Living the Journey

Come and hear, all you who fear God,
And I will declare what He has done for my soul.

A month before I came to the Journey to the Heart, life at my home was falling apart. Problems that had been discreetly covered over in public life were causing so much anger and pain that life was almost unbearable.

I grew up in the Philippines. I loved the people, loved the ministry, and loved seeing so much of God. His hand was working in troubled lives through the testimonies we shared with one another. He was ever present and always sufficient. As I got older, the cares of living caught up with me, people and relationships became more tangled and I began to put God farther and farther down on my list. He became so common that I took Him for granted.

Then our whole ministry came crashing to pieces.

Ugly problems that had been working in secret finally surfaced. My father sat me and my older brother down and said: “We are leaving.” The only thing that came to my mind was that this was some king of cruel joke.  It could not be happening.  It was not possible.

It was true.

In one month our entire lives were packed into boxes and I found myself in a foreign country (but my passport said it was “home”) where I knew little more than the geography and the language . . . and little of that.

For You, O God, have tested us;
You have refined us as silver is refined.
You brought us into the net;
You laid affliction on our backs.
You have caused men to ride over our heads;
We went through fire and through water;

The next year I spent much time working on my own to survive. I waded through the morass of teen life trying desperately to salvage some sort of meaning. The mission climate I had been accustomed to made “teen problems” seem shallow. I buried myself in books to find some life wherein I could understand people, where life had meaning, and where my wounds wouldn’t hurt so badly. I sunk so deep into depression that I would wonder why I even wanted to remain alive.  Into my vortex of pain, God began to tenderly turn me toward Him.

Come and see the works of God;
He is awesome in His doing toward the sons of men.
He turned the sea into dry land;
They went through the river on foot.
There we will rejoice in Him.

In 2008, during a session with Teen Pact, they gave a time for personal prayer and meditation. For the first time in about 4 years, I was able to still my mind and I asked God if I could ever go back to the Philippines (my life goal, basically). Suddenly, almost like a physical touch, I heard the word “Here.” “Here?” I asked. “Why here? continue reading…

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Ever since my baptism last August, I had been striving to draw closer to God on a daily basis. Yet, at that point, I didn’t realize that I had allowed some affections to creep into my life and compete with my love for God. It wasn’t until this past September when I went on a Journey to the Heart that I was able to get alone with God and hear His voice as to what He had in mind for my life.

In Bill Gothard’s Basic Seminar, he describes a new perspective on fully dedicating your life to Christ. He uses the illustration of a room with everything inside representing the things that you do in your life. This might include each activity you have become involved in or every subject that you’ve mastered. In this illustration, when you become a new Christian and dedicate your “life” to Christ, it is like you are  inviting Him to come into the room and allowing Him the freedom to have control of all the aspects of your life. Let’s say there is a box in the room for each of your accomplishments. If there is something that you want to hold on to and don’t want you new Roommate to know about or take away, you might build a closet, put the box on the top shelf out of reach, and lock the door. Then, you really aren’t giving God everything because you are still withholding that one little box in your closet!

As I was searching my heart, trying to figure out if there was any particular area in my life that I had not yet surrendered to God, He revealed to me an area where I had allowed myself to be in control. At first, I was unwilling to give this up because it wasn’t all bad. Just some of it was, so the good outweighs the bad and makes it ok to live with, right? Wrong!

I argued back and forth with God about it, and finally agreed to give it all to Him. I was able to discover that God wants to be the center of my life, and I need to be willing to let Him be in control of all aspects of my life, including my future.  The Lord showed me that He is my fulfillment; He is all that I will ever need to be happy. He also revealed to me that now is the perfect time for me to focus on serving the Lord through my current responsibilities.

I Corinthians 7:34-35 says – “The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband. And this I speak for your own profit; not that I may cast a snare upon you, but for that which is comely, and that ye may attend upon the Lord without distraction.”

These verses prompted me to rededicate myself to focus on serving the Lord rather than pleasing myself. That alone has been life-changing for me, and now I am able to fully trust God to care for everything I will ever need or want! As challenging as it was, after I completely surrendered everything to God, I was finally able to experience true peace in my spirit.

In closing, I will just share one of the verses that suck out to me during this time of my life: Psalm 126:2-3: “Then our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with joyful shouting; then they said among the nations, ‘The Lord has done great things for them.’ The Lord has done great things for us, and we are glad.” Yes, God has done an awesome work in my life, and I am very glad!

~ Grace
September 2009 Journey

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Before I went on the Journey, I was having a hard time reading the Bible. It was really becoming boring, and I was not enjoying it. When I went to the Journey, I learned about not just reading the Bible, but really meditating on it, and asking God to show me what it means.

