A Year of Movement.

I am thoroughly convinced that there is no better way to bring in the New Year than singing and dancing at the very throne room of God, worshiping him in spirit and in truth however we want with thousands of other people in my generation. :)

This trip was definitely different. Before I left, I knew that I expected to come back home more hungry for God. And I did.
I expected things in prayer. And I received them.
I expected a love encounter with Jesus. And I got one.
But for some reason, I went away and realized that right before I left, I had been expecting everything I left behind to magically be fixed and drastically turn around when I got home.
…That didn’t happen.

God dealt with a lot of things inside of me. But really and honestly, it was not like my first year at the Ramp. At that time I went not knowing who I was or what my purpose and calling was, not being filled with the holy spirit and not even understanding a taste of the real and raw presence of God. Well, let me tell you that I certainly got something, and my life took a 180 degree turn at that point. I came home ruined. I didn’t know what to do at first but “stick around with these guys” or in other words continued staying in church and praying and learning more about who this eternal being was that I’d always been told to call God. I REALLY wanted to know God. Not just tell people “Oh yeah, I believe in God!” and not really know what I just said. That was four years ago.
This year at the Ramp, unlike all the years before, I did not feel the need to respond to any of the altar calls. (Thankfully I’ve at least made it to the point where I don’t have to keep going back and starting all over again, like Damon Thompson said… that’s assuring though! Lol.)
I didn’t have any weighty sin or gross feeling on me. I came hungry. I left happy. (Like at IHOP, except I was at the Ramp… haha, punny joke right?) I didn’t lay out on the floor interceding in a place so deep that I couldn’t get up like last year. I felt like God was calling me to just come pray and worship him. Just love him, fill up. And to lead. We had an entire new group of middle schoolers at Ramp this year. And he told me to stick with them and to show them the love of God and teach them what I learned…
And some people may have looked at my youth group and said “Man what are these guys even doing here? They aren’t hungry for God! Look at that kid eating chips during the service or that one not raising his hands when he worships, and she doesn’t even pray in the holy ghost. They’re just sitting over there talking, they don’t want God.”
Excuse me, but who qualified you to put God in a box?
Even radical, passionate God-seeking Christians have put up a boundary line up, saying “You can’t do that.”
But (again, quoting Damon Thompson) you can’t put God in a box. God doesn’t have boundaries. He can do miracles through the kid who doesn’t even know why he came to this youth trip or why people raise their hands during worship or dance around or the kid who fell asleep during word time. He might not even know that God put something inside of him, but when he responded to the altar call it was an act of opening himself up to receive the plans God had for him… and when you open yourself up, God will come in.
That’s what I learned this weekend. God is constantly teaching me how to see people through his eyes, and that is definitely a big lesson he drilled on the inside of me. And I love my youth group. Because they might not know it, but God is doing something bigger in their hearts than they can fathom. All they have to do is open up and be willing to receive. And I will do my assignment by praying for them and ministering to their hearts.
What I received from Perry Stone’s sermon this weekend (along with other things of course) was Confession. When we are constantly confessing offense with our mouth, we’ll be offended. When we’re confessing love with our mouth, it’s what we’ll receive. When we sow, we reap. When we sow seeds of faith with the words of a double-edged sword protruding from our mouths, then we’ll reap a harvest, and one as big as we expect. We confess truth. We confess the word.
God also taught me to stomp on the devil’s head when he tries to tell me to be afraid of the opinion of man. God is teaching me boldness…


Third Altar call


And this is my lovely youth group... all pointing to me because I made us take a group picture... smh.