Wow, I can’t believe that I am finishing my second week of lectures already. A great deal has happened so far. God has started growing and changing my heart. In my school, there are 17 students where 11 are females and 7 males with 4 staff members. The word God gave the staff for our school is The Ascend. The first night of orientation, we all met together in the classroom and our school leader, Randy, shared what God put on his heart for our school. One of our staff members, Michelle, created this beautiful graphic of a mountain. Randy said through this metaphor, that through this journey up the mountain, we will need to take off baggage along the way that may be hindering our journey. There are things that we are carrying that God wants us to let go. Second, we need to focus on the journey, not just the destination. That God will give us revelations along the way, not just at the top. He also mentioned that this will be challenging and difficult. We need to keep getting up and putting one step in front of the other. Lastly, after we climb the mountain, that we’re not done there. God has more mountains to climb and that DTS is not the end, but the beginning.
After hearing the vision for our DTS, we set out to King’s Park, which had a great view of the city skyline. We spent time together, talking and getting to know each other. I tried my first tim tam slam. If you don’t know what a tim tam slam is, I would highly recommend it. First, you take a tim tam (which is a delicious toffee chocolate type of cookie), then bite off each diagonal end, after that take the tim tam and use it as a straw to drink some hot chocolate. Once you start to taste hot chocolate, stop, then eat the cookie. The tim tam gets all ooey-gooey and melty, simply yummy. After our tim tam slams, we spent time worshiping God. We sang a few songs, then these two women came up to us and shared how they are both in recovery. One of the women just recently accepted Jesus into her heart and that they both were talking in the park for a few hours about what it looks like to have a personal relationship with Jesus when they heard us singing. They said they felt so blessed by our singing. They joined us in worship and sang a few more songs with us then we all prayed for the two women. This was just the first night of orientation, we haven’t even started lectures yet and God is moving in us and through us. I was incredibly touched and blessed by God’s presence and His fierce love for His children. I believe He wanted this one woman to know how much He loves her and is overjoyed that she said yes to start a relationship with Him.
July 7-14, 2019
The first week of lectures was about Hearing God’s Voice. We learned about the different ways we can hear His voice. How we can hear His voice either through His Word (the Bible), prayer, meditating on His Word, being still and waiting on Him, through dreams, visions, an impression from the Holy Spirit, or an actual audible voice. During quiet time one day, God spoke to me through His word in Philippians 4:8.
Instead of fixing my thoughts, God wanted me to view Him this way. God is true, God is honorable, God is right, God is pure, God is lovely, God is admirable. Once I meditated on that thought for a while then God said that because of Jesus I am these characteristics and to think of myself this way. That in Jesus, I am true, I am honorable, I am right, I am pure, I am lovely, I am admirable. That was a powerful and humbling revelation. That God thinks of me this way, wow.
During the first week, we all went to the beach. This was my first time seeing the Indian Ocean.
And on Sunday, we went to this park that has kangaroos and saw two kangaroos! They were more laid back than I expected.
July 15-21, 2019
This week was all about the nature and character of God. Definitely, a weighty topic, that’s for sure. We learned that God’s nature is uncreated creator, eternal/everlasting, invisible/spirit, supreme/most high, glorious, infinite, and the trinity. Some of the characteristics of God are love, kindness, grace, compassion, mercy, gentle, forgiving, understanding, long-suffering, humble, just, good, faithful, and holy. A lot of what we learned this week, I will need to process and unpack for a long time. It was really good, it was packed full of information and food for thought. I won’t say everything God was putting on my heart because this blog post would end up being a book, ha. I will share one revelation I learned. Our lecturer shared that God is not just one characteristic at a time, He is fully just, fully kind, fully loving, fully holy, etc. He is all these characteristics all the time. He doesn’t stop being loving to be holy or stop being gentle to be just. He is all His characteristics, all the time. Okay, I will share one more revelation (I can’t help it, God is so good). During class one day, God gave me a visual, where He showed me my heart and on my heart were small black spots scattered over my heart. God revealed to me that these were a combination of sin, hardened areas, and unresolved pain. He wants to bring me into further holiness and closer to Him through repentance, softening more of my heart, and healing. This week has been very intense, emotionally draining, and humbling. I have been feeling the growing pains and yet I know God is showing me all of this to be closer to Him. All of this is because He loves me and this is for my good. He can be trusted, always.
I can’t wait for next week!
Stay tuned,
Katy