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# Fulfilment
- URL: https://www.belonging.house/fulfilment/
- Published: 2025-12-12T11:00:53.000Z
- Updated: 2026-07-24T23:50:41.000Z
- Description: Discovering the Tree of Life.
- Author: Christ John Otto
- Tags: Newsletter, #Migrated-1784937001272, #Import 2026-07-24 23:50

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedThank you for your prayers.  
  
For many years I lived under   
the first half of Proverbs 13:12:  
**“Hope deferred makes the heart sick.”**  
  
None of my dreams happened.  
I first tried to move to New York City in 1993.  
  
I spent fourteen years   
trying to get ordained so I could plant a church   
in New York City.  
  
I walked away from church.  
And spent about a decade as a   
floundering freelance artist.  
  
I came back.  
  
I walked away again,  
but this time it was because **God called me out,**  
and I went into the lonely place where I was schooled by Jesus.  
And **I gave up my way,**  
And **embraced a call** to other floundering creative people  
who didn’t need self help,  
they needed to learn how to hear God  
and in the process,  
I discovered Christianity that works.  
  
If it doesn’t work for you,  
**then it isn’t Christianity.**  
You may have been told that your beliefs are right,   
but tell me,   
where’s the fruit?  
Jesus only wants to see fruit,  
not your beliefs.  
  
I digress.  
  
On Monday  
I was sitting in a coffee shop in Greenwich village.  
Oddly,  
it was very familiar,  
and completely new.  
I was doing what I have done in Akron, Cleveland,  
London, Paris, Jerusalem, and Rome.  
This time,   
I was doing it at home.  
  
**And God just brought people to me:**  
A lady on the subway singing songs  
who needed a prophetic word that God has answered her prayer.  
An emerging artist who has discovered his Jewish roots  
and is processing how it fits into his Christian faith.  
A young woman leading sets at a house of prayer and excited  
that God is moving people into New York.  
A standing room only midday mass in Greenwich village.  
There are more with us than those who are against us.  
  
And walking down the street   
to a Chinese restaurant  
I went to in the 1990’s  
I looked back at all the twists and turns.  
All the struggles and all the challenges  
**were for a reason**,  
and God has brought me back to where I was back then,   
only with all the prayers answered.  
  
There is a second half of to Proverbs 13:12.  
When the desire comes,  
**it is a tree of life.**  
  
Don’t give up.  
Keep going.  
And do not be afraid.  
  
He Never Fails,

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ed/59/ed590bfa-368b-4bcf-b1f2-6ba9ca9abcdb/content/images/2026/07/3d38f313-72ff-4c57-97de-f56c2e204041_1200x125-heic-1.jpg)