This week it didn’t matter how you arrived at Training Camp [and man are we different in church background, denomination, style of worship and everything else]. It didn’t matter where you were in your walk with God or if you arrived broken or fairly put together. You left changed. No one on our squad became more devout or more pentecostal or more conservative [more religious]. But all of us were magnetized to the person of Jesus. And when a bunch of people are drawn into the warmth of Christ’s heart and then changed, their hearts start to beat a similar pace to his and to each other's. It’s gentle and yet gut-wrenching and radical.
This week we were retold the best ever fairy-tale [but true story actually] about how an all-powerful all-knowing all-everything Creator is actively involved in our lives. He loves us intimately and individually. It’s a feeling like He’s next to me. He leans into me and whispers affirmations from His word, as well as sweet nothings. Frankly, I get giddy over the sweet nothings.
For the past year God has already been doing something radical in my heart, and this week was nothing short of radical. I want to be willing to share about all my experiences because God is so willing to chase me countless times to make sure I know him. Really know Him. I want people to know Him through these blogs.
So here goes..
This week, in order for us to understand and do life with a God who likes intimacy, we talked a lot about His intimate person of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has the awesome assignment [among others] of breaking off the messy stuff from our hearts; this is the stuff that doesn’t look like God, but more like our own selfish nature or like the enemy [Satan] his self. Hearts were gutted open when coming face to face with the junk from our past or present. But through the help of the Spirit we confronted the stuff, processed it with God and with each other.. and whaddya know, a whole lot of forgiveness and freedom took place! This must be what advancing the Kingdom of God looks like.
In coming to know the Holy Spirit, we learned more about the fruits and gifts of the Spirit too. We learned about the need to develop the fruits of the Spirit, God’s character. We learned [a lot by experience] about the need for humility and meekness. We learned about healing and prophecy. We experienced the joy and peace and praise brought on when people were emotionally and physically healed, and when they had words of truth and life [aka prophecy] spoken over them. We spoke words of truth and life [prophecy lol] over each other. ‘Prophecy’ can seem like a scary word but it’s not really. It’s words of truth and life.
There’s a verse that keeps coming to mind as I write this, so I’m gonna share it. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 4:20, “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.”
Can I be real with you for a sec? In my 23 years of living I’ve been taught the word, I’ve memorized bible verses, I’ve taught the word to others, I’ve prayed the word, I know a lot about God’s word and I can talk about it, easy. But ask me if my knowledge of bible verses and my ability to recite them has changed things. I was dissatisfied for a long time as a Christian. This dissatisfaction is not, I repeat, this is NOT because my walk with God is dissatisfying. God puts in believers a holy dissatisfaction. It’s the kind of dissatisfaction Paul had when he was torn between staying on earth to spread the gospel or being in paradise with his main man, Jesus. This dissatisfying feeling comes from simply longing for more of God and His will to be done [on earth or heaven, right Paul?]. This feeling of unease is intrinsic when you receive the Holy Spirit. As you pursue God more, you realize at some point that words on a page and intellect and great speech are awesome.. but they don’t bring life change and they don’t satisfy a deep longing for more. God is our more. And as I have witnessed throughout this year and this past week at Training Camp, He comes in the form of intimacy and presence and power, not simply words on a page.
[Please note from above paragraph, I’m NOT saying that the Word of God is unimportant. It is absolutely necessary to us as believers and we need to have it in our hearts! I am saying as someone who’s been a Christian for a while now, I have been dissatisfied for much of my life as a Christian and I know the word well.]
Back to Training Camp.
After beginning to realize all that God has available for us, one of my favorite nights of camp took place. I was going on a walk with a good friend on my squad. We brought my portable speaker along and we sang and mostly screamed [off-key slightly] songs of worship all the way down a long winding paved road. When we eventually circled back to our campsite it was starting to get dark and one of us looked at the other and casually asked, ‘Hey, wanna go prophecy?” We laughed at how foreign and socially unacceptable it sounded. But we dove right in.
We walked around to different tents of people belonging to R Squad (aka OuR squad) and while people were chilling in their tents, we asked if we could pray over them and see if God would give us a word for them. And without knowing [most times] who was in the tent we were praying over, we got glimpses into that person’s heart in the form of words and pictures.. seriously! Not oracle-sounding crazy-weird words and phrases, but just simple words that spurred us on to pray encouragement and life over those particular areas of their hearts. As God was moving and speaking through all of this to the hearts of our team mates, we cried in pain with some and we full out belly-laughed out of joy with others.
As we were walking up to one of the tents, which we soon realized belonged to a particular awesome guy on our squad, I remember my friend and I immediately being filled with joy.. which we let out by laughing. A couple minutes later I was praying for him, and I felt hot tears rolling down my face. I could feel what I believe was God’s pain as well as His love for this guy. He eventually zippered out of his tent and we got to talk and laugh and cry and pray more with him. It was awesome.
And I must say, I’ve never felt so alive in my life.
I feel in the depths of my being that God wants to walk and talk and touch and laugh and cry and heal and move through me. And you know what? He wants to do the same through all of us! The beautiful part about it is that God still allows us to be fully ourselves. The addition of Him just makes us a more awesome self. And He is a respecter of persons, the Holy Spirit is a gentlemen, and we only get as much of Him as we invite in, really.
So, how much of God do you want?
He loves you. He wants your love. It's about a love-centered relationship, not what you can get from Him or vice versa. And btw, He wants you to co-author the most scandalous radical passionate love affair of all time…
So, how much of Him do you want?
