A step in the right direction

So after a ridiculously productive morning in which I had everything I wanted to do for the day done by 8:15, I feel like I somewhat squandered the rest of the day. That might be the problem with waking up early is that if you run out of things to do you feel as though you are wasting time.

God has really been putting it on my heart recently that it is time to step out in faith and see Heaven invade earth. Time to get back to the passion that I had back in November and December when I wanted to see people get healed every day. That means that every day I need to be out giving God the opportunity to give people a life-changing encounter. So with that being on my heart, my faith has been increasing and my prayers times have gotten more passionate. Well, during my prayer time two days ago I felt that I was getting a word of knowledge for a man who was in there. I didn't talk to him that morning, but this morning I felt the same impression so I approached him. It turns out that he didn't have pain or deafness in either ear, but if he had and he had gotten healed, I think it would have been one of the more obscure times that people have gotten healed - at 5:30 in the morning!

After turning in the keys to our old apartment, Jeremy and I went to Winco so he could get some groceries. I was on the phone most of the time with a guy who I was hoping to work for. It is possible that things could still work out, but I am not so sure. Thankfully, I have other contacts that I can look to from people that I have talked to in the past week. While I was on the phone we passed at least a dozen legal targets (wow, I haven't said that in a while! A legal target is someone in a wheelchair, wearing a cast, with hearing aids, etc...). Finally, after I got off the phone, Jeremy realized that he forgot to get oatmeal, so we headed over in that direction. Right before we got there I saw a legal target (I almost feel bad for saying that, but it is the truth that God is setting us up when we don't have to get a word of knowledge to know where someone is in pain). So after following Jeremy for just a moment to the next aisle, I immediately turned around to talk to the guy.

I'll admit I noticed a sticker on his wheelchair that tipped me off that he was a Christian so I knew that I at least had that open door. I talked with him for a few minutes and found out a little bit about him before finally praying for him. I discovered something that I have never realized before in approaching people - I didn't pray for healing how I normally would have because of what I knew about him. Well, lucky for me, God can still do whatever He wants, regardless of the words used in my prayer.

It is a step in the right direction for me. I know this may come as a shocker, but that is the first time that I have prayed for someone when not on a planned outreach in quite a few months. As a friend told me last week, "the worst thing that could happen is that they say no." She was right. It is possible that I will inadvertantly offend people along the way, but better to plant a seed and give God an opportunity to change their life forever than to allow the fear of offending people to cripple me into being scared of approaching anyone and keep me from walking into the fullness of my calling.

He's always speaking

"I thought to myself, 'What would happen if the washing machine flooded?'"

Not much later we received a phone call and rushed out the door to respond to a flooded garage. After helping clean up some of the mess and putting the drainage hose back where it belongs, our flooded friend realized that the Holy Spirit had warned her of what was going to happen, but she hadn't recognized it. My roommate then responded that He is always speaking and that it is up to us to listen.

Yesterday I was rushing to our old apartment to get my clothes so that I could go to where we are now living to take a shower and get to the church for a meeting. On my way there I saw two cars on the side of the road. Seeing that there was an officer on the scene and that all the people were standing outside their vehicles, I felt a sensation in the big toe of my right foot. Having never stopped at an accident before I wasn't quite sure how to approach the people since the officer was writing up what happened. It could have just been me feeling the Holy Spirit, or it could have been a word of knowledge for one of the people (I think it was a word of knowledge). I have been so used to not getting words of knowledge "on-the-go" that I doubted the validity of it until I had already talked myself out of stopping.

Regardless of how much we recognize the voice of God, we must awaken ourselves to what He is doing and what He is saying. Jesus only did what He saw the Father doing. That has been my prayer in recent months - that I would know what God is doing so that I could do it and nothing more. Had I been waiting for God to speak like the sick people at the pool of Bethesda were waiting for the angel to stir the waters I would have jumped at the opportunity. Now that I think about it, that is how I want to start living - eagerly awaiting an assignment from the Lord whether it is to give someone an encouraging word, or to pray for someone to be healed of an incurable disease.

Eagerly await the voice of God, the Language of the Holy Spirit. When you hear your spiritual phone ringing, don't hesitate to answer because you may miss the call.

Purposeful Planning

At one point this morning it seemed as though nothing could go right. It is partially my fault for checking my email and seeing that there was something for me to update on Jesusculture.org, but regardless, it set me off to a bad start almost 5 hours after I had woken up (and yes, 5 hours after I woke up was still the morning, and it was probably before a few of you woke up).

Interestingly enough, this isn’t the first time in the past week that making an update on the Jesus Culture website has gotten me rather mad. I would not think twice about it other than the fact that I do not get angry with people. Fortunately I am getting angry at the internet or the website not working properly instead of getting angry at another person, and double fortunately I am not getting angry at it when anyone is around, however, I don’t want to get mad at anything except for a holy anger at the devil.

I was running a little bit late to help my friends because of trying to squeeze in more than I had allowed time for. Then I went to the post office to finally put in my change of address form but I couldn’t remember the new address. Then I noticed that I could have done this online. So I drove to the old house to find that nobody was there giving me the opportunity to go back to the apartment to get my mail forwarded online. Then I check my email and see that the website was needing a pretty important update. The internet worked long enough for me to see that somehow the link to the page I was updating got messed up. Then when I knew it needed to be fixed, the internet would not work. After getting a phone call back from my friend asking if I was still coming I tried one more time and this time it worked! Thank you Jesus! So after 15 more minutes of fixing the problems and updating the site I was on my way.

I lacked planning and didn’t have my priorities straight to follow through on the commitment I had made to help my friends. Soon after arriving to help them I realized another important lesson: If you don’t know your purpose then you are almost completely useless and ineffective. I felt very out of place as I stood around wondering how I could help. I didn’t know my purpose and because of that simple bit of knowledge, I didn’t get much accomplished.

It is my goal this summer to have a purpose, some of which I have already laid out, so that I know what I want to do and what I need to do in order to accomplish it.

Some like it hot...

It's heating up! yes, that is the forecast over the next few days for Redding.

I am starting to believe that it is imperative for me to live a life of radical faith in which every day I am doing something that streches myself. For instance today I heard the story of some students (not at Bethel) who for a few hours read and prayed scripture about Jesus and Peter walking on water and then for several hours attempted to do it until one walked across the pool that they were at! Think about it. How can we expect to do the impossible if we are too worried about trying in the first place. It is time to turn up the heat!

I am getting back to that place of desperation and I am actually feeling the heat on a situation when I would need a jolt of faith. I am so thankful that the desperation for more has returned because it honestly was not fun to be in the place of not even wanting to pray for people. I would rather be sweating because I know that I should approach them than just walk away without hardly giving it a thought. It is time to turn up the heat on the devil!

