This morning started off as usual...delish b-fast via Lupita. Then, we were planning to go prayer cycling again. Well, my stomach decided to hate me and sent me to the Pot about 6 times this morning with the runs. I know, I know...you just HAD to know that right? Anyways, I decided to stay back while the team went prayer cycling. While they were out, I decided not to waste the time and did some more research, phone calls, and internet-looking for possibilities for us to partner with a big NPO for something for the community and also for Bruce, Kelsey and I to be able to volunteer on a regular basis with. So, all of those have been a dead end so far. I even looked up volleyball lessons, surf lessons, and yoga/spiritual meditation lessons. The cheapest thing was $40 and hour per person. The most expensive almost $400 for two months.No responses and no emails back, no classes we've found so far. Nothing. It's hard not to be discouraged when you see the Venice team taking off and doing awesome things, but alas...the Lord never fails in His ways. I know that neither Bruce, Kelsey nor I have been too disheartened and are faithful that some way, some how, we'll find a way to be just as affective as the Venice team.
Anyways, after the team got back we headed to UCLA's campus to hang out, do ministry, pray...all that good stuff. We ate lunch together then split up into Bruce, Luke, Thomas and Kelsey going out and doing stuff and then Storm and I went and sat at one of the coffee shops on campus in hopes of seeing tons of new students (it was their first day of summer classes).
Storm and I sat at different tables. I'm not too sure what Storm did, but I started working on devo time for the group later tonight. We'd talking about the need to address spiritual warfare, and so I started digging in the Word and looking around at how to help the team out with it.
After the team got back together, we came back to the church and got dressed and ready for some intense beach volleyball. After volleyball, we came back for dinner, team time and Jesus-awesomeness (that's for Luke).
We got back from the beach, Bruce, Esau and I were sitting at the dinner table waiting for dinner to get finished. Esau began to show us photos on his phone and the stories behind them. One of them was of Esau and a pastor-friend in Mexico.
This particular pastor-friend in Mexico had been captured by the Mexican Cartel and held for two months for a ransom of about $1 million. So, they kept this pastor for two months and kept demanding money, and despite the local church's best efforts of only $700,000 the Cartel wasn't letting him go. Then on the last day of his captivity the Cartel decided to end his life. So they brought him into a room in a house and were discussing his death. As they were doing so, a girl of about 13 came in and began to pray. This caught the Cartel off guard and were confused. So, four of them decided to kill her. The four guards, with different kinds of guns, all tried to shoot her...yet as she continued to pray, ALL of the guns jammed and wouldn't fire. The guards stood amazed. Then, the girl looked up from her prayers and said "You can't kill me. I've got God here with me and you can't touch me." The guards began to tear up and turned to the pastor, dumbfoudned. They began to talk to him as he had tried to share the gospel with them over the two months of captivity. The guards, in tears, gave their lives to Christ, let the pastor go and turned back to the girl. They asked the girl why she came and she simply answered "Because God sent me." Neither the guards nor the pastor had known the girl before.
Bruce and I sat in awe. Goosebumps lined my shoulders and spine, and I was filled with hope. Prayer is definitely powerful. I know, even though the Santa Monica team hasn't had tons of breakthroughs in the area, they're coming. I know this because we're praying for it and so are TONS of people out there for our team. So, I'm encouraged and excited and ready for a breakthrough that the Lord will provide.
After dinner, we all got showers then met for team time in the guys room, as usual.
We debriefed the day, then moved into the conversation about Spiritual warfare. It didn't go as expected, but it well exceeded any expectations I could have had in the first place.
I started the conversation, figuring we'd get to talking eventually about the ways that Satan individually attacked us and our team. It certainly got to that point...but got even further. We discussed everything from suffering, to temptation, to affliction (physical and spiritual illness), to self-esteem issues, and to the disconnect in language that guys use and that girls use when it comes to spiritual warfare.
You see, guys connect really well to battle terminology so we've learned. That's why we love action movies. We could talk all day about beating down the gates of Hell with the battering ram of prayer, while the girls are just left aside and not as excited or connected to the concept of spiritual warfare. Not to sound sexist, but guys get the battle imagery...girls don't. I guess it's got it's pros and cons. Anyways, we left the battle imagery behind and continued to discuss the importance of awareness.
In Ephesians, Paul begs believers to want to have eyes, ears, minds and hearts to see the 'heavenly realms'. The same realms that Christ entered into through His death and resurrection, the same realms that Satan resides in (but, God still has dominion over him [Eph 1]), and the very same realms that through our faith in Christ we are now exposed to. You see, when we have this faith in Christ, we're thrown into a new, spiritual world. We see much more the intensity of nature and just how creative God is. And, we also are thrown into a world where Satan hates us and does all that he can to thwart God's task He's given us or to break our faith in the Lord.
