I used to be a go go go Christian. I was on "fire". Doing everything I humanly could and making winning every debate with Christian and non-Christian alike a priority. I was a loose rocket. Shooting up with each new retreat or good sermon and I would come crashing down just as fast. After a while the initial exhilaration of shooting skywards was no longer worth the inevitable, so I became grounded; I cut off my own fuse. Even if there was powerful worship going on or I listened to an inspiring sermon, I was a rocket that was tired of crashing and was angry at Papa for taking me so high just to let me crash. See the things is, Papa doesn't want rockets he wants kites.
Kites go high and stay high; they navigate the wind with alacrity. A kite is only going to achieve this feat by remaining grounded to the string of One carefully steering it through the skies. I didn't know His Love or His Grace before. To get "high", I did everything I could to "ignite" myself. The world tells us to be self starters. I now go higher than ever before and stay there, peaceful and graceful like a colorful kite, grounded and lovingly limited by the grounding power of His Love and Grace. He knows how high we can go at any given moment. He doesn't want self starting rockets, He wants humble and colorful kites.
Philippians 3:16
Only let us live up to what we have already attained.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
The Spindle
I am contending for breakthrough. I am praying for nearly every sick or injured person I see; and praying for more meek boldness (talk about an oxymoron. Welcome to the Kingdom :) ) and wisdom as the Holy Spirit teaches me to minister in this way. Let me start with a verse that has been prophesied over me twice in the past year:
1 John 2:27 NIV
As for you, the anointing you received from Him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as His anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit--just as it has taught you, remain in Him.
And here's the NLT ( I love the NLT. Thank you Laura :) )
But you have received the Holy Spirit, and he lives within you, so you don't need anyone to teach you what is true. For the Spirit teaches you everything you need to know, and what He teaches is true--it is not a lie. So just as he has taught you, remain in fellowship with Christ.
My first Sunday at church in Beijing nearly a year ago, my spiritual mom (I need to write a blog about the beauty of family in Christ :) ), gave me this verse along with other prophecy regarding doors that the Lord was going to open in my life. I was perplexed, though excited, at the time. However, as is often the case, just enough error entered my interpretation of what the verse meant (meant period) and what it would mean to me personally that it became a subconscious justification to fly solo for several months. It gave me an excuse to avoid family and real relationship ( a concept completely foreign to me until four weeks ago and everything leading up to my recent breakthrough). Family and relationship are also the only real places to grow in godliness and Christ-likeness.
I was an orphan, as we all are, before being adopted in to God's family. However, even once we are, we are still maladjusted children who lash out at love, even more violently so at love as perfect as the Father's, because we have been betrayed or neglected in the past and just don't get His love, even when Papa God keeps showering us with gifts and Grace, which He does incessantly.
I was like an orphan, say in his teens, who has just been adopted and really needs some money. Instead of asking my new Dad for it, I grab His wallet when He is "not looking" (so to speak) and take out a twenty. Where as, if I trusted my position and privilege of being His son, I would simply tell Him what I need or want and he would give me even more and help me with the entire process of whatever I was involved in. Up until four weeks ago or so now, this had been my relationship with the Father. He had continuously been pouring out to me His Grace and the desires of my heart and I kept running away from home, breaking windows, stealing money, etc. I was a newly adopted orphan who didn't know how to be in family; even worse, didn't believe that a family would want him, and all the gifts in the world wouldn't be able to change that.
--I saw this orphan attitude today in many of those that came to our Yale Students for Christ BBQ today, holding back on the feast even though we exhorted them to get all they could eat.--
Not fully understanding Grace and the Cross upon becoming a Christian, though constantly walking in it (Grace) and watching Him provide my every need, give me the desires of my heart, etc, at first I was doing my best to prove that I really deserved to be in this family and for a few months, things were pretty good. However, I was setting myself up for a mental breakdown that would last from the end of March of this year through the day where the Cross became real to me 08-23-09 where I wrote quite simply in my journal:
You love me and you are good ( I could say the words but I didn't believe it until that day; no matter how much anyone else or He himself told me, I couldn't get it through my obfuscated little orphan mind into my heart)
I don't need to manipulate people or situations to be happy or get what I need. (This is what I mean by taking His wallet and pulling out a bill when He's "not looking")
Today is the beginning of something new and NOTHING IS LOST (actually everything is gained [he who loses his life will save it, and he who tries to save it will lose it]). No more performing (especially in front of God in prayer for example, and not saying what sounded nice or what I thought He wanted to hear even in terms of repentance (please google The Naked Gospel, free book, and download it :) ). Just human BEING (not doing, or trying, or wishing, but BEING, abiding in Him)
AT THE HEIGHTS, or, perhaps, one could say depths (though with the manic-depressive nature of it; it was both) of my mental break down in June, I encountered a man named Jey-C. Someday I hope to write a book about my five months in hell, because , truly, no matter how bad you think you might have messed up or potentially missed the will of God (first off that's impossible and not true, and that's what really messed up the Puritans), and even when you make mistakes God is still God and continues to take care of you and answer prayer. One day, at the nadir of despair, I cried out on my knees for God to show me JC (that's how I said it). I don't know how He does it; but He does, always. He is faithful everyday of our lives. Later that day, as I am walking around in a stupor in an underground mall, a man comes up to me and asks me for money. I give him 10,000 won (roughly ten US dollars depending on the exchange rate). I start walking away, and then realize I want my 10,000 won back. So I follow the man.
Little break here--please realize how God wastes nothing! NOTHING! not even my miserly heart during that time of despair, to accomplish His will, which is to make us more like Him and to prepare us for Himself.
I follow him long enough and then realize I don't have the heart, and probably more so the guts, to ask for the money back so I join him for dinner.
We begin to speak, and we start talking about how he ended up homeless and it turns out he is schizophrenic and has also gone to seminary. Go figure; more like "God figure". At first I am not taking him seriously, similar to how when I entered the healing room at Bethel church in July I was so cynical going in there and then God knocked me off my feet and delivered me from major oppression I had dealt with my whole life! God is much bigger than my capriciousness! and thank goodness for that!
After the man Jey-C is finished eating, he tells me that God has a verse for me, so attentively, though smugly, I listen, "1 John 2:27," and he recites it from memory. Jey-C gave me other wisdom as well that day. When he recited that John to me though, I began to lose it ( in a good way, for once, during that time of despair). God wasn't done with me yet, and He never will be! God once again, as He was, in visible ways (because I can't begin to imagine all that He is doing for all of us that we can't see and he still sends us what I like to call "love notes") was showing me He loved me, but I still felt like an orphan. Not everything Jey-C told me was from God. Ironically enough that was also part of learning what the verse really meant ("so you don't need anyone to teach you what is true."). With the help of the Holy Spirit we can, as one of my beloved fathers in the faith has taught me, "chew the meat and spit out the bones." Some day I will write in more detail the occurrences of my first year as a Christian and especially during the five months of hell, but not now. During those five months, God constantly sent people to tell me that I was in a season to eat as much as I wanted from the spiritual banquet of lessons and truths and now I am having a restful time digesting and finally applying everything I have learned; not just being a hearer of the Word but a doer of the Word also (James).
With all the healing and growing that has been happening as of late I am beginning to understand this verse more and what Papa has been trying to tell me all along. It is so much easier now that I am simply being rocked in His arms or sitting in His lap, instead of running out the door yelling, locking myself in my room, or indeed washing the dishes or shining his shoes to earn His approval(remember Mary and Martha?), to hear what He is telling me.
I am in three different Bible studies now at Yale and completely engulfed by God's family and I love it! In China, I was in one, and I hardly went because I felt too important with all my other engagements and I was also a flake. I could be going to an evangelism conference tomorrow to "do more" for Him at Brown University, but I have made a promise to be committed to my singing group, so I am sticking around tomorrow to be around for call backs for our new taps. That's covenant, honor and respect (and indeed, love). My God is a God of covenant, who keeps His promises. I am learning that, by fixating my eyes on Him and watching my heart become like His. I have focused on who He is (the perfect Husband of my soul, my most dependable Friend, My GOOD Daddy who is always in a good mood) and I watch the Lord mold me into a godly man day by day. It's not about should, or must, or meant to, or God what's your will for my life!? it's about becoming like Him, plain and simple. Jesus said," Be perfect as my Father in Heaven is perfect." Only by beholding Him. Right now is the right time and where you are right now is the right place. We need to stop thinking we, or our mistakes, are bigger than our God who does not lie.
I am learning to be in family and I really feel like a prince. No longer do I feel like an orphan and now I really see this verse 1 John 2:27 coming alive. Many cool God-things and teachings have been brought to my attention recently that I have actually been learning directly from the Father, by spending tons of quality time with Him. It is such a beautiful confirmation to hear of others receiving the same exact revelations by the ONE and ONLY Spirit of God in whom there is FREEDOM! I now spend hours with Him because I am no longer an orphan who doesn't believe he should even be in the this new amazing family and house with an awesome backyard so shies away from Daddy, but now I can play catch with Him until the sun goes down and then watch the stars together like Simba and Mustafa in the Lion King. During that scene, Mustafa is telling Simba that someday He will be king and will inherit the kingdom and is showing him the past kings in the stars. Just as God told Abraham, our father in the faith, that he would have descendants as numerous as the stars, we are those descendants and we are royalty (check out ibethel.org for more on this kind of teaching, especially their books).
The Lord is also bringing healing to my back, deep and complete healing and healing to others. There is a breakthrough of physical healing on the horizon, which brings me to the closing point of this blog post.
I have realized that the reason that the healing of my back is coming so gradually and with so many steps is for Him to be most glorified and for the largest amount of members of the body possible to be built up and edified. Last Saturday I called Bethel Healing Rooms on Skype to get healing for my back (If you have any, ANY, physical ailment please call them! you have nothing to lose; go to ibethel.org for more :) ) A powerful healing work began, and as my good friend here at Yale, Joshua Williams said yesterday, "we need to chase out the pain." Indeed, each time I pray for it or someone else does the pain goes somewhere new in my back. Though painful, it's kind of funny. It is also teaching me how to pray with authority. In the past week I have seen God heal a hamstring and arthritic pain in others. Thank you Jesus.
Yesterday, I had two of my beautiful brothers pray for my back and one of them got a vision:
It was a cobalt-blue colored spindle, resplendent and gleaming. From the top down thread was being wrapped around it, but it only went so far and then from the bottom came another line of thread and it kept wrapping around until finally it connected and merged. Our God is interactive and He will always meet us more than halfway. Even when we are not seeking Him diligently, His mercies are new every morning, but He is waiting for us to take our thread and wrap it around the spindle diligently even if we don't feel like we have enough thread because He will complete it and make it unbreakable! and that resplendent, cobalt (in this case...I wonder what the blue means...I love mystery :) ), shining spindle with our thread entwined with His will be the thread that mends our lives, our relationships ,our bodies, our communities and even our nations.
