HEART:

Moving down to Kansas City has brought me through a plethora of emotions which has brought me to a newfound intimacy with the Lord.  For the first time in my life I have been removed not only from the covering of my parents but also of my brothers in Sioux Falls.  As anticipated, pains of loneliness have struck me over the last few months but I was prepared to run to the Lord and just tell Him all that is in my heart.  Sometimes in prayer I have felt like Hannah in 1 Samuel 1 that says that she “poured out her soul to the Lord.”  In this place of laying bare all my emotions to the Lord, whether good or bad, I have found such healing and comfort.  Even if He does not say anything back in that moment He listens, and my heart has felt the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, release love into my heart as I open up to Him.   In the honesty of my brokenness, feelings of barrenness and loneliness with the Lord I have come to understand more that all He truly wants is us to open up to Him that He may share life with us, love us where we are.  True intimacy is birthed from transparency, and as we give the Lord entrance in to our hearts no matter what we are feeling it gives Him room to speak and comfort us where we need it most.  I never realized how much healing can occur when we are just honest with the Lord and actually talk to Him!  He really desires us to open up our hearts to Him that He can walk with us through the good and bad.   I remember when I was still in the Fire in the Night internship about 8 months ago and I knew I would be moving to Kansas City that I told the Lord that it saddened me as I didn’t want to leave the communion and fellowship I had in Sioux Falls.  I heard Him tell me that He too left the perfect communion and fellowship of the Trinity to come to earth to reveal Himself to and die for His bride.  I knew at that moment that no matter what happened when I moved to Kansas City that the Lord would comfort me as He experienced much greater suffering than I, and I have found Him faithful to walk with me in this new season.

SCHOOL:

School has been amazing.  I would say that this  bible college really just gives students tools to go deep in God.  Simple tools of how to practically create a heart of prayer and how to study the Word have been introduced. Now it is up to each student to utilize the tools given by people who have walked with the Lord for years and whose testimony is that the love they have for the Lord is greater as each year passes.  That is my desire, that my heart will be tender towards the Lord and in love with Him even when I am seventy and beyond.  And as I am learning from others who have this testimony, I am inclined to do that which they exhort:  sing scripture, meditate on the Word, talk to the Holy Spirit throughout the day and ask Him to speak to me, meditate on the throne of God from Revelation 4, pray/read scripture, study the Word using word studies and an exegetical approach…all these things are new to my life as of the last year or so and my heart has continually been tenderized and more sensitive to the Holy Spirit.  Praise God!  This is a miracle.

There is a chorus by a worship leader named Luke Wood that says

“You’re making me a sign and a wonder, the human heart really can be changed, it’s a sign and a wonder, cause the hearts the hardest thing.”

The greatest miracle truly is that our hearts can become softened to the Lord as naturally we are inclined to turn away from Him.  There are levels of offense in each one of us, misconceptions of our ideas of who God is.  By putting ourselves in the position to have the truth of God’s Word wash over us through prayer and meditation and study, the offenses in our hearts are revealed (His word is a sword that pierces our souls!) As the offenses are revealed we can repent of them and ask God to fill us with truth as it is His desire to do so as David professes in Psalm 51.  God wants to reveal Himself, and we have the amazing gift of the Scriptures and ministry of the Holy Spirit to guide us to the truth of who He is, our hearts being set ablaze more and more as we seek the All Consuming Fire Himself.  It encourages me so much to know that though I am still in a body of flesh and have little understanding of God and His ways that He is faithful and wants me to walk in truth and holiness and will guide me in to it.  What a good God!  So I feel extremely blessed to be at this school, learning practically what it looks like to walk with the Lord through the mundane of life yet maintaing a heart that consistently grows towards Him.

