Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Answered Prayers

So by way of an explaination, if it is needed, God has been answering so many of my prayers these days and I thought I should make a post chronicling them.

I have already mentioned in another post about the equipping of armor that God performed on me. It became more clear to me a few days ago when I came into a more clear understanding of the nature of spiritual warfare in my life.

But last night is the real reason that I am starting this post. Let me just go back one week, it was the first day of UofM outreach. We toured a portion of the campus, then returned to the campus church and spent some time in prayer. During that prayer I heard God tell me that he was going to take my photography to a new level. I didn't know what to do with that or how to approach it. Well if there is one thing I have sort of learned here so far, it is that when I don't know, just don't worry about it. So I didn't even really think about it all week. So last night we were talking through ideas of outreach and I was sort of just listening. I thought I could do any of the things that were being discussed, but none of them would have been the best fit.
So I went up to talk to John after the majority of the meeting was over. He asked me what I was interested in, I answered with the things I am most passionate about - Photography, sports, music, cooking. After a few minutes of talking to some other guys he had me come over and told me about a small group of photographers that he was connected with. He said he would talk to them and see what would come. This is by no means a conclusion of the story, but with me doing absolutely nothing God is taking care of it. I'm pretty stoked by that equation!

10/24/10
Last night I was on the lake shore at Camp Jim and was praying. I asked God where I was lacking, what areas of my life are not in alignment with His ways. His answer was simple but so profound. He said that "You are sufficient, lacking nothing. You are my son. I love you!" Such a simple answer, so profound and so much there for me to hang onto.

Monday, September 20, 2010

A Warriors Mindset

So I have been thinking a lot about the reality of being a soldier in the service to my King. It sort of started last week but I feel like it has been plugging around in my brain for longer than that. God gave me this sick new armor, like ridiculously nice! It's silver. I also got a new sword and shield which are pretty tight.
I guess it started with the start of school. I have been very taken up with the idea of how to live my life as a soldier. My model verse for my behavior is 2 Timothy 2:3 - 4 which says "Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier." Verse 4 really stick out to me, as an active service soldier I feel that it is an important mandate.
I have heard a lot over the years about the nature of the Armor. How it only covers the front so that we are forced to stand or die. But in a new way God highlighted something to me, which is sort of the whole reason that I am writing this post. He told me that as a soldier of the King, I am free from the bondage of Satan. That is pretty basic, I know but think about it. We are soldiers, not captives so why do so many of us carry ourselves as POW. We live in subjection to sin and in the will of Satan far more than in the strength and victory of Jesus. It is such any easy thing to say that we sin because of our old nature and I am as guilty of that as anyone. But Christ didn't come and shed His precious blood so that we live in oppression to Satan while still trying to wave His flag.
It's amazing how things have come to this. We claim the Spirit but reject most of the benefits that He offers us because it may result in an emotional response. That is so stupid, let me just get that out of the way! We cry at funerals of believers who are spending eternity with Christ, we cry at weddings of believers who are living in obedience and in a foreshadowing to the return of Christ and then we often dance at the after party. But the church building has somehow become so sacred that we won't do such a thing in those institutions, we have become a detestable and double minded generation that cling to grace but refuse the rest.
I have picked up my sword and have stepped out in a way that makes even me feel strange, but God is revealing Himself to me in new ways daily. We have the answer, and it is submission to the perfection of the Holy. Is this a rant, absolutely and am one small voice that will get lost in the clamor, most likely, but I must speak for the chance that even one person might hear me!

Monday, September 13, 2010

the SUPERnatural

So I have touched on this stuff in some of my other posts and will probably continue to do that, but I am writing this one as a concentrated post of all that God is doing and all the ways that He is moving.

