the honest struggler. There are too many Christians trying to find life through soothing their soul, but I believe true passion is brought forth in honest struggle. I think our wrestling match with God is pregnant with passion and confidence. The good news is hatred of God and others decreases as Christ takes the heart inch by inch, but it comes only through honest and passionate struggle with God. We may be a new creation, but we are not a perfect creation.

The war over hatred and sin may be won ultimately, but the battle to replace hatred with love will be over only when we see Jesus in flesh. We can and will be angry with God, but have to be honest without reserve. We must understand the Holy Spirit will not allow a bottomless cup of anger to exist, and most often the heart will be engulfed in love when we are honest with God.

Shooting off my mouth is always from a shotgun
Carelessly without regard for the fact
those shells have to land somewhere

The question of just about any presentation of grace is the same Paul rhetorically poses, “So then should I just sin so that grace may increase? Of course not.” So what is the answer to anyone who DOES sin so that their grace may increase? What about those who will say, “I have a reason and excuse to sin. I can sin because PC said God doesn’t care what I’ve done. God will love me.” That picture is again the outstanding picture of grace that is my marriage.

I vowed to love Tonya and cherish her as a gift of God. I would be naïve to say I will always do these things without tripping up. There WILL be times I will not honor Tonya perfectly. There will be times I will not cherish her and hold her in the regard she should be held. There will be times she does not receive love from me as she needs and desires.

Now will she give up on me and divorce me? No! She will go on loving me even though I have hurt her. But that is not the deepest cut. The deepest cut comes from the fact that I will have broken an eternal covenant we set in place through spoken vows. Each time I do not love, honor and cherish her, I break a covenant. She still loves me anyway. I DON’T DESERVE THAT!!!

Now imagine you are good friends with Tonya or some other wife, and she comes continuously to you about her husband. Suppose she tells you how many times he has emotionally wrecked her with absolutely no regard. Suppose she tells you how many times he unabashedly destroys the promises he made to her. Suppose you knew these things. Are you inclined to say, “Well Tonya! That’s great! Now your grace may increase to him?”

I am compelled to realize how much grace Tonya really does show me. How much of an idiot I would be if I paid no mind of her grace and continually abused it! Sure she may always forgive me and love me, but in the end I’d only be abusive.

I see how much she forgives me and loves me despite my broken promises and I desire even more to love and serve her.

Such is God’s grace! Do I just abuse it or does his grace drive me to a realization of my disregard?

Sometimes our heart needs the release of complaint and moaning before God. Verse 6 says “oh that I had wings like a dove I would fly away and be at rest” (think Forrest Gump’s Jenny). There are moments in life we wish we could just fly away from, but those are moments we need honest prayer that gets us to verse 16; something lets call an “as for me” moment.

It is good for us to moan complain and sigh in these times, but we must come around to an as for me moment where we call on God knowing he will hear when we cast our burden upon The Lord He will sustain us.

The founder of an organization rescuing girls from human trafficking was asked in an interview if he was really making a difference. When for every girl rescued traffickers are still ensnaring more girls. The founder replied that he was unqualified to answer that question. The radio host, irritated, did not understand how the founder of organization like this could be unqualified to answer that question. The founder replied, you will have to ask one of the girls we have rescued if we are making a difference.

I will spare you the starfish illustration most of you have heard too many times while still giving you the reminder my heart has needed recently.

Do not allow the weight of difference needed in the world to paralyze you from making a difference somewhere for someone today.

I want to introduce you to a Greek word:

prosopon (pros’-o-pon)

It means both face
and presence
Seek God’s face and find yourself there
in His presence

When I am worshipping God, am I really placing value…understanding the value…spiritually, intellectually, prophetically and trustingly putting value on God the loving ridiculous Daddy?  It takes a sincere awareness and outpouring of honor.

When life’s vibrations turn to shaking
the only way to calm it is
to take hold of something solid and unshakable