I stand in complete awe of God once again. Jesus is ridiculous (in a good way of course).
The Holy Spirit is thriving. Words just can’t do Him justice. Here I am again,
sitting in front of my computer and attempting to convey the outstanding number
of supernatural moves of the Holy Spirit this past week and feeling like I
could never fully express it all. Cause I can’t. But that’s ok… there’s
freedom. There’s so much FREEDOM.
Praise God! 🙂
By the way, FREEDOM
has become our new squad theme. Multiple people on our squad have had
visions of us waving this white flag on the battle lines with the word “FREEDOM�
written on it. It’s insane how the Holy Spirit has been working in our squad
and uniting us as a family. We are
completely different than we were three months ago… and it’s amazing. God is
breaking stuff off of us, tearing down walls, taking us out of our comfort
zones, offering true freedom, allowing us to experience Him in new and intimate
ways, and preparing us for the battle that lies ahead. I can’t wait to see what
He continues to do in and through us. (Check out this song for a good picture
of what our squad is all about: K’NAAN Wavin’ Flag ft. Will.I.Am, David Guetta)
We just finished up a week in Dublin, Ireland where we had the
2nd annual World Race
AWAKENING conference, what what! It was basically a time where all the
World Race squads on the field right now (five of us – L,M,N,O, and P squads)
came together along with some WR staff, alumni, and members of the community to
experience more of God and worship Him. It was literally divine. Yup, heaven came down. There were about
300-350 of us there just seeking God with all we have, listening to
challenging/ paradigm-shifting messages, prophetically worshipping with Melissa and Jonathan David Helser (they
are so anointed it’s ridiculous… please listen to some of their music!), getting
activated by the Lord in our giftings and beginning to operate in them,
processing through all of this stuff with one another in community, preparing
for the spiritual battle that is eminent in upcoming months, entering into
greater INTIMACY with Jesus, and experiencing more supernatural moves of the
Spirit than I ever have before in my
life. Yup, this all happened in a matter of three days. Insane.
Ok, I’m going to be honest. There has been so much that’s
happened, like literally life-changing stuff, that I’ve already typed out a ten
page single-spaced Word document about it all. But I know you don’t want to
read all that. So I’m going to give you the highlights. 🙂
These are some of the things I’ve
been learning (there are MANY stories and teachings that led me to
these conclusions… but I’m just giving you pieces of the end result):
1.
Jesus needs to be my ROCK. I need to seek INTIMACY
with Him above all else – that is the most important thing to Him; He just
wants to be with us. I can’t go to humans all the time for answers to my
questions; I need to go to God. The Holy Spirit is my teacher, counselor, and
guide. I want to be spending more intimate, alone time with Him. If He is truly
my rock, I will not be shaken. Psalm 16:8 says, “I have set the Lord always before me. Because He is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken.�
2.
I need to learn and operate in the RHYTHM of God, not the rhythm of man.
They look completely different. Man puts programs, systems, and structures
together. God is always asking us to depend on Him and partner in what He is
doing… to walk by faith. Living by
the rhythm of God looks like being in INTIMACY with Him, hearing His voice, and
following… even when it seems crazy and out of our comfort zone. This is
basically living a Spirit-led life. God’s rhythm, not ours. It feels risky,
it’s unknown, it’s by faith… but it’s the best possible life we could live –
God is in control and He will lead us to places we never thought possible.
3.
Testing and questioning things are good… it
leads to deeper maturity in faith. But I need to always continue to have FAITH and TRUST in the Lord and release
what I don’t need to know yet. He is infinite after all. I need to “suspend
disbelief� for a time as Jacob (my squad leader) said and make sure I watch the
whole “play� (God’s play) in amazement; if I focus on the details and try to
overanalyze the infinite God of the universe too much, I’m going to miss what’s
going on in the big picture.
4.
God is pursuing us, all of us, ALL the time. He is RUNNING after us. He longs to be
with us and for us to experience Him. He is a good Dad who gives good gifts!
5.
The Father loves us more than we could ever
imagine. Wow. It’s like, intense. His love is an “endless ocean, a bottomless
sea� (the name of a song by Jonathan David Helser).
6.
I LOVE talking to people about Jesus. I love it.
I feel alive in those situations.
I’m realizing that where there is peace and
joy in the midst of meeting the need of another, that is when we are in the
will of God and operating out of our spiritual gifts. So yea… I’m excited to
see where that goes.
7.
We are warriors for the King. The kingdom of God
is inside of us and we bring it wherever we go. We are sons and daughters of
our heavenly Dad.
8.
Everyone has the ability to prophesy (hear God’s
voice) and have a prayer language with Him
9.
