living water dispensaries
winter in michigan can be a lonely time, unless you really know how to hygge (which we do!). we’ve emerged from another long one here, but it was one of the most pleasant winters of recent memory. even with two of my five kids in high school now, we savored daily read-alouds by the fire, & growth together in the Lord through prayer, testimonies, worship and healing. our family definitely pulls in for the cold months, & homeschool & family life, along with creative pursuits, take the majority of our attention during all of those indoor days.
and then comes summer! doors are flung open, & hospitality is a way of life. we finally took note of this last year around the time of last frost, & poured our whole selves into it, recognizing summer hospitality as God’s primary tool & time of ministry for our family. we saw this to be the way & rhythm of the Holy Spirit for our family life, & now we anticipate it! introverted selves have had adequate time to grow deep roots in the deep dark, now the flowery selves can be vibrant, open, and bold. i wonder if this is just our family, or if many of you are like this, too? if so, i hope this post can be an encouragement to you as you open your own summer doors!
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my littlest girls (ages 6 & 9) and i just finished memorizing the great commission—mark 16:15-18 :
15 And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation. 16 The one who believes and is baptized will be saved; but the one who does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
at the beginning of last summer, our house church laid hands on me & josh & commisioned us to proclaim the good news where we live. we don’t have any official church positions & aren’t in vocational ministry; we lead a fairly quiet life like most of you, but from the moment our friends laid hands on us*, we were propelled into ministry here in southwest michigan, from our home. somehow that moment, that commissioning (willingly & personally accepting the great commission), that laying on of hands meant something to God, & He began to send people to us that needed to be healed or delivered. we saw friends freed from drug addiction, another liberated from borderline personality disorder, others physically healed, a child set free from demonic oppression, others filled with the Spirit—their countenances transformed before our eyes.
i will say that that was an extraordinary summer, & it hasn’t become the new normal for us yet! but since this all happened within our home, the kids were a part of it, & it gave us all vision for what living out our faith through simple hospitality could look like. at summer’s end, joyfully sharing all that God had done, with a dear friend visiting from the west coast, we prayed together that the Lord would make our homes dispensaries of living water (we both live in towns with many other “dispensaries”). when we talk about the great commission, & the signs & wonders, it sounds big, maybe scary, unattainable, especially for the homemakers who rarely leave home, like it’s a call to be street preachers. but what about having a clear & simple vision for dispensing the living water from your own home this summer? is this a way, a grace, a commission the Lord would have for you, if His power & presence accompany you, if it would flow out from you into your community, even, simply, first, into the wounded body of Christ?
i don’t have a link to this (though i’m pretty certain it was in a barna study), but i’ve heard that the major reasons for faith retention (kids growing up in Christian homes staying Christian when they become adults) are attributed to one or both parents’ vibrant faith, an experience of God as personal, and experiences with the supernatural/miracles. whether we’re in full-time Christian ministry or stay-at-home-moms, as we obey the mandate to preach the good news, the signs & wonders are a necessary companion to the message we carry, to our own families and to those we invite under our roof through hospitality. they show God’s love, & they validate the message of a full & thorough salvation—not just the soul & spirit, but the mind & body, as well, for all who would come to Christ (hebrews 2:3-4).
for some people this sounds like charismatic Christianity, but it’s my conviction that the signs & wonders, & the use of the spiritual gifts, are meant to be part of a true, biblical Christianity—the normal Christian life. as for my family now—josh, myself, & our five kids, we haven’t been and aren’t currently part of what i’d consider to be a charismatic church—just a house church where all of the families have been transformed by Jesus through His blood and Spirit, love the Bible, & believe in the power of God, but as we’ve read the Bible, & have come to love & believe the words of it more & more, we now have the vision for this to be normal, even if not common, in the present age. it need not be extraordinary, but, rather, the ordinary supernatural life.
