This weeks speaker, Brenda Lewis, is an AMAZING woman! To sum her up, she's a fashionable grandma of four, young at heart, compassionate, full of the spirit, and she has a lot of worldwide connections... but I'll explain the significance of that later.
To start today's lecture, we went around the room sharing our a top priorities on our Bucketlists. Although I wanted to say stuff like, "Go to space" or "BASE jump into the Grand Canyon", I was immediately filled with a compassion for missions! Countries began to flow through me, and I felt a need to write them down (in no particular order): India, Ireland, Poland, Isreal, Greece, Benin New Zealand, Borneo, Brazil, Argentina, Malaysia, Indonesia, Napal, and many more that I will share at a later time for reason that I will share at that time ;)
I was at a loss of words. At one time or another I have felt a calling to each of these countries for specific, individual reasons concerning missions, but God had not confirmed this calling... until today. My feelings and emotions became my calling. I am to be a missionary. I am to travel the world. I am to start a ministry. I am to establish this ministry in MANY countries.
After much prayer over the past month, God has also confirmed an outreach area for my DTS. South Mexico. Specifically Chiapas. Here's how God confirmed it...
First of all, many of us had been feeling a call to travel to South Mexico, so it was added to the list of "Possibilities," along with Chili and Argentina. The main problem we faced here, was that we needed to split our huge DTS of 31 into two groups. Who was going to go where? And how could we be sure that where we were to go was God's will and not our own?
We were given two colors, 'gold' and 'silver', and told to pray and ask God which color was for us. We were NOT informed as to which color represented which country. So we sought God. Almost immediately I knew that 'gold' was the outreach to Argentina and Chili, and I nearly put it down without even seeking God. But I felt uneasy. So I reluctantly asked God to guide my thoughts, to help me focus on His will for me instead of my own desires. Proverbs 8. Nothing else. So I looked it up. I felt that I should start reading and which ever choice I came across first, silver or gold, I would pick. Verse 10, "Choose my instruction instead of silver, knowledge rather than choice gold," Now the crazy part is that when I came to that verse, my brain mixed stuff up a little, and this is what I read instead, "Choose silver rather than choice gold." BAM! I did like a triple take, but there it was, plain as can be. So I put silver down. South Mexico. Rainforest. Highlands. Central valley. Soconusco. Sierra Madre de Chiapas. And conflict. Lots and lots of conflict. We have our work set out for us.
To make financial matter more interesting, however, a few of us students have spoken up about a calling to reach out AFTER the DTS outreach. We call it our "Mini Outreach." Guess where we all felt called to go?? INDIA!! After a month of prayer and seeking God's will for us, we each individually felt a call to India. To confirm this further, our speaker happens to be the CEO and founder of C.R.I. (Children's Rescue Initiative) based in ... INDIA! She has lots of info on the cheapest and smartest ways to travel to India, live in India, and minister in India!
Here inlies the problem. Thankfully, it's God's problem, but I must wait on God to resolve it before I can do any of these things above. Finances. I am already in need of finances to pay for my DTS outreach to South Mexico (I'm about $2,000 short), and a rough estimate of the 'Mini Outreach' to follow is around $4,500. I want to put an exclamation point after that, but I feel that it is well within God's ability to provide for me. :)
I am learning not only to trust in God's providence, but also to seek Him in this matter. To 'actively' let Him provide. He wants the glory, and by seeking Him in the matter, and money that miraculously arrives is 'directly' from Him!
