The Great Romance

This past week, I have fallen in love with the concept of God being the Ultimate Romancer. I’ve heard people talk about this before, but today it became reality. Everyone, male or female, whether they want to admit it or not, wants to have an intimate relationship with someone. Someone they can confide in; someone with whom they know without a shadow of a doubt loves them unconditionally, knows the worst parts of their inner being, and experiences the greatest joys in life with them. Something innate in us wants this.

Everything that is created has stemmed from God. Romance, was created by God. Since it was his idea, it is safe to assume he is the best at it. We are always talking about falling in love, from every movie in Hollywood, to every book on the shelf. Falling in love seems to be at the forefront of our minds. Falling meant that something or someone was descending downward, typically rapidly and freely, without control. So in other words to fall in love meant that once you fell, there was no stopping it.

For the longest time, I could not figure out what my love language was. I had done the 5 Love Languages test multiple times and never really came to a satisfactory answer to what mine really was. It was mildly frustrating. But then after a conversation with a friend, I realized my love language was quality time. When I spent time with someone, I didn’t have to be doing anything with them, I didn’t have to say anything to them, heck they didn’t even need to acknowledge my presence. I realized I feel loved just by sitting by them and being around them.

When I came to that realization, I felt like I heard God asking: “well then why don’t you spend quality time with me”? I was cut to the heart when I heard that. I realized I had always wanted to do that, but I always found other things to do. I wasn’t really that desperate for God. I wasn’t really that hungry. Sure, I was studying the bible 8 to 10 hours a day and having worship on Mondays and Wednesdays but I wasn’t going out of my way to spend time with God. People have given the excuse that it’s okay, I had dedicated 9 months to study the Bible, which should be good enough. But if I loved someone, I would do anything I could to go out of my way to spend time with them. I realized I didn’t treat God in that way. I gave him a little bit of time here and there, but not in the same way I would treat someone I was falling in love with.

I wanted an intimate relationship with God, but I wasn’t willing to put in the time to invest in that relationship. So one day, I decided it was time. Time to stop saying I wanted to and actually do it. I kept telling myself I’d do it in the future, when I got home, when I’ve finished the SBS and my schedule calms down. But those were just excuses. No more games. The past is gone, it will never come back. The future is unattainable, I can’t do anything to make it come closer. All I have is the present. All I have is right now. So I sat down, put on some soft music and just lay down and asked God to join me. I didn’t need to pray, I didn’t need to sing. I just hung out with God in His presence.

During that time spent soaking in God’s presence, I began praying to God to make me become hungrier, more desperate for his presence. To need it. To not be able to go a day without it. And all of a sudden, I began to crave it. I became intimate with the Lord, the Creator of the universe. Grace Williams has a song called Lost and in the lyrics she says, “I want to be lost in your presence, I want to be found in your presence.” The only way to get lost in God’s presence, is to spend time in it.

God tells us to wait on him; it’s mentioned 92 times in the Bible.

“The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.” – Lamentations 3:25

“Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.” – Psalm 37:7

“But as for me, I will look to the Lord, I will wait for the God of my salvation, my God will hear me.” – Micah 7:7

The first commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind. How can he captivate our hearts if we don’t spend time with him? The bible wouldn’t mention waiting on the Lord that many times unless it was important. I never really realized it, until I began to spend large chunks of time with God, just waiting on him. Just spending time in his presence.

God is waiting on us, to start waiting on him. He is looking at me saying, “Is he going to spend time with me now? What about now? Now? Yes! He decided to! Oh wait, he got distracted. When is he going to spend time with me?”

Don’t we do the same thing when we want spend time with the one we love? We count down the hours until we get to be with them next? If God loves us as much as He says he does, why would He be any different? He’s no different. How much more do you think He wants to spend time with us? He created us just for that purpose. When you spend time with someone you love with all your heart, spending even just a few minutes with him or her can absolutely change your day. But after a while, just spending a few minutes here and there isn’t good enough. We long and crave to spend hours and hours with that person.

God longs to be intimate with us just as much as we long to be intimate with him, we just don’t realize it until we begin to invest our time into spending it with Him. I never really wanted to do it because I honestly thought it would be the most boring thing ever; having to sit there and do nothing. But when I started doing it, I realized how wrong I was. God is the least boring person in the world. There is nothing like spending time with God. It gets to the point where you dislike having to do other things. You just want to spend all day in his presence doing absolutely nothing, just soaking.

