Hello everybody! Sorry for the late post; it's been a bit of a hectic week and I've had a lot of homework to do this weekend. Nevertheless it was an absolutely fantastic week all in all, full of great teachings from the Holy Spirit.
Started off the week by going to Colorado Springs for a conference. It's called Acts 1 Conference and it's a YWAM conference that actually just started last year. The purpose for it is to lay a foundation for our lives and to have a new understanding of the Holy Spirit then to have the Holy Spirit not just in us but also on us; this, of course, is what Jesus was referring to when He told His followers to "wait for the promise from the Father." Obviously this is not a thing that can happen by following the "ten steps to being a spirit-filled Christian" so instead they, the YWAM leaders that organized the event that is, structured it around 1 Corinthians 14, specifically verses 29-33.
The result was absolutely tremendous. Everyone there, leader and student alike, laid down all sentiments of trying to maintain order in the assembly and we all just let loose and worshipped God, in spirit and in truth. During worship students and leaders would receive words from God and share them with the rest of us and these words would drive everyone there into an even deeper relationship and worship time with Jesus. We also had some specified teaching times for which there were a few speakers that flew in for the event to speak during these times. It was all really good, very powerful.
However I found myself far less passionate during this time than in the two weeks prior throughout all of our sessions and I had no idea why. God was still working things out of me, unforgiveness that I'd been harboring towards people, some things I didn't even realize that I had been until He so faithfully pointed it out to me. Nevertheless I couldn't shake the fact that I just didn't feel like I was moving forward as quickly as I was before. After one of the sessions, in which I had some good heart-to-heart time with Jesus, I talked with a leader about how I was feeling "unfinished." She prayed for me and spoke some things from her experiences that I identified with and in the midst of it God told me why I had been feeling the way I had been during the conference. He simply spoke to me "patience" and with that formed a beautiful picture in my mind of where I was currently at spiritually, a couple pictures actually.
God told me that for the past few weeks that I had been sprinting as hard as I could towards Him, which is of course a very good thing. However, you can't sprint forever because if you simply sprint through life you'll miss the subtle application of the principles that you learn when you're going full-steam towards Christ in our learning. In order to really establish what He had been teaching deep into my heart I needed to slow down and take a walk for a bit and observe my surroundings, to smell the roses so to speak. The reasoning for that He gave to me with a separate picture (inception much?). He showed me a deep cavern going straight into the ground. The entrance to it in the top used to be covered but it had been uncovered and light was shining into it and lighting up a large chamber underground. However, there were many side recesses that were blocked off that needed to be cleared out so light could get into there as well. To summarize, I was taking a spiritual walk so that I could take time to really meditate and dig deep so I would be able to apply the principle that lit up a deep wound in my heart to all the dark recesses in that wound and that way it would be completely healed with no more abiding darkness. God wants my whole heart, not just a majority of it.
At the end of the conference I got to witness and take part in some incredible giving; I really witnessed the power of simple, even seemingly insignificant generosity. Their were obviously bills that were racked up from bringing in the speakers from different parts of the country, and though they did not ask to put the burden on us to help them pay for it, we took it upon ourselves to collect an offering in order to cover all the expenses: $4500. I would say about 65% of the 400 people that were there gave, which was awesome, but the majority of them gave less than 20 dollars, but it was everything that these impoverished YWAMers could give. Incredibly though when we put it all together and did the math we actually met our goal, and then some. These 300 persons had in a matter of minutes raised over 4500 dollars. I was honored to be part of such an incredible experience and to see such selflessness. I know that God was smiling on all of us there that moment.
Next week we're having teachings on identity and the fear of the Lord. Should be awesome. Also, and I don't think I've mentioned this yet on my blog, I believe God is telling me to go to Thailand and Cambodia for the outreach part of my DTS. However, some things fell through and the money that I thought I was going to have for outreach never came in, so I'm finding myself several hundred dollars short for the first payment towards the trip, and about $3000 short for the total. It's always been difficult for me to ask people for money, but I feel God is prompting me to humble myself and reach out to my brothers and sisters for support. So I ask that any of you reading this to please pray about sending finances to me, and even to refer other people to this post or perhaps simply the following link: (http://www.ywamdenver.org/payments/?student=1). The school I'm doing is the MDTS and the dates are from Oct. 1- Feb. 15. I know that God's will will be done in this season of my life, so whatever happens I trust Him completely. Thank you all so much for reading this, and it really touches me that so many of my friends have been following my life while I've been in YWAM. God bless you all, I think about all of you, whether you're in Canada, or Russia, or the UK or in good ol' Idaho, quite often and pray for you.