So let's not just reap and sow, but also take the thread (our gifts and inheritance) He has so graciously given us and trust in Him to always come through with more thread than we can imagine to sew (pun obviously intended :) ) all the torn places of our lives; all of them, bodies or relationships, cities or nations; everything and everywhere, in the visible and the invisible.
I will leave you with a verse that came to mind...
Luke 5:36
"No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old."
This shows up in two of the four Gospels in slightly different forms, and I have never really understood it. I finally understood the wineskin analogy a few months back though, but this one is still mysterious to me, and has been ever since I first read the Gospels last year. It just came to mind. Send me an email if you have ideas or you just know :). adam.christian.yv@gmail.com
Leave you with a quote by the joy that is Joy Dawson,"God is looking for diligent seekers, not casual inquirers"
Ask and you will receive
Seek and you will find
Knock and it will be opened to you
Don't just come to Dad and ask Him for your allowance, sit in His lap and ask Him to tell you a story .
His son,
Christian
1 John 2:27 NIV
As for you, the anointing you received from Him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as His anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit--just as it has taught you, remain in Him.
And here's the NLT ( I love the NLT. Thank you Laura :) )
But you have received the Holy Spirit, and he lives within you, so you don't need anyone to teach you what is true. For the Spirit teaches you everything you need to know, and what He teaches is true--it is not a lie. So just as he has taught you, remain in fellowship with Christ.
My first Sunday at church in Beijing nearly a year ago, my spiritual mom (I need to write a blog about the beauty of family in Christ :) ), gave me this verse along with other prophecy regarding doors that the Lord was going to open in my life. I was perplexed, though excited, at the time. However, as is often the case, just enough error entered my interpretation of what the verse meant (meant period) and what it would mean to me personally that it became a subconscious justification to fly solo for several months. It gave me an excuse to avoid family and real relationship ( a concept completely foreign to me until four weeks ago and everything leading up to my recent breakthrough). Family and relationship are also the only real places to grow in godliness and Christ-likeness.
I was an orphan, as we all are, before being adopted in to God's family. However, even once we are, we are still maladjusted children who lash out at love, even more violently so at love as perfect as the Father's, because we have been betrayed or neglected in the past and just don't get His love, even when Papa God keeps showering us with gifts and Grace, which He does incessantly.
I was like an orphan, say in his teens, who has just been adopted and really needs some money. Instead of asking my new Dad for it, I grab His wallet when He is "not looking" (so to speak) and take out a twenty. Where as, if I trusted my position and privilege of being His son, I would simply tell Him what I need or want and he would give me even more and help me with the entire process of whatever I was involved in. Up until four weeks ago or so now, this had been my relationship with the Father. He had continuously been pouring out to me His Grace and the desires of my heart and I kept running away from home, breaking windows, stealing money, etc. I was a newly adopted orphan who didn't know how to be in family; even worse, didn't believe that a family would want him, and all the gifts in the world wouldn't be able to change that.
--I saw this orphan attitude today in many of those that came to our Yale Students for Christ BBQ today, holding back on the feast even though we exhorted them to get all they could eat.--
Not fully understanding Grace and the Cross upon becoming a Christian, though constantly walking in it (Grace) and watching Him provide my every need, give me the desires of my heart, etc, at first I was doing my best to prove that I really deserved to be in this family and for a few months, things were pretty good. However, I was setting myself up for a mental breakdown that would last from the end of March of this year through the day where the Cross became real to me 08-23-09 where I wrote quite simply in my journal:
You love me and you are good ( I could say the words but I didn't believe it until that day; no matter how much anyone else or He himself told me, I couldn't get it through my obfuscated little orphan mind into my heart)
I don't need to manipulate people or situations to be happy or get what I need. (This is what I mean by taking His wallet and pulling out a bill when He's "not looking")
Today is the beginning of something new and NOTHING IS LOST (actually everything is gained [he who loses his life will save it, and he who tries to save it will lose it]). No more performing (especially in front of God in prayer for example, and not saying what sounded nice or what I thought He wanted to hear even in terms of repentance (please google The Naked Gospel, free book, and download it :) ). Just human BEING (not doing, or trying, or wishing, but BEING, abiding in Him)
AT THE HEIGHTS, or, perhaps, one could say depths (though with the manic-depressive nature of it; it was both) of my mental break down in June, I encountered a man named Jey-C. Someday I hope to write a book about my five months in hell, because , truly, no matter how bad you think you might have messed up or potentially missed the will of God (first off that's impossible and not true, and that's what really messed up the Puritans), and even when you make mistakes God is still God and continues to take care of you and answer prayer. One day, at the nadir of despair, I cried out on my knees for God to show me JC (that's how I said it). I don't know how He does it; but He does, always. He is faithful everyday of our lives. Later that day, as I am walking around in a stupor in an underground mall, a man comes up to me and asks me for money. I give him 10,000 won (roughly ten US dollars depending on the exchange rate). I start walking away, and then realize I want my 10,000 won back. So I follow the man.
Little break here--please realize how God wastes nothing! NOTHING! not even my miserly heart during that time of despair, to accomplish His will, which is to make us more like Him and to prepare us for Himself.
I follow him long enough and then realize I don't have the heart, and probably more so the guts, to ask for the money back so I join him for dinner.
We begin to speak, and we start talking about how he ended up homeless and it turns out he is schizophrenic and has also gone to seminary. Go figure; more like "God figure". At first I am not taking him seriously, similar to how when I entered the healing room at Bethel church in July I was so cynical going in there and then God knocked me off my feet and delivered me from major oppression I had dealt with my whole life! God is much bigger than my capriciousness! and thank goodness for that!
After the man Jey-C is finished eating, he tells me that God has a verse for me, so attentively, though smugly, I listen, "1 John 2:27," and he recites it from memory. Jey-C gave me other wisdom as well that day. When he recited that John to me though, I began to lose it ( in a good way, for once, during that time of despair). God wasn't done with me yet, and He never will be! God once again, as He was, in visible ways (because I can't begin to imagine all that He is doing for all of us that we can't see and he still sends us what I like to call "love notes") was showing me He loved me, but I still felt like an orphan. Not everything Jey-C told me was from God. Ironically enough that was also part of learning what the verse really meant ("so you don't need anyone to teach you what is true."). With the help of the Holy Spirit we can, as one of my beloved fathers in the faith has taught me, "chew the meat and spit out the bones." Some day I will write in more detail the occurrences of my first year as a Christian and especially during the five months of hell, but not now. During those five months, God constantly sent people to tell me that I was in a season to eat as much as I wanted from the spiritual banquet of lessons and truths and now I am having a restful time digesting and finally applying everything I have learned; not just being a hearer of the Word but a doer of the Word also (James).
With all the healing and growing that has been happening as of late I am beginning to understand this verse more and what Papa has been trying to tell me all along. It is so much easier now that I am simply being rocked in His arms or sitting in His lap, instead of running out the door yelling, locking myself in my room, or indeed washing the dishes or shining his shoes to earn His approval(remember Mary and Martha?), to hear what He is telling me.
I am in three different Bible studies now at Yale and completely engulfed by God's family and I love it! In China, I was in one, and I hardly went because I felt too important with all my other engagements and I was also a flake. I could be going to an evangelism conference tomorrow to "do more" for Him at Brown University, but I have made a promise to be committed to my singing group, so I am sticking around tomorrow to be around for call backs for our new taps. That's covenant, honor and respect (and indeed, love). My God is a God of covenant, who keeps His promises. I am learning that, by fixating my eyes on Him and watching my heart become like His. I have focused on who He is (the perfect Husband of my soul, my most dependable Friend, My GOOD Daddy who is always in a good mood) and I watch the Lord mold me into a godly man day by day. It's not about should, or must, or meant to, or God what's your will for my life!? it's about becoming like Him, plain and simple. Jesus said," Be perfect as my Father in Heaven is perfect." Only by beholding Him. Right now is the right time and where you are right now is the right place. We need to stop thinking we, or our mistakes, are bigger than our God who does not lie.
I am learning to be in family and I really feel like a prince. No longer do I feel like an orphan and now I really see this verse 1 John 2:27 coming alive. Many cool God-things and teachings have been brought to my attention recently that I have actually been learning directly from the Father, by spending tons of quality time with Him. It is such a beautiful confirmation to hear of others receiving the same exact revelations by the ONE and ONLY Spirit of God in whom there is FREEDOM! I now spend hours with Him because I am no longer an orphan who doesn't believe he should even be in the this new amazing family and house with an awesome backyard so shies away from Daddy, but now I can play catch with Him until the sun goes down and then watch the stars together like Simba and Mustafa in the Lion King. During that scene, Mustafa is telling Simba that someday He will be king and will inherit the kingdom and is showing him the past kings in the stars. Just as God told Abraham, our father in the faith, that he would have descendants as numerous as the stars, we are those descendants and we are royalty (check out ibethel.org for more on this kind of teaching, especially their books).
The Lord is also bringing healing to my back, deep and complete healing and healing to others. There is a breakthrough of physical healing on the horizon, which brings me to the closing point of this blog post.
I have realized that the reason that the healing of my back is coming so gradually and with so many steps is for Him to be most glorified and for the largest amount of members of the body possible to be built up and edified. Last Saturday I called Bethel Healing Rooms on Skype to get healing for my back (If you have any, ANY, physical ailment please call them! you have nothing to lose; go to ibethel.org for more :) ) A powerful healing work began, and as my good friend here at Yale, Joshua Williams said yesterday, "we need to chase out the pain." Indeed, each time I pray for it or someone else does the pain goes somewhere new in my back. Though painful, it's kind of funny. It is also teaching me how to pray with authority. In the past week I have seen God heal a hamstring and arthritic pain in others. Thank you Jesus.
Yesterday, I had two of my beautiful brothers pray for my back and one of them got a vision:
It was a cobalt-blue colored spindle, resplendent and gleaming. From the top down thread was being wrapped around it, but it only went so far and then from the bottom came another line of thread and it kept wrapping around until finally it connected and merged. Our God is interactive and He will always meet us more than halfway. Even when we are not seeking Him diligently, His mercies are new every morning, but He is waiting for us to take our thread and wrap it around the spindle diligently even if we don't feel like we have enough thread because He will complete it and make it unbreakable! and that resplendent, cobalt (in this case...I wonder what the blue means...I love mystery :) ), shining spindle with our thread entwined with His will be the thread that mends our lives, our relationships ,our bodies, our communities and even our nations.
