Skipping Stones

This week, our DTS class was blessed to have John Bills come to speak with us about intercession and mission. He has done a lot of very valuable work in the AIDS community and had great insight into reaching and loving those whom we don't necessarily care for, or who make us uncomfortable or even scare us.

At the beginning of the week, John talked about loving people and not just tolerating them. This spurred another student to approach me and we had a great discussion about how we had been tolerating each other, but not loving each other. We both agreed that hadn't really been "lovable" to each other and often said things to pick a fight with the other one. Although it was a hard, painful conversation, the fruit that has come from the discussion is totally worth it. We have gotten along great since then, and it was a great reminder that we all need to work on being more loveable. Because we are loved by the King of Kings, who knows every little detail of our heart and every hair on our head. And if he can love us, we can surely find room to love each other.

I really enjoyed learning more about John's AIDS ministry (we sat with him at meals a few times and really got to hear his heart for what he does), especially with his friend, Skip. Basically, Skip was an AIDS patient was was completely turned off from hearing from John - especially anything relating to the gospel. But God continued to pursue John's heart for Skip and eventually Skip warmed up to him and accepted Christ on his deathbed. John uses the example of Skip as someone who pushed him past his breaking point - he had given all of the pity and compassion he could muster but had to go beyond and find unconditional love in order to continue loving Skip. We have to trust that if God has called us to work with the difficult people in our lives, that He will give us the strength and grace to do it.

As he talked about missions, John really concentrated on the why instead of the where, when or how of missions, which I often do not stop to think about. We need to be sure that we are not focused on doing things because they make us feel good, but because they are the very things that break the heart of God. Missions is not necessarily a ministry to people, but how we are responding to the suffering of the world in our hearts, I have often heard and prayed "here am I, send me" but never thought of missions as "here am I, break my heart." That is exactly what God asks of us though, and I sincerely want to have a heart that is broken for the things that break the heart of God.

Genesis 6:5-6 says, "The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The Lord was grieved that he had made man on earth and his heart was filled with pain."

John describes this as the most sad verse in the Bible and I couldn't agree more. Just reading it makes me sad because it is a reminder that our sin is God's sorrow. Our sin doesn't only effect our lives, or those of the people around us, but it breaks the very heart of God. Worse yet, God sees all of the suffering and pain and sin of every single person in the world. How much greater is his heartache?

In all honesty, knowing that I have asked God to break my heart for the very things that break His scares me. I know that God is faithful and that He will give me what I ask - and that it is going to be painful to see hurt and suffering and death. But at the same time, I know that He will not give me anything more than I can handle or any burden that I cannot bear.


Ezekiel 11:19 says, "I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh." I love that. I love that God loved the world so much that He gave us His Son and that he loves me so much that He will give me a new heart and a new ability to see His people through His eyes.

My Cheer and Jeer for this week are actually one-in-the-same. David and I had weekend kitchen duty last weekend and it was wild, to say the least. We cook a lot at home, so we didn't think we'd have any problems at all. Plus, dinner is usually not a very big meal, so we strolled into the kitchen at 4 ready to throw down and show off our master chef skills. At first things were fine - we made the sauce and diced up an obscene amount of garlic. And then things started to get crazy. The ground beef for the meatballs was still frozen and we couldn't find breadcrumbs anywhere. We improvised and tried to use croutons but the meatballs were falling apart and burned in the fryer, and dinner was a good 30 minutes late getting to the table. Plus, we made a huge mess and used every pot and pan in the kitchen, so when we finally finished we had hours of cleaning ahead of us. The Jeer part is the lack of communication - a lot of stuff was missing from our baskets, we couldn't find anyone to help us, and there was a lot of chaos and confusion. The Cheer part, though, is that we had a lot of fun. We have a lot of time together here but we are often engrossed in "deep" topics or Bible reading or discussions and don't have a lot of time for random stuff...which this definitely was. By the end of the night, we were singing along to Christmas carols (and other random songs) as we scrubbed dishes and mopped the floor. It was exhausting but fun, and one of those memories that we will continue to look back on and laugh about.

The YWAM Value I want to explore this week is "Practice Worship and Intercessory Prayer." Our worship times here have been a little different than I'm used to but this week was awesome - Billy brought some South African flare on Wednesday morning and we all rocked out. I've learned that worship isn't always what I'm used to, and of course it isn't at all about the music, but it was fun to hear something familiar. We are fortunate/unfortunate (depending on what I'm trying to do and the time of day....) to have our bedroom right on top of the classroom, so we get to hear the worship team playing and practicing a lot throughout the week.

I actually didn't know much about intercession before John talked to us about it this week, so it was really enlightening. I've obviously prayed for people before but he has a sort of systematic group "plan" that he uses. We were able to try this out a few times with groups this week as we prayed for various countries and issues facing them. We kind of bumped our way along as we figured out how exactly to do intercession the way John described, but the result was a really great time of prayer for a few countries who are facing persecution and oppression, and I was really given a taste of what it means to have a heart that breaks for the things that break God's.