Cause Conference: Saturday

Honestly, I don't even know how to start this. But I'll just beging by saying this: guys, this day absolutely and undoubtedly changed my life.

So on Saturday morning, I actually ended up sleeping through the morning session (oops), but was able to catch up on a little sleep from the pub outreach and successfully make it to the afternoon outreach. For the afternoon outreach, we were sent out with more water bottles (it was HOT), and I was put in the group that went downtown to the Commons Park/Skatepark area. My friend Nick and I paired up and decided to tackle Commons Park. So we began walking around and handing out water, and ended up being invited to play a game of volleyball by some awesome people that we gave water to. After that, Nick decided that he wanted to sit down and do more of a treasure hunt-type afternoon. Now, in our church, we have something that we call a treasure hunt, where we sit down before going out to do outreach and ask God for specific pictures, phrases or scripture that would pertain to exact people that He would want us to talk to at that given time. So, that's what Nick and I did. We sat in the shade, we asked God to show us who He would have us talk to, and we sat in silence and waited on the Lord's response. While we were silent, I saw a picture of a 7-11 looking convenience store, but waved it off as probably not from God. After we had stayed silent for awhile, Nick started explaining that almost right after he had silenced himself, he had gotten a name--but one that made absolutely no sense. So after trying to figure out who "David Curtain" was, we decided to move on, as it probably wasn't from God. Then he asked me what I had gotten, and I told him about the 7-11, and also that I had no idea how we were supposed to do anything with that. So we started brainstorming about whether he might want us to go to a 7-11 and see if we found anyone there that needed prayer. Well, just then, a man walked by with his dog-- and he was wearing a shirt from the gym he's most likely a member too. But I read the shirt and it was for a gym called "Genesis Gym". Well, that struck me as strange. I've never heard of a Genesis Gym before. That sounds really Biblical. WAIT! So then, I realized that one of things that God can give you on a treasure hunt is scripture references.

I started wracking my brain. Genesis WHAT, God? Genesis WHAT? I need numbers...

And then it struck me. 7-11. What if it's Genesis 7:11?

In the six hundreth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month--on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. Genesis 7:11.

And then I just knew that God was saying, "This is what I'm doing to this city right now. The floodgates are open, and I am raining down my spirit on you".

And so, for the first time in my life, God spoke directly and amazingly to me. Directly to me. I still get chills just thinking about it.

So after I had shared all of that with Nick, we continued on for the remainder of the time we were in Denver with a renewed faith in what we were doing and the wonderful God we were doing it for.

After we had dinner, Nick and I then headed to the final session of the weekend. The session opened as always with really, really great worship, led by the wonderful AnaBeth Morgan. After they finished their set, AnaBeth was praying and I got another picture from God, but this time of an orange-brown cobra, with the neck frills and everything, looking like it was ready to strike. And again, I didn't really know what to do with it. Oh, me of little faith.

The enemy will strike you, but I will prevail.

And that was the sentence that I heard. So for the second time in my life, God spoke directly to me. And wow, that's a sentence to ponder. So honest, but so encouraging. Things will get us down. Satan will strike us down and try to drag us under, but our Almighty Father will never, ever let go of us. He will prevail over all evil and come out victorious in the end of the fight!! Our God is the King and ruler of all!!

And then Jay (my pastor) spoke, and gave the most amazing talk. I didn't write down much, I have to be honest, but there is one thing that really, really struck me. Jay was talking about how much of an analytical person he is, and therefore how he combs the Bible (especially when Jesus performs miracles) to figure out exactly how it happens. So he began telling us about his analysis of the miracle Jesus performs in Luke 9, where He feeds the 5,000. He began talking about how if Jesus wanted to, He could have made all of the bread and fish fall out of the sky (I mean, He is Jesus...). But don't you think that the Bible would have included that? So then Jay started to talk about the fact that the Bible probably would have also mentioned if, when Jesus blessed the bread and the fish, there were suddenly hundreds of loaves and fish surrounding Him. "No," Jay said. The miracle of it all happened in the disciple's hands. The disciples, doubting Jesus plan, took a step of faith and obeyed their Lord-- and look what happened. The miracle happened in their hands.

What a "Wow, God" moment.

Anyways, then Jay continued talking about how some people are just signed up for the showy-ness of God, and aren't prepared to stick it out when things go downhill. He continued talking about that for awhile and then came to his last point: there is something in every person's values that needs to die before we can become closer with God. (What a lighthearted concept, but really!). Whether it be lust, an addiction, ambition, pride, etc., it needs to die, or we will only be going through the motions of following God-- because we wouldn't be allowing him to transform us from the inside, out. Jay continued by saying that if we really wanted to pray a brave prayer, that we should ask God what that thing or things inside of us is that He would want to kill.

So I did.

And then I heard two words. Your dreams. And for the third time in one day (strange how God works in threes), my Lord and Savior bent down to whisper in my ear.

And I bawled. I had these dreams of moving to Germany to become an opera singer, and they were really big, and they consumed a big portion of my thoughts and goals. So, naturally, I was devastated, confused, scared-- a whole array of feelings.

