the Spirit of God was moving over the waters...

This post is dedicated to God. So is my life. It's all His. God has been moving so dramatically and so tangibly in my life for so long now I fear I can't possibly do justice to the breadth and depth of His love manifest in my life. Yet, musn't I try?
Zoey's father, Jim, insisted that I listen to some of their family's pastor's old sermons from the 90's, and gave me some tapes when I left Zoey's house. I've been listening to Pastor Ted talk about random things as I drive to and fro in Walla Walla, and the man may be the single most powerful teacher to whom I've ever listened. So I decided to purchase his book, Pure Desire, which factors into things later. Basically, at every point that I begin to wonder if God is moving or speaking to me, and I think I could go either way, I can push play and somehow, whatever Pastor Ted was saying, it becomes relevant, even decisive, as the final push needed to get me to acknowledge a personal word from God.
Immediately upon our return to Walla Walla, Zoey and I decided to really invest in a Church and make it our home Church. We prayed over my first choice, Journey, and basically felt very called to it. So we gave it a go, but still I was praying that God would provide access to fellowship for us. Anyone reading this had better know me well enough to know that I am totally extroverted, and have no inhibitions or reservations when it comes to meeting new people. Zoey however is much deeper and more reserved, so I was worried I might force her into uncomfortable situations on the one hand, or abandon her on the other. I needn't have worried. God can take care of her better than I ever could. The first Sunday back we were randomly invited to a birthday party for someone we didn't really know by another someone we didn't really know, and it turned out that the majority of the Church went to that party. We met everybody! His Spirit moves...
The next step in investing was to go to a Life Group the following Wednesday. I could write quite a bit on how wonderful those Life Groups have been, and how life giving the Psalm workthroughs I've been engaging with are, but suffice it to say it is the highlight of my week. Don't misunderstand me, I am beginning to see life in Whitman Christian Fellowship again, and the problem was entirely mine, but Journey Church is so fantastic. I guess it must have really anointed leadership. Speaking of the leadership, I have met with Pastor Gary a few times, and helped him with a personal project for a bit. This Thursday Zoey and I are having dinner with his family. And Wednesday is Life Group. His Spirit moves...
How much can I type without moving on to other arenas? A lot apparently. At that first Life Group I met a guy named Kurt who just stood out to me as someone very wise and close to God, because of some of his insights and suggestions during the study. As the meeting drew to a close, one Psalm brought him to tears as he shared about his legal deafness. He couldn't hear, and was losing more hearing all the time - it tore him up. Remember Kurt, we'll come back to him...
Since I've been back God has also been bringing my shame, the last vestige [known to me] of my tendency toward depression, under scrutiny. Do you all remember A League of Their Own, that movie where Tom Hanks is the manager of a womens baseball team? There's a line in that movie that comes right after Tom Hanks has been chewing out one of his players and she begins to cry. Tom Hanks doesn't know how what to say - he's baffled. "Crying? Are you crying?! There's no crying in baseball!" He pauses briefly and and in his shock repeats, "There's no crying in baseball!!" Well thanks to more factors in my life than I could recount coming together at once, I've come to realize what Jesus has been saying to me for so long. "Shame? Are you shamed? There's no shame in Me! There is no shame in Christ Jesus!!"
