Today is the first day of my 27th year of life. I returned home from 8 and a half months of missionary work in South America 3 weeks ago. I haven’t even been back in Santa Cruz for a month and yet I’m already neck deep in work; I’ve also already accrued some new testimonies that could eclipse some of the ones from YWAM. Where do I start?
Well, I’ve moved into the “Protégé” Internship House. When I was praying about my arrival into the house I felt like God was putting it on my heart to really try and spend quality time with every other intern individually and strive for unity in the house. So, I’ve tried to be really intentional in getting to know everyone in the house and so far I really like everyone. However, in the process of integrating into the house I’ve consequently neglected some of my other friends in the process (I’m not even sure if everyone even knows that I’m back or not). This is something I really want to remedy in these upcoming weeks.
As far as the actual work for the internship, it’s going really well. I’m directing the college-aged ministry with another intern named Jared. So far we’ve only put on one event (an informal pre-launch hangout at Santa Cruz Diner), 2 dozen people showed up and it was a great time where everyone seemed really stoked on the upcoming college season at Vintage. The majority of my time so far has been spent planning upcoming events and connecting with new college students on Sundays. Our college group is called “Vantage” and our first night is this upcoming Tuesday, October 11th. Coming back from YWAM I feel like I’m walking in a new boldness that I know I didn’t have before, and God has been blessing it. Every person I’ve approached on Sundays has been excited to talk with me and not only friendly but enthusiastic about the college group.
Enthusiasm… I still have mine. Since I’ve been back God’s opened the doors for me to teach, and teach enthusiastically. My first week back I had a chance to speak to Scotts Valley Calvary Chapel’s high school youth group and it was such a big encouragement. Not to over-exaggerate, but there was a powerful moving of the Holy Spirit! I was invited to teach on any subject that I wanted to, so I decided to speak on the most life changing thing that I learned in YWAM, the source of the majority of all the revelations that I received: The importance of having a daily quiet time with the Lord. I used a ton of Bible and yet I held a group of 15 high-school kids in full attention for my 30 minute class. After I spoke about having quiet times with God I ran an exercise where I had everyone do a “mini” quiet time reading through Isaiah 55 (a chapter that stood out so profoundly while I was preparing that I knew it was the section of scripture these kids were supposed to go through). After the exercise I opened up a time of sharing where everyone who wanted could share what they heard God telling them. I asked if anyone wanted to share and hands shot up like popping popcorn!
One kid who’d never been to the youth group before and wasn’t a Christian but who just came with his friend had my favorite testimony of the night. He said that after first praying by talking to God as you’d talk to a friend, doing his best to have faith that what he was reading was the inspired word of God, and reading intentionally and expectant that God would speak to him he felt like God was telling him that even though there were many good pleasurable things in the world he still felt like there was a missing piece inside of him… a piece that he felt after reading the Bible he could only fill with God! I was thinking “Are you serious!” this was seriously like this kid’s first time at church and he came up with what Christian’s generally described as a “stereotypical” concept of who God is all on his own. Needless to say I was freaking out excited for him, and was literally jumping up and down confirming that the Holy Spirit was revealing things to him. Another cool testimony came later that night as I was grabbing a snack with the other youth pastors after the group wrapped, one of the kid’s moms texted the main youth pastor to tell him that after the teaching her son couldn’t stop talking about how the Holy Spirit had spoken to him through his quiet time, and that when he got home he wanted to lead his family in a time of worship with his guitar and that he’d never done that before! She asked if I was ever going to come back and teach again, or if I had time to mentor her son.
I also got to speak at my old elementary school, Baymonte in Scotts Valley and it went great as well. I spoke on the concept of “Saying ‘Yes’ to God” and even kept the K through 2nd graders attention. I did two chapels in front of over a total of 200 kids, and I got invited to come back and speak to the Jr. High later in October. Not only have the speaking engagements gone well but God’s opened doors to discipleship among some of my old friends as well. Not only that but I’ve been encouraged with the number of college kids I’ve met through Vintage that have been interested in meeting with me one-on-one and going deeper with their faith. Last night I went to Christian Club meeting called Intervarsity on the UCSC campus and got to meet a bunch of students that I’d called and emailed through the connection cards that they’d filled out at Vintage Faith. God just continues to put people in my path that are open to what He has for them and also people who’ve been able to encourage me.