That’s where fruit comes from. It doesn’t come from ministries or evangelism, preaching, teaching, praying, reading our bible or jamming our schedule full of activities and projects that we do for the kingdom. Fruit in ministry comes from spending time in God’s presence. The fruit begins to become apparent in our character and life because we spend so much time in God’s presence. We begin to reflect Him. Then fruit begins to pour out of our lives because our hearts begin to beat with His heart, our breath becomes in sync with His breath and our footsteps begin to aligned with His footsteps.

The more time we spend in God’s presence, the more we fall in love with him. The more we fall in love with him, the more time we will want to spend in him. It’s an endless cycle. But since God’s presence is infinite there is no opportunity to get bored with him. He longs to speak with us, so how much more will he speak to those who spend as much time with Him as that they can.

The best part is, it doesn’t end there. When I get ready to leave my soaking time with God, I get to invite God to come along with me and spend the day with me in everything I do. It makes our relationship with God real. It is no longer an abstract, hyper spiritual idea, instead it becomes something that can be understood and grasped. All God wants is to captivate your heart. So let him. This is just the beginning. We get a lifetime to fall in love with the greatest romancer of all time.

A Little Bit of Freedom

Freedom. 

That’s what we all want, but so few of us have it. That’s why everyone wants to come to America, or at least, used to, because we could believe whatever we wanted and not be harassed. Freedom is seldom thought about, unless it is infringed upon. Then, all of a sudden, it rubs us the wrong way and we bristle at it.

This week, God has put on my heart the idea of freedom. Us Christians like to think we are free in Christ. And we are. But do we act like we are free? We are free from sin, but how many of us are chained down by addictions? We are free from the things of the world but how many of us are afraid of other people and that keeps us from acting upon the commands of Jesus? How often are we afraid of other Christians during worship when we want to act out but are afraid that they might think we are just “acting”? We have been set free but how often do we worry, stress and are anxious or scared about something? We are quick to put off those with the excuse of well it’s impossible to not feel those things, everyone feels those things. You can’t not worry about things. We have convinced ourselves that it is natural.

What if I told you, you were wrong?

There is freedom in Christ. I had grown up in the church for my entire life. I love church. It is a great place. A place to meet with other believers, worship our Lord and Savior, experience Holy Spirit moving, and hear a well thought out sermon. I've always had the mindset that every sermon had to be planned out, three points A, B, C, practiced, enough scripture included, a few jokes and stories to keep the audience entertained. If you didn't plan, your sermon would flop and no one would learn anything.

I had that idea in my head for as long as I can remember. Because of that, speaking has always terrified me. I never knew what to talk about, always trying to think of a funny joke to engage the audience or not run out of words and end the sermon early due to lack of material.

But all that changed.

There is a woman by the name of Heidi Baker and her husband Rolland Baker who both have their doctrine, went to seminary, did church, went to Mosan Beak, Africa and lived there for 20 years. I could go on and on about these two people but they aren't the main idea behind this blog. Anyways, they walk into the room and Holy Spirit descents into the place. They have countless stories of resurrection of the dead, healings, I could go on forever. But it was not the stories that really spoke to me. I was how they handled the conference. They had the same Spirit inside of them that I have. But they know him in a different way than I do, I think. After the worship set, she walked onto stage and picked up the microphone. She looked around at us and smiled. Then she sat down on the stage. She kicked her legs back and forth and sighed happily.

The first thing she said was, “Hmm, what does Holy Spirit want me to talk about today?” I sat there dumbfound. Here, this woman was going to run this three day conference and she had no idea what to speak on? She didn't prepare, organize her notes or tell us to forgive her if she went on any rabbit trails. She sat there for 5 minutes just smiling at us. Finally she said, “Ah! Okay, I know what we are going to do now…” and then she started. One thing she said that will forever speak to me was when she said, “There are no such thing as rabbit trails, that’s just Holy Spirit speaking.”

Afterwards, I went online with a buddy of mine and looked up youtube videos of Rolland Baker speaking. A lot of craziness went on at the conference that I’m not going to get into, but it got me to want to see what her husband was like. He was even crazier than his wife. I watched one video and for the first 40 minutes of the clip he just walked around and laughed. He would chuckle and make comments such as, “Ho, you people who came expecting a message aren't gonna’ be happy tonight!” and then he would laugh again. At one point during his wandering around the room, while laughing, he said, “You lose your fear of speaking when you don’t care if you ever get invited back again!” and started laughing again. You would think the guy is crazy. But he is filled with the joy of the Lord. I used to be the type of person who would give anyone a black look when they seemed to disrupt worship or act too crazy for my taste, like they are trying to bring attention to themselves. But I have been radically changed by the love of my Father and now I’m that guy. I can’t help but dance and shout when worshiping the Lord, it’s just not natural. We are commanded by Paul to rejoice! We think of Heaven has a great party, right? Singing and dancing and shouting to the Lord? Shouldn't our worship be the same? Rejoice!