Oh and I'd greatly appreciate some feedback on my posts as well. I assume since people keep reading them that it's been interesting, but I'd love to hear how it might be affecting your own walk with God. I believe I've changed the settings so that anyone can comment.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Sunday, October 21, 2012
YWAM Adventures: Week 3
Hello again. Just finished week 3 of my DTS here at YWAM, and this last week was absolutely amazing. We were taught by a man named Jeff Pratt about the Father heart of God. He has adopted two kids who had a very troubled life with their previous parents, he heads an organization called Axiom Monastic Community that focuses a lot on the importance of getting alone with God, and God has brought him through some incredible experiences, which we had the great privilege of gleaning from this week. He has really surrendered his life to God and allowed Him to fill his heart with the love of the Father; God's heart towards us His children is a subject of incredible passion for Jeff Pratt so it made it very easy to absorb all the lessons that he taught us.
God was really preparing me the two weeks prior to receive everything that He had in store for me this last week, it was amazing. Ordinarily I would have been closed off to most of the things that we were hearing, not because I wouldn't have thought that Jeff's words had weight, but rather I would have ordinarily discarded everything that He was teaching as something that I already knew and therefore didn't need to really absorb again. However, God had something else in mind for me and He was just so incredible to humble me and open me up wide to receive what He had for me. Day one of the lessons, session one I was already crying like a baby; I'm not even going to hide that because it was awesome, and liberating. That session we talked about different bricks we lay down in our hearts to block out God from really reaching into the depths of our hearts and healing us and having intimate relationship with Him. In those couple hours God helped me to be honest with myself and with everyone else in the room and I realized how much junk was in between myself and God. That session the room was full of sniffles; it was a little bit comical to be honest, but soo good!
We continued through the week learning about God's love. Jeff told us story after story about the sacrifices that fathers on this earth have made for their kids and how that reflects what God has done for us, only to the nth degree. With each story a realization of how much God truly loves not just everyone else, but me as well was driven into the center of my heart. With each story I desired more and more an intimate relationship with this Father who sacrificed so much just to have relationship with me, but who I was denying that right to because of my own insecurities. With each story my heart was opened up more and more, being prepared to have heart surgery done on it by the Great Physician. Finally on the last day of our teaching, Thursday, I was ready and God began His surgery on my heart.
We didn't do class really on Thursday morning, but we had ministry time with God. About six to eight of us at a time would describe the hurts in our heart that had been weighing us down for so many years of our lives. I was so anxious and ready to be rid of the weights that I made sure I was first to bare my soul. It's incredible to me the defenses that the human mind has; these defenses, more often than not, only cause further damage because it doesn't heal the wound, it just puts it in a steel cage so that it's covered up from consciously hurting us. Though the great hurt itself can't get out, the smaller hurts that come along later can get in and they add to the foundation that's already there. Eventually the steel cage won't be able to hold it any longer and everything will burst out and cause us to become a completely different person: a direct product of the hurt, as opposed to a product of trying to cover the hurts. Thank God, because before that could happen to me He himself helped me open the cage so that He could reach in and take care of everything that was in there.
I can hardly describe what I feel like right now. At this very moment I'm not incredibly emotional; I'm not particularly energetic or peppy or happy. However, somewhere inside me that I can't point at I feel absolutely free, and with that freedom there is a gratefulness towards God and an overflowing of joy and love and compassion for everyone else out there, particularly those who don't have an understanding of how incredibly much God loves them, and how broken His heart is because He doesn't have a relationship with them. It blows me away to think that when God made us He made Himself very vulnerable in a sense. Our Father loves us so much that when we hurt He hurts more than we could possibly fathom, and when we are close to Him it brings Him more joy than we could possibly fathom.