And so I ask you, readers, friends, family, Will you be a part of God's plan for me by helping me along the way? Honestly, everything from prayer and donations to helpful tips and advice about traveling (and India) are all a step down the path. If you would like to contribute, please email me at << my_homie_mike@hotmail.com >> I cannot express to you how grateful I, and the people we will minister to, would be. Your help is more than appreciated, it is blessed.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Relationships
I'll start with the story of Jacob and Esau. Everyone knows the story of the two brothers, so we'll start at the part where Jacob hightails it outta town. He's on the move, running for his life, when he stops to sleep for the night. The Bible describes the spot where he rests as "a certain place." This detail is significant because this is not a religious site; it isn't the top of a mountain or the edge of the sea, there isn't a temple nearby. Jacob falls asleep in random place by the side of the road. That night, he has a dream. An intense dream in which God speaks to him and says, among other things, "I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you. "
What God does here is astounding. People at that time believed the gods resided in religious places, places where gods are expected to be - temples and holy sites and shrines and altars. But this God is different.
This God appears at rest areas.
This God speaks to people at "certain places" along the way.
This God doesn't need temples and holy sites and rituals.
This God will speak to anybody, anywhere, anytime.
Jacob then takes a stone and sets it up as a pillar to mark the spot, making a vow: "If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father's household, then the Lord will be my God."
Years pass. Jacob marries, starts a family, and eventually reconciles with Esau. He stopped pretending to be someone he's not. And then one day he returns to the spot where he made his vow to God. The book of Genesis says, "He built an altar, and he called the place El Bethel, because it was there that God revealed himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother."
Bet is the Hebrew word for house. El is one of the names for God. Bethel, the "House of God."
Imagine you're one of Jacob's kids: you have just arrived in this new land, and there's a stone pillar there that your dad can't stop talking about. He's telling anyone who will listen this story about something that happened to him years ago, and he's stacking rocks on top of rocks. He's stacking them so high, he turns the whole thing into an altar. And he keeps talking about a vow he made to God, and you have know idea what the point of this is. It seems a bit much. And then he starts calling this pile of rocks the House of God.
What if you asked, "Dad, what's the big deal? They're just rocks."
I imagine Jacob would respond: "Yes, you're right, they're rocks, but they're more than rocks. You have to understand, I was on the run and thought my brother was going to kill me. My life was over, but God saved me. And God brought me to a new home. And I had food to eat and a place to sleep and eventually God gave me a family. These aren't just rocks. These are a symbol of life for me. God came through for me."
They're rocks, but they're more than rocks.
We do this all the time.
If we were to go through your garage or storage shelves or sock drawer, I guarantee we would find the strangest things. I have a trophy from elementary school. The little man on top is broken, the lettering is faded, and the years have revealed, shockingly, that it isn't real marble. But I've kept it. I haven't thrown it away because it's more than a trophy to me. That trophy is the first time I actually won something on my own. It represents a certain period of my life and the struggles of being a 1st grader.
It's a trophy, but it's more than a trophy.
Jewelry, pictures, sculptures made by children, antiques that have been in the family for years, art projects, souvenirs, velvet paintings - we hold on to them because they point beyond themselves. If we ask you about a certain picture and why you have it displayed in such a prominent place in your home or office or why you carry it in your wallet everywhere you go, you'd probably respond by talking about the people in the picture, where it was taken, when it was taken. But that would only be the start. Those relationships and that place and that time are all about something else, something more. If we kept exploring, you'd probably end up using words like trust and love and belonging and commitment and celebration.
So it's a picture, but it's more than a picture.
This physical thing - this picture, trophy, artifact, gift - is actually about that relationship, that truth, that reality, that moment in time.
This is actually about that.
Whether it's what we do with our energies
or how we feel about our bodies
or wanting to have control in relationships
or trying to recover from heartbreak
or dealing with our ferocious appetites
or the difficulty of communicating clearly with those we love
or longing for something or someone better,
much of life is in the same way connected with our sexuality. An when we begin to sort through all of the issues surrounding our sexuality, we quickly end up in the spiritual.
because this
is always about that.
And so this guy always has a girlfriend, and it has become a joke among his family and friends that the day he loses one girlfriend, he finds another. Which raises the question, Why does he need to have a girl? What is his real need, the one that drives hime to need a girl? And if we could get at that, would he not need a girl so much?
And she's got a coldness in her heart toward her husband, but it's really about something that happened years before she even met him.
