Over the last few days I am realising that I'm more like a child than an adult. Sure I may be the age of an adult and have the knowledge close to an adult's intellect, but I have the mentality of a child. To be honest, after living out of home for just over 3 years, I don't think I was ready to move out of home.
I moved out because it seemed easy. I wouldn't yell at Mum, I wouldn't cause tension, the travel was less... it was easier... it appeared more convenient. But I wasn't ready to move out. I was running away. Running away from conflict. Running away from hurt. Running away because flight appeared easier than fight. Who knew that one day I'd realise that I'd still have to fight... I'd just have to fight with all the issues that caused flight, weighing on me too.
That is not much fun, in fact I believe it's harder now because when you're trying to deal with the issue you're still stuck in the age of that which you first flew instead of fighting, and so rationality, logic, and emotions are all tied in together and blended together, so that it's harder to see the clear border between it all.
(I wasn't going to bring God into this mind bubble of thoughts at all, but I believe that...)
The same could go with God...
How often do we run away from God - whether we realise it or not? We may not have run away from God in the sense of saying 'I hate You God, I'm going to do what I want to do", nor may we have had God tell us clearly to do something and gone "Nup! That's too hard. I don't want to do that. I'm not going to do that. Maybe later..." But what about our fear?
As I've said above, we may not have been asked by God directly to do something, and out of fear or feeling of incompetency refused, but at the same time how much do we let fear hinder us? God may not have told us to do something... but we may be limiting our potential, the potential that God gave us, and thus God, by fear, which limits God and His movement in us!
For example, asking and going for help may appear too hard, so we don't. Seeing a stranger in need, when we're with friends, may put us in the bad books with that group of friends (afraid of people's opinion) and so we pretend we haven't seen that stranger in need. Stepping into unknown territory - new city/ new job/ new church/ new school / mission trip / uni course, etc. may appear too daunting, not worth the fear and awkwardness involved, and so we stay where we're comfortable, but at the same time uncomfortable, because we're hurting / we're feeling stunted and not growing / we're getting bullied / we're bored / we're feeling alone / we're feeling hopeless, etc. Don't stay - MOVE!!!
Staying is saying that you don't believe God has your hand in His hand. It is saying that you don't trust that in these difficult circumstances and fears of the unknown, that you know God does know what is going on; He does have your best interests in mind; and He only gives good gifts, even if they do hurt at first because not all growth and healing is pain free - sometimes the bad bits have to be cut off first; the diamond's rock edges have to be sanded off before the real gem can truly shine, with all of God's original intention!
Staying limits God! Not doing anything is like treading water - you can swim backwards to where you've been, but know that that's the location that caused you the most pain and got you into this mess to start off with; or you can just tread water, where you're comfy at the moment, but your energy will soon run out and you'll drown, or get caught in a rip (very strong current) which will take you back to where you were, where you don't really want to be; OR you can swim forward, towards a rescuing island, which like God, has what you need to survive the rough seas of confusion and exhaustion!
This has become my goal over the last year... every time I fear physical things - no matter how scary, I force myself to attempt them - to do it! Because I know that it'll grow me and if I don't do it, then I'll regret the missed opportunity, because you wonder how that opportunity may have affected you, shaped you, stretched you, made you grow...
Fears over physical obstacles, aka physical fears, I find a lot more easier to deal with and push myself to overcome; but emotional and spiritual fears I find a lot more challenging to take on in battle and so this is my declaration, that I will be treading water no more, because I want to know and believe God does have the best interests in mind for me and actually step out in faith and action and believe!!!
It’s been awhile since I’ve given you a lengthy update. How are you all? How’s life?
Life for me, down in YWAM Newy is going great. There’s a lot of things happening, some great, and some not so great, but when you know that God is in control of everything, do you really need to worry about the things that aren’t going as initially planned?
I’m about to start my Week 9 down here, which is ‘Lordship’. Already I have attended the following weeks and topics:
Week 1: Hearing God’s Voice (taught by Sarah McCutcheon – YWAM Newy staff) Week 2: Father’s Heart of God (David Stevenson – YWAM Newcastle Base Director) Week 3: Fear of God (Mark Brokenshire – Education Dean of YWAM University of the Nations, Australia) Week 4: God’s Character (Natalie Neubauer – YWAM Newy Staff) Week 5: Bible Study (Jonathon Spainhour – YWAM Townsville Staff) Week 6: Spiritual Warfare (Peter Warren – YWAM Denver, Colorado, Staff) Week 7: Holy Spirit (Keven Norris – YWAM Uni of the Nations - Kona, Hawaii) Week 8: Evangelism (Stevie Lujan – YWAM Newcastle Staff)
There has been so much taught, and so much to take in (and apply to life) that I am amazed my brain hasn’t exploded. I can’t really explain what we’ve learnt, as I think my brain started to have the retention span of a sponge, and so whilst I know it’s in there, I can’t pull it out of the millions of neurons that are located within my skull… but I will endeavour to list the highlight I’ve learnt from each week.
