Monday, June 22, 2009

Pleasures

“If these are the pleasures afforded to sinful men, what does God have in store for those whose hearts are His?”- St. Augustine of Hippo





Saturday, June 6, 2009

a little of the journey

so my journey up here has been about a year in the making. it started after youth camp last year. i felt God calling me to serve this summer. in what capacity i did not know but i felt like it was in the dakotas somewhere. i was inspired by a few summer missionaries from kamp kinship that year. i wasn't sure if it was really God calling me or if it was just a longing i had to be back into the dakotas' great weather. so i kinda put it off. i asked a couple of people to pray that God would reveal to me what he wanted me to do clearly so i couldn't pass it off as something else.

then after the beginning of this year God started speakin to me through my quiet times. the main quiet time that got my attention was out of isaiah 6 when isaiah has an encounter with God.
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.3 And they were calling to one another:
"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory."

4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

5 "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."

6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."

8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?"

And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"

isaiah's encounter with God started with him witnessing God and his splendor. one of my teachers has told me that the definition of worship is an encounter with God in which u come away changed. you can never encounter God and not be changed by it.

through isaiah's worship God revealed his sin. isaiah sees his sin and immediately confesses it before God. God heres his plea for forgiveness and through his grace forgives him. oo there is so much to say about grace but that will be another blog.

God then asks who will go and speak to the people and reveal their unfaithfulness and sin and isaiah cries "Here am I, send me!"

After having this quiet time i knew without a doubt that God had called me to go to the Dakota's but i did not know how or where. i started by emailing a pastor from north dakota who is in charged of the camp our church helps with each summer in south dakota. after two weeks or so i still had not gotten a reply from him. i figured that i did my part and it wouldn't work out and i could stay safe at home this summer. however after another week i got an email back from him and it said he had sent my info to a few churches and some of them wanted more info. i sent the info to him and he sent it to the churches.

i decided i wanted to go camping out for a night and pray this thing over and see in which direction God was leading me to. i came back after that camp out and had three emails from three different places all asking me to consider and pray to see if that is where God wanted me. I was so excited. I begin to pray about them and God led me to choose Calvary Baptist Church in Rapid City, South Dakota. Now here i am. I am a week into this amazing journey and God has placed me with a great family and an awesome youth group and church. I am excited about what God has in store and will be updating you with events and happenings when they come. so this was a lil bit of my journey.