*****This is just copied from my other posts & expounded upon*****

Well I have been at BCOM for a few weeks now and it has been a very interesting time. I see the fingerprints of God as He is working in all of our lives. But the thing that is so amazing is that we haven't even scratched the surface of God's infinity. Enough beating around the bush though.By way of personal account, and since this is my blog, I will share the things that gone on in me through these first few weeks. On the third day of orientation I was healed...if you didn't catch that, it was a reference to the creation account but I go on. My body had done through a great degree of wear through all the hours that I worked this past summer. It was to the point that I couldn't really move without pain somewhere in my body. I often considered going to the clinics in Fargo over the summer to get checked out, but knew that it was a test of my faith and that God, in His faithfulness, would heal me. Well my mentor here at school knew about these issues before I told him about them and assured me that I would be healed. I took it for what it was worth, a word that I believed but didn't know anything beyond that. Well later that day I informed him of some important information and with no prompting from me he layed his hands on me and prayed through my ailments so that I was healed. Like seriously, my body is better than it has been in well over 10 years. So that was kind of the flag in the mountain that said it would be a great year.
I have received prophecy, you might say that prophecy doesn't happen and yeah I really didn't believe in it either til Chi Alpha. The one that know beyond a shadow of doubt is from the mouth of God is the uniqueness of my future. Please don't think that I think I am anything special because I know much better than that but God has shared that message with me over the last few years. First from my friend Jon, then directly in the middle of the night one day last year at AFLBS and then most recently by one of the girls here at school. It really put me into a mindset of striving in my own strength, trying to help God accomplish this grand destiny. So foolish I know, but it was too big for me to grasp so I doubted this true power. It has taken a heck of a lot for me to come to grips with this and kind of hurts to tell even now but I have been a closed case for too long.
I had the opportunity to pray with and over many of my classmates who were in a range of spiritual conditions. I thought I knew a little bit about prayer, but man I didn't know anything. I still don't but I take so much delight in just sitting in the presence of the infinite God, my Savior! The amount of things that God has churned with in me to pray for would have driven me crazy even a few weeks ago, but now I have grown to love it and long for more.
I got overwhelmed by the Spirit, let me tell how it happened. One of my friends was absolutely getting blasted by the glory, like rolling on the ground, laughing and speak scripture and just flowing. I was one of the guys watching him to make sure he didn't hurt himself and the Spirit started to get at me a little bit. So instead of rejecting I wanted it, I crawled under one of the chairs, don't know why but I did. I was just longing for the filling, so God told me to get up and go to the back of the chapel. Once I was back there He told me to go look at the map of the world. He said that my destiny was to reach all these people, once again I could have held onto unbelief but instead trusted God with my future, no matter how hard it is for me to see it. So once I had accepted that truth He told me to go grab one of the flags. He had told me to grab one earlier but I resisted, I've only ever seen woman use them and I didn't want to do that. Well I followed this time and as soon as I touched the flag I was blasted. I couldn't stand up straight, walk straight, talk normal or honestly function as I usually do. Like I had a lot of trouble just sitting down on the chairs. But it was great. I feel no shame for the way that God moves and only want to proclaim his moving in my life.
I have seen and heard truths that God had already been working in my thinking, but seemed to put me out on an island so that is astounding. For example, God has really been revealing to me that true nature of the missionary nature. That while it is so often taught and understood as an optional part of Christian life, increasingly I had become convinced of the mandatory nature of it. I do not say we must all leave America and go, because we have a worse country in many respects than the nations that we are sending people to. But we must, yes must, as in a command GO, and live as Christians - filled with the Holy Spirit (not rejecting Him as many denominations secretly do) and keeping the Bible as our only truth. To stop being church people and start being Jesus people, the true Church.

**********From this point on is new stuff**********
9/14/10
I cannot directly link this to the extra time that I have because of the sports fast, but this morning during chapel I had a prayer from last night answered. I had been reading through the armor of the Lord and prayed that God would equip me with the armor. So it is very possible that He would have answered right away had I stayed up, but I decided to go to bed. During chapel I was slain in the Spirit, it has kind of become a common thing for me these days. While I was out I saw in the Spirit that God was putting brand new armor from my feet to my head and on everything in between. Now, I recognize God answers prayer but it usually takes a little bit longer than over night for it to happen.

9/20/10
Have you ever been told how much God loves you? How desperately He longs to just have relationship with you? Well I have, many times - the result of going through Bible school and missions school. There is a reality to this that I hadn't previously understood, so let me tell you the story. Our chapel service had just ended and I had been praying when a friend of mine fell over as he was walking out (He has CB). As I bent down something swept over me that I couldn't understand at the time. I was doing all I could to stop from flat out weeping at his feet. I didn't know why but later as I was meditating on it God gave me clarity. That for a few moments I was allowed to have the heart of God within me. To feel the pain and agony and sorrow that He feels for us as we live in this broken condition. I'm crying to reflecting on this. To know how much He wants to just have us and how much it hurts Him that we are living this broken and sinful condition is great and yet so hard to bear.