One more quick testimony: While my internship at Vintage Faith provides me with free rent it doesn’t pay anything, meaning that upon my return to the States I’d need to find a part time job to pay for food and gas money etc. Well, I re-did my resume and went to santacruzjobs.com and only applied to one job and sure enough they called me for an interview, it went great, and I was offered the job yesterday! I’ll be working for a company called Easter Seals that provide one-on-one respite care for people with disabilities, and I’m going to be partnered with a Spanish speaking client on a schedule that will be designed around my ministry at Vintage Faith. What an answer to prayer, a social service job that is part-time, in my career field, that works perfectly with my schedule, and let’s me continue to practice and learn more Spanish! Thank you God!
So even though I’m now 27, un-married (and no where close to be), and un-rich, at least I know I’m walking in the will of God. I’m seeing His anointing on me since I’ve returned and know that I’m where I’m supposed to be for now. So I just gotta keep this up and truth Him.
Well it took a little longer than I expected but I’m currently writing this most recent blog entry from the living home of my parent’s house in Soquel, California, United States of America. When my flight got cancelled after the plane didn’t pass the safety inspection and I needed to spend an extra day in Pichilemu the weather couldn’t have been better and two friends from the upcoming school of Worship school invited me to dinner at their house. However, I was really caught off guard when I learned that my visa had expired the following day and discovered that I couldn’t go home…
I found out today from my parents jut how many people were praying for me and I have no doubt that your prayers were heard! First off American Airlines could have charged me 200 dollars to change my flight to the following day but they changed it for free. Second, the guy at the baggage storage let me store 2 bags for the price of one. Third, the lady at the information desk found me a hostel to stay at that was on the same street as the government building that I needed to procure my necessary paperwork. Fourth, as I was getting off of the bus to board the metro a young women who told me that she saw me looking lost in the airport (where she worked) escorted me all the way to the hostel where I was trying to find because she said that she was worried I’d get robbed since the neighborhood I was headed to was dangerous at night. Fifth, the hostel was only 19 bucks a night and was really clean and the water was nice a hot, and free breakfast and internet.
A picture of my super solid free breakfast!
I was quite a long wait, but I got there early enough that I was finished before 10AM. I received a certificate to leave the country and they gave me everything for free! Felt really good about my Spanish when I had to read a bunch of forms and could make sense them!
After getting all of my business sorted I had the rest of the day free until my flight left at 10PM so I went on a free 4 hour walking tour of Santiago in ENGLISH!
The tour was really nice and one of the other tourist bought me a coffee.
After the tour I got lunch with a Guy from England that knew where I’d studied. For 6 bucks each we have a 3 course meal with cokes and espressos. After lunch I caught a 4 dollar matinee of Midnight in Paris . and afterwards retrieved my bag from the hostel sent off a couple of email and took public transport to the airport with and hour and a half to spare. The whole situation couldn’t have gone down better! So, Thanks God :)
So I’m back in Santa Cruz! Moving into the Protégé house tomorrow!
I received the following message in my Facebook inbox on Tuesday and just read it a couple hours ago. The author will remain anonymous but my response must be public because the questions addressed may be shared by others who know me as well.
“i was just reading your blog, and i wondered:
when you received financial support to take your trip to south america, you used it as proof that god wanted you to go and that your faith in christianity was rightly placed. but now that you aren't receiving financial support anymore, does that mean that god doesn't exist? i mean, that's your logic, right?
josh, you are giving "good" christians a bad name by following this bullshit so blindly. it's like you really want to believe in something just for the sake of it. you were complaining about "dumb" christians that don't know anything about their religion or about science, but you are totally turning out to be a dumb christian too! even when faced with a solid, bullet-proof logical argument, all you do is say, "oh, good point." and continue to pursue the opposite. it's retarded. why are you so into this? it's like, god is the only thing you think about, to the point where its become a lucrative obsession like baseball or recording equipment. if there is one thing that has convinced me that god does not exist, it has been knowing you.”