I am starting to see why the devil seems to have so much authority on the earth (notice how I said "seems", because in reality he doesn't!). It is because we don't do anything to keep him from prowling around and doing as he pleases. If we would be on the offensive then he would have no option other than to retreat. Come on! How many of you know that you could stand in a fire pit as long as you wanted as long as there was no fire. In the same way, if we put no pressure on the devil then he isn't going to give up quickly. Of course in the end, he has no option because he has already been defeated, but what is our purpose if we refuse our right to co-labor with God? Let's turn up the heat on the devil and go out and help God to kick him out of here!

Somebody get happy!

So I finally got smart last night and put my laptop in its normal spot next to my bed so that I could write down my dreams when I wake up in the middle of the night. Sure enough, I had a dream, woke up, and wrote it down. One person that was in this dream had never been in any of my dreams until the past two nights. Anyway, I woke up early to get some time in with the Lord. It was fitting that Pastor Kris talked about how something only has value when it costs us something. Well, I have loved my time with God in the mornings and this morning was no different. I think it was probably my favorite time of praying in the Spirit ever. Of my goals that I wrote about a few days ago I have been doing very well on the praying, soaking, and reading the bible, all of which I do in the morning. I have not been as consistent in spending an hour reading other books, but have been reading a few pages each day.

Church was super cool. I was digging worship as I have learned again how to enter in when it isn't my choice of music. Eric Johnson, Pastor Bill's son, shared this amazing story about an 8-year-old that learned not to be afraid of snakes (the devil). I am not doing the illustration justice right now, but he made several great points about how we need to put the devil in his proper place of being small and only having the authority that we hand over to him. Pastor Kris told a story that I have heard many times, but after he told and just began to talk was amazing! When I went up to pray for people I felt an impression on my right knee, so I turned to Banning and asked him if it was hurting, which it wasn't. Ten seconds later he went to go pray for a man. Fifteen seconds after that he tells me to get over there and explains how not only did this man ask for me to pray for him, but also that it was his right knee that he came up to get healing for! So Banning and I just declared healing in a second over him, without praying, and told him to go walk and test it out. He reported very much the same as I did with my knee problem from a month ago in that, it didn't feel nearly as weak when he was walking and that he felt more stable. Praise God!

Fast forward to the evening and I showed up to pre-service prayer a few minutes early. Since I have been having such a good time praying in tongues the past few days, I didn't hesitate to start walking around the room even though there was no music on yet and I was the only one doing it. Sure enough I could feel God's presence almost immediately and was then getting touched by some angels and the Holy Spirit. Later I was with several other people and was starting to get a little bit drunk in the Holy Spirit. I was laughing so much that now my throat is just a tiny bit sore from it. I kept falling over and laughing. Ah, being happy is so much fun! I now have the feeling that the summer is going to be a blast!

So, I don't think that I have ever had quite the experience that I had during worship tonight. It was amazing. I have had other experiences that were incredible, but I think this one tops them all. I thought I felt that something special was happening (which normally does not happen) and after just the third song Pastor Kris gets up to share that he feels such a special anointing in the room that he hasn't felt anything that strong since the Jesus Movement 40 years ago! WOAH! I was already going crazy, but that just kicked it up another notch. It was fantastic. On top of that, a good friend of mine that I have been constantly praying for was finally back from her surgery a month ago. I didn't realize just how special this is until now, but I had been praying that she wouldn't need any more rods put in her back because she would be healed, and guess what, she didn't need any rods! She still needs to be completely healed though. While praying for her I got a couple words of knowledge, one for pain in the left ear, which left completely, and another for headaches which lessened. Also, pain in her knee went away while I was praying for her feet. God is so awesome!!!! I can't believe how faithful He is! Oh and while I was praying for my friend, she was praying with one or two other people for a woman with a large tumor. After the second time of prayer the woman had an astonished look on her face and could not find the tumor!!!! JESUS!!!!!

I almost forget to mention what got released during this time of worship before I prayed for my friend. In addition to the healing anointing, Pastor Kris also said that there was an anointing to break cycles, not only including bad addictions, but also including bad thought patterns of fear or loss of hope. He explained how many lose hope when things they are praying for don't get answered. I totally felt that I had lost hope and it was also fitting that Kim Walker sang prophetically about dreams that were forgotten due to lost hope or bad memory would be restored. Well, I have dreams of people getting out of wheelchairs among other things that I have definitely lost hope on in a very general sense. Actually, I think it would be more accurate to say that I don't carry those dreams with the same level of faith that I once did.

Nearly two hours into the service Danny Silk finally got up to preach. I sat with some friends who were susceptible to getting drunk in the Holy Spirit on purpose just because I know God is giving me some freedom and joy. I was not dissappointed. After Josephs and Marys were called forward to be released we ended with a big fire tunnel. Much later I got to pray with an awesome guy, Scott, for a woman with cancer. You can tell that Scott has been around Pastor Bill by the authority that he prays with. Not a gift of faith, loud authority, but rather a soft-spoken, rock-solid healing theology authority. He got a clear word about her not being able to sleep and the whole time we were praying I could feel the fire coming off of my fingertips. She is gonna be healed.

Somebody get happy! God is good!

You may want to write this down...AGAIN!

God is really good!

Seriously. After my experience at the prayer chapel yesterday morning I thought that I should have a little party in there this morning before reporting at 8 am for the healing rooms. So, I had a cool time from 5-8 hanging out with Jesus and some angels and then headed over to the church. This was not my normal team, but there were a few familiar faces there from school and then also the intercessors that pray in the room with us and pray for us as we pray for the people. They are so awesome. It is like having four Grandmothers in the room cheering you on.

I learned something very valuable last night as we were sharing testimonies before going out into the city for outreach when one of the leaders made a comment about how my friend shares her testimonies. He made the comment that she always is thankful for the little things such as headaches and pain and treats them as a normal person might treat someone getting out of a wheelchair. He then said that people like her who are so thankful for the little things are the ones that then see the people getting healed of cancer and deaf ears opening. Anyway, when our leader at the healing rooms told us to ask God for what we want to see, I said, "God, I want to see headaches healed." I realized how quick I have been to write off less impressive healings as insignificant and to only really value the healing of cancer, deaf ears, blind eyes, etc... The angelic was pretty thick in the room at the time and I was probably manifesting more than I have since February especially when someone called out autism. So, I quickly followed with "Ceeeerebral Palsy! Down's Syyyndrome!" as I was shaking.

Did I mention that God is really good? Well, in case you didn't realize that yet, He is! I believe that for each of the people we prayed for I had at least one word of knowledge. For many of them I had several. I don't say this to boast, because God is giving them to me, but several weeks ago it seemed like I couldn't get a word of knowledge if I waited for one all day. God is really doing something in my life in creating a balance between doing what I am called to do, but doing it for the right reasons. It has been a long time coming, but better to go through what I did and be doing it right then to still be performing for the testimonies and praise of others as I had started to do. Anyway, on to what God was doing...