9/25/10
So just got through the first 2 hours of the prayer meeting, so yeah it's 2 am and I am pretty tired but also super jacked up! It's been a day of a ton of Spiritual warfare. Bryce and I got it started this morning during cell group and I was doing it a little bit during PT. It has definitely turned up over the last two hours. I spent a solid 45 minutes just rebuking the influences of the world and Satan. It was really cool because right before it started I could physically feel the sword in my hand and the shield on my forearm. The fight is far from over...unless I die but I don't think that's going to happen. So right around 1:45 the guys that are here prayed for me, we had been praying over each other and it was just my turn. It was really neat, because I felt a large ring like object on my head, in the Spirit it was revealed to me that it was a crown. So yeah that is kind of why I am jacked up right now. Got 4 more hours and I will post more later on!

10/5/10
We just got done with chapel - wow! So I was pretty distracted for the first hour so I just stepped out and read the Bible for a while. Around 12:15 I went back in and really started to press into the presence of God. We were praying over BCOM Preview and it was really good. After that set of prayers had been sent up the worship team started playing. I was in the back of the chapel singing along and I saw Jesus walking through the room. Not a physical form man, but I saw Jesus walking through! After the BCOM Preview prayer had sort of wrapped Bryce got up and started speaking into the chapel. In a serious way he was prophesying.
After a few minutes Jared came over and started praying for me, then Joseph started praying for me and then Jason also layed hands on me. Right away when Jared started praying for me, I felt someone blowing on my neck, like a very soft but noticeable sensation of air moving on the back of my neck. But there was no one standing behind me. And there wasn't a fan or anything like that. I don't have the slightest clue what it means but God will reveal it to me!
So after those guys were praying for me for a few minutes I went to the ground and could see the angels fighting around me - fighting demons. They were saying that they couldn't have me right now. God was speaking to me about some restoration that will be happening in me today in preparation to the football game. Sounds kind of funny right, well God went on to say that my passion for sports was put in me by him but that it had grown to too great of a level. That is why He is wanting me to remove it from my life for this time. It's just cool that cares about me enough to care about something as ultimately meaningless as flag football.

10/9/10
We were on our cell group retreat over this past weekend. On Saturday night a couple teen challenge graduates (who were friends with a classmate of mine) came over and visited us for a while. We ended up down by the camp fire just talking and I reached out to them with a question concerning a struggle that I have been dealing with for a while. The answer they gave me immediately was about what I was expecting, but hadn't been doing. Then shortly after that one of the guys said that God showed him that I have a pure heart in that area. I was surprised and humbled by that statement. I have always been one to very intentionally focus on my areas of weakness, so to hear a word of such encouragement was a blessed thing indeed.


10/21/10
For the last week and a half we have had "Kingdom Lifestyles" class. Basically a class about prayer, which is the class I was most excited about this semester. We there have been some great moves of the Spirit during the class. Today the teacher had us do an exercise of listening to the Spirit. Because of the size and set up of the class I got paired up with the teacher. Historically, that is not a position that I would enjoy but I was actually really excited about it. We spent a few minutes just listening to Him. I received a word for her that seemed to be very applicable. Her word for me was day changing. She got John 1:47 which says "Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him, and said of him, "Behold, an (BY)Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!" Sounds kind of random, well not for me. The application is two fold - the first being that I have been reading through leviticus lately and found it pretty dry. Well as I have been reading I have looked for the aspects that can relate to me. I am a firm believer in the spiritual grafting in that we have received through Jesus so all things that talk about the Jews interest me, even if they may not apply. The second being that I have such a history of dishonesty. For her to get a verse about someone who is without deceit is very impactful. During the sharing time, she asked me to share and mentioned that she had only gotten that right before sharing so wow, to receive such a word in such a short time is so great!
Later in the day, during PT, my supervisor was talking to me about somethings and mentioned that I am a vital part of the work that is done at BPI. Well for the last few weeks I have kind considered the time there as unimportant because I was pretty playing second fiddle and just helping. To have that said I know is a word from the mouth of God.
So yeah, what a day it was for me. Now I have mens retreat this weekend and I am sure I will have a lot to say when I get back!