And he's got this thing he does, and he keeps telling her that all guys are like this, and she wants to trust him, but she's dying to know if all guys really are like him, because it's getting a little weird.
And she's single and fine with it but still has this sense that she's a sexual being, and she's trying to figure out how to reconcile this because her married friends keep trying to set her up with a "nice" guy they know, which gives her the feeling that her friends think she is somehow incomplete because she isn't married.
And they keep having these arguments about things that are so trivial it's embarrassing. Yesterday they got into it over how the cars should be parked, and the day before it had something to do with the phone bill, and before that it was about whose turn it was to take the dog out, and now it's happening again - they're in the kitchen debating how a tomato should be properly sliced.
They've been living together now for several years, and they would say it's been great, but they're at this point in the relationship where issues like trust and commitment and future and kids and marriage are starting to linger in their minds and hearts, and underneath it all they both have this question: "Are you the one?" But neither of them has ever actually voiced it, and both of them experienced their parents' divorcing at a young age, so anytime the subject of marriage comes up, things get confusing and tense very quickly, and so they're just at this moment realizing that this argument really has nothing to do with how to slice a tomato.
Because this is really about that.
It's always about something else.
Something deeper. Something behind it all. You can't talk about sexuality without talking about how we were made. And that will inevitably lead you to who made us. At some point you have to talk about God.
Sex and God. They're connected. And they can't be seperated. Where the one is, you will always find the other. This is why sexuality is "this" and spirituality is "that." To make sense of one, we have to explore the other.
And that is what this is about.
What God does here is astounding. People at that time believed the gods resided in religious places, places where gods are expected to be - temples and holy sites and shrines and altars. But this God is different.
This God appears at rest areas.
This God speaks to people at "certain places" along the way.
This God doesn't need temples and holy sites and rituals.
This God will speak to anybody, anywhere, anytime.
Jacob then takes a stone and sets it up as a pillar to mark the spot, making a vow: "If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father's household, then the Lord will be my God."
Years pass. Jacob marries, starts a family, and eventually reconciles with Esau. He stopped pretending to be someone he's not. And then one day he returns to the spot where he made his vow to God. The book of Genesis says, "He built an altar, and he called the place El Bethel, because it was there that God revealed himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother."
Bet is the Hebrew word for house. El is one of the names for God. Bethel, the "House of God."
Imagine you're one of Jacob's kids: you have just arrived in this new land, and there's a stone pillar there that your dad can't stop talking about. He's telling anyone who will listen this story about something that happened to him years ago, and he's stacking rocks on top of rocks. He's stacking them so high, he turns the whole thing into an altar. And he keeps talking about a vow he made to God, and you have know idea what the point of this is. It seems a bit much. And then he starts calling this pile of rocks the House of God.
What if you asked, "Dad, what's the big deal? They're just rocks."
I imagine Jacob would respond: "Yes, you're right, they're rocks, but they're more than rocks. You have to understand, I was on the run and thought my brother was going to kill me. My life was over, but God saved me. And God brought me to a new home. And I had food to eat and a place to sleep and eventually God gave me a family. These aren't just rocks. These are a symbol of life for me. God came through for me."
They're rocks, but they're more than rocks.
We do this all the time.
If we were to go through your garage or storage shelves or sock drawer, I guarantee we would find the strangest things. I have a trophy from elementary school. The little man on top is broken, the lettering is faded, and the years have revealed, shockingly, that it isn't real marble. But I've kept it. I haven't thrown it away because it's more than a trophy to me. That trophy is the first time I actually won something on my own. It represents a certain period of my life and the struggles of being a 1st grader.
It's a trophy, but it's more than a trophy.
Jewelry, pictures, sculptures made by children, antiques that have been in the family for years, art projects, souvenirs, velvet paintings - we hold on to them because they point beyond themselves. If we ask you about a certain picture and why you have it displayed in such a prominent place in your home or office or why you carry it in your wallet everywhere you go, you'd probably respond by talking about the people in the picture, where it was taken, when it was taken. But that would only be the start. Those relationships and that place and that time are all about something else, something more. If we kept exploring, you'd probably end up using words like trust and love and belonging and commitment and celebration.