Needless to say it has been a very good week. I'm so excited to just get know God more and more every day, to walk with Him and talk with Him and ask for His opinion and take His advice, I'm excited to trust Him with everything and to give Him everything and to make Him my everything. I've never felt so content in my life. I really hope that the synopsis of this last week has really blessed some of you reading this, and revealed something about our Daddy to some of you as well. I just challenge anybody reading this to be really honest with yourself and with God. Jesus' blood can only cover what has been uncovered. Many truths are spoken in jest; stop telling yourself and others that you're just kidding around when you speak death over yourself and realize that you really want someone to actually hear your heart behind those statements and to have compassion. God knows our hearts, and He cries over our hurts. I could never be satisfied with the compassion of others, I had to realize how much compassion God has for me when I'm hurting, only then was I satisfied. What's the foundation of hurt in your heart that satan has been building on? Admit the hurt and let God take care of it for a change.
On a different note, here are some random but beautiful pictures from the base and a ranch I went to Saturday. I'm kind of addicted to the sunrises and sunsets here so there's going to be a lot of those pictures .
God was really preparing me the two weeks prior to receive everything that He had in store for me this last week, it was amazing. Ordinarily I would have been closed off to most of the things that we were hearing, not because I wouldn't have thought that Jeff's words had weight, but rather I would have ordinarily discarded everything that He was teaching as something that I already knew and therefore didn't need to really absorb again. However, God had something else in mind for me and He was just so incredible to humble me and open me up wide to receive what He had for me. Day one of the lessons, session one I was already crying like a baby; I'm not even going to hide that because it was awesome, and liberating. That session we talked about different bricks we lay down in our hearts to block out God from really reaching into the depths of our hearts and healing us and having intimate relationship with Him. In those couple hours God helped me to be honest with myself and with everyone else in the room and I realized how much junk was in between myself and God. That session the room was full of sniffles; it was a little bit comical to be honest, but soo good!
We continued through the week learning about God's love. Jeff told us story after story about the sacrifices that fathers on this earth have made for their kids and how that reflects what God has done for us, only to the nth degree. With each story a realization of how much God truly loves not just everyone else, but me as well was driven into the center of my heart. With each story I desired more and more an intimate relationship with this Father who sacrificed so much just to have relationship with me, but who I was denying that right to because of my own insecurities. With each story my heart was opened up more and more, being prepared to have heart surgery done on it by the Great Physician. Finally on the last day of our teaching, Thursday, I was ready and God began His surgery on my heart.
We didn't do class really on Thursday morning, but we had ministry time with God. About six to eight of us at a time would describe the hurts in our heart that had been weighing us down for so many years of our lives. I was so anxious and ready to be rid of the weights that I made sure I was first to bare my soul. It's incredible to me the defenses that the human mind has; these defenses, more often than not, only cause further damage because it doesn't heal the wound, it just puts it in a steel cage so that it's covered up from consciously hurting us. Though the great hurt itself can't get out, the smaller hurts that come along later can get in and they add to the foundation that's already there. Eventually the steel cage won't be able to hold it any longer and everything will burst out and cause us to become a completely different person: a direct product of the hurt, as opposed to a product of trying to cover the hurts. Thank God, because before that could happen to me He himself helped me open the cage so that He could reach in and take care of everything that was in there.
I can hardly describe what I feel like right now. At this very moment I'm not incredibly emotional; I'm not particularly energetic or peppy or happy. However, somewhere inside me that I can't point at I feel absolutely free, and with that freedom there is a gratefulness towards God and an overflowing of joy and love and compassion for everyone else out there, particularly those who don't have an understanding of how incredibly much God loves them, and how broken His heart is because He doesn't have a relationship with them. It blows me away to think that when God made us He made Himself very vulnerable in a sense. Our Father loves us so much that when we hurt He hurts more than we could possibly fathom, and when we are close to Him it brings Him more joy than we could possibly fathom.
Needless to say it has been a very good week. I'm so excited to just get know God more and more every day, to walk with Him and talk with Him and ask for His opinion and take His advice, I'm excited to trust Him with everything and to give Him everything and to make Him my everything. I've never felt so content in my life. I really hope that the synopsis of this last week has really blessed some of you reading this, and revealed something about our Daddy to some of you as well. I just challenge anybody reading this to be really honest with yourself and with God. Jesus' blood can only cover what has been uncovered. Many truths are spoken in jest; stop telling yourself and others that you're just kidding around when you speak death over yourself and realize that you really want someone to actually hear your heart behind those statements and to have compassion. God knows our hearts, and He cries over our hurts. I could never be satisfied with the compassion of others, I had to realize how much compassion God has for me when I'm hurting, only then was I satisfied. What's the foundation of hurt in your heart that satan has been building on? Admit the hurt and let God take care of it for a change.