Getting back on track, Rolland Baker didn’t just laugh. He also spread that laughter and joy with others. While wandering, he would touch someone with his hand or microphone and they would fly backwards, off their seats onto whoever was behind them or beside them, convulsing as if they had been electrocuted. But they would be laughing hysterically. They would lie there for anywhere between five minutes to thirty, just on the floor twitching laughing, laughing, laughing.  He would stand over them and chuckle, holding the microphone down to them so you could hear their laughter in the amps.

That went on for forty minutes.

Let me be clear, I know my doctrine. I don't take any speakers word on anything. I test everything against the Bible and the Truth and see if it lines up. I am not some star struck youth who is wow'd by something cool I've seen or a convincing point. If it doesn't line up with the Truth, they can do whatever they want to try to convince me otherwise but they would be wasting their time. I don't say that boast but to demonstrate that Rolland Baker is on point. He knows the Truth and he isn't afraid to share it.

I used to be a huge skeptic when seeing people being slain in the spirit, tongues, outbursts of laughter. You name it, I was the skeptic rolling my eyes. It has been something that the Lord has slowly been chipping off of me. Who’s to say the Lord can’t do those things to people? I’m sure not going to. Sure, there are people who fake it. But there are a ton who are genuinely being rocked by Holy Spirit.

The man brought the spirit of joy upon that place. He didn’t prepare anything for that meeting. He just showed up and expected Holy Spirit to show up. He didn’t stress over building the perfect sermon for a people who have heard a hundred sermons in their life. Instead, he brought what they needed. He brought joy. A joy that comes with not caring what man thinks about him. A freedom from the judgment. With that freedom, comes joy. When you don’t care what other Christians think about you when you sing and dance and shout to the Lord during worship, when you go to a coffee shop, stand up on the chair and proclaim the gospel and not care what the people in the shop are going to think of you.

There is a joy that comes with true freedom. Our Father in Heaven gave his only Son to die for us on the cross so that we might have freedom. Do we use that freedom? Did Jesus die on the cross for nothing? We say we do but are held in fear of other men. We don’t surrender our lives completely to the Lord. People say well that life isn’t for me, I have a different calling. Are we not all called to proclaim the message of Jesus? Is that not what all Christians are called to? Some would say well they would prefer to do that on an individual level. To those, I would ask, when was the last time you told someone that you loved them so incredibly much and meant it because Jesus loved them, who died on the cross to save them from death to give them freedom from their old life and allow them to be filled with a joy that nothing else in the world can compare to?

Fear holds them back, simply put. We care too much what people think, even what other Christians think of us. But with true freedom in Christ it won’t matter. There is too much joy to care what other people think. The more freedom you experience in Christ, the more joy you will have. Joy is different than happiness. Being happy is based off your circumstances. Joy isn’t affected by circumstances. It is based off the love from the Lord that he gives.

Going back to Rolland, he didn’t just wander around laughing, if you were to skip the first 40 minutes of the video, you would see him give an “ordinary” message about a pure heart. He joked, “Now for all of you who need to hear a message in order to feel like you gained something here tonight…” and laughed. He knew his doctrine. He was incredibly knowledgeable. He knew his Hebrew and Greek lexicon, he knew his scripture. He had done church. He just didn’t conform to it. He knew that there was more to it. He brought what the people in that church needed. They needed joy. They needed freedom.

This is all recent revelations the Lord has been speaking to me. I have gained an incredible amount of freedom these past couple weeks. I am still being freed from the fear of man and being judged by people. It is a journey. Our life with God is always a journey. I’m still learning. This revelation is still new to me and I’m guilty of all the things I have mentioned above. This letter is more to myself than any one person or people group. I want to be set free. I want more freedom. The Lord is releasing me from the fears that hold me back from truly living the life the apostles lived. They brought love, joy, peace and Holy Spirit. That’s what I want. I need it. Otherwise this life is nothing.

My Experience in the Chronological Biblical Core Course (CBCC)

Looking back, that was an incredibly fast three months. I had just gotten back from India in February and graduated my DTS on the 17th. While on outreach I had really gained a love for the Word of God and studied it as much as I could. I went through the book of Leviticus a few times. As difficult as it was initially, I learned how intricate and complex God is. There would be a few of us from our team doing our quite times together in the morning and I would always get excited about something I read and be like, "Guys! You got a minute? Okay, okay, listen to this..." And that would happen probably a dozen times in a very short time span. At first they were like, "Dude, that's awesome!" But after a while, it became a nuisance because they couldn't do their own quite times. At one point, they told me I should go to seminary since I loved it so much. I got super excited about the idea. Until I discovered I had to have a bachelors degree and I gave up on that idea. But then my outreach leader, Madison, told us she was staffing a CBCC (Chronological Biblical Core Course) and we should all do it.