One woman no longer got dizzy when she danced and spun.

A man who is now one day past how long the doctors said he had to live felt fire in his chest. He had lung cancer that spread to his brain. Through words of knowledge he also got healed of numbness in his fingertips and lack of feeling in both of his feet. On his fingertips we prayed many times with there being improvement each time. We had to press in for his feet several times before they started to get better. We had already prayed I think three times (and were going to move on) when I then felt the Holy Spirit touch the bottom of my right foot, and so I told him, released another testimony and then prayed again, this time with breakthrough! Praise God!!!!

A girl with all kinds of stuff wrong had an outbreak of laughter (we did too!) when we prayed for God to release joy on her. She had chronic headaches (come on!), so I gladly prayed that they would never come back and that she would no longer have insomnia (both problems I had several weeks ago that I didn't have at the end of the week). Then, even though we had already been told to move on to the next person, I felt led to share a testimony from one of my classmates about how she got healed of lactose intolerance and then prayed for several friends and family members who got healed as well. Then the girl tells me that she has that too but thought it was unimportant compared to the rest of the things. Apparently God thought it was very important! She experienced indescribable feelings throughout her body as we prayed for her complete healing of many illnesses.

A woman wrote that she wanted prayer for "whatever the Lord wills". Well, after reading this, I think you will see that it is God's will to heal! We could barely touch her because the Holy Spirit was touching her so much. My prayer partner had a great word of knowledge that allowed us to find out that she had deafness so bad that hearing aids don't help. As we were praying for that I got words of knowledge for her feet and for her knees. We prayed that the numbness would go from her feet and that her knees would be fully strengthened and she had breakthrough. Then we also prayed for her back which I believe is fully healed as she quickly bent completely over at least a half dozen times without any sign of pain.

This is good!

When praying for a man with shoulder problems I felt heat in the exact area that I later found out was the location of the problem. He couldn't do anything to test it out, but he knew that swimming would test it and so he is going to give the report to one of the intercessors who is in his family.

A woman was receiving some inner healing when I felt that she also had feet problems. Guess what? She did! We got to pray for her feet and her knees as well and when we were about to wrap that up I felt that God was wanting to do something on the balls of her feet. It turns out that she has a fairly serious problem there in which she is prone to getting cut with possible dangerous consequences. We began pressing in for that and were feeling that God was doing a great work.

Another woman came for prayer for her colon. After praying in the spirit for a minute I felt that there was something wrong in the lower right side of her back. She said that she was having problems there so we prayed. A few minutes later there was a great shift that she felt, after which the pain was gone. Later as we were praying I felt that God was touching the colon so we prayed for that and she ended up feeling her colon pull back towards her back. Praise God!!!!

To top it off we prayed for a student who has had problems with her knees, hips, and back. After prayer she could bend her knees to get close to the ground without pain. Praise you Lord!!!!

God is good!

I went to the wedding of two of my classmates this afternoon and just watched the webcast for The Call on God.tv and just happened to catch the segment that we filmed here at Bethel. I could feel the anointing on it and was so thankful that I get to be a part of what is going on here. Later they showed the Ramp in Alabama which was rocking and had a very strong anointing too! How cool is God? I am getting rocked while watching a webcast, some of which wasn't even live! :)

You may want to write this down again.... God is good!

drum roll please...

I just changed my layout! I hope you like it, because I do. Your feedback is welcome here, I won't do anything to you if you don't like it! :)

You may want to write this down...

God is good.

Oh wow, what a day I had yesterday. I woke up at 4 am to take a classmate to the Greyhound Bus terminal and after I dropped her off I thought it would be fun to go to the prayer chapel. Good choice. As I prayed I was more aware of His presence and also angels than I have been in a while. After that I had some good soaking time and then went home. I read my bible and made some breakfast. Lol, the only thing I "made" was the bagel that I cut in half to put in the toaster.

Later, when I was reading "The Reality of the Supernatural World" by Todd Bentley, I was hit with some pretty good revelation about the need to maintain spiritual disciplines. I don't want anyone to start debating with me, so I won't touch any specifics, but it was easy to relate what he wrote to my own personal experiences of having trouble doing something when we haven't been doing it regularly. For instance he gave the example of having a hard time getting back into doing meetings after having a week or even just a few days off. However, if he has been doing meetings every day then it is no problem for him to get going the next day. Likewise, revelation from reading the bible comes best when we actively read it every day. If I make a habit of ministering to people in public it becomes easier to do, but if I don't do it for a while, it is very difficult.

Something really seems to be happening in the spirit for me. Maybe it is because I am spending more time in prayer (it isn't because of performance, but rather familiarity!) and in God's presence. Last night at pre-service prayer I was really getting touched and started to laugh a lot, which I haven't done in a while. I went on outreach and was on a team with two of my favorite people. These people would blow you away. We had a blast and ministered to a lot of people. It all started with one of them following arrows they saw in the spirit and then passing it off to the other who felt that we should go to IHOP (Pancakes, not Prayer). So I pull in and before we even get inside the building we immediately found people that matched several words of knowledge. One man's knee got healed and another one's vision improved.

While talking with our waitress and telling her how great she is, I start to think that we should bless her with a large tip and immediately after I think that my friend gives a word of knowledge that we were supposed to bless a Native American and she happened to be one (I wouldn't have guessed it and we actually ran into more Native Americans before we left that did look like it). So we end up leaving her a large tip and after ministering to many other people we headed back.

We didn't make it far before I noticed a man walking on crutches, so we did a U-turn and pulled over to talk to him. We prayed for him and my friends both prophecied over him. While we were praying I could feel heat transfering from my fingers to his knee. He was really touched. It was awesome. So we went to a street that our group leader had written down that has nothing on it except for one intersection. Well, there was a car stopped at that intersection. Turns out one of the girls was teaching the other to drive. We were able to pray for them and just let them know that God thinks they are awesome. After that we finally went back to the church.

OK, so that was kinda long, I will save you by making a new post for what happened Saturday morning at the Healing Rooms...

To Be Continued...

It's summertime and the weather is hot!

It's that time of year again. I can't believe that I am in the beginning of another summer "vacation" from school after I knew that when I graduated from college two years ago, that I would never go back to school. Summer can be great or it can be horrible. It can be a time of burning with passion for God or a time of wondering how you wasted that much time and never did anything productive. I am determined that this summer will be one of setting goals and reaching them rather than having the problem of wondering what happened during the three month break from school.

I know it is going to sound like I have a lot of goals, but reality is that there are a lot of things that I still need to work on and the summer is a great time to do it. So here you will have a list of my goals in no particular order, because they are mostly things that I want to have part of my daily routine.

1. Find a full-time job as fast as I can. I want to be able to save at least $1,000 (minimum!) this summer to go towards either Jesus Culture England or towards school next year. I would really be happy if I could save $2,000 or do I hear $3,000 over the summer.