On a different note, here are some random but beautiful pictures from the base and a ranch I went to Saturday. I'm kind of addicted to the sunrises and sunsets here so there's going to be a lot of those pictures .
Sunday, October 14, 2012
YWAM Adventures: Week 2
Another week come and gone, and about 18 more to go. I can hardly believe it. It feels like I've had three weeks of learning in this week, and yet the week feels like it went by so fast. This last week we were learned about world-views and God's glory and grace; ya, that's why it felt like three weeks of learning. Our instructor was a guy by the name of Don Stephens, very passionate man with a great gift for teaching. It's crazy the kind of things that were revealed to me this last week. I'm still trying to grasp it all in my head, and my heart.
Monday we talked a lot about what exactly the glory of God is from a biblical perspective. That was a very fun lesson, lemme tell you. It's funny that how skewed my perspective was on even that. I always thought that God's glory was something that was difficult to see, that you had to be extra good and maybe you'd see it. Come to find out that God's glory is literally everywhere, I just needed to open up my eyes and really analyze how different things, from the flower in the field to Superman Returns, all really do reveal God's glory. Moses, speaking to the Israelites, scorned them, saying, with exasperation I imagine, that even though they'd seen so many signs and wonders from the Lord, even though they had beheld Him in His glory like very few people had before to date, their eyes and ears and heart were closed to being able to understand it. I feel like this is how I've spent much of my life: searching and searching for God's glory when it's always been right there in front of me. Now that my eyes have been opened to that little detail I'm nearly overwhelmed, day by day, by the incredible glory that is all around me. I simply ask myself, "how does this (insert object/person/movie/event) demonstrate the character of God. In so doing I've suddenly had an appreciation for things that I used to ignore; I've never been so enamored by a sunrise, regardless of how breathtaking, like have been every day since Monday.
The rest of the lesson really focused on the main world-views of the world, shown chronologically as they became prominent. It was really interesting seeing it put that way, each new world-view that developed was direct reaction to the one held in the previous generation(s). What I really liked about the way world-views were talked about in this class was that the life giving qualities and qualities that brought death were both discussed in order to put emphasis on the fact that God does not fall on the side of Marxism or Gnosticism or Pantheism or Animism, or ANY other "ism" out there. God has a Kingdom mindset, and as Christians we need to be focused on the Kingdom and obtain a pure Kingdom mindset. We shouldn't be rooting for anything less than that. After all, Jesus talked about the Kingdom more than anything else. But enough preaching, I'ma step off my newly found soap box.
Friday we talked only about the Kingdom and what it looks like, as best as is humanly possible anyways. The thing that really struck me most is the fact that God, though King, is our Daddy. Now obviously I knew this already, but for some reason I had a hard time getting my heart to wrap around this. I suppose it's because so often we're always saying things like, "you gotta put God first," or, "you gotta spend time alone with God and read your Bible," etc. The thing is you don't "gotta" do anything. God is literally our Daddy now. He adopted us for crying out loud; that was the entire point of the cross: to give us open access to RELATIONSHIP with our Daddy in heaven. Imagine being a parent and your child spending time with you, or thanking you for all you do, or asking to play catch because they think they "gotta." I have siblings, and that has to do for me for now, but I know that if they did anything with or for me with that mindset regardless of how much effort they might put into the activity it would not bring me joy, it would hurt me. This is exactly what I've done to God, perhaps my entire life, and He loves me so much more than is humanly possible and so is hurt ridiculously more by my feeling that way than I can ever understand.
God knows how long I had this attitude, and the whole time God was trying to break through my arrogance and religiosity to tell me that He loves me and just wants me to be His son. I don't have to put on ANY sort of performance to please Him. Again, I do not have to try to please my Daddy. He watches me have fun playing volleyball, or reading my Bible, or going to a movie, or just goofing around with friends and He is absolutely delighted in me, and so happy that I am having fun. This was further imprinted upon my heart when our instructor said, "don't ask God for more of Him, He's already given you ALL of Him. The problem is that you haven't given Him all of yourself." By me trying to perform for a score I was withholding from God the freedom of an open relationship with His son. This lesson also offered me an alternative point of view on those who don't believe.
