How do I take the things I know and make them a reality in my life? That is a worthy question. Especially in regards to God there are many things that I know and truly believe of Him but they have not become infused into the very fibers of my being, a part of the core of my reality. His love for example: I know that he loves me and I do express His love to those around me, but. But I can still see in my thoughts, attitudes and actions the effects of the lack of revelation and experience I have in the unconditional love of God for me.

A total revelation of Dad’s love casts out all fear. Any presence of fear means I need to know a greater measure of His love. The same with insecurity.

Today is going to be a good day. I’ll prophesy over my day and see what happens: I am going to meet a guy name franklin wearing blue jeans and an orange shirt, with a scar on the left side of his face. His car is having problems. He loves working on cars.

Well, here I am day

1:17 a.m.

I hit up the Friday Night Strike outreach tonight and did the bar ministry. We only had an hour and 15 mins. and we rolled out at 11:15; I mainly stuck with this guy I met at the bar Peter. Nothing crazy happened for me, but we rally up outside at the end and share stories and there are always cool stories of people getting healed or just these amazing connections people make. Daniel this German told about this guy that came that night just to talk to him and asked if he could call him any time he needed prayer or anything. Cool stuff like that.

I am read to go to bed now. I still have this cruddy cold in my lungs. The realm of dreams has been opening up more to me and I am trying to steward it well. I need to actually sit down and write when I feel inspired to write about the deeper things I am going thru and processing. But for now, I am learning to be a branch on the vine and let God do His thing. A branch’s only job is to stay connected to the vine, beyond that it has no control and it does not matter how hard it tries to grow or bear fruit, only the vine determines that.

Okay, shalom!

Dreams . . .

This school year I have entered into the dream realm. God has started giving me dreams at night and I am practicing stewarding them, writing them down and praying over them. This is a whole new world for me, but I am excited to see what happens. I just got back from a dream interpretation small group that my roommate invited me to and they interpreted an interesting dream I had and I think they nailed it.

I have been wanting to wade deeper into this dream realm and partnering with God to see him speak to me, encounter me and take me on adventures. It only makes sense that if I spend a third of my life on my back, comatose, that I would want to make the most of it. I had two dreams from God earlier on, then there was a lull, now I am making an effort to write them down in the morning, even if they are a blur and I am making progress. We shall see what happens. I have been practicing interpreting my friends dreams and I think I have been on the right track.

my day

Today, Monday, is always my day off. I decided to go to the mountains with my friends to sled. I did not want to in the morning. I felt like just hanging around, doing my homework and lounging, but I knew it was an adventure that had to be had. So I am glad I did. There were ten of us and two cars that went up. It was about an hour, hour and a half ride up; we had to put on chains. We got a bit of a late start. We had some last minute work to do as we had a saucer and a sled between the ten of us. So we got food and a tube at wal-mart and headed off.

I am glad I went, we had some epic slides down this hill. We had to reforge the path with all the fresh snow. The final run, we connected all ten of us: A tube, a sled, a metal saucer and a half a busted saucer (me). And we had ourselves some crazy snow battles. I won, naturally.

We finished up the evening with a worship night that was really good. I also got to talk to my brother Mark on his way from Australia to Mexico City. Good night world

My Saturday

This past week I have been doing great at going to bed before 1 am and getting up around 8:30 am then starting off my day at the prayer chapel. Today I got up at noon and got 10 hours of sleep, but I do not feel bad because I have been sick and want to give my body all the sleep it needs.

I went for a walk through my neighborhood and the sun started to peak out. I love the feeling of the warm sun on my face. After spending some time trying to work out an Amazon return I have it settled. Now I am going to go to the prayer chapel, drop a package off at UPS, and do my grocery shopping.

Later on today, my roommate Luke and I are going to hit the streets and see what God has in store for us. I will report back later on it. And in the evening hopefully I will hit up some coffee with some friends.

We changed around the layout of our living rooming and now it looks less like a man hut and is really starting to take form. We have some white christmas lights up, a book shelf and it’s quite cozy. Yes!

The bar

I have been wanting to get out on the streets more. So every week they have an outreach called Friday Night Strike and you can plug into a few different areas. I hit up the bar ministry and I like it. I was able to connect with a few people and establish a relationship with this one girl (there was another girl with me).

After we left one of the guys shared a story: they prayed for a woman to be healed last week and she felt warmth on her body and the pain left so this time they got her to pray for her friend and he felt warm on his should and it got a lot better, and she isn’t even a Christian. It was just a good time, we carry a good atmosphere in there. Some other people in our group made some really good connections. I think I will try to go each week and see what happens.

I am moving closer to the Kenya mission trip in March and am excited for that. I just found out that we will have 8 hours in Amsterdam and will get to go to the YWAM base downtown and really pour into them and encourage them, that should be great. I need to get shots soon here. Kenya will be powerful. I have never been to Africa.

I am tired and I have been doing very well with getting to bed earlier and getting up earlier.