God has used that as an in, and then broadened His aim to include the rest of my defense mechanisms and the "false selves" or "posers" I project because of unresolved hurts in my past. Frequent meetings with some close guys (primarily Matt and Flynn) and an older gentlement and counselor named Rollie is the venue through which God has sought me out most forcefully. Of course, healing from old wounds isn't immediate, but just seeking them out prayerfully and taking them to God has started the ball a rollin'. I guess this a subject personal enough that you'll have to ask me about it to get more details, but know that love and foregiveness are at the heart of where God is moving in this sphere of my life. Essentially because of a few factors in my formative years, I have an unhealthy need to prove myself. I don't see myself as inherently valuable, and need to succeed at something to feel worth. There are times that I very seriously cannot believe anyone wants or needs me in their lives, because I just don't compare. I feel that in order to bless people I have to do the right things, and only by my ministering to their needs in some obvious way do I enrich their existence. I transfer that same mentality of being less than to God. What began with merely being less than my brother soon extended to being less than other guys in high school, and out of that was born so much bitterness (not to mention my dependence on video games as an escape - that place where I dominated, and I was better, and I could feel good about my competence, if not superiority). All I want is to be pleasing to, to be desired by, those close to me - God, Zoey, my parents, my siblings, my fellowship and on and on the list goes. I have every hope that facing my bitterness and my past will open the door for God to do some of that miracle stuff He does more often than most of us want to accept. I'm especially hopeful for a deeper and more loving relationship with my family, and more openness on my part towards things and places (coughGlenwoodcough) that until now my bitterness has kept shrowded in mean-looking-black-mind-clouds. =)
I feel it is appropriate to interject here how my contempt for men my age born out of the comparison bitterness carried me well into college. So did my addiction to video games. Did you know that my first semester at Whitman saw me play Halo between 15 and 25 hours per week? At any rate, anyone who has followed my progress knows that God worked on me very heavily towards the end of Freshman year and all throughout last year regarding male fellowship. I mean come on, I co-lead a Men's Group now! Between my moving from Royal City to Glenwood (circa 3rd grade) and the last two years, I have hardly let one or two guys my age get close to me. And even Brett and Nick I mistreated and held at a distance because of my feelings of absolute inadequacy. As a shout out to God and those men who have been God's healing hands, let me just take now to thank Don for starting it all, and Jared, Ben, Charlie, Nato, Flynn, Andrew, Colin, Jesse, Patrick, Peter, Matt, my brother Jimmie, and now Brian, Hans, Pete, another Peter, even Caleb, I mean man, the list goes on and on! I think back to Summit, Fall Conference, Shalom, Camp - the men there. And save Don, all these guys are men [roughly] my age. That is to say nothing of the older men and how much closer I've gotten to them, along with my own father. And do you know what's happened along with that? As I've been blessed with real male companionship, my relationships with women have become markedly and visibly different, and more healthy. Video games? Their presence is little more than a residue in my life, except when hanging out with those brothers we've just been discussing. In exchange for isolation and escape God has given me relationship and healing. Praise God man, praise God...
Whitman Christian Fellowship has been giving unreferenced Bible versess to every student on campus via their campus mail, as well as posting signs all around campus with similarly unreferenced supplimentary passages on them. The purpose being to let the Word of God speak for itself a little before negative stereotypes and unfounded barriers condemn the wisdom inherent in them. That began last Sunday (a week past), and every day until this coming Saturday a different verse will be distributed to each mailbox on campus. Saturday the campaign culminates in hours of personal testifying in the center of Ankeny Field via microphone. This effort has sparked a lot of productive thought, along with the standard "Religion? Hsss!" responses. We'll see where God takes it.
It was at the beginning of this huge move on the part of WCF to make God's presence felt on campus that my financial footing was pulled clear out from under me. My boss cut the max hours I could work to about half what I needed to get out of debt by May. Since then I've been praying for the right solution. Do I take a semester sabbatical and come back in the fall? Do I take out substantially more loans? Do I try and cut certain extra-curriculars out of my life and take on a second job instead? What? I know He is Sovereign, but I'm not what most people would call "patient"...