11/2/10
So I have 4 different stories that all combined into one last night, so I will start from the beginning. When I was younger I went through a few years of eye therapy to relieve strain on my eyes caused by weak eye muscles. Well lately I had been noticing some of the signals coming back around...sort of an unnecessary frustration right now. 
Also during the last roughly 22 months, I have had three concussions and I am pretty sure that I had at least two others in my grade school days. I began to notice the effects of these injuries and over the last few days it kept coming up in my conversations.
And since I was in Junior High I have been pretty much a music junky with little regard for my hearing. As with the other things I could feel the effects of this but couldn't really do anything about it.
So now we fast forward to last night, haha. I was in a stinky mood...just very frustrated with things. I was showering after football and began to talk to Bryce about the stuff that was going on with me. Well I he had been around a few days earlier when I was talking about my head injuries and while he was praying he prayed for healing in my mind. It took a couple minutes but once I started really thinking again I could feel a distinct difference in my brain and in my eyes. I was kind of freakin out, just like so psyched! So Bryce and another one of the guys on the floor kept braining for me and as usually happens I went down. While I was laying on the ground out of nowhere I heard a huge pop in my ears and everything got way louder. Well 24 hours later I'm feeling just as good but know that there is a stinking load more to come for me!!!!!!
A few minutes after all the praying had kinda wrapped up the other guy, Matthew, came up and gave me a couple insights - one known already, and one unknown. During Fasting chapel I had gone over to him and prayed for him, that's pretty normal stuff here, well last night he told me that my hands were on fire as I praying for him. I definitely hadn't seen that coming but I wasn't surprised, he gives me a lot of sweet insights into stuff that I usually don't perceive. Well he went on to confirm a vision that I had a couple years back but that has been buzzing around up top for the last few weeks at least. 
So yeah, God is really cool
He brings up things in His time and no it isn't coincidence
Even as annoyed as I was God got to me

Thursday, September 9, 2010

truth for truth

So in class we have been talking about some realities of church life today. Going through the difference of what is essential and what is just beneficial. It kind of became clear to me today through a strange occurrence. I am still very new to my Practical Training (PT) assignment, I take sections of books that have just come off the printer and bundle them so they can be taken to the bindery. Anyways, I have been at it for a few days and have pretty well gotten the hang of it, kind of hard not to - very constant and very repetitive. But the print operate that I was working with seemed to have a slight issue with my form, that I was doing more things by hand than with the available tools. To appease him I started using the tools, at no point did I change anything in the way that I was doing it, just how it looked to him as he was watching me. For the rest of the shift he didn't make any comments to me about thing related to my form.
But it got me thinking, it was sort of a parallel to the way we are in the church. We get so used to how things look and work that anything that appears different must be changed. I am not condemning the guy, because he knows more than me and has been doing this for a long time, but we must not get hung up on the form of things in our lives, but more importantly the result. My results didn't change in the least before and after he said something to me. In the same way really, if there is effective work going on in our church fellowships we should be able to say amen, despite any misgiving we may have concerning the form of things.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

the first weeks

Well I have been at BCOM for a few weeks now and it has been a very interesting time. I see the fingerprints of God as He is working in all of our lives. But the thing that is so amazing is that we haven't even scratched the surface of God's infinity. Enough beating around the bush though.
By way of personal account, and since this is my blog, I will share the things that gone on in me through these first few weeks. On the third day of orientation I was healed...if you didn't catch that, it was a reference to the creation account but I go on. My body had done through a great degree of wear through all the hours that I worked this past summer. It was to the point that I couldn't really move without pain somewhere in my body. I often considered going to the clinics in Fargo over the summer to get checked out, but knew that it was a test of my faith and that God, in His faithfulness, would heal me. Well my mentor here at school knew about these issues before I told him about them and assured me that I would be healed. I took it for what it was worth, a word that I believed but didn't know anything beyond that. Well later that day I informed him of some important information and with no prompting from me he layed his hands on me and prayed through my ailments so that I was healed. Like seriously, my body is better than it has been in well over 10 years. So that was kind of the flag in the mountain that said it would be a great year.
I have received prophecy, had the opportunity to pray with and over many of my classmates who were in a range of spiritual conditions. I got overwhelmed by the Spirit to the point of it being uncontrollable. Seen and heard truths that God had already been working in my thinking, but seemed to put me out on an island so that is astounding. I do not mean to put this as a footnote because all the things that said could be expounded upon with the fullness of the stories but I must sign off at some point. So until God prompts another writing, may your days be filled to over flowing with His pure joy!