Do you ever have something you have to do and you know you
have to do it, and you actually really don’t mind doing it, but you just can’t
get yourself to do it? (Well that was quite the sentence!) Yup, that is how I
have been these past few weeks with writing an update blog. I really do enjoy writing and having
the accomplishment of completing another blog post. But actually getting myself to sit down and write has been
quite the process for me for some reason.
I have been quite distracted the past few weeks and I could not figure
out why that was until last night.
The thing about a DTS with YWAM is that it is all God, all the
time. Which is absolutely AWESOME
and AMAZING! Except for those
times when you are feeling so distant and distracted from Him. This is going to be one of my honesty
blogs where I am sorry if it offends you, but this is real life. Yes, if you look at my pictures, it may
seem like it is all fun and games here, but those are just the times when we
actually have our cameras out to take pictures.
The last few weeks have been very bazaar for me. I have this feeling of overwhelming
peace at the same time as having an anxiety and constant distraction that I do
not know what to do with. Those
are the times, as I have discovered over the past year, when God is doing
something in me. It is a scary,
yet exciting time. I know that He
has everything in control, yet you never know what the outcome is. And as humans, we tend to like to know
what is going on, and where we are going in life, so it is difficult just
waiting and seeing what happens.
This week was our first week back after Christmas
break. It was so refreshing being
back home in Cambridge. I was able
to have a nice ease back into life here because I got here on Saturday, and
class did not start up again until Tuesday. So, Saturday, I got in and started unpacking then my room
was getting messy because of all the things I was unpacking, so I got
overwhelmed and just needed to go on a run. And surprise, surprise it was raining, so I had a nice
head-clearing run in the rain. I
was so glad to be out in fresh air and not on a plane or a bus that I really
did not care that I was getting soaking wet. It was a great time to just be out running around, talking
to God. It is funny the different
conversations that you can have with God as you are running. You’re conversations go sort of in a
mix of deep serious talk with random, “Jesus please help me finish this run. Oh my goodness God, I am so ready to
stop running. Man, I am out of
shape. And some, “Why the heck did
I decide to run this far, Jesus, I am lost, please help me to get home within a
reasonable time.” Don’t worry I
was able to make it home. Just
took a pretty round about way.
Well that was a weird tangent. Back to the week.
After my run, I was able to hang out with the few other people that were
also back. Which at the time was
Sarah and Cheyenne. We had a nice
relaxing afternoon. Then Chey
wanted to cook dinner for us, so we all pitched in preparing the food and the
dessert. And when I say preparing
the food, I mean Chey did almost everything, but just gave Sarah and me little
tasks to do to help out. So, Chey
made us a delicious southern home cooked meal! It was AMAZING!
Oh and if forgot, Simon got home just in time to join us for dinner, so
he was there as well. It was just
so nice and relaxing to have a nice meal with family, and to hear all about
everyone’s breaks.
On to Sunday, (I don’t really know why I’m doing a day by
day, but we will just go with it), I was slightly jet-lagged, so I almost slept
past Church, but luckily, I woke up to a text from Simon saying he would be
ready in about five minutes! I
must say, I was quite impressed with myself with how fast I got ready! I was so excited to be back to
church! I really like how I am
beginning to build community here in Cambridge. It also happened to be the Sunday that our church has their
monthly lunch. Typically Simon and
I cannot join for that because we have our house church with YWAM, but we were
able to join that day which was awesome!
We were able to chat and catch up with one of the families in our home
group that we attend.
The rest of Sunday was great as well! We were able to hang out and chat and
watch Frozen, as well as visit with Peter and Taryn, our fantastic leaders, as
well as their adorable son, Isaac.
That evening, Hannah came back, so slowly but surely, our team was
coming back together! It was
GREAT! As the evening, and next
day went on, the rest of the team arrived. (Except for one of our leaders, Bethany, who was set to come
back the following week.) Monday
evening, we had our first meal back together as a team, and it was SOO good to
have everyone together again! The
rest of the evening was real chill, with a FANTASTIC ab work out with Chey and
Lukas, and a movie! It was a great
last evening of break before we were back into the full swing of things with
Psalms at 7:00 the next morning.