I pushed it to the back of my mind, but there it sat for the rest of outreach and the remaining time back in Honolulu. I had always wanted to study the background and culture of the books but was always too lazy to get around to it. I still was uncertain whether or not I was supposed to do the secondary school. People kept telling me I should do it. In the back of my head I think I had already decided to do it, I just didn't want to commit myself to it. But after landing back in Seattle, WA I surprised myself a little when I told my family I was going to do the CBCC in April, only a month away. They were completely supportive and encouraged me to do it.

I still was uncertain on whether or not I should do it, but I told myself that if the $3,600 came in to pay for the school I would do it. Three weeks later, I had the full amount. I sold my car, got my tax return and even pulled some money out of my 410k plan. Everything lined up so perfectly that I was like well, guess I'm going back to Hawaii. So a week later I was on a plane back to dive into the Word of God for the next three months.

I was not prepared for what the school threw at me. I knew I was diving into the deep end but had no idea how deep that water was. The CBCC teaches the inductive method which is a way to study the Bible through the eyes of the original readers. We call them the OR for simplicity sake so if I refer to them as that it's out of habit from the 4" binder of homework I completed. We would read a text and pull out observations such as places, names, metaphors, difficult passages, analogies, key words, Strong definitions etc etc. After observing these things we would ask ourselves how is this significance to the original reader? How would this be important to them? What would it mean to them? How would they feel when they read it? We would not read a passage and then automatically try to apply it to us. The book wasn't written directly to us. It had an audience and author hundreds of years before any of us were here. So when we read it we need to understand who it was written to, what they were dealing with, understand their culture and mindset so we can better understand the text. Each text has what we call a timeless truth. That is where we pull a characteristic of God out of what we read that applies to every generation that has or will ever live. That is what can be applied, but only after you try to understand it from their perspective. If you read it through the wrong lens you will miss a lot and may come up with ideas that aren't actually biblical.

We read through 12 books, a book a week, and each one blew my mind. We read through one of each literature: Genesis, Deuteronomy, Proverbs, 1 & 2 Kings, Amos, Isaiah, Luke, Acts, Ephesians, Romans, Hebrews and Revelations. It was a sprint all the way through, I tell you that. Up until the very last day we ran, and we ran hard. Last day of the school our homework was due at 11 am, our final test was at 1 pm and we graduated that night at 6:30 pm. But it was worth it, every painstaking hour.

We would have lecture three days a week, but every day we would be in class at 9:30 am to 12:30 pm for lecture, do homework till 5 pm, have dinner and then normally be in there between midnight to 2 am. Every. Day. Six. Days. A. Week. It was vicious but the sheer amount of spiritual revelation was enough to floor you.

They say there are two different types of people who do the CBCC. The ones who do it and say that was awesome and great but I never want to step foot in a classroom ever again. And then there are the people who finish and say they can't leave until the finish the other 52 books. And that is me. I can't leave until I know the rest, there is just too much knowledge not to continue. But the ironic thing is, the more you learn the more you realize you don't know anything at all.

The CBCC was an experience like none other and I am so thankful for the staff and my peers would I got to experience it with. It was amazing and God has disciplined and expanded my mind like no other experience.

So finishing that, I realized I couldn't go home until I had had more. Three days after graduating there was a Chronological School of Biblical Study (CSBS) which is the same thing but a nine month school that does the whole Bible. The last of my CBCC friends have left to go home but I am staying here in Honolulu, Hawaii to continue and finish the Bible and see what God has in store for me in the next part of my adventure.

Where I'm At Now: Spiritual Authority.