2. Read the Bible for an hour every day. There is so much that I have been missing out on because I don't know the word well enough. I already know more than I did a year ago, so that is good, but alas, I need to get in the word more.

3. Spend a few hours a day at the Prayer Chapel. I would actually rather say "spend a few hours soaking and praying at home" but since I don't know what that will look like yet, I will for now say at the prayer chapel.

(How many hours does David think there are in a day? He is crazy!)

4. Read other books on revival or related topics for an hour each day. I would like to spend additional time on weekends reading as well. There are quite a few books that have been on my "to read" list for a while now.

5. Get my body in shape. At first this will just be doing some stuff at home that I will not mention because I don't want to embarass others by my supernatural strength and it might morph into working out at a gym three times a week if I feel that I am making significant enough contributions to the summer savings fund (see #1). We'll see.

6. Meet at least once a week with my crazy revivalist friends. I desperately need to be around them so that I can glean from their strengths and grow fully into who I am called to be. This is beyond just hanging out, this is to strategize, to challenge each other, to experiment (Bethel/Redding is just a big laboratory), and to spread revival. I gotta get myself around people that are getting out of the box and out of the house out into the community!

What are your plans for the summer?

Time with my significant other

When you fall in love it is easy to put things off in order to spend time with the one you love. Sacrifices of sleep, time and money are more joy than they are hardship. When you are really in love the shortest message, a quick hello, and simply being together doing nothing are infinitely valuable.

I see too many relationships where the love seems to have left. When one calls the other, it is more of a hassle than a joy. Instead of excitement when they call, an annoyed, "What?" is the greeting given when answering the phone. My loved one is calling me right now and I couldn't be more thrilled about it. You aren't going to find me getting annoyed. When my loved one is wanting my attention, I am going to give it. And since I am going to give my full attention, this blog entry is as good as done.

It is finished!

Tonight was the graduation for School of Ministry. So my first year of school is officially over. However, before getting into what happened tonight, I'll back up to to Friday. I had volunteered myself to help out at a formal dinner hosted by a family at church for all the second-year women. So Friday at 10 am I showed up to learn what would be going on that night and to help set up for it. The hosts are absolutely awesome. Apparently they do stuff like this all the time. It just amazes me. I ended up rolling into school a minute or two late because of it though and had a seat way in the back. I mean like so far back that there was no row until people started putting chairs there. We had worship, which by the way, we have been blessed with some super musicians all year that are better than almost any worship team at any church, and they are just our band for school. Thanks God. Then we heard from Pastor Bill and Pastor Kris. After them they announced the winners of the M. Earl Johnson Award. That award was named after Bill's dad, who went to heaven a few years ago, with the intent on being given to the person who most signifies a revivalist. The problem is, it is way too hard for them to pick people. Seriously. I wouldn't want the job at all. Since earlier in the year I had people telling me I would win it. Not knowing what it was, they did nothing more than confuse me and make me wonder why I should win some award. Honestly, that would have been the single greatest honor that I have ever received considering who I'm up against and the integrity of the people choosing it (it isn't some popularity contest like in high school). Anyway, I didn't win it, but when they announced who won it, I was so happy because of knowing the sacrifice this man has made. Yeah. It is incredible. He is a great guy as well. Someone who I can proudly say that I would endorse to anyone. He has been a constant encouragement to me from the beginning of the year and is always telling me that he believes in me. Great guy. I'm so happy for him. (They had a male and female from 1st, 2nd and 3rd year that were picked for the award, so six total, and they all shared briefly at graduation as well as getting free rides for their next year of school, except that the 3rd years don't have a next year, so I don't know what they get.)

Then they had this ceremony of the award winners praying for the students as they did a prophetic act of walking through a door into their destiny to then go and be knighted by Pastor Bill and Pastor Kris who both had long swords. Then we got went through a fire tunnel. I was wearing a new shirt that one of the interns made that shows a guy in a wheelchair getting healed. I'll have to put up a picture sometime. Anyway, so the first year winner, Chris, is praying for me as I go through and he says in his New Zealand accent, "That is you! You are going to be pulling people out of wheelchairs the rest of your life! Feel free to start with my daughter!" It was something like that. Actually, a little bit longer, but man was it powerful. Then as I went through the fire tunnel, I heard, "That is you!" or "That is perfect for you!" several times as people hit me on the chest pointing to the man praying for the guy in the wheelchair. Knowing that I just got impartation from a whole lot of people, I lay down for about 15 minutes to just soak it in. I would have stayed a lot longer, but they were needing me back at the party, so as most of my class had yet to go through this process, I was leaving my last day of first year. Kinda sad to be honest. It was a great year.

Oh boy. The party. Incredible. Tough again in that I had to have had people offer me food at least 20 or 30 times. Makes me want to go hide just so that people can't ask me. It was a six course meal with all the bells and whistles. We were to treat them as princesses and make everything perfect. I got there around 5 and the guests started to arrive at maybe 6:30 for (I'm not even gonna try to spell it, but it sounds like...)"or derves". :) Haha. I know it starts hors, but I forget all the other stuff. Yeah, then the appetizer, then the salad, then sorbet, then the main course, and finally desert. It was an incredible time and I got to spend time with a lot of really great people who I will surely be spending more time with this summer. I left a little while after 11 pm and headed over to the prayer chapel to prayer through the night, after soaking for a while I realized I would be dead tired if I stayed up all night, so I went home and went straight to bed. Time, approxiamately 1 am.

The next morning I woke up at 5:30 or so and went straight to the prayer house. I figured if I have made it to the 40th day of a fast I might as well go out with a bang and pray it up. So I went and prayed in tongues for 4 hours. Then I went and hung out with one of the more recent friends I have made, Derek, for coffee, except neither of us got anything. After that I went back and spent a little time soaking and then more time praying. After having gone over 4 hours again I was starting to feel like I should stop and leave. However, since I had wanted to stay for 6 hours I was trying to get to that. However, the urge won out when I realized I didn't feel into it any more. So I left after 4.5 hours. Finding a note from another friend that I had made it to the end of the faston the sign in sheet, I called her to see what was up, and ended up going with a group to see Shrek 3. Eh, ok. It wasn't my favorite, but it wasn't bad. I was happy that there wasn't the random, unnecessary bad language. After that we went out to eat and I came to the official end of my fast! Woohoo!

I honestly didn't think I'd finish it, but I got the burger that I love at the restaurant and ended up finishing my whole meal! LOL. I ate much more slowly than I ever would normally. Man was it good! Haha. Boy did I miss eating. The rolls were great, the fries were even better, and the burger, magnificent. Even the water was so refreshing (I fasted everything that day). After another person joined us and ate, all 6 of us went to the Sacramento River Trail to go for a walk. I had never been before so it was a new experience for me. I was full, like I would be any time that I eat out , and so I was walking slower than I normally would be able to. Not to mention I was still really sore from playing softball on Thursday. Then after a little while Derek joined us too. After that ended I went home to relax after a long day.

