What does learning to live in the kingdom realms look like? As with everything, it takes practice. As we make anything consistent, no matter what it is in life, we become more proficient at it. It’s no different with learning to function as a Son of God.
I’ve spent the better part of my life in the classical music field. I remember in high school how much time I actually practiced at home. Don’t ask my brothers what they thought. Stories (mostly entertaining ones) will abound. It was difficult for my siblings to listen to continual practicing (both me and my older brother) of the same thing over and over and over. It got to the point where the parental units had to ask me to stop. When I was practicing, it was difficult to hear the TV. No comment necessary considering TV’s have become a prominent fixture in most households. I’m sure your imaginations are running wild with that one.
Fast forward 30+ years. I’m now teaching at the college level and every fall, students come into my studio and I spend much of the first semester instructing them HOW to practice. You’re probably thinking “How is that possible?” I find that music students really like playing straight through things. When they hit a passage of music where there’s what I call a “musical train wreck,” they simply skip past it, hoping it will be better the next time. By then, they’ve killed so many notes, the hands have no clue what to do. All muscle memory has gone out the window. There’s only one problem with this method or practice. For every mistake, it generally takes at least ten times of playing it correctly to undo that ONE mistake. Because they lack patience, students rarely work on undoing the mistakes.
It takes a very dedicated music student to understand the art of practicing. Unwillingness to practice is pretty close to 100% of the reason many kids drop out of music. Once they realize the amount of work that’s required to be good, there seems to be an inability to press through into excellence. I would venture to guess this is the reason many of us don’t follow through with things that are difficult. We simply give up too easily.
I’ve said this before so bear with me if I’m too repetitive. We live in a microwave society that wants instant gratification. I honestly think the “no child left behind” law that went into effect in the 1990’s (USA) has caused more harm than good. Why? It’s because everything is OK and as long as students try, that’s good enough. However, in most things, trying is only the first step. We have to learn through our failures. If we try once or twice and fail, we tend to give up and progress is stopped. There would be no good classical musicians (or anything of excellence for that matter) if we all followed this thought process.
In the Christian world, we rely on gifts. This includes the five-fold gifts. As an example, we think that the only way to prophesy is to have the gift of prophecy. Even so, if we don’t exercise our gifts, they don’t grow. How many of us have “practiced” our spiritual gifts? Honestly, that thought didn’t occur to me for a very long time. One day, I had a “duh” moment when comparing the things of the spirit to what I’d learned as a classical musician. This is when I realized that simply by practicing prophecy, I could prophesy. Now, this does require sitting before Yahweh to understand His heart.
Once I learned that I could “come up here” and go directly into the presence of Yahweh for everything, many things in my life began to change. First off, because I could spend time with Him face-to-face, I could hear and see Him for myself. Prophecy, words of knowledge and all those kinds of things didn’t matter as much. When I receive prophetic words, they either line up with what I’ve already been shown or I put them on the shelf for later. There are storage cubicles for such things. When we have face-to-face encounters with Yahweh, our reliance on what’s coming from others dwindles. A sign of spiritual maturity is looking to Yahweh and less and less to other people to meet our needs or affirm us.
As I began to “practice” the things of the spirit, I saw many changes in and around me. Others began to notice and started asking questions. Out of that, I developed what I call my “Learning to Live in the Kingdom Realms” class. What I do is take people through a step-by-step process of discovering how we can practice the things of the spirit, even with very busy schedules. However, it will only work when we put forth the effort to do so. Like playing a musical instrument, if we don’t do it every day, progress will be slower.
Commercial break! To be part of a 10-month mentoring group where you can join others on the practice journey of the Learning to Live in the Kingdom Realms class, CLICK HERE to read more. If you’re interested in doing it at your own pace, you can purchase the 8-lesson set as a whole or individual lessons. To do that, CLICK HERE.
Back to our regular scheduled article… Practice, practice, practice, practice. Bottom line! If we want to be good at anything, we have to practice. But, this is where it gets a bit tricky. It’s not just going through something a few times sporadically. This is where consistency with the attitude of perseverance comes into play. We must have three things together – practice, patience, and perseverance. If you listen to Ian Clayton, he calls these three-somes a “bench of three” because they form a governmental authority. He uses examples of the body, soul, and spirit. Also, the Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In many nations, there are three forms of government. The list could go on. The key here is that when you have three things that work together, they form a government over something. For musicians, practicing takes patience and perseverance. When we do those three things together, we’ve created the necessary governmental authority of correctly learning a musical instrument. I’d venture to say it’s the same for everything else.
When we learn to look at Sonship with the reality that relationship must be practiced, we might get places a bit more quickly. Think about it… can we have close friends without spending time with them? In a sense, we’re practicing that relationship because we’re putting time into it. It’s no different than a relationship with the Trinity. It has to start somewhere. It starts with the desire for relationship. Then, it moves into the intent of making it work. Finally, the action follows. Notice something? We have another bench of three. Desire, intent, and action together create a governmental authority that sets the stage for results.
Learning to live in the kingdom realms is just that… learning. It’s not something we wake up one day and decide to do. It grows and matures, just like we do. When we learn to read, we start in kindergarten and then go all the way up through 12th grade and then on to college. Eventually, we take that reading and writing ability and can write a dissertation for a doctoral degree. Or, as we practice writing, we can eventually write books, poems, plays, etc. We can see that with one little thing – reading and writing, we have to start at the very beginning. It’s a very good place to start (sing along now). Learning to function in the kingdom realms is no different. We start in kingdom kindergarten and as we mature, we’re given more responsibility. As our relationship with Yahweh increases and He can trust us with more, we’ll be like the man with 10 talents who doubled what he was given. The guy with one talent who buried it? That would be like not practicing or developing anything at all. Which do you choose?
As I say to everyone who asks me about my journey – how bad do you want it? If we’re willing to give up what WE think is correct, we stand a chance of developing that closer relationship with Yahweh. It will require changing paradigms and probably letting go of things we like to “pet” in our lives. The end result is more peace, joy, and a deeper relationship with Yahweh.
If you’re ready to step into the journey, there are some groups that can help get you started. I have those listed on the Resources page of this site. In addition, feel free to check out the mentoring groups I’m a part of. Again, CLICK HERE for the specifics on the “Learning to Live in the Kingdom Realms” class. I also have several activations/meditations as practice materials. Those are available on the Products page.
May you have a most amazing journey into Sonship!
Del
© 2018 by Del Hungerford