Week Four

Week 4

This week’s lecture was over the Character and Nature of God. We had the privilege of having Aaron Walsh come and speak to us over the topic. Aaron is a native to NZ but spent 7 yrs in Kansas City as part of the foundation team of the International House of Prayer. He now is a part of the formation and leadership of the Tauranga House of Prayer here in NZ.

I enjoyed hearing Aaron, the way he spoke reminded me of my own Pastor back home. He has such a passion for truly knowing the character of God. So often we form our image of who God is by our cultural, parental and experiential views and it becomes distorted. I really want to reproduce the correct image of God with the platform that He has given me. We talked about so much this week I felt as though my brain was going to explode (that’s a bit of an exaggeration.) But seriously, I think that a year from now I am still going to be unpacking and pondering on the revelations that I had this week. I know one that that kept sticking out to me was being holy. I really feel like God is calling me to adjust the way that I measure holiness. I am amazed that when I set up my list of do’s and don’t I’m always trying to stand as close to the edge of morality as I possibly can without going over the line. Galatians 5:16 says that if you walk by the Spirit you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. I want to be more led by the Spirit than what Rochelle thinks is right and wrong. Here are just a couple more thoughts that stuck out to me that were said throughout the week were

~ Prayer is not about our duty or obligation, when we are romanced by the beauty of God it will be our desire to communicate to Him trough prayer. ~
~We so often despise the day of new small beginnings, but God cherished them. So we should embrace them too. We should not get discouraged or let the fear of starting small hold us back~
~We are all made in the image of God. Racism, slavery, child abuse, injustice to mankind is all a product of not being able to see that we are all image bearers of God and we have to ability to produce the same characteristics of Him.~

This week was one of the fullest weeks thus far. Every week we have map tests, scripture memorization, as well as a weekly journal over the lectures. This week our map was over the countries in Europe, the scriptures were 2Cor. 10:3-5, Matt. 22:37-40, and Gal. 5:16. We also had our first book report due over the book Is That Really You God, by Loren Cunningham – Very good book that I highly recommend. We were also given the options for outreach which was pretty much the only thing everyone could think about all day every day.

God truly knows our needs even when we don’t have a clue. I was so excited to get to spend my free day (Saturday) at New Brighten Beach. One of the staff had entered a surf contest and so we had the option to go for a hike or head to the beach. Although we were leaving @ 9:00 am I thought that it was the most relaxing option of the two. I woke up Saturday morning to the sound of a thunderstorm, so I just rolled over and got to sleep in. Its so hard to make myself rest on the weekends, and there is always an activity planned for Saturday and I am always signed up for it. But God knew that I needed rest, the whole base needed rest for that matter. I was able to catch up on laundry, start reading for my next book report and spend some quality alone time with God, just hanging out in my bunk. He’s awesome and I love Him!