The computers here at the Perth station have not been functioning for almost two weeks. I borrowed one of my room mate's computer so I'm once again blogging.
Being here in Perth for now two months I've now come to realize that coming here was the best decision that I have ever made in my life (next to accepting Jesus Christ). I know that sounds pretty radical but I've seen so much breakthrough in my life. I just have to thank all my supporters once again. I can't thank you enough for helping me get here.
We're now finished with our eighth week here at the base. In the past few weeks we've learned so much. Some of our topics were Authority and Submission, Father Heart of God, and Relationships. This week Sheryl Brownhill, the director of the Base, spoke to us about relationships and how to pursue healthy relationships with God. We were all captivated as we heard Sheryl's testimony who grow up in Sydney in a very rough neighborhood. Her dad was known as the best street fighter in the city and her home life was full of violence and anger. Back when she was only fifteen, Sheryl often got into fights. When Christians came to witness to her she would sometimes use her fists to beat them away. One day, though, she heard a voice. It was a voice that spoke to her with love and compassion and Sheryl grew to love the voice. Her life began to radically change as she listened and obeyed the voice. One day in the school yard, one of the Christians who had previously attempted to witness to her and was thoughly pumled came up to her hesistantly. "Sheryl, you're so different. What's happened?" Sheryl explained to him about the voice. "Do you want to know the name of the voice," the still hesistant Christian asked. "He has a name?" Thus began Sheryl's life with Christ that completely transformed her and her family.
Sheryl had amazing wisdom about relationships. One of the most important points I think she said during the week was, "Develop an ambition for others." What that means is that you make it your ambition to help people get closer to God. Make their progress in their spiritual journey your priority. Pride often hampers us from seeing the gift and the contribution others can make and helping to bring that out of them. Of course we need to manage our own relationship with God and grow in it but I think what America Christianity has been suffering from is that we're too self-focused. We're too self-focused on the areas that we need to grow in or our own problems. Sheryl said, "Your measure of success is how many people you call out into their spiritual destinies...It's not about creating your own ministry and slapping your name on it." That's something I will now live out for the rest of my life.
We're still preparing for our Outreach. We're really committing to prayer as our team has to raise $30,000 total for all of us to go. This weekend we'll be running a couple of car washes to help us raise support.
Thank you all again for being a part of my life. I was reminded this week as I looked at some photos my dad sent me of our family Thanksgiving how great it is to have family and friends back home.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Monday, November 12, 2007
Lordship and My 4 Things
Last week, our guest speaker on our topic, Lorship, was a base staff leader Arie. Arie had an interesting past, being in the equivalent in the minor leagues of soccer in Holland, Arie drifted in and out of the drug scene until finally he had one too many bad trips. He became a Christian during his DTS (Disciple Training School) here in Perth.
Once again, there was much to learn, and Arie was effective teacher as he used his own story as an example of how he struggled with giving control back to God. God gives us certain rights, it's true. There are sometimes, however, when certain rights that God has given will keep us from obeying.
Richard, who is on staff as well, took time to illustrate how certain behaviors and things we do can possibly hinder us from growing in God. Things like relationships, watching television and movies, sports, hobbies, and eating foods are all good things. But occasionally our lives fall out of balance and the pendulumn swings too far to the right. We make these things into idols, that are fine to have and do when they do not vie for God's place in our hearts. When they do God asks us to withdraw from these for a certain period of time or in some cases forever.
In order that our lives come into balance (the middle of the pendulumn) the Lord may ask us to give up that particular thing. Arie explained from his own life, that sports had become an idol to him. He played soccer professionally before coming a Christian. Sports was his life but when he came to know Christ God asked him to give up soccer completely. Arie was obedient for nine years before he sensed the Lord tell him that playing soccer was once again alright to do.
In order to get us in that state of balance, God may ask us to do some pretty radical things, like Arie. No matter how radical it may seem we need to obey the Lord in whatever He is leading us to do. It took nine years for Arie to become into balance where soccer and sports were no longer an idol in his heart.
