Spiritual Slavery to Spiritual Sonship

W
ith deep admiration, I dedicate this book to Captain Al Kline. He was the first man to believe in me when I did not believe in myself. When I was young, insecure, and seeking to find myself, Captain Kline not only took me into his heart and taught me the way of the sea, but he also became a warm and light-hearted father figure who imparted to me confidence, self-worth, and the belief that it is possible to overcome any adversity found at sea. These qualities have helped me to stay on course and remain afloat through many perilous storms in life.

I
n the late 1990s, two teachers, who later became my friends, perhaps helped most in bringing me the revelation of living life as a son rather than as a slave or an orphan. James Jordan was the first person I heard teach on the orphan heart. You can learn more about him at
www.fatherheart.net
. The other was Mark stibbe, from whose book,
From Orphans to Heirs
, I also received this revelation. My teaching on sonship would not have been possible without the contribution these men have played in my life in recent years.

In addition, three couples have contributed to the overall growth and development of my character as well as that of my wife’s (Trisha), by standing with us as we worked out our unresolved father and mother issues on them. All the while, they saw the potential in our lives and patiently waited for us to grow up into mature sons and take responsibility for the mission that Jesus died for—living to experience God’s love and give it away to the next person we meet.

I thank Bishop Houston and Evelyn Miles who have been my spiritual parents. They continued to love and value me during my years of spiritual immaturity when I valued the spiritual authorities in my life for what they could do for me and not for relationship.

It has been the gentle guidance of our friends and mentors, Roger and Pat Gosnell, who have helped to keep my vessel in deep waters when gale force winds nearly drove me aground. They did so by teaching me the way of humility and the willingness to go from a high place to a lower one in order to experience deeper dimensions of God’s nature in my life. Roger taught me to never think myself too important that I would stop valuing cleaning the toilets. Commode ministry is the place where we truly find out what we are full of.

No telling what beach Trisha and I would have been stranded on if not for Major Richard and Christine Jones. These Salvation Army officers, like loving parents, nurtured us during our first few years as Christians and motivated us to fulfill God’s calling. They encouraged me to leave the sea and discover new adventures, ministering to the broken and downtrodden.

I
NTRODUCTION

C
HAPTER
O
NE
No Fear

C
HAPTER
T
WO
An Orphan Heart

C
HAPTER
THREE
Whose Mission Are You On?

C
HAPTER
FOUR
No sonship, No Inheritance

C
HAPTER
F
IVE
Receiving Your Inheritance

C
HAPTER
S
IX
Orphan or Son

C
HAPTER
S
EVEN
Finding Our Way Home

C
HAPTER
E
IGHT
Whose Son Are You?

C
HAPTER
N
INE
Closing Open Doors

C
HAPTER
T
EN
Jack’s Bank

C
ONCLUSION

Q
UESTIONS FOR
D
ISCUSSION
Who Is Your Daddy?

A
PPENDIX
A
Orphan/Son Contrast Chart

A
PPENDIX
B
The Ministry of Restitution

D
epending upon whom you might ask, I have been described as a man of great integrity, compassion, faithfulness, and sound character. But not many years ago, if you had asked my family, they would have probably used words such as intense, agitated, distant, driven, or obsessed. If you had inquired of someone in spiritual authority over my life, and they were painfully honest, they might have said, “Jack is self-centered, self-consuming, self-referential, or seeks to live for his own advantage by valuing people for what they can do for him and not for genuine relationship.”

Outwardly, I was a person of service, sacrifice, self-discipline, and apparent loyalty. But inwardly, I was filled with spiritual ambition—the earnest desire for some achievement and distinction and the willingness to strive to achieve it. I had an insatiable desire to be seen and counted among the mature and successful. This resulted in a deep inner struggle with competition, rivalry, and jealousy, and left me with an ever pervading sense of restlessness—the feeling that there is something more that I have to do or put in order to feel valued, affirmed, accepted, or like I belong.

