the aftermath of desperation

A little advice for all you frequent readers out there. Don't ever take a class at PLU from Dennis J Martin in the biology department. He is a nice enough guy, but he is so addicted to evolution that it has made him a little mentally ill. I took the first test in his class today, Animal Behavior. I had him last semester so I knew how to study for his tests, but he is the type of prof that does not look for ways to make life better for their students. The first day of class, he tells us that we are on our own and that we had better learn how to handle student directed learning or else. I guess that I can take comfort in the fact that he is retiring at the end of the semester.

We have been holding prayer every night for the last week and God is doing stuff. I mean God is doing some really big stuff.

I love it!!!

It started last Wednesday and I feel bad because I skipped youth to stay home and study, but I ended up curled up like a ball on my couch crying out to God because I was so frustrated and hurting. God started to open up some places in my heart that I don't really like because when He does that it is not the most pleasant experience.

I told Em & Em that I was not in the mood for a "normal" prayer meeting. I needed God to show up so bad, it was painful. We all needed Him and He showed up...

Did He ever...

I have never heard prayer with that much fervency, passion and desperation. The theme for me that night was, "God if You don't show up and if we don't meet with You, then why are we here?" God did show up and we did meet with Him. We finished with prayer and said to each other, "When are we praying tomorrow?"

Last night at prayer was interesting. I felt like we wern't going anywhere in prayer again and I began to get perturbed. The Lord brought to my mind the Israelites in the wilderness and how they would follow the cloud of God's presence wherever it led. If the cloud stopped in a single spot, then they would camp there. However long the cloud remained in that spot is how long they would camp for, 1 night or a whole month, it did not matter. I felt like the Lord was telling us,

"However long I dwell on something is how long I want you to stay there."

The night before, God had told us to wait on Him and He gave me a picture of kids coming home from school and demanding their parents to put on this huge display of who they are and to have this big production. I felt like we do that with God sometimes, we come before Him and say, "Here we are God, now where are the fireworks and amazing things that I always hear about?" It felt like we were just having family time with God, nothing amazingly spectacular, no extraordinary manifestations of the Holy Spirit, just us communing with God and encouraging each other.

Last night we talked about how we were not going anywhere in prayer that night a little bit and it kept coming up on how we were un-prepared to come before the Lord corporately because we had not been with Him personally.

Oh, yeah, I am on Rich Olander's good side now. I meet with him on Wednesdays and he pretty much started my soul travail by challenging me to lead not to fulfill a need in my heart, but only when the Lord wants me to. It has been a challenge and I am not too good at it yet, but I am getting better. I told him about the prayer that has been going on, he got really excited and asked me questions about it for a good 30 minutes. Rich and I have not always got along very well, because I feel hurt by him and Dan sometimes, but I need them to be aliies and not enemies, Ignite needs us to be on the same page. So I am very glad to be in Rich's good graces.

As I read over my last post, I see the big words Come Holy Spirit...

Funny how God answers prayer!!!