This world is like an orphanage. Every single person out there who doesn't know God is without a Father, and God sent His son to die on the cross in order to fill out all the legal paperwork for God to adopt the world. The problem is that so many people have such a skewed perspective of the guy that's trying to take them out of their orphanage and bring them to His mansion. It's up to those of us who have let down our walls of pride enough open up to God to try to direct these misguided people to the Father. Every single person is not simply a potential friend, they are a potential brother or sister; prince or princess; priest or priestess; son or daughter of the Most High.
It's incredible to me how it took so long for this lesson to finally hit my heart. I know I've heard that God is a loving Father countless times. I suppose that it's always been connected in some way to a "gotta." At least in my heart. I can't express it enough: it's so freeing to view Him as my Daddy; I don't have to do anything to gain His approval or love. It makes it so much easier to reach out to others when I don't feel like I "gotta." It also makes it more effective because I lose my agenda when I interact with others. By default, because of the overflow I'm experiencing, I'm salt and light to everyone I come across.
Anyways, I "gotta" cut myself off here or else I'll keep going for another eight paragraphs. I really hope that my testimony touches someone who reads this. We don't "gotta" do ANYTHING for God. I know that sounds radical and unbiblical, that's your religiosity and pride speaking. We get to do things WITH God. This week we're being taught about the Father heart of God. Soooo stoked! So I'm sure I'll have a ton to write about this weekend
Feel free to leave comments, I changed the settings so anyone can, I believe. God bless you all. And please be praying for me to keep going deeper. Also for finances, as I'm a little short on the whole money aspect of things, but my Daddy is awesome and I know that He loves to give us gifts and watch our faces light up.
Oh, and here are some pictures of the base and stuff.
This is the front of the base.
This lake is located about fifty feet from our base. Absolutely awesome to walk around in the mornings. Yes, be jealous.
It's moments like this that I wish I had an iPhone 5. I'm praying for it.
This is a part of a hiking trip we took up past Evergreen. Absolutely beautiful view of Denver from here. Unfortunately my camera is meh so I couldn't get any decent shots of it. 'Twas foggy anyways.
You can't tell by this, but I was probably a good 15 feet away from these deer at the time of the picture.
No idea what this building is, but it looks pretty sick, eh?
Monday we talked a lot about what exactly the glory of God is from a biblical perspective. That was a very fun lesson, lemme tell you. It's funny that how skewed my perspective was on even that. I always thought that God's glory was something that was difficult to see, that you had to be extra good and maybe you'd see it. Come to find out that God's glory is literally everywhere, I just needed to open up my eyes and really analyze how different things, from the flower in the field to Superman Returns, all really do reveal God's glory. Moses, speaking to the Israelites, scorned them, saying, with exasperation I imagine, that even though they'd seen so many signs and wonders from the Lord, even though they had beheld Him in His glory like very few people had before to date, their eyes and ears and heart were closed to being able to understand it. I feel like this is how I've spent much of my life: searching and searching for God's glory when it's always been right there in front of me. Now that my eyes have been opened to that little detail I'm nearly overwhelmed, day by day, by the incredible glory that is all around me. I simply ask myself, "how does this (insert object/person/movie/event) demonstrate the character of God. In so doing I've suddenly had an appreciation for things that I used to ignore; I've never been so enamored by a sunrise, regardless of how breathtaking, like have been every day since Monday.
The rest of the lesson really focused on the main world-views of the world, shown chronologically as they became prominent. It was really interesting seeing it put that way, each new world-view that developed was direct reaction to the one held in the previous generation(s). What I really liked about the way world-views were talked about in this class was that the life giving qualities and qualities that brought death were both discussed in order to put emphasis on the fact that God does not fall on the side of Marxism or Gnosticism or Pantheism or Animism, or ANY other "ism" out there. God has a Kingdom mindset, and as Christians we need to be focused on the Kingdom and obtain a pure Kingdom mindset. We shouldn't be rooting for anything less than that. After all, Jesus talked about the Kingdom more than anything else. But enough preaching, I'ma step off my newly found soap box.
