Lessons...

While in the two weeks I’ve been here, God might not have completely overtaken my life or turned me upside down, but He has taught me so incredibly much. I haven’t always “felt” Him, I haven’t always known His spirit was there, but I cannot believe the things I have learned and the things He has shown me already.

I was trying to summarize everything I’ve learned in my two short weeks here, and there is no way possible to do it. So here are some things from my notes that popped out at me the most:

-When things go wrong, often it is God redirecting our path, not forsaking us

-There is a difference between a burden and a calling-God may never call us to the place we have a burden for, no matter how deep it is to us. Don’t be afraid to step out of your interests and passions if God calls you there.

-Every morning you wake up, Jesus was up all night praying for you!

-Not EVERY event and circumstance is God’s will. He has given us free will to choose. While He can make any of our choices work together for good, He does not control all of our choices. Something that revolutionized my perspective on life and decisions! Makes so much sense!

-Forgiveness is not pardoning (letting someone get away with something), it is giving up the right to get revenge.

-We can change the mind of God! Through prayer, intercession, faith, we can “stand in the gap” for something or someone and change God’s mind.

-For a relationship to truly be a love relationship there has to be the ability to choose not to love. As in, for there to be good, there has to be evil. God could have created us as mindless beings that worship Him all day, but instead He CHOSE to create us with the ability to reject Him, simply so He could have a TRUE love relationship with Him. He so deeply wanted a free, passionate relationship with us, He created us with the choice to reject Him.

-The power of thoughts- Sow a thought, reap an action

Sow an action, reap a habit

Sow a habit, reap a character

Sow a character, reap a destiny

I thought this was so cool, because it really shows how some innocent thoughts can turn into life changing things if we are not mindful of what goes in and comes out of our minds.

-God ALWAYS does the right thing. Never are His decisions wrong.

-Why do good people suffer? One quote from that topic (which is HUGE)-“Suffering was the price that had to be paid for freedom & love to exist at all.” –CS Lewis

-We can do EVERYTHING for God. Every action, every single moment of our lives follow Him—BUT WITHOUT HIS SPIRIT IN US WE CAN NEVER KNOW GOD!

-A true relationship with God takes time, diligence, determination. Not just forcing yourself to read the Bible 3-4 times a week.

-The all-powerful, infinite, limitless, all-knowing God DECIDED of His own free will to have a beginning. To come into a woman’s womb as a fetus. The God that is on a bigger plane of existence than we can ever imagine became flesh and blood for us. The God that was there before all time, chose to have a time. He knew everything there was to know about humanity, He created it! Yet He chose to experience it for us. God HIMSELF became a crying baby. A toddler learning to walk. An awkward adolescent. ALL FOR HIS LOVE FOR US!

-Everything God asks us to do is for our own good. God is NOT a selfish God. Even when He asks us to worship Him, he wants us to do because it is our own good, not because He can’t wait to receive glory and praise.

-The Holy Spirit does not want to CHANGE who we are, He wants to USE who we are.

-God DOES NOT want doctors, lawyers, carpenters, teachers, etc. God isn’t looking for pastors or missionaries. He is looking for people after His heart. For worshippers that honor Him. If we focus on Him and run to Him we will become who He created us to be.

-Nothing in Christianity is a recipe. It is not a bargain place with God. It MUST come out of a relationship with God.

-The doorway to growth in the Lord is humility

-Hearing God’s voice is not a gift that comes upon us. It is a developed skill.

-How quickly we get to know someone (namely, God) depends on the amount of time we spend together.

-God should know ALL the skeletons in our closet. Not because He is the all-knowing God of the universe, but because we should tell Him it all. Tell Him your thoughts, your heart, how your day went. Everything that is going through you. He wants to hear it all.

-God is ALWAYS speaking. Always. We shouldn’t ask for God to speak, but to give us ears to hear.

-In being Christians, we should be “little Christs”. People should confuse us with Christ, not be able to tell us apart.

-The most important thing is to keep the most important thing as the most important thing.

-Prayer is not about convincing God what you need. He never has to prove anything or do anything. It isn’t about getting something out of Him. Its about spending time with Him and learning to know Him and have a relationship with Him.

-New idea! When praying we should learn to pray only what the Holy Spirit is leading us to pray. If we pray outside of the Holy Spirit we can sometimes give someone a false hope or make them have doubts about God. For ex: If we have the whole community pray for healing for a person and everyone believes that it will happen, but it isn’t of God…then He won’t listen! That person might seriously doubt the faithfulness of God because one person didn’t listen to God and His Spirit.