Living the Journey

During my personal interview with Mr. Gothard at the start of the Journey, he asked me, “On a scale 1 -10 (10 being the strongest) how would you rate your relationship with God?”

I replied, “It would be a 1.”

On the outside, I looked like a pretty nice Christian young man who had a fairly good life. On the inside, I was headed down a path leading to destruction. My life was a total mess. I had a lot of bitterness towards my parents and I was filled with anger, malice, rage, hatred, lust, immorality, and moral perversions. I believed the lie from Satan that I didn’t need anyone else . . . God or parents.  So it’s safe to say that even though I had said the “sinners prayer” before, my relationship with God was pretty much nonexistent.

To be perfectly honest with you, I really didn’t want to go on the Journey to the Heart. However, it was my dad’s desire that I go, so I submitted and decided to go with an open heart. I also determined that I wanted to find God on this Journey.

Fast forward . . . to Tuesday morning – March 31^st

This was the first day at the Northwoods, up in Michigan.  I was lying in my bed doing my quiet time and wrote a simple prayer in my journal.  The prayer went like this:

Dear God,

I want to find you!  Help me to forgive my parents, Lord.  Help me, give me the courage to confess my sins and competing affections out loud to you on this Journey!  Thank you Jesus for making it possible for me to come on this Journey.  Bless the rest of my family today Lord.  In Jesus name I pray.  Amen

I want to share a verse with you that is found in Jeremiah 29:13: “And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.” This verse is so true. Literally one hour later the Holy Spirit came upon me in a way that I have never experienced before and I just broke.  I was on my knees/face weeping before the Lord confessing every sin that I could think of out loud to God and to my other teammates. I confessed my pride, my bitterness, my anger, my lust, my immorality, everything I could think of I confessed to God.  I told God that I forgave my parents for the hurts they caused me.

I began rebuking Satan.  I told him that I didn’t want him in my life anymore and commanded him to flee.  Then I asked God to fill me with His Spirit.  Our team spent two hours of praying and confessing hidden sins to God and to one another.  I can tell you I felt a lot better after praying this prayer.  This all happened on Tuesday and it took me until Wednesday sometime to realize that God had answered every single line of that prayer that I had written down in my journal that morning.

Wednesday – April 1^st

Wednesday was a day of discussing how to get rid of the hidden sins and secret lusts (competing affections) that hinder us from fully loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.  Earlier in the week we had heard the phrase:  “The power of sin is in its secrecy.”  This means that once a sin is exposed, confessed, and repented of, the sin has no more power over you.  This is why it is crucial when we confess our sins that we confess every detail of the particular sin so that Satan has nothing to fall back on. It is like when someone goes into surgery for cancer and the doctors performing the surgery must make sure they cut off every part of that tumor. Otherwise, what happens?  The tumor grows back.

Our leader, Chad, told us if there was anything we needed to confess to our parents that would be hindering our walk with the Lord, and hindering the one accord between the group, he would make it possible for us to use the phones over at the main lodge.  God had convicted me of a particular sin that I had been struggling with that I needed to confess and ask for forgiveness.

After dinner, we went over to the main lodge and I called my dad.  He wasn’t there.  I left him a message saying I had accepted Christ as my Savior and that I needed to talk to him so I would either call them back later or to just keep me accountable and ask me when I get home.  Later that night, I called again and this time I got a chance to talk with my dad and my mom.  At first I only confessed it to my dad, but I eventually decided that I needed to confess it to my mom as well.  After confessing it to both my parents and asking for their forgiveness they both said they forgave me. I am on a quest of desiring to fully confess everything to my parents and cleanse my heart of all impurities.

Before I left, I sent out a massive email asking for prayer that I would:

1. Go with an open heart
2. Meet God in supernatural way
3. Come home loving God more then I ever have before

God answered every single one of those requests! It just goes to show that if we seek God with all our hearts, we will indeed find Him.  If we seek Him, He will make Himself known to us in ways we could have never imagined.

~ Kyle
March 2009 Journey

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I came to the Journey knowing that there were struggles in my life that needed to be resolved. At the top of the list was my bitterness towards my father.

Before we left Headquarters for the Northwoods, I was challenged to give the expectations I had of my father to the Lord. I was also encouraged to find ten benefits from my situation . . . then a few more . . . and I needed to ask the Lord to bless my father with the character qualities he was lacking.

I wasn’t too sure I could think of that many benefits, but as I went outside to spend some time alone, one benefit in particular kept taking over my thoughts. The Lord God Almighty—the Creator of heaven and earth and my Heavenly Father—was teaching me to fully rely on Him for the security, comfort, acceptance, love, and everything else that my heart desired so greatly. He was the only one who could fulfill those roles completely. As I began to ask the Lord to bless my father, a huge weight left me.

On Tuesday, our team spent the morning outside enjoying the beauty of God’s creation and studying about the murmuring heart. I was very convicted and later called home to ask my father’s forgiveness.

For many years I had experienced doubts about my salvation, which were probably a result of the bitterness I had been harboring. Now that this bitterness was resolved, I had a renewed impression upon my heart to get rebaptized.

I understood that baptism is not necessary for salvation. However, I realized that if I humbled myself through this baptism and openly acknowledged that Jesus Christ was the Lord of my life (no matter what others might think), then my doubts would leave.

I talked over the phone with my parents and they both said it would be fine, although my mom strongly urged me to pray for a rhema. During our day of delighting in the Lord I was seeking a really special verse, but the only verse that I felt impressed to meditate on was Proverbs 30:5. To be honest, I didn’t exactly see the relevance of this particular verse. However, my team listened to Jim Sammons share about meditating on one verse each week, so this became my verse.