During the week I felt God impressing on four areas of my life that I had to surrender to Him:
My Time - My personal time is so important to me. After work there's nothing that I like to do more than just spend my freetime like I want to. Unfortunately, that right to use my time has impeded my relationship with God in several ways. Sometimes I have sensed that God wanted to spend time with me. Instead of retreating before the Lord in prayer I find something more entertaining to do. In other times there are people who may need to be helped. I've tried to get myself in the habit of helping and serving wherever I know there is a need but there are many times when I think to myself, "I deserve a break. I deserve my time to myself." The fact is that God wants to break me of that way of thinking. He's given me time and what I have to realize that my time really belongs to Him.
My Finances - Anyone who has known me for awhile knows that I have been saving for a condo/house in Southern California. For the past eight-months I've been looking at the realestate market and saving my money so one day I can afford a home. This has caused me to tuck away the possibility of God sending me out in Missions full-time. It has interfered with a possible calling in my life. I know that the money that I have been able to save now is going to be used for whatever God calls me to use it for. That could be one day a house but I have a looser hold over it and I'm opened to the possibility that God will use my savings for something else.
My Comfort - One of the things that has stood in the way of accepting a full-time in missions is my comfort. I've lived in OC California for so long that part of me fears giving up my comfortable way of living, having everything you need and want. The dream of living in a nice house and having a comfortable way of living is potentionally stopping me from the call that God has in my life. One morning, I was sitting on a park bench like I do every morning during morning excercises and watched the sunrise above the Swan River. As I sat there I spoke to God saying, "God I know there are certain comforts that I'm used to but I'll give them all up to you and let you send me wherever you want me to go..."
My Family - Recently I've come to realize that my family is very important to me. As we grow older and mature we become more thankful for the things our families have given us and in the past couple of years I have realized how much I have at home. I have also become concerned about my parents and especially my Nana. I have become afraid of leaving them for any length of time because I love them so much and I wonder how they will do without me being around. As my parents grow older I want to be there for them and with my grandfather having passed away this past summer I want to spend as much time with my Nana as I possibly can. Being possibly called into the mission field, I feel there is a possibly conflict with this and my calling. I want to be with my family and yet if there is a call in my life to be in full-time missions I will have to sacrifice being physically close to them all.
The things on my list were not easy to give up. The last day of the week we had an altar where we laid all the things the Lord was asking us to give up.
Once again, there was much to learn, and Arie was effective teacher as he used his own story as an example of how he struggled with giving control back to God. God gives us certain rights, it's true. There are sometimes, however, when certain rights that God has given will keep us from obeying.
Richard, who is on staff as well, took time to illustrate how certain behaviors and things we do can possibly hinder us from growing in God. Things like relationships, watching television and movies, sports, hobbies, and eating foods are all good things. But occasionally our lives fall out of balance and the pendulumn swings too far to the right. We make these things into idols, that are fine to have and do when they do not vie for God's place in our hearts. When they do God asks us to withdraw from these for a certain period of time or in some cases forever.
In order that our lives come into balance (the middle of the pendulumn) the Lord may ask us to give up that particular thing. Arie explained from his own life, that sports had become an idol to him. He played soccer professionally before coming a Christian. Sports was his life but when he came to know Christ God asked him to give up soccer completely. Arie was obedient for nine years before he sensed the Lord tell him that playing soccer was once again alright to do.
In order to get us in that state of balance, God may ask us to do some pretty radical things, like Arie. No matter how radical it may seem we need to obey the Lord in whatever He is leading us to do. It took nine years for Arie to become into balance where soccer and sports were no longer an idol in his heart.
During the week I felt God impressing on four areas of my life that I had to surrender to Him:
My Time - My personal time is so important to me. After work there's nothing that I like to do more than just spend my freetime like I want to. Unfortunately, that right to use my time has impeded my relationship with God in several ways. Sometimes I have sensed that God wanted to spend time with me. Instead of retreating before the Lord in prayer I find something more entertaining to do. In other times there are people who may need to be helped. I've tried to get myself in the habit of helping and serving wherever I know there is a need but there are many times when I think to myself, "I deserve a break. I deserve my time to myself." The fact is that God wants to break me of that way of thinking. He's given me time and what I have to realize that my time really belongs to Him.