Whew… alright let me start by addressing the questions presented in the first paragraph. First off, I need to apologize to my reading audience (however small they may be) because I have not kept you adequately updated; it’s be 39 days since my last entry and that something that I never wanted to happen, especially with the financial cliffhanger I last left you with. Even with the full schedule of this school and multiple projects I needed to finish I should have had the time to share the testimonies AS THEY HAPPENED, instead of over 3 weeks later. Well better late than never, I received 440 dollars from my second round of support letters (Parents excluded) that allowed me to finish paying for this school, change my plane ticket to start the Protégé internship, and even have a little left over for contact solution and healthy food! So yeah, God is using finances to “prove” to me that He exists, but here’s the thing even if I didn’t receive a dime I’d still have faith in God. When God tells us to do something we can trust that He’ll bring is to pass (no matter how insurmountable the obstacles may be, financial or otherwise).
So, I think can guess your next question, what if I didn’t get the money? Well I did get the money, and I believe that I did because I really was hearing God correctly. BUT if I didn’t, then that wouldn’t mean that God didn’t exist, it would only mean that I heard Him wrong and that He had a different plan for me; a plan better than the one I thought, because it would be in His will. Jesus says in Luke 22:42, “Father, if Thou art willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Thine be done.” Here’s the deal, through prayer and reading the Bible we can develop an intimate relationship with God and receive direction for what He wants us to do with our lives but we’re still only human and we may not always hear it correctly but that doesn’t mean God doesn’t exist it only means that we’re still trying to figure out what HIS WILL is. It’s all about His will NOT mine; He owns me, He bought me with the blood of His perfect son Jesus when I was a slave to Satan: the ruler of this fallen world. So I do HIS will now, not mine. I choose to have faith in Him when he blesses me financially through the bank accounts of others and I’ll choose to have faith in him if everyone in my family dies is a tragic car accident, I’m not saying it’ll be easy or that it wouldn’t radically change my life but I’ve witnessed to many miracles and received to much truth to turn back now.
Incidentally, a quick side note since we’re on the subject of miracles, God does TWO different kinds of miracles. The first kind we could call “Supernatural”, like when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead in John 11. I can’t say I’ve seen much of this, though I would place the boy in Quito that came out of his comma when our team of missionaries prayed for him in this category. Much more often God will work in miracles of “Providence”, where God blesses us through the lives of other people or circumstances. For example, my closest friend here on the base named Nathan has a wife named Cole who was recently certified to be a hair stylist and was on the market for a pair of professional scissors. Since Nathan’s parents are doing some missionary work in California at the moment, Cole asked me if I could ask my professional stylist friend Tori (who’s blog she reads: http://www.myowleyes.net ) if she could recommend a good pair of scissors that Nathan’s parents could bring her back from the states. I wrote Tori with the request for the recommendation and sent her Nathan’s folks cell number so she could get in touch with them. The next time I saw Cole she was ecstatic, “for some reason” after talking with Nathan’s parents Tori decided to bless Cole with over 250 dollars worth of professional styling gear even though she’d never met her . Atheists write this off as weird coincidence but Christian’s know that this is God miraculously moving in the hearts of His children, and it totally made Cole season. If you want Biblical examples of these kinds of miracles read the four chapter book of Ruth, it’s full of “crazy” coincidences, and God isn’t even mentioned specifically to show how often He works like this. *ahem* but I digress… on to the questions second paragraph.
Let me quickly address this statement: “even when faced with a solid, bullet-proof logical argument” I’m not sure what you meant by this… if you’re referring to evolution then I’d have to say it’s NEVER been proven, far from it. In fact nothing in the Bible has ever been disproven, because it’s a perfect book! Thanks to the Dead Sea Scrolls that scientifically proves that the Old Testament was written before the New Testament the odds are astronomical check out this website: http://www.reasons.org/fulfilled-prophecy-evidence-reliability-bible Also you have to watch the movie Expelled with Ben Stein, it’s the same high production values as “Religiousity” but it makes the case FOR GOD. Also I couldn’t recommend more the book “Mere Christianity” by former atheistic turn Christian philosopher C.S. Lewis!