i didn’t grow up with the signs & wonders, though i did believe in them, even as a small child. i inherited a supernatural worldview from my missionary upbringing—angels were said to guard our jungle missionary base, & we were told by shining path guerrillas, when some of them came to Christ, that they couldn’t ever attack our base because it was guarded by “giant, shining men”. still, when i was growing up i don’t recall ever hearing about healing, other miracles, or even witnessing any of the gifts of the Spirit in practice. i share that because it all used to be unfamiliar to me, as i’m sure it is for many of you, too!
if this feels farfetched for you…if you’re not regularly experiencing the presence of God, haven’t seen, or perhaps don’t even believe in the gifts of the Spirit or the signs & wonders, where do you start? first, (going on the assumption that you are, first of all, saved), you need to examine whether or not you truly believe. paul tells us in romans 10:17 that “faith comes by hearing, & hearing by the word of God.” i know this sounds too simple, but if you find yourself uncertain about the signs & wonders, the gifts of the Spirit, or any of the supernatural aspects of our faith, read the word of God, because, as we’re reminded in that verse, it’s the primary way your faith will grow. though our supernatural worldview finds its origin in the old testament, i’d recommend starting with the book of acts, taking it at face value, followed by luke & romans, galatians, and i corinthians. there’s no need for deep analysis here, or commentary, or someone else’s interpretation, at least not at first. the Bible was written for simple people like you & me, & much of it can be easily understood through simple partnership with the Holy Spirit. ask the Holy Spirit to bring the Word alive to you, showing you things you’ve never seen, and pray for the gift of faith to believe it!
secondly, rather than looking to theologians at this point, i’d recommend listening to testimonies. testimonies are so powerful that they, combined with the blood of the Lamb, are how we’ll overcome Satan, the accuser (rev. 12:11), “who leads the whole world astray” (v. 9). one of the major ways he leads us astray is through false teaching, and, in this case, the false teaching that the gifts, signs & wonders aren’t for today (cessationism). this is a viewpoint that is easily disproven, as it holds neither biblical nor historical support, & there’s ample modern anecdotal evidence that contradicts it, as well. if you’ve grown up with this doctrine as fact, i’d plead with you : go straight to the scripture & the validation of historic & modern testimonies.
this is the way i personally moved from skeptic to believer—i read the bible along with other books (testimonies, biographies, autobiographies), & simply tried things out if i saw them to be biblical (healing, tongues, etc.). i considered it an opportunity to move from being not only a hearer of the word, but a doer (james 1:22), as well, & was blessed to see the words of scripture leap off the pages into my own lived experience.
may you be blessed as you go deeper into Christ, & experience all the Holy Spirit has to offer you—the living water, flowing from your belly (john 7:38-39) into everyone who walks through your summer screen doors! 🤎
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NOTES :
*paul writes to the Jews in the book of Hebrews (6:1-2) that they are to move on into maturity, leaving behind basic teaching about dead works & laying on of hands, etc., but many of us need to learn more about this if we didn’t grow up in traditions that practiced the laying on of hands.
the books of mark & acts (both with the same author, mark), highlight three major occasions for the laying on of hands : for healing (mark 16:18), for being filled with the Spirit (or “receiving”, acts 8:14), and for commissioning (when someone is already full of the Holy Spirit—acts 6:6).
examples from scripture of laying on of hands for commissioning can be found in both the old & new testaments : numbers 27:15–23, acts 6:6, and acts 13:3.
one last note : i timothy 5:22 reminds us not to be hasty to lay hands on anyone. i also take this to mean to not be hasty to have anyone lay hands on us. make sure you discern that whoever is laying hands on you is a trusted member of the body of Christ!
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this is our house church, which we call “eagle people”, the name comes from a streams in the desert entry . a gathering of eagles is called a congregation :) we live in different cities + states, but we gather together monthly at each others’ homes, sharing lunch + dinner, testimony, worship, & prayer, & we encourage one another in our lay ministry out of our homes.
wallpaper is “camellia” by flora roberts in golden yellow