In the five-fold ministry layout of the church
and how it should function, I believe I’m a TEACHER – someone who likes to understand and explain things to
others (yay!); I first have to be a student and eagerly seek knowledge/ want to
soak it up before I can clearly articulate it to others, which is what I love
to do.
10.
The church looks a whole lot different than the
way Jesus intended it to; listen to more of Anthony Chapman’s teachings
(www.rockchurch.org.uk). Love and grace need to come first; you belong before
you believe, etc. It’s all about NEW
CONVENANT living… we are dead to the law and alive in Christ. There is
FREEDOM in Him. Amazing stuff. (Just listen to some of these sermons… they’re
incredible).
11.
It’s not about what we do. It’s about how we love. We are only able to love God because He
first loved us. Jesus just wants to be with us; He doesn’t care about our
ministries as much as He cares about our intimacy with Him. We are human
BEINGS, not human DOINGS. Once we understand our IDENTITY as sons and daughters of God and the fact
that the Spirit lives inside of us, we will be able to understand that the
kingdom of God is inside of us also. Our role is to recognize our place as
kingdom-bringers in this world. What an honor! Spend time with Jesus. With the
overflow of love that we receive from being in His presence, He will lead us to
love on others. It’s not our love, but the love of the Father flowing in and
through us as we abide in Him. He will
change the world, but He’s gonna do it through us… cause He lives inside of
us. 🙂 So freaking sweet! First intimacy. That’s what He truly cares about and
created us for. From that intimacy, He will lead us into kingdom-living and
kingdom-bringing lifestyles. 🙂
Ok so that’s just a taste of what I’ve been learning… and
now here are some things I experienced
this week (of course there are pages-long stories that go along with
each of these as well but I don’t want to overwhelm you):
1.
I was slain/ laid out in the Spirit after
Michael Hindes prayed for and prophesied over me – this has never happened to me before but it
was absolutely insane. His prophetic word was bang on too and super powerful. Yes, Holy Spirit!
2.
I heard some challenging teachings that made me
deeply question things and completely break down (Carin talked with me about
all of this, held me as I cried for about an hour, sang over me, and prayed for
me until I had peace. She is amazing. GOD is amazing.)
3. I
felt convicted to spend more time with JESUS
on an intimate, individual basis – in the Word, in prayer, and just BEING
with Him to strengthen our relationship. HE needs to be my rock; I need to seek
HIS words first before those of men. I
want to fall deeper in LOVE with Him.
4.
I received/ started operating in my prayer language/ the gift of tongues
(since I already had the ability to after I received the Spirit… God just
allowed me to tap into it) – so sweet!!! So exciting!! 🙂 I got about ten
different confirmations from the Lord about this gift too; since I question
everything I needed confirmation and God knew that and was so sweet to me. I love Jesus!
5.
I experienced totally new levels of freedom, intimacy, and surrender in worship
than I ever have before. I was yelling with joy and passion to the Lord,
dancing before Him as His little girl, on my face before Him, and everything in
between. God is so good.
6.
My squad
has literally come to life. YEA O-SQUAD! People who were once sitting on
the back wall during worship are now jumping up and down and praising the Lord
with all they have. Our hearts have been changed. We are in a continual process
of being transformed. We are speaking life, truth, encouragement, and words
from the Lord over one another daily and worshipping in full surrender. God is
on the move and speaking to all of us… there is an extreme number of
confirmations among us and the places we’ve been taken in just three short
months seems unfathomable. But nothing is impossible with God! If this kind of
exponential growth can occur in just a few months… I can’t wait to see what
happens by the end of the race. He is limitless… so we all will just continue
growing, learning, and experiencing more of Him. YES!
7.
I talked with some other spiritual father
figures at the Awakening, cleared up my questions, and had extremely powerful
interactions/ prayer times with them. One of them, Mike Paschall, actually reminds
me a lot of my Uncle Bill. He’s incredible. Mike led me through a bunch of my
questions and allowed me to experience the heart of the Father to an insane
degree. It’s difficult to convey how powerful these experiences were… but they absolutely rocked me. It was
like God was speaking directly to me through Michael Hindes and Mike Paschall
one night… it was as if stories from scripture were coming to life and I was literally
experiencing being a true daughter of the King. Profound. Mike prayed for me after I received my prayer language,
helped me confirm it, and I almost got laid out again cause the Spirit was so
present in that moment. I felt and continue to feel so profoundly loved and treasured by my heavenly
Daddy. I am in awe, complete awe of how good the Lord is and how much He intimately loves each one of us.
It’s overwhelming.
So yea, Jesus is legit. I love HIM.
