Week five: Reverence for my God

Our topic this week was about the Fear of the Lord, which has never completely made sense to me. Our Lord is love, right?  We all know that, but "There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment." (1 John 4:18) I knew both concepts were right, but it still didn't make since. I knew that it wasn't a fear exactly but more of a fatherly reverence, but come on.  Can you blame me for being so confused?  I think I get it now though.  With much amazing teaching, Sunawh Park explained that the God we serve is HUGE!!!!!!!!! And he created the world.  He has the power of life and death in our hands, and He knows all, and is all.  He knows what is best for us, and He is our covering over us.  We should fear stepping out of that covering.  We should fear doing something outside of His perfect will.  Not that anything can ever separate us from His love (Romans 8) but we should obey Him.  Obedience comes from the fear (reverence) of our God.  It's honestly a hard thing to explain in my opinion, but my point is, I think I get it...

Something else Sunawh said was that the Holy Spirit is the forgotten love.  Think about it.  How often do we address the Holy Spirit?  We talk about Jesus and pray to God, but do we realize that this huge God that created the entire universe is LIVING INSIDE OF US?!?!? The same hands that healed the sick, brought the dead back to life, and had nails in them, are inside of me typing out this blog.  I have that power alive inside of me, and I sit on a couch and put that same hand into a bag of chips and watch T.V.? This is a crazy thought to me.  I have failed to recognize the good I could have allowed it to do my whole life.  I have the power of God inside of me, and I stare at the world and go OMG someone should do something about that.  Well, Jana, why don't you? I don't know guys, but I think this changes everything.

I was reading in my Bible earlier today and I came across the story in Matthew 14:13-21. I have heard this story before of course, many of us have, but I saw it in a new light. Firstly, Jesus' cousin just got his head cut off and Jesus didn't have time to mourn really.  It says he tried to get away, but 5,000 men plus women and children followed Him.  Jesus had compassion on them, laid his sorrow aside, and took care of them.  I get caught up in my own pathetic drama how often, and then say that I have to deal with "my own problems" right now. Now, this is a good thing sometimes, it's even biblical to do that, but always? No. Another thing that stuck out is how the disciples were like Jesus they needa go and eat, and Jesus was like, "You feed them." then the disciples complained that they didn't have enough to do it. Jesus told them to bring them what they had, and then Jesus prayed and thanked God for what they had.  Then something CRAZY happened. They had so much extra they didn't know what to do with it.  Quite often (meaning always) God has given us something that He wants us to use.  He asks us to just thank Him for what we have and do something with it! We shouldn't focus on what we don't have, or what we still need.  One of the days we had a day of giving.  It was amazing, everyone gave a little bit of what they had, and somehow it ended up just multiplying.  We were in debt several thousand dollars, and it all got paid and everyone ended up getting at least twice what they had given.  It was amazing!!! Yet, still, many of us are worried about finances.  We always say "God will provide." however, is that what we should be saying? Yes, it is true. God will always provide our needs, but is that what we should be saying?  Shouldn't we go back instead? Shouldn’t we be saying, "God HAS provided for me in the past." we should go back to those specific times when He has, so when our faith is week, we can be reminded of His faithfulness.

Week four: Act's 1 Conference

              We had this revival thing go on this week so no teachings actually. I was told that we always started this by repenting. I thought I had already repented of my deepest darkest sins, and indeed I had. However, there was another one lurking in the darkness. I have received so much healing from so much stuff and had to admit to so much that I thought I was about done too. Ha! That’s a lie! God brought up another one that I needed to get freedom from. God isn’t a God that likes to shame us, but instead, He knows what is best for us. A lot of the time, we think that God has forgiven us of it, so it’s in the past. But, a lot of the time, we haven’t let it go. We haven’t forgiven ourselves of it, and we live in shame of it. We don’t want to admit to it, because we think people will view us differently. Honestly, that’s a lie too. People hardly ever judge when you go to the right person. They actually admire you for your honesty. Honesty is rare and refreshing nowadays. In the three instances that someone has admitted to dark sins, or I have fessed up to it, it opens the field for the other person to admit too. In all three instances, they did the same thing, or I had done the same thing. Crazy huh? We think we are the only mess-ups in the world. Well, you’re not. Surprise we are ALL human! Crazy thought, right? God brought up this sin in my life so I could experience freedom from it. I no longer had to be ashamed of what I had done. Yes, I am still disgusted by it, but it just goes to show how much more amazing God is. He doesn’t care what I have done. He loves me just the same. I can’t even begin to grasp this. How great and wonderful is our God?

