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.
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