Lessons from the weekend

This weekend has been refreshing. I just need to process what I'm learning, so feel free to read, but this could get long. :)

On Thursday, before our long weekend, I had the opportunity to share my story with my small group. There's something very powerful about sharing what God has done in your life and the struggles you've gone through. It helped me to reflect on God's goodness and guidance along my journey and allowed me to just be known. It feels so good to be known and to still feel loved and accepted by those you've just been so transparent with.

After classes our whole group assembled at the pool for a birthday party. It reminded me of one of my family reunions growing up with lots of food, teasing, goofing off, and just having a plan ol' good time. I felt like I was truly among my own relatives.

I met with the spiritual warfare teacher after the party. We sat there for over 3 hours going deep into my past to make sure there weren't any footholds I may have left open for the enemy. She guided me so patiently as we went through this book that asks you to confess and rebuke everything from unconfessed sin, to people that you still need to forgive, to every having been involved with animism or anything of that nature. My teacher was so loving and non-condemning as I confessed to God in front of her several things that I didn't even release I need to confess and deal with. It was so liberating.

I met with her again yesterday for 2 and half hours more as we asked the Holy Spirit to bring to mind any area where a lie might have crept in so that we could expose it and replace it with truth. It took a lot of "being still" before the Lord and really being honest with myself before I felt I had addressed anything that needed to be cleansed in my soul. All she did was just say "God is there any area that Carrie needs to address?" We would sit there for a minute or two before something came to my mind. I would tell her about the thought or memory and she would ask my how I felt during that time. Sometimes it would trigger feelings of rejection or insecurity. Then she would ask, "God, what do you want to say to Carrie about this?" I would wait, and then a Bible verse would pop in my head that would address that very issue. It was incredible! For example, one of the memories that came to my mind from my childhood was being told all the time "You're so quiet." I never liked being called quiet because I always thought it was the extroverted ones that looked like they were having all the fun. Then my teacher asked me "What does God say about this?" The verse from I Peter came to mind "Your beauty should not come from that of braiding of hair...but of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is how woman of the past, who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful." So God thinks that my quietness is beautiful! Other verses came to mind too like "Even a fool is regarded as wise if he keeps quiet." Wow... I felt for the first time that I could really be myself and like it. It's such a relieving thing when Satan's lies are exposed and replaced with the truth.

I finished up with Chip (my instructor) and then went up to my room feeling so refreshed, but I didn't feel like the Lord was quite done with me yet, like I was believing another lie that still needed to be exposed. Only this time, He didn't reveal the lie and the truth right away. It took some digging and listening.

The lie was: "God is disappointed with you. You are not doing your part to fulfill His calling, you're being too lazy." All this week too I had been praying for some healing in certain areas and the lie that went with that was "God only cares about your spiritual healing - not your physical healing. Those things you want healing for are too insignificant. It's not like you have cancer or anything so get over it."

With some digging in scripture and other verses that came to mind this is the truth that God revealed to me: "Jesus prayed, '...Your kingdom come, Your will be done on this earth AS IT IS in heaven.' What is heaven like? We are totally healed both spiritually AND physically. Then I asked God, 'Well why am I not totally healed then?' His answered 'Will you still serve me even if I don't choose to heal you yet? This is so that your faith, which even though refined by fire, may be proven genuine. Healing is my will, but your FAITH is more important.'"

Prior to this, I had been reading in Job. Job was a righteous man in God's sight but Satan was granted permission to wreck havoc in Job's life. Why? So that Job's FAITH would be proven genuine. His friends and counselors tried to tell Him it was because He had unconfessed sin in his life. It wasn't because God found Job to be a sinful man that all the tragedies came upon him, it was because Job was found BLAMELESS. God knew that Job would be able to stand firm in his faith even if all hell broke loose on him. I felt God saying, "Look, there is a girl who is righteous in my eyes and I know she can stand even through the fire. I'm going to test her so that her faith, of far more value than gold, can be proven genuine." Hence, the lie saying that God is disappointed with me was just shot in the water It's not because He's upset with me and thinks I'm lazy that I'm facing testing. Instead, He finds me righteous!! How...because Jesus' blood covers me. So now, He is training my hands for battle and exercising my faith for the days to come.

Interestingly, these were the very things that were spoken of this morning in church (which God has done every Sunday since I have been here).

In Sunday school, the pastor's main points were:
- You're standing at the doorway of a new season. There is always testing with a new season so that your faith will be proven refined as gold and so that your faith will shine in the dark days to come.
- God is preparing His Bride and the Bride will be in love with the Bridegroom.
- The Bridegroom is a valiant Warrior who is training His Bride to be proven faithful in the next season.
- Why didn't the Israelites go directly to their promised land? (Why am I not going directly to France?) Because the Warrior God was preparing their hands to fight and He was exercising their faith, (just as He is doing with me.)
-Faith grows in the land of the unfamiliar so guard your mind against the lies of the enemy during this time. Satan wants you to give up.
- There is always a testing of faith just before the promise is fulfilled.
- Job was a man of faith that God tested. God told Satan "This one will stand and shun evil. He will not cave in the face of evil." Job's faith was proven genuine. It wasn't because he had done everything wrong that He was facing trials, it was because God was preparing him for a new season of more blessing than the first.
- There is a cost to following God. Most people in other countries count the cost before becoming a Christian, but here in the US we count the cost after we become Christians.

About a year ago, as I was praying, the Lord showed me a vision of Jesus holding open a door. Our pastor read today from Rev. 3:7 "What He opens, no one can shut, and what He shuts, no one can open..."

Terry, the main pastor, talked about worship today during the service. He also talked about the testing of our faith.

He said that we cannot worship God any higher than our current concept of God. For example, If I believe God will provide all my needs than I will worship Him with all my finances.

Abraham believed God could raise Isaac from the dead so He worshiped God by his willingness to offer Isaac as a sacrifice.

God has something great in this next season of life, but I cannot enter it without faith and without proper training.

These were two very timly and moving messages from the pastors this morning.

Last night was a fantastic night. A bunch of us went to go see the Karate kid under a full moon and a sky lit up with stars.

My favorite scene in there was when the little boy; after hours and hours of taking of his coat, throwing it in the floor, hanging it up, and putting it back on; realized the purpose of this mundane task. He wanted to give up when suddently his instructor charged toward him with different kicks and hits while at the same time instructing him to do the motions of putting the coat on, taking it off, throwing it to the floor, and hanging it back up. These motions became his defense. In this powerful scene, the boy realized that, that contrary to what he thought, he had been trained and was ready to utilize the power and skills that were alive inside of him.

Likewise, this weekend I have experienced that same powerful revelation. While raising money, waiting for God to bring in the finances, sitting in classes, serving in small ways, spending time with youth, praying for people on Sundays, practicing the piano etc. can all seem mundane at times, I am starting to see that God is in the process of refining my faith and training my hand so that I will be ready for the battles in this next season of life.

All this God showed to me in just one weekend and I still have 5 weeks left of training.