I have been recording my dreams more and I am excited to see how God is giving me dreams and I am expanding into interpreting mine and others. Fun stuff.

Another day

I am getting to bed earlier and earlier and I love it. It feels so good to get up early in the morning and hit your day with a full charge. I went to the prayer chapel yesterday and today in the morning and will do the same tomorrow. It is a good way to start my day. I tried a new recipe today, which took me almost two hours, but I love the sense of personal accomplishment when I cook something on my own. My wheat grass that I bought is actually growing back so I may get another couple cuts out of it. Score!

It was a beautiful sunny day today, and it felt so good. I love the sun, especially when it is 60-70’s outside. It feels so good. I will just stop, turn toward the sun, close my eyes and soak it up. Beautiful.

Last note: I recommend getting rid of your toilet paper and switching over to baby wipes. Maybe it sounds weird, but you won’t go back, it is amazing. Free fact! Tootles

huh what?

In a worship service at church at say a charismatic church why are some people laughing, shaking, crying or acting quite strange? What is going on? Isn’t it just them making stuff up and getting all emotionally hyped up? These are good questions.

Here at Bethel, a lot of that crazy stuff goes on. One of our pastors calls it “spooky church”. I have been on my own journey with God and sometimes, like this last sunday night, people all around me will be laughing, jerking, shaking, rolling on the floor and I will not be. But I am learning that I can not compare my relationship with God to what is going on around me. I can not discredit and devalue what God is doing in my life and get discouraged because it does not look like the guy next to me. I know that their experience is genuine because many of them are my good friends and their relationship with the Lord is real and genuine and they deeply love him. They are emotionally stable and aren’t freaks.

Well, I could expand, but it’s 1:30 am and I need to get to bed so I can get up in the morning. I just got done skyping (video conference) my little brother who is on his DTS (Discipleship Training School)  with YWAM (Youth With A Mission)  in Perth Australia. He will be leaving next Monday for Mexico City for 2 1/2 months on his outreach. I love that boy. Welp, that’s all I got for now. Dream time.

For the life of me I could not fall asleep last night. So finally around three a.m. I flipped on the lights and started reading some, which was good, I got done a lot of the Bible reading for this week, which was good, I was quite behind.

Sundays are mostly spent at church. The late morning service went from like 11:00 am – 1:00 pm or a little later then I was at church in the evening service for like almost 5 hours. Tonight got pretty, good stuff.

I have started this book “You May All Prophesy” by Steve Thompson a pastor at Morningstar Church. So far it is really good, laying the basic foundation for biblical prophecy. Let me finish it before I recommend it .

We had a spontaneous drum – worship session at our friends house. Everyone grabbed a pot or box and we started throwing down our beats and making up songs as we went. It was fun. We have never done that before. We had a guitar going before a string broke.

I will have to blog about some of the deeper things that God is doing in me sometime soon here. But until then, I am so glad I am here at Bethel. I have not doubted once whether this is exactly where I am supposed to be. This is a key time and place in my season of being prepared, equipped and drawn into the deeper things of the Lord. Everyone should come visit me. done.

Flop

went to bed 3:30 am

got up: 11:10 am.

Not the best early morning start to my day but it will come. We were going to have a house work day here; taking the carpet outside to the dump, cleaning the house, organizing the garage, but that did not happen because no one got up, so we may post pone part of that for Monday. I am going to do a load of laundry today and wash my sheets. I want to start working out, but I have this chest cold that has been clinging on for the last two weeks, so I am a little leery of  working out. I am going to try to start going to bed before midnight, getting up around 8:30 a.m., then hitting my day with a little routine of spending time with the Lord, doing homework and working out in the a.m. before classes. I am trying to establish a structure that can house my goals, an infrastructure that enables me to go higher and do more instead of hindering me or holding me down. Order is a good thing, when it is in its proper place. The struggle for me is to not be religious or legalistic about things, but to create discipline in my life that facilitates the direction I want to head.

Today I think I am going to try a new recipe called Cholent, a Jewish stew. My sister got me this cookbook called Veganomicon. No, I am not a vegan but I am wanting to eat healthier and learn about nutrition so it is a good place to start. I had tempeh tacos last night and it was alright. There definitely were some interesting tastes. It wasn’t bad, it just might have been a combo of tastes I am not used to. I have never worked with Tempeh before, I made coleslaw, a lime crema and a beer marinade for the Tempeh, so all in all I am proud of myself.

I am sitting in my blue robe and it is silky smooth and quite nice. All these things are the deep things of revival; a good bath robe, an oil burner burning Eucalyptus and a desk. Well I should get dressed because soon I am going to take my roomie to his job interview at Yaks.

Closing thoughts: It is easy for the days to sweep me by, especially if I wake up late I end up flopping into my day, versus if I wake up early I get a running charge at my day. Relationships are the most important thing in life and God has been emphasizing and stirring up in me the need to establish life-long, vulnerable, brutally honest, intimate, covenant relationships with those around me. I am not sure what exactly that will look like but I know the value of running in a pack.