So it's a picture, but it's more than a picture.
This physical thing - this picture, trophy, artifact, gift - is actually about that relationship, that truth, that reality, that moment in time.
This is actually about that.
Whether it's what we do with our energies
or how we feel about our bodies
or wanting to have control in relationships
or trying to recover from heartbreak
or dealing with our ferocious appetites
or the difficulty of communicating clearly with those we love
or longing for something or someone better,
much of life is in the same way connected with our sexuality. An when we begin to sort through all of the issues surrounding our sexuality, we quickly end up in the spiritual.
because this
is always about that.
And so this guy always has a girlfriend, and it has become a joke among his family and friends that the day he loses one girlfriend, he finds another. Which raises the question, Why does he need to have a girl? What is his real need, the one that drives hime to need a girl? And if we could get at that, would he not need a girl so much?
And she's got a coldness in her heart toward her husband, but it's really about something that happened years before she even met him.
And he's got this thing he does, and he keeps telling her that all guys are like this, and she wants to trust him, but she's dying to know if all guys really are like him, because it's getting a little weird.
And she's single and fine with it but still has this sense that she's a sexual being, and she's trying to figure out how to reconcile this because her married friends keep trying to set her up with a "nice" guy they know, which gives her the feeling that her friends think she is somehow incomplete because she isn't married.
And they keep having these arguments about things that are so trivial it's embarrassing. Yesterday they got into it over how the cars should be parked, and the day before it had something to do with the phone bill, and before that it was about whose turn it was to take the dog out, and now it's happening again - they're in the kitchen debating how a tomato should be properly sliced.
They've been living together now for several years, and they would say it's been great, but they're at this point in the relationship where issues like trust and commitment and future and kids and marriage are starting to linger in their minds and hearts, and underneath it all they both have this question: "Are you the one?" But neither of them has ever actually voiced it, and both of them experienced their parents' divorcing at a young age, so anytime the subject of marriage comes up, things get confusing and tense very quickly, and so they're just at this moment realizing that this argument really has nothing to do with how to slice a tomato.
Because this is really about that.
It's always about something else.
Something deeper. Something behind it all. You can't talk about sexuality without talking about how we were made. And that will inevitably lead you to who made us. At some point you have to talk about God.
Sex and God. They're connected. And they can't be seperated. Where the one is, you will always find the other. This is why sexuality is "this" and spirituality is "that." To make sense of one, we have to explore the other.
And that is what this is about.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Emotions
His fierce love sets me aglow.
I am alive; Full of spirit.
His intense love is enduring.
I am adequate, capable, confident.
He is assurring and uplifting;
A compassionate Being.
In His powerful tranquility, I am secure;
Satisfied in His potent love, I am at peace.
Full of life because of His zeal;
I am vibrant and penetrating.
Because of His invincible marvelousness,
I am in wonder and awe.
He has made me lighthearted, yet full of heart.
I am his beloved child,
He is my Heavenly Father.
He loves me boldly, immensely, radically,
And I am overwhelmed in His emotions.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Day of the Dead
As you may well know, today is the Day of the Dead here in Mexico. Talk about spiritual warfare! Although most people who celebrate this three-day holiday do so innocently, there are some radicals who view this day as an opportunity to please the spirits of long-lost relatives and ghosts. Sacrifices. Human sacrifices. Off in the distance, I can see small dots of light throughout the mountians of Ensenada. While most of the fires are most likely small gatherings for those who wish to mourn family members who have died, there are a few fires that are not so innocent...