Week 1 (Hearing God’s Voice) It’s a relationship NOT a formula. It does not happen instantly; like friendship, it takes time… The more you hang with God, the closer that friendship will form. Each person hears God differently (hence there is no clear formula). We need to share the relationship with God (taking time to listen to Him, when we talk to Him, and let Him feed into us) and not just stalk God (like we do on facebook)!
Week 2 (Father’s Heart of God) God made Himself vulnerable, by wanting us to call Him Father. There is two types of pride – big wheel pride (the one we often think of) and little wheel pride (‘I’m nothing’, ‘worthless’, etc. – saying that you’re less value than the value God has given you) (Numbers 13:32: If you see yourself less than God sees you; then eventually others will see you, the same way that you see yourself!).
Ask God what His opinion of you is…
Mine was: “God loves me like a newborn child is first loved by their Father. God sees me as His blood daughter – unable to lose the identity, the value, the worth!” (Wednesday 12th of October, 2011)
Don’t reject the blessings (or compliments) God has given you!
Week 3: Fear of God (FOG) • Society has changed its standards over time; signified by pre-modernism, modernism and post-modernism. • Satisfaction comes through fear of God. • Every society has 7 spheres of influence. • Knowing God through the Bible, Jesus, creation and revelation! • When we fear God (out of respect), our desire for sin lessens. • Get your needs met by God, not by man!
Summary: Recognise God as all powerful! But a fear out of reverence, with His love and care for us; resulting in our dislike/hate of evil doings.
Week 4: God’s Character How we view God depends on the lens that we decide to look through (e.g. history of a rough life – we can look through that lens, as if God is mean and harsh). We can see God’s character by looking at nature. This was really cool because it was and is probably one of the loudest ways God speaks to me!
For example, sitting on a cliff edge ledge, jutting out from Fort Scratchley, overlooking Newcastle, taught me the following about God:
Ocean waves – God is releasing, refreshing, renewing… each wave brings new life, like each breath of God we inhale.
Watching a big coal ship being guided into port by 3 tug boats – seeing where God has been after, but not necessarily during – God is guiding.
Seeing lizards fossicking in and out of the ledge, even though there’s a 10-20 metre drop below, they’re secure and just gliding in and out of the crevices, knowing they’re okay. God is cheeky/adventureful-adventurous!
Butterflies flying around flittingly and fully (only being alive for 3 days), just enjoying life and living it to the fullest joyfully. Living for the moment!
God is strong, powerful, thick, undefinable… Looking towards the horizon, and seeing thick storm clouds coming in, making the horizon’s line between the clouds and ocean indistinguishable. God cannot be defined!
God wants our full attention and focus! He is a jealous God! He wants our full love and affection!
Self-summary: God cannot be put into a box; however we can try to put Him in a box, based on our history/past. It is only through realising this point and being more open minded and changing our attitude, that we realise that God is so much bigger than we can ever describe. We need to become childlike, trusting without questioning!
Week 5: Bible Study Basically this week was different ways to interpret the Bible; from doing a basic grammar lesson to using different Internet sources. A lot of the information can only be presented in context of the full week, so I can’t really allocate specific points to this area, except that we went through Philemon, as a class, and the whole week’s lecture was over skype. An interesting week of lectures, that’s for sure.
Week 6: Spiritual Warfare I really appreciated this week’s lectures - The structure, the information, and the amount of references. It was taught at Tahlee (An old Christian Bible College, near Port Stephens), with great views, in amongst nature. We joined two other DTSs (Discipleship Training Schools), one being from the Cook Islands, and the other from Island Breeze (Woollongong). All of us were serving YWAM staff and leaders from all over the South Pacific and Australia, in YWAM’s National Leaders Meeting. It was AMAZING!!! I made some great friends in the few days I got to share the experience with. I also experienced my first vision (from God) here, in one of our weekly intercession meetings we have… which I may share in a later post.
Some of the points I learnt from this week are as follows:
Westerners have a harder time grasping the concept of spiritual warfare, because we generally believe in only what we can see and touch. Satan’s power is real, but God is in control overall. The devil is not at fault, for everything that happens. God gave us a choice to choose a lifestyle, as well as tools we can use. If we don’t guard our own mind, spirit, and body, than we can’t blame God for not protecting us.
God is not limited by anyone or anything, but He does limit Himself!
