Week 4 & 5 & 6- Ooooooohh Loooooooord

As we are having a media fast this week (no phone/computer/ipod/cassette players/beepers/cd players/etc. for a week), I want to cover as many weeks as I can in this post. So, buckle in, this is gonna be a brief one.

So, during week 4 Maria Daughtry spoke on the Holy Spirit. After Donna Jordan speaking, and me crying, and whatnot, I was feeling pretty good. Man, I'm pretty good, and I'm pretty much set, and ready to tackle the world. Yeah, I wasn't ready for what was next. As the week started, Maria informed us that she was given the gift of prophecy, and throughout the week she had 'words' for people. The way she described it was that it was a letter from God that she was able to open for a person. Pretty crazy. At this point I remember something that I forgot from last week. I hate forgetting things.



So, when Donna was speaking, she prayed each morning (before she spoke), and asked the Lord if there was anything that he wanted to say to anyone, and she wrote it down. I was actually one of the people that she had a 'note from God' for. I won't put it here (mainly because our media fast begins tomorrow, and I don't have enough time), but it was pretty cool to see scripture put all throughout it. After reading it, I realized that if I was to know God, and His character better, I needed to study the Bible more.

Back to Maria- On Thursday night of that week, we all gathered, and she (and our DTS leaders) baptized us in the Holy Spirit. Wow. Wow. Phew. Craziest evening that I've ever witnessed. People fell, but couldn't control themselves, lots of people were crying, and laughing for several hours, and not a whole lot happened for me. I felt chills, but I've felt chills before (which for me is an indication that God is present and working). I wanted something exciting to happen, like falling down. Obviously for the wrong reasons, but God wasn't done yet. The next day, during lecture, Maria decided to take half of the time for ministry. This was the day that she went into details about the gifts of the Spirit, and told us to pray about it. As we took a break before we headed into this ministry time, I asked the Holy Spirit, if he was present during the time, to make me cry. As I was wearing contacts, and thought I wept my tears out the week before, I thought that it wouldn't happen.

As we headed into the time, we started in a time of worship, and I felt like maybe I had the gift of healing (but after a lifetime of lying, I couldn't/can't trust the things that come into my mind entirely). As leaders came and prayed for me, I let them know that I thought maybe I had the gift of healing. Several people came and prayed for me, but they didn't say much, and moved on. At a point, I felt like maybe I also had the gift of faith. However, I put this to the side, and figured that I'd focus on confirming healing first. The next guy that came and prayed for me was shaking, and was very evidently filled with the Holy Spirit. I let him know about maybe the gift of healing, and as he prayed, he not only confirmed the gift of healing, but also the gift of faith through a vision. I didn't even tell him, but he confirmed it.

So, I stood there, amazed, and continued to worship. Then, an image entered my head, it was my dad taking a break from his work, praying for me. He prayed for healing (I had a couple of issues as a kid), and he prayed for faith. I knelt to the floor, and bowed as I started praying too. God revealed to me that this prayer for faith was what kept me close to God. As I was growing up, I didn't have a whole lot of reasons to believe in God. All except for a couple of my friends are atheists, and my friends from church for the most part were not people who had an intimate relationship with God. But God was faithful throughout the whole time. As I lifted my head, I realized that tears had not been running down my cheeks, but actually up my forehead since I was kneeling down. The Holy Spirit had been faithful to me as well! Pretty crazy.

Week 5, Tom was teaching again, and this time he was teaching mainly about how the coming of Jesus was prophesied throughout the Old Testament. For example, Genesis 5 looks like just a genealogy, but certain translations of each of the names results in something like, Man substituted mortal sorrow the Blessed God shall come down teaching, His death shall bring the despairing rest and comfort. If that isn't a prophecy, I don't know what is. We also learned a lot about the Abrahamic Covenant, and the seriousness of God's promise. To finish the week off, Tom painted a grotesque picture of Jesus being flogged, and eventually being crucified. To know that Jesus wasn't dreading this the most, but was in fact dreading the separation from the Father and the Holy Spirit more blows my mind. This painting makes God's grace that much more beautiful, and my sin that much more uglier. Awesome week, Tom is a seriously talented teacher.

Week 6, Scott Frerking of Alaska was teaching this week on new hearts. Essentially his teaching revolved around a green booklet that he uses with a program known as Fresh Start. This program leads people (believers and non-believers) through the process of forgiveness. Great week that revealed a lot of things on my heart that I didn't realize that I needed to let go. Something that I took away from this week was the last step of forgiveness, which is to release the offense to the Lord. I felt like I had forgiven my dad a bunch of times for the way he raised me, but each time I was forgiving him of the same offense, I couldn't figure out why the offense was coming back to bite me, even when my dad had passed away. I now see that I never released the offense to the Lord, so I never really could be free until now.

I've probably left out a significant number of details and cool/important things, but at least you've got something. As we've recently passed the halfway point of our lecture phase, and there's less than a month away from when we leave for outreach (uhhhh right, still trying to wrap my head around this whole spread the Gospel thing), please pray for continued focus on lecture, and unity among the teams. I believe the majority of the outreach funds have come in (Praise the Lord, some crazy stories about people getting several thousand dollars in the past week), but we can't know for sure until tomorrow. Pray that everyone has their money, and is able to go on outreach. And then, I guess I'll leave you with this exciting bit of news- On February 21st, 2014, I was baptized!

Exciting time, and (not going to lie), a little weird as Matt Laskey (Head of the DTS school, and the fine gentleman in the teal colored shirt in the photo) was asking me questions about my favorite flavor of ice cream (chocolate btw), and why it was my favorite flavor (because it tastes good). Strange, but special. I'll see y'all again in a week (well, actually probably more since I have to write another post and whatnot. Let's just say I'll see you in a year. Maybe two. Just to keep your standards low.)