Feb
4
March 30, 2005 I got on a plane to Kona, Hawaii. Little did I know, life as I knew it would never be the same…
“Taste and see that the Lord is GOOD” Psalm 34.8a
If I could describe my Discipleship Training School (DTS) in one word it would be ownership. For the first time I was truly challenged with the question, “why do I believe what I believe?” I grew up in the church, knew all the “right” answers, but there was a part of me that wasn’t sure why I believed it. Had I simply become a product of my environment? This isn’t completely bad, mind you. I believe that growing up as I did protected me from a lot. Plus, it laid the foundation which got me to where I am today. There came a time, however, where I had to own it. Through lectures on The Father Heart of God, Global Missions, Hearing God’s Voice (you mean God wants to talk to me!?), Inductive Bible Study and many more like this, my heart and mind were challenged and stretched. I wanted to believe what I believed not because my parents believed them, not because I learned them at church, but because I came to the conclusions through reading the Word of God and experiencing the reality of it in my life; because I had tasted and seen that the Lord is good. During outreach where I went to Indonesia and Thailand doing Tsunami relief I saw people who had so little, but who truly knew who God was in their life, and this was enough. I began to see God move in ways I never had before, heard him speak to me in ways I have never experienced before. I learned that God is so much more than someone you pray to at bed time and hear about on Sundays. He wanted to be a part, a major part of my every day life. He wanted me to talk to him as I was cleaning the beach of rubble, he wanted me to ask him who to talk to when we were visiting the relief camps. Each time I did, I saw or heard him answer. I learned that God truly is so much more than the God of the Bible, but alive and active and beckoning me to join him in what he is already doing. What an exciting revelation!
It is because of this that I am so excited to get back in to ministry. God has continually stirred my heart for discipleship, to help others experience a similar revelation to the one I had. I want to walk with people, drawing out their passions, talents, dreams and abilities in to all that God has for them. He specifically has given me a heart for the same school that completely rocked my world. T bring others along, not simply to hear and read, but to taste and see that the Lord is good!
Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.