When I say the word “download,” what comes to mind? Probably something to do with music or movies or drawing something from the internet, right? Well my definition of a download is now forever changed. Allow me to explain. I first heard the term download in this new capacity from my awesome squad leader Alexandra Squyres. We were in a team leader meeting and she said that God downloaded a bunch of stuff to her and she flipped through several pages of her journal explaining a little bit of what that looked like. Basically it was just God speaking directly to her and then her writing down what her Dad was saying. I liked how she used the term download to encompass God speaking to her.
All that being said, (which I’m sure you have figured out by now) I had my first download session just the other day (November 8, 2012 to be exact) and it was awesome. If you have read my blogs before, you know that I have really struggled with hearing and discerning the voice of the LORD—it’s just something I had not developed, like an atrophied muscle in a way. Well I was talking to my teammate for the month, Isaac, and he mentioned this new idea that he had just heard about and suggested it to me. I was intrigued. He said that you just ask questions of God with a pen in hand and some journal pages to write in and then you just write whatever crosses your mind. Ok, I can handle that, I thought. So I started asking Him questions and just writing.
I asked him how I could love my team better and He told me; then I asked for specific words to give to each member of my team and again, He told me. Then I wanted to encourage and bless my squad leaders who are visiting us for a week, so I asked for words for them too, and again, the pen just kept writing! Then right after I put the period after the second squad leader, something even better happened, He started giving me words for the rest of the people on the other team we are with this month, Fierce Pursuit, without me even asking!! I just kept writing and writing and writing, I actually ran out of ink in the pen that I had! It was crazy awesome, the God of the universe was talking to me through my thoughts. It was all I could do to write fast enough. This was a totally new experience for me, I wasn’t thinking about what I was writing, I was just writing. Normally, I am a very analytical person and I analyze every thought that crosses my mind, sometimes to my detriment. Therefore, because I really wanted to just allow God to write for me and to speak through me, I didn’t screen anything. I even remember at one point looking down at what I was writing and saying to myself, I don’t even know what I’m writing, because I’m not thinking about it, I’m just writing what comes to mind. This was awesome. My first (of many to come) download sessions!! All I wanted to do in that moment was stay there and keep writing. I was in the presence of God, my journal pages were telling me so, and I didn’t want to be anywhere else.
Well let me tell you, after telling some of the people the words that God gave to me for them, I am sure that those words were from the living God. The God that is personal enough to come down and sit with me and teach me how to journal and hear his voice, the God that is personal enough to call me “dude.” I feel as though I have opened up the door to the wardrobe into Narnia in a sense; this is a whole new world that I have yet to discover, and I LOVE discovering (you can ask my dad about that one). I am so very excited as I move into this new chapter in my life of listening and hearing what God is telling me. I only ask your prayers that God would continue to meet me right where I’m at and to continue to reveal things to me, things that help me to speak life into others, things that are still to come, encouragements for people and that all of those things would be so clear! That I would come to know His voice and that it would become familiar to me and able to be identified. Thank you in advance for your prayers, God is definitely moving in my life and in the lives of those around me! Ask him to download some words for you or someone you love today, and remember, His downloads are always free!