          I've had this post on my mind for a while now, but have not gotten around to writing it. I am a different person then when I got here, that much is apparent. Growing up in a Christian home, my thoughts were, if I did the right things, prayed, went to church, read my Bible, did not drink or do drugs and led a morally right life I was doing what God called me to do.
          But I learned something that rocked my world. I wasn't living as God called me to. At the end of Matthew and Mark Jesus gave all his followers these words:
           Matthew 28:18-20, "And Jesus came and said to them, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” 
          Mark 16:15-18, "And he said to them, 'Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover, (emphasis added)."
          If you look back at all the stories told about Jesus, he did three major things over and over again. He told them who he was, he healed the sick and he cast out demons. Again and again with different people in different places he repeated those miracles. His last words to his disciples was the same message, he has given us authority to do even greater things then him, John 14:12, "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father."
          As Christians we are called to do those three things: heal the sick, cast out demons and tell people about Jesus and his love for them. Looking at it through those lenses, radically changes how you live your life. It is not enough to show Jesus through our actions, that should be a given because John 14:15 says, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." When you befriend Jesus you will want to change your life to be more like him so people SHOULD see Jesus in our actions. But that is not enough. We have been called to do greater things. 
          But these things are not normal. We do not see those things in America. Or at least do not see limbs growing back, dead coming to life and demons sending shrieking out of people. So how do we gain that kind of authority where we can heal a blind man? There are a few ways that will give you more "power". One, spending time with Jesus, just loving him and getting to know him more and more. Two, dedicating a chunk of time out of your life and give it to God, whether that means fasting or giving a period of time to just spend it completely with Him. Three, your belief in God whether or not it will actually heal the person. There is a spiritual atmosphere always around us and our faith and the faith of other people can affect the healing of another person. Jesus was known to take a person out of the city walls away from people to heal them because other people's faith was interfering. And four, you may be able to heal a man with a disease easier than someone else if you have the spiritual gift of healing. It will give you an "edge". 
          We also have authority over demons. Another way to gain more "power" is to make sure our life lines up as closely to Jesus' as possible. If you are walking down the street, see a homeless man who is drunk and oppressed making it more difficult for him to quit his alcoholism and you try to cast it out, that demon will look at your life. If it sees a bottle of Jack Daniels in your hands that you just picked up at the store, it may decide that you aren't walking the talk and didn't have enough authority over it and ignored your command.
          We are set apart as Christians to live radical lives. I barely scratched the surface of the things I talked about, I'm still learning what it all means as well but it has turned my world upside down. You see opportunities a whole lot different when you realize what God has told us to do and realize you need to be as close to Him as possible to be able to do these things. The most important thing to realize though is to love Jesus as much as you can then the miracles will follow.

Hearing God's Voice: Part 2

          I wanted to break down these journals down into a couple blogs. It has been a month and a half, a lot has happened and I want to make sure I get it all down.

10/13/2012 - "[During our week on Hearing God's Voice, our speaker, Christian Foxx, spent many hours praying over us months before speaking and felt God speak to him. He wrote down what God told him and passed it on to us. This is what Foxx got for me]: 'You are a leader. But what are you leading people to do? John says our words have the power over life or death. Will you lead people to life or down the road of death. Jonathan [other speaker] saw a picture of your head and noticed your ears were growing. Asked the Lord what that meant and He said He's increasing my ability to recognize and hear God's voice. He wants to show me His true nature because He was misrepresented. He wants to show me His Father's heart. I saw the word Father clearly for me.'
          I'm not sure what to make of a couple of the parts. Not feeling like leader is one. Struggling to hear God's voice is another. I really didn't understand what he meant when he was talking about when he said God was misinterpreted in my life. One night I just grew incredibly frustrated about it and began venting to a friend. I grew up in a church. I grew up in a Christian home. I am a Christian. I know all the bible stories. Who is he [speaker] to say I don't know God? Then I realized it was my pride. My pride had put God in a box. I thought I knew who God was. God gave me this image the other night of the earth. It shrank down till I couldn't see it. Then the the sun appeared. The sun slowly shrank as my viewpoint panned out. Soon the galaxy slowly shrank down till it was only the universe. I saw millions of galaxies. But it didn't stop there. Slowly the universe shrank to the size of my fist and then Heavens surrounded it. God said in my mind, 'I am bigger than all this.'
          I was floored. It completely blew my mind. I was humbled beyond belief. I also realized I thought I was independent; to an unhealthy level. I would push people and their help away because I considered that 'my job'. I wouldn't want to accept money or anything that would benefit me because I had always provided for myself. God showed me how wrong I was. In being prideful and independent I wasn't depending on Him. I'm growing still but slowly God is breaking me done and building me up for His Kingdom."

10/24/2012 - "In lecture the other day, people were praying for one another who were dealing with very specific issues. I wasn't struggling with any of those things so I was sitting in the back and praying to myself. A friend of mine came up to me and said he felt that God wanted him to pray for me. He asked if I was dealing with anything that needed prayer for. I was a little bewildered, I couldn't think of anything at all and said I didn't know. He prayed over me anyways and then left. Five minutes later, another friend came up to me and said the same thing, they felt God wanted them to pray for me. By now I was a little ruffled, I had no idea what they were talking about. I wasn't dealing with anything. Thirty minutes later at lunch, I was telling a friend about what happened and she looked up at me and said, 'Ironically, I woke up last night and felt the need to pray for you.' At this point I was pretty flabbergasted. I was like this is ridiculous, so I went to the prayer room and was like okay God, what do you want to tell me?
          Ephesians 5 and Philippians 2 popped into my head. I turned to the first one, but without realizing it turned to Galatians 5. Verse 5:15 sprung out at me, 'If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.' I was like huh, that's pretty intense. Then I realized I was in the wrong book and turned to Ephesians, but while reading it I glanced over at the page on the other side. 4:29 leaped off the page and grabbed my attention. 'Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building up others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.' Philippians 2:14 also said, 'Do everything without complaining or arguing.' Everything I read revolved around my tongue. It is something I struggle with tremendously. Even in a joking manner, I must resist the urge to tear someone down. Matthew 15:18 says, 'but the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these things make a man unclean.' This is what I am going to strive for."

