Prayer at the imagination-station. aka. my mind.

I want to tell y’all about an experience I had while in the Prayer room yesterday. I was sitting in the prayer room and the team leading was singing “Strong Love” by Jon Thurlow, I really like this song, and yesterday God met me while I was singing it.

The bridge goes like this:

“Your love is so high,

Your love is so wide,

Your love is so deep,

Your love is so long.”

Because I enjoy worshiping the lord with my imagination, I was trying to picture it in my head to help me relate and worship. So I initially imagined myself in front of a huge wall that continued left and right as far as I could see. I feel like He brought correction to my thinking. If the wall is God’s love, then there isn’t and depth because I’m standing at the bottom of the wall already. I’m already at the bottom. So I imagined myself standing in front of a giant rainforest, at the very edge of it, but He reminded me, that though the trees are very tall, they all have a height that ends. So I pictured myself in a boat on very calm water, just like the painting I had done and sold earlier, It's posted here on my website in the illustration section.) but He again reminded me almost without words, that this image wouldn’t work either because in a boat I’m already sitting at the top of the water. So I imagined myself on the side of a mountain, surely now there is more mountain below, above and on either side of me relative to my position. He told me again that this image doesn’t work because mountains get smaller as you get closer to reaching the peak. At this point I’m a little frustrated, and I say “Well, God, I can’t see it, I can’t place myself in front of it.” And His response to me, very gently, He said to me “That’s because you’re already inside of it.” And He showed me, myself getting sucked into a massive orb-like blue thing. I became so filled with His joy, that I’m crying as I laugh so hard that no sound is actually coming out. Later that night my core group leader Robert referenced the same passage I’m sure Thurlow was thinking about when he wrote the song. Ephesians 3:14-19 says;

¹⁴ For this reason I kneel before the Father, ¹⁵ from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. ¹⁶ I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸ may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Robert pointed out that Paul says he prays this for Christians, how often are we praying for ourselves, that we would be empowered to know and comprehend that which surpasses knowledge. Maybe if we did, we’d be a lot more excited about the subject of His love. …excuse me, I need to go pray.

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Double-Dose: our need for a purpose.

For the past several days the teachers in class, the speaker at the fellowship meeting on Saturday, and what I’ve been reading have all been fitting together into a nice package. I’m not saying it wasn’t their intention, but it is rather convenient.

Friday morning, Mark, the head of our One Thing Internship at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City gave a talk about “the power of a focused life” sighting Proverbs 29:18 “Where there is no vision, the people perish” and that the greatest law, Mark 12:30 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” So from here he starts talking about desire… What?

Mike Bickle does a great job in his book The 7 Longings of the Human Heart describing things that we were all created to desire. We long for these aspects: to be enjoyed, to be fascinated, to be beautiful, to be great, to be intimate without shame, to be whole hearted and to make a deep lasting impact, because we are created in God’s image, and these things are in his heart as well. I gotta say that I’ve been meaning to read this book for a long time, but have just never made the time to do it. Well I told you that part to tell you this part, I had just read the chapter on our longing to be fascinated the night previous to Mark’s teaching and it all fit together.

Mark basically outlined how if we have a small vision of who God is and what He intends to do in our life, our desire will be turned to any number of things. We were made to be fascinated. We cannot repent of desire. We were made for this. We can only repent of trying to fill it by means other then God given ones.

We need to have a focus in life, a goal if you will, because without it we wont get anywhere because we are going no where. We need to have a goal, so that we redeem the time we have, avoid laziness and will prepare for Jesus’ return in an appropriate manner. Surely we should be fascinated by whatever we make our goal, otherwise we’ll just be trudging through life desperately trying to get to the end. How depressing is that? But if we are fascinated, it will give use the energy and strength to press on and enjoy the work we are doing. If we are lining up our goals with the purposes the Lord has for us, it will come more naturally too because it will be the very things we were created for! Could He really be so good and to create us for a purpose and a work that we are excited for and want to do? Paul was maybe one of the hardest working people ever. He planted more churches then anyone, how could he have had the stamina to keep up such and pace especially going though the persecution and beatings he received on a frequent basis for preaching Jesus Christ is Lord? He must have loved doing it. Paul gives us a glimpse in his writing; 1Corinthians 15:10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. The grace of God being the very thing that empowered Paul (and us) to do the task before him. Isn’t it great when you’re given the very tools you’ll need to what you’re supposed to? Few things aggravate me more then I’m told to perform a task or duty but am not giving the ability or authority with the command. I’ve heard it said before by several people “A lover will out work a worker any day of the week.” And I think I’m starting to get it.