But gradually over the course of the night, I came to peace with it, as I felt God communicating to me that He has a dream for me that's much bigger and better than one I could ever imagine-- and more importantly, one that will bring me more joy than I could ever imagine. And all because I believe that His plan for me will bring me into relationships that will benefit me incredibly, send me places I can only dream of going, and have me doing things I could have never imagined myself doing. And now, since it's been almost a month since this happened, and I've had time to let it sink in and mull over, I can't even begin to describe how excited I am to see what God's plan for me is.

So, guys, there you go. The day that changed my life.

Please let me know if you have questions or comments or similar stories to share! I would LOVE to hear them. Our God is just so GOOD!!!

I love you all, God Bless!!

Transitions.

Whew. It's been awhile since I've been here.

Well, the past two weeks have been a huge transition time for me, between having my life altered in a big way at cause conference, going to Cotsa Rica, getting back into work after a hugely relaxing vacation and then hauling all of my stuff up to Greeley and into my new apartment. But the good news is this: I'm here, I'm settled and I'm with God. :)

I owe you three posts: I owe you a post about the Saturday of Cause Conference. I owe you a post about Costa Rica (with pictures of course!) and I owe you a post about everything that God has been up to recently in my life. And then I want to start back with the regular blog posts on a specific theme. So let's play some catch up!

Hello Blogworld!

I’m writing to you right now from the airplane on my first of two connecting flights to…. drumroll… Costa Rica!! I would just like to share a couple of my thoughts as I’m way up high in the air. (And no, I didn’t post this from the airplane… I'm doing it from our hotel room in La Fortuna, Costa Rica)

First of all-- God is so amazing. Have you even gotten in a plane and looked out the window and thought “So, what I can see right now is not even a whole percent of the world, and it is gorgeous and beautiful and amazing. And God created like 1498745878693 times the amount of awesomeness that I am seeing right now… in seven days.” Well, in case you were wondering, those are my thoughts exactly. Like, WOW, God. He sculpted every single little piece of this Earth with His hands. Every little nook and cranny. And I guess the fact that I’m on a plane and A) can see more of the world than normal and B) am closer to God (since I’m further up in the air) is just throwing me into a state of wonderment. Oh, and by the way, if you ever get a chance to take a flight around 6am when the sun is rising, do it. It’s like God is looking at you and smiling as you take off. I don’t know, I guess I’m just especially enamored with God and His creation today. It’s a pretty cool feeling.

Second of all-- I don’t mean to brag, but I’m so excited to just go and soak up all of God’s glory in a different corner of the world. I bought a camera just for this trip, so that I could bring back pictures of just how amazing He is. Again, I’m especially in tune with how wonderful God’s creation is this morning, and I just wanted to share that with you.

Third of all-- I will be trying to write as many posts as I can while I’m in Costa Rica, but I honestly can’t guarantee anything. I don’t know how the internet will be in the hotels we’re staying at, but I will do my best to keep you informed on what God is doing in the southern hemisphere. Also, I will probably try and post some pictures, so you can admire God’s creation too! :)

Completely unrelated to Costa Rica, are you still going on Project 1C134? Admittedly, it’s slipped my mind a little more than I’d like to admit, but now that the aftershock of the Cause Conference has died down, I’d like to get started on that again. We’ve spent weeks on patience and kindness now (that doesn’t mean we can forget them, though). Now we’re on to

"It does not envy" 1 Corinthians 13:5

Now how do we spend a whole two weeks focusing on not being envious? I think an important thing to remember is that-- especially in American culture-- we’re almost taught to envy as a way of life. We envy that guy’s car, or that girl’s shoes. We envy the iPhones or Android Phones that we see people walking the streets with every day. Another big one is relationships. Are you jealous that your friend is spending more time with their significant other than they are with you? Are you lusting after someone? Those are forms of jealousy too. And even commercials engrain jealousy as a way of life-- don’t even get me started! We have literally been taught to envy everything that we don’t have and someone else does. And I find it really sad. So maybe with these two weeks, we don’t have to get rid of all of those things. And by no means am I encouraging you to sell all your belongings, or anything. I just think that in order too become less envious, we need to first be aware that it is happening. Who or what are you jealous of? And then, it’s God’s turn. Let’s remember that we aren’t just doing this for ourselves or to become “more holy”. We’re doing it so that we can show other people the love of Christ in a way that would please God. We’re doing it so that as we make these personal changes, the light of God would start to ooze out of every pore of our body (lovely image, am I right? Sorry about that). I just imagine someone with this enormously bright source of light inside of them, and it just comes out anywhere it can. Ears? Check. Nose? Check. Mouth? Eyes? Belly Button? Check. That’s kind of my goal, you know? I want to be noticeably more like Jesus in everything that I do, so that people would ask me why I am the way I am. What a great way to share your faith-- to have someone ask you why you are the way you are and to be able to tell them it’s because you’re completely in love with Jesus Christ? I think that would be pretty awesome.

So, lovelies, good luck to you in your quest to become more like Christ! Pray Pray Pray!!

And always, always remember that God, the creator of the universe, loves you enough to care about you at a truly personal and deep level. He loves you no matter who you are, where you’ve come from, or what you have done. Or what you will do in the future, for that matter. He loves you the way that you are-- broken, hurting, lonely, or just plain complacent. He loves you. He loves you so much that He sent his only Son to die for you, so that you wouldn’t have to carry the weight of your sins. His Son, a human, died. For us! And lovelies, don’t ever forget that no matter where you go, you are always, always in the shadow of the cross.

I love you all and God bless!!