Many young people identified with Anna Downer as she told her story at the Big Sandy Regional Conference yesterday. It was based on this testimony that she gave in March to the girls who were on the first Journey of the year. In it, she shares the truths she discovered in God’s Word that conquered the insecurity that had been destroying her relationship with God, her dad, and her siblings.
Check back tomorrow for the second half of her story!
When Henry heard the message on Exposing the Lies of the Enemy by Paul and Jenny Speed while on the Journey, he realized that a painful memory from the past had triggered a lie that was controlling his life.
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~ Henry
April 2010 Journey
About a month before the Journey, God began dealing with me specifically in the area of humility. He kept bringing me back to James 4:6-10: “God resists the proud, but gives grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. . . . Draw nigh to God . . . cleanse your hands . . . purify your hearts . . . humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord.” Humility is something I periodically pray for, but really don’t want to go through the process of learning. So this time I prayed for humility, and the willingness to accept the means by which God wanted to answer that request.
It started at home, checking with my family members to see if my conscience really was clear toward them. It went to a new level at the airport when obstacles started coming up. Two other girls and I were traveling together and when one of them couldn’t go through security because of ID, she wanted to stop right there in the crowded security line and pray. Okay, Lord, I asked You for humility . . . . Seeing Him work in everyday circumstances was not new to me, but praying out loud in a public place was. Though several more problems came up, we watched the Lord answer prayer and smooth them all out.
At the first session, someone spoke about the sin of the fear of man. Fear of man has always been a problem for me, but I don’t remember ever hearing it classified as a sin! The next morning I was reading my Bible in the living room, and one other girl from my team was seated on the far side of the room doing the same thing. God suddenly laid on my heart that He wanted me to confess the sin of the fear of man—out loud. So I whispered a prayer of confession. “Louder,” He said. I tried again, still in a whisper. “Louder!” “But she’ll hear me!” I answered. It was a struggle that lasted several minutes.
I knew if I didn’t obey in one thing, then the whole week would be wasted. Anything I hoped to learn about loving God would mean nothing if I wasn’t willing to obey Him in everything. So at last, with His grace, I went over and asked the other girl to pray with me so that I could confess this sin with my mouth out loud to the Lord.
Listening to a sermon by Paul Washer later that week, God convicted me about some forms of entertainment that had become idols for me. That night when the team met, we experienced an amazing time of prayer, and only the first of many. There is nothing in this world like praying with a group of believers who all just want to be honest and open before God and to know Him more than anything else. It is worth the humbling, the confessions, and the tears.
During the Journey, I was given a great deal of time to just get alone with God—and I do mean alone. No telephone, no laundry, no computer, no work or church schedule, no little children (as much as I love them, they are distractions!) There just aren’t that many opportunities for quietness and aloneness 
in this world, and that was a great blessing.
Most importantly, I learned all over again that loving God takes complete dedication. You don’t add loving God to your list of things to do—that is the one thing to focus on, because it takes all of you. That means approaching my daily responsibilities and opportunities with the attitude of “how can I do this thing unto my Lord?”
~ Kelli
March 2010 Journey
Listen to Kelli share part of her testimony:
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I thought I looked fine as a Christian homeschool girl—I wore the skirts, I read the books, I smiled—and I didn’t mind. In fact, I accepted those standards as my own, so I didn’t feel like I needed to change my heart in any way. I read God’s Word and liked it, I had dedicated my life to Him, and I spent nearly an hour every morning in devotions and prayer. I didn’t feel like my spiritual life was dry, and it certainly didn’t look like that to outsiders. I knew I was having some trust issues, and I knew there were areas in my life in which I needed to fully surrender to His will—but I thought I was able to deal with them alone.
From day one of the Journey I was challenged to examine my heart more thoroughly than ever before. I looked into my life and I saw . . . myself. It was like going into a library filled with one subject—me. Shelves filled with volumes on my experiences and articles on my talents; walls covered with pictures of the things I’d accomplished and detailed schedules of my future. There were a few notes on what God had done in my life and a couple of pictures of the gifts He’d given me, but that was all.
To tell you the truth, I was horrified! I looked into my life and saw few evidences of real humility, Christ-like grace, or genuine love—enough to get by as being a “good Christian,” but not enough to be truly Godly. You might not have noticed it from the outside, but after discovering it, I knew, and the knowledge made me rather uncomfortable. One morning on my prayer walk around the lake in the Northwoods, I stood chewing my nails at the door of the self-library of my heart. Then I felt Jesus come up behind me and ask, “Do you believe that I can do a great work in your life?”
I said, “Sure. You can do anything.” But then God revealed one big area in which I had not trusted Him—my future. I realized that through desiring my own way for my future, I was taking it out of God’s hands and saying, “Thanks, I’ll handle this.” By being afraid of failure, I was failing to trust that He had a perfect plan for my life.
So I told God I would trust Him, no matter what. I told Him how it would be hard for me sometimes, and I asked Him to come alongside me and encourage me when I felt like I couldn’t trust Him any more. I asked Him to make His presence and love first and foremost in my mind so I’d never forget. It was so freeing, handing my future back to the Lord!
Immediately, He brought to mind part of a message Mr. Gothard had given us back at Headquarters on what a blessing it can be to give God a period of years while you are still young and single to focus on serving Him without distraction. God said to me, “I want you to give me the next four years of your life and dedicate those years to single service. I will use you fully for me, and you won’t need to worry any more about how your youth will be spent.” At first I thought, “Why? I gave you my whole life—now you’re taking any possibility of marriage within the next four years!” (Now I realize how ridiculous that excuse was . . . I’ll only be 21, after all!) But He convicted me to give Him the next four years in which to remain single, with no reservations.
I did. Once I placed that area of my life in His hands, I was filled with joy! I wanted to sing! (It’s a good thing I was alone on my walk, because I don’t have the greatest singing voice… <g>) I realized that through giving God the next four years, He would be able to create in me the person He wanted me to be. Every decision, every thought, and every idea would be placed into His caring hands. It was among the most difficult decisions I’ve ever made . . . continue reading… 
Pastor LaFaurie has seen God work in incredibly powerful ways through the young people of His church who came to one accord on a Journey to the Heart. In this 15-minute video, he shares some of these stories.
Am I consciously or unconsciously creating the impression that I am better than I am? In other words, am I a hypocrite?Reference: John Wesley’s Class Meetings: a Model for Making Disciples, by D. Michael Henderson, Evangel Publishing House, 1997, pp. 118-9
I was one of about 45 ATI dads who met in Oak Brook, Illinois at the IBLP campus and then drove in four vans to the Northwoods Conference Center on the upper peninsula of Michigan. 
Are you looking for something that will change your life forever? Do you desire to love Jesus Christ with all of your heart, and to know that He is truly your best friend?©2008 Robert Staddon. Design by Abundant Designs