Why am I so “into this”? Let me start by responding to why I’m NOT so “into this”. I’m not into this because it’s some sort of cult where if I don’t have a “ludicrous obsession” with it then the cult refuses to love and since I’ve had to cut all former ties with everyone in my life to be accepted by the cult in the first place I do whatever they say. If that were the case I don’t think I’d be allowed to use the internet, take pictures and keep a blog, Skype with my friends/parents whenever I want, leave the base whenever I want or be free to return home whenever I want. It’s also been all in Spanish (except for the translation of the classes) so I haven’t even gotten that close with the leadership at all. I’m also not so “into this” because I was (BY THE WORLD’S STANDARD, or as Bill Maher would say) some sort of person who stereotypically “needed” God. I had money, a college education, a good job, a good house, good friends and a good family, but I also had something else: conviction of my sin against my creator and a desire to repent. To repent of my life full of idolatry, putting numerous thing before Him in priority; for lust after the things of this world instead of putting Him in the first place of my life, the place He’s belonged all along.
I’m SO INTO THIS because I’ve had a revelation of just how off the mark I was, of how bad a hypocrite I was being before I came here, of how I’m so impotent to change without the power of the Holy Spirit and how the Holy Spirit really has caught fire inside of me and given me a regenerative spirit, complete with new desires and a new attitude! Let’s start with the “easy” stuff: I haven’t masturbated, and have live completely strait-edge over 8 months! I’ve read the Bible and had a quiet time with the Lord every single day since January 5th! I read a book on courtship and God totally spoke to me through it and I’m committed to only kissing one more person for the rest of my life and that’s my future wife starting on our wedding day! I’m excited about working a church job, something I’d never wanted to do before! It’s because God’s really real, He’s forgiven me and has changed me and He’ll continue to do wondrous things through me when I come back in 5 days! I can’t blame you for thinking that my life was a great proof of God’s non-existence because I was a professing Christian living a hypocritical un-regenerated lifestyle. But that was before He really got a hold of me again!
The fact that I seem ludicrously obsessed with God is because that’s the way HE designed it to be like, we’re supposed to be on fire for Him! There shouldn’t be anything like a luke-warm Christian, Psalms 104:4 say, “He (The Lord) makes winds His messengers, flames of fire His servants.” I’ve been made a new in Christ! Let me end with a passage from Ephesians 4:21-24 and encourage that it’s a choice that EVERYONE can make!
“If indeed you have heard Him (The Lord) and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness and truth.” –Ephesians 4:23 –
Woo Hoo! Alright here are a couple of pics from a wedding on the base during my last days in Chile:
So I admit, there has been some radio silence on the missionary blog (20 days to be exact), and the reason being that this counseling school is just plain harder than the DTS. We’re tackling some deep uncomfortable subjects and at the same time have been confronting some serious spiritual warfare. I’ve been wrestling with loneliness, fear, uncertainty, shame, and unbelief in some serious ways these last 3 weeks and I didn’t want to prematurely complain about the progress I didn’t know if I was making or not and I definitely didn’t want to curse God.
These last few weeks have been a test for me, a test to see if I could wait and trust in the Lord and I can see now what a blessing it has been. I had been struggling with the classes and not knowing if I was receiving what I felt I was “supposed” to be receiving. I was struggling in the area of finances, my petition of financial support on the blog went completely unanswered and so did the letter I’d written that my parents graciously sent out for me. With the finances uncertain, my Spanish competency still questionable for Biblical counseling, and a lack of a specific word, the outreach after this theory phase loomed ever foreboding in the near future. But God, in His ever present method of teaching me has continued to prove Himself faithful. My perfectly timed 2 week quiet time study of the book of Nehemiah spoke to me strongly of trying to grow and do something for the Lord amidst challenges.
Nehemiah 4:17-18
“Those who were rebuilding the wall and those who carried burdens took their load with one hand doing the work and the other holding a weapon. As for the builders, each wore his sword girded at his side as he built, while the trumpeter stood near me.”