So let's not just reap and sow, but also take the thread (our gifts and inheritance) He has so graciously given us and trust in Him to always come through with more thread than we can imagine to sew (pun obviously intended :) ) all the torn places of our lives; all of them, bodies or relationships, cities or nations; everything and everywhere, in the visible and the invisible.
I will leave you with a verse that came to mind...
Luke 5:36
"No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old."
This shows up in two of the four Gospels in slightly different forms, and I have never really understood it. I finally understood the wineskin analogy a few months back though, but this one is still mysterious to me, and has been ever since I first read the Gospels last year. It just came to mind. Send me an email if you have ideas or you just know :). adam.christian.yv@gmail.com
Leave you with a quote by the joy that is Joy Dawson,"God is looking for diligent seekers, not casual inquirers"
Ask and you will receive
Seek and you will find
Knock and it will be opened to you
Don't just come to Dad and ask Him for your allowance, sit in His lap and ask Him to tell you a story .
His son,
Christian
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Binbo Yusuri
This is the Japanese word for something that has ailed me my entire life--the shaking of the leg. That subconscious anxiety that manages to get my legs to bounce up and down and drive those who know and love me, and I am sure those who don't as well (they simply don't tell me) CRAZY! In Japan the story goes, that if you have binbo yusuri you will become poor (binbo means poor).
I now hardly if ever shake my leg. I have been filled with such a peace and rest. Recently, a good friend called out some areas of healing in my life where it is quite obvious that I strive; the way I speak and express myself, constantly going on tangents and parading every quote I have ever heard that are somehow stored in my brain.
I have been praying one of the name's of the Lord a lot lately. Jehovah Shalom. I have been focusing solely on His Shalom (on His peace, His wholeness, His completeness and harmony among many other things that the Hebrew shalom can be translated into) and I have seen it manifest in my life. I have never been so restful and at peace. No more trying to get the next word in. Well, sometimes, but I am so quick to repent (turn from it, not so much start apologizing to God) and then learn from the mistake and keep focusing on His Shalom.
I love being able to be more self-critical of myself than I have ever been in my life but without beating myself up. The growth everyday is phenomenal. No longer do I focus on my deficiency but on His complete sufficiency. The best decision I have ever made: to let God be God and to behold Him always.
Today at my Wednesday night community group, in usual fashion I began by expounding all I knew about the subject and then the Holy Spirit gently said to me, " You don't need to or have to say anything." What freedom. I sat there for the rest of the night, completely in love with my brothers and sisters as I prayed for them under my breath. Papa is teaching me how to be a voice and not an echo, as a dear man who God has used in my life once prophesied over me, and for now Papa is saying, "Stop trying to prove you love me by how much you know and how eloquent you are and just love them."
Papa is leading every step of my life right now and I wouldn't have it any other way. He is leading my music. Check out a new recording at www.myspace.com/adamyv and he is leading other things as well. He has told me to start taking Turkish so I will start tomorrow and studying has become an act of worship and He is blessing my language abilities beyond what I could have imagined; and all I do is rest in Him and only jump when he says jump. I don't get it perfect every time, but He is so much bigger than that and He doesn't want me wasting time on that.
He knows every raindrop that falls on my forehead...
His son,
Christian
I now hardly if ever shake my leg. I have been filled with such a peace and rest. Recently, a good friend called out some areas of healing in my life where it is quite obvious that I strive; the way I speak and express myself, constantly going on tangents and parading every quote I have ever heard that are somehow stored in my brain.
I have been praying one of the name's of the Lord a lot lately. Jehovah Shalom. I have been focusing solely on His Shalom (on His peace, His wholeness, His completeness and harmony among many other things that the Hebrew shalom can be translated into) and I have seen it manifest in my life. I have never been so restful and at peace. No more trying to get the next word in. Well, sometimes, but I am so quick to repent (turn from it, not so much start apologizing to God) and then learn from the mistake and keep focusing on His Shalom.
I love being able to be more self-critical of myself than I have ever been in my life but without beating myself up. The growth everyday is phenomenal. No longer do I focus on my deficiency but on His complete sufficiency. The best decision I have ever made: to let God be God and to behold Him always.
Today at my Wednesday night community group, in usual fashion I began by expounding all I knew about the subject and then the Holy Spirit gently said to me, " You don't need to or have to say anything." What freedom. I sat there for the rest of the night, completely in love with my brothers and sisters as I prayed for them under my breath. Papa is teaching me how to be a voice and not an echo, as a dear man who God has used in my life once prophesied over me, and for now Papa is saying, "Stop trying to prove you love me by how much you know and how eloquent you are and just love them."
Papa is leading every step of my life right now and I wouldn't have it any other way. He is leading my music. Check out a new recording at www.myspace.com/adamyv and he is leading other things as well. He has told me to start taking Turkish so I will start tomorrow and studying has become an act of worship and He is blessing my language abilities beyond what I could have imagined; and all I do is rest in Him and only jump when he says jump. I don't get it perfect every time, but He is so much bigger than that and He doesn't want me wasting time on that.
He knows every raindrop that falls on my forehead...
His son,
Christian
Friday, September 11, 2009
Healing
I love metaphors and so does God. One of my favorite parts of scripture is the book of James and his metaphors about the tongue. James was one of the first book of the Bible I read and it really fired me up as a newly adopted son of God. However, it is not a book to approach if you still feel like an orphan. Without the cross in plain sight, the book of James can paralyze a Christian earnestly seeking to love and serve God.
A book I was once enamored with became shrouded with an ominous cloud of condemnation and disappoint. Obvious lies; but indeed, Satan is the father of lies. I didn't understand the cross.
Everyone who came to Jesus in the Gospels was healed. Jesus came not only to get us a ticket into heaven. That is not what "saved" means. The Koine Greek word for saved in the New Testament is sozo, which means save, delivered, and healed. Jesus came to save the whole person and to make them whole. Eternity starts now. We can bring heaven to earth now through healed hearts, if we allow ourselves to truly behold the cross.
My Wednesday night small group is doing the book of James this semester. Approaching this book with the cross finally in view allows me to read verses that condemn those with tongue-control issues of false religion. I struggle with my tongue, but the Lord is healing me one day at time. This book convicts as it should, and thanks to the cross anything's ( and I mean absolutely anything) ability to condemn is completely incinerated. I am ecstatic, to say the least, to learn from the man who grew up with our older brother Jesus.
In my Tuesday night Bible Study, Papa God, has so instrumentally placed others with similar hurts and brokenness so that His healing will come so that I may be set completely free to soar like the eagle I was created to be. Day by day, the black hole in my heart is diminishing. Only and infinite God can do this. Pascal knew this. Happiness is an inside job; it really is. No matter what is happening outside...inside, as the Bible tells, we can and should rejoice always and be filled with peace.
It is all about being like the ant. One day at a time. The ant takes one grain of earth at a time, and ultimately has a colony. I must remind myself everyday, one day at a time. One day at a time. Worry leads to indolence, and indolence leads to despair. We were not made to be self appointed doomsday soothsayers of our won future. We must only focus on Him today and what He is doing today. And as the ant does not work alone, we have our family in Christ to help orient us if we become anxious about what we cannot see, not to mention our Daddy God who is full control of this contraption we call life and all He wants us to do is focus on the lesson of the day. We must stop jumping ahead.
A black hole is being filled and a pendulum is being placated, by one who is infinite and all powerful. My heart, my mind, body and soul are being healed one day at a time. At Bethel church this past July it was prophesied over me that the healing of my back would come through the healing of my mind. The kingdom is right in front of us; we must let Him heal our minds.
A new friend I have made who is already very dear to me told me today about how God healed his back for a few days. We had a beautiful conversation today and are excited to keep going to God in prayer as the widow did to the evil judge in the Gospels for full healing for his back. How much more will a good God answer if we are diligent. If we ask, we shall receive. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock and it will be opened. Please find Charles Spurgeon's book on prayer.
When I told him about my prophecy, he told me about his experience and, first off, the confusion and condemnation he felt when the pain returned. He wondered what He had done wrong. Then he became angry. However, today as we spent much of the day together, and we gushed about His goodness we both realized how much more important the healing of our minds and hearts are and we prayed for healing for of our backs; something we will contend for until our good God delivers. Prayer prompts God and it transforms us. It is a multipurpose tool of the divine nature into which we have become partakers. I am going to ask! I am going to seek! and I am going to knock! until I receive, find, and until it is opened to me. And when the breakthrough comes, I will give it freely as I received it freely! I am determined to watch healing come, not only in my own life, but in all of those around me. We grinned today, wide-eyed, as we remembered Jacob and at the same time said in our prayer, "I will not let you go, until you bless me!" and our Papa God loves to wrestle with us...He is such a good Daddy.
Climb into His lap :)
A. Christian
A book I was once enamored with became shrouded with an ominous cloud of condemnation and disappoint. Obvious lies; but indeed, Satan is the father of lies. I didn't understand the cross.
Everyone who came to Jesus in the Gospels was healed. Jesus came not only to get us a ticket into heaven. That is not what "saved" means. The Koine Greek word for saved in the New Testament is sozo, which means save, delivered, and healed. Jesus came to save the whole person and to make them whole. Eternity starts now. We can bring heaven to earth now through healed hearts, if we allow ourselves to truly behold the cross.
My Wednesday night small group is doing the book of James this semester. Approaching this book with the cross finally in view allows me to read verses that condemn those with tongue-control issues of false religion. I struggle with my tongue, but the Lord is healing me one day at time. This book convicts as it should, and thanks to the cross anything's ( and I mean absolutely anything) ability to condemn is completely incinerated. I am ecstatic, to say the least, to learn from the man who grew up with our older brother Jesus.
In my Tuesday night Bible Study, Papa God, has so instrumentally placed others with similar hurts and brokenness so that His healing will come so that I may be set completely free to soar like the eagle I was created to be. Day by day, the black hole in my heart is diminishing. Only and infinite God can do this. Pascal knew this. Happiness is an inside job; it really is. No matter what is happening outside...inside, as the Bible tells, we can and should rejoice always and be filled with peace.