A closer look

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA:

I went on my first ministry trip with IHOPU from November 4th to the 15th.  I visited three cities in Southern California:  Isle Vista, Camerillo, and Los Angeles.  Isle Vista is a two square mile city full of 20,000 college students known for partying and consumes 1% of California’s alcohol annually.  On Halloween thousands more flock to this city to party, a place that has been abandoned by the church and deemed as hopeless.  Yet there is a remnant of people there who for the last ten years have prayerfully been a presence and are seeing students each week come to accept the Lord.  Their steadfast presence, relational evangelism and purposeful times of intercession for the area has allowed the name and presence of Jesus to reside in that city.  Amidst this darkness, the Lord has graciously placed His people to praise Him and exalt His name.  It shows His desire to release mercy and grace to these thousands of students who have no hope and are searching to be satisfied but are looking in all the wrong places.  On Saturday nights, the endless parties are heard in every street (as I witnessed while I was there), yet worship arises from the Prayer Shed with some 20 young adults who love Jesus and are hungry to see others living in Isla Vista come to the love and knowledge of Jesus as well.   I had the opportunity to spend a few days with this ministry, spending time with the believers there and being active in their prayer services and then traveled to Camarillo where another house of prayer is established at Jubilee Church.  These are very small yet faithful prayer rooms, and I really saw how important it is for us to remain faithful no matter what our external ministry or circumstances looks like.   Reality is that God does not need numbers or strength, just vessels who are willing to be poured in to, who make a space for Him.  It was amazing to see what the Lord is doing in these pockets of our nation, calling many to the place of prayer to cry out to Him to bring salvation to the lost and greater revelation of Himself to His bride.  As I was able to meet, sow and be sown into, the Lord opened up my heart to see the beauty of His Body, the church.  We really are just one big family, and how awesome to be able to meet some of them in this age and build each other up as we all fight the good fight of faith.  We all have fire on the altar of our hearts for the Lord, yet when we come together our fire becomes one and is bigger, brighter, and hotter.  I believe this is why Jesus says in John 17 that the testimony to the world that He came is when we are all made one in Him- the world will never see such a great fire of love when His Body stands as one!  I could feel the Lord give me a greater desire to pray for the Body to be strengthened and that we would become one.

In L.A. we attended what was called the Fight Conference where we heard from Jackie Pullinger (a missionary in Hong Kong who has seen over 500 drug addicts be healed through the power of the Holy Spirit), Dick Eastman with Every Home for Christ, Lawrence Cunnigham with YWAM, and Lou Engle with the Call.  The focus of the conference was in the convergence of prayer and missions, something I have been hearing a lot about lately.  The reality that missions must founded upon and fueled by prayer is becoming of great emphasis among major missions organizations and those who have recently established houses of prayer.  The Lord is using both together in new ways to see Matthew 24:14 come to pass and could be in our lifetime!  Thousands of young adults gathered together at this conference to ask the Lord to touch our generation with the love of God that would motivate us to go and love the lost and proclaim the truth of who He is.

Sunrise

Fight Conference

40 hours in the bus out to CA- Oh my!

Another amazing sunrise on the way back to KC

So all that being said, every day is new and has brought  new challenges, blessings, frustrations, knowledge of my weaknesses, yet it is glorious because none of it is done alone.  God is alive, He hears and acts on behalf of those who wait for Him, and I really feel that that is what He is ingraining in to me in this season.  No matter the external circumstances or the wave of emotions I may be feeling, if I put all before Him and wait upon Him, the waves get settled, challenges are overcome, frustrations subside and the ability for His strength to shine through my weakness is manifest.  Glory!  I miss you all, am praying for you and love you!

This is where faith comes in.  We see the truth in Scripture, that He loves us, delights in us, and we are fulfilled in Him and say “God, today I receive Your love, I receive the truth of Your Word, please let me experience it.”   And as I am learning, it truly is as simple as receiving God’s love every day as opposed to trying to gain it or earn it.

I must say that I used to struggle with it, but over the last year the Lord has brought me to a place of not just knowing but experiencing His love and delight it in my daily walk with Him.  I say this as an exhortation that if you don’t live in the reality of experiencing God’s love to know that it is real, you won’t always have to struggle!   We have a heavenly Father who is overjoyed with us!  The enemy wants us to not believe.  Resist the lie, receive truth.   He will reveal Himself and His love- keep receiving truth and let it wash over you daily.  Jesus was manifested in the flesh for this very reason, that we would know the truth of the Father.   And now we have His Spirit living on the inside that we may encounter Him from within, the very truth of God burning on the inside.  We will forever go in to the depths of His love for eternity, but because of His Spirit this journey can begin now.

