Wednesday, October 21, 2009

The start of my second year at Bethel!!!

Second year as been so different from first year!! Now that I've been here about a month, I finally feel like I have my feet on the ground and my head has stopped spinning. It's been quite a wild ride coming back to school, getting used to sitting for four hours every day, trying to figure out how to make some money part-time, establishing where I want my ministry to be, figuring out who I want to build closer relationships with....and the list goes on and on.
Just to give you an idea of what my schedule looks like....
I sometimes get up at 5:00 a.m. and work for 4 hours online as an English test rater. (I only do that about twice a week)
I'm in class from 12:30-5:30. On Thursdays during class time, we all go out to various parts of the city to do outreach. I'm a part of the children's ministry in a specific region. We have a mini-church service for the kids in a park!!
I'm also part of a International Transformation group that meets every week during class. This is for people who are interested in what is traditionally knows as "missions". It's fun to be in a room full of people who burn for reaching the nations like I do!!
When I'm not in school, I'm hanging out with people, having people over, hiking, and doing other various side jobs that make a little bit more money.
Yea, it's pretty darn busy!! The nice thing is that I have my mornings off for the most part and I'm able to use that time to rest and spend time with God before my busy day starts.
Well I could go on and on but I know some of you don't want that many details. I do want to give you some highlights of what I've been learning. If you have some time, please look over these. They are such precious nuggets that I'm sure could change your life!!
I hope to write again soon.

If you have something that's worth eating, people will get hungry for it.
"Drive" wherever you see "green lights". Don't live waiting on God unless God has told you to.
People call cautiousness wise, but you're not going to move many mountains if you're always cautious.
Focus on how much money you want to GIVE, not on how much you want to make.
We need to discover WHOSE we are before we can find out WHO we are.
What do I have already that God wants to supersize.
Stress if caused by living how you think you should be living. Peace is being who you are.
It's dangerous to feel like you've become an expert in something. What you know keeps you from what you need to know.
The greater the destination, the greater the gestation.
Vision is what gives pain a purpose.
Your strength overemphasized is your greatest weakness.
You have as much influence in someone's life as they have value for you.
Hang out with people who have the gift that you want more of.
Wherever you have a scar, you have authority in that area.
Don't put pressure on yourself to overcome all of your weaknesses. Just enjoy Jesus.
When we feel like God's presence comes and goes, it's not that he withdraws. It's just that he changes the way he manifests. He doesn't want us to live on our feelings and always having to feel him. He might want us to seek him in a different way.
We all live in bubbles. The bubble is made up of limits, boundaries, fears, perceptions, protection, opinions, false identity, lies, expectations, what I have the faith for.
What we expect will find us.
How do we get out of that bubble? We have a choice to change.
Sometimes we're in a season where breakthrough isn't going to come unless we stop working for it.
Even when things don't work out, we have to be anchored in the goodness of God.
If we're pursuing something really big, we'll probably fail the first time. If we always succeed our goal isn't big enough.
How to figure out what your destiny is: Find out what is beautiful to you and what aspect of the glory of God you carry. God made your heart beat for something and he has a plan for carrying that out.
We all have dreams starting when we were a child. Sometimes lack of love or things that happen to us stop us from pursuing our dreams.
Everything is solved in God's presence.
You can be sure of where you want to end up but be unsure of the process that it takes to get there.