Friday we talked only about the Kingdom and what it looks like, as best as is humanly possible anyways. The thing that really struck me most is the fact that God, though King, is our Daddy. Now obviously I knew this already, but for some reason I had a hard time getting my heart to wrap around this. I suppose it's because so often we're always saying things like, "you gotta put God first," or, "you gotta spend time alone with God and read your Bible," etc. The thing is you don't "gotta" do anything. God is literally our Daddy now. He adopted us for crying out loud; that was the entire point of the cross: to give us open access to RELATIONSHIP with our Daddy in heaven. Imagine being a parent and your child spending time with you, or thanking you for all you do, or asking to play catch because they think they "gotta." I have siblings, and that has to do for me for now, but I know that if they did anything with or for me with that mindset regardless of how much effort they might put into the activity it would not bring me joy, it would hurt me. This is exactly what I've done to God, perhaps my entire life, and He loves me so much more than is humanly possible and so is hurt ridiculously more by my feeling that way than I can ever understand.
God knows how long I had this attitude, and the whole time God was trying to break through my arrogance and religiosity to tell me that He loves me and just wants me to be His son. I don't have to put on ANY sort of performance to please Him. Again, I do not have to try to please my Daddy. He watches me have fun playing volleyball, or reading my Bible, or going to a movie, or just goofing around with friends and He is absolutely delighted in me, and so happy that I am having fun. This was further imprinted upon my heart when our instructor said, "don't ask God for more of Him, He's already given you ALL of Him. The problem is that you haven't given Him all of yourself." By me trying to perform for a score I was withholding from God the freedom of an open relationship with His son. This lesson also offered me an alternative point of view on those who don't believe.
This world is like an orphanage. Every single person out there who doesn't know God is without a Father, and God sent His son to die on the cross in order to fill out all the legal paperwork for God to adopt the world. The problem is that so many people have such a skewed perspective of the guy that's trying to take them out of their orphanage and bring them to His mansion. It's up to those of us who have let down our walls of pride enough open up to God to try to direct these misguided people to the Father. Every single person is not simply a potential friend, they are a potential brother or sister; prince or princess; priest or priestess; son or daughter of the Most High.
It's incredible to me how it took so long for this lesson to finally hit my heart. I know I've heard that God is a loving Father countless times. I suppose that it's always been connected in some way to a "gotta." At least in my heart. I can't express it enough: it's so freeing to view Him as my Daddy; I don't have to do anything to gain His approval or love. It makes it so much easier to reach out to others when I don't feel like I "gotta." It also makes it more effective because I lose my agenda when I interact with others. By default, because of the overflow I'm experiencing, I'm salt and light to everyone I come across.
Anyways, I "gotta" cut myself off here or else I'll keep going for another eight paragraphs. I really hope that my testimony touches someone who reads this. We don't "gotta" do ANYTHING for God. I know that sounds radical and unbiblical, that's your religiosity and pride speaking. We get to do things WITH God. This week we're being taught about the Father heart of God. Soooo stoked! So I'm sure I'll have a ton to write about this weekend
Feel free to leave comments, I changed the settings so anyone can, I believe. God bless you all. And please be praying for me to keep going deeper. Also for finances, as I'm a little short on the whole money aspect of things, but my Daddy is awesome and I know that He loves to give us gifts and watch our faces light up.
Oh, and here are some pictures of the base and stuff.
Saturday, October 6, 2012
YWAM Adventures: Week One
Well it's been a very long time since I've posted anything in my blog, but for some reason God has never let me forget that it existed and I believe that it's for such a time as this; I hope that by relaying my experiences and some of my intimate moments with God throughout each week that I'm in the program I might encourage others going through similar trials or lessons. So without further adieu, here is is synopsis of the key moments of my first week here. Just a forewarning, a ton happened this week covering a plethora of areas of my life so this will be a pretty long post. I'd really encourage you to keep reading it, I'm sure you'll be encouraged by it despite the length.
Upon arriving I was consumed by an incredible feeling of loneliness and longing for my friends back home. This last month and a half was absolutely awesome: I made more friends, and closer friends for that matter, in that time than I have in the past several years and upon realizing that it would be a long time before I'd see them again made it hard for me to settle in. God is good and I realized that this was a problem that required prayers from others so I emailed a couple close friends and asked for prayer and within a day I settled in and was filled with such an inexplicable joy that our director has already identified me as one of the people that is always smiling. It's awesome how swiftly God moves, and how inexplicable His actions are.
