I recently led a four-day retreat in Ulladulla, New South Wales, Australia with people journeying in this life of being Abba's sons and daughters. It was a retreat but it was more like an advance.
I felt an unprecedented freedom with this group because we were mostly on the same page as to the path we all want to explore. It is a path into the unknown.
While I was there I got to explore some areas that I have not explored before. I am itchy in my sonship, itching to move onwards, building on the indispensable of comfort-love.
For some of us it is time to flex our baby-muscles and begin to take steps. Some of us are ready for kindergarten, for pre-school, for greater confidence in expressing ourselves in love.
This time I did not impart the substance of comfort, I imparted the substance of confidence.
Laying again the foundation of freedom from condemnation, we explored what it means to enter an inheritance of promise. It is one thing to be delivered from the 'Egypt' of orphanness; it is a different thing to explore the land of inheritance.
Another thing we explored (tentatively, I must emphasise) was what it means to move in the supernatural authority of sons and daughters. Moving in spiritual power is something that has been 'paused' in my life, because, without love I was just a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal. Now it is time for 'pushing the envelope' in ruling and reigning in love's dominion.
As I love to do, I relished another opportunity to smash that old 'sacred-secular divide.' I took the step of laying hands on and 'ordaining' those who are fully immersed in 'secular' life. I 'ordained' sons and daughters in their callings as business leaders, government employees, economists, teachers, physiotherapists, workers in the voluntary sector.
I will develop some of these themes in the next season.
Seeing the lorikeets was a bonus...
Group photos by Scott Mitchell