My Finances - Anyone who has known me for awhile knows that I have been saving for a condo/house in Southern California. For the past eight-months I've been looking at the realestate market and saving my money so one day I can afford a home. This has caused me to tuck away the possibility of God sending me out in Missions full-time. It has interfered with a possible calling in my life. I know that the money that I have been able to save now is going to be used for whatever God calls me to use it for. That could be one day a house but I have a looser hold over it and I'm opened to the possibility that God will use my savings for something else.
My Comfort - One of the things that has stood in the way of accepting a full-time in missions is my comfort. I've lived in OC California for so long that part of me fears giving up my comfortable way of living, having everything you need and want. The dream of living in a nice house and having a comfortable way of living is potentionally stopping me from the call that God has in my life. One morning, I was sitting on a park bench like I do every morning during morning excercises and watched the sunrise above the Swan River. As I sat there I spoke to God saying, "God I know there are certain comforts that I'm used to but I'll give them all up to you and let you send me wherever you want me to go..."
My Family - Recently I've come to realize that my family is very important to me. As we grow older and mature we become more thankful for the things our families have given us and in the past couple of years I have realized how much I have at home. I have also become concerned about my parents and especially my Nana. I have become afraid of leaving them for any length of time because I love them so much and I wonder how they will do without me being around. As my parents grow older I want to be there for them and with my grandfather having passed away this past summer I want to spend as much time with my Nana as I possibly can. Being possibly called into the mission field, I feel there is a possibly conflict with this and my calling. I want to be with my family and yet if there is a call in my life to be in full-time missions I will have to sacrifice being physically close to them all.
The things on my list were not easy to give up. The last day of the week we had an altar where we laid all the things the Lord was asking us to give up.
Friday, November 9, 2007
Jakarta and Ethiopia
Last week we were introduced to the five teams that we had the possibility of joining for our Outreach Phase. After December, our class of more than 50 people along with ten staff members will all leave for Jakarta Indonesia. After a month, each team will be flying to a different location for another month before returning to Jakarta. The options were:
Team #1: Stay in Jakarta for all 3 months
Team #2: Stay in Jakarta for a month leave for East Africa return to Jakarta
Team #3: Stay in Jakarta for a month leave for Ethiopia/Djbuti return to Jakarta
Team #4: Stay in Jakarta for a month leave for Central Republic of Africa return to Jakarta
Team #5: Stay in Jakarta for a month leave for North Africa return to Jakarta.
We were allowed to choose one out of the five teams but only 11 people were allowed on each team. The base leaders stressed how important it was to pray and listen to God about where we were going. They believe that each person has something unique to contribute and, therefore, they it was important that we were led by God in our decision. After praying and fasting over my decision I made the choice to go to Team #3 headed for both Jakarta and Ethiopia. I had an agenda to go with Team #1 which would be staying in Jakarta all 3 months. But after praying and listening God corrected me and led me to go on the Jakarta/Ethiopia trip. We will be also spending a week or so in a country close to Ethiopia, Djbuti (Ja-Booty).
The announcement of who was on which teams was made this morning. It was official, after spending a month in Jakarta I will be going to Ethiopia for 2 1/2 weeks and another week in Djbuti. I'm happy about the members of my team. Some of them are friends I regularly hang out with. One of them is in my small group. The two leaders of the trip, Eric and Alicia, are both Americans and Eric happens to be my small group leader. The cost of the trip will be about $5500, so I'm continuing to pray for support.
In other news, after having spent a wonderful cool month in Perth, it has began to become warm. The temperature today was 39 degrees Celcius which equals to about 102 degrees Farenheit. Most of us are staying indoors as much as possible and some of us are taking off to the beaches. One thing about Western Australia is that the flies, especially during these hot days, are ferocious. They literally cover you and try to get into your mouth, ears, and nose looking for moisture. It's pretty gross, another reason to stay inside. Also, the 200 staff members who normally run the base have left on a one week retreat. They have left the base in the care of the students who now take over all the duties. Two girls, Amarra and Grace as well as myself run our DTS school with the speaker this week, Andrew. So far everything seems to be running smoothly but continue to be in prayer about the base and that we will be safe and protected during this time.
Thank you for those who have been praying about my decision for outreach. I really appreciate your prayer support.