10/26/2012 - "During worship tonight, I was really struggling with hearing God's voice; fearing I had lost the ability. A friend came up to me and said, 'don't worry,' and walked away. There is this leader who is speaking on the Holy Spirit and the Trinity. She has the spiritual gift of hearing God's voice in a powerful and clear manner and then relaying it to the people it relates to. She is pretty much a spiritual mail man. So she came up to me during worship and laid her hand over my heart and this is what she said, 'God does not see you as vain. You are not a vain person. You have been woven so specifically full of energy. People will see you walking down the road and say, that's a normal looking guy and will be shocked that you're a Christian. Then she shocked me. She said, 'it's okay to have a cigar every now and then. He doesn't want a behavior modification he wants your heart. All he wants is for you to sit in His lap so He can enjoy how He made you and carefully designed you. And then He'll listen to your requests."

          Before I go into this story, it is very similar to what happened in Acts 2 where the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples at Pentecost.

10/27/2012 - "Today we were baptized in the Holy Spirit. We all repented of our sins and then waited on God. I suddenly started praying for people. They would pop into my head, smiling and I would ask God to walk with them through their struggles. But my prayers were different than normal. I began speaking faster and faster until my words were almost a blur. As soon as I finished praying for them, they would disappear and a new person would pop into my head. If I stopped praying and that image stayed in my head I'd keep praying and then it'd disappear to be replaced with a new person.
          Then a picture of an old tree burned itself in my mind. I would open and then close my eyes but the image remained. It was a massive tree, very old, with thick, white bark, branches lifted up to the sky. My body went numb and I, without realizing it had my arms outstretched. From my finger tips to my elbow, the best word I can use to describe the feeling was wooden. I had this feeling that I must not move my feet; they had to remain planted. A wind came in through the building we were staying in and my upper body started swaying back and forth. I felt God say, 'open your eyes.' So I did and all around me I saw people lying down on their backs or kneeling down, praising God. I have no idea what that represented, but God will reveal it in due time.
          While I was seeing and feeling these things, a friend felt God leading him to pray for me. When he laid his hands on my head, he saw an image of my heart pulsing that appeared to be splintered like rough bark. But then slowly it began to smooth over until all the splinters were gone. He had no idea what I was seeing while he prayed over me.
          After that I had something between a vision and my imagination on steroids. I saw myself in a field of yellow daises as far as the eyes can see, so dense you couldn't see the ground. I looked the same as I am now, but I felt like a small child on the inside. Not in a bad way, just a child. I was leaping and spinning as I ran through the field, when I spotted a cliff side. I sprinted towards it full tilt where I threw myself off the edge. Laughter burst from my mouth as I hurled through the sky straight towards the sea below; feeling no fear, just excitement and joy. I hit the water and began swimming. All of a sudden, massive sea turtles appeared and began swimming besides me. I felt no need for air as we swam around each other in the depths of the ocean. My heart leaped into my throat when out of the depths rose a massive castle. Th only way I can describe the way it looked was a sea castle from the Little Mermaid. It radiated light. I swam into the castle and saw a majestic throne in this massive hall. God sat on the throne. I looked up at Him and feeling like a child, 'can I sit in your lap?' He looked at me and said yes. I curled up on His lap and just sat there enjoying His presence. After a while I got down and asked, 'can I dance for you?' Once again He said yes. Time went by and I stopped and got back into His lap and just enjoyed His presence.
          I opened my eyes and walked out of the lecture hall, shocked. I had never experienced anything like that at all. I didn't know what to make out of any of it. God had spoken to me in a deep and personal way that I didn't know was possible."
          God has rocked my world in ways I did not believe possible. The things I saw and experienced I did not think God still did. My life has been forever changed.