To give you all of the examples that Mark gave in class would make this post obnoxiously long(er). He had about 2 hours to talk, and I know I don’t stay on any single internet page for more then five minutes. But hopefully this will prick your heart as it has mine. I would encourage anyone to seek this out yourselves, and definitely read the book by Mike Bickle. I know for me, Mark’s talk, especially combined with how some of the other talks, and what I’m reading, all fitting together synergisticly has been very exciting. Before arriving here I knew this was an area in my life that I had problems in, but I had no language for it. I couldn’t address my lack of motivation, and excitement because I had no language to define it. Through reading that chapter, and hearing Mark’s talk, it put handles on the problem I couldn’t address, so now I can look at it, and build a strategy and game plan to reach that goal. What is my goal? I dunno yet, but if I’m able to maintain God as my fascination, it’s gonna be a lot of fun.

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Life on the Prayer-ie

(pun intended)

Well I’ve been here in Kansas City and the International House of Prayer for just a little over a week, but it feels like so much longer in all the good ways.

For those of you, who have asked how it’s going, and I can only manage to say “good” I hope these blog posts can better give you a glimpse into what’s going on in my heart while I’m out here. It’s not something that I could convey through a quick phone chat or text message. The Lord has been so good to meet me, when I’m just sitting in a room, choosing to believe that He is willing and excited to come hang out with me. Me. Dirty, double minded, insecure, unsure, weak, and distracted me while I’m sitting and accomplishing nothing that looks beneficial to anyone. Meeting the uncreated Lord Cod, Holy and Mighty, Creator of the universe, my Savior - and my biggest fan – in this context is breaking down a lot of the former mindsets that I’ve forgotten I’ve been carrying about who He is. It’s awesome.

There is this one song that has been played several times in the prayer room sets, that I really like and I think exemplifies this truth so well; "Dark but Lovely" by Sarah Edwards.

"I can't understand, this work of grace

How a perfect God would come and take my place

The stars they don't move You

The waves can't undo You

The mountains in their splendor

They cannot steal Your heart

This God who is holy, perfect in beauty

Awesome in glory is ravished by my heart

Chorus:

Though I'm poor, You say I am lovely

Though I'm dark, You say I'm beautiful

Bridge:

Somehow my weak glance has overwhelmed You

And somehow my weak love has stolen away Your heart"

I can already see the things that the Lord is already breaking down in me. Old mindsets and misconceptions of who He is, who I am, things I’ve only thought I’ve dealt with until now. I see Him doing it in my housemates, the members of my core group whom I’ll be doing life with for the next 6 months. Already people are getting their minds blown by the goodness of God. It makes me look forward to the long times spent in the prayer room. Even after doing it for several times, preparing to go into the prayer room for one of our 5 hours stints is rather daunting, but when He shows up and makes those little explosions in my heart and/or mind, it’s pretty great. It’s honestly a lot easier when I’m in it and engaged with what’s going on in the room and really hunting after His heart, then it sounds. (I’m told this is called the “honeymoon phase” of the prayer room. Does it have to end?) But I still like to be the guy who “gets stuff done” it’s uncomfortable to not have much of a list of things to accomplish, but just to open my heart to Him and receive what He’s already done and wanting to do more of. It’s because I built of this idea that I’m worthy when I’ve accomplished the most. He’s working on that too.

On a lighter note, the dryers on both sides of the duplex I’m living in are broken. So I got the opportunity to use a drying line in the back yard to dry my laundry yesterday. It was a bit uncomfortable at first, the consideration of having all my clothes just hanging out outside… but I decided “Hey, if someone is in such a rough spot that they need to steel my drawers off the line, they need them a lot more then I do.” As far as I can tell I got back everything that I put out.

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Just the begining...

Well I’ve only been here for a few days and most of that portion was taken up with orientation and settling in, we’ve only had three days where we’ve had an actual class/ an extended amount of time in the prayer room, but I feel like the Lord is already doing some great things.

