The Devils Worst Fear Is That You Will Find Out What God Created You to Do and That You Will Do It.

Week 9 Pt.2

Picture: The coolest road I have ever driven on. Banyan Tree's are Amazing! (Take note of the light at the end of the tunnel ;) !

I am now in a place in my heart where I am, really and truly loving people from deep within. This is happening for only one reason, because I am learning my identity in Christ, and the understanding is giving me such freedom. I find myself making more time for people, finding little ways to make their day better and becoming more willing to change my plans to accommodate them, it truly brings joy to the soul. I find myself better able to be in communication with the Father while being surrounded by many people. I used to have a huge struggle with this, and I still need to sneak away often to talk to the Lord in quietness (which there really it is never completely quite here). Sometimes I find myself in a battle to surrender to authority, not in the typical way though. It is so busy here, not the kind of environment I expected in ywam, and it seems someone in authority always wants you somewhere to do something and all I want to do is sit still with the Lord and listen. So from time to time, I will be late for something just so that I can spend a few minutes listening to what the Lord is telling me for my next step, sometimes it is a reminder of how much He loves me. I am thankful for this busy environment, because the world is a busy place and I am learning how to be on time and attend all events, and still finding those moments with the Lord, it is great training. There are defiantly still times when I need more than a moment because of the steep climb the Lord has me on, and that sometimes is very difficult for me when I have to wait a long time to get more than 10 minutes to listen.

Writing this is reminding me of how I have woken up almost every single night since I've been here (9 weeks) in the early hours of the morning. I usually just put on an extra blanket and go back to sleep, but a lady who has a strong prophetic gifting was speaking to us in the prayer room and mentioned that the Lord has been trying to get a lot of our attention through dreams and waking up in the middle of the night. That really got me thinking, but not enough to stay up when I have been woken up. So one night I felt to go to the prayer room and stay late (it is always open 24/7), I was so worried about this because, as usual, the next day was busy and I do not function well at all when I'm super tired. So I went to the prayer room and said to the Lord I would stay until He said it was okay to leave, I ended up staying there until 4 AM. Just laying in the Lord's presence is a gift in itself. Some really cool things happened in there, (which is normal for the prayer room), and when I was asking the Lord why I kept getting woken up so early in the morning, I felt Him saying to me, “I want to tell you How Much I Love You”.

So, we will see if I am continued to be woken up early in the morning, I may have just missed out on 9 weeks of restful communication with the Lord, but He is a God of second chances. He may have been trying to bless me with the quite peaceful time with Him that I had so often craved during the entire DTS. It goes back to the obedience thing, I really did not want to get up out of my bed in the early morning hours, but if I had, I might have been filled up with more joy and peace that I struggled so hard to find some days. I don't know for sure, but I do see more clearly now how important it is to be obedient even when I don't understand. It is obedience first, then understanding comes. I pray that as I continue on this journey I will listen and be obedient to the Lord's little promptings. He is such a gentlemen and would never force us to do anything. I am so thankful for His friendship. I can't forget to mention, the day after I was in the prayer room until 4 am and up at 7 am, the Lord blessed me with such incredible grace and peace the next day, I attended all the meetings and we worked all afternoon on cleanup, and I was a bit tired, but I really didn't feel awful like I usual do when I don't get any sleep. The Lord rewards us for our obedience, He is so loving and kind.

My roommate made a statement to me this week when we were having a conversation, and it really aided in a major change of direction I am experiencing in my life right now. We were talking about different emotions and how some people are pretty steady with there emotions, and some people like myself are constantly from one extreme to the next. She said “emotions make life”. I have has such a fear of sad emotions (which is common I'm sure), that such a big part of me has been shut down. With maturity I have learned how to better control my emotions in good ways, but it also has had a detrimental effect, I have closed in so many emotions. There is a reason God created me as an emotional person (some of you may not know this, as I have made it my life long goal to hide them, until I started expressing them in this blog). I think many, many people struggle with this. Also what you do with you emotions is very important, because when are there used in a negative way, it is never a good thing. All this being said I am realizing how true it is that God doesn't make mistakes, He created me this way for a reason (who would of thought!) and all the good God has created has been twisted by this world. I am learning the goodness of the emotions that God has given me, it is so freeing, so cool, and I am so excited about this part of my journey. I have a feeling my emotions, are going to play an even bigger role in my future.

Okay, so I am going to sum up DTS in a pretty stereotypically way, but the meaning for me has so much depth to it. There is two reasons my life has been not as fulfilling as it could be. The first is, I didn't know my identity in Christ and the second is, I didn't know my own identity, the things that I was originally designed for. I think this is the key to life. So now I am here, I know more and more of who I am in Christ and my passion to love Him. That is enough, I never need more than that. Yet God loves us so much He wants us to enjoy this life and I am still missing the second part of the puzzle. I am an incredibly passionate person without a specific practical passion to pour my emotions into, call it my “calling” if you will. I have tried many times in my life and poured all of my heart into many different things, none of them as successful as I would have liked, none of them fulfilling. I am very aware of many things that I am passionate about but I had no idea what to do practically to tie all these things together and most importantly so that it glorifies the Lord, until this week. The Lord has brought things to my attention, things I have been ignoring for a long time. One of our speakers said that often the thing God wants to use you in for ministry is the thing you are most afraid of, well if that is true, than life just got a whole lot more interesting for me. So to sum up DTS it is this, I crawled into DTS as a caterpillar, God wrapped me up in a cocoon and now I am in a season of growing into something full and more beautiful. I have no idea how long I will be in the cocoon, it may well go long past DTS, it may not, but I am so excited for the day that I will be the butterfly and freely fly around in my gifts for all the world to see God's glory.

I pray for humility as pride comes before a fall, I long to be humble and used for God's Glory.

God is a Good God.

Amen