The diversity of nationalities and denominations here is quite incredible and reflects beautiful God's desire for unification in the Church, something that I believe is grossly lacking (38,000 denominations? Don't even get me started on that rant). Surprisingly, it's been quite easy to assimilate into this spiritual melting pot; everyone has a very good outlook on how to handle disagreements in opinions on everything from "who's better, Canadians or Americans?" to "post-trib or pre-trib." As Chris Black, our DTS (Discipleship Training School) director, has reminded us, "we need to major on the majors and minor on the minors." The absence of this attitude is what has caused such a disunification of the Church, but again, I won't get started on that rant. It's been a very fun, a very awesome, a very unique experience to be able to get to know and befriend so many different types of people with such diverse backgrounds; it's only week one of the DTS! Only when Christ is your main focus can this kind unity happen.
One of the things that's still kinda weird for me is feeling like I'm at the "bottom of the totem pole." This is by no means the fault of the program, but my own failing to recognize and practice the very challenging verse, "submit yourselves one to another," found in Ephesians 5:21. I've become used to being a "second-year" or intern alumni, and with that is a temptation to vaunt a supposed superiority over those "younger" in the program(s). The fulfillment of that temptation can be an ever so subtle thing, but it creates a tear between yourself and those that you are supposed to be filling through authentic relationship and that tear can grow and become a very tender (like a pulled muscle, not a juicy steak) rift between you and the ones that you're supposed to be being an example to. The iniquity is pride and the temptation is status. As a DTSer, which would be equivalent to a first year intern, I find myself having to submit myself to my brothers and sisters as I've failed to do many times in the past year because of my "status." This has been such an incredible thing though, because in just one week I feel such a closeness, such a brotherhood between these people that I didn't think would ever be possible in a week.
This program has been such an immense blessing. Our worship time is so authentic, with everybody having an opportunity to contribute to the body individually if God puts something upon their hearts for the whole, it's been incredible. I've really learned a lot about worship and stepping out in faith and the elasticity and grace of God in any situation. The environment we're in is conducive to stepping out and "experimenting with your faith" in a manner of speaking; to paraphrase one of our teachers, "don't be afraid to fail, God can handle that." So good, and encouraging.
Last night I got a taste of home when we had Kingdom Night, the equivalent of Prayer Stops back home in Boise. A group of about 15 of us went downtown to pray for anyone and everyone that God put on our hearts. We started off with prayer for the night and God gave pictures of a couple different people to some in our group and so we made a point to look out for those people throughout the night; we all split up so I'm unsure if those two people were found and ministered to. However, God definitely used myself and the two others in my group to minister to several different people in the city. One man we prayed for had been wet the entire day because of the precipitation that started the night before and persisted through the entire day and into the night. We prayed for warmth, comfort, dryness, and the means to provide for his family. Within the next couple hours the rain which was supposed to continue through the night, stopped very suddenly. Another young man that I came in contact with God put on my heart to share the gospel and my own testimony with. To keep it short in the end this person was beaming and accepted my invitation to pray with him readily and even eagerly. About an hour and four homeless people later our group was praying for a half-blind man with an incredible story, a very "Cinderella story" indeed. However, he had been so affected by the abuse of his parents that he couldn't talk or stand straight, I thought that he was on drugs at first. After the group as a whole prayed for him three of us continued to pray for his blind eye. Three times we contended for him. I told him to cover his good eye and held up some fingers and he could see how many I was holding; I stepped back a few steps, then a few more. He could see quite well! God had healed him! And it didn't require or induce some sort of "Hollywood, fuzzy moment" like when Tom Cruise died and came back to life in "Far and Away," possibly the worst movie moment ever. I learned something that night too. When praying for that man's healing I had trouble believing that it would be done, but I had faith that despite my lack of faith God could still do it, and I think God really honored that, and also taught me that it's about more than me, though that doesn't mean He loves me any less, he just has plans for me that are bigger than my own abilities.
Overall, it was an absolutely incredible week. I can't believe that everything that has happened, everything that I've learned, has occurred in just this one week. I can't even fathom what God has planned for the next 11 of the DTS and the 8 weeks of outreach! He's just too good.
"Position channels passion."
Upon arriving I was consumed by an incredible feeling of loneliness and longing for my friends back home. This last month and a half was absolutely awesome: I made more friends, and closer friends for that matter, in that time than I have in the past several years and upon realizing that it would be a long time before I'd see them again made it hard for me to settle in. God is good and I realized that this was a problem that required prayers from others so I emailed a couple close friends and asked for prayer and within a day I settled in and was filled with such an inexplicable joy that our director has already identified me as one of the people that is always smiling. It's awesome how swiftly God moves, and how inexplicable His actions are.