At the Forerunner Christian Fellowship service I attended today Mike Bickle spoke on this very thing- receiving God’s love from Romans 3-  it was AWESOME.  It was so encouraging and convicting and I wanted to share it with you as it really spoke to me.  Follow the link below…there is about 45 minutes of worship before the teaching begins which is awesome too- enjoy!

Click below and then click on August 22 10:30 am service on the list of services to the right.

http://www.ihop.org/Groups/1000048153/International_House_of/Events/Weekends_IHOP_KC/Weekend_Services/Weekend_Services.aspx?redirected=1

“For My people are foolish, they have not known Me.” -Jeremiah 4:22

“For they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know Me.” -Jeremiah 9:3

“Let him who glories glory in this, that he knows and understands Me…” -Jeremiah 9:24

Though He is set high above us in holiness, He beckons us to come close and relate to Him personally.  Knowing God is not about knowing facts, but  relating to Him as He is.  The testimony of Scripture reveals Him as King (Psalm 145:13, Revelation 11:15) Bridegroom (Hosea 2:19, Matthew 9:15, Ephesians 5:22-32, Revelation 19:7), Judge (1 Chornicles 16:33, 2 Timothy 4:1, Revelation 19:11, 20:11-14), Father (Isaiah 9:6, Matthew 6:9, John 16:28) Redeemer (Job 19:25 Isaiah 63:16), The-God-Who- Sees (Genesis 16:16, ), The-God-Who-Forgives (Psalm 99:8), Jealous (Exodus 34:14) and many others!

We know God not by information, but by His name and in the face of Jesus Christ:

He has chosen to reveal Himself to us in Scripture.  He could have said anything about Himself, and yet there  are some 300 names/identities we know of God because of His self-proclamation. We only receive these truths of who God is by His Spirit, and He only reveals Himself to those who take the time to sit and be with Him!  It’s like any other relationship- if we take time with a person we get to know their heart, what they like, what they don’t, what they desire, what grieves them.  The same is true with God, only it is with God, the Possessor of heaven and earth!  There is something innately in us that loves connection to other people- we want to be known and to know others deeply.   The Lord placed this desire for intimacy within us, and knowing Him is the only way  the yearning in our hearts for intimacy is fulfilled.

We know God in the face of Jesus, He is the “express image” of the Father, the fulness of the Godhead bodily  (Hebrews 1:3; Colossians 2:9).  Jesus says that He never did anything He did not see the Father doing, that He never spoke anything that the Father had not spoken.  When we see Jesus, we see the Father and know Him (John 14:7-11).  We must take time to meditate on the life of Christ, the crucifixion, resurrection,  ascension, on His healing of the woman who bled for 12 years, on Him being betrayed by Judas, on His moments of silence, His moments of weeping, on His ability to stop the waves.  We can know every fact of Jesus’ life but never talk to Him about Himself, leaving us no conviction of His power, His compassion, His zeal for righteousness.  Knowledge of God is thus knowing His heart, why He did the things He did, how He felt while doing them.  And that takes spending time with Him, in His Word and allowing His Spirit to teach us.

No other creature has been given the ability to know God as we have.  We have been given His very Spirit to “teach us all things” (John 14:26) for His Spirit is the only one who “knows the things of God” (1 Corinthians 2:11).  May we be the kings who search out the secrets of God He longs to reveal to us, the secrets only the diligent are rewarded with.  (Proverbs 25:1, Hebrews 11:6)

His Word screams the importance of knowledge of Him!

“I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge” -Romans 10:2

“...that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God…” – Colossians 1:10

“…may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him...”- Ephesians 1:17

“His divine power has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness in the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue...”- 2 Peter 1:3

“…till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God…”-Ephesians 4:13

“I determined not to know anything among you but Christ and Him crucified”- 1 Corinthians 2:2

“I count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord” -Philppians 3:8

“The knowledge of God is eternal life” - John 17:3

It takes God to know God:

“For it is God who commanded light to shine out of the darkness who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” -(2 Corinthians 4:6)

It’s not too hard, anyone can know God.  See and hear His promise: Proverbs 2:1-5

“My Son, if you receive my words, and treasure my commands within you, so that you incline your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding; yes,

if you cry out for discernment and lift up your voice for understanding,

if you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures;

then you will understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God.”