Last Saturday during a Skype call with my parents we began talking about what life would look like for me after I returned home to Santa Cruz and it’s a subject that I’d felt God had been speaking to me about. I began listing things that I’d felt I had to pursue when I returned home: 1) Immediately seek out spiritual role models and mentorship. 2) Find a partner to start a community group with and begin teaching all the things that I’m continuing to learn from my DTS and Counseling schools. 3) Only live with other like-minded accountability seeking Christians. 4) Continue working with the Vintage Faith children’s ministry but bump it up to every Sunday if they could use me. 5) Continue to keep God in the first place in my life, and not let the fire He’s put in me fizzle out. As far as “career plan” specifics I was still rather confused but I’ve seen in the last 7 months how making decisions to focus on God have only led to growth and blessing and so whatever I’d be doing needed to include God as a priority. My parents in response asked me if I’d thought about my church, Vintage Faith’s, one year long 20+ hour a week internship program “Protégé” and I said that it sounded like something worth praying about and looking into.
After looking up the program details on the internet I began to get excited, being apart of this program satisfied all five of my homecoming goals and even included free rent in Santa Cruz; best of all the program started right as this school was ending. The dates seemed to line up perfectly, I had a really good feeling about it, and after a quick prayer decided that I needed to write a letter of interest and pursue a next step. 2nd Kings 7:3-14 recounts a story with the morale being: If you don’t have any options, don’t just stand around with you’re arms crossed. Yes Pray, Yes Trust, Yes wait on the Lord, but we need to take steps if we feel moved by the Lord to do so that He can open doors that we can have the option of praying to go through. So I wrote Vintage Faith Church and waited for a reply… I got one the next day: The Protégé program was already full.
What!?! This seemed so right, what’s going on God? Are you really with me? But I was encouraged to still apply because as the beginning of the program approaches you never know what could happen and so I filled out the application and submitted the whole thing to God. With no clear options before me I spent the last week heavily in prayer, I felt compelled to spend every hour at lunch reading the Bible and I decided to trust. To trust that God WAS still with me, to remember that He has been with me this whole time and has blessed me so much since I’ve committed this season of my life to Him in YWAM. I was lent a bunch of Christian books in English; I had 2 leaders give me really nice encouraging words to “remain” in the Lord and trust that His way was the best one for me. At the end of the week all of the my challenges were still present but by the grace of God I had peace that the big things would get worked out because God really had been answering all my “little” requests for encouragement and guidance.
Nehemiah 8:10b, 12b & 18a
“For this day is holy to our Lord, Do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength” “Because they had understood the words which had been made known to them.” “And he read from the book of the law daily, from the first day to the last.”
You see, the Devil is never going to take a break from lying to you. He’s going to tell you that God isn’t with you, that God isn’t real, that you’ll never change, that you’re all alone and if we don’t bathe ourselves in the truth then we leave ourselves really venerable. The Bible is the truth of the Lord and spending an extra hour a day in it was just what the doctor ordered. And this blog entry is about to get even better because, once again, God proved to me that he hears and answers prayers.
I received an email from one of the pastor’s at vintage faith on Friday to see if we could arrange a Skype call, and after some email coordination we made it happen that evening. Apparently, the day after I’d emailed them my application to the Protégé program someone dropped out, leaving an internship working with the college ministry open. During the course of our conversation I was able to share a bunch of my testimonies from my schools so far and by the end I received an invitation to be apart of the program! After asking my YWAM leadership, I received a blessing from them to take part in it and so I’m coming back to Santa Cruz a bit sooner than I was expecting! I still need to get my plane ticket all sorted but the last day of the Counseling School is the 10th of September so I’ll be flying back as soon to that date as I can.
God really used that initial “fullness” of the program to teach me an important lesson in prayer and trusting Him; God continues to bless me and direct my path as I put Him first in my life and I’m so encouraged! God is real! He’s personal, and He loves us wants to bless us just like the Bible says!
Nehemiah 12:43
“and on that day they offered great sacrifices and rejoiced because God had given them great joy, even the women and children rejoiced, so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard from afar.”
I’ve already finished "Out of the Silent Planet"(dug it) and “Boy meets Girl”(pretty sold on the idea of courtship). Working on “Mere Christianity” right now for the first time and loving it!
Rocking the muck boots! A rainy Pichilemu winter = lots of mud
Hebrews 13:7-8
“Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you; and consider the result of their conduct, imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, yes and forever.”
