Child
Children
Childish things
1 Corinthians 13
13 If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. 3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it;[a] but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
8 Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages[b] and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! 9 Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! 10 But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless.
11 When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. 12 Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.[c] All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.
13 Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.
Amidst the ongoing political chaos, I recently got sucked into the vortex of fear that invaded the body of Christ. As I continued hearing and reading the urgent messages by the right, left and middle that consumed the media, I began being tossed to and fro on the waves of public opinion.
Why?
I pulled up my anchor.
I stopped going off to a quiet place EVERY DAY to pray. Instead of picking up the Word, I picked up my iPad to read the words of others. I wanted to be informed. I wanted to be prepared for what might or might not happen. I wanted all knowledge of good and evil! I wanted to be. Like. God.
Thankfully, the Spirit within me interrupted the noise of the storm one morning and whispered 1 Corinthians 13 to my soul. I turned off the world and tuned into heaven. When I looked at the One sitting on the throne I realized that my focus had shifted to the words of prophetic people, Trump and Biden, Republican and Democrat. As a result of eating that fruit, I found myself naked and afraid- hiding from God.
But…..He is faithful. He never grows weary of calling out to me, “Jodie, where are you?!”
Once again, His Word anchored my soul. His Word washed me in His love. His Word corrected and rebuked me. His Word cast out fear. And His Word beckoned me to love- regardless of church doctrine, regardless of political affiliation, regardless of who was right or wrong. I found it interesting as I re-read the overly familiar passage (1 Corinthians 13), that Paul seemed to divert from his love message to the church in Corinth by mentioning his childhood.
Why?
Perhaps he was saying that spiritual maturity does not equal soul maturity.
Spiritual maturity (gifts):
Speaking in tongues
Praying in tongues
Prophesy
Words of knowledge
Faith
Giving
Service
Soul maturity (fruit):
Patient
Kind
Not jealous
Not boastful
Not proud
Not rude
Not demanding
Not irritable
Not record keeping
Not rejoicing in injustice
Never gives up
Never loses faith
Hopeful
Enduring
I’ve been saved and following the Lord for more than 20 years. I’ve grown in spiritual maturity; knowledge of the Word, prophesy, praying in tongues, giving and serving others, and interpreting Gods secrets revealed through dreams.
But in areas of my heart- my soul, I’m still a little girl. In immature little girl. I often think like an 8-year-old. I often reason like a 4-year-old. I haven’t put away all my childish things. Case in point: when the arrows of pain and pressure penetrate my heart, I sometimes react in outbursts of anger. Like a volcano, I erupt violently, spewing hot lava all over the people I’m supposed to love. Like a child, I basically throw a massive temper tantrum.
As I’ve listened to and read other believers words, posts and comments on social media I see that I am not alone in my immaturity. The body of Christ has many infants and toddlers who refuse to grow up. Instead, we’re content to remain in adolescence for decades. Instead of crucifying our flesh, we continue to operate out of our anointing without operating out of the Fathers heart. Instead of repenting for our childish ways, we decree and declare and demand our own way. We have been nosy gongs and clanging cymbals during this election. It grieves the Lord. And it should grieve us.
I don’t understand His ways, but I believe the Commander of Heavens armies is sovereign over the Commander in Chief of America. I don’t understand His ways, but I believe the Spirit is saying to the churches in this hour, “it’s time to grow up in love.” I don’t understand His ways, but I believe God is calling those of us who’ve been prodigals to come home. He’s causing those of us who’ve been stuck in the pig muck of society to come to our senses. He is running out to meet those of us who’ve spent our inheritance on the Great Prostitute. He’s putting a ring and a robe on those of us who’ve lived as orphans. He’s welcoming us as sons and daughters back into His house. He’s teaching us how to pray. He’s training us to love, as He first loved us.
My brother, my sister, I humbly ask you to take a moment. Leave the worlds playground and go off to a quiet place to pray. Allow the Spirit to search your heart. Ask the Lord, “what are the areas of immaturity in my soul?” Confess your childish ways. Repent for your temper tantrums. Receive His love, and return His love by obeying His commands.
The world is watching and waiting for us to prove that we are His disciples.
John 13:35
35 Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”
Uprooting
John 15:1-8 New Living Translation
15 “I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. 3 You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you.4 Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.
5 “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.6 Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned. 7 But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted! 8 When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father.
Seven years ago, during an encounter with the Lord, I heard the Spirit saying He was uprooting our family- and sending us to a new land (Genesis 2:1-9).
With prophesy, God requires His people to persevere through a process in order to receive His promise. This principle of scripture has proven yet again to be true in my life. I would like to say that I am always willingly to submit to the suffering that is required in enduring, but I’m still immature. My childlike nature often gets the best of me, and in my impetuousness, I try to run ahead of God’s timing. So, when I heard from the Lord in 2013, I immediately announced to my husband, “we’re moving! NOW!” He wasn’t convinced. Nor was he motivated to submit to my timeline (thank God!).