It is all about being like the ant. One day at a time. The ant takes one grain of earth at a time, and ultimately has a colony. I must remind myself everyday, one day at a time. One day at a time. Worry leads to indolence, and indolence leads to despair. We were not made to be self appointed doomsday soothsayers of our won future. We must only focus on Him today and what He is doing today. And as the ant does not work alone, we have our family in Christ to help orient us if we become anxious about what we cannot see, not to mention our Daddy God who is full control of this contraption we call life and all He wants us to do is focus on the lesson of the day. We must stop jumping ahead.
A black hole is being filled and a pendulum is being placated, by one who is infinite and all powerful. My heart, my mind, body and soul are being healed one day at a time. At Bethel church this past July it was prophesied over me that the healing of my back would come through the healing of my mind. The kingdom is right in front of us; we must let Him heal our minds.
A new friend I have made who is already very dear to me told me today about how God healed his back for a few days. We had a beautiful conversation today and are excited to keep going to God in prayer as the widow did to the evil judge in the Gospels for full healing for his back. How much more will a good God answer if we are diligent. If we ask, we shall receive. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock and it will be opened. Please find Charles Spurgeon's book on prayer.
When I told him about my prophecy, he told me about his experience and, first off, the confusion and condemnation he felt when the pain returned. He wondered what He had done wrong. Then he became angry. However, today as we spent much of the day together, and we gushed about His goodness we both realized how much more important the healing of our minds and hearts are and we prayed for healing for of our backs; something we will contend for until our good God delivers. Prayer prompts God and it transforms us. It is a multipurpose tool of the divine nature into which we have become partakers. I am going to ask! I am going to seek! and I am going to knock! until I receive, find, and until it is opened to me. And when the breakthrough comes, I will give it freely as I received it freely! I am determined to watch healing come, not only in my own life, but in all of those around me. We grinned today, wide-eyed, as we remembered Jacob and at the same time said in our prayer, "I will not let you go, until you bless me!" and our Papa God loves to wrestle with us...He is such a good Daddy.
Climb into His lap :)
A. Christian
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Josh's Bible Study
I have been back at Yale for nearly two weeks now. Two weeks also marks the time
since a significant spiritual breakthrough in my life.
The first week back was marked with a new outpouring of the Spirit unlike
anything I have experienced before; and it has come through the gradual
renewing of my mind.
However, these past few days have been quite difficult as the pressures of Yale
begin to mount. The beginning of a Yale semester is especially challenging due
to what Yale calls shopping period, where for about a period of two weeks you
can try out any class offered of the hundreds offered at Yale every semester.
It is a crazy time to say the least; like a kid in a candy store, but we all
know what happens when a kid eats too much candy.
The first week back at Yale I was getting so much time with Papa God. I was
rising early and praying and looking at the Word in a new way; not focusing on
the breadth of what I read but on the depth. I revisited chapters and certain
Psalms over and over again to really meditate on them for a span of a few days.
As soon as I arrived from Morocco to Yale, the Lord by His providence and Grace
connected me with a couple of exceptional young lovers of God who are in the
Christian a capella group I sang with my freshman year, Living Water (check out
the site www.yale.edu/lh20) and who I have now decided to sing with for my
remaining time here at Yale.
The trip from Morocco to Yale was long and grueling and filled with a moment to
moment dependence on the Lord that I am learning to operate in more and more.
For quite some time I have been quite torn about where God would want me this
academic year, finagling every way I could to stay on the fence; and once Yale
looked pretty much decided, finagling some more to get back to China. It was a
trust issue. I have been through an intense time of eighty days of wilderness
from which I am finally emerging. I believe perhaps half of the wilderness was
specifically appointed by God, and furthermore it is quite possible that the
latter forty days were a product of my own stubbornness, leading me to stay
there; even though the Shepherd was gently asking me to come out with Him.
He is good. He really does leave the ninety-nine to go get the one stubborn one
such as myself, even if He has to break its leg and then carry Him the rest of
the way so that it can learn to trust Him. This is how the shepherds used to do
it in ancient Israel.
Coming back to Yale was a scary decision, but the breakthrough brought me to the
end of myself and I finally surrendered everything to God; absolutely
everything. Every aspect of my future. All of my past and regrets. My laptop
and all that was on it was stolen this summer and many more items that I used
to find comfort in; and I am happier than ever. Funny how that works isn't it.
He loses His life will gain it, and he who tries to save His life will lose it.
Also, I have painfully learned, he who exalts himself will be humbled and he who
humbles himself will be exalted. When the Lord graciously invites you to His
party, don't take the front row seat; chances are He will ask you to step down
and it's never fun. Instead take the lowest, humblest seat and He, in His
kindness and love, will ask you to move up.
Anyway, I have been learning to repent for believing in lies and then replacing
it with truth. One example is repenting of thinking that the NKJ (New King
James) Version of the Bible is somehow superior to other versions of the Bible.
This simply is not true. I repented of this on the airplane ride over to New
York on my way to Yale and had to cover my face with the blanket on the plane
to spare people my tear-drenched grimaces. I had arrogantly read the NKJV for
the past year often being unclear in many areas due to an agreement I made many
years ago before I was a Christian simply because of the religious environment I
was raised in. In a word: baggage. I have begun to repent for so much baggage
that I have brought in to my relationship with my Papa God. (You Tube "who
turned off my brain" and watch Dr. Caroline Leaf explain the science behind
renewing the mind, repentance, forgiveness, and healing; it will set you free
of so many misconceptions and give you a concrete idea of what the above
concepts look like physiologically)
On a more severe note. I have repented of believing that I am a bad student, a
lie that originated in my childhood with my earthly father telling me often
times that I wasn't very bright. I have also forgiven him and replaced it with
truth and already seen the Lord's supernatural work in making me a better
student as God made me to be and as was prophesied of me at Bethel church in
Redding, California this last July (please check out their website and their
podcasts (they will change your life): www.ibethel.org)
These are but a couple of examples. I have learned to stop believing the lie
also that somehow I am big enough to mess up God's plan. My wilderness time
came predominantly from believing that somehow I had missed the boat called
"the God life intended for you". That was the breakthrough and I repented for
judging God and basically calling Him a liar when He tells me that all things
work together for good for those who love Him. As a friend taught me today I
was a "me always ever" person; a person who believes everything is their fault.
Then there are the "not me always never" people who just simply wash their hands
of everything. I have come to this conclusion: I have 100% free will and God is
100% (I will even go as far as to say 110% or infinitely more) in control and
knows all things. Don't ask me to spell it out. It is just what I have learned,
now by experience, not just as my theology. However, not just that, but that God
is a good God and that His Grace is truly amazing. He is in a good mood all the
time! And He loves us so much!
Today really brought that home for me. There is no such things as supposed to or
meant to be with God, at least not in our terms. We are meant to simply BE. BE
PRESENT in His presence all the time. Seek first His kingdom and all these
things will be added to you, Jesus said. Regrets are a waste of time and so is
worrying about the future. Release, repent, forgive, and surrender! Please
people, and begin to experience life abundant in Him.
Today I was getting to the end of myself again, straying again into the "what am
I supposed to do with my life" and here is the one that kills me "for God" rut.
Getting overwhelmed by all the options and potential "futures" that actually
don't exist outside of our minds. As C.S. Lewis puts is in his book the Screw
Tape Letters, the enemy loves to get us to think and pray about things that
don't even exist. Moment to moment worship and dependence is the key and that
is what Satan really hates.
I couldn't handle it anymore so I stepped out of a science course I was shopping
and walked back to my dorm and recognized a student who had given his testimony
over the weekend and I came up to him and just bluntly asked him if he could
pray for me.
There are two parts of the Bible I would love to allude to for a moment: Samuel
10 and a verse at the beginning of 2 Corinthians.
Samuel 10 is about, essentially, this scavenger hunt that the Lord sends the
newly anointed King Saul on and at the end of the personally tailored journey,
Saul receives a new heart.
Then, the verse in 2 Corinthians talks about how we are wasting away on the
outside but being renewed constantly on the inside and another great part of
this part of scripture is how the Lord has given us His Spirit as a deposit of
whats to come (2 Cor 5:5)
I have two major changes in my heart, renewals, that have occurred
simultaneously as I have been wasting away on the outside. I can enjoy talented
musicians and I am blessed by anyone who prays for me. First off, comparison,
pride,envy and low self-esteem kept me from being able to enjoy good music,
especially live, especially when it was people I knew personally and with the
latter issue on prayer I was simply a spiritual snob. Just a couple of examples
and I Praise Him for the work He is doing in my heart. Another work He is doing
in my heart that I will elaborate on more on some later occasion is being 100%
honest 100% of the time (no more white lies or exaggeration, etc.). More on
this in a future blog I hope.
So back to the story. I pray with this amazing guy name Zach(ck?) and just let
it all out. It is amazing how helpful it is at times to pray with others. He
then pointed me to Josh's Bible Study, a guy who I have gotten to know some
over the past couple of weeks who attends Yale Divinity School. So at 7:30
today I go over to Ezra Stiles college and am heavily burdened but leave
everything aside and just go.
This is very similar to how the Lord, as I arrived at the Yale campus at around
midnight August 26th, orchestrated my meeting with Kevin and Alice, the lovely
a capella singers and my dear friend, which led me to go to the Yale Students
for Christ retreat which was exactly what I needed right after the wilderness;
and during the retreat the Lord performed powerful healing work in my heart and
even played me music as He has in times past (maybe more on this later, I will
be taking a course on Christian mysticism this term so am I excited to explore
ecstasy in the Lord more deeply (ecstasy means to stand outside yourself=
ec-stasis)).
As I am walking more and more closely to Him and leaving all my regrets and
worries aside and learning to rejoice in Him always, though sometimes
concomitantly sorrowful as Paul speaks of, I am realizing that as soon as we
open our eyes to the cross and His Grace, His magic happens.
This Bible study tonite really sealed it for me. It is exactly what I had asked
God for; a group of people who at any cost wanted to see the Spirit of God
move. Tonite's Bible study was only supposed to be a couple of hours long and
it turned into over five hours of prayer, worship, visions, prophecy,
spontaneous teaching, prophetic drawing and just whatever the Spirit wanted to
do. I am so thankful to be at Yale right now in the midst of a revival where
the Spirit of God is dispelling darkness, disease and disbelief.
And God knit it all together; everyone there had a purpose and through this
group we are aiming to discover who God has made us to be (not just career wise
or all those petty worldly terms, but who we ARE, just as He is I AM, He wants
us to know who we ARE to walk in our royal authority every moment). Thank you
Jesus. Just one example I will share, because I am sure that as the year
unfolds I will understand that this past year of difficulty and many follies
such as spiritual pride, complacency, stubbornness, judgment, among other
things, God used to bring me to a place to be a worker here at Yale and also to
finally accept His precious healing before He fully sends me out. I would love
to write a post some time called " The Prodigal Pharisee" because that is what
I was.