Normally the interns will be in the prayer room from 6pm till midnight, but Saturday there were two hours before that. It’s pretty intense to have all this thought about who God is and how to interact with him poured into our head and then to be stuck in a room to go talk to him about it. I’m not gonna lie, the last hour on Saturday was pretty tough. I had to get up and pace back and fourth just to keep my mind awake enough to engage in what’s going on in the room. It was hard, but so enjoyable at the same time. If we were there for short spurts of time, it would be easier to just grit my teeth and run out the clock. When we’re in there for 6 hours at a time, what else could I do but interact with God? I really want to “go for it” while I’m here, especially in the prayer room. I want to try and implement the tools the leaders are trying t give me, because really if I wanted to just keep doing things like I’ve always done, I could have stayed at home.

I think maybe the most amazing things I heard yesterday were that God did not create separation, we did. When we sin, we want to cover ourselves with shame and distance, not willing to be near Him because we either a. enjoy it when we know we shouldn’t, or b. feel so ashamed/dirty/unworthy/afraid and we can stand to let him come near us. It’s so sad. From the very beginning, when Adam and Eve first hid form the Lord He was the one searching them out. And when they told Him what happened, his first reaction was make a promise that things were going to be made right once again. He promised that even thought we had partnered with the enemy for a moment, that He would make us enemies once again, and the seed of Eve (Jesus) would destroy seed of the devil.

Another thought that was reminded to me was of when Jesus went to go raise Lazarus from death (John 11: 38 ->). Ok, so here is God, who KNEW that Lazarus was going to die before… well, dunno when, but He wasn’t shocked when it happened. He even told His disciples 3 days before they went to see him that Lazarus was dead. That’s pretty impressive, but let’s be honest, not completely out of the realm of what we would expect any all-powerful deity to be capable of right? What’s amazing to me is that when speaking to the sisters of this man, that He took the time to weep with them (maybe just Mary?) before He did the work. He wept with her even knowing that in just a short time he was going to walk over to the tomb and tell him to get up. Wouldn’t we just tell her to get a gripe and raise him already? But He took the time to mourn with her, even knowing that the sisters would receive him back. Wow. Our God is not far off. He is not emotionless. He is here for everything we go through. It blows my mind, and heals my heart. Maybe just a little bit of what I need, but it’s going in the right direction.

I made it to the big city

I just wanted to take a second to let everyone know that I made it to Kansas City. I'll be spending the night with a friend from back home in RVA who lives here now, and tomorrow will begin the first day. I feel excited, anxious, relieved, and a bit bewildered that "someday" is "now" but mostly I just feel tired.
Today's drive was a bit harder then yesterday becuase my body was starting out tired from a lack-luster sleep on a lousy hotel bed, and the drive is just not as interesting. When going through the mountain there are things to look at, and turn to pay attention to, but past Kentucky, it's practically a straight shot all the way here. it's really neat how big the sky is though. a little ominous, I feel like I'm about to fall in, but the clouds with their slow shifting dance did provide the occasional beauty.

Oh man, here we go. I don't think I need to worry about getting to sleep tonight like I normally would before a big day. I'm wiped.

Operation: Job Security parts 3, 4, and 5

Right now I'm in a hotel room in Indiana, but I'm really excited about this project I did for my boss and I want to share it here before I got supper busy sharing everything that I'm learning in the Internship.

My Boss at Nordstrom got pretty darn excited when she found out I could paint, long before she even ever looked at my work. I guess I encourage that kind of trust in people. Well when she started asking me if I would do some work for her I started "joking" about how this would certainly need to secure my position at Nordstrom, and should act as a "get out of jail free" card. I was maybe half kidding. You may be asking yourself "What's up with starting with 3?" Part one was doctering a photo of her with her favorite member of her favorite band, because after waiting in line for hours, her eyes were closed in the photo. (Major bummer!) Part 2, was a painting inspired by said band. Because you know you're a supper fan, when you start creating memorabilia for your passion. But I think you'll really enjoy these three the best: She saw a pair of painted Toms shoes online and asked me if I could do one. Well, one turned into three, but she was so excited about this that it made me excited to do it. I honestly think that if she had been ho-hum about the whole senerio, then I wouldn't have wanted to do it at all. Because she was excited, I got excited too. It took me several all nighters in the studio because my lease was up at the end of June, but I got really into getting this done.