Take care,
Jeremy
Team #1: Stay in Jakarta for all 3 months
Team #2: Stay in Jakarta for a month leave for East Africa return to Jakarta
Team #3: Stay in Jakarta for a month leave for Ethiopia/Djbuti return to Jakarta
Team #4: Stay in Jakarta for a month leave for Central Republic of Africa return to Jakarta
Team #5: Stay in Jakarta for a month leave for North Africa return to Jakarta.
We were allowed to choose one out of the five teams but only 11 people were allowed on each team. The base leaders stressed how important it was to pray and listen to God about where we were going. They believe that each person has something unique to contribute and, therefore, they it was important that we were led by God in our decision. After praying and fasting over my decision I made the choice to go to Team #3 headed for both Jakarta and Ethiopia. I had an agenda to go with Team #1 which would be staying in Jakarta all 3 months. But after praying and listening God corrected me and led me to go on the Jakarta/Ethiopia trip. We will be also spending a week or so in a country close to Ethiopia, Djbuti (Ja-Booty).
The announcement of who was on which teams was made this morning. It was official, after spending a month in Jakarta I will be going to Ethiopia for 2 1/2 weeks and another week in Djbuti. I'm happy about the members of my team. Some of them are friends I regularly hang out with. One of them is in my small group. The two leaders of the trip, Eric and Alicia, are both Americans and Eric happens to be my small group leader. The cost of the trip will be about $5500, so I'm continuing to pray for support.
In other news, after having spent a wonderful cool month in Perth, it has began to become warm. The temperature today was 39 degrees Celcius which equals to about 102 degrees Farenheit. Most of us are staying indoors as much as possible and some of us are taking off to the beaches. One thing about Western Australia is that the flies, especially during these hot days, are ferocious. They literally cover you and try to get into your mouth, ears, and nose looking for moisture. It's pretty gross, another reason to stay inside. Also, the 200 staff members who normally run the base have left on a one week retreat. They have left the base in the care of the students who now take over all the duties. Two girls, Amarra and Grace as well as myself run our DTS school with the speaker this week, Andrew. So far everything seems to be running smoothly but continue to be in prayer about the base and that we will be safe and protected during this time.
Thank you for those who have been praying about my decision for outreach. I really appreciate your prayer support.
Take care,
Jeremy
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
My Small Group
Over here in Perth I have my own small group. It's led by Eric one of the staff leaders here on base. Along with myself there are three other guys: Paul, who has been around YWAM for a long time. His parents are actually YWAM missionaries. Moon, is from South Korea. And finally there is Josh from Canada.
So far we've had some great times. Our second meeting we actually went out fishing. Eric is a advid fisherman. He grew up in Minnesota and spent most of his free time fishing. He took us out to a little lake not far from the base. The area around the lake reminded me of the lake around Santa Margarita. There were expensive looking condos and apartments as well as a nice restaurant very close to where we were fishing. We settled down with our poles as Eric showed us how to hook the bait, which were raw shrimp prawns. While I was still trying to get my line out far enough, Moon got a tug on his line. He pulled it in as he did we were surprised that he caught a fish so soon. We all attributed it to beginners luck but by the time the night was over he had caught six fish. I caught three myself and we all had a good time just relaxing.
The next week was my favorite. Eric collected some money from us all and he went out to buy groceries for pancakes. These were probably the best pancakes I ever had. They were half an inch thick and incredibly delicious, especially when we're so used to the base's food. I who had boasted I could eat eight, only ended up eating four along with some bacon that Eric had bought. The night ended with two hours of intense Mario Cart playing. (It's a video game) I didn't win a single race. Some things never change.
Tonight, we headed to one of Perth's beaches. Incredibly beautiful, it amazed me to see that the beach was almost empty of people. In California, there would definitely be a number of people still enjoying a walk on the sand and enjoying the last rays of sunlight, but here in Australia Aussies don't really go to the beach until late November. As we cooked our Schnaggers (sausages in Australia) we met a group of women who were cooking their chicken at the same stove. I introduced myself and made some comments about how good their chicken looked. I got to talking to one of the young ladies who I could tell by her accent was definitely not from Austrailia. She introduced herself as Christiana, a German student who was getting her Phd in Chemistry along with the five other girls who were with her. She asked what we were doing at the beach. I explained to her we were at a school for missionaries. She seemed politely interested in what we were doing the objectives for our school so I explained a little bit of what we were about.