One little example and then I will sign off for now. The testimony that is
accumulating here at Yale and the prophetic words would take me all day to
write, so just this one little example; this really drove it home, not to say
that everything that has happened in the past two weeks, from Papa providing a
laptop, giving me prophetic dreams, and so much more wasn't enough, but that's
the thing; He has infinite store houses and as long as we start understanding
that we are princes and princesses will we truly be able to freely ask and
receive and then freely give as we freely receive.
I have been preaching the Gospel like a crazy fiend here on this campus and it
has been from a place unlike I have never know before. He who is forgiven much
loves much. I am determined to pour out my life for Jesus and His Gospel as
that woman did as she broke that alabaster container of perfume on Jesus' feet,
of such worth, a years wages, that it could have been a dowry to remarry and get
out of the social level of prostitute; but she poured it out on Jesus' feet. The
Pharisee didn't even kiss Jesus or put oil on His head, because He didn't think
He needed to be forgiven. Read the story in the Gospel of John Chp 12. He who
realizes how much he or she has been forgiven loves much. We are all sinners
that is why Jesus said that even if you look lustfully upon a woman you have
already committed adultery with her in your heart and if you are angry at your
brother you have committed murder. We are all capable of atrocious things.
Think about it.
To the story. I have been witnessing up and down. I even got to share my
testimony with the Master of my college and He was very intrigued, surprisingly
since at Yale Christians aren't considered the smartest people on campus to say
the least ( he was especially interested in contemplative prayer) and I have
even been able to offer prophetic words to unbelievers that resonate with their
lives and leave them with a feeling of awe that something more than eloquent
speech is at work here, giving the the Gospel that extra umph, that love
encounter with the all knowing and all powerful God.
About a week ago I was catching up with a friend from freshman year and
ultimately as is usually the case all my conversations end with Jesus, as Paul
exhorts us to have all of our conversation be becoming of Christ. So I shared
the Gospel with him in a way I had never shared before and long story short at
the end of the conversation He was in tears and He kept telling me that He
could see that this was real love but that he wouldn't call it Jesus and that
that was just what I called it and then a spirit of boldness came over me and I
just kept repeating to Him, "A man named Jesus who is God came and became man to
understand everything you go through and to die for you." Maybe three times I
repeated it and then I held him in my arms and prayed for Him and told Him all
I perceived God wanted me to tell him and He was bawling. He had a love
encounter with our Lord Jesus. Lets drop the apologetics people, you do not
need to apologize for the truth.
The beauty of truly understanding His Grace is that you start stepping out in
faith and you are no longer afraid to make mistakes and through the humility
that He grows in us we are able to learn from the mistakes and become more and
more like Him. That is the beauty of living in an atmosphere of Grace. Peter
walked on water and then sunk but Jesus caught him. Jesus will always catch us.
As a new friend taught me today, "Plead Jesus!". You are completely justified
before God. If the enemy tries to come in and condemn, read Him your rights and
Plead Jesus!!
What blew me away today was that almost everything I shared at the Bible study
was connected to other people there. One girl who was really struggling in
understanding God's will, when she heard about my friend, had to bud in and
mention how she had been praying for the guy I shared with all summer long and we all rejoiced at
how the Lord uses the entire body to bring in the harvest and especially when we
do only what we see the Father doing; and the harvest is unspeakable!
I leave this blog with this. A revival is coming to this planet. A massive
revival and part of that is about to explode here in the North East and
especially here at Yale. When I came in as a freshman and I wasn't a Christian
the atmosphere was completely different. The bowl of intercession is about to
spill over and revival is going to hit this place. The freshman class is rife
with strong Christians and people are coming to know the Lord left and right.
Years of prayer and intercession, and now the harvest is ready and the workers
are here and we are operating under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and in an
atmosphere of Grace! Thank you Lord Jesus! and brace yourselves!!
Love and Peace and Joy everlasting
Christian
since a significant spiritual breakthrough in my life.
The first week back was marked with a new outpouring of the Spirit unlike
anything I have experienced before; and it has come through the gradual
renewing of my mind.
However, these past few days have been quite difficult as the pressures of Yale
begin to mount. The beginning of a Yale semester is especially challenging due
to what Yale calls shopping period, where for about a period of two weeks you
can try out any class offered of the hundreds offered at Yale every semester.
It is a crazy time to say the least; like a kid in a candy store, but we all
know what happens when a kid eats too much candy.
The first week back at Yale I was getting so much time with Papa God. I was
rising early and praying and looking at the Word in a new way; not focusing on
the breadth of what I read but on the depth. I revisited chapters and certain
Psalms over and over again to really meditate on them for a span of a few days.
As soon as I arrived from Morocco to Yale, the Lord by His providence and Grace
connected me with a couple of exceptional young lovers of God who are in the
Christian a capella group I sang with my freshman year, Living Water (check out
the site www.yale.edu/lh20) and who I have now decided to sing with for my
remaining time here at Yale.
The trip from Morocco to Yale was long and grueling and filled with a moment to
moment dependence on the Lord that I am learning to operate in more and more.
For quite some time I have been quite torn about where God would want me this
academic year, finagling every way I could to stay on the fence; and once Yale
looked pretty much decided, finagling some more to get back to China. It was a
trust issue. I have been through an intense time of eighty days of wilderness
from which I am finally emerging. I believe perhaps half of the wilderness was
specifically appointed by God, and furthermore it is quite possible that the
latter forty days were a product of my own stubbornness, leading me to stay
there; even though the Shepherd was gently asking me to come out with Him.
He is good. He really does leave the ninety-nine to go get the one stubborn one
such as myself, even if He has to break its leg and then carry Him the rest of
the way so that it can learn to trust Him. This is how the shepherds used to do
it in ancient Israel.
Coming back to Yale was a scary decision, but the breakthrough brought me to the
end of myself and I finally surrendered everything to God; absolutely
everything. Every aspect of my future. All of my past and regrets. My laptop
and all that was on it was stolen this summer and many more items that I used
to find comfort in; and I am happier than ever. Funny how that works isn't it.
He loses His life will gain it, and he who tries to save His life will lose it.
Also, I have painfully learned, he who exalts himself will be humbled and he who
humbles himself will be exalted. When the Lord graciously invites you to His
party, don't take the front row seat; chances are He will ask you to step down
and it's never fun. Instead take the lowest, humblest seat and He, in His
kindness and love, will ask you to move up.
Anyway, I have been learning to repent for believing in lies and then replacing
it with truth. One example is repenting of thinking that the NKJ (New King
James) Version of the Bible is somehow superior to other versions of the Bible.
This simply is not true. I repented of this on the airplane ride over to New
York on my way to Yale and had to cover my face with the blanket on the plane
to spare people my tear-drenched grimaces. I had arrogantly read the NKJV for
the past year often being unclear in many areas due to an agreement I made many
years ago before I was a Christian simply because of the religious environment I
was raised in. In a word: baggage. I have begun to repent for so much baggage
that I have brought in to my relationship with my Papa God. (You Tube "who
turned off my brain" and watch Dr. Caroline Leaf explain the science behind
renewing the mind, repentance, forgiveness, and healing; it will set you free
of so many misconceptions and give you a concrete idea of what the above
concepts look like physiologically)
On a more severe note. I have repented of believing that I am a bad student, a
lie that originated in my childhood with my earthly father telling me often
times that I wasn't very bright. I have also forgiven him and replaced it with
truth and already seen the Lord's supernatural work in making me a better
student as God made me to be and as was prophesied of me at Bethel church in
Redding, California this last July (please check out their website and their
podcasts (they will change your life): www.ibethel.org)
These are but a couple of examples. I have learned to stop believing the lie
also that somehow I am big enough to mess up God's plan. My wilderness time
came predominantly from believing that somehow I had missed the boat called
"the God life intended for you". That was the breakthrough and I repented for
judging God and basically calling Him a liar when He tells me that all things
work together for good for those who love Him. As a friend taught me today I
was a "me always ever" person; a person who believes everything is their fault.
Then there are the "not me always never" people who just simply wash their hands
of everything. I have come to this conclusion: I have 100% free will and God is
100% (I will even go as far as to say 110% or infinitely more) in control and
knows all things. Don't ask me to spell it out. It is just what I have learned,
now by experience, not just as my theology. However, not just that, but that God
is a good God and that His Grace is truly amazing. He is in a good mood all the
time! And He loves us so much!
Today really brought that home for me. There is no such things as supposed to or
meant to be with God, at least not in our terms. We are meant to simply BE. BE
PRESENT in His presence all the time. Seek first His kingdom and all these
things will be added to you, Jesus said. Regrets are a waste of time and so is
worrying about the future. Release, repent, forgive, and surrender! Please
people, and begin to experience life abundant in Him.
Today I was getting to the end of myself again, straying again into the "what am
I supposed to do with my life" and here is the one that kills me "for God" rut.
Getting overwhelmed by all the options and potential "futures" that actually
don't exist outside of our minds. As C.S. Lewis puts is in his book the Screw
Tape Letters, the enemy loves to get us to think and pray about things that
don't even exist. Moment to moment worship and dependence is the key and that
is what Satan really hates.
I couldn't handle it anymore so I stepped out of a science course I was shopping
and walked back to my dorm and recognized a student who had given his testimony
over the weekend and I came up to him and just bluntly asked him if he could
pray for me.
There are two parts of the Bible I would love to allude to for a moment: Samuel
10 and a verse at the beginning of 2 Corinthians.
Samuel 10 is about, essentially, this scavenger hunt that the Lord sends the
newly anointed King Saul on and at the end of the personally tailored journey,
Saul receives a new heart.
Then, the verse in 2 Corinthians talks about how we are wasting away on the
outside but being renewed constantly on the inside and another great part of
this part of scripture is how the Lord has given us His Spirit as a deposit of
whats to come (2 Cor 5:5)
I have two major changes in my heart, renewals, that have occurred
simultaneously as I have been wasting away on the outside. I can enjoy talented
musicians and I am blessed by anyone who prays for me. First off, comparison,
pride,envy and low self-esteem kept me from being able to enjoy good music,
especially live, especially when it was people I knew personally and with the
latter issue on prayer I was simply a spiritual snob. Just a couple of examples
and I Praise Him for the work He is doing in my heart. Another work He is doing
in my heart that I will elaborate on more on some later occasion is being 100%
honest 100% of the time (no more white lies or exaggeration, etc.). More on
this in a future blog I hope.