            This week ended with one of Jen’s awkward yet amazing games. It’s called molding. Basically, you pray and ask god what he wants to speak to someone, and then you go and put him or her in a position (like a manikin) that would demonstrate that. The first position that I was put in was simple. I was on my knees with both my hands in the air, looking up. It didn’t take long for me to realize I was a child reaching for my daddy. I couldn’t contain my weeping. Now, I haven’t been able to really cry for 4 years now. I cry maybe 3-4 times a year, but I have cried just about every day. I think I am going to love being a crier. I just hope it lasts. Anyways, I, like every other child, had been hurt by my father for some odd reason. I knew that God was my father, but it didn’t really set into my heart until that moment. Then, he took me back through my childhood and told me exactly where he had been there. It was quite remarkable actually. I had always held on to God’s promises when I was a young child, but no one ever spoke them to me. I just knew. I just knew! God was, has been, and always be my father. Again, God, creator of heaven and of earth, holy in all his ways, is my daddy!...yeah, that’s cool! See, God is teaching me who he REALLY is, just like I asked him to. He is so faithful

            He is also teaching me to trust him. This is such a huge one. I am hoping with all that is in me, that the end of this lesson is going to be at the beginning of week 6, but only God knows, and I’m happy with that. =D

Week three: New set of specs

            This week is about biblical worldviews. We all have a worldview and all of us have several different ones honestly. One of the ones that we all have is the view from our culture. We talked about different cultures and had a lot of laughs. The speaker told so many stories. We all wanted to skip meals just to talk to him. He was defiantly engaging. =D I loved it. However, yet again, it wasn’t the weeklong teachings that amazed me. It was the answer to one simple question. What does this passage of scripture really mean? For the past couple of years I have been haunted by the words of one of my friend’s fathers. Most people see God the same way they see their father. However, I’m the wierdy who never put the two together. Instead, I allowed someone else’s father to negatively affect how I saw God. He even used the bible against me. He told me how I had no value and how my role as a woman was in the kitchen or bedroom. He spoke of how he was superior and how I was under him. I was to be submissive. I can seek the lord, but I will always be under a man. Everyone that knows me knows that I am feisty. I am bold, fearless, stubborn, adventurous, hard headed, and a lot of other things that defy submissive. For the longest time I have been trying to tame the lion within me, and I had just gotten it mastered. Until I found out that, the passage (1 Corinthians 14:33-39) wasn’t actually saying what he said it did. It is so often misquoted. The teacher then proceeded to quote just about every scripture that had even been abused by this man, and show it in the light of truth. Omg I can’t tell you what a power high I had that day. I felt so whole again. I felt like myself again. I had my boldness restored, and the lion in me was released. There is a song that says. “My God’s not dead. He’s living on the inside, roaring like a lion.” Omg. It’s so true! So watch out world here I come!

            I thank God so much for how redemptive he is. He took the hurt that the “father figure” in my life did to me, and he redeemed it. The passage that I once couldn’t even look at has become one of my favorites now. It’s amazing! Paul isn’t a sexist woman hater after all. Who knew? It totally shook the foundations of everything I thought I knew about God. Now, I am earnestly seeking out who He really is, and you know what? He is answering me. He is showing me so much more about his character, that I can’t handle it. I love it!!!

Week two: God, is that you?

            This week was about recognizing the voice of the Lord. It is something I have been hearing for a while, but at times, it seems like He had been silent. Sometimes he does that, but in his silence, he still speaks. His silence can sometimes speak more than any words. I hope that makes sense. I didn’t know though, that he speaks in so many different ways, and that he has a “usual” way of speaking to some people. It is a way that is molded to their personality. It just goes to show again that our God is a personal one too. Jen, our school leader, taught us this week, and she is ohhh so fond of awkward games that push, shove, and FORCE you out of your comfort zone. There were two particular exercises that I remember particularly well.

            One night, she had us as God two questions. God, who do you say I am? The other was, God, who do I say that you are? The answers to these questions brought me to tears.  He said that I am his daughter, his beloved, and a bunch of other moving loving things, but the one that made me cry the most was that he said that I am the one he delights in.  Now, you have to understand, this has been the cry of my heart for a few years. “God, delight in me! Take delight in me!” to hear him say that he did, meant more to me than anything else, and He knew that! He is so intimately involved in my life that it blows my mind! The answer to the other question was such a stab in the heart. He said that I saw him as my Lord, my master, my angry judge, disappointed father, and that I did not see him as my love. At this, I lost it. I had no idea that I didn’t actually love God. It was all an act. I had been angry with him for leaving me, but I pushed him away. What the mess?!?!?! He didn’t stop there, HE, the God of the universe, then poured his heart out to ME, insignificant little earthling. He cried out asking what happened to that love? What did He do to make me leave him? Didn’t I remember the good times we had, the places we would go and the things we would do? Didn’t I remember his great love for me? Why would I leave that? Then he begged, remember, the God of all, BEGGED, me, idiot adulterous me, to come back to Him?!?!!? Do what now?!?!?! He said he didn’t care what I had done or where I had been, he just wanted me back. Who wouldn’t cry at this?