My Son- He gives this instruction as a Father.  Receive His words- be obedient to them.  Treasure them- meditate on them.  Cry out for discernment- ask God to reveal more to you.  Seek her as silver- make knowing God the pursuit of your life, and then we will have the knowledge of God!

“Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.”- 2 Peter 1:2

where no man can go

in the secret resivoir of the soul.

In your jealousy,

You’ve created me as a garden enclosed

for You and You alone.

Here it’s You and me alone God,

Here it’s You and me alone.

You’ve hedged me in, with skin

all around me

and I’m a garden enclosed

a locked garden

but life takes place

behind the face

where it’s You and me alone God.

Here its You and me alone.

-Misty Edwards

click to enlarge

“When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him” (Mt. 3:16).

I have been struck lately with the reality of the importance of the Word of God; how we need revelation from the Holy Spirit that the truth of the Word will be made manifest to us.  We can read the Word and not understand it, we can search the Scriptures and not have life, and yet God promises these things to us if only we will come to Him and ask for it.

Jesus says “how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” (Luke 11:13).  We need the Holy Spirit, we need the Word of God abiding in us by His power.  We do not have truth apart from the Word, and we do not have the Word apart from the Holy Spirit.

I drew this the other day after reading the book “The Forgotten God” by Francis Chan.  I hope it reminds us all of the Almighty God who gave us His Spirit of truth after crucifying His own Son for our sins, of God who yearns so much for us to know Him that He put His own Spirit inside of us.

Coming back has been amazing, but there continue to be some challenges for me.  I never realized before how much I like to blend in the background, and yet for the past few weeks I have  done some things that have put me directly in the spotlight!  I spoke about the global prayer movement at the annual fund-raiser for the Firehouse Underground, I’ve been teaching a short 3-class session on the Sermon on the Mount for close friends, I’ve sung (in a microphone!) and played the djembe with a worship team in the prayer room, and coming up on the National Day of Prayer I am speaking in the town of Dell-Rapids in front of about 50-60 people.

Speaking in front of people has been the hardest.  The challenge has been to feel confident in the things the Lord has been teaching me and then articulating it for others.  It has made me feel the inadequacy of my flesh, that while I want to tell others the things the Lord has put on my heart, my words will never be perfect.  And even the most well articulated speech or class that I have will have no impact unless the Lord is moving in power behind my words.  I have had to resist (sometimes a bit unsuccessfully) the temptation to  listen to the voice that says “you should have said this,” or “that made no sense,” or “you could have done way better.”   In fact I could use some prayer as I am speaking this coming Thursday at 7am.  I just really need to be refreshed of the Lord’s love for me, to have Him impress upon my heart again that I am successful because I love God, not because I perform well in front of people.  It’s amazing how the enemy can make me feel so disqualified and unimportant when I feel that I didn’t do a good enough job at something.  The whole point is that it doesn’t matter if we utterly fail or do great at something, the Lord just wants us to try our best and invite Him on the journey!  So please pray that I will allow the Lord to stand with me, have Him speak through me, and know that no matter what I am loved!

Here’s a cool high-light:  Some of you know that I sell cards that have my art-work on it.  Over the last 3 months I have been in contact with a lady at IHOP who sells her art in the Forerunner Bookstore on the IHOP Missions Base to help raise money for the justice program that is set up down there.  I showed her some of my cards and they put them in the bookstore to sell!  So I have cards selling in a store…kinda cool, and a percentage goes to the Orphan Justice movement which is awesome.

That’s all for now.  Oh yeah, there is a video of my speech at the Firehouse Underground fund-raiser on You-tube you can check out.    Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReSy0FC8YzQ and it should be a direct link:)

Cats are actually pretty cool too…(that’s for you Brandi.)  After not being around them for 6 months, I actually like having them around!  Megan calls them “fuzzies.”  I think that someday, I’ll probably have a cat.

Peace and love in Jesus name.

1) God likes me, a lot. He loves me, a lot. The depth of His affection for me is something that I am blinded to, and yet I know that I want to live to receive more understanding of His pursuit of me, because as John states “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:10-11). The depth of love that I can have for God and others is not separate from my understanding of how much I am loved. So if there is one thing I need to do in this life, it is that I let the Lord love me in all of my weakness and inadequacy. I don’t clean myself up and then tell Him to love me, I stand before His throne of grace covered in the blood of Jesus and tell Him to love me in all of my failed attempts to love others, to be patient with others, to not get angry with others…the list goes on. We just need to let the Lord love us- that’s what He wants to do!