Today, I woke up on my own, before my alarm was to go off at 5 am. Haha. People think I'm crazy, but I just love spending time with God early in the morning. I got much more dressed up then is normal hear, wearing dress pants and a dress shirt tucked in. I ate breakfast for the first time in what seems like forever! Haha, 40 days serriously makes you forget what it is like to eat! I got to the chapel around 6 and started praying, and then later began to soak. Well, as I was soaking I became super aware of His presence and my hands were getting super hot. Wow. I honestly can't remember exactly what I was asking, but it was something to do with what I need to do to walk in the breakthrough, and then I heard a small inner voice say "faith." It was so tiny that I could have missed it completely, but it hit me like a ton of bricks. Faith is the key. I immediatly started thinking about Smith Wigglesworth and how he seemed to have faith for anything and everything. I truly believe that small voice was from God. I think faith is the key. It is all we need. We need mountain moving faith, but sometimes it seems like we don't even have faith that the grass will grow even though it still needs to be mowed every week. The great thing is that we can learn all about faith in the bible and don't need some book or something else to help us get it.

Anyway, this is huge for me. I just need to walk in the realization of faith. Anyway, between services I prayed for a man with diabetes. God touched him so much that even though the guy had just gotten there for the second service, he was tempted to go home so he could test himself to see whether or not he got healed. This guy had faith! I believe his faith healed him, and hopefully he will report back to me in a week that Jesus healed him completely. Amen! After church I went immediatley to Costco to pick up some FOOD! Woohoo! I have never spent that much money on things that weren't a bunch of clothes or some big ticket items. Granted it included protein powder that will last me several months as well as other things that will last me a month or at least several weeks. Got home and enjoyed eating. It was great. Again. Thank you Jesus! After spending some time cleaning up, I watched a movie with Jeremy and we enjoyed some vanilla ice cream with hot fudge, well it tasted cold, but it was still good! Then it was off to the civic auditorium for graduation. I made myself a sandwich with some lunch meats I bought! So proud of myself for eating something that isn't what I would normally eat! Lots of people were really dressed up as were Jeremy and myself. It was fun. We all went outside for a group shot which hopefully turned out OK as we were all looking into the sun and who knows how we fit into it as it was a mess. Anyway, back in for worship. I felt the presence roll in so I ended up sitting down after pressing in for a few more minutes. Fire on the hands! After that the graduation began with the third years, then the second years, and finally the first years. The M. Earl Johnson award winners all spoke and probably my favorite line of the night was from the female second year receipient who was diagnosed with cancer and then a few weeks later found out she was pregnant (the doctors have told her to abort the baby, but she has refused) said that we must remove the word impossible from our vocabulary. That is faith. Come on! My camera batteries, which I had charged on Wednesday didn't work at all, not even to turn on my camera, so I was only able to take some of the pictures that I would have liked to. Hopefully I still got some good ones.

I was talking with a friend afterwards about how they at times feel like even in this environment that they aren't challenged. This person is passionate about revival and wants to be trained up to become a revivalist that will change the course of history, but feels like they are being held up by people who are less passionate. They talked about wishing that the people who are going after "the stuff" as Pastor Bill would say could be hanging out and building with each other and really start to grow. I mentioned how there had been some people that would just meet together and do that kind of stuff. Unfortunately, I don't know how you grow in leading a crusade unless you are being trained by someone who has lead a crusade. You can't give what you don't have. Anyway, I feel like I need it as well, so I think we are going to try to get something like that started. This is going to be for crazy people that want to be radical evangelists (I would say revivalists, but in this culture that is too general and inculdes everyone). If you are interested let me know. Jeremy and I headed over to In-n-Out where probably 100 other students had gone as well and boy did I enjoy it. Grilled onions are definitely much better than the regular and vanilla milkshakes are the best. Ok, glass of water and I am going to bed! Even though I have no school tomorrow, I do not want to start going to bed at 2:15 in the morning! Heck, I could call my sister in Hungary right now and it would be after 11 in the morning for them! Good morning to those on the east coast! Good night to everyone in Redding who is probably still up after their graduation parties! Congrats and thanks for a great year! :)

Big League Dreams

I'll admit that I was a bit skeptical when our leaders at school announced that the next to last day would be at a park in town called Big League Dreams. I had never been to it, but I know that it is one of the main attractions that is promoted by the city. In the morning I had to take care of my car, so as I started walking towards the church I called AAA. They gave me a time frame from 8 to 8:30. I looked at my watch and saw that it was already 8. Well, once I got to a bike trail near the freeway I started to run, knowing that he would probably be there soon. I had planned on needed to do this so I had stretched before I left. It actually wasn't too bad. They called on my way to let me know that he didn't see me, so I let them know that I was running and would be there in a few minutes. After he got my car jumped I headed over to get it checked out and found that I needed a new battery, so I got that taken care of and went home to get some more Gatorade. Luckily I took some with me thinking that I would need to run. I don't recommend running on the 38th day of a fast just in case you ever think of fasting for 38 days and then think you should go running. Anyway, I am doing fine.

I spent some time checking out some great links that my Tallahassee buddy Clayton put in his blog. After gathering my first base glove, bat, disc golf discs (that I never used!), and a gallon of gatorade that would have to sit in my car (no food or drinks allowed) I headed out to the park in my car (Yea, it works!). Well, I arrived about 11:30 got my sunscreen on and went to the batting cages. Thankfully everything was paid for so we could do it as much as we wanted. It had been away since I have swung a bat, so I started out in the slow pitch softball cage. Hah! I swung and missed on the first three pitches! After that I started to improve and got out so really good hits before moving onto the slowest of the baseball machines. After a few times in there I moved up again and then repeated that once more to get up to the fastest cage which had looked quite intimidating when I had first arrived. While I was far from amazing, I surprised myself a little bit and got off some really good hits.

Wanting to see what else was going on I walked around to find some people inside playing dodgeball and others playing basketball. Not wanting to kill myself I moved on to see what else there was. I found a game of softball going on, but having just spent a lot of time in the batting cages I went inside the clubhouse restaurant. I didn't eat, but it was sweet. Tons of seats and tons of TVs, almost all on sports. Ah, it has been a little over a year since I have enjoyed that kind of experience watching the first round of March Madness in Tallahassee with a bunch of friends and some great appetizers. Best of all, it had great views of the game, so I could watch, drink some water, and cool off for a little bit. After a few minutes I went out to get closer to the action and sat right near the dugout. Seeing that sitting nearby wasn't getting me in the game I entered the dugout and immediately got put on a team.

