Puddles

So im trying harder now to write more often on my blog. This story is good and makes sense for me but I not quite sure how to say it so here it goes. God is always talking to me and others who believe in Him. Today He spoke to me again at youth group. I got there around 2 for worship practice as usual. Unlike usual the porch of the Ike's house was covered in water. This water was in little puddles all over the place. I sat down in my normal chair and then I looked straight ahead all I saw was the outside wall and barb wire and a nasty bush with thorns. But when I glanced down there was a reflection off the puddle. This reflection was one of beautiful trees and a wonderful blue sky. When I saw this I was amazed and knew God was telling me something.

When I saw what I had seen there were many things that He was trying to tell me. First the water could resemble the Holy Spirit in us. We need to see God. Even when we look around and we only see nasty and horrible things (barb wire, walls) we can look to the Holy Spirit. Through the Holy Spirit we can see God, a perfect reflection. This situation can also be viewed in another way. We could be the puddles and I would be people around us, watching us. We as believers in Christ have Him in us. We strive to be reflections of Him (like the puddle). Others will see Him through us. But there was an interesting thing about this whole picture.

First that there must be water to start with. None of this would be possible if there was no water. Before we can see God or others can see Him through us is there is no Holy Spirit in us, the living water. Also as time went by and people dogs started walking through the puddle the puddle became dirty with mud and dog hair and the reflection became less and less perfect and beautiful. This is also symbolic of our lives and how even if we have the Holy Spirit we can sometimes get dirty with sin and our thoughts and just the world rubbing off on us. Then we and others can't see God as clearly anymore.

Sorry for the long post again but it took a while to explain it and I hope I did so well so everyone could understand it. It just is more thoughts on God and Him showing Himself to me and others. Just sharing what I had seen and took from it but you all are welcomed and encouraged to take from this what you want. I just pray that I and everyone else will continue to follow Him and be in relationship with Him.

God bless!

Testimony from youth retreat

Sorry but it has been a very long time since I have written a blog and a lot has happened but i think i need to write this down. Last week was the youth retreat and it was a great time to be with friends and in God's presence. I am very grateful for the speakers and worship leader (i don't know how to spell their names) as they lead us into the presence of God and then helped and encouraged us into the presence of God. It was a great experience where many important things happened and I just wanted to write about some of them in this post.

One of the main focuses of the retreat was God's love for us. One of the things that was discussed was that we "know" in our mind that God loves us but we don't really know in our souls and hearts that God loves us. We say "Yes God loves us" but do we really believe it. When this was said the words from a song (I think) came to mind: "Nothing you can do can make Him love you less. Nothing you can do can make Him love you more." Sometimes one of the reasons we cant accept God's love is because we look down on ourselves saying why do I deserve His love. Another reason is that we wonder what we should do for God to love us, since we don't feel His love. The first statement is just the devil trying to take you away from God. But, "the devil is a liar" (Thanks Evans) and he has already lost the battle and has no hold over our lives as followers of Christ. To the second statement, God just wants to say you don't have to do anything but accept His love. This is tough and I am not saying that I always do this but God always loves us the same no matter what we do (good or bad) and by the same it is such a large amount we can't even comprehend it.

The second thing that happened on the retreat and right after was being in God's presence and hear His voice. God loves us so much He always wants to be with us and tell us how much he loves us. This past month I have struggled as I was wandering away from God. This was mainly because I had stopped being in His presence as I got busy with the end of the semester, college stuff, and internal assessments for IB. I had stopped hearing His voice and even when I tried it was hard and I couldn't hear Him. Even during the retreat I wasn't feeling Him as much as I had in years past. But then the second day during the prophetic session someone had a vision of someone locked in a shed and the door kept opening and closing, every time it opened the person would run towards it only for the door to close on their face. This happened several times until finally the door was opened a last time and the person made it out. When the person got out the shed collapsed and the person was free. When she was saying this it totally matched up with something that I had been dealing with since I was probably 13 or 14. I have gone through periods where it really controlled me and then I would come really close to God and go through a period where I thought I was free and then I would be sucked right back in. The testimony really spoke to me and I prayed to God that He would destroy that shack for me. I just felt so free. I then realized that that issue was holding me back from God.

I then began hearing God's voice the next day and it was amazing to be back with my creator! I think that almost everyone has their stumbling blocks and I just pray that God will free you from your stumbling blocks or things holding you back from His glory. Don't try to do it by your own strength (trust me I've tried) because the person didn't knock down the shed it just fell because of God. With this stumbling block gone I was free to enter into the presence of God and he just showed me His love in wonderful ways. This was confirmed today as we began worship at Elim and Daniel was doing a sound check. It was just an everyday sound check and I was just sitting there. But God was using that saying, "Chip I always want to talk to you because I love you." He gave me this picture of Him just sitting on His glorious throne with a microphone saying "Sound check, sound check, can you hear me. Sound check, sound check, I love you." This was a perfect illustration of how I felt. I knew he wanted to talk to me. But I had microphones all over the place. Listening to the world, myself, my feelings and desires. They were all coming in to one big mixing board. I can listen to any one of the microphones at a different volume. Previously I had turned all of the worldly ones up and the one for God all the way down but still trying to hear it. It's impossible. At the retreat one of these microphones was taken away and I realized that I had the others way too loud. It was like giving me a headache. I then promised to try to always keep God's above the others. True there will be some static or feedback every once and a while just as in a sound check but the more you do it the better you will be at just focusing on His voice.

Those are just some of the things that God did for me on this retreat. He rescued me from a HUGE struggle and then encouraged me in my personal relationship with Him saying that He always loves me and always wants to talk to me. I hope that you can learn something from these testimonies and continue to praise God for what He has done for us.

Sorry for the long post but it is a testimony of what God has done in my life becasue of the youth retreat that I had an oportunity to go on.

God bless!