There IS power in prayer!
God has given us authority to speak against Satan, but we have to know AND believe that we have that authority!
God values love, over control. His mind can change! He did not create any of us to be evil. Nothing limits God!
Everything God created is sanctified (I Corinthians 10:25-26). We pray over meals to sanctify it (originating from Paul’s time, where it may have been offered to idols, etc. – sort of like halal I guess) (I Timothy 4:5).
Week 7: Holy Spirit
Our Worldview affects how we handle God.
The Holy Spirit may have a harder time getting through to us, because of our worldviews.
We have emotions and physical pain for a reason, they’re both good!
It is okay, and should actually be encouraged, to express how you’re feeling in church and in life. If you don’t feel like worshipping, say so! Tell God how you feel… God, I don’t feel like worshipping… God I am angry at You, but follow it through with a BUT (like David did)… God I feel alone, everyone has abandoned me, but I know that You are always with me and I will praise You for it! Stuffing the emotions, is not giving it to God, nor are you dealing with it.
If you’re not actively seeking out a deeper relationship with God – Your love is growing cold – this is relevant to our relationships in marriage and with God! You need commitment AND desire in anything that lasts!
We need to go to God first, as our root source of help!
Our relationship with the Holy Spirit, is the same as our relationship with God, it takes time!!! DON’T GIVE UP!!!!!
Week 8: Evangelism God dwells where there is tension! Do you see a need or a problem, and you want someone to fix it? Why don’t you fix it? Why don’t you do something to change it? Do you not feel qualified enough, or that it’s not where your gifts are meant to be used? God works best when we’re out of our comfort zone!
If you can’t share the love of God out of your own experience, don’t share it. What point is there to us evangelising, if we can’t say how God’s changed our lives and show it? It’s like trying to sell a cake to someone who needs to know all the ingredients and what the flavour is, and we have no idea what to tell them, because we didn’t make the cake, or try it, before selling it…
God’s biggest expression of love is not that He’s forgiven us, but that He’s made us. We were created for bigger reasons than to just be forgiven. Everything in creation is based on relationships! We were created in the image of the trinity; chemical elements are relational particles, and humans need relationships! Nothing exists that does not have some relationship component in its structure.
Jesus needs to be at the centre of the relationship, and evangelising! We do not want something like Jones Town to occur again, where the focus of Jesus was lost.
So that was what I’ve been learning these past 8 weeks. There is so much content that could be further explained in what I’ve written, and even more that has not been written.
This last Friday I also had the chance to experience the American holiday ‘Thanksgiving’, it was definitely a very thankful time. We had so much food – including American tasting pumpkin pie, apple pie, jelly, bread rolls, brownies, etc. The main thing I found interesting though was the easiness of slipping into an attitude of frustration or negativity. We had some guests over, and so with table places only created, decorated, and set for the All Generation DTS and the Compassion DTS, there were not enough seats for about 10 of us, including myself.
I had been looking forward to the night’s celebrations all day, and to not be a part of the central celebration hurt – I wanted to experience the full flavour! This opened a can of worms where I felt frustrations at the pace of some of the activities that had occurred in the afternoon and the fact that there were guests there too… I really had to examine my heart deeply and realign my attitude.
It was my choice to help some friends with their errands at the pharmacy and shops, and it was my choice to decide to change out of wet clothes, into something dry; and thanksgiving is a time that is meant to be shared… so if I wanted it to be, I could be thankful we could share an essence of YWAM with people that weren’t originally from YWAM (which I did decide to do) and was also able to make our own special thanksgiving celebration, between the 4 of us (all from Compassion and none of us having experienced Thanksgiving before). It was a great night!
There have also been a few more things that have changed, and I will let you know what they are, but for now, I think I need to end this post, blog it, and allow you guys to read it, before you fall asleep from how long it has become.
Let me know how you’re going, and until next time, God Bless U Good (GBUG).
My aim, with this blog, is to give you an encounter of YWAM, God's footsteps and what is actually just happening in my life. I want you to share the YWAM experience with me, and I also want to keep a record of the growing that will occur. So, whilst I'm at YWAM, my goal is to update this blog, at least weekly, with what is happening, what I'm learning, what God is doing, the big stuff!!! It's scary, but it is going to be good! With just over a month to go, the pathway is slowly becoming more obvious! :)
How does one start, when so much has happened since I last wrote? What does one say, that may appeal and not bore those who will read this? I guess there is no better way to start then with what has happened...
In the last few months, almost a year, that I have seriously been considering on going to YWAM, I have been told and also have been telling myself to wait until I was stable, until I was sure that God was directing me to YWAM, before putting in an application. However, this has also added stress on what I can and can't do, as everything is up in the air and I don't want to commit to anything that I could not be certain that I would be available for.