            After this, and a bunch of other people shared what the Lord said, Jen felt the Spirit leading her to gather all the girls together. We stood in the middle of the room as the boys (amazing men!!!) sang to us what was on the heart of the father and bridegroom. He saw us as beautiful! We needed to let go of hurts in the past and embrace it. The men prayed for us, cried with us, and sang over us. It was a beautiful thing to behold. Everyone was weeping and no eye had one hint of make-up left. The guys also apologized for the men of our past. How rare and amazing is that. The God that we see in these mere men is constantly blowing all of us girls away. They are so amazing, and we all love them so much! I can’t even describe.

            The second “exercise” was called a “treasure hunt.” Cute huh? We sit together and each gets a clue from the Lord. Then we take that clue out into the world and find the person that each of it matches. For example, one person will get “red shirt.” Someone else will get “blue car in a Sonic parking lot.” Another will get, broken arm. Then someone else will get “dying father.” Then we will go out to Sonic, and low and behold, all of these clues match! And we pray for them or minister or something. It’s kind of weird, but it’s awesome to watch God move. I’m always surprised, like, “God, how did you know?” Anyways, the night before, I felt like God was speaking to me that I now had the gift of prophesy, and I responded like, “oh yeah, sure, he just hands that one out like candy.” I threw it to the side, excited if it was true, but doubting that it really was. During our “treasure hunt,” I prayed, God, give me a vision about this. (Because, I thought that would be cool. Lol) well, I got a vision. I wrote it off as just being my imagination, and when I prayed about whether or not I should share it, he said, “no.” so I horded it for a little longer. Then one of the kids got, “coffee, or star bucks, or kiros (the coffee house on base).” Well now, it just so happens that there is a coffee shop on the corner of where my vision took place. hmmm. Coincidence? I think not. So when I shared my vision, everyone trusted my word and did what I had said we did in it. However, I was like, “I could be wrong guys.” I doubted myself up the wazoo! God, just kept whispering to me, that everything that I saw in my vision was going to happen in real life, and do you trust me. So I shut up and kept my doubts to myself. And what do you know? Everything that I saw in my vision happened in real life! It was crazy! Totally a faith and trust builder, that’s for sure! However, in real life, we tried three times to just talk to the lady, but in all reality, I think she was under some deep oppression, or just demon possessed. In the dream (and in real life) you could see the deep unending sorrow in her eyes, but when we came near, it was rage and fury. The final attempt ended with her screaming, “get away from me!” it made us and a lot of other people laugh, but I still can’t help but wonder. Why was she sad? Why wouldn’t she let us help her? What can I do now? And does she know what she is missing? My heart goes out to this lady. Although it didn’t end in someone regrowing a leg or something amazing like that. This was overall an amazing experience for me. It proved God tries to reach out to people even though He knows they are going to reject Him. How many times did he reach out to me with it ending in rejection, yet he kept trying, and now look where we are? It also showed that he trusted me! I didn’t even trust myself, yet He placed his love for that dear woman into my hands. He trusted me. Why do I still not trust him? Idk buddy, but God is one crazy fella. He just blows my mind!!!

Week one: Who is God exactly?

courtesy of Anna Donahue

courtesy of Anna Donahue

            The first couple days consisted of orientation, which wasn’t terrible, but it also wasn’t the most fun thing in the world either.  However, we took that time that we had and used it wisely, getting to know each other, having adventures, and investing in each other. I would have to say that my favorite adventure was with Anna Donahue and Katie Hillhouse.  We somehow got the cockamamie idea to wake up at 4:15 in the morning to go to Garden of the God’s, which is a park with HUGE red rocks/mountains. We got there at about 4:45 and went for a walk (which was supposed to be a run, but it was dark and unfamiliar with strange noises in the bushes.) As we were walking, we were amazed with the beauty of the stars and the look of the garden at night. It is wonderful how easy it is to talk to people about things of substance here. I can’t recall many times when we have been aimlessly talking just to fill the silence. Rather, each conversation we have is about our own struggles, the teachings, or God.  That morning was one of those times. We started talking about God, which then proceeded into a prayer walk and a splendid prayer walk at that.  We first prayed for safety from the unknown that lurked in the darkness, and after we could feel God walking with us, protecting us. Then we ate breakfast, had a couple laughs and went and hiked up one of the rock/mountains (in the dark) on a path that we created. We found our perfect spot to watch the sun rise and watched the birth of something glorious. We were in a constant state of awe and could not find words to express the magnitude of what we saw and how perfect it was. To think, God created this, how much more glorious is He?  We choose a spot on top of a huge red rock and watched as the sun slowly crept above the mountain horizon. The clouds were gently airbrushed over the sky and with each passing moment the scene changed. The clouds moved in different graceful directions and the colors changed from dark violet to blue to red to orange to yellow. We were captivated by the sunrise, but when we started to walk back, we once again were held in awe as we saw the rocks turn from back to red blazing fire.  It looks so much different during the day with those rocks of fire standing gloriously high. At night it is a dark shadow looming all around you. It is still something beautiful to me though. Our God is greater than these shadows.

