Well, first off in the story, it came from sheer panic. That’s right. Survival instincts DO energize in a counter-productive sort of way. But then, when all the man wanted to do was die–or at least roll over and go to bed–there were grace guardians at his side, helping him go on.

He sought energy at Mount Horeb, where epic events of the past might do an encore. But he heard God speak into His solitude. And that seems to be where and how God’s servant had his strength and sense of call restored. That’s where he was redirected… into a ministry of praparing other leaders at that.

Energy must be produced from one foot in self preservation camp, and one foot in charge the world camp…both aligned with our King!

Within our “structures,” are we reaching out to the poor [in spirit] or preaching to the choir? Do the dead [in spirit] flock to our structural edifices to fill our pews? If so, good keep doing what you are doing. If not, why? Perhaps the answer does lie within the old wineskin—or within any wineskin—old or new! Creative energy is like water through your fingers, the only way to contain it is to freeze it. To truly utilize it is to release it, like freedom, like thought, like free will.

And if energy is not to be contained, what do you do with it? Look at it? Listen to it? Smell it? Touch it? Taste it? Yes, yes, yes, yes and yes. You experience it, THEN you ride it. You ride it like a wild river taking you to where it will take you. Through contemplative meadows of tranquility, through foreboding canyon towers, through rushing rapids of peril and danger, through wondrous beauty and occasionally over the edge of a fall. Sometime floating lazily looking up into the blue void, sometimes slumbered in a vessel with witness of time and history twinkling above, and sometimes swimming furiously for life and limb. Now you have experienced energy. You’ve ridden a force. You’ve lived. Now you have something to share.

You cannot share something you don’t possess. And as a man or woman we really don’t possess anything, it tends to possess us. Same with this creative energy. We don’t possess a brush stroke or a note. We don’t possess an idea. Should we try to possess or contain a brush stroke, a note, an idea, or salvation we freeze it. Enshrining it in our mind or in our church. Spiritual masturbation at best.

To let this energy have its way and serve its natural course it must flow and we then must be a conduit if we are to divert it to irrigate dry lands off the natural flow. You cannot call the desert to the mountaintop, but you can divert the mountain spring waters to the desert. Sure you can put spring water in little plastic bottles, but that’s simply a drop and just temporarily satisfies thirst. You must have a continuous supply to live.

In short, how do you maintain the high energy level to energize human community? First, you yourself must free-flow experience. Then you must share your experience. Intimately. Testify to your experience! And, generally speaking, you must take your experiences and testimony of your experience TO parched ears; for they won’t hear your call through a frozen cube. It will LOOK obscured [and unnatural], and do I need to say what it will smell like?

The first gen disciples personally rode that energy wave. They experienced Truth first hand. They let the Truth possess them and were supercharged. They had direct experiences and they shared those experiences. They didn’t create temples to contain Truth. They themselves plugged into Truth and became living temples, diverting Light into dark places.

Not to say church gatherings are faulty or wrong. Not at all. A lot of good can come from churching in a man made edifice. It’s that bottle of water. That bottle that may sustain the dehydrated person until rescue. It may actual save a life. But it is still contained energy. For the energy, Truth, to really flow it can’t be an ice cube for a desert sojourner to strive for. A church must be a live wire conduit to truly serve purpose, to truly be alive and constantly maintain a high charge, otherwise like an exhausted battery, it’s short-lived, exhausted and soon dead. Useless.