I had already narrowed down the YWAM base choices to Norton Hills, Adelaide, South Australia (Justice and Mercy DTS), Newcastle (Outdoor DTS, Compassion DTS), Darwin, Townsville (Ship DTS), and Byron Bay. With these five bases and six DTSs, I knew it would not be easy to identify which base, if any, that I'd be going to this year (2011). So I started to try and just make healthy choices, or choices that appeared to be fruitful, whether in refinding my identity, building my relationship with God, learning good coping strategies, and conflict resolution strategies and confrontational confidence, amongst other things, and whilst to date (21/6/2011), not all have been completed; some have been undertaken and have also narrowed down the choices in YWAM bases.
One of the undertaken healthy -development for future choices was doing a Life Keys, Care Force, Recovery Program - Woman to Woman course (founded by Allan and Helen Meyers), which in small groups, covered topics like...
The Arena of Healing
Functional and Dysfunctional Family Dynamics
Coping Strategies of the Child and Adult
Denial and Anger
Rebuilding After Grief and Loss
The Influence of Shame
Overcoming Co-dependency
Sexuality and Intimacy
Forgiveness - Letting Go
Stepping into the Future
This was a ten week course, which automatically meant that out of the three short-listed bases
Newcastle's Compassion DTS;
Norton Summit's Justice and Mercy DTS; and
Townsville's Ship DTS,
two of them I could not do, due to the fact that I was engaged in the woman to woman course, which I would not drop out of. This left me with just the Newcastle Compassion DTS.
Even with only one of my short listed three choices being available, I still wasn't sure if God was behind it. I didn't want to jump in, if God wasn't going to be there to catch me, but I also didn't want to be too afraid to get near the water's edge and basque in God's opinion of beauty.
It was the slowly building friendship with the compassion DTS leader, Tessa Meakins, that finally gave me the guts to start filling in my application, and to full prepare the application, in expectation of being fully accepted. Even though I had my doubts and hesitancies, Tessa had been able to answer every question I had, that would've made me reconsider YWAM altogether. So having no mind changing questions lefts, I had nothing else to do except to have a go at filling out the application.
The application process isn't just a simple tick and cross application. It has a few components. From medical history to police checks, children checks, and agreements to answering the following questions:
Please describe your Christian experience and present relationship with the Lord. Give month and year of conversion.
What noticeable changes have you experienced since then?
What areas of your character are you presently seeking God to further develop?
Do you feel God has given you, or is leading you into any particular area of ministry at YWAM Newcastle and in general?
Describe Christian work you have done.
How do you feel you adapt and respond to changes in situations and new environments?
Do you feel called to serve God full-time in ministry/missions? Give details.
I also had to get three references. One being a friend, another a teacher/employer, and then a pastoral reference. Having been diagnosed with depression, I also needed a doctor's reference. All four of the references shocked me with their commendations and support.
With police checks and passport also obtained quickly and easily, apart from being a bit more lighter in pocket, things have come across easily, encouraging me to think more that maybe God is behind this, but there was still some uncertainty.
About a week before I submitted my application, I got an email from Darwin YWAM however, asking me how I was going and that they had been praying for me, as a potential YWAM student (due to interest I'd shown in one of their DTSs earlier in the year). Three things that God had told them was:
Psalm 91 (1 Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.[a] 2 I will say of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”
3 Surely he will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence. 4 He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. 5 You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, 6 nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday. 7 A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. 8 You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked.
9 If you say, “The LORD is my refuge,” and you make the Most High your dwelling, 10 no harm will overtake you, no disaster will come near your tent. 11 For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; 12 they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. 13 You will tread on the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent.
14 “Because he[b] loves me,” says the LORD, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. 15 He will call on me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. 16 With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation.”)
be open to the plans God has for you - don't hold back.
Nothing is impossible with God
This email had caused a bit of fear, as I wondered if it was a warning that I wouldn't be accepted. That this wasn't God's plan for me, leaving me stuck in anxiety and disarray. However, I knew I could not pull out. That I'd already come this far and there was no point quitting. Even though I wanted to pull out so many times, especially in the time from putting my application in, to being accepted, I had to tell myself, be reminded and still tell myself that God is in control of this all and to trust in Him with everything I had and am still to have.
So now I am at the spot of support raising, trusting in God and knowing His will, will be done. I am no saint among sinners, or a saint among saints, or a saint at all for a matter of fact... I'm just like you, a child of God, just wanting to give everything I have and work for the Lord!
(My game face is on... GO THE BLUES!!!)