2) God is relational, not religious.  As the great prophet Isaiah states “our righteousness is as filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6).  Anything we do, reading the Bible a ton, fasting, praying, giving, serving, is not what the Lord desires from us initially.  These are works, and the Lord makes it expressly clear that His heart is not moved by my sacrifices or works of righteousness.  (See Psalm 51, specifically verses 16-17 and Isaiah 1:1-20).  I cannot earn His love because I already have it.  When I stand before His throne on judgement day I am not going to present to Him my hours of Bible study, my tithes, my hours of serving and time spent in prayer in attempt to prove to Him I am worthy  to make it in to those pearly gates. I am worthy to enter His Kingdom by the blood of His Son. And the amazing thing is that He gave me His Spirit  to reveal who He is and make me like Him in every way through fellowship- through relationship with Him.  John, the beloved disciple of Jesus said that “truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.  And these things we write to you that your joy may be full” (1 John 1:3-4).  This is exciting- we can have fellowship with the uncreated, eternal, immortal, invisible God!  He gave us the Word, which is fitting to train and correct us in righteousness (1 Tim 3:17), and His Spirit who teaches us all things and reveals the deep things of God’s heart  (John 14:26, 1 Corinthians 2:10).   We get to know Him through fellowship with His Spirit and reading His Word, not in the works that we do.  Our God is relational, not religious.  Our works come out the empowerment of the relationship, for even Jesus said in John 12:26 “where I am, there My servant will be.”  He desires our hearts to be alive in knowing Him so that when we work it will be for love and not duty.

As a result of this wonderful experience I have had here, I know that my heart wants to continue on here in Kansas City and go to FSM, which is the Forerunner School of Ministry here at IHOP.  The aim of the school is to have students grow in intimacy with the Lord, be adamant students of the Word, bold proclaimers of the gospel, and equipped to be leaders of the prayer movement the Lord is raising up across the globe.  Throughout this internship my heart has been drawn to come back to continue in school here, and I feel it is with the Lord’s guidance that I will be coming back here.  So in August I will be moving back down here to start as a second year student.

IHOP is in the process of constructing new classrooms because the school has had so much growth- so I’ll be down here in time to have all the new stuff- lucky me!  They are in the middle of a gift matching fund for the new facility and I wanted to let you all know that if you want to donate even a small amount, $5, $10, it will be doubled.  I feel compelled to tell you of this opportunity to give as I will be a student of this place soon, and I know the impact on my heart these classes and community has had and know that the Lord is doing it for countless others.  Donating even a small amount is sowing in to God’s Kingdom and His desire to raise up houses of prayer.  If you want to donate or get more information go to: :http://www.ihop.org/Articles/1000063112/International_House_of/University/Overview/Matching_Fund.aspx

Here’s a couple of pictures of me and my roommates out bowling at our “fun night,” my friend Yamile and I, and the room I’ve been staying at.  Love you all- God bless!

In Revelation 2:18 Jesus is described as the Son of God who has “eyes like a flame of fire.”  Earlier in the Bible in 1 Samuel 16:7 the Lord tells the prophet Samuel that He “does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”  Have you ever had those days when you know you are just “off,” and yet you can’t figure out why?  You’re not really happy, you feel tired, you say some mean things unintentionally and you just ride it off as having a bad day?  You yourself cannot even discern what is wrong with you but you just know you are having a bad day.  Our eyes see only the outward appearance of things, but Jesus can see in to our hearts and knows why we react to certain people a certain way, why we have addictions, why we are restless, why we are anxious, why we are not joyful, why we isolate ourselves etc etc.  He knows and sees everything!  So when we are sitting before the Lord and there is something nagging in our minds, it is probably less about the fact that we are distracted and more because He wants us to open our hearts up to Him about the issue.  He says in John 10:10 that He came to give us life and life abundantly, or to the full.  He came to bring freedom that we could love Him and our neighbors with our  whole heart, soul, mind, and strength.  The only way we can do this is to have our own hearts healed and freed to love, and He is the only one who can heal our hearts.  Luke 4:18 Jesus proclaimed that this was part of His ministry- to “heal the broken hearted.”  And He is the only One with eyes like a flame of fire that can actually look in to the heart to get to the root of the issue.  He patiently stands at the door of our hearts knocking to be let in that He may help us and heal us.  He is a Good Shepherd- He leads us to life.