After getting to play first base a few innings I was finally gonna get to bat when they decided to start a new game and change teams. Several innings later I got my first chance to bat, 2 swings and I was out. Yes, they decided to make it just 2 strikes for that inning, which they later changed. No worries though, I got on base every at-bat after that and scored several times. One tiem I was on first with two outs and so I was running on every pitch (we couldn't steal if the ball wasn't hit, but we could still run) and for three straight pitches the hitter lined the ball foul, with me getting to third base each time. Finally he got the ball in play and I scored from first on his single! That's what I'm talking about!

After a few errors at first, I made some much better plays like the good ole days. A few hours had passed by now and we were still going strong, rotating in new players for those who wanted to do other things. In what ended up being my team's last time hitting I hit a sharp grounder towards short. I slipped and fell in the batter's box (which I had done once already and others had done many times as well) but got up and sprinted to first barely beating the throw that was a bit wide. So I decided to go for second, barely beating the tag (I knew I could make it...hah!). After an out I was looking to score. So with two outs (I think, lol, I think I batted 6 or 7 times and got only got out in my first at-bat) I ran on a grounder to short. Rounding third determined to make it home, I scored just a second after the first baseman dropped the ball! As I walked toward the dugout I could feel something was wrong. My left shoe was hurt bad and I lost yet another shock (Maybe these guys should make a Junky Shoes Club). Oh well, I scored from second on a ground ball!

It was so much fun. I forgot to mention that we were playing on a field that was replicated to the Chicago Cubs' Wrigley Field. There also was a replica of Yankee Stadium in New York and Fenway Park in Boston. How cool! The game got cut short as it was time to go when the visiting team was up. My run had been the go-ahead run, but they ended up scoring 3 or 4 runs before we had to stop the game. Oh well. Hopefully someone out there has understood my baseball lingo. I was explaining the rules to one student who is from Europe. They were having trouble understanding balls and strikes (hey, it was their first time!) and the other team had first baseman that would just stand on the bag, creating more than one collision. As I hit one ball that ended up being a double I was yelling, "Get off the base! Get off the base!" as I ran towards first. Haha. Big thanks to our leaders for making the big league dreams for many people come true.

The end is near

School is almost over. I can't believe it. Today was amazing. The leaders called out students to come up and share what was on their hearts and it was unbelievable. So good. It was also a nice reminder to me that other people go through struggles too. Stupid devil tries to make me think that I am the only person who goes through identity struggles and can't get the mind transformed to think like the Kingdom. It totally reinforced in me the need to declare daily over myself the promises of God and what He thinks about me. I can't afford to think one thing about myself that God doesn't think.

Pastor Kris talked to us about generosity. It was amazing. I tithe and give offerings but it still hit me pretty good as I am sure it hit many people. I am now fully perplexed by anyone who argues that they shouldn't have to give money to the church. It really is an issue of the heart. If you want to argue against tithing and you give more than 10% to the church then fine, but if won't give because you think it is wrong then you have some issues that need to be worked out.

After school I went to my car to get on home to pick up all the DVDs for our La Paz team party tonight. Well, my car wouldn't start. We tried to jump it and it still wouldn't start. I think the end is near for my battery. I am gonna go get one tomorrow and change it out. I think it finally kicked the bucket after getting drained when my alternator failed during the winter. Oh well. The party was a lot of fun and it was great just to hang out and laugh at all the memories that were caught on film. Ok, I gotta get to bed, I got a long day tomorrow.

How to Move Mountains

These days there is a "How to" book on just about every subject imaginable. Come to think of it, if someone finds a subject that doesn't have one, they will probably write it or sell the idea to a publisher. Well, since there are already books on how to cook Salmon, how to use an egg several hundred ways, and how to play video games, I thought that I would devote this blog on how to move mountains.

First you need to expect the miraculous from God. Bill Johnson says that we need to pray for things that are probable, improbable, and impossible so that by the success of the probable we are building strength for the improbable and impossible. Similarly, you should anticipate what God is going to do because by doing so you are abiding in faith. Oftentimes when we anticipate what God will do He will equip us with a gift of faith for the situation. This jolt of faith gives us the spiritual strength to beat the odds. However, we must not neglect developing a life of faith, which sets our attitude, that will sustain us between times when God equips us with that burst of radical faith. Each gift of faith should raise our measure of faith that we live with on a daily basis. Although you might not use it to the same extent in your normal activities, strength training will increase your strength so that when needed, you are up to the task.

Link your heart to what God is already doing. If God is sending rain, pray for rain. If a contract looks to be won, pray for the contract. By praying for what God is already doing, you are co-laboring with Him and building up a history of success. Then it is very important to celebrate those answered prayers. Give thanks to God for answering your prayers and remind yourself of how faithful He is. When less probably circumstances come your way, you will have greater faith because you have experienced the smaller victories. If I went to the gym today (I have not been in a year), it would be foolish for me to try to bench press 250 pounds on my first try. I need to work my way up, starting with what is easier. Why is it that sometimes we think that a headache is nothing and that the only people worth praying for are those who are dying or haven't walked in 40 years (I am shouting at myself)? Sure I could try to lift 250 pounds once with someone spotting me to make sure I don't seriously hurt myself, but meanwhile I should work most on what is probable and improbable.

Have the mindset that you have a 100% rate of success. If I were to play tennis right now it would be easy for me to have the mindset that my first serve would be a fault. Why? Because most of the time my first serves have been faults. However, if I go into my serve expecting to get an ace I found that oftentimes I would get one! However, I can't remember ever getting an ace when I had the mentality that I was just going to mess up on my first serve. Likewise, when praying for someone we must have the mindset that every person we pray for gets healed, or in this case, every mountain that has ever been in my way has gotten out of my way. Plus, we serve a God who does the impossible so why not believe that every person will be healed?

I will undoubtedly talk about this again because I absolutely love it. However, if you are slightly bored, feel free to check out a sweet Mountain Moving picture that I put on my new website. It beats myspace by a longshot and is much more customizable than any other site I've seen thus far. So feel free to join and add me as a friend!

Dream Language

God is so good! Today has been a wonderful day of using my free time to get things done and also spend lots of time with God. I came to the realization this morning that as long as I am at home and my roommate isn't, I have no excuse to not pray in the Holy Spirit and soak to the extent of my heart's desire. Some days I just don't feel like going to the prayer chapel since it can often be crowded and I realized that I need to learn how to pray in tongues and soak elsewhere!

God has been giving me a lot of dreams recently. They have varied greatly but have all spoke to me in some way. Many times I am having two or three dreams each night. Today in addition to two during the night, I went into a dream while I was soaking this afternoon. (There was a slight pause in my blogging train of thought as I could not type in anything in my browser for the past 20 minutes or so. Now back to your regularly scheduled blog.) I have been reading a book by Todd Bentley called "The Reality of the Supernatural World." It seems like it has been a key of sorts to open up new experiences for me, which have manifested most frequently as dreams. Addtionally, my friend Jeremy has been speaking very highly of James Goll's "Dream Language." I read the forward of it recently before going to bed and sure enough I had several dreams that night.

