We started off the day with an amazing time of worship. Melissa felt like there was maybe some stuff that people needed to hand over to God, especially some fears. Jonathan was saying that in order to give something away, you first have to own it. For example, I can’t give a car to someone, unless I own that car first, and it’s mine to give away. Sometimes we have to own our fears – we have to recognise them and name them – before we can hand them over to God. A few people began doing that, and after they would tell God their fear, we would gather around them and pray for them and sing over them. I had a weird moment where I felt pressure to find some deep fear to bring out into the open, ha ha! Maybe it’s a fear of being left out :oP But I felt God reassuring me about that – it’s ok to NOT dig deep sometimes. Sometimes we just have to let Him do stuff in His own time; we don’t have to force it to happen. I’s ok to not be dealing with some or other deep issue all the time. I think I had forgotten that...
Worship went on longer than planned, so our time with Papa Ken was cut short. But it was still great. Here are some highlights:
· If you love anything enough, it will give up its secrets. For example, if you seriously love playing the piano, enough to work diligently at it, one day it will give up its secrets, and you will play better than you ever thought you could.
· We don’t have to beg and plead with God to show us His will. Especially when it comes to your “life-direction” or your “destiny” etc. We just need to allow Him to let the desires and longings that He’s already placed in our hearts come alive. He told us this great story of an old friend of his, a woman who had walked many years with Jesus. One day (she was in her seventies, I think) she was trying to prepare a sermon on moving with the Holy Spirit, but she REALLY wanted to watch the Winter Olympics on TV, because she really loved watching the ice skating especially. Eventually she pushed her bible and notes aside, and watched some of it – but she felt terribly guilty the whole time! Afterwards, she tried to repent. But she felt like God was saying to her that it really was ok! He had put the desire in her heart to watch that – in fact, He had wanted to watch it with her! He began to speak to her about how moving with the Holy Spirit was like ice-skating. You make a small motion, and (on good ice, with sharp skates) you can glide beautifully. Sometimes the things that pop into our heads during quiet times aren’t actually distractions – sometimes it’s God speaking. When last did you watch TV with God?! Ha ha! :o)
· DON’T TAKE YOURSELF TOO SERIOUSLY!
· In Acts 26 when Paul is telling Agrippa about what it means to follow Jesus, he says to him: “I pray God that not only you but all who are listening to me today may become what I am, except for these chains.” Are you able to say to someone else, “I wish that you could have the life I have” and truly mean it? If not, chances are you’re not really happy and not really living the fullness of life as God meant you to. WHOA.
After lunch we headed to the Art Room where we worked on a “history book” project. Jessie showed us one of her pieces of art that was a memory of a complete day. The page was filled with random objects/pictures/words from that day, and she talked us through it, telling us why each object was there, and explaining what she had done that day. The point is that God values every single day of our lives; every moment, every breath we take. We need to value our lives too! Doing something like this takes what we would think of as an ordinary, mundane day, and makes it special because we’ve decided that it’s valuable enough to remember. So we had to remember the day we went to the museum, and first of all jot down everything that came to mind when we thought of that day. Then we had to think of objects/pictures etc that could represent each of those things. And then we had to fill a page up with those objects. Next we had to add colours, but we were limited to only three (with their shades and tints) to help tie it all together. Turned out to be lots of fun, and it’s definitely worth trying!
After what has been a crazy week, we ended today with pizza and a movie (Les Miserables – so beautiful, one of my bests, but not exactly light viewing!) at David and MK Burbach’s house, whilst the staff had a dinner at Jonathan and Melissa’s house (for some input and just to catch up). It was really great just doing something low-key like that! One of the values at the farm is realising that God isn’t all about just heavy stuff all the time. He’s a God of rhythms and seasons, and real life can be deep one minute, and light and fun the next. It’s still all God. A few of us ended off a great day with a late night jam session in the studio (which is a GREAT place to hang out!). Looking forward to all that is still to come!
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