What insued was a short discussion about Christianity. I explained our mission in helping people know the Gospel. I then, unfortunately, attempted my last remaining bit of German I knew and tried reciting John 3:16 in German. I only ended up embarrasing myself and botching my German and forgeting half of the verse. So I attempted once again to explain simply using English. So much for the five years of German I took in High School and College.
She told us that she was an atheist who, from what I tried to gather through our conversation, believed in an inner power. The thought of a deity creating things at will just seemed incomprehendible to her. Realizing this woman was very intelligent I took the approach of explaining my belief that the world and nature seem to suggest that there is a Creator. The world has too much order for it to be just a result of random chance. We concluded our little chat. I wished her good luck with her studies and we parted ways. I knew that this was probably her first exposure to the Gospel. I wasn't expecting her to give her life to Christ but the important thing is that she has heard. Hopefully God will lead her to other people who can really live out the Gospel and who can really connect with her on an intellectual level.
So far we've had some great times. Our second meeting we actually went out fishing. Eric is a advid fisherman. He grew up in Minnesota and spent most of his free time fishing. He took us out to a little lake not far from the base. The area around the lake reminded me of the lake around Santa Margarita. There were expensive looking condos and apartments as well as a nice restaurant very close to where we were fishing. We settled down with our poles as Eric showed us how to hook the bait, which were raw shrimp prawns. While I was still trying to get my line out far enough, Moon got a tug on his line. He pulled it in as he did we were surprised that he caught a fish so soon. We all attributed it to beginners luck but by the time the night was over he had caught six fish. I caught three myself and we all had a good time just relaxing.
The next week was my favorite. Eric collected some money from us all and he went out to buy groceries for pancakes. These were probably the best pancakes I ever had. They were half an inch thick and incredibly delicious, especially when we're so used to the base's food. I who had boasted I could eat eight, only ended up eating four along with some bacon that Eric had bought. The night ended with two hours of intense Mario Cart playing. (It's a video game) I didn't win a single race. Some things never change.
Tonight, we headed to one of Perth's beaches. Incredibly beautiful, it amazed me to see that the beach was almost empty of people. In California, there would definitely be a number of people still enjoying a walk on the sand and enjoying the last rays of sunlight, but here in Australia Aussies don't really go to the beach until late November. As we cooked our Schnaggers (sausages in Australia) we met a group of women who were cooking their chicken at the same stove. I introduced myself and made some comments about how good their chicken looked. I got to talking to one of the young ladies who I could tell by her accent was definitely not from Austrailia. She introduced herself as Christiana, a German student who was getting her Phd in Chemistry along with the five other girls who were with her. She asked what we were doing at the beach. I explained to her we were at a school for missionaries. She seemed politely interested in what we were doing the objectives for our school so I explained a little bit of what we were about.
What insued was a short discussion about Christianity. I explained our mission in helping people know the Gospel. I then, unfortunately, attempted my last remaining bit of German I knew and tried reciting John 3:16 in German. I only ended up embarrasing myself and botching my German and forgeting half of the verse. So I attempted once again to explain simply using English. So much for the five years of German I took in High School and College.
She told us that she was an atheist who, from what I tried to gather through our conversation, believed in an inner power. The thought of a deity creating things at will just seemed incomprehendible to her. Realizing this woman was very intelligent I took the approach of explaining my belief that the world and nature seem to suggest that there is a Creator. The world has too much order for it to be just a result of random chance. We concluded our little chat. I wished her good luck with her studies and we parted ways. I knew that this was probably her first exposure to the Gospel. I wasn't expecting her to give her life to Christ but the important thing is that she has heard. Hopefully God will lead her to other people who can really live out the Gospel and who can really connect with her on an intellectual level.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Intercession and Worship
The teacher's name was Cliff. I looked at him and immediately saw there was nothing impressive about him. He was a mid-height, balding, skinny man entering into early middle-age, his voice a little too soft and a little too high for a man. On top of that his last name was Wiener. But he, nonetheless, was one of the most powerful teachers I have heard speak. He was an exhorter, speaking to us last week on Intercession and Worship with the energy of a high school quarterback. He was in our face, jumping from each side of the classroom, using his hands and body language to do half of the talking, teaching well and making humurous comments, and most of all getting us to participate, not letting us just sit there with our eyes glazed. He was calling us to action.