The team started looking at the whole picture of things. We starting putting the battle terminology with rationalization. Storm brought up a great point, she's got an uncanny ability to rationalize things as do most women I think. Storm looks at stories of 'demon possession' and can rationalize it as schizophrenia or seizures (the stories in the bible). Whereas we, guys, look at those stories and see attacks from Satan to thwart God's plans. So, we started looking at situations of temptation, affliction, and so on from both angles.
Simply put, faith isn't rational. Take the story of the girl and the Mexican cartel. Take God's creation. It's hard to rationalize such things. But, on the other hand...Hollywood and the media have done a great job of super-SUPER-naturalizing the spiritual world as great entertainment and something all the more physical and real and easy-to-believe instead of looking at the rational side of things.
So, I'm going to pick on Storm again in order to merge the battle and the rational language. Since we've been here, Storm has seen herself as a not so good evangelizer. She views it as a weakness and a downfall. But, I view it as something different. She rationalizes her inability to evangelize and I see it as an attack from Satan. I, a guy, sees it as Satan attacking her and pulling her into doubt and self-esteem issues. This takes her focus away from seeing just HOW GOOD of an evangelizer/witness she is. It plants seeds of doubt and self-esteem issues. It tells her she's not good enough or not whole through the way God created her. Satan convinces her she's not good enough, so she's shy and timid about doing it. BUT...Storm is quite the opposite of a bad witness/evangelizer. She's actually kick-A at it! She goes into Chi Kung lessons twice a week, is building relationships with this guy who is all about the Chi and is their Chi Kung master. She puts herself out there and into relationships with her classmates. She has even ben the one (not Luke the Evangelizer) to set up a lunch date for the team and a guy in their class, and their Chi Kung master. Now, I don't know about you...but having the guts to put yourself out there like that seems like a pretty darn good witness/evangelizer to me! Regardless of what any spiritual gift inventory says. Besides, most of those things view Evangelism as a "Hey, do you know Christ" kind of thing. Which by the way, Luke has an uncanny ability to do effectively, hence Luke the Evangelizer.
So, the team began to connect the whole thing. We, as a team of missionaries and as every-day-believers, ought to have a spiritual awareness of what's around us. We should be weary of over-rationalizing things yet open to the whole picture of what's going on. We ought to be on guard every day that the Devil wants us to fail. But, we must also be concious every day that the Lord is at work.
We had some great breakthroughs tonight in team-time. Storm, for the first time (don't hate me Storm for telling this) finally started to find the confidence we the team have seen in her. She began to see that through Christ, she's been able to do great things...regardless of what her self-esteem or Satan was telling her. It moved her and I saw not wet eyes of sadness or doubt, but of hope and peace knowing that she was complete in the Lord! So, amen for that breakthrough! Kelsey, Bruce and Thomas all had some great breakthroughs as well. Luke and I brokethrough and saw that spiritual warfare is ONLY one side of the coin when it comes to the spiritual world. If we get too focused on what Satan is doing, we can lose sight of what God is doing as well!!
So, today was great. I've been praying for a while now that our team would continue to click and grow together, and tonight is another testimony to what prayer can do. I saw tonight someone become free from the ways that Satan was afflicting her and hopeful of what's to come. I saw someone tonight connect the bigger picture and keep his eyes focused on the individual acts of suffering and pain. I saw growth in our team and saw Christ glorified through our fellowship.
So, I'm not exactly sure if any of the above made sense....but I hope it did. God did some big stuff today and for that I'm grateful! Thank you for your prayers, for if it weren't for them...we wouldn't have had the breakthroughs we had tonight!
Some things you can continue to pray for:
1 - More breakthroughs: There's still a lot of growing to occur in each of our teammates! Also, Bruce, Kelsey and I would love a breakthrough in the community here in Santa Monica. So far, the search is coming up dry. But, after today's testimony to the power of prayer, we're hopeful and faithful that indeed, a breakthrough IS coming!
2 - Lunch with Peter: Storm, Luke and Thomas will be getting lunch with their Chi Kung classmate sometime soon I imagine. Pray that the Lord would send himself ahead and till the ground for great conversation and opportunities to be made known!
3 - Continued rest: The team is finally finding balance in the days, but we're still realizing just how exhausting this trip is. Not only physically, but emotionally, spiritually and mentally. We're doing good to not kill each other so far, so pray that the Lord would continue to provide rest for us...because we definitely need it.
4 - Santa Monica
5 - Venice
I thank ya'll again for your prayers!
in Him and until next Monday,
Lj
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