Spiritual role models may be one of the most difficult things to find and as I’m growing in my understanding more and more of who Jesus is and the kind of life I’m called to live I can’t help but wonder, “Why did it take me SO LONG to get me to this place where I can finally really start following Christ!” The answer is one word and very simple: Pride. When I was 20 years old I used to have a friend named Zack Eckert (I’m probably spelling it wrong, I couldn’t find him on Facebook) who when he heard that I’d gone on a road trip to Canada with 3 other friends from our college youth group and totally lived like we weren’t Christian from 10 days he totally pursued me and came to my house and wanted to protect me from falling into a bad crowd but I pushed him away, I didn’t heed his advice, I wanted to live the way that I wanted. I remember Zack leaving notes taped to my door and leaving me voicemails wondering if I could make time for a devotional like we used to do together, but I remember thinking that he was too “fundamental” for me. It was a similar story with me friend Peder Wilkinson, around this same time he wanted to start a small group with me but I remember telling him that I didn’t think I should because I wasn’t living the way a leader should (wow, how responsible of me).
A few years later, around 22-23, I would meet a new pair of spiritual role models, Brian Ballard and Wayne Adler. I remember the two years I spent being a part of these guy’s youth group were really fruitful. They gave me a hunger to start reading and discussing the Bible more, made time to get to know me, and met with me for counsel during the week when I’d ask for it. But the road I’d decided to fork off of back when I was twenty had become the norm and at this point, and my conscious on certain matters was no longer sensitive but seared black from a growing pride that assured me with the ever present lie: I was a “good Christian”. Let me just say that there is nothing the devil wants us to do more than to think that we’ve reached a comfortable place in our faith. The benefits of this youth group began to decline (no doubt in part from my bad influence) and eventually ended completely when Brian moved away and shortly after Wayne as well. What I know I needed back then was someone to grab me by the shoulders, shake me, and say: “Do you have any idea how bad you’re blowing it! You’re not living like a disciple of God, you’re lukewarm at best, and you’re giving every real Christian a bad name!”
But no one did and I kept living exactly how I wanted , yeah I was still going to church, having quiet times in my bible (the quality of these times I’m sure now were miserable), going to small group, and volunteering in my church BUT I wasn’t living in the fear of the Lord, I hadn’t really repented from my sin because I kept falling back into it and in everything… was the pride. The pride that said, yeah I know this is wrong, but I’ll say I’m sorry and keep living the way I WANT to live. That’s not the way it works, you’re life needs to be submitted to the Lord, you’re life isn’t your own after you accept Christ for real. If you’re a true Christ follower then you’re going to be in your bible everyday getting to know the God that you’re living for. Thank God for spiritual role models like Allyson McMillion and Brittani Truby, who acted on the conviction that God put in their hearts to lead a small group with the topics they’d learned from their Youth With a Mission Discipleship Training School and for much more importantly living the same principles! Thank God for Andrew Dunn, for the good counsel he gave me to pursue a DTS of my own after I’d shared with him an interest I’d had to do one some months before.
And Finally, Thank GOD for being a Lord that pursues us relentlessly! Who keeps calling us again and again no matter how prideful we are, no matter how many things we experiment with, no matter how many doors of the enemy we open, no matter how bad of an example we are, no matter who we’ve made stumble in the past. God’s unconditional love will forgive us, but we can’t just say sorry, it’s a 180 degree turn we need to make toward a life lived in holiness and humility. It’s an impossible life we’ve called to live alone but it’s one that’s possible through the grace of Jesus. Humility is the key, it’s what we’re supposed to practice and if we want to claim the true destiny God has for us it’s something we need to embrace. I’ve been given so much grace and have begun to receive so much revelation about the pride I’ve always struggled and have renewed gratefulness that in His way and against my best effort He brought me here to make a change for real.
Here’s a killer sermon putting some of this stuff in better words, seriously if you want to start changing your life watch this!
Alright, the counseling school has gotten off the ground and so far so good. The first two weeks are spent going through a Biblical counseling program that will serve has the foundation of the rest of the school, it’s called: The Divine Plumline. The reference verse for this study can be found in Amos 7:7-9 and it involves indentifying places in your life that you’re suffering a “Deficit of Love” and how that love deficit is manifesting itself in feeling rejection or acting out in rebellion. Believe me there’s a lot more to it but I hesitate to write more until I learn more about it in the upcoming week.
