so, i thought it would be a good time to write a blog. it’s been a while. i think.
everything has been alternately blurring together because it’s passing so fast, as well as moving slowly. then i realized that i’ve done sooo much in only a month of being here. which means i have 5 more left unless i stay a little extra to travel, which i’m seriously considering (no offense loved ones!!). yeah, so there’s been a lot of really cool things going on. We are almost finished with our third week of lectures. The first week was on evangelism and i’ve written down heaps and forgot even more, but the best thing i took away from that week was this: evangelism is a lifestyle. the way you speak, think, act, whatever should speak Life into people. it’s an act of worship. if you are living your life this way, then you should never be surprised when people tell you there is something different about you… DUH! IT’S JESUS AND HIS LOVE!!
week #2 was on the character and nature of God, taught by one of the smartest men i’ve ever met, Neville Strachan. He’s the pastor at the church most of us go to and he used to be a scientist, i think a biologist. so he fully came at this topic with a scientific perspective in mind and i really struggled just to keep pace with his notes, much less understanding all he was talking about. but the bits i did get were gold. flat out gold. there is seriously like 1/4 alone of my journal that is taken up by notes from that week’s lecture. rev nev also had a main point on worship, how when we get worship wrong it will cascade and we get everything wrong. if you really want some of my notes & stuff just ask, im so down to re-hash. tons of notes on the sheer big-ness of God, which sounds really simple but… yeah. He is omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, infinite, and eternal. basically He is always here, He knows everything, He’s all powerful, He has no beginning or end, from everlasting to everlasting HE IS GOD (Psalm 90:1-2 & other good stuff in that book we call the bible) also we went over His soveriegnty, The Triune God, The Almighty One… and more. seriously, just ask. it was FULL ON!
and this week we are finishing prophecy and healing ministry. so crazy. ok, not crazy. just something i’ve never been a part of before. and no. this healing and prophecying gig didn’t quit after the apostles died out. God never stopped speaking to us. it’s just that somewhere along theology, we stopped listening.
for the prophecy part of the week, which we had to squeeze into 2 days, we had like a 45 minute workshop. basically Rie split us up into pairs and told us to ask God about facts in our partner’s past. the whole point of it was to A) show that God still speaks, we just have to practice our listening, and B) practice this exercise in the future when we are asking God for specifics about a person we are supposed to meet and talk to. Phil and Rie said they’ve used this before to prove to people that God really does know all about us, even the “small things”. So, we sat back and asked God to show us things about the other person and write down anything that popped up into our heads. i ended up writing down 15 items and when i reviewed it with my partner i ended getting 7 1/2 right. and i noticed that the more specific ones, involving more than just one word, were pretty dead on. it was pretty cool… i’m still just trying to take it all in though.
i just try to process everything and i’m finding myself silent more and more. trying to figure out what God really is trying to tell me. what my purpose is here in Oz. here in LIFE. just searchin. lots of quiet days. prayer is always appreciated…
