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!!!!!
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.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_d1eVv0E8)
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).
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