The process continued.
Did I mention it’s been seven years?! (Obviously, the fruit of patience still has opportunity to grow in me). Yet, as I’ve reflected on all that God has done in the waiting, now I SEE that He that began a good work in me will see it to completion (Philippians 1:6). God has been faithful. Even when fear tried to consume me. Even when I doubted. Even when I pouted. Even when I threw a fit in the prayer room. Even when I argued with my husband about who/what/when/where/why. Even when others thought I was crazy.
God has been faithful to His word.
In prayer.
In dreams.
In prophesies.
In circumstances.
In meetings.
One particular meeting in 2015 proved to be a significant puzzle piece that brought clear vision to WHERE the Lord was sending us (He told us the state 7 years ago, but not the city). It was on a diverted flight from North Carolina to Florida. My man and I were traveling with another couple to attend our friends vow renewal ceremony. Our flight from RDU (Raleigh Durham International) was delayed….delayed… cancelled. After pursuing the ticket agent for more options (they originally rebooked us for the following day), my man secured another flight for us on another airline, compliments of his frequent flyer status. Without knowing it, he had walked right into the will of God! After making it to Atlanta, the 4 of us boarded our final flight to VPS (Destin-Fort Walton). I was seated beside our friends. My man willingly took the seat beside a stranger. Before buckling up, I glanced at the gentleman that would be my man’s travel companion for the duration of our flight. He smiled. I returned the smile, but my eyes were immediately drawn to the worn-out bible he was holding. (You know those sonic boom moments- when you know that something is getting ready to hit in the supernatural??? Yep. Spirit. BOOM!) That man struck up a conversation with my man. (I tried eavesdropping but we were seated at the back of the aircraft so I couldn’t hear over the roar of the engines!!!) Before departing company, he handed us a book. As we deplaned, I laughed out loud when I read the title, “I See a New Prophetic Generation.”
The man was Jeremiah Johnson.
We had no idea who he was. But God did. It was all part of His plan to transplant us.
After devouring that book, I ordered everything Jeremiah had in print. I read whatever I could find about the church, HOTFM (Heart of the Father Ministry) he helped plant in 2010. I attended a JJM prophetic conference in Charlotte, NC with one of my spiritual mommas (2017). My man and I became partners the following year (2018). We were invited to join a Partners Retreat in the mountains of NC the next year (2019), where we met several couples from HOTFM. Later that same year we met even more families when attending a service at Heart of the Father Ministry (on the way back to the car that day, our son unknowingly prophesied, “let’s move here!”). This year, during a repeat visit to HOTFM, one of those couples prayed and prophesied, “divine appointments” (the Lord spoke the exact same phrase through Jeremiah when he prayed over us the year before).
You can’t make this stuff up, people!!!
God continued to confirm what He said through multiple dreams I had, beginning in 2014 (too many to mention here). He also interrupted other people’s sleep to speak to us too! In 2018, another confirmation came through a woman in my small group, when she prophesied during a meeting. She saw in the Spirit that I was root bound. The Lord said I had experienced tremendous growth in the container I was currently planted in, but I was out of room. He was uprooting me. He was going to transplant me into a new container.
I am NOT a landscaper, but I have spent enough time learning from my expert husband to know that the transplanting process is risky, but necessary for growth. When a plant is removed from its original container, the roots need to be pruned or cut in order to prepare it for growth in the new container. Initially, the plant goes through a period of shock in which its ability to thrive is tested. Good soil, plenty of water and sunshine, along with strong roots is required for the plant to survive the uprooting.
Uprooting. It’s where I currently find myself. The Lord is cutting roots that are dead or sucking the life out of healthy ones that need MORE soil, MORE sunshine, MORE water to produce MORE fruit! The process of being prepared for MORE is painful. Obedience always is.
Preparing requires:
Leaving our parents.
Leaving our extended family.
Leaving our spiritual family.
Leaving our friends.
Selling our home.
Selling our possessions.
Closing our ministry.
Closing our homeschool.
Uprooting. It’s a process the Lord is requiring for our entire family. In the midst of the global Covid-19 crisis, God said, “NOW is the time.” My man and I agreed with Him. The kids agreed with Him (all of them). And so… I am excited to officially announce: the Bullard Pack is moving to Lakeland, FL!
We appreciate your prayers as we continue to submit to the process of uprooting from North Carolina to Florida.
We trust the farmer.
We will persevere to obtain the promise.
We will prepare the soil of our hearts.
We will receive the seed.
We will die, so that He can live.
We will grow.
We will submit to His pruning and cutting.
We will produce good fruit.
So that HE may be GLORIFIED!
Obey
Disciples
Battles
Return to family
Luke 15:11-32
11 To illustrate the point further, Jesus told them this story: “A man had two sons.12 The younger son told his father, ‘I want my share of your estate now before you die.’ So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons.
