These past two weeks of school have been focused on God's love for us. The class is technically called Kingdom Lifestyle, but we don't talk about that as much as God's love. The teacher is just amazing. Her name is Nita. She is a 65 year old who rebels against all systems and structure of the world and I love it! She grew up a missionary kid thinking that she needed to fit the mold and follow the rules to be a good christian, but somewhere along the line God grabbed hold of her and wrecked her ideas of religion. She is one of the most spirit-led people I have ever met. Everything in her class revolves around how His spirit is moving in that moment. Routinely she will stop talking to have us be still and recognize that God is thinking about each of us right now. In this moment His mind is filled with good thoughts toward you. It's pretty cool. Our homework in that class is to pray. 7 hours a week. and to read a book on prayer. Then write a paper on what we are learning. It's pretty radical stuff.
On the first day of class she was talking about God's Kingdom as it is intended, and will be one day. While she was talking, for a split second a mental image came to mind of me walking through a meadow holding my cousin's hand, and in the next image, we were dancing together before Jesus. Tears started running down my face. It was so touching to my heart because my cousin has spino-bifida and can't walk without the help of braces. I truly believe that one day she will though, whether that's in Heaven or before is up to God. I'm just excited that I get to be there with her too.
We spent some time in a few of her classes to stop and pray over specific people in the class too, and ask God for words for them. This means praying and waiting for the Holy Spirit to speak to us about another person, and then sharing those verses or words or pictures with that person. It's a beautiful thing. and it's incredible to see how God gives similar pictures to different people that build off of one another and create a bigger picture. He affirms what he wants to say too by saying the same thing to multiple people. This class has been really good for creating a family-like feeling within our freshmen class. There are somewhere around 45 of us, but they all feel like family.
Here are some quotes from class that have stuck me: If you know you are loved deeply, you'll get up a lot faster.Its not hard, its impossible - so lets relax and submit to His grace. Every book of the Bible's purpose is to reveal Jesus - the Holy Spirit can't resist talking about Him. He is thinking about me right now... and they are good thoughts. When I accept myself, then I can forget myself. Our purpose: to know God and serve with Him. Ps. 18:36 - You have made a wide path for my feet to keep me from slipping.[about the church being the bride of Christ - God wants an equal partner. He won't be unequally yoked with His bride. This is why we must suffer, because Jesus did, and we need to grow and be purified.] You cannot just do something because you see a need, we must always act in obedience to His voice. To see people as Jesus does we must see them as they will become. He gets us there alot faster His slow way than we get running on a treadmill. Songs of Songs 1:5 - I am dark, but beautiful: I am sinful but enjoyable to Him. You become what you behold. and those are just from the first few days! It has been a good class!
I've also been really challenged within my prayer life. Praying like you believe it when Jesus said ask and you will receive. Praying in faith, and with perseverance. Meaning 'assume its a yes until its a no'. That's hard! When we dont hear a yes pretty quickly we just assume that it is put of line with God's will. It's also been good learning about how obedience is strongly connected with prayer. We must act when He speaks, and He will act when we speak. It's a relationship! We are told this, but how often do our prayer lives reflect this?
On a complete side: This week I spent a bit of time off campus as well. It always feels good to do that. I borrowed a friend's car twice this week to get out. Went shopping, went to a bonfire, and to a college group games night at my roommates church. Im loving building these relationships. I'm being challenged too in quite a few areas... but maybe I'll save that for another update!
I love you all. Thanks for reading :)
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