When I read about having an “enlarged heart” (see Psalm 119:32), I realized that in order to have my heart enlarged I must fill it with things of the Lord, one of them being His Word. When I came home I decided to read the book of John, even though I have read it before. I wanted to get my love for reading the Word back into my heart. I also decided to start memorizing the Psalms, and have actually really enjoyed it. It is a challenge that helps me want to stay in the Bible, and meditate on it!

~ Carleigh
July 2009 Girls’ Journey

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Until the Journey, Joseph made decisions based on what his reasoning concluded was right or wrong. His life was controlled by his intellect. While on the Journey, he discovered the freedom of no longer “leaning on his own understanding” but instead dedicating his body to God according to Romans 12:1-2. Listen to how this one step opened up a new sensitivity to the Spirit of God and a firm trust in the promises of His Word.

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~ Joseph
October 2009 Guys Journey

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Last year in June I attended my first Journey, during which I had suicidal depression and was in rebellion to my authorities. God used the first Journey to change my life . . . and this second one to help me to overcome several major fears. I have been petrified of people, rejection, public speaking, and standing alone for the longest time.

Last year I wanted to be on a team of rebels. This year, I wanted a team of girls who all wanted to be there . . . and of course, I found out on both occasions, that God’s ways are opposite to ours, and that He knows the best thing for us.

Through a series of discipleship opportunities and many different occasions of praying for different girls, God helped me to overcome my fear of rejection from people and learn how to make Jesus my best friend. Not only did I learn how to love Jesus as a friend that sticks closer than a brother, but I learned how to disciple girls. That has been my dream ever since last year and I never had the courage to do it. I was always floating along with the tide, unable to swim against it. God gave me freedom over my fear of man on this Journey and filled me with a greater joy than ever before. Not only could I stand alone, I could do it with great joy.

During the course of the week, God answered some major prayer requests that I brought before Him and my team. He also gave me a greater love for my family and I missed them all even though I usually enjoy time to myself.

I want to be able to have an impact on girls outside of my family . . . so God laid it on my heart to first work on my ministry at home so that I will then be prepared to do that. Upon arriving home, I was overjoyed to find that my parents were giving me and my sister permission to gather a group of girls and return to the Journey in March/April. I am now looking forward to what God will do, who He will choose, and how He is going to use my life.

~ Hannah
September 2009 Girls Journey

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This past week concluded my second Journey to the Heart. God met me unexpectedly the first day. I suddenly became aware of what had been holding me back from fully experiencing God’s power! As a young child, I had been rejected/pushed away by my parents, and although they had confessed and repented of this many times, I had harbored a lot of bitterness towards them and many others who had hurt me deeply over the years.

When I was younger, there had also been a struggle between my parents in their marriage, which had caused me to cut off my spirit from them, to build up walls of defense, and to suffer asthma and nightmares from my fears. I had sought acceptance in other people and possessions, which had caused me to not only lack the trust I needed for my parents, but to hold back from fully trusting God.

The Breaking Point

As this realization dawned upon me, I broke down and wept on the floor where we had all knelt to pray in groups of 3 or 4. My team leader, sensing that God was doing a work in my heart, led me away to talk in private. Over the course of the next 2 hours, she helped me identify 30 lies I believed, 20 painful memories I was suffering from, and 5 different fears that were affecting my health.

That day my eyes were opened to the bondage that I had been in for so many years. I experienced a new freedom as I prayed asking God to take back the ground I had surrendered. I was able to fully forgive my offenders and to develop a new love for them, and a desire to serve and bless them!

Dying Leaves are More Beautiful

This amazing event set the stage for the rest of my Journey! I found that my heart was open to examination as I studied the different heart conditions. I was able to pray for others with a whole new love for them! I saw God use me to encourage and disciple many other girls throughout the time there, and to cry out to Him without fear of what others would think. There was a whole new awareness of His promptings, and the ability to hear His voice like never before! Most of all, I learned to understand the pain of others who were in similar bondage to what I had been in.

God showed me how to understand the hurts of another and to care for them! He broke me one night as I was spending time alone with Him under the stars. I wept for a girl I had known who was experiencing much more than I had ever experienced, but was held by the chains I had been in.

Throughout the week, as I observed the beauty of the colorful leaves on the trees, I was reminded continually by our team leader that the leaves were beautiful, yet they were dying! I saw that just as dying leaves are more beautiful than those that are alive, so we as believers are required to die to self and to be on fire for the Lord, in order to achieve the greatest beauty.
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