I've been looking over Cliff's notes from the past week and I can't help feel that we would all benefit from some of the thing we have learned. I wanted to summarize some of those notes so that we can all be blessed from them.
The most important section of Cliff's teaching was on hearing God. Cliff used the example by taking a basketball and asking us, "When you're playing in the NBA and you want the person to pass the ball to you, what do you do? What do you do with your hands, with your body language?" He then showed by using two of us how the right posture is when you have your hands wide open. You're ready to catch that ball and you're probably calling the person's name who has the ball to pass it to you. "Jeremy! Hey Jeremy. Jeremy! Pass me the ball! Pass me the ball!" You don't have your arms crossed looking cool and not really interested. Cliff then makes the connection with this and hearing God.
We can all hear the voice of God, Cliff explains but the posture of your heart has to be right. You have to keep your heart in a state of openess, of eagerness, ready to catch that ball. When we go to God we shouldn't have this indifferent or bored attitude. The people who hear God the most are those who are eager to hear Him, who are in a state of constant readiness to hear Him and this is an everyday, every situation kind of thing, where we go through our day in the posture of someone who wants the ball. To those of us who haven't heard God much or at all, it isn't that God doesn't want to speak to you or would rather speak to others. It's all about the position of your heart. Are you eager to hear Him? Do you want to hear Him? Do you want to catch that ball?
The first reason why we listen to God is because He is worthy! I can't tell you how many times I wanted to hear from God just to get my questions answered. The most important thing in prayer is not getting our questions answered but listening to Him. Intercession is not just prayer but it's prayer with a purpose. In Intercession we listen to God and get specifics from Him about how we are going to pray for an individual, a group of people, or a situation. We hear God's heart and we pray it back to Him, and we stand in the gap between Man and God and Man and Satan.
It's like in movies where we see the special ops soldiers. They come in quietly into enemy territory. They are in constant communication with the command center who can see from their satellites the bigger picture. The command center gives specific commands to these soldiers, "Go to your left. Turn right now. Ok wait here for one minute. Now see that door in front of you. Go and open it. That person to your right, take him!" We are meant to be connected to God in this way and we're given leadings to help, serve, and tell others the Gospel in this way. The Holy Spirit leads us and every day we come to Him and ask, "Ok, what do you have for me?"
But now there are things that can cause "static" in our connection with God. Things like fear (of what He will say or ask us to do), unbelief, apathy/indifference, self-idolatry (being too worried about what others think or placing what I think and what I want to do too highly), and false-comfort. False comfort is a huge one I think especially because it goes the most undetected. You know what it is? Instead of going to God's voice for comfort, God who can genuinely tell us how much we're really worth and make ourselves feel better, we go to something else to make ourselves feel better. Maybe it's food like chocolate and ice cream, or watching tv, playing video games, or even other people. What do you use to replace the comfort of God?
If you want to hear God you need to have a soft heart. The Bible speaks in Hebrews 3 about not hardening your heart like Israel did in the desert. The way you develop a softer heart is by being eager to obey God in the little things. You know, when God gives you a tap, tap, on the shoulder to go help someone or to go encourage somebody, or even from refraining from doing something. It may not make sense to us but whatever God is asking us to do it's better just to do it. We like to require more information from God because we're afraid of obeying. We don't want to look weird or we're afraid of what the person/people will think. But when we obey God without requiring more information we bring a softness and a tenderness to our hearts.
God wants this kind of relationship, where we hear from Him, with everyone. Unfortunately we can get caught up in thoughts like, "Hearing from God is only for certain Christians" or "I don't think God would really want to talk to me." You need to understand that God has no reluctance to speak to you. You're His child, how could He not want to speak to you? Hearing from God, however, is a discipline. It's something you can only benefit from when we get in the habit of everyday assuming that posture of, "I want the ball God," being eager and ready to listen to Him.