I was very very excited about these. So was she! I was kinda hoping she would cry (in a good way) but I did make her speechless for a moment or so, and that's saying a lot. I'm not gonna lie, I felt awesome! I'd probably even rock those pink ribbon toms, 'cause I think they turned out fan-freaking-tastic.

I'm working out how to offer custom hand painted Toms to continue bringing in money while I'm in KC. Give me a holler if you're interested in getting a pair for yourself.

Well it's after midnight I think (I'm not sure where this time zone change happens) and I have another long day of driving ahead of me.

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This little Light of Mine

To help me raise funds for my internship I had an idea to sell some paintings. I was faced with a big goal and not quite sure how I was going to get enough money for accomplish it. The internship itself cost just under $5000, and that's not considering life expenses, like car payments, insurance, money for whatever else comes up, etc. This covers housing, food, classes, and ministry trips during the internship, so considering all of that, the price is actually really good, but when was the last time that any of us ever paid for the next six months of our lives up front? Yeah, that's what I thought.

I also understand that there are lots of really good causes that need financial support too, so to help me reach my goal I decided that I should have an art show. One friend, Kyle Foster, even donated some photos of his to me to display and sell at the show. He's a fantastic photographer (and I'm not just saying that in case he reads this.) so it was an honor to have his work there as well. It took me a lot of work, but it was very exciting to get it all together and see those who were able to come out and help me. I had my photos reprinted and mounted, some of the graphic posters I've made up on the computer, several paintings, and many many many postcards.

One project that I did especially for the gallery night was one I called "This little Light of Mine". For the past several years candles and light have been a theme in my art. I like the way that fire and light symbolize and express the Lord. Passion. Clarity. Life. Oh man, I could probably go on for a while. Since I was in need of more product to sell during my gallery, I got the idea to paint on smaller 6"x8" canvas an individually unique candle. Each one is singed and numbered 1 - 50 in the order that I started them.

This is probably the most elaborate project I've tackled and second in size only to the one I recently did for my Mom. It was really exciting, to be painting them all, and I would probably change my tactic a little bit if i was to do it again, but I was supper pleased with how it turned out. It was so exciting to see them all together once I had finished. It took up an entire side of the room I was displaying in. And it was so extremely validating to see those to came out, not only to support me going out to try and purse what I feel the Lord is leading

me to do, but also to come see and buy my work to that end. It was a lot of work, I didn't sleep very much for the days and weeks leading up to the gallery night, but it was so worth it. I received a little over $1300 to go towards my goal, and was very proud of the work I had to show. There's lots of pieces still left over that need to find good homes, and I'm still looking for people who are willing to support and partner with me on this adventure, so

pop over to my site www.patrickbenbow.com and see if there are any pieces you'd like to purchase. Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoy going on this adventure with me.

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Web log back log

So…apparently I fell off schedule in posting. ( I know, I’m shocked too.) Things have been suppa-duppa busy, but I’ve been getting a lot of painting done along the way too.

Next week, I’ll be moving the Kansas City Missouri to take part in a 6 month internship with the International House of Prayer. I trust that this is not news to both of my readers, because by now I think I’ve told ever human being I’ve come into contact with for the last several months. If you have not heard about IHOP, they are a community of Christians who for the past 10 years have been implementing 24/7 worship and prayer, just like King David did in the Old Testament. These six months would be a concentrated time of biblical study, worship, prayer, and ministry in the local community. By setting aside this season of my life to seek after the Lord, desiring to better understand how to make Him the ‘one most important thing’ in my life, I’m really expecting this to be setting a strong foundation and a catapult into what the rest of my life will look like.

I’ll be retooling this blog to help keep everyone up-to-date on what’s going on in my life and in my heart while I’m there. It seems pretty natural to me to be incorporating more of what’s taking place in my heart into this blog because that is where most of the paintings come from. My art typically is and has been a visual expression of my meditations and prayers, while I focus on what He’s teaching me. Sometimes is just an expression of what I don’t know how to express in words. Not only do I see this time as an investment in my prayer life, but also in art.

So I tell you all that to tell you this: check back here often to see how things are going in KC. I’ll be giving updates, new revelations to me of scripture and the Lord’s heart, and prayer request too. I would really appreciate any help you are willing to give in partnership with me during this season of my life. I’m deciding now that to be diligent and intentional to post often and try and share as much as I can in this format. I’ll also have access to my email and phone, so use those to reach me too!

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