Nevertheless, we went about our as scheduled. This morning we had a new speak, Jack Hill, who isn't the most intrigueing man I've met, but I suppose he's here for a reason. His topic for the week: Relationships. What a broad subject. All of life is based on relationships. Consequently, he didn't stay on a single concept for long, and he moved so fast from subject to subject that I never really got the point of his lecture. Literally. He was just kinda babbling. In fact, the main thing I remember from the entire speach was when he was trying to explain split-brain research methods and theories... I know a thing or two about psychology, and I can tell you he had no idea what he was talking about. Actually, NO one had any idea what he was talking about. He listed off some random psychological facts (most of which were either misinterpreted, or just down right wrong), and then somehow managed to tie them to how we shouldn't follow pure intellect, but more so our 'spiritual hearts' (something about how our 'spiritual heart' is closely related to our right-brain because it deals with emotions and there meanings... Personally, I don't think we can relate our spiritual heart to anything physical or else we would be basing it off intellect which would completely defeat the purpose of seperating the two...).
I am perfectly content with follow God's plan for my life and assuming that it is the desire he would have placed in my 'spiritual heart' had I been able to define it. Why do we burden ourselves with such unimportant theories and nonsensical problems as these? We will never understand everything about God, so why can't we simply pursue an intimate relationship with Him with all of our heart and gain understanding and knowledge directly from He who is omniscient?! Instead we waste our time trying to define, explain, and identify the undefinable, unexplainable, and unidentifiable!
Nevertheless, we went about our as scheduled. This morning we had a new speak, Jack Hill, who isn't the most intrigueing man I've met, but I suppose he's here for a reason. His topic for the week: Relationships. What a broad subject. All of life is based on relationships. Consequently, he didn't stay on a single concept for long, and he moved so fast from subject to subject that I never really got the point of his lecture. Literally. He was just kinda babbling. In fact, the main thing I remember from the entire speach was when he was trying to explain split-brain research methods and theories... I know a thing or two about psychology, and I can tell you he had no idea what he was talking about. Actually, NO one had any idea what he was talking about. He listed off some random psychological facts (most of which were either misinterpreted, or just down right wrong), and then somehow managed to tie them to how we shouldn't follow pure intellect, but more so our 'spiritual hearts' (something about how our 'spiritual heart' is closely related to our right-brain because it deals with emotions and there meanings... Personally, I don't think we can relate our spiritual heart to anything physical or else we would be basing it off intellect which would completely defeat the purpose of seperating the two...).
I am perfectly content with follow God's plan for my life and assuming that it is the desire he would have placed in my 'spiritual heart' had I been able to define it. Why do we burden ourselves with such unimportant theories and nonsensical problems as these? We will never understand everything about God, so why can't we simply pursue an intimate relationship with Him with all of our heart and gain understanding and knowledge directly from He who is omniscient?! Instead we waste our time trying to define, explain, and identify the undefinable, unexplainable, and unidentifiable!
"Be still, and know that I am God" - Psalm 46:10Enough said...
Week 5 Summary: Mission Stories
Well guess what... I'm almost caught up! That means after this post, no more of the 'Week Summary...' crap. It just doesn't give the weeks justice.
Week 5 was relaxing. Peter Iliyn, the speaker, joined YWAM in 1976, and dude, this guy has got some stories. Before he shared any of these miraculous tails with us, however, he made us promise something... He made us promise that one day down the road, when we see him again, we have to go up to him and tell him OUR stories. Someday our stories are going to be even more miraculous than his.
I can't really re-tell his stories because it took him around two or 3 hours per story, and I would just butcher them. But he did just finish writing a book which I will find out the name of...
One thing that stuck out to me throughout all of his stories, was the fact that whenever he made a friend in the part of the world he was witnessing to (which was usually a muslim area or a communist area) he always stayed in contact with them. He would send them cards and small packages regularly, and through this he was able to develope amazing communications overseas. So amazing, in fact, that two of his good friends are now the highest ranking muslims in their nations, one of his friends is the embassador in another Islamic area, and he also has variously ranked muslim friends throughout the Middle East. Basically, if Peter wants to go anywhere in the muslim world, he can not only go there without government problems, but he is also protected and sheltered by his friends during his stay. Through his vast amount of friends, he has been able to reach out to the muslim world in a radical way.