Well there's heaps more. One more things is that we should all keep a record of what God has spoken to us. It's a great discipline to have especially when we fall on hard times we can look back on what God has spoken over us.
Thanks Cliff for all your teaching!
I've been looking over Cliff's notes from the past week and I can't help feel that we would all benefit from some of the thing we have learned. I wanted to summarize some of those notes so that we can all be blessed from them.
The most important section of Cliff's teaching was on hearing God. Cliff used the example by taking a basketball and asking us, "When you're playing in the NBA and you want the person to pass the ball to you, what do you do? What do you do with your hands, with your body language?" He then showed by using two of us how the right posture is when you have your hands wide open. You're ready to catch that ball and you're probably calling the person's name who has the ball to pass it to you. "Jeremy! Hey Jeremy. Jeremy! Pass me the ball! Pass me the ball!" You don't have your arms crossed looking cool and not really interested. Cliff then makes the connection with this and hearing God.
We can all hear the voice of God, Cliff explains but the posture of your heart has to be right. You have to keep your heart in a state of openess, of eagerness, ready to catch that ball. When we go to God we shouldn't have this indifferent or bored attitude. The people who hear God the most are those who are eager to hear Him, who are in a state of constant readiness to hear Him and this is an everyday, every situation kind of thing, where we go through our day in the posture of someone who wants the ball. To those of us who haven't heard God much or at all, it isn't that God doesn't want to speak to you or would rather speak to others. It's all about the position of your heart. Are you eager to hear Him? Do you want to hear Him? Do you want to catch that ball?
The first reason why we listen to God is because He is worthy! I can't tell you how many times I wanted to hear from God just to get my questions answered. The most important thing in prayer is not getting our questions answered but listening to Him. Intercession is not just prayer but it's prayer with a purpose. In Intercession we listen to God and get specifics from Him about how we are going to pray for an individual, a group of people, or a situation. We hear God's heart and we pray it back to Him, and we stand in the gap between Man and God and Man and Satan.
It's like in movies where we see the special ops soldiers. They come in quietly into enemy territory. They are in constant communication with the command center who can see from their satellites the bigger picture. The command center gives specific commands to these soldiers, "Go to your left. Turn right now. Ok wait here for one minute. Now see that door in front of you. Go and open it. That person to your right, take him!" We are meant to be connected to God in this way and we're given leadings to help, serve, and tell others the Gospel in this way. The Holy Spirit leads us and every day we come to Him and ask, "Ok, what do you have for me?"
But now there are things that can cause "static" in our connection with God. Things like fear (of what He will say or ask us to do), unbelief, apathy/indifference, self-idolatry (being too worried about what others think or placing what I think and what I want to do too highly), and false-comfort. False comfort is a huge one I think especially because it goes the most undetected. You know what it is? Instead of going to God's voice for comfort, God who can genuinely tell us how much we're really worth and make ourselves feel better, we go to something else to make ourselves feel better. Maybe it's food like chocolate and ice cream, or watching tv, playing video games, or even other people. What do you use to replace the comfort of God?
If you want to hear God you need to have a soft heart. The Bible speaks in Hebrews 3 about not hardening your heart like Israel did in the desert. The way you develop a softer heart is by being eager to obey God in the little things. You know, when God gives you a tap, tap, on the shoulder to go help someone or to go encourage somebody, or even from refraining from doing something. It may not make sense to us but whatever God is asking us to do it's better just to do it. We like to require more information from God because we're afraid of obeying. We don't want to look weird or we're afraid of what the person/people will think. But when we obey God without requiring more information we bring a softness and a tenderness to our hearts.
God wants this kind of relationship, where we hear from Him, with everyone. Unfortunately we can get caught up in thoughts like, "Hearing from God is only for certain Christians" or "I don't think God would really want to talk to me." You need to understand that God has no reluctance to speak to you. You're His child, how could He not want to speak to you? Hearing from God, however, is a discipline. It's something you can only benefit from when we get in the habit of everyday assuming that posture of, "I want the ball God," being eager and ready to listen to Him.
Well there's heaps more. One more things is that we should all keep a record of what God has spoken to us. It's a great discipline to have especially when we fall on hard times we can look back on what God has spoken over us.
Thanks Cliff for all your teaching!
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