Something that kind of “hit” me this week was the fact that the changes that I’ve made in my life over the last 6 months I’m going to have to keep for the next 40 – 50 years and that kind of intimidated me because in many ways the last 6 months have been the hardest months I’ve ever lived. If I’m really going to call myself a Christian than that means that I don’t get to make my own decisions anymore, I have to base everything on the Bible and if God tells me to stay here in Chile and being a life long missionary than I have to do it. But I don’t think it’s the concept of staying here that’s making me nervous (because so far I really don’t feel that’s the call I have), I think that it’s the fact that I have a new found clarity of what sin is and I can’t live in ignorance of it anymore. It’s easier to live “holy” in a Christian bubble like but what happens when I do eventually go back home, I know too much truth now to try and justify myself down to a level of lukewarmness that will result in me being a hypocrite. Here’s a verse and conversation that I got yesterday that helped me wrap my mind around this a little.
Proverbs 8:12-14
“I, Wisdom, dwell with prudence, and I find knowledge and discretion. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil; pride and arrogance and the evil way, and the perverted mouth, I hate. Counsel is mine and sound wisdom; I am understanding, power is mine.”
“Power is mine”… what could that mean? This question confused me until I remembered of a conversation I had with one of my favorite girls on a drive up north highway 1. It was fairly early in the morning and I can’t quite remember how we got on the subject but she was explaining to me some benefits to being Vegan that I hadn’t really thought about before. She said that before going vegan something that would have been constantly in the back of she mind on the drive would have been “what tasty (slash unhealthy) treat am I going to get for breakfast when we get to our destination. However after going vegan she said she feels so much healthier and in control of not only her diet but her life because she doesn’t think like that anymore. She’s committed to being Vegan and knows that she’s not going to break Vegan just for a bacon and egg breakfast or a maple bar; she has power over that problem area of her life.
I think Christian can have this same kind of “power” over choosing to sin or not if we’re really as committed as were called to be. Our minds won’t wander to the pleasures of sin if our conviction is so strong that it’s not even an option. Just like our Vegan in question isn’t “tempted” anymore by every McDonalds ad she sees, I need to get to that same level in my Christianity.
Alright, the counseling school has officially kicked off and here at the beginning of the school they’re 15 students. While there are no English speakers out of the students my Spanish is now good enough that the experience very much different than my DTS was and I can participate in the social aspects of this experience a lot more. The age demographic of this school is also much older, which I’m enjoying; my patience doesn’t seem quite so stretched this time around in the areas of manners and noise at night. I’m enjoying the classes so far and I’m stoked on the English interpreter, she’s from the United States and learned Spanish by spending a year in South America with YWAM. She just finished the theoretical phase of the counseling school and because of a lack of finances she’s translating this school as her outreach. However since I’m the only English speaker she just sits next to me during the classes and translates directly to me; this works but it’s different than having real breaks for the interpreter to speak like in my DTS.
Something that surprised me about the first four days of this school is the promises made by the teachers so far. Basically everyone is promising that we’re all going to receive huge amounts of healing and revelation from the Lord if we’re honest and give the school 100%. I’m excited about getting this process started and so far I’ve been able to enjoy being in this school phase a lot more, now that I know my way around the town and schedule and already have friends (from my DTS that are now leaders in the DTS happening now) and can talk to people. In the first class the speaker said something that I really took notice of, they said: “Sometimes God takes us out of our country to specifically show us who we’re not .” I think that’s going to be the main starting point to what I’ll be learning of these next 3 months. We were also taught that counseling are instruments of God and that before we can successfully heal other we need to receive healing. Everything seems to be on a grand scale for this school and if it really goes as deep as everyone is saying it will I don’t know exactly how abstract this blog will get. I’d appreciate it if anyone reading this would just pray that God reveals everything I supposed to get of this school.
I’m reading through Deuteronomy in this school and some verse that stood out big this week were:
Deuteronomy 6:5&7-8
“And you shall love the Lord yout God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”
“And you shall teach them (these truths) diligently to your sons and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.”
Basically, if we want to be the Christians that God’s called us to be then He always needs to be on our minds, in our speech and through our actions. I know this is one of those classic Bible verses but we really are supposed to be doing when we: Sit, Walk, Lie, Rise. That requires an awful lot of intimacy with God and that’s the goal I’m going to be going for!