Hearing God's Voice: Part 1

          This is my testimony. I am very hesitant writing about any of this. God is not the cookie cutter God I thought He was. Reading through my journal entries, I see how insane it all sounds and I know people may not understand. There are two opinions: either I am a liar and made up every single story I am about to tell, or it actually happened. I have spent hours upon hours of praying, hours and hours of meditating and shifting through Scriptures to make sure what I experienced was not heresy or my own imagination. Being in a secluded area for months on end with the solo purpose of learning who God is, God is going to make Himself known in some pretty wild ways. But each instance lines up with the character of God. But we tend to not see God as an Unchanging God who speaks to us to this day like He did in the Old Testament. That is my disclaimer before you read on.
          So much has happened I hardly know where to start. I came here to this DTS thinking I knew what it was to be a Christian. How wrong I was. I called myself a Christian, but I never actually lived as one. My lifestyle was a joke, you would have never been able to tell I had a relationship with God. Sure, all my friends knew I followed God and I had a few morals in place, but my actions and words did not glorify God's Name.
          I am going to try to sum up as much as my experience here as I can. Here are excerpts from my journal since I began this wild journey of learning what it really means to be a Christ follower:

9/22/2012 - "I've been restless. I know I'm supposed to do something with my life, but I don't know what it is. I've always had a heart for the homeless and want to do work in Seattle. One of the leaders at YWAM was speaking about reaching the unreached people groups; people that have never heard who Jesus Christ is. A thought blasted through my head as she spoke - become homeless to reach the homeless. My reaction was NONONONONONNONONONONOOOOO!!! I struggled with that thought all through worship that night. I didn't want to become homeless, that sounded terrible. Nobody wants to do that. I was approached by a leader afterwards who asked to pray with me. I had not mentioned these thoughts to anyone and he prayed that God would be known in my thoughts. I was a little bit startled, was I making these thoughts up or was God somehow trying to tell me something? I finally blurted out what happened to him. The leader told me to just wait. He said to store it away in my head. God is going to be giving me a lot of information that I won't act on at this moment but will tell me when the correct time is to put it into action."

9/24/2012 - "Sitting on the porch during quite time, one of my roommates looked up from his Bible and looked at me and out of the blue said, 'what do you need?' I was silent for a few minutes before a torrent of words just spilled out. I felt like I was running in circles and lost. I felt like I was seeking but not finding. He listened and when I finally ran out of words asked if I had received the Holy Spirit. I looked at him a little confused and was like uhh, yeah I was baptized when I was fourteen. He rephrased his question and asked if I had been baptized by the Spirit not just water. He explained what he meant and then asked if I wanted to receive the Holy Spirit. I said yes and I prayed aloud that I wanted to be filled with the Holy Spirit because I felt disconnected from God. A huge burden was lifted off my chest in that second and a sense of peace filled me. Now I felt like I stopped running and turned around to realize God was behind me the whole time."

10/7/2012 - "We had a lecture on hearing God's voice. First we went out on our own to do the five steps. [To clarify, the topic that week was How to Hear God's Voice and there was a guideline to follow to best prepare our hearts to hear God. Now an important thing to note, it is not something to follow religiously, you do not have to do these steps to hear God's voice. Here are the five steps: (1) Ask for forgiveness of sins, you need a clean heart to come before God. (2) Ask for God to filter anything that is not of Him out of your mind, so if anything comes into your mind you can recognize it as God. Another thing to realize God won't always answer you, He isn't a figure eight ball who we can shake, ask a question and receive an answer. If He feels like we need to know something He will tell us when He is ready. (3) Ask the Holy Spirit to guide your thoughts. (4) Resist the Devil, rebuke him and the distracts he will try to bring to you. and finally, (5) be quite and listen. There are different ways to hear God's voice. When I say hearing God's voice I do not necessarily mean audibly. Here are a few different ways God may speak to a person: Through the Bible, through your mind (inner voice), praying and feeling peace about a certain matter, visions (seeing a movie or picture while your eyes are open), dreams (while asleep), hear through other people, creation and the audible voice of God. But do not limit God to only these ways. God is a God of creativity and He may to choose to speak to you in any way He pleases. Anyways back to my story...]
          First we went out on our own and did the five steps. I climbed up into this tree to listen for God. I heard God in the wind [creation] after feeling the breeze and sensing God's presence in it, a thought popped into my head, 'I'm here. I'm your comfort.' Then I sat there in the tree and a big gust of wind blew through the tree and it swayed back and forth with me in it. The thought, 'I'm your foundation,' popped into my head again. Listening yet again, the chirping of the birds got super loud and the thought, 'I'm your joy,' sprang into my head yet again. Then the sun got really hot but a cool wind blew over me and I felt at ease. He said he's watching out for me.
          After we all regrouped, they had us split into groups and focus on a person in that group and ask God for a word for them. When my turn came a few things happened. Person 1 said she saw me running through a massive stadium. The lights turned on but there was no audience. I was cheering and dancing, celebrating in victory; even though there was no one to see it. She said I do things unseen for God's glory. Person 2 said outwardly I am a guy who focuses on the lighthearted stuff, jokes etc. But underneath I am compassionate, kind, humble and have a heart for people. Person 3 said he saw a punching bag, like I was fighting but to no avail.
          The last thing we did was stand in two lines facing each other. One line would close their eyes and the other line would rearrange and be in front of a different person. The person with their eyes closed wouldn't know who was in front of them. The line who rearranged would pray and ask God what they wanted to tell the person in front of them. So when it was my turn my friend opened his eyes he looked at me. All he said was, 'division.' I was like ooookay...? What does that mean? He explained he saw an image of me filled up with light but a line of darkness went down the center of me, separating the light. Instantly I knew what that darkness was.
          It was my computer. Doesn't sound like much, but my computer consumed my life. I had well over six thousand hours in one game alone. It was holding me back from fully embracing God. I wrestled with that for days back and forth. During worship one night a guy I really didn't know came up to me and said, 'God told me to tell you, let go of what needs to be let go of,' and then walked away. Later that night my close friend came over and said, 'I think you need to get rid of your computer as soon as you can. You'll grow so much more with God if you do.'
          So I gave it up. Sent a text to my parents asking them to sell it. Ever since than a tremendous burden lifted off my chest and God has continued to speak to me, completely changing my life.