So back to the story. I pray with this amazing guy name Zach(ck?) and just let
it all out. It is amazing how helpful it is at times to pray with others. He
then pointed me to Josh's Bible Study, a guy who I have gotten to know some
over the past couple of weeks who attends Yale Divinity School. So at 7:30
today I go over to Ezra Stiles college and am heavily burdened but leave
everything aside and just go.
This is very similar to how the Lord, as I arrived at the Yale campus at around
midnight August 26th, orchestrated my meeting with Kevin and Alice, the lovely
a capella singers and my dear friend, which led me to go to the Yale Students
for Christ retreat which was exactly what I needed right after the wilderness;
and during the retreat the Lord performed powerful healing work in my heart and
even played me music as He has in times past (maybe more on this later, I will
be taking a course on Christian mysticism this term so am I excited to explore
ecstasy in the Lord more deeply (ecstasy means to stand outside yourself=
ec-stasis)).
As I am walking more and more closely to Him and leaving all my regrets and
worries aside and learning to rejoice in Him always, though sometimes
concomitantly sorrowful as Paul speaks of, I am realizing that as soon as we
open our eyes to the cross and His Grace, His magic happens.
This Bible study tonite really sealed it for me. It is exactly what I had asked
God for; a group of people who at any cost wanted to see the Spirit of God
move. Tonite's Bible study was only supposed to be a couple of hours long and
it turned into over five hours of prayer, worship, visions, prophecy,
spontaneous teaching, prophetic drawing and just whatever the Spirit wanted to
do. I am so thankful to be at Yale right now in the midst of a revival where
the Spirit of God is dispelling darkness, disease and disbelief.
And God knit it all together; everyone there had a purpose and through this
group we are aiming to discover who God has made us to be (not just career wise
or all those petty worldly terms, but who we ARE, just as He is I AM, He wants
us to know who we ARE to walk in our royal authority every moment). Thank you
Jesus. Just one example I will share, because I am sure that as the year
unfolds I will understand that this past year of difficulty and many follies
such as spiritual pride, complacency, stubbornness, judgment, among other
things, God used to bring me to a place to be a worker here at Yale and also to
finally accept His precious healing before He fully sends me out. I would love
to write a post some time called " The Prodigal Pharisee" because that is what
I was.
One little example and then I will sign off for now. The testimony that is
accumulating here at Yale and the prophetic words would take me all day to
write, so just this one little example; this really drove it home, not to say
that everything that has happened in the past two weeks, from Papa providing a
laptop, giving me prophetic dreams, and so much more wasn't enough, but that's
the thing; He has infinite store houses and as long as we start understanding
that we are princes and princesses will we truly be able to freely ask and
receive and then freely give as we freely receive.
I have been preaching the Gospel like a crazy fiend here on this campus and it
has been from a place unlike I have never know before. He who is forgiven much
loves much. I am determined to pour out my life for Jesus and His Gospel as
that woman did as she broke that alabaster container of perfume on Jesus' feet,
of such worth, a years wages, that it could have been a dowry to remarry and get
out of the social level of prostitute; but she poured it out on Jesus' feet. The
Pharisee didn't even kiss Jesus or put oil on His head, because He didn't think
He needed to be forgiven. Read the story in the Gospel of John Chp 12. He who
realizes how much he or she has been forgiven loves much. We are all sinners
that is why Jesus said that even if you look lustfully upon a woman you have
already committed adultery with her in your heart and if you are angry at your
brother you have committed murder. We are all capable of atrocious things.
Think about it.
To the story. I have been witnessing up and down. I even got to share my
testimony with the Master of my college and He was very intrigued, surprisingly
since at Yale Christians aren't considered the smartest people on campus to say
the least ( he was especially interested in contemplative prayer) and I have
even been able to offer prophetic words to unbelievers that resonate with their
lives and leave them with a feeling of awe that something more than eloquent
speech is at work here, giving the the Gospel that extra umph, that love
encounter with the all knowing and all powerful God.
About a week ago I was catching up with a friend from freshman year and
ultimately as is usually the case all my conversations end with Jesus, as Paul
exhorts us to have all of our conversation be becoming of Christ. So I shared
the Gospel with him in a way I had never shared before and long story short at
the end of the conversation He was in tears and He kept telling me that He
could see that this was real love but that he wouldn't call it Jesus and that
that was just what I called it and then a spirit of boldness came over me and I
just kept repeating to Him, "A man named Jesus who is God came and became man to
understand everything you go through and to die for you." Maybe three times I
repeated it and then I held him in my arms and prayed for Him and told Him all
I perceived God wanted me to tell him and He was bawling. He had a love
encounter with our Lord Jesus. Lets drop the apologetics people, you do not
need to apologize for the truth.
The beauty of truly understanding His Grace is that you start stepping out in
faith and you are no longer afraid to make mistakes and through the humility
that He grows in us we are able to learn from the mistakes and become more and
more like Him. That is the beauty of living in an atmosphere of Grace. Peter
walked on water and then sunk but Jesus caught him. Jesus will always catch us.
As a new friend taught me today, "Plead Jesus!". You are completely justified
before God. If the enemy tries to come in and condemn, read Him your rights and
Plead Jesus!!
What blew me away today was that almost everything I shared at the Bible study
was connected to other people there. One girl who was really struggling in
understanding God's will, when she heard about my friend, had to bud in and
mention how she had been praying for the guy I shared with all summer long and we all rejoiced at
how the Lord uses the entire body to bring in the harvest and especially when we
do only what we see the Father doing; and the harvest is unspeakable!
I leave this blog with this. A revival is coming to this planet. A massive
revival and part of that is about to explode here in the North East and
especially here at Yale. When I came in as a freshman and I wasn't a Christian
the atmosphere was completely different. The bowl of intercession is about to
spill over and revival is going to hit this place. The freshman class is rife
with strong Christians and people are coming to know the Lord left and right.
Years of prayer and intercession, and now the harvest is ready and the workers
are here and we are operating under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and in an
atmosphere of Grace! Thank you Lord Jesus! and brace yourselves!!
Love and Peace and Joy everlasting
Christian
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Merry Christmas
It has been nearly three months since my last blog post. There is no possible way I could adequately report everything that has occurred in the past three months. One thing is certain though, God is so good. Often people encourage me to record more of God's faithfulness in my life in written form and perhaps as I continue to grow I will, but right now I am just trusting that there truly is new manna to be had ever single day. I don't want to get hung up on old glories but trust that He who is in me is a living God that never grows weary, and I will always wait on Him (Isaiah 40: 28-31) I also take heart in the following verse:
"For he will not dwell unduly on the days of his life, because God keeps him busy with the joys of his heart" Ecclesiastes 5: 20
This past three months can be neatly summarized into the above verse from Ecclesiastes. I have been unable to focus on the wondrous things that have been occurring or, indeed, the echoes of a wounded past long enough to turn my sight from the prize that is the knowledge of Jesus Christ; for this I am eternally grateful to my Heavenly Father as I pray that the transformative work that He has begun this year will continue by His gracious hand well unto the Lord's second coming. For this there is also a promise I confidently hold on to:
"...for your fellowship in the gospel form the first day until now, being confident of this very thing, the He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ..." Phillipians 1: 6
I began my fellowship with the gospel this year in March and now in December as my eyes well up with tears as I think about the true meaning of Christmas, I collapse to my knees in gratefulness and humility before our God for taking a broken individual like myself and making me feel again. God's kneading of my heart has been done gently and effectively in the past nine months and I am excited to continue growing in Him to become a man who can read the following verse and not become indignant with pride but humbly realize the continuous work that is in me by the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus:
"As in water face reflects face, So a man's heart reveals the man" Proverbs 27: 19
One year ago, I wouldn't dare look into my heart, for fear of my own reflection, as a man with a disfigured face looking into the water, indignantly splashing away the reflection to return to his mask where darkness conceals his true identity and light is stubbornly avoided in fear of those around him seeing him for what he is. I was such a man a year ago; a sliver of what I could be. However, when I took off my mask and looked into that water, I met my Creator. He saw me for everything I really was, every secret thing whether good or evil (Ecclesiastes 12:14), and embraced me. He hasn't let me go since, and I trust He never will. Now when I look at that water, I can see more and more of the face that God originally intended for me when He first created me. I look into my heart and I no longer shudder at the abomination I had become, but weep genuine globs of joy as I marvel at the mercy of our God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth. This Christmas, I just want to thank God for the greatest gift of all, a Saviour for all people to be reconciled to Him, Immanuel, "God is with us". This has been the most special Christmas season for me, so I pray the same for all of you; may all of you rejoice wherever you are during this Christmas season.
Soon, I will put up a recap of the past three months. Thank you for reading. God Bless you all. Merry Christmas
Christian
"For he will not dwell unduly on the days of his life, because God keeps him busy with the joys of his heart" Ecclesiastes 5: 20
This past three months can be neatly summarized into the above verse from Ecclesiastes. I have been unable to focus on the wondrous things that have been occurring or, indeed, the echoes of a wounded past long enough to turn my sight from the prize that is the knowledge of Jesus Christ; for this I am eternally grateful to my Heavenly Father as I pray that the transformative work that He has begun this year will continue by His gracious hand well unto the Lord's second coming. For this there is also a promise I confidently hold on to:
"...for your fellowship in the gospel form the first day until now, being confident of this very thing, the He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ..." Phillipians 1: 6
I began my fellowship with the gospel this year in March and now in December as my eyes well up with tears as I think about the true meaning of Christmas, I collapse to my knees in gratefulness and humility before our God for taking a broken individual like myself and making me feel again. God's kneading of my heart has been done gently and effectively in the past nine months and I am excited to continue growing in Him to become a man who can read the following verse and not become indignant with pride but humbly realize the continuous work that is in me by the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus:
"As in water face reflects face, So a man's heart reveals the man" Proverbs 27: 19
One year ago, I wouldn't dare look into my heart, for fear of my own reflection, as a man with a disfigured face looking into the water, indignantly splashing away the reflection to return to his mask where darkness conceals his true identity and light is stubbornly avoided in fear of those around him seeing him for what he is. I was such a man a year ago; a sliver of what I could be. However, when I took off my mask and looked into that water, I met my Creator. He saw me for everything I really was, every secret thing whether good or evil (Ecclesiastes 12:14), and embraced me. He hasn't let me go since, and I trust He never will. Now when I look at that water, I can see more and more of the face that God originally intended for me when He first created me. I look into my heart and I no longer shudder at the abomination I had become, but weep genuine globs of joy as I marvel at the mercy of our God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth. This Christmas, I just want to thank God for the greatest gift of all, a Saviour for all people to be reconciled to Him, Immanuel, "God is with us". This has been the most special Christmas season for me, so I pray the same for all of you; may all of you rejoice wherever you are during this Christmas season.
