wOw wHAT A wEEKEND!!

This weekend was our Navigators Leadership Retreat Weekend, which wasn't officially a retreat because we didn't go anywhere but we tried to make it feel like it was.  

While planning it with the Briners and Davenport we felt like we should encourage the students to join us in fasting as we desired to seek God's agenda for the semester instead of our own.  

It was such a great weekend and pushed us into planning a very practical semester with the theme of spiritual disciplines which was great as we took part in fasting together.

Friday night started us out with a sweet time of worship especially as many of us began fasting on Thursday.  Saturday devotions were completely led by His Spirit and made very different themes stick out to very different people, we had a chance to prayerwalk afterwards, then spent time planning the calendar and growing as a team through a leadership exercise and scripture memory.  We also took our lunch time to spend with God on our own.  The night ended with a scavenger hunt downtown and game night at the Douce House.  Sunday we went to church at Faith Family, broke fast together for lunch, had some amazing free time, then gathered together to end in worship.

The weekend was not only a beginning in the numerous opportunities I'll have to teach but opened my eyes to a lot of things.  One thing I realized was that Christians really lose a sense of what Christianity is all about.  We get caught up in doing things, leading studies, serving, trying to look like a Christian when really all we're supposed to do is love God and love others.  There may be things attached to that or ways to love but mostly we are supposed to enjoy our relationship with our Heavenly Father.  We are supposed to love Him and spend time with Him to the point that we crave that time and NEED more.  We stop once we have that initial relationship with Him but as God showed me through Moses we can delight in His Presence as well as His Word.  

This has been a challenge for me to be more intentional in my quiet times and not get caught up in simply reading but focus on listening and sitting with Him.

Tears of the Saints

So I just bought a new song (two actually) from Leeland: Tears of the Saints and Yes You Have.  Tears of the Saints is my new favorite song, yes I said favorite... just disregard the last post ;)  Anyway the song talks about, obviously, tears of the saints but for the lost and unsaved and desiring for all to turn back to God.  You don't hear many songs about repentance, maybe about forgiveness but not the complete transformation and yearning heart of believers pleading for individual hearts to be led 'back home.'  I also love the crescendo as the artists seems to be pouring out his passionate heart... those types of songs become my favorite very quickly.  Another thing that's awesome is that he desires to be a part of bringing these people back into the presence of God.

Anyway... the song is amazing and everyone should listen to it at least once.

Prophets

I'm pretty sure my favorite book of the Bible is Isaiah.  (P.S. It's snowing right now which is awesome, but crazy since it was 60 degrees and sunny yesterday)  Anyway, I say "pretty sure" because I rebel against favorites, especially since there are so many different categories of everything.  Can you really compare the book of Isaiah with Ephesians or Matthew....there are so many differences.  (I obviously feel the same way with music...I have no favorites, I like everything for different reasons--except country, nobody should like country music)  

..... so Isaiah--I love it, I love how he's called to be a prophet, I love his obedience to God, I love how he's willing to look absolutely crazy for God, I love that he knows Jesus will come to save us, I love his passion for righteousness..... I love everything about it!!

This morning I read from Isaiah 64 and really saw his passion for God to come to earth.  He starts out with "Oh, that You would rend the heavens!"  Its like saying, "Oh, that You would break through and shake this world, that we may see Your power and majesty!!"  So he starts out with worshipping Him by declaring who He is, that there is no one like Him.  But he sees the sins of the world, that we've allowed sin to come at us like wind carrying us away.  We've been swept away by our desires, drowning in our sin and yet no one cries out to Him.  "And we need to be saved."  He asks for God to show mercy and compassion on His people.  And declares again who He is, that He is our Father and in control.

This is what I love about prophets; God has shared His heart with them, shared His passion for righteousness and placed a burden in their hearts and a passion for His name.  I looked up the definition of prophet and this is what my dictionary says:

a person regarded as an inspired teacher or proclaimer of the will of God

God reveals His will to these people and they obediently proclaim it to His people.  A lot of the time telling of things to come is involved but not always.  When I think of prophets I think of burdens for the world, when a lot of other people think of prophets they think of fortune-tellers.  

Just think of how much more accurate and reliable a prophecy would be if you could see they were truly torn up by the sins of the world.  

I have to admit I felt like a prophet earlier in the semester.  God continued to speak to me on the subject of repentance, during my quiet times, in the middle of the night, during bible studies and church.  Then as I was studying it and prayerwalking over the campus I seriously felt like God had handed me a ton of bricks on my shoulders.  I would be overwhelmed by the sins of the campus (both for Christians and non-Christians), He would open my eyes to what His heart felt, and I would cry out for His mercy.  Another thing I love about prophets is that in their prayers they say "we" as they include themselves in the detestable sins of the world.  They see a need for repentance themselves and not only the people God has laid on their hearts.  

Anyway, I love it and I want more!!  Yay God!

Sorry... I don't have a catchy title

Every time I look through my journal I read a few entries that start out, "I'm horrible at writing consistently, so this is what has happened since my last entry...."  As I wrote in my last post I always feel this need to give an update on what has happened between now and then.  Well... way too much has happened, which is sad really and should be written out for everyone to see--its really good stuff.  But hopefully you know me and have been in the loop for the past few months.  

I will, however, give a very brief update [just to remain consistent :)]  I've been loving my staff position with the Navigators, every minute of it in fact.  I've grown so much more than I ever expected in a position where I pour out.  God has been good to me reminding me that to be affective I have to fill up first.  I had a season of studying repentance which was amazing and oh so satisfying as my eyes were opened to new passions for teaching and areas of repentance in my own life.  I've had a super long season of understanding love: God's love for me, my love for Him, the love of others towards me, my love towards others, growing in trust and opening up my heart to actual feelings.  I'm not sure I knew my heart could hurt, twist, be burdened and love in so many different ways.  And thankfully, God has been gracious to me and given me a beautiful friend whom I love and know loves me and is faithful enough to push me and walk with me as my heart gets exposed to the point of actually becoming vulnerable.  (That would be you Dudeman)

I've grown in trusting God with promises (starting with the fact that I don't really trust Him at all), I've grown in my passion and zeal for godliness and so many other areas that I don't have time to list.  

With all of this growth, my eyes have grown to see just how much more I need to grow!!

So today this is what I've been thinking about: selfishness.

I'm very selfish.  I realize that I say, "I want.." a lot or of course "I don't want..."  I've actually been thinking about this quite a bit and have been wondering how I need to be growing in selflessness.  I picked up a NAVS promises book remembering that I had seen there was a topic on selfishness and really liked how one of the verses was written.  

1 Peter 4:1-2  "Since Jesus went through everything you're going through and more, learn to think like Him.  Think of your suffering as a weaning from that old sinful habit of always expecting to get your own way.  Then you'll be able to live out your days free to pursue what God wants instead of being tyrannized by what you want."

Now this version is from the Message which a lot of people don't like, but I love it especially how emotion is portrayed.  I love how the end of the verse shows the extreme opposites of freedom in desiring what God wants compared to the overwhelming oppression by becoming a slave to our own desires.  Losing everything all of the sudden sounds so refreshing.  

There was a time today where I was feeling overwhelmed, some kind of pain and agitation in my heart and all I could think of was what I wanted to do or didn't want to do.  I realized after reading from Galations 5 that that feeling was a huge battle between my self-seeking flesh and my free spirit.  It's crazy that we can have an all out war within us, thankfully God lets us know what's going on.