Monday, October 29, 2007

Hi all! I hope this last week was great for you. I had a great week, there are tons of things I could share but I think I will just pick the things that had the biggest impact on me! So basically this week God really just pounded on my spirit how valuable my thought life is. There is so much that I learned but I will start with last monday. I went to my briefing (a meeting before a prayer set) and our leader was talking about the quality of our hearts. She read a quote from a book which basically said that what is in our hearts right now about God is the most important thing about us. It really challenged me to separate the things I know about God from what is truly in my heart because in the end that is what he is going to be examining, not the things I can rattle off and tell you about God. I can't just listen or read things and just agree and then say I know God, it's has to be a heart experience. I know this truth but to say that what's in my heart is the most important thing about me, it really set me into a new perspective. Later on in the week, David Sliker, my Eschatology teacher talked about our thoughts and giving into thoughts that aren't good and how that immediately leads to sin. When we feed into certain thoughts we start a fire that can keep on burning for a lifetime if we don't choose to put it out. The best thing to do is not give into those thoughts at all, God gave us the ability to control what we think and when we do and choose not to give into fleshly thoughts we begin to step into righteousness. Later on in the week FMA had something called Fall Frenzy, where we just had a retreat/conference thing. Our speaker was Dr. Carol Thompson and really challenged me on my thought life all over again. God is calling us into righteousness and holiness but it's not just in outward actions, it's in our thoughts and our hearts. The best part of our Fall Frenzy was yesterday when a girl got up and spoke about how she felt the need to address this "perfect woman" that us girls have in our heads because of our culture. She called into light the way girls dress in vain, compare, judge, and think about themselves and one another all in the context of what the world says about us. She prayed over us and repented of all of those things and prayed that the heart of God would tell us who we are and put the right "perfect woman" in our hearts so that we could strive to be that woman. This was also another big challenging thing along with my thought life, because this is something all girls deal with, but I walked away knowing I have the power by the Holy Spirit to put to death thoughts that give into my flesh. Again God is driving me into holiness and this week he showed me the root of it all was my thoughts and keeping my thoughts holy and blameless before him. One of the things that Dr. Thompson said was that the mind releases the spirit and the spirit releases the mind, to be free in the spirit is to be free in the mind, a blockage in the mind is a blockage in the spirit and so ultimately you mind will control your spiritual level. That truth right there is causing me to examine my thoughts so much more than I have before, because what controls my thoughts controls me. I want my thoughts to be harnessed by the Holy Spirit and therefore I want to be controlled by the Holy Spirit. I love how God took a whole week to really get this in me and I am sure he will have to spend some more time getting this in me but I always get so overwhelmed how he does everything he can to make us holy as he is holy.
Alright, sorry if this was all over the place but there was so much to say and my computer is about to die and so I had little time to do this!! Please if there is anything I can pray for let me know. I hope you all have a great week, and keep seeking him with everything!

Sunday, October 21, 2007

October 21

So this post might be a bit longer than the others because I want to give a summary of my time here so far. First I would like to testify how amazing God's faithfulness is, when He calls you to do something, and you obey, He provides and does more than enough to make sure you get to the place He calls you! God overwhelmed me with his faithfulness in finances as I obeyed the call He has for me to come out here, I've been blessed to say the least!
He has also given me so much grace to make this move away from family and friends, I have been so blessed with an amazing family of friends here in Kansas City. It was like I was supposed to be here all the time, I fell right into this amazing group of friends and God has bound us together through times of prayer and worship with each other. It's just been amazing to see God move in all of our lives as we go after him.
Now for the tricky part, trying to give a summary of what God has done in my heart since I have been here. So for the first few weeks, God pretty much did surgery and removed so much religion that was caked on my heart. My first module (a three week class focusing on one particular subject) was called Way of Intimacy which was amazing. I began to see God in a new light as I learned that He delights over me, that when I say "yes" to Him in my heart it's enough for Him. When I say "yes", He smiles and is so happy. That class just really hammered out the thought that I had to be right before I tried to come into communion with God, which had prevented me from coming to Him so many times before. We focused alot on the Song of Solomon which I encourage you to study in the light that Jesus is our lover and we are His beloved. It was just a continuance of Jesus showing me how much He loves me, I still don't even know how much He loves me but He keeps sweeping me off my feet everyday and all I can say is I'm in love with Him. My next module was called Excellencies of Christ which was again so amazing. I had just recently read through the Gospels right before the module and so I was all familiar with the life of Jesus, but I really had no idea what I didn't know. This class brought me so much closer to a fuller understanding of how great Christ really is, the power of His cross and resurrection, and the redemption that is found through Him. In this class we saw a number of healings and salvations, God loves to fascinate us more than we know! Right now I get excited thinking about it, I just want to go meditate on His goodness all over again!! So now I am in my third module, hard to believe because time flies by. This module is called Eschatology (end times) which has been very interesting and challenging so far. I have been deeply motivated and driven back to my purpose as a forerunner to proclaim the coming Lamb in these last days. Really it's been a drive to holiness and to walk in diligence so Christ finds His bride spotless and without blame. I'm through one week and I've just been driven to my knees and the word so many times.
So at the end of every module we have a week here at IHOP that is called Global Bridegroom Fast. The first three days of the week, everyone on the mission base (IHOP staff, students, and interns) fasts. This is a time where we cry out for our nation, lost souls, healing, other nations, abortion, and freedom, basically we do alot of interceding. I love this week, God refocuses me in that I can still be a sponge soaking Him up but I also need to contend on behalf of other people.
I also want to share a few testimonies as well, wow this is going to be long but it's hard to keep things short when your talking about the goodness of our Lord! So recently I was praying for healing over a person while in the prayer room and I felt the Holy Spirit challenge me in my belief for whether or not God would really heal this person. So I held onto the fact that He wants their healing more than I ever could and just spoke that over that person. So a few weeks ago, I along with a few other girls, prayed over this girl in the prayer room who had stomach pains and delt with depression. The next week she came in and told us that she was completely healed! That very night I prayed over a girl who had gotten in a wreck which was causing her neck and back pains and when we were done praying for her, she was healed and free of pain! Wow the Lord is so amazing, He simply has more zeal to heal than we do and when we get a hold of believing that His word is more true than the situation around us, He moves!
I want to ask you all if there is anything at any time you would like me to be in prayer for you about, please email me and let me know. God has shown me how I move heaven and earth when I pray and I want Him to show you that as well, so let me agree with you in whatever there is in your lives! I love you all and am so excited to for what God is doing right now!

My Blog

Hi all!! So here is my new blog, I am going to use this to keep you all updated on what is going on in my life. I will try to post something up every week for you all to read. Most of it will be stuff that God has shown me or is doing in my life, testimonies and stuff like that. I think I might try and do a new post towards the weekend of every week so if you want to keep up all you would have to do is check my blog on a Monday and there should be a new post on here. I'm still trying to figure out how exactly I'm going to do all of this so I apologize if I am a little inconsistent at first.
So a quick update, things are going great! This last week was my first week back in school after my fall break and I was really glad to be back. I love it here and God is constantly doing stuff in my life. I will post a more in depth blog here in a bit. For now, I hope you all are doing wonderful and you are all in my prayers.