Soon, I will put up a recap of the past three months. Thank you for reading. God Bless you all. Merry Christmas
Christian
Thursday, September 25, 2008
God is Good!
All the time. God is Good. I am in to my third week in China, and the Lord has been so faithful; no surprise of course.
Our trip to Guilin in Southern China was fantastic. It was beautiful. It is very seldom I see new things, being relatively well traveled (by His Grace of course), but the lime stone formations of Guilin were absolutely breathtaking. As opposed to S. Korea and their hyperbolic statements about their national patrimony China has quite handsomely lived up to its claims.
China so far has been nothing more than me running into the unexpected surprises to my erred stereotypes, and the most taxing aspect of China so far has been adjusting to the pollution. Thanks to all who prayed for me; I was able to evade sickness and am now quite healthy, so much so that I auditioned for praise team at a youth group that I found (Praise Him!) and performing at an American Idol rip-off this coming Saturday.
Right before China I had been in England on what had been an extremely humbling trip. I came to China and although everything has been stellar, I was yearning for a spiritual community to serve and be served at. The enemy, namely Satan of course, had been trying to attack me and discourage me. Fortunately though, I believe my request for prayer was taken to heart by several and such attacks were subdued.
I have never really addresses the issue of Satan in my blog. He is a very real aspect of existence. No one in this universe could dissuade me of this fact. I hate to be trite but I believe indeed that Satan's greatest success is to get people to disbelieve in him.
Satan means adversary. He is that of God, particularly out to get those who love Christ, even more particularly those who trust God above all things; not to mention that his methods are low. Peter in one of his epistles tells us that Satan is like a lion simply awaiting to devour us. He usually takes what we care about most and uses it against us. This can take various forms ranging form homesickness to even physical injury.
I am sure most people are aware of the lore ( that I believe word for word by the way) of how this entity came to be what he is today. So I won't go into that. What I will address however is the way the Bible clearly declares that Satan is the prince of this world, which would help make sense at why so much is as it is in our world; particularly because the Bible also clearly states that Satan more often than not manifests as an angel of light ( I mean he was an Archangel of God if I'm not mistaken, pretty high up there), often taking something pure and beautiful and making a perfect counterfeit tinged with just enough lies and deceit that it is quite wide of the mark. The Bible also clearly tells us that when Satan lies, he is speaking his native tongue. So if you had trouble with high school Spanish, imagine how hard it is for Satan to tell the truth. Excuse my facetiousness; in other words Satan is the king of deceit.
He loves to attack us through lies. He loves to use our thoughts against us. In order to combat this, the Bible clearly instructs us to take our thoughts captive and not vice-versa. This reminds me of when I was at heartland missions ( the mission trip I took in rural S. Korea). During all the training I was under heavy fire. His lies were fiery arrows raining down from the spiritual world. For this reason the Shield of Faith spoken of in Ephesians is so important! So when being attacked by lies, don't forget to summon it! Not to mention the other essentials of spiritual warfare mentioned in Ephesians. If your memory is rusty, review it. If you have no idea what I am talking about, check out the book of Ephesians in the New Testament. Absolutely genius! It will help you understand The Chronicles of Narnia so much more; in case you are interested. By the way The Chronicles of Narnia are all about Jesus*cough* Aslan* cough* Anyway, to my story....
His fiery arrows of deceit were making me believe that I was disliked by many of the members of the team (completely erroneous I later found out by the Grace of God and His Word); this fact was greatly discouraging me about going on the trip.
It is funny how many Christians say that you can't just open the Bible and find answers. From personal experience, I tend to disagree. I believe that the Bible is as powerful as you concede to be, and to me it is the most powerful and authoritative Book in the universe. More times than I can count, I have opened up the Bible after praying, arbitrarily it would seem, and there comes the answer. This is how my conversion happened. Listen to my testimony. A very similar thing happened to Augustine when he became a Christian.
I recommend Augustine's Confessions to all. In a similar vein to this blog, however tons more eloquent and full of scripture. To make my point, I'll fast forward to his conversion. Augustine was not a Christian and had been living firstly a heavily Epicurean lifestyle followed by several years involved in the Manichaean religion, both of which were not doing much for the health of his soul ( the only thing that can fill that void is God, as he soon found out). Augustine wanted to learn rhetoric, so he went to Milan to study under the master of rhetoric Ambrose. Ambrose was a Christian, a bishop to be precise. Augustine however went to listen to how Ambrose expressed himself and not what he was speaking of, God and Jesus.
One day however, Augustine was sitting at a bench and could hear a couple of little girls singing a jump rope song. In Italian the little girls were saying, "take and read, take and read, take and read..." in a rhythmic and repetitive melody. Listening to this, he looked over and there on the bench lay a Bible. He picked it up, opened it up and it opened up to Romans 13:13-14:
"Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy./ But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts."
BAM! Like a ton of bricks God's grace falls on Augustine and he becomes a follower of Christ. I have a similar story; listen to my testimony (copy and paste the link in to the browser from my Sept. 9th post). Oh, and please take and read; the Lord wants to speak to every single one of us, and He knows exactly what we need to hear. It worked for Augustine, it worked for me. We are all unworthy of His Grace, yet it's there for the taking, free of charge! Hallelujah! Faith is our shield, and the Word of God is our Sword against the enemy! So take and read and sharpen that Sword!
Back to my story about missions in S. Korea. So the arrows are flying at me from all over. However, after praying sincerely to the Lord, I open my Bible and it graciously opens to Nehemiah 6:8:
" Then I sent to him, saying, "No such things as you say are being done, but you invent them in your own heart."
I read this, and a huge burden was relieved. I spoke to my peers and the arrows disappeared. Satan's measly arrows are no match for the Shield of Faith and the Sword of the Spirit that is the Word of God. Don't forget the other gear inn Ephesians though! (By the way, the probability of how I open up the Bible to perfect and concise answers can be nothing but supernatural, especially because before March of this year I had never actually read the Bible; not to mention that every time it has happened it has been in books I have never read. I am so excited to get to know my Bible more, how much more effective it will become! The Word of God!)
Moral of the story: the enemy attacks, but the Lord has given us more than necessary means to deflect the cheap and petty attacks of the enemy.
An argument many non-believers make against Christianity is why would an all-knowing and good God would allow bad things to happen. To tackle this question I would recommend C.S. Lewis' The Problem of Pain. I am in the middle of it. It tackles this question masterfully. I will not tackle this question in this particular blog post. However, I will say that without proper knowledge of the Bible the that argument is a moot point, and honestly beyond our understanding, If you ever have a chance check out The Problem of Pain, not to mention the Bible!
To end with this, we just need to remember that Satan is the prince of this world. He did, after all, tempt Jesus by offering dominion over all the kingdoms of the world; of course he would, rather that than let him liberate all of humanity from his clutches of sin and deceit. However, Praise God, the prophecies were fulfilled and the Lamb of God was slain so that we may all be free, and I really pray that my life can be a living testimony of that! Jesus really does save! Hallelujah!
But just because Satan is the prince of this world doesn't mean it is all bad news. If anything, God has simply incorporated it into his perfect plan in this flawed system. Jesus is, after all, the King of Kings, and Satan but a mere prince. A spoiled and envious prince is always bound to go astray and cause some trouble, but the King will always have His final word, and Jesus will. Mark my words.
Not only that but our most perfect and benevolent Father clearly explains to us in Romans through His servant the Apostle Paul that it would be impossible for us to perceive his unending mercy if all was honky-dory . Not only that, but how else would we grow. I don't know the exact details of how the angels and principalities duke it out in the spiritual realm, but I do trust the following, James 1: 2-8:
"My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials,/knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience./ But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing./ If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him./ But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind./ For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything form the Lord;/ he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways."
It's funny that when I was heavily looking into Buddhism and wrote my first song Waves, I thought being like a wave was a good thing, but even before the Bible confirmed it, I knew there was a giant void in my heart and I was being flung across jagged rocks by the storm of life. However, now, I simply trust in the Lord, ask for wisdom, which He gives us liberally. And now I hang on tight to the Rock that is our Savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ and when the storms hit, I count it joy, for I am bearing a cross with my Savior, and my character being refined as a stone also does through extensive weathering; Praise God!
Don't let Satan disabuse you of your freedom by taking advantage of out innate double-mindedness, but let's hang on to the Rock that is Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Praise God for the relative clarity above. Departing now from the arrows shot at me here at me in China, the past three weeks have been filled with a cornucopia of wondrous manna graciously bestowed to me by our Father God, new everyday. I have gotten extremely encouraging messages from readers of the blog, long lost friends that had been convicted to pray for me (Praise God), friends that by the Grace of God shown in my life have been convicted to move closer to God through Christ, and not to mention Praise reports from home in Oregon to Japan where prayer has been answered in a beautifully orchestrated fashion, something I have come to naturally expect from our sovereign Lord of the universe. Perhaps I will share more details about these stories of Grace in subsequent blogs.
I have found a strong fellowship here in Beijing at BICF (Beijing International Christian Fellowship). One day with very limited information, by volition of the Spirit, I jumped in a cab with a friend and the Spirit graciously led me and my friend right to the fellowship right as it was beginning, and I was able to get directly prayed over for the first time in a couple of weeks. Praise God. This fellowship has led to so many more gracious and divinely orchestrated meetings from making friends with tons of precious people from Burundi ( I country I had never heard of! ) to running into the friend of the man who convicted me to come to China in the first place back in May. So much more I could tell, but maybe more in subsequent blogs. Like how the pastor who gave the first service I went to here happened to have the same birthday as me, also to those who are prayer inclined, I was prophesied over about having three doors opening up this year for me of a completely new nature. Pray that I am able to discern what the Lord's will is concerning these doors this year, and also pray for my studies, and that I be filled to the brim with love and humility so that I may, although poorly at best, continue to develop and display, as fully as God's Grace will allow me, the character of Christ to all of those here.
As a final praise report, seeing how hungry Chinese young people are for God has made me jump up and down in Praise continuously. Please pray for them, for a hedge of protection and for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on their lives as they jump out in faith to get to know God through Jesus Christ, and please also pray for my compatriots here as well. God couldn't have placed me with a better group of people; I love every single one of them.