Last Tuesday some native South African missionaries came to our Large Group service and were so rediculously filled with the Holy Spirit I didn't know how to handle it. The were so real, and I didn't know what to think of off-hand allusions to amputated legs growing back as if such signs and wonders were so common to them. I came home discouraged and desperately hungry for Jesus. Since that night Pete took me to dinner it seemed as if God had been leading me up that moment, seeing if I really wanted Him as bad as I said. I was frustrated, but some peeps sought me out and we prayed and the general response from God was to show me how limited my perspective was, and that indeed yes, that same Spirit was available to me - you don't have to go abroad to see God move. He also tought me that night the deficiency of theology compared to faith. Solid God-forged faith will trump and persevere beyond theology and academia every time. Of course at this point, all I had was God's word that He was moving as powerfully around me as in the African stories. I decided to fast beginning Wednesday, and in a personally marvelous demonstration of God's glory, I broke fast Saturday in response to the moving of God in my wounded past. Let's take a closer look at this.
Remember all that desire to be pleasing up above? The last Wednesday of each month instead of doing its two separate Life Groups like usual, Journey has a thing at the Church to practice waiting on God. This is hard to conceptualize, and not much easier to explain, but what it amounted to was one person dividing the responsibilities of the ancient Israelite priesthood among us. What responsibility was I given? That office of priesthood responsible for "blessing and ministering to the LORD." Just let that sink in. Ready? Then Saturday where Flynn, Matt, Rollie and I were seeking out our wounds, I'd been fasting since Wednesday and it came around to Lunch time. I wasn't going to eat, but Rollie suggested maybe it would be a good time to break fast. I offered to pray for a few minutes to consider it, and God came through. I felt like I couldn't demonstrate my love for God by not eating for four days, but somehow could if I waited for seven. God would work in my life in the course of a week, but anything shorter and I was just somehow less. So healing came by the very act of accepting God's love as unconditional, and I just can't believe how God works sometimes. It's like a beautiful woven tapestry, where there are themes He hones in on time and again. You think its just a random act, but then that theme reappears again, and again, and again. You step back and realize He's always done that, and He's brought you to this point where the themes are beautiful enough by themselves, but are totally incomprehensible when you try and take in the whole picture. Wow.
Church Sunday began in a very uncanny way, with worship and words about intimacy with God. This of course being my whole desire that was formed into one coherent thought at dinner with Pete. I had been telling God I wanted Him, I wanted more of His love, more of His power, of Him in my life. And then Church starts off like that, and I laughed with joy and thanked God again for Journey Church. As if that were the extent of God's love. Tsk tsk. After worship, Kurt came up and told us how he had went to a healing service with the gentlemen from South Africa (and many other native and American missionaries from different parts of the globe). They prayed over him and his hearing returned to him. Completely. The last his doctor knew he had no hearing at all in his right ear, and twenty percent in his left, with very little speech recognition. On Friday when he insisted he get tested anew after this miracle, he had perfect hearing with 92% speech recognition AT ONLY 30% volume! Now I don't administer the tests, but just let the glory of God sink in huh? Right now your mind is probably explaining that away, beginning to question Kurt's condition, his reliability, maybe even my reliability. Again I laugh with joy and just revel in the fierce love and awesome power of our God.
In awe of God, today I'm just trying to get caught up on my school work. One hundred pages for the Theology of Hans Kung, two articles for Politics and Religion, selections from three separate sources for New Testament and Early Christianity - it is beginning to add up. I went to Reid Campus Center to have an early dinner with Zoey. While we were there I checked my mail, and along with four days of backed up unreferenced but familiar Bible verses, I got a few nothings and a mystery envelope. After we'd got our food and I'd read the verses, I opened the mystery envelope. That mystery envelope had four hundred and seventy seven dollars in cash. The LORD provides abundantly...
I'm still reading Pure Desire and somehow still unsure of whether or not God's Spirit is moving around me. Isn't that amazing? My doubts asks: Is God there? Can God heal me? After all of the work God has done, the highlights of which I have shared just now, how can I question Him? Can Satan, the world, or even my own stubbornness really compete with the sheer Might of the Creator? I puzzle at my own lack of faith, and again proclaim my confidence in Jesus Christ, the Holy One of God. Look around. The Spirit of God moves...