Micronesia - Gospel is Good News!

It is beautiful here, even more than I imagined.  And getting to know many crazy lovers of Jesus. My group has had this weekend to "explore the island"  so we went to some waterfalls and the legendary ruins of this island.  One of the waterfalls, I got to jump off, and it was the highest jump I've ever had, and super fun.

The RUINS: 

     We visited the historical ruins here on Pohnpei  this weekend.  It has a really intense history.  It was an 18 kilometer city that was built about 800ish years ago, by sorcerers.  They used their sorcery to fly in giant stones (too heavy and large to have come on any ship of that time).  To build the city and did human sacrifice, and were a huge stronghold of fear and control in the island.  The filmmakers of Ghosts, came to film an episode there and were killed by demons there.   Jesse and other believers had come to pray and cleanse the land with the blood of Jesus, and its quite peaceful there now.  Now I am reading a book about the spiritual history of Hawaii and other Polynesian Islands, "God of Light, God of Darkness"  by Daniel Kikawa.  And I am soo humbled to discover the way that God has been working all along through the culture and history of peoples that I have never heard of or known.  And to see how good and faithful he is.  And what good news Jesus is.  The freedom of the gospel is incredible.  The love of God is soo good, so powerful.  I am so humbled by the way I am discovering him in the Pohnpeians here.  

The Gospel is Good News:

    This morning I was also really convicted to repent of a lie that I have believed for a long time:  "That the gospel is hard to accept, that its not really that good of news, that people won't usually want to hear it or believe it or have their lives transformed by it".  I am finding that in this time and season in the world, actually that is the rare exception, that people will hear and not respond.  The norm is that they will believe when they hear and see the gospel, because it really is good news!  And Love is really powerful.  That lie has discouraged me and made me hesitant and timid to share in many opportunities.  And I have judged people's hearts that they were hard, when really God was likely already there, calling them to himself.

     This shift in my mindest was confirmed today by a jog down the road and my jogging friend just started up a conversation with the local woman walking on her way to work, and it was so evident in her eyes and countenance that she was hungry for that good news.  And then a friend shared this verse for the school, 

Isaiah 55:5 "You also will command nations you do not know, and peoples unknown to you will come running to obey, because I, the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, have made you glorious."

This weekend:

  My group will be gone hiking for a mountain survival weekend.  The group that went last weekend had amazing stories challenges and of God healing one guy immediately of (what sounded to me like altitude sickness, or severe dehydration and vomiting).  So... we are pretty excited about a slightly shorter, amazing challenging weekend of hiking.  And this morning Jessie and Tanya shared a story with us of them visiting a hard to reach, unreached mountain village in Nepal, and the crazy dangerous bus ride and hike, and then how a woman was healed of the cancer she was dying from and her whole family and doctor became believers in Jesus.  And many other people in those villages.  Jesus is worth the pain, he is worth the risk.  He is beautiful!  He is great news!

One of the Pohnpeian students here with us, broke his finger playing volleyball last week, then another student prayed for him immediately and he was healed and felt something like electricity going through his body.  And of course a lot of heart healing is happening for all of us, because thats what God does...

Praying for more and more of God.

Really love. Not just pretend to love.

God I want to see your Kingdom Come through my life!  Use me.  Release your Kingdom through me.  Wherever you want me to go, for whatever purpose you have.  Use me to bring your Kingdom in the land of the living.  I want to see your Kingdom come.  I want to see people meet their King.  I want to be used for your purposes.  I want to be willing God, to be a sacrifice, to be a sacrifice of love, like you.  I want to love like you.  I want to be so overwhelmed and obsessed by your love and the joy of intimately relating to you, that I am willing to suffer any cost that those in front of me can know you.  I want to see the joy set before me as you see it.  I want to know that joy more, that I would count it all joy to give my life away in the process.  

