Aug 15, 2016
I have been on vacation visiting Canada again. It’s where I grew up, and I was really looking forward to it. While I have been here I’ve realized that something is different. While it is still home, it’s not the same home that it once was.
The saying goes that home is where the heart is. I have come to understand that if my heart is where God wants me to be, anywhere else feels wrong or odd. I’m not saying that my vacation home is wrong. It’s right and even necessary. However, God called me to School of Discipleship in Texas, so it doesn’t feel entirely right for me to be anywhere except School of Discipleship in Texas.
This is something that I need to really take to heart and remember. When God places me somewhere, anywhere else will be unsatisfactory. If my heart is totally dedicated to God’s will (and I pray that it is becoming more so day by day), then my heart will be where He wants it. I will not be at home anywhere else.
~ School of Discipleship Student
Gospel for Asia
School of Discipleship USA
School of Discipleship Canada
Please like and share this post:
Jul 22, 2016
Is there a place where one can encounter the presence of God more than in another place?
This question surfaced in my mind after what I experienced a couple weekends ago. We went camping… and it was amazing. The lake was right near our campsite, the birds sang loudly in the early mornings (not so pleasant for sleeping), the sunrise and the stars were so beautiful. It was so peaceful to go down to meet with God by the lake, in the calm, the wind, which caused the waves to crash against the shore. I could have sat there for hours just to soak in the beauty of God’s creation and most of all His presence. What the LORD showed me during that weekend was incredible! It was like my mind and spirit were so ready to hear from a loving Father everything was so clear. Each night I couldn’t wait to get up and go to the lake to meet with God, it was worth rising early, getting a bit dirty and cold to experience Him.
Only one thing was wrong: the camping trip came to an end. That meant tiredness from late nights and early mornings and being thrown back into weekly routine. But the worse thing was my excitement to meet with the LORD was gone. It was just another thing to do like it had been before. My mind was no longer clear and I couldn’t focus as easily as I had been able to at the camp. I longed for that experience again, but it wouldn’t come back.
Can I not learn? Do I not change? Why is it that some places cause me to experience God in a greater way?
Then the LORD showed me so gently the missing treasure: Expectation.
Expectation: “a strong belief that something will happen or be the case in the future.” (oxforddictionaries.com)
I get up each morning to meet the LORD in the same place; nothing changes, it’s dark, I’m tired, I pray and read. But there is something I can change, and that is my expectation. On the camping trip I had high expectations, partly coming from being in a new place and in creation, God met and exceeded them. But when I walked into the house again, those expectations left, and everything was normal, just as I expected it to be.
I may not have a choice as to where I can go to meet with God, but I do have a choice as to what I will expect from those times with Him. I want to enter each time of prayer or reading with great expectation as to what the LORD will do and say with the Psalmist, “My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him.” –Psalm 62:5 KJV
—School of Discipleship student
School of Discipleship CA
Please like and share this post:
Jul 4, 2016
Throughout today I’ve had this song playing in the back of my head. “Your love is like a waterfall, raining down on me.” It’s a line from Waterfall by Chris Tomlin.
This past Sunday I was in a fairly serious automobile accident with some of the other students. I walked away from the event with an amazing sense of God’s love. Yeah, there’s the whiplash and we’re sore; I came out of the experience easiest off as far as I know, but the knowledge that He loves me is in the forefront of my mind following the wreck.
The day after the crash as we were singing in prayer meeting it struck me – I could have died in that car crash. Fatalities from automobile accidents are more common than I think we’d like to acknowledge. After that struck me I thought, “I’m alive, God protected me.” The next instant I was disappointed; “I could have been with Jesus”. This all ran through my head like an express train in a split second. Then I realized that God has a time for me to die, and it wasn’t this past Sunday.
That thought was the first time that I really realized what death means to me. It gave me a much deeper love for God and a more earnest desire to see Him one day…. one day soon.
~ School of Discipleship student
School of Discipleship US
Gospel for Asia
Please like and share this post:
Jul 1, 2016
Growing up I spent a lot of time reading about wars our country fought in history books and stories of soldiers who gave their all for their country. The sacrifice that they showed for their country was a great influence on me, but I am afraid the concept of fighting for something no matter what it costs others also influenced me too greatly. I saw the glory of being a hero, while ignoring how much it has the potential of hurting others.
Throughout Scripture we have many instances of the Christian life illustrated in a military manner. Such as: weapons of our warfare II Corinthians 10:4; Armour of God Ephesians 6:11-18; fighting the good fight of faith I Timothy 6:12, there are many other examples as well. However while I emphasized in my mind this side of Christianity I ignored other Scriptures such as “Matthew 9:13 Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”, or Micah 6:8 He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”.
As a result of ignoring these verses as well as others, I have run roughshod over many people, far too many. The result was that I hurt many people in my life that the Lord had placed there for me to minister to. Because of this militaristic mindset, I began fighting for what I saw as the truth no matter who it hurt. The result of this was that I began alienating myself from many of my fellow believers. In a conversation with someone about three years ago, he pointed out to me that I was not showing love in a particular situation, but rather I was being harsh on several individuals. He was right, but I refused to receive what he was saying. In fact I took it as a badge of honour that someone was criticizing me for doing what was “right”.
Recently God has been opening my eyes and showing me what it looks like to love. For a long time, God has been teaching me how he loves me, but now he is instructing me in how to love others. One of the major ways is by serving others as Galatians 5:13 instructs us. Another is showing compassion on those who have not come to the same maturity as I believe I have in a certain area. I have also come to realise that I cannot have my own personal interpretation of Scripture. Many times I take how I understand Scripture as the standard and I get frustrated and judgemental if others do not see it the same way. The Christian life does indeed have military parallels of fighting to the end. However, in pursuing this end we must remember to have compassion, mercy and love for others.
—School of Discipleship student
School of Discipleship CA
Please like and share this post:
Jun 24, 2016
It seems the storm around us is always raging which in this case would be translated into trials. Lately the Lord has been teaching me about fighting battles. I have been finding encouragement from 2 Chronicles 20:15-17. My most common way of battling against my struggles in life is to worry and over process these things in my mind. Once the enemy has gotten me with worry he then proceeds to attack me with discouragement which is one of the enemy’s most successful ways of prying into our hearts. One day after the passage in 2 Chronicles was shared with me by a friend it really caught my attention and even more so after I went to read it for myself. King Jehoshaphat was instructed to not be discouraged, because the battle didn’t belong to him but to God. All he was supposed to do was to go out the next day, take his position and watch God take the battle.
At the same time as I read 2 Chronicles 20 I had been reading through 1 Samuel 14.
In verse 10 Jonathan say that if they are called by the Philistines to come up and fight and that it would be a sign that the Lord would help them defeat the Philistines. The Lord showed me how this can be true for me today. Even though my battles may not be an army of men, whatever it may be, health, battles of the mind, the Lord is ready to help defeat the army. The Lord desires for me to hand the battles in my life over to Him and there is no other way for me to find victory. With this I was so encouraged to know that no matter what comes my way it’s not my battle, its God’s.
—School of Discipleship student
School of Discipleship CA
Please like and share this post:
Recent Comments