13 “A few days later this younger son packed all his belongings and moved to a distant land, and there he wasted all his money in wild living. 14 About the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land, and he began to starve. 15 He persuaded a local farmer to hire him, and the man sent him into his fields to feed the pigs. 16 The young man became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him. But no one gave him anything.
17 “When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, ‘At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger! 18 I will go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you,19 and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant.”’
20 “So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. 21 His son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son.[a]’
22 “But his father said to the servants, ‘Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. 23 And kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast, 24 for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found.’ So the party began.
25 “Meanwhile, the older son was in the fields working. When he returned home, he heard music and dancing in the house, 26 and he asked one of the servants what was going on. 27 ‘Your brother is back,’ he was told, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf. We are celebrating because of his safe return.’
28 “The older brother was angry and wouldn’t go in. His father came out and begged him, 29 but he replied, ‘All these years I’ve slaved for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to. And in all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends. 30 Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the fattened calf!’
31 “His father said to him, ‘Look, dear son, you have always stayed by me, and everything I have is yours. 32 We had to celebrate this happy day. For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found!’”
During this season of #covid-19 as our government mandates #socialdistancing in NC, people from the mountains to the ocean have come home…. and returned to family.
At the same time, I believe our Father in heaven is inviting His children to come home….and return to family.
The Bullard Pack has been responding to that invitation since 2007. When the Lord called our children home from public school, He simultaneously called me to be a full-time teacher, to “train them in the way that they should go.” Let me be perfectly clear: I did NOT want to #homeschool. Just like many of you who have been mandated by the state to do so because of the #pandemic, I feared I didn’t have what it takes. I was afraid I wasn’t smart enough, patient enough, blah, blah, blah. It’s true, I wasn’t. It’s the reason for the call. The call to homeschool was a call to follow Him. A call to know the Son. A call to know the Father. A call to receive more of His Spirit. A call to be a daughter. A call to be a wife. A call to be a mother. A call to become a family.
In 2018 the Lord would call our family again. It was a call to leave everything and everyone to follow Him on a new path through the desert. That call, for me, has been excruciating (you can read more about it, here). The call uprooted us from something familiar and transplanted us into something new. When we left the mega church system we also left our friends, our platforms and our positions to return home. The call was an invitation to return to family, an invitation to return to the upper room, an invitation to become one, as the Father, Son and Spirit are one. Dads, moms, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters now meet together each week in our home to worship, pray, study Scripture, share communion and a meal.
We’ve returned home.
We’ve returned to family.
A family that is called to love one another, build one another up, encourage, and strengthen one another (Yes. That includes correction and rebuke!) Last week I was prompted by the Spirit to do something. I immediately obeyed. But… I can be a bit impetuous, like Peter and DO before I think, so my spiritual mommas offered a course correction; wisdom on how to dothe thing. I’ll admit, the spanking didn’t feel very good in the moment, but this little girl quickly realized it was for my good. Because they love me, they were parenting me, in love. And I know they love me, because they spend time with me……talking, praying, studying Scripture, worshipping, sharing communion and meals. If they weren’t family, I would have taken their correction as rejection, like an orphan. An orphan without spiritual parents. An orphan who feels unloved and unwanted when religious leaders use and abuse them to build their empires. An orphan who is commanded to serve and use spiritual gifts, but never invited to be a part of the family. Sadly, many religious leaders are orphans themselves. They don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t know that they are part of a system that produces religious slaves, not sons and daughters in the Kingdom.
Despite the harsh reality that many orphans are still in bondage, making bricks in Egypt, there is also a remnant, a Church, a body, a Bride, that is returning to the promise of family!!!! A family where moms and dads are building up sons and daughters that know the Father, Son and Spirit!
It’s now 2020, and the Lord is calling our family- and yours to come home. To return to family.
It’s time to come hometo the Father. It’s time to come home to the Son. It’s time to come home to the Spirit. Come home! Return to family.
It’s time to come home to your spouse. It’s time to come home to your children. Come home! Return to family.
It’s time to come home to spiritual moms and dads. It’s time to come home to brothers and sisters in the Lord. Come home! Return to family.
Matthew 12:46-50
46 As Jesus was speaking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. 47 Someone told Jesus, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, and they want to speak to you.”[a]
48 Jesus asked, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” 49 Then he pointed to his disciples and said, “Look, these are my mother and brothers. 50 Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother!”
Ecclesiastes 3
3 For everything there is a season,
a time for every activity under heaven.
2 A time to be born and a time to die.
A time to plant and a time to harvest.
3 A time to kill and a time to heal.
A time to tear down and a time to build up.
4 A time to cry and a time to laugh.
A time to grieve and a time to dance.
5 A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.
A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
6 A time to search and a time to quit searching.
A time to keep and a time to throw away.
7 A time to tear and a time to mend.
A time to be quiet and a time to speak.
8 A time to love and a time to hate.
A time for war and a time for peace.
Deep Into the Water 