I want to be willing to give my life away today, not just in the future, in some lofty idealized time or situation.  I want to consider my life today as not my own.  To consider my life as yours.  Already yours.  That it doesn't belong to me.  And if you want to spend it on any one person in front of me, then that is your choice.  My life is yours and you can do whatever you want.  You are my King.  You are the King of my life, the King of my heart.  I don't want to be begrudging of love or stingy with things, or gifts, or time.  I repent of all the so many times that I have been withholding and held back from loving people the way that you meant for me to.  I want to trust you in deeper ways, that I am free to love.  I am free to give and to spend my life, to waste my life on love.  

I want to really love.  Not just pretend to love.

Psalm 103:13-

"The Lord is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him.  

For he remembers we are only dust.  

Our days are like grass; like wildflowers, we bloom and die.  

The wind blows, and we are gone-- as though we had never been here.  

But the love of the Lord remains forever with those who fear him.  

His salvation extends to the children's children of those who are faithful to his covenant, of those who obey his commandments!  

The Lord has made the heavens his throne; from there he rules over everything.  

Praise the Lord, you angels who serve him and do his will!  ( I want to be one who serves you and does your will.  I want to be one who waits for and clings to your very words and notions for direction to act.)

Praise the Lord, everything he has created, everything in all his Kingdom.  

Let all that I am praise the Lord."

God I want to respond not just to your voice, but to the inclinations of your heart.  To the tiniest whisper and the look in your eyes.  I want to be moved by you.  I want to be aware of your Spirit moving in me.  Like the creatures and the wheels, I want to move with your Spirit.  I want to be moved by you.  Where you go, send me, bring me with you God.  I want to be with you, and move with you and do what you do. 

He is With Me in the Migration!

He leads us beside awesome waters :)

Well, I am at the coffee shop to journal, and without a pen.  So probably this will be a blog, hahaha.  I guess if I bother to type it I may as well share it.  

I'm so touched by the kindness of God to speak to us.  His voice is just so kind to lead.  He loves us so much.  And I love the journey with him.  I love the mysterious way he reveals himself all the time.  After teaching about 4 times in Brazil about "hearing God", I think I am really starting to believe that he speaks to me all the time.  

I have really been encouraged by friends testimonies of all the different ways that God speaks to them.  He reminds us of his love in secret personalized code just for us.  haha.  For one he reminds through frequent sitings of ladybugs, for one its cardinals, for one its emotional breakdowns on mountaintops in various countries, for some its reoccurring numbers that we see everywhere with some kind of significance, a reminder, and encouragement.  Whatever it is, its this constant whisper, "I am with you always. I will never leave you. I AM with you."  

I am on a journey with the Lord.  I am watching for him and listening for him in the ordinary, everyday.

A few days ago, I was riding the train/bus from my friends in Fort Worth to my family in Allen.  It was my first time to be making the transfer at night at the bus stop in Dallas.  Things get a little interesting at night in public transportation in Dallas.  So I am standing there, and I notice the big number 121 lit up on the train.  And I notice it in that way, that I know is the Lord wanting me to pay attention.  So later I looked up Psalm 121, its all about the protection of the Lord. 

Ps 121:7,8 

The LORD will keep you from all harm—

he will watch over your life;

     the LORD will watch over your coming and going

     both now and forevermore.

Thank you God.  His promises are so sweet, especially when he whispers them to us and lets us know its real for us.  He is so personal.

Commissioned with love by the children Brazil

I went out of town visiting friends for the past 3 weeks.  And I felt that the Lord was going to give me some specific direction for the next steps for my life.  And I felt that it would be really fun and honoring to ask my parents to ask him for specific words about my next steps and wherever I go.  So I did.  

And this morning, one of the things God showed my mom was this revelation about how the Lord leads birds in their migration and seasons and they listen to him and follow.

Jeremiah 8:7

Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons, and the dove, the swift and the thrush observe the time of their migration….

And the Sunday before I left Brazil 6 weeks ago, I had been really touched by a friend prophesying over me that I was like a bird in migration, who would come and go in the right seasons…

Thank you Jesus for confirmations.  And for speaking to us as a body.  Thank you that we prophesy in part and we get to share our parts and see more of the picture.  Thank you God for speaking.  And that you are always with me!  The great I AM.