Ironically, the dream I had this afternoon had James Goll in it, even though he didn't look like any of the pictures I have seen of him. However, he looked fairly close to the real thing and I knew in the dream that it was him. In it there was something to do with his book "The Seer" which I own, but have not started reading yet (I think I will read it next after dreaming about it!). Interestingly enough one of the pictures that I saw on the book in the dream is not the actual picture that is on the book. However, in the dream the picture revealed the secret to a mystery that opened a huge door and led to a dramatic encounter with God! I believe that this is the first time that I have ever had a dream about having an encounter with God. I have had dreams about cripples and paralytics getting healed, but never about getting blasted by the Holy Spirit.

I feel kind of funny saying it, but I feel like I need to hire a dream interpreter. Perhaps I should just start to meditate on my dreams so that I can get the interpretation myself. That sounds like a better idea. However, the idea of seeking help isn't totally wrong either. Jeremy pointed out to me the other day how dreams are just as valuable as a prophetic word and understanding what God is saying is just important in a dream as it is through prophecy.

That was a good night

That is what I said to a friend and his mom as I left a friend's house last night after probably one of the craziest nights (in a good way) that I have experienced in my life. It all started when I was at home group and happened to be in the middle of a game of Uno when a friend called me to invite me to come hang out with the Westerfields. While on the phone it became my turn and not fully paying attention I put down my next to last card and forgot to call out "Uno" thus keeping me from probably winning that game. Oh well...the price I paid to get some breakthrough and and an encounter with God.

I really could have said that it was a good day because that morning I had an amazing time in the prayer chapel. Rather than making myself only lay down, I spent some time just soaking in a chair. Boy was it good. There were a few times where God's presence was so heavy on me that it felt like someone was sitting on me. Actually I guess it would be more accurate to describe it as a really heavy blanket covering my entire body. Then while reading my Bible I felt like I was getting more revelation than I have been getting recently. Maybe I should be reading more...

School was great as well. Danny Silk spoke to us for the last time and was great as always. One of the interns, Israel, talked to us for a while and was stinking awesome! It was amazing. He told the Power Costs and the Healing Anointing dreams which get me every time I hear them. Lastly, Mark Brookes spoke. He can preach. Yeah, I can't even remember what he talked about after what happened last night.

So I went over to the house where we were meeting and saw how few people were there. After a few minutes and a few more people got there Jason asked if we were ready to start. Ready to start? I thought that we were just hanging out. Well, it turned out much better than just hanging out. He asked everyone what they came expecting and pretty much everyone mentioned intimacy. I also mentioned that I was wanting and understanding of how the Spirit is moving so I can work with Him, just as I have talked about only doing what I see the Father doing. Well, that was probably what Jason talked about most of the time. It was phenomenal. I wish I had it recorded because he was talking so fast that my mind could catch very little.

The thing that was scary (in a good way) about it was how similar it was to an experience I had when Todd Bentley was speaking at the Encounter conference back in February. The presence of God was so heavy that I couldn't handle it and felt like I needed to leave. Before I could leave though Todd told everyone that they could lay down on the floor or do whatever, which I took him up on and that helped a lot. Well, this went on last night for who knows how long until I broke out in a pretty good sweat, had shortness of breath, and felt too weak to get up out of my chair. Often all I could do was drop my head in front of me or drop it into the back of the chair behind me. Finally, I got up to go to the restroom and barely felt like I would make it there (it was only 10 steps away). I sat down again because I felt weak like I do when I am about to throw up (even though I didn't think I was going to) and got some cold water on my face. I went back out drank some water before going back out to the room. Stuff was starting to break in the room and I was starting to feel better. Then Jason described pretty much what had just happened to me was going to start happening to some people in the room.

Within a minute or two I felt completely normal again. We started to pray more and again stuff began to break. I didn't understand most of what was going on, but I believe that I am starting to get a grasp on the reality of the spiritual realm. I did catch from Jason that so much of the struggle is in our minds. We forget that we have the mind of Christ and that the Kingdom of God is within us. One of the things that hit me the most that he said had to do with fear. He mentioned that the fear and shaking that happens when we are looking for eggs at the grocery store but then see someone in a wheelchair, our compassion for the person starts kicking at the demonic (that isn't exactly what he said, because I can't remember, so I will try to explain it). When the two Kingdoms collide it produces fear in us. Why? We are feeling the fear that the kingdom of darkness is feeling. He then said that the greater fear that we face, the greater breakthrough will come after it is broken. That is encouraging to me because I am normally very scared!

Although he didn't pray for me for impartation like he did for almost everyone else, I still feel like I got a ton out of those few hours. I can see why the name of his ministry is Kingdom Realities, because it really is a reality of the Kingdom that changes everything. As the Kingdom becomes real to us and continues to become more real we begin to walk in more and more. It is all about understanding the Kingdom. I am so thankful for that opportunity to connect with the Spirit of God because it confirmed to me that my search for understanding is exactly the thing that I need.

Overdue for an update

Since my last post a lot has been going on. I went out of town Friday after school for a ministry trip in a small town called Clear Lake. We were facilitating 24 hours of prayer and also planning on going out into the city to do some outreach. But before that, we had some awesome stuff at school.

On Thursday Joaquin spoke and we just had a good ole time. I sat on the floor around the podium with about 40 other students as God came increasingly into the room and started getting many people drunk in the Spirit. I honestly can't remember what he talked about now, but I know that it was good. Haha. Following that, we had our last outreach of the year. We were outside for a little while and since it was pretty cold, I put on my jacket in addition to my sweatshirt. I couldn't believe that I was wearing that much clothing in May. Then I had home group and had fun hanging out at our leader's new apartment.

Then at school on Friday we were privaledged to have Jason Westerfield speak to us. Jason is a graduate of the School of Supernatural Ministry and is one of the main people behind a lot of the testimonies that Pastor Bill has shared over the years. Additionally, he was one of the main speakers on the Global Awakening trip I took to Brazil last July and was the preacher for my team until he got sick, at which time I took over the preaching duties for the rest of the trip. It was much like Thursday with Joaquin but even more just because of Jason's personality. It was great.

So fast forward to Saturday. I hadn't been feeling too well after not sleeping well in a sleeping bag on the floor of a house with no heat. Yes it was still cold. My pillow was cold all night long. It was like sleeping on an ice pack. That would be great when it is 85 degrees in the apartment like it was when I got home last night, but not great when the temperature in the house is below 60. I stayed at the church and tried to pray while a few guys went out to do outreach around noon. They went to the hospital and got to pray for a man in the emergency room who hadn't been responding at all. When they started praying for him, his eyes began to move and he began to respond!

