Welcome back to Becoming His Dwelling Place (BHDP)! In my last post, I emphasized the importance of your "Yes" to the Lord. This post is about understanding what that yes requires, because many of us have said yes to God, but have not fully embraced what that yes will do to and for us. 

We have been taught, directly and indirectly, to measure our spiritual lives by arrival. Arrival can look like having the right language, demonstrating visible growth, or reaching a level of spiritual stability that appears “mature”. But the deeper truth is this:

​There is no arrival in God, only becoming. 
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The moment we believe we have arrived is often the moment we stop yielding.

When I say we are becoming His dwelling place, I am not speaking metaphorically or poetically alone, but also theologically. In scripture, God has always desired a place to dwell:

• In the Garden, He walked with humanity
• In the Tabernacle, He dwelt among His people
• In the Temple, His glory rested

And now, He chooses to dwell in us.
But here is the part we often overlook. God does not just dwell where He is invited. He dwells where He is allowed to transform. Now, we like the idea of God being with us, but we are less comfortable with His process, because formation requires dismantling what we built to protect ourselves; confronting versions of us that learned to survive but not to surrender; and releasing identities that were functional but not faithful.

Formation is not God adding something to you; it is God reshaping you, and reshaping always involves pressure. To become His dwelling place is to live in a constant tension. You are both deeply loved and still being transformed. You are accepted, and still being confronted. You are called and still being refined. And if we are honest, we often prefer one without the other. We want affirmation without exposure, calling without cost, and presence without process. But God refuses to separate what we try to divide.

The language of becoming protects us from two dangers:

• Performance: trying to simply appear formed without proof
• Stagnation: believing we no longer need to be formed

Becoming keeps us humble enough to keep yielding, aware enough to keep listening, and open enough to keep changing. The goal is not to look like we have it together. The goal is to be continually shaped by the One who holds us together.
To be His dwelling place means your life is no longer your own environment to control. It becomes a space God inhabits. Which means, your thoughts are not just yours. Your responses are not just reactions. Your patterns are not just personality. Everything we are must become subject to His presence, power, and providence.  Not for punishment, but for transformation.

​This space, BHDP, is not about documenting perfection. It is about honoring process. It is about telling the truth about what it means to be formed by God in real time. So if you are reading this and feel:

• unfinished
• uncertain
• stretched and/or
• exposed

You are not behind. You are becoming. Where in your life have you been trying to arrive instead of allowing yourself to become? We’re not rushing this. We’re not performing this. We are daily yielding, again, and again, and again.

Let’s keep becoming His dwelling place.

​Welcome to Becoming His Dwelling Place (BHDP)!
I wish I could say this has simply been a long time in the making. That would sound polished and strategic. But the truth is more personal than that.

If I am painfully transparent, the truth is that it has taken me a long time to yield.

I have always wrestled with stepping into spaces where I can be harshly evaluated, critiqued, and misunderstood. The internet has a way of amplifying both affirmation and attack, and to be honest, I am not a fan of either. Putting words into the public square invites scrutiny and vulnerability. Vulnerability exposes you, and I have never been naturally drawn to exposure.

As the church I serve prepared for a time of consecration, the Lord began to deal with me, about me. In prayer, He gently exposed the places where pride and ego had quietly shaped my obedience. They were subtle, not a loud rebellion. Just carefully formed boundaries around my "Yes, Lord." 

One morning, in the stillness of prayer, I heard clearly: “Take the barriers off of your yes.” I knew immediately what that meant.

My obedience had conditions. My willingness had limits. My yes was real, but it was padded with comfort. I would obey as long as it did not require too much vulnerability. I would step forward as long as I could manage perception. I would launch, but only where I could still feel the bottom beneath my feet, and experience the comforts of staying near the shore. Then Luke chapter 5 confronted me.

Jesus tells Simon, “Push out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” The shore is predictable, but the deep is not. The shore allows you to maintain control. The deep requires real surrender. Simon had fished all night and caught nothing. His nets were clean, and his reputation remained intact. In fact, the effort he put forth was visible and admirable. People could applaud his diligence despite the lack of return on his time investment. He was a fisherman with empty nets. 

Nets that remain near the shore stay clean, but remain empty.

I began to see something very clearly. I realized I had grown comfortable keeping my nets clean, but formation requires depth. 

When Jesus commands Simon into the deep, He is not simply promising provision. He is reshaping identity. He is moving him from fisherman to follower; laborer to disciple; from self-reliance to surrender. Before Simon can preach to multitudes, he must learn to trust the call into deep water. 

God forms in private before He manifests in public, and that formation often begins where comfort ends.

This blog is, in many ways, my step into the deep.

Becoming His Dwelling Place is not a branding decision. It is obedience. It is stepping into waters where my voice can be weighed, examined, and even rejected. It is releasing the need to manage perception. It is allowing formation to continue in public as well as in private. Consecration exposed something in me. I have preached about surrender and taught about alignment, yet there were still places where my yes had guardrails, and formation will not let me stay near the shore.

This is not an attempt to prove anything or perform in any way. It is the release of me controlling my narrative and giving God my full, unrestricted, uncomfortable, yes!

There is a difference between believing in God and allowing Him to shape you. There is a difference between preaching formation and submitting to it. Jesus does not call us into the deep to embarrass us. Even if embarrassment becomes part of the journey, it reveals more about us than it does Him. The call to the deep is meant to enlarge us, which requires exposure, humility, and the courage to relinquish control.

So here I am.

Not because I have mastered formation or because I am finished becoming. But because I refuse to stay somewhere out of comfort, when God has required more of me. If Christ is forming us into vessels of His presence, then our "yes" cannot be negotiated, convenient, or managed; it must simply be surrendered.

The next post will explore the theological vision behind this space and why the language of becoming matters more than arrival.

For now, this is simply my unreserved Yes Lord!

Let's keep becoming His dwelling place.

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