It was in the late 1990s when I began to realize that, even though I had been a dedicated Christian since 1980 and have had deep encounters with the Holy Spirit, my struggle was attributed to what I now know to be an orphan heart. I was raised with hypercompetitive athletic parents whose love did not cover me or give me a feeling of security and acceptance. To them I was not a “winner,” so there was no place of affirmation, comfort, belonging, or affection. Therefore, I began to strive and wrangle for any recognition I could get, which led to a life of apparent success, but also a life of trying to hide feelings of frustration, agitation, and restlessness.

An orphan heart was not something I could cast out. Oh, how my wife tried though! Habit structures of thinking and ungodly beliefs had developed over a lifetime and had become orphan thinking. This had to be displaced by an experiential revelation of Father God’s love and a repositioning of my heart toward sonship. Sonship is a heart that feels at rest and secure in God’s love; it believes it belongs, it is free from shame and self-condemnation, it walks in honor toward all people, and it is willing to humble itself before man and God. It is subject to God’s mission to experience His love and to give it away.

As movement from orphan thinking to sonship began in my life, some remarkable transformations started to occur. The heart of my rebellious children began to be restored to God’s heart and my heart. My relationships with those in authority went from feeling like I had little favor to great honor being bestowed upon my wife and me. We also experienced an increase in the realm of finances and the ability to influence people’s lives across the world for the Kingdom of God.

This book is designed to make my journey from slavery to sonship, your journey as well. I will lead you through numerous real-life experiences at sea, within my family, and within the church. Each story told will, to some degree or another, bring you to the point of thinking, That’s me! I respond to people and
circumstances in similar ways! I will not just reveal root problems, but I will give you practical truths that will help you begin movement from living life feeling more like a servant or slave to living life feeling like a treasured and favored son or daughter. You will be challenged and convicted, but also encouraged and comforted as hope for transformation and restoration helps you find safe harbor amidst the storm.

Experiencing Father’s Embrace,

–Jack Frost

M
ariners call it the “Sea of Fear.”

Drake Passage, the 500 miles of southern ocean between Cape Horn and the Antarctic peninsula, is home to some of the most dangerous waters on earth. Water temperatures there are so frigid that if you fall into the water, you will become unconscious from hypothermia in less than five minutes—with death quickly following. It is also the most confusing body of water in the world to navigate. With no continent to block it, the water in Drake Passage swirls continuously in a circulatory motion from west to east. Add in winds that blow in excess of 35 knots for over 200 days a year, and you have an ocean passage that is dangerously unpredictable. Conditions can change from calm to stormy in a heartbeat, and you never know from what angle the waves will come at you. The Sea of Fear has been the watery grave of over 400 boats and ships that have gone down with all hands.

As a licensed fishing boat captain and more than a bit of an adventurer, I get my kicks from traveling into the remotest regions of the earth. That is how I ended up recently as part of
an expedition sailing from the southern part of Chile, past Cape Horn and into the Sea of Fear. Believe me, it was quite a ride, guiding a 74-foot sailboat on a 3-day journey through 40- to 50-knot winds with seas up to 30 feet! We then spent a couple of weeks in Antarctica. It was the time of year on the southern continent when the sun never drops below the horizon. For two weeks we saw no darkness.

As we began our return trip through Drake Passage, the captain of the expedition, who has had years of experience sailing in this part of the world, said, “This is the calmest I have ever seen the Sea of Fear.” And, indeed, there was very little wind—so little wind, in fact, that we were operating on motor power. At the same time, we had put out every square foot of canvas possible trying to catch any wind we could.

We were 150 miles south of Cape Horn in a region of the sea where many boats have gone down due to 10,000 feet of water constantly moving with the current that comes up the continental shelf and kind of explodes into the air. This was perhaps the most treacherous part of the passage.

It was 1:30 in the morning and we were experiencing the first darkness in two weeks, but only for an hour. Then the sun would rise again.

Of the eight of us on the expedition, five were in their bunks below, while the captain, a successful Christian artist friend of mine named David Costello (
www.davidcostello.com
), and I were on duty in the wheelhouse. The night had been rather uneventful with no wind and relatively calm seas; and we were there mainly just to work the sails and perform other routine tasks as needed. The heated wheelhouse was warm and cozy. Outside, however, the temperature was in the 30s, which actually was somewhat warm for that time of year.