a brief summary of this last month...

First snow of the season!

An update written 8 November 2011 – Arvada, Colorado

Oh my goodness! I can hardly believe that I am already half way through this school! SO much has happened in the last month, that I’ve delayed writing, because there’s so much, but then even more just keeps happening. So this may be quite long…

Right after my last update, we went to the Acts 1 Conference, where all the Colorado YWAM bases met together for 3 days to seek God. It was incredible. 6-10 hours of worship each day, with teaching and processing time in between. It was honestly a taste of heaven.

A little bit of background: so ever since my DTS, I’ve wanted to join staff here, and have felt like God has said that that is something He has for me. This school I am doing now is the prerequisite for joining staff here, and was part of the motivation for doing this school. While I was at home, I had the time to pray and think about what my motivations were for wanting to come back here, and through that time, God got rid of a lot of junk and emotionalism around staffing, but the desire remained. When I came back here, I still wanted to, and at the Acts 1 Conference, I asked God to please give me a fresh word about it, because I didn’t want to move forward in that decision without Him going with me.

One night during Acts 1, one of the leaders stood up and said that he had a really specific word, but wasn't sure if he should share it. Right then, I got that heart-beating-quickly God-feeling and God was like – ‘this is for you!’, and then the guy said "I feel like there are some people here who are considering joining staff at YWAM Denver that need to." And right as he said that, I burst into tears and started laughing, as I sometimes tend to do when God gives me crazy revelation. It was ridiculous! The week after that, someone got Psalm 45:10-15 for me. Verse 10 says: "Listen to me, O royal daughter; take to heart what I say. Forget your people and your family far away." When I got home in February, I read that verse and sort of claimed it, thinking that it might apply to me. Then later that week, someone got Genesis 12:1-3 for me. They didn't know what it said, just got the reference. Here's what verse 1 says: "The LORD had said to Abram, 'Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father's family, and go to the land that I will show you.'" At this, I nearly started crying! I relate to Abraham a lot, and have often felt like I would be doing what he did in just trusting God and following him, literally step by step. Having God give that verse to me in such a non-human-intervening way, was such a blessing and so releasing to know that it is ok for me to simply obey God step by step, trusting Him to lead me, and that the next step is leaving home and joining staff here at YWAM Denver. Honestly, that freaks me out a bit, but at the same time is so exciting and freeing! I will have to live off of support, trusting God. It’s an exciting adventure to be going on!

Painted Oct 23 2011

A lot of what God has brought up has had to do with truly seeking intimacy with Him with all of me. In Hebrews 12, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.” One thing God has been showing me is how important it is for us not to let anything hold us back at all – it’s not just sin, but other things that are permissible, but not beneficial. There are things that we hold onto that really aren’t that good for us, that in some ways hold us back from God in some ways.

Co-creating with my God

We have also been learning so much about how leadership shouldn’t just be chosen by people, but rather given and anointed by God. The term ‘servant-leader’ has become a cliché, but it’s so true, because the start and end of leadership is serving others. The idea that you are better than or above in some way is a warped view of leadership, since you are in that position to serve others, and to be an example of how to do so to each other. It’s so clear to see how the warping of God’s ways has infiltrated society, and also the church. It’s incredible what we believe as truth, where it is actually quite far from how God created it to be. Jesus didn’t teach anything He didn’t model first with His life. By our standards of success, He failed epically in His ministry. But God’s standards of success are very different. We often strive to succeed by our standards, and then burn out. Jesus said that He only did what He saw the Father doing. He could have done so much more, but He didn’t. How could He leave a town right when they were gathering? Because God told Him to. It was time to move on. His life was a modelled example of how we are to live – in constant fellowship with God, in tune with what He is doing and wanting to do, and doing that. Obedience to God is success in God’s eyes. When we define it as anything else, we put unrealistic expectations on ourselves, and burn out, freak out or fall apart. His burden is light – He wasn’t lying about that. It is a huge responsibility too and sometimes hard, only because of our resistance and the battle of our sinful nature against what the Spirit is prompting us to do.

Something else God has been speaking to me about is being His Bride. The Church is referred to as the Bride of Christ. This is such a beautiful image, because He says in Ephesians 4 that He has made her holy and righteous. We don’t have to strive for it. And the beauty of that, is that I don’t have to keep living in sin, because He is making me whole. Flip, it’s so good, because it’s like He’s been doing renovations inside the house of my life – bashing down and reconstructing aspects, and then also sorting through the things I have stored. And now He’s taking me through those things, one by one, pointing them out, and then we throw them out. It’s so good! It’s hard sometimes, but so worth it, because I know that He’s cleaning me out, and preparing me for what is to come.

He has been connecting so many different things over the last few weeks, it blows my mind! One thing after another… I have fresh revelation every day! It’s so refreshing! After quite a while of feeling like I couldn’t see what God is doing, now He’s letting me get glimpses here and there. This may be partly because of some treasured sin I had in my life. I didn’t really view it as sin, but it was holding me back from the fullness of what God has for me (I finally deleted all my illegal music and movies). I honestly feel so free! I didn’t realise how much I was missing out on, because of something that I’d been numbed to believe wasn’t really that bad. So now whenever God brings anything up, I embrace the brokenness, and allow Him to reach deep inside to clean out the junk. I really don’t want there to be anything between us.

One of those things was the mentality that I didn’t really deserve the abundant life God has for me – I knew it was there in theory, but didn’t really think I’d ever get to live it. This stemmed from a root of thinking that right when my life was getting great, that it would fall apart or something would be taken away from me. This came from the time when Claire Rouse (one of my close friends), died during my Matric year (Grade 12). It happened right around the time when I was finally starting to get on top of everything. Crazy. God also showed me how from that time, I shut off my emotions when I played piano, and focused on perfectionism, because the emotions were too overwhelming, and perfectionism was control. Ever since then, I have been unable to play piano, because I’m not perfect, and there is no emotion. This comes into any time I try to perform any music. There is an emotional disconnect. So God is walking me through that, and bringing healing slowly but surely. He is so gentle and so good!

Last Friday during worship, I just bawled my eyes out. I wasn’t really sure why, but it was so good. It was so refreshing to allow myself to just be broken in the presence of God, and to let Him hold me. I feel like so often we’re so scared of the extremes of emotions, that we avoid them altogether, instead of learning how to walk them out in a Godly manner. I was so willing to be broken, because I knew that the more my heart broke, the deeper His truth and healing could go.

So there’s a brief summary of what God is doing, as best as I can give right now. Thank you all so much for your prayers! Please keep praying for an openness and willingness for God to do all that He wants to. I don’t want to miss out on anything that God has for me! I want the fullness which Jesus died for me to have.

My prayer for you is that you would allow God to peal back the layers, pouring healing and truth into each part, deep into your heart and life. May His peace that is so incomprehensible guard your heart and your mind, and may you know through experience, His great love that we cannot wrap our mind around. Let Him love you, and take you deeper and higher with Him, that you may have the abundant life He has for you. It won’t always be easy, but I pray that you would press in and choose Him every time. He is so worth it! He longs for you so deeply – He wants to share His heart with you, if you would just let Him.

In faith, hope and love

Janine

My roommates - Kiny, Maddy, me, Gill and Laura