That stuck out to me because I have been making lots of local Mexican friends... specifically while on La Bajio outreaches (I will soon be starting a blog concerning these weekly outreaches in order to describe their impact more efficiently). Hopefully God will use these relationships in the future to help further his Kingdom. Only time will tell.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
P.S.
Week 4 Summary: Kenny Peavy
I honestly can't tell you what this week was supposed to be about... It's not cause I didn't pay attention or something like that, it's simply because Kenny Peavy didn't follow a SINGLE one of his slides for the week. Not once did we take notes or listen to a boring lecture! Kenny has this amazing ability to hear the Holy Spirit speak directly and clearly to him! Therefore, we spent the entire week doing whatever God laid on Kenny's heart for us to do. Awesome experience. By far the best week of DTS yet! Let me share a little of what happened...
Friday we did our weekly trip to La Bajio (The Red Light District) and it was miraculous to say the least. I've been meaning to start a blog specifically about La Bajio because I have had the opportunity to make quite a few local friends on the trips, but I can't wait share what happened so... First off, I have to mention that we had some crazy prayer sessions regarding this specific trip all day Friday, and we could feel the Lord preparing us for something amazing. We brought guitars, food, and Bibles... About an hour after we arrived and began our ministry, one of the drunks began to praise God very enthusiastically, and singing loudly with his hands held high. The Holy Spirit was moving. All of a sudden, he begins to shout out, "Perdoname Dios!" Which means 'Forgive me God" and then a small light appeard on his forhead and pushed him to the ground! His head smacked the concrete, and he was knocked out. Immediately, we all gathered around him began to sing/pray for his healing and safety. Blood began to soak the ground. We prayed harder. The cops came and, within minutes, the ambulance arrived. We continued to pray. As the paramedics knelt down to examine him, he casually stood up and walked to the nearest chair. The blood stopped. No more pain. Then the cut dissappeared. In place of what was once a gaping whole, there was a small bump. AMAZING. God is good.
Monday was our first taste of Kenny. We weren't sure what to expect because we had heard so many different things, but none of us were prepared for a 4 hour worship service followed by people pouring out their hearts to each other and to God. It was an intense time.
Tuesday and Wednesday were similar. We spent the both mornings digging deeper into each other's lives; we were exposing ourselves like never before! It was a time of complete trust, vulnerability, encouragement, and seeking the Holy Spirit.
Thursday was... well it was challenging to say the least. Again, we found ourselves sitting around the room earnestly seeking the Holy Spirit. Keny would put in his encouraging words every once in awhile, but then he said something specific... Quite randomly, he looked up and pointed directly at Jonathon, another fellow student of mine... Now without going into details, it's important to understand that Jonathon has had a TERRIBLE childhood, but it is also important to understand that Kenny didn't no this... In fact, Kenny had spent so much time in prayer that week, that he hardly knew any of us. Anyway, Kenny points at Jonathon and says, "My heart aches for you. What has happened to you is not your fault, but it has scarred you forever. God has given me a vision, and I see you leading 3 people to Christ in the near future. Years from now, I see you as a teacher leading thousands to Christ. Follow Mike's ministry." Then he looks around and ask, "Is there a Mike here??" and literally before anyone could move a muscle his eyes fell on me. This is what he said: "You. You're Mike, right? I see you as the tip of an arrow with a wake of people following in your path as you pioneer a ministry. God hasn't revealed to me what kind of ministry it is because it is a new type; one that has not been brought about yet."
Can you say "WOW"? Let's just say that I am excited. I had only told a few people, but I had already felt God's calling for me to start a ministry, I just wasn't sure what type or where. Talk about confirmation. God is good. That night we had one of the most intense worship sessions that I've ever had the privilege to be a part of. God spoke through us and opened many of our eyes
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