Vacation or Transformation?

Where to begin.
          A month and a half into my Youth With A Mission Disciple Training Session, most commonly known as YWAM DTS, my life has been completely "wrecked" by God. I am going to be honest here, one of the only reasons I decided to join a DTS was because I knew one was in Honolulu, Hawaii. All I wanted was a vacation in the world's most beautiful spot and I would not have to work for six months. I had the money saved up from working all year so I figured it was as good as time as any. Little did I know what was going to be in store for me when I waved goodbye to my family as I walked towards the airport terminal.
          When I told people I was going to Hawaii for training I heard the sarcastic remarks about how I would "suffer" over there. Beaches, waves, sun, sounds like the life. But what people do not realize is that we are living in community with 42 people; twenty-five grown adult men in one room, three toilets, three showers, bunk beds close enough to jump across one to the other. Two cubby holes for all your personal clothes, books, notebooks and supplies for three months. Cockroaches, geckos, cane spiders, centipedes, rats, mice, toads and bloodsucking bugs invade our home on a regular basis. Rice is a staple food here. Personalities clash. Smells of twenty-five men in one room assault your nostrils.
But the presence of God is here, and the Holy Spirit runs rampant through the base. Never had I met total strangers from all across the world and found such incredibly strong friendships then here. Every story imaginable has been told among us. Stories of people who were drug dealers, or into drugs themselves, alcohol, sexually molested as children. From broken homes of divorce, parent abandonment. People who never graduated high school, others who have been to universities studying to be lawyers. Most people here have nothing in common. Except for one thing:
We want to know God on a personal level.
          Each day here is different. We have a variation of lectures, worship, intercession (praying over a specific topic), work duties, and outreaches. Outreaches are ministries we are involved in once a week. I go to the University of Hawaii and tell students there who Jesus is and pray for students. The other two outreaches go down to Waikiki beach and inner city and talk to the homeless. Each week we have a different speaker who comes and speaks to us on a topic. We have learned about Servant Leadership, Spiritual Warfare, How to hear the voice of God, Kingdom Sexuality, Discipleship, The Holy Trinity and Justice Waters. Each week is packed with knowledge and information meant to teach us more about who Jesus is and how to walk as He did in the world we live in today.
I can not forget to mention the weekends. We have Saturday/Sunday free, so being college age students in Honolulu, Hawaii we take advantage of that to the fullest. Weekends are full of bus rides to the beaches of Hawaii, boogie boarding, body boarding, hot tub hopping, spear fishing, longboarding, snorkeling, shopping, eating out, hiking, volleyball and Frisbee.
          But just as often we sit around the base and talk about what God is teaching us. To be honest, I enjoy that just as much, if not more than all the things listed above. There is something about discussing what God is doing in someones life that sends a thrill of excitement through my body. God is a Living and Unchangeable God who loves us where we are at in life. We do not need to change our life and then go to God to be in a relationship with Him. He wants us to say, Father, I am broken and imperfect but you love me and want me to accept you as my Lord and Savior. From there God will meet you where you are at and your life will forever be changed.
          I have not even touched on what God has done in my life personally but I will get to that. I will leave you with this, God is more than I have ever experienced and my life has been radically transformed.