But today is Sunday, and most people are still out doing laundry after church. So I can focus.... but who knows for how long! I was about to start this yesterday when suddenly there was a trip out to Madison for the Olive Garden. And there was no way I was going to miss that! So here is my 2nd attempt...
Two weeks ago, we learned about the Holy Spirit. Our speaker's name was Mike and he was one of my favourite teachers so far. He put a lot out there for us, but what I really appreciated was the way that he backed everything up with scripture, and if it was just his opinion, he made it clear that it was so.
The Holy Spirit is the part of the Trinity that is most argued about. Different people have different opinion on who the Spirit is. One thing Mike said that really made me think was that (and this was only his opinion) it could be possible that the reason for such confusion about the Spirit is because He is our greatest weapon as Christians. When we focus so much about arguing about who He is, we don't know how powerful we truly can be with the Spirit inside us. He is our greatest weapon, and an enemy will always try to disarm the greatest weapon first.
Jesus, before He could begin His ministry on earth, had to first be anointed by the Holy Spirit. If Jesus Christ Himself, who is God, could not enter ministry without being anointed by God, what makes us think that we can do it on our own? We can do nothing and achieve nothing without being filled, led, and empowered by the Holy Spirit.
We also talked about the gifts of the Spirit, focusing mostly on the gift of tongues (and prophecy), since it is the most talked about one. The gift of tongues is not bad. It is from God, but not everyone has this gift. Tongues literally means languages. This can be a heavenly language, but it could also just be another language in the world. The purpose of the gift of tongues is to edify yourself. It is a line from you to God; unless there is an interpreter, there is no reason to use this gift in front of others, since it does not edify them. The gift of prophecy, on the other hand, edifies the church. Prophecy is for the people, not the individual. If you have one of these gifts, you must be careful to use them properly (just read 1 Corinthians 14). You have the control.
Basically, Mike told us that we need to let people express their spiritual gifts, since it is of God. We shouldn't be suppressing the Lord.
At the end of his time with us, Mike prayed for the Holy Spirit to come upon all of us. We were worshipping, kind of gathered into our small groups, and Mike went from one group to another and just prayed over them. It was really cool, because he was praying different things over different groups, and each person later said that it seemed to speak exactly to them. In my small group, he really focused on God's gentleness, and how the Holy Spirit can come in gentleness, yet still just as deep and powerful. And he also prayed a lot about the fear of man, which is something that a lot of us struggle with (though Mike did not know this). Nothing really crazy happened during this time (other than some extremely heavy breathing from Annika, and she enjoys laughing at it now)
This week was the week that, back at the beginning of DTS, Kenzie and Keisha predicted I would cry during. Roots week. It is the week that we look at our family and history and get to the root of all of our issues and problems :P Our teacher was Gayle Keapproth; he and her husband, Warren, started YWAM Madison. Gayle is intense! She is so filled with the Spirit!
Here is how our first day of class went (class is about 3-4 hours): Gayle went from one person to another and asked their name, Then she asked why they came to DTS. Then she would continue what we call the "interrogation", asking different questions of different people. And they weren't just light questions. There was one girl, Kayla, who would avoid eye contact every time Gayle was choosing a new "victim", so eventually, Gayle chose her. "Kayla," she said, "What is it that you don't want to answer?" And this was our entire class, by the way. She didn't even get through everyone- the next morning we had to go through the last 5 or 6 people.
Gayle would spend about 5-10 minutes talking to each person. And at the end, she would tell them a word or a verse that God had given her about them. See, the night before, when she arrived at the TC, she went through the book of students and prayed, asking God about each of us. And He would give her words or verses. And they were spot on. Like one girl talked about how the main thing she has learned in DTS so far is how she should really be more thankful to her parents. And the word Gayle had gotten for her the night before was gratitude.
When Gayle got to me, pretty early on in the process, I knew exactly what question she was going to ask me. She was asking the questions based on what the Holy Spirit was telling her to say. And I knew that this was a big thing for me in DTS, so I just knew that God was going to get her to ask me about it. And sure enough: "Katie, so, what has God really been showing you so far during DTS?"
So I told her -how God loves me, which I had thought I knew. But it turns out that His love for me is a really, really big deal! And I never realized how much He loves me!- and she nodded. She asked me a few more things -like why this was such a big thing for me, how God had been communicating His love to me, and so forth- and then gave me some homework. "I want you to read 1 John, specifically 1 John 3," she told me. This was the Bible passage God had given her the night before. So I said I would, and she then told me that the next morning, class would begin by me telling everyone what God had taught me through the passage.
You have to understand that many many other people also got "homework" from Gayle. But I was the only one who had to share with the class. And I do not like sharing with the class. I do not speak in classes- I never have. I later asked Gayle why she made me tell everyone, and she said that she didn't make that decision, God did.
Anyway, so I read 1 John 3. And you should read it- it is all about God's love. Like, exactly what I talked about in class to Gayle. So the next morning, we got to class, and Gayle was like "And today we were going to start with..." and everyone cried "Katie!" So much for them forgetting...
So I explained in two sentences what I had learned (and I had learned so much more than that), and then Gayle made me stand up and she hugged me for literally like 5 minutes while she spoke about God's love for me. It was so awkward because there were like 40 people just staring and I was looking at the row of staff in the back, all watching me. Plus Gayle is significantly shorter than I am, so I was trying to keep my bent legs from giving out :P So while everyone else was extremely touched by that (I had several people tell me that they almost cried), for me it was more uncomfortable and distracted.
Last week was a really tough week for a lot of people. And we only had about 2 days of actual class. On Wednesday we were having worship, when the Holy Spirit led a whole repentance movement and people were confessing unconfessed sins and such. It was really a powerful, amazing time.
So it was a good week, but Kenzie and Keisha were wrong! I did not cry! Apparently I didn't have any deep deep roots of trauma... what a surprise :P
So that is a very, very quick summary of my last two weeks! Yeah... I'm sure I missed a lot, and I didn't even really get into what Gayle spoke about but that's okay!
Oh, one last story before I go. On Friday night, at about 3 in the morning, we all suddenly awoke when our bedroom lights were turned on (this happened in the boys dorm as well as both girls rooms). An airhorn sounded in the hallway, and we all saw a chicken walking around our rooms. The GMC DTS had snuck in, grabbed 4 of our chickens, and did this. So at 3 in the morning, I found myself running across the frosty grass, with just socks on my feet, holding a chicken to put it back in the coop. I did this twice. It was a pretty entertaining night!
Blessings,
Katie
13 of us went to the Olive Garden for Megan's birthday last night. So good!
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