The diversity of nationalities and denominations here is quite incredible and reflects beautiful God's desire for unification in the Church, something that I believe is grossly lacking (38,000 denominations? Don't even get me started on that rant). Surprisingly, it's been quite easy to assimilate into this spiritual melting pot; everyone has a very good outlook on how to handle disagreements in opinions on everything from "who's better, Canadians or Americans?" to "post-trib or pre-trib." As Chris Black, our DTS (Discipleship Training School) director, has reminded us, "we need to major on the majors and minor on the minors." The absence of this attitude is what has caused such a disunification of the Church, but again, I won't get started on that rant. It's been a very fun, a very awesome, a very unique experience to be able to get to know and befriend so many different types of people with such diverse backgrounds; it's only week one of the DTS! Only when Christ is your main focus can this kind unity happen.
One of the things that's still kinda weird for me is feeling like I'm at the "bottom of the totem pole." This is by no means the fault of the program, but my own failing to recognize and practice the very challenging verse, "submit yourselves one to another," found in Ephesians 5:21. I've become used to being a "second-year" or intern alumni, and with that is a temptation to vaunt a supposed superiority over those "younger" in the program(s). The fulfillment of that temptation can be an ever so subtle thing, but it creates a tear between yourself and those that you are supposed to be filling through authentic relationship and that tear can grow and become a very tender (like a pulled muscle, not a juicy steak) rift between you and the ones that you're supposed to be being an example to. The iniquity is pride and the temptation is status. As a DTSer, which would be equivalent to a first year intern, I find myself having to submit myself to my brothers and sisters as I've failed to do many times in the past year because of my "status." This has been such an incredible thing though, because in just one week I feel such a closeness, such a brotherhood between these people that I didn't think would ever be possible in a week.
This program has been such an immense blessing. Our worship time is so authentic, with everybody having an opportunity to contribute to the body individually if God puts something upon their hearts for the whole, it's been incredible. I've really learned a lot about worship and stepping out in faith and the elasticity and grace of God in any situation. The environment we're in is conducive to stepping out and "experimenting with your faith" in a manner of speaking; to paraphrase one of our teachers, "don't be afraid to fail, God can handle that." So good, and encouraging.
Last night I got a taste of home when we had Kingdom Night, the equivalent of Prayer Stops back home in Boise. A group of about 15 of us went downtown to pray for anyone and everyone that God put on our hearts. We started off with prayer for the night and God gave pictures of a couple different people to some in our group and so we made a point to look out for those people throughout the night; we all split up so I'm unsure if those two people were found and ministered to. However, God definitely used myself and the two others in my group to minister to several different people in the city. One man we prayed for had been wet the entire day because of the precipitation that started the night before and persisted through the entire day and into the night. We prayed for warmth, comfort, dryness, and the means to provide for his family. Within the next couple hours the rain which was supposed to continue through the night, stopped very suddenly. Another young man that I came in contact with God put on my heart to share the gospel and my own testimony with. To keep it short in the end this person was beaming and accepted my invitation to pray with him readily and even eagerly. About an hour and four homeless people later our group was praying for a half-blind man with an incredible story, a very "Cinderella story" indeed. However, he had been so affected by the abuse of his parents that he couldn't talk or stand straight, I thought that he was on drugs at first. After the group as a whole prayed for him three of us continued to pray for his blind eye. Three times we contended for him. I told him to cover his good eye and held up some fingers and he could see how many I was holding; I stepped back a few steps, then a few more. He could see quite well! God had healed him! And it didn't require or induce some sort of "Hollywood, fuzzy moment" like when Tom Cruise died and came back to life in "Far and Away," possibly the worst movie moment ever. I learned something that night too. When praying for that man's healing I had trouble believing that it would be done, but I had faith that despite my lack of faith God could still do it, and I think God really honored that, and also taught me that it's about more than me, though that doesn't mean He loves me any less, he just has plans for me that are bigger than my own abilities.
Overall, it was an absolutely incredible week. I can't believe that everything that has happened, everything that I've learned, has occurred in just this one week. I can't even fathom what God has planned for the next 11 of the DTS and the 8 weeks of outreach! He's just too good.
"Position channels passion."
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