As always, questions and/or comments are always welcome.
adam.young-valdovinos@yale.edu
Proverbs 27: 10:
"As iron sharpens iron, So a man sharpens the countenance of his friend"
Let's keep asking questions and seeking Him. And if you think I am crazy I'd love to hear about it. Let's keep sharpening each other.
Peace, Love, and Grace to all,
Christian
Our trip to Guilin in Southern China was fantastic. It was beautiful. It is very seldom I see new things, being relatively well traveled (by His Grace of course), but the lime stone formations of Guilin were absolutely breathtaking. As opposed to S. Korea and their hyperbolic statements about their national patrimony China has quite handsomely lived up to its claims.
China so far has been nothing more than me running into the unexpected surprises to my erred stereotypes, and the most taxing aspect of China so far has been adjusting to the pollution. Thanks to all who prayed for me; I was able to evade sickness and am now quite healthy, so much so that I auditioned for praise team at a youth group that I found (Praise Him!) and performing at an American Idol rip-off this coming Saturday.
Right before China I had been in England on what had been an extremely humbling trip. I came to China and although everything has been stellar, I was yearning for a spiritual community to serve and be served at. The enemy, namely Satan of course, had been trying to attack me and discourage me. Fortunately though, I believe my request for prayer was taken to heart by several and such attacks were subdued.
I have never really addresses the issue of Satan in my blog. He is a very real aspect of existence. No one in this universe could dissuade me of this fact. I hate to be trite but I believe indeed that Satan's greatest success is to get people to disbelieve in him.
Satan means adversary. He is that of God, particularly out to get those who love Christ, even more particularly those who trust God above all things; not to mention that his methods are low. Peter in one of his epistles tells us that Satan is like a lion simply awaiting to devour us. He usually takes what we care about most and uses it against us. This can take various forms ranging form homesickness to even physical injury.
I am sure most people are aware of the lore ( that I believe word for word by the way) of how this entity came to be what he is today. So I won't go into that. What I will address however is the way the Bible clearly declares that Satan is the prince of this world, which would help make sense at why so much is as it is in our world; particularly because the Bible also clearly states that Satan more often than not manifests as an angel of light ( I mean he was an Archangel of God if I'm not mistaken, pretty high up there), often taking something pure and beautiful and making a perfect counterfeit tinged with just enough lies and deceit that it is quite wide of the mark. The Bible also clearly tells us that when Satan lies, he is speaking his native tongue. So if you had trouble with high school Spanish, imagine how hard it is for Satan to tell the truth. Excuse my facetiousness; in other words Satan is the king of deceit.
He loves to attack us through lies. He loves to use our thoughts against us. In order to combat this, the Bible clearly instructs us to take our thoughts captive and not vice-versa. This reminds me of when I was at heartland missions ( the mission trip I took in rural S. Korea). During all the training I was under heavy fire. His lies were fiery arrows raining down from the spiritual world. For this reason the Shield of Faith spoken of in Ephesians is so important! So when being attacked by lies, don't forget to summon it! Not to mention the other essentials of spiritual warfare mentioned in Ephesians. If your memory is rusty, review it. If you have no idea what I am talking about, check out the book of Ephesians in the New Testament. Absolutely genius! It will help you understand The Chronicles of Narnia so much more; in case you are interested. By the way The Chronicles of Narnia are all about Jesus*cough* Aslan* cough* Anyway, to my story....
His fiery arrows of deceit were making me believe that I was disliked by many of the members of the team (completely erroneous I later found out by the Grace of God and His Word); this fact was greatly discouraging me about going on the trip.
It is funny how many Christians say that you can't just open the Bible and find answers. From personal experience, I tend to disagree. I believe that the Bible is as powerful as you concede to be, and to me it is the most powerful and authoritative Book in the universe. More times than I can count, I have opened up the Bible after praying, arbitrarily it would seem, and there comes the answer. This is how my conversion happened. Listen to my testimony. A very similar thing happened to Augustine when he became a Christian.
I recommend Augustine's Confessions to all. In a similar vein to this blog, however tons more eloquent and full of scripture. To make my point, I'll fast forward to his conversion. Augustine was not a Christian and had been living firstly a heavily Epicurean lifestyle followed by several years involved in the Manichaean religion, both of which were not doing much for the health of his soul ( the only thing that can fill that void is God, as he soon found out). Augustine wanted to learn rhetoric, so he went to Milan to study under the master of rhetoric Ambrose. Ambrose was a Christian, a bishop to be precise. Augustine however went to listen to how Ambrose expressed himself and not what he was speaking of, God and Jesus.
One day however, Augustine was sitting at a bench and could hear a couple of little girls singing a jump rope song. In Italian the little girls were saying, "take and read, take and read, take and read..." in a rhythmic and repetitive melody. Listening to this, he looked over and there on the bench lay a Bible. He picked it up, opened it up and it opened up to Romans 13:13-14:
"Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy./ But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts."
BAM! Like a ton of bricks God's grace falls on Augustine and he becomes a follower of Christ. I have a similar story; listen to my testimony (copy and paste the link in to the browser from my Sept. 9th post). Oh, and please take and read; the Lord wants to speak to every single one of us, and He knows exactly what we need to hear. It worked for Augustine, it worked for me. We are all unworthy of His Grace, yet it's there for the taking, free of charge! Hallelujah! Faith is our shield, and the Word of God is our Sword against the enemy! So take and read and sharpen that Sword!
Back to my story about missions in S. Korea. So the arrows are flying at me from all over. However, after praying sincerely to the Lord, I open my Bible and it graciously opens to Nehemiah 6:8:
" Then I sent to him, saying, "No such things as you say are being done, but you invent them in your own heart."
I read this, and a huge burden was relieved. I spoke to my peers and the arrows disappeared. Satan's measly arrows are no match for the Shield of Faith and the Sword of the Spirit that is the Word of God. Don't forget the other gear inn Ephesians though! (By the way, the probability of how I open up the Bible to perfect and concise answers can be nothing but supernatural, especially because before March of this year I had never actually read the Bible; not to mention that every time it has happened it has been in books I have never read. I am so excited to get to know my Bible more, how much more effective it will become! The Word of God!)
Moral of the story: the enemy attacks, but the Lord has given us more than necessary means to deflect the cheap and petty attacks of the enemy.
An argument many non-believers make against Christianity is why would an all-knowing and good God would allow bad things to happen. To tackle this question I would recommend C.S. Lewis' The Problem of Pain. I am in the middle of it. It tackles this question masterfully. I will not tackle this question in this particular blog post. However, I will say that without proper knowledge of the Bible the that argument is a moot point, and honestly beyond our understanding, If you ever have a chance check out The Problem of Pain, not to mention the Bible!
To end with this, we just need to remember that Satan is the prince of this world. He did, after all, tempt Jesus by offering dominion over all the kingdoms of the world; of course he would, rather that than let him liberate all of humanity from his clutches of sin and deceit. However, Praise God, the prophecies were fulfilled and the Lamb of God was slain so that we may all be free, and I really pray that my life can be a living testimony of that! Jesus really does save! Hallelujah!
But just because Satan is the prince of this world doesn't mean it is all bad news. If anything, God has simply incorporated it into his perfect plan in this flawed system. Jesus is, after all, the King of Kings, and Satan but a mere prince. A spoiled and envious prince is always bound to go astray and cause some trouble, but the King will always have His final word, and Jesus will. Mark my words.
Not only that but our most perfect and benevolent Father clearly explains to us in Romans through His servant the Apostle Paul that it would be impossible for us to perceive his unending mercy if all was honky-dory . Not only that, but how else would we grow. I don't know the exact details of how the angels and principalities duke it out in the spiritual realm, but I do trust the following, James 1: 2-8:
"My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials,/knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience./ But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing./ If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him./ But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind./ For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything form the Lord;/ he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways."
It's funny that when I was heavily looking into Buddhism and wrote my first song Waves, I thought being like a wave was a good thing, but even before the Bible confirmed it, I knew there was a giant void in my heart and I was being flung across jagged rocks by the storm of life. However, now, I simply trust in the Lord, ask for wisdom, which He gives us liberally. And now I hang on tight to the Rock that is our Savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ and when the storms hit, I count it joy, for I am bearing a cross with my Savior, and my character being refined as a stone also does through extensive weathering; Praise God!
Don't let Satan disabuse you of your freedom by taking advantage of out innate double-mindedness, but let's hang on to the Rock that is Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Praise God for the relative clarity above. Departing now from the arrows shot at me here at me in China, the past three weeks have been filled with a cornucopia of wondrous manna graciously bestowed to me by our Father God, new everyday. I have gotten extremely encouraging messages from readers of the blog, long lost friends that had been convicted to pray for me (Praise God), friends that by the Grace of God shown in my life have been convicted to move closer to God through Christ, and not to mention Praise reports from home in Oregon to Japan where prayer has been answered in a beautifully orchestrated fashion, something I have come to naturally expect from our sovereign Lord of the universe. Perhaps I will share more details about these stories of Grace in subsequent blogs.
I have found a strong fellowship here in Beijing at BICF (Beijing International Christian Fellowship). One day with very limited information, by volition of the Spirit, I jumped in a cab with a friend and the Spirit graciously led me and my friend right to the fellowship right as it was beginning, and I was able to get directly prayed over for the first time in a couple of weeks. Praise God. This fellowship has led to so many more gracious and divinely orchestrated meetings from making friends with tons of precious people from Burundi ( I country I had never heard of! ) to running into the friend of the man who convicted me to come to China in the first place back in May. So much more I could tell, but maybe more in subsequent blogs. Like how the pastor who gave the first service I went to here happened to have the same birthday as me, also to those who are prayer inclined, I was prophesied over about having three doors opening up this year for me of a completely new nature. Pray that I am able to discern what the Lord's will is concerning these doors this year, and also pray for my studies, and that I be filled to the brim with love and humility so that I may, although poorly at best, continue to develop and display, as fully as God's Grace will allow me, the character of Christ to all of those here.
As a final praise report, seeing how hungry Chinese young people are for God has made me jump up and down in Praise continuously. Please pray for them, for a hedge of protection and for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on their lives as they jump out in faith to get to know God through Jesus Christ, and please also pray for my compatriots here as well. God couldn't have placed me with a better group of people; I love every single one of them.
As always, questions and/or comments are always welcome.
adam.young-valdovinos@yale.edu
Proverbs 27: 10:
"As iron sharpens iron, So a man sharpens the countenance of his friend"
Let's keep asking questions and seeking Him. And if you think I am crazy I'd love to hear about it. Let's keep sharpening each other.
Peace, Love, and Grace to all,
Christian
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