TESTIMONY:  Last week I was getting so tired and weighed down.  All of a sudden the weight of what I was setting my life to was bogging me down.  I realized that I have only been actively pursuing a relationship with the Lord for over a year, and the thought of doing this for 70+ started to scare me.  I was getting so tired, and this frustrated me because surely someone who loved the Lord would not become weak and tired of the pursuit (ha ha, crazy right?).

In class one day, our leader said “if you are striving to be faithful to the Lord, you will not attain it, but if you strive to be the Lord’s friend, you will be faithful because of your friendship.”  That statement really made me mad, it irked me.  I knew I had a zeal for the Lord, and yet I was feeling burnt out which made me question my faithfulness. The thoughts of failure were creeping in so much that I was starting to tell myself that if I could not endure this for the rest of my life then I really must not love the Lord like I thought I did- and this thought hurt me so bad!  In the prayer room that night I just began telling the Lord, “Lord, I need you to talk to me, because I am so bothered by that statement, and I am really tired- I don’t know what is wrong!”  It was then that I remembered a story about Peter at the end of John 21 that I had heard in a previous class and I thought maybe I should check that story out.

Peter, as many of you know, denied that he knew Jesus three times before Jesus was lead to be crucified.  This left Peter feeling an absolute failure, so much so that after Jesus died Peter left the disciples and went and became a fisherman again.  Jesus reappears to the disciples after He was resurrected, and He questions Peter three times saying, “Peter, do you love me?”  The third time Jesus asks Peter this Peter responds, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love you.”  After I read this I just broke down and started crying.  It hit me all of a sudden.  I was striving to be faithful to the Lord- I was trying to prove to the Lord my love for Him by the works that I do.  As I was confronted with my flesh- the fact that I am tired- I got so scared because I couldn’t be as faithful as I wanted!   I was confronted with my weakness and it bothered me.   But the Lord does not judge as we do- His eyes of fire go in to our heart and sees our love for Him even when we cannot see it, for He does not judge by appearance but by our heart.  He knows all things, and what a comfort because when I felt like I did not love the Lord He was sitting there telling me that I do!    He knows our “spirit is willing but our flesh is weak.”  All He wants is our hearts.  He wants to be friends with us, that we would open up our hearts to Him in any and every situation, for He is the only one with words of life that will heal our broken hearts.

God really does want to have living and active relationships with us, to be near to us.  He has everything, even tons of angels that are servants.  He’s not looking for more servants to do stuff for Him, He just wants fellowship with His most prized part of creation.  That’s good news for everyone then because it totally levels the playing field!  Have you ever compared yourself to someone else and think “I’m not as spiritual as them?”  Well, guess what?  Christianity is not for the super spiritual, it is for everyone, because all God is looking for are friends to share life with and learn how to love.  He is so close to us, and yet we keep distancing ourselves by forcing ourselves to “work” in order to know Him.  Just give Him your heart- talk to Him all day, about all your emotions and situations- He loves it!  You’ll find that He is nearer than you thought.

I flew back to Kansas City on the 28th of December and met with my brother Nathan and David, their wives, plus a bunch of other friends from Sioux Falls and we attended the One Thing Conference that celebrated and worshipped the Lord right into the new year.  It was so much fun as I had not seen them for three months either.

And now I am back in Sioux Falls, but I am leaving on the 6th to go back to Kansas City to do the second track of Fire in the Night for another three months.  What a treat!  I am so blessed that the Lord is giving me another three months to spend in focused prayer, meditation, and study to know Him more.  It will be hard being away from Sioux Falls and my family again but just know that His lovingkindness is better than life (Psalm 63:2) and I cannot pass up this opportunity to go deeper in my relationship with Him.  I am fortunate that I get to pursue this deeper walk in a large community of people who uphold the Word of God, fiercely pursue deeper intimacy with Him, and performs acts of justice along with living a prayer and fasted lifestyle.

So please pray for me for this next three month season of going deeper!  May you be blessed in this next year.