When Saturday morning came and still I didn’t seem to have a rhema, or so I thought, I prayed and gave the whole request to God, since it seemed that I had run out of time. Right before the meeting that night, my team leader asked if I was getting baptized. I said that I didn’t think so . . . but God does amazing things!

During the meeting, Bob Norvell shared how to continue living what we had learned during the journey. Close to the end, he started quoting a verse. It was Proverbs 30:5: “Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him.” It seemed Mr. Norvell was looking straight at me during the whole verse. Then the Lord said to me, “There you go. This is your answer. Trust me and be baptized.” Wow! I was very nervous, but He kept assuring me, “I am a shield to those who trust in Me.’”

So that night I was baptized at the lake, under the stars, and as I came up and walked out of the water the Lord took away all of those doubts and fears! Hallelujah, praise His name!!

~ Crystal
July 2009 Girls’ Journey

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The house was in an uproar. Two gold chains lay atop a dresser in the master bedroom on the second floor of the house. The usual wearer of those chains was nowhere to be found. Something was wrong, very wrong. The person to whom those two necklaces belonged to never ever took them off, unless she absolutely had to do so. The woman was a single mother of four: three daughters and one son.

I was the youngest daughter of Joanne, the owner of those two gold necklaces.

The police were at the house questioning my two oldest sisters, Jessica and Amy. I can’t recall what my brother was doing, but I know what I was doing. I was sitting in her room, crying. My mother was gone and I didn’t know where she was. I had just turned 11 one week prior and I could not understand the chaos in my young life.

Finally, my oldest sister, Jessica, told me that I had to go to bed. Jessica was crying, but she was trying to be strong, if for only the sake of me. Everyone in the house was worried about one thing: Mom had done what she’d been threatening to do.

I cried myself to sleep, in fear of what would happen in the morning. When morning came around, I awoke to the heart-wrenching sobs of my sisters. continue reading…

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The reason I came on the Journey to the Heart was to seek God. The first day up at the Northwoods, our group leader Jordan said, “How sad it would be to come to the Journey to seek God and not know Him altogether.” This weighed heavy on my heart. I had “prayed a prayer” at a young age but I did not know without a doubt that I was saved. When I examined the fruits of my life, I noticed that I did not have many.

That night I accepted Jesus into my heart as the Lord of my life. Never before have I felt such a sincere love for the Lord. Since then, I have been on fire for God reading the Bible and praying with a fervency that I had never experienced before. Praise the Lord!

~ Drew
October 2008 Guy’s Journey

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In my last post, I wrote on how the Lord had cleansed me from worldly music. He did. However, it was only another step through the door of true understanding. Although there was a new found resolve in my heart from the vow I made to the Lord, I felt as though I was still putting forth most of the effort in every area of my life and spiritual maturity.

It was like a shadow on the wall of my heart. No matter where I went, I couldn’t get away from it, and trying to wipe a shadow from a wall doesn’t work. This shadow was not specific unconfessed sins, but rather the core of who I was illuminated by God’s Word. Stopping the Light of God from purifying me completely, this darkness of self led me into deeper and deeper misery.

In my outward life, things were actually going the best they ever had. The Lord had cleansed me from a stronghold, I was striving for righteousness, and I felt confident that I was doing what the Lord wanted me to do. But there was still the shadow. When I wouldn’t get up for devotions, a sweep of hate would fall upon me—a hatred of myself. I wanted to kill myself. “Either Christianity is miserable or it isn’t real.” That is where my thoughts often directed themselves. When the ever-looming fact of my inadequacy to please God would continue to present itself, I would continue to run back to what I believed, to what I had done to prove that I was God’s child.

Truly, everything good is the work of the Lord. It comes only from His mighty grace which flows from His heart of love—the Life of Jesus. In my pathetic state of strong-willed iniquity, God still sought me. The Lord kept knocking—calling to me tenderly. All He wanted me to do was open the door, see who I really was, confess my absolute inadequacy, and let Him and His goodness fully into my heart.

O how we are blessed with a God that pursues us diligently! On my knees—powerless, hopeless, and defeated—I opened the door. When the genuinely evil motives of my self-righteous heart were revealed, God poured down His grace from heaven and glory filled my soul.

At first I felt no different, but knowledge of the truth of His Word in my heart grew. By that night I couldn’t sleep for the joy that was burning in me. In the morning, when the pure excitement of true salvation began to sink in, I noticed something else. No shadow. I had it all backwards. This was never my own journey to my heart. It was God’s journey to my heart! And now, “It is finished.” He has won and cleansed me. I am His. And now the journey of Christ in me, which I knew nothing about, begins.

~ Tim
June 2008 Guys’ Journey

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I really lacked the security of my salvation, a closeness to God and a joy before I came on the Journey to the Heart. I desired God, but was not seeking Him as I should.

I tried to read my Bible, pray and do some scripture memory…but I wasn’t seeking the Lord with all of my heart. There were still parts of me that were not surrendered to Him.

While on this Journey, God brought me to the point of complete and total surrender to Him. Everything is His and to be used for His glory; my heart, soul, will, future friends and music were all His. I must pray for His strength everyday to stay close to Him, hide His Word in my heart and stand alone in righteousness. I am willing to give anything up for Him.

When I came to this point, my spirit leaped inside of me and I was filled with joy and excitement! I reaffirmed my salvation and I am going to read the Word and engraft scripture into my mind and heart from now on.

Praise God for his work in my life through the Journey and I pray that I will continue to grow in Him as I seek Him with all my heart!

~ Max, Age 16
June 2008 Guys’ Journey

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