Tuesday Morning Psalms! As stated in the past, we start off Psalms by going
around the room with a circle of thanksgiving. When we first started those, back a few months ago, I was
not so keen on them, but really, they do help to get your mind in the right
place to start the day joyful and looking towards God. (A Circle of Thanksgiving, is pretty
much what it sounds like. We go
around the room twice or sometimes three times thanking the Lord for things
that we are thankful for. Sometimes
it can be as simple as a warm blanket, or something like a great conversation,
or for his AMAZING GRACE. You get
the picture.) The thing that made
me smile most on Tuesday morning was after Psalms and after going around for
personal prayer requests, we always stand up and hold hands and say the Lord’s
Prayer. Anyways, Hannah so sweetly
and gently said, I want to hold your hands. That just really made me smile because to me, it shows
family.
Back to class!! I love lecture time! I love learning new things and being in
school! Yes, I am that nerd that
in college typically sat front and center. Make fun all you want, but I liked it! So, when the topic of the lecture is
Jesus, or relates to Jesus one way or another, well let’s be real, that is just
the icing on the cake. The topic
of learning this week was Spiritual Warfare lead by Eva Dos Santos. There were a few things that really
stuck with me from the teaching.
One was that God did not give the authority to satan, man did. Meaning that when we always get all
caught up on the bad things that happen, we tend to turn to God and blame Him
for things. However, that is not
how God created the world to be.
He gave us free will, which is what lead to “The Fall”, or when Adam and
Eve sinned against God and were deceived by the devil to eat the apple from the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which they were specifically told not
to eat from. It was then that sin
entered the world. Because that
sin entered the world, we as humans gave authority to satan to enter our lives
within this world. And as we
continue to sin, we continue to give authority to him in our lives.
HOWEVER!!!! Because Jesus came, He reconciled man with God,
therefore the authority the devil stole from us, was given back to us. And in Christ, we have the authority to
put the devil back where he belongs.
This does not mean that life will be all fine and dandy and perfect by
just saying In Jesus Name….. (fill in the blank with whatever it is you are
wanting to kick the devil out of), but it is saying that we know that in
Christ, there is freedom and He has given us the authority to come to Him and
to live in relationship with Him.
Not saying that you cannot pray that In Jesus Name someone be healed or
for the devil to get out of a situation, because that can and does happen. However, I am saying do not get
discouraged if things do not work out perfectly for you. We still live in a messed up, sinful
world where there are many layers of crap everywhere.
And now you may be saying, well yes Becca that’s nice and
all, but how does that help me any?
The world is still corrupt with a lot of not good. How does that show that God really
cares if he just “allows” these things to happen? Well for starters, He is not just “allowing” these things to
happen. He gave us the free will
to do what we want, like I stated earlier. And because of that free will, WE allowed sin to enter the
world. The devil was aware that
God wanted to restore His relationship with His people, so the devil wanted to
destroy that. He, the devil, does
everything in his power to destroy that and to stop it from happening. So, the devil continues to enter our
lives in many different ways causing us to continue the cycle of sin. This continues to allow bad, not good
stuff to happen.
So, why does God “allow” it to continue if He is so powerful,
why does He not just stop it?
Well, the answer is actually simple. He is a just and fair God. He holds to His word.
He would not be just or fair if He decided to take back that free will
from people to do whatever it is they wanted. God does not go back on His word. That is why we can TRUST Him so much! What God says He will do, God
does. That is why He sent Jesus. It truly does break His heart to see
His people sad or suffering. He is
giving us so many options and ways to get back to Him so that we can be filled
with joy again, and one day live with Him in Heaven with no pain or suffering!
Well, this looks like this is going to be a really long blog
entry, so I will split it up. I
will stop there because there is soo much more to share from this week that I
do not want to make it too long. And I realized after briefly reading what I wrote that I never went into the honesty part about feeling distant from God at times, but well that will have to happen in the next one. We will just go with it! Thanks for reading! God bless!
No comments:
Post a Comment