That night we walked down the road to the grocery store. I was looking for some sort of energy/protein drink and another group was looking for some food. While walking down the back aisle I could hear something going on on the last aisle (don't worry, I was just around the corner). Jeremy, Daniel, and Samuel stopped to pray for a woman in an electric wheelchairs that the store provides. She had messed up 5 vertebrae in her back. After they prayed for her, they prompted for her to do something that she couldn’t do before, so she gets up out of the wheelchair and starts running. Jeremy follows her running down the aisle and runs past me yelling Jesus as the woman runs past me. She got completely healed and ran to her friends who were several aisles down and says to her friend who was in a wheelchair that she needs to let us pray for them. So she goes back to her electric cart and drives it back to the front of the store to get a normal shopping cart.

Meanwhile we begin to talk to her two friends. We pray for the daughter of the woman in the wheelchair and as we are praying I feel a sensation in my left elbow so I ask them if they have any pain there and the woman in the wheelchair said that she has had problems in that elbow for a long time and her friend just claimed it for herself even though her pain was in her right elbow. So I prayed for them both at the same time and the woman’s right elbow got instantly healed. She began moving it around and said that there was absolutely no pain. Her friend who was in the wheelchair said that there was still pain so Samuel began to pray for her again. Jeremy then asked her if she was feeling anything and she said that Samuel’s hand was very hot. After a minute or two her elbow was also healed! Samuel then laid hands on the other woman and she said that she felt like she was on a rollercoaster ride. God really whacked them both. Praise God!

Thankfully that evening we had a portable heater for the house and so I was able to sleep a little bit better. At church Sunday morning God continued to move. He healed the eyes of a guitar player after the first service so that he didn't need to wear his glasses in the second service. Another woman said that she could see me clearly after I prayed for her without her glasses. God also healed a woman's neck and shoulders that were causing her hands to go numb. Then we came across an interesting situation where a person was needing some inner healing and deliverance. I wasn't wanting to get involved since I don't have much experience with it and I hadn't been there from the start, but our trip leader called me over since I have been fasting. Well, while standing there I got a word of knowledge for something she had been doing but she ended up saying it within a minute anyway. Although I didn't really need to use it, it was reassuring to me that God was showing me more in the form of words of knowledge that I am feeling and that I am sure are from Him.

After that the pastor took us out to lunch, and I got to watch people eat again. Haha. Luckily I won't have to do that too many more times. We drove home and made it in time to get to pre-service prayer where I got to see Clay, Bart, Ross, and Lance from my church in Florida. The service was great. It was nice having our worship team back after a few services with less experienced musicians and a much different style of music in Clear Lake. There was a guest speaker, Paul Goulet, who is from the International Church of Las Vegas. He was great and it was awesome to get to hear what God is doing in "sin city".

Yesterday I was up early to work for the conference. After some serious miscommunication I showed up to work at 6:30 am and worked until noon. Then I worked again from 2-4 and again from 5:30-7:00. Needless to say I was pretty tired so I went to the prayer house to soak and then went home and soaked some more.

Today I was working in the kitchen which was actually a lot of fun. The people were great and it was fun to get to serve all the pastor's by being one of just a few people who were making their breakfast and bringing it to them. At one point I put out 240 bottles of water in just a few minutes to replenish the supply that was being decimated by the pastors. Haha. They were all super thankful though so it was a pleasure doing it. I spent a couple hours at the prayer chapel and now I am waiting to a little bit before a impartation meeting for the healing rooms with Cal Pierce and his team. Cal had been on the board at Bethel but God called him to reopen the Healing Rooms in Spokane, WA that John G. Lake had run many years ago. So he has been doing that now for many years and their reputation has grown to the point that even a hospital has asked them to set up a healing room! Praise God!

Well, I'll let you know how that meeting goes! I can't believe that there are only 6 days of first year left. God has been so good!

La Paz, Mexico - Highlight video

Here it is. Now that I am done with it I wish I had done more with it, but oh well, not bad for the first video I've ever made.

In other news, I am finding that I am getting back into really enjoying soaking again after several months where it has been difficult. It sounds dumb, but I used to just do it every spare moment I had. I am getting back to that again. Before school, after school, after youth. Watch out world, I'm about to be full of Jesus!

Learning the little things

You know when things just seem to click? Well, that seemed to be happening for me a lot today. I was working on the DVD for my mission trip to La Paz, Mexico and I finally finished it, so look for it in the next few weeks! Then at school I found myself hearing what seemed to be the most important things for me to hear from a staff member who was substituting for the normal teacher of our AMT. Then tonight at home group stuff just seemed to click for me and I realized that I was noticing things without having ever realized that I was noticing them.

Rewind to AMT. Banning Liebscher was our guest speaker. Banning is awesome. He is the youth pastor, but in reality he is more of the visionary for the youth movement and is taking it across the nation and even across the world. He shared about his experience in ministry and how he ended up taking a route that looked nothing like what he had planned. He shared about how we must not abandon things that don't seem to line up with where we are going but we must go through the open doors that God provides for us. Often times we must serve another man's vision for years before God gives us our own ministry that goes towards our vision. Similarly, sometimes we need to do the things that we don't want to do so that we grow in areas that we would not typically grow in. We need to be willing to do the things that are needed and not just the things that we want to do. I cannot tell you how much of what he said I needed to hear and how much it will help me over the next 10+ years! Best AMT of the entire year! It was amazing!

Fast forward to homegroup. People were just chatting about what has been going on recently when one of the leaders starts to talk about how sometimes worship seems dead and other days it is amazing. It just hit me something that I heard probably five years ago at a conference session for worship leaders. As worship leaders we should lead the congregation whether we are on stage or in the audience. We need to be the ones shouting, singing, dancing, clapping, and worshipping! We need to set the atmosphere so that if nothing else, we have entered in for worship, and hopefully others have joined us in the process. I realized that I have been frustrated with people all year for not getting into worship. I felt like sharing that they always seem to need someone to pump up the crowd and tell them to get excited for them to show any emotion. Well, I can be that spark of energy by worshipping! It just hit me that I need to start leading. I don't know why I haven't thought of this earlier, but it finally dawned on me that I need to start leading at school. I may already be leading in some ways, but it hit me that I need to intentionally be a leader.

Another thing that clicked was when another leader started to talk about taking care of your relationship with God. He talked about people in the past who have operated in all kinds of supernatural gifts while at the school but that after they left, they didn't really know the Father and know who they were. They got the gifts for free, but didn't take the time to work on the things that are expensive. I realized that for me earlier in the year I was so concerned with seeing miracles that I was asking for a lot and was seeing it. However, I realized that while I was paying the price to develop a relationship with the Father, I wasn't yet ready for all that would come with ministry. So I have experienced a season of digging a bigger foundation. During this season I have spent very little time pursuing the healings and miracles compared to what I had been during the first few months of school. It clicked with me without even realizing it, that I need to get my relationship with God more solid before I started to see radical healings.

There were other things that clicked as well, but those are the only ones I will bother you with. Hopefully tomorrow I will have the video uploaded onto the web for your viewing pleasure!