courtesy of Anna Donahue

            This week’s topic was about the character and nature of God. It wasn’t exactly anything new that I hadn’t learned before, nevertheless, it was still an amazing week. It is always such a good reminder to remember how good our God is, how faithful he is, how wonderful he is, how he is our God and Father, our Lord who came to serve, and our beloved. Though there was no revelations, this week was amazing. I got to know the relational side of God more than anything, as we each started getting to know each other (by asking the same questions.) We were also somehow able to dig deeper and go beyond the small talk questions, and it didn’t take very long at all for all 44 of us to become family.

The journey begins here.

God speaks to me through my writing, and before i left He, gave me this cute little parable.

There is a story of an old man who sold all he had to buy just a single little seed. He planted that seed in a plot of land that was dry and desolate, a piece of land unwanted by anyone else. He planted that seed in the fall when every living thing closes up and shows signs of death. Every day he would walk a great distance to a stream to fill his tattered shoe up with water. He would take it back to the plot of land and carefully pour it over his seed but it was not enough. Again, he would repeat his journey to the stream, and again, and again, until the seed had just the right amount. The old man sustained ridicule from passers by who saw him talking tenderly to the seed as a father would talk to his child. They would throw rocks at him and mock him. They would ask him why he did what he did and he would reply with a simple smile. When winter came the man would lay close to his precious little seed and keep it warm, shielding it from the cold and frost. He kept it safe from all harm and storm, though it felt the strain and struggle the seed never knew the real danger that dwelled about the soil. When spring came the man who had watered the seed, cared for the seed, nurtured the seed, and loved the seed, spoke something new to the seed. He said, "Arise, beloved. Come forth!" the next day, a hardly visible little sprout timidly poked its head above the ground. Each day the man would say the same thing. "Arise, beloved. Come forth!" each new morning the sprout came a little more, eventually growing into a strong sturdy tree bearing much fruit and having abundant fragrant and lovely blossoms. A time came when the tree was too large when the tree was too large to be protected, but the old man had grown the tree to be strong. Storms came hard and often, but the tree withstood them standing when others fell. The old man continued his daily journey to bring water to the tree; he continued to talk to it, to love it, and to nurture it. People who had once mocked the old man now came to stand under the tree and eat of its fruit, they would always stay and talk to the old man and in time he had planted countless more seeds on the land that they owned each producing their own fragrant blossoms and fruit. This is my story. God has brought me through many seasons in my life, and this past year has been the last frost of the winter. Now is the time to poke my head above the ground and come into this dangerous and cruel world. Now is the time to glorify god with all that I am. now is the time to arise! and come forth!

It was a crazy thought that I was leaving the life I knew and loved to embark on what would probably be the second most influential time of my life.  I didn’t quite know what lay ahead of me. I knew it was going to be difficult and it was going to be painful, but I knew the benefits of what I was going to do would echo in everything that I did from that point on.  We drove 850 miles, 14 hours, and through rain, smoke and fire. We passed by all the burnt roads of Texas thus proving what a dry and weary land it truly is, yet God can still redeem. Towards the end of our trip it began to rain.  That was the first bit of rain I had seen in a month.  Needless to say, it made my heart smile, but God’s love didn’t stop being poured out.  He didn’t just stop at granting me my rain I so desperately desired. What lay ahead of me was the most glorious sunset I have ever seen in my life.  We had to pull over on the side of the road, because the beauty that God demonstrated to us through nature was so great I would hardly breathe, let alone continue driving into the sun.  We were on a straight road that had just been paved and repainted. There were some wild flowers on the side of the road, along with come cattle in the field to the left. The sun was setting behind some small, yet still magnificent, mountains, as the rays radiantly shined through the clouds left from the rain. It was spectacular! I wonder is this going to be a picture of the next six months that lay ahead of me?