Just gold dust...

So I've been thinking a lot lately about physical manifestations of the presence of God.  Manifestations like gold dust, angel feathers, perfect jewels, manna etc...  It's actually hard to ignore here at Bethel because so many people have seen gold dust appear, glory clouds, gold dust falling from glory clouds, and things of that sort.  Shoot, I've seen gold dust appear in my hands during times of worship.  It's fun for sure, but different.  I naturally wondered, why God would do that.  After all, the Bible doesn't mention gold dust falling to the ground when the presence of God came. 

So came the question.  Is God limited to His Bible? 

I quickly realized after a few minutes of exercising my common sense that God is not limited to what He's done in the Bible.  He can't be.  It doesnt't make sense.  First of all, we serve a limitless all powerfull God who can do whatever He wants. 

Then I started thinking, "What about all the people in the world with HIV/ AIDS?"  If God is limited to scripture, then there's no hope for these people because Jesus never healed anyone with AIDS in scripture. 

We do know that it is still God's will to heal AIDS patients though, despite it not being in scripture.  Why?  Because His nature doesn't change.  His acts do, and must for Him to be God, but His nature remains the same.  That is the reason we can pray for those with new strains of viruses and believe that we have the will of God backing our prayers.  That's the reason we can ask Papa to provide for us things that may not have been in the Bible.  We can do these things because we know that who He is (the God who heals, and the God who provides) will always remain the same. 

When  people look at things like angel feathers and gold dust, most of the time they will process these occurances like so.  In fact, I myself had to get used to NOT doing this.  They will look for it in scripture.  If they dont find it, they then say "Well God doesn't change according to Malachi 3, so it must not be from God." 

Our job isn't to judge what God is doing based on what He has already done.  Rather we must determine what lines up with His nature revealed to us in the scriptures.  The Bible among other things shows us 2 things.  It shows us what God has done, and what God is like.  If we cling to what God has done, we are stopping short of knowing what Father God is like because seeing what He's done is supposed to bring us into a revelation of His nature.  And that is where our discernment has to lie.  That's the standard.  His nature, not His track record. 

AIDS?  That's a sickness.  We know how Jesus dealt with sickness, and God never changes.

The presence of God?  It is very real.  In fact the Bible tells us that the unseen is more real than what is seen.  It manifested physically in the Bible, and God never changes.

So, all that to say just because it isn't in the Bible, doesn't mean it's not from God. 

Now what about the why question?  Why gold dust?  Why do feathers fall on people sitting in their cars, or on airplanes?  Why do some places see manifestations of jewels to perfect to be worth anything in this world. 

I have no idea. 

Why a pillar of fire?  Why a cloud?  Why a bush?  Why not a talking sheep on fire?  Now THAT would have been symbolic!

What we can know is that if we understood why God did everything, we would end up with a God that looked very similar to us.  And that's just no fun.

Side note... I was going to mention laughter as a manifestation, but there are so many verses on joy being a part of the Kingdom that it would've been too repetitive.  Bottom line make room for "new," in your understanding of God.  He never changes, but what He does is a whole other story.  He's like Domino's Pizza.  The pizza is the same wherever you go (thank God), but the specials might be different.  Yep.  That's right.  God is like Domino's Pizza. 

I am so behind.

I desperately need to maintain some sense of regularity with my blog posts.  Otherwise I'm not going to be able to keep up with everything that happens.  Lord help me. 

So last night was absolutely incredible.  Heidi Baker, an amazing missionary who founded Iris ministries spoke at Bethel's Sunday evening service and the word she spoke just wrecked me.  First of all, when you  look at Heidi, you see pure love and joy oozing out of her eyes.  She has truly captured the heart of Father God and moves to the rhythm of His heartbeat.  Her ministry watches over 10,000 orphans, and they've planted over 7,000 churches in the past decade.   Impressive numbers, but even if you had no knowledge of the incredible statistics of her ministry, you could know the love in her heart just by looking at her.  It's incredible. 

So basically, liquid love in a person was preaching.  To sum up, her message was about stopping for the one.  Recognizing the needs of those who are starving not only physically, but spiritually.  4.4 billion people on the Earth are starving spiritually because they have not heard the good news of the Gospel of Jesus.  That's our mission.  Not to necessarily make it our goal to reach all 4.4 billion of them, but to simply stop for the one in our everyday lives. 

At the end of her message she had everyone kneel down on the floor and invite Holy Spirit to come.  She shared a vision she had, which I can't remember in its entirety ( a side effect of waiting to blog about it).  Basically she saw chariots of fire going around the world.  Two people (believers) were in each chariot and God was holding the reigns of each chariot.  He was holding the reigns, as opposed to the riders because each person needed both hands to hold a sword that they possessed.  The sword stood for mercy and justice. 

As a prophetic act, she asked everyone to kneel, hold up with both hands their sword, and ask that God would show them people He wanted them to reach.  She declared over us that God was showing us faces, places, nations, people that we were called to reach.  For a while now, I've had this desire to go to China because the greatest revival in history is happening there right now.  So I immediately felt a drawing to China.  I felt God say that, "Too long has China been associated with dragons."  God apparently has big plans for China.

Pretty cool, but when I arrived home, it got better. 

Last week, my house dad Daniel went around asking if anyone wanted this plastic sword that he had.  Now for whatever reason I just like swords, and he was going to throw it out otherwise.  So I said that I would take it.  I had a feeling that it would have some sort of prophetic meaning eventually and I turned out to be right.  So anyway I kept it in my room by my bedside, not really getting any super divine revelation from it.  In fact, most of the time when I left the house I would just completely forget about it. When I came home from the Sunday night service though, I saw my housemate John playing with my sword.  He decided to point out something obvious to me that I, up untill that moment never realized.  There's a dragon on the hilt of my sword!  The word God spoke to me instantly came to memory.  What God spoke to me prophetically as I held up my sword on Sunday night, He confirmed with my physical sword which I received a week earlier.  Needless to say, my mind was blown.  

God really does speak.  He's always speaking.  Listening is the key.  Listening and expecting to hear His voice.  One of the pastors here said something so true one Sunday morning before worship.  "Expectations are the only things that can kill faith."  By lowering our expectations of what God is going to do, we automatically lower our faith level.  Now it's hard for the one who has never heard the voice of God before, because they have no experience to draw faith from.  Hard, but not impossible.  And even if it was "impossible," that word is not in God's vocabulary.  It has no meaning in the realm where He is, and it certainly has no power.  God will speak to those who wait and listen.  And He will do it in ways that you would never imagine.  Case in point, my 2 dollar plastic sword, no doubt from either Party City or Wal-Mart.  Just listen.  He loves to speak to His children! 

So God's put it on my heart to go to China.  How that's going to happen, your guess is as good as mine.  But God gives you the desires of your heart for a reason.  There's a reason I feel so attracted to China.  It might be years before I can act on that, but whenever it happens, I am for sure bringing my dragon sword with me!

Adoration

So this is what I've decided to do.  I have decided to use this blog to write about all the spiritual experiences I have while I'm at Bethel, and I'll use my tumblr to write about everything else.  I may have to adjust that line somewhere down the road because as I become more aware of the spiritual realm, that world is going to grow and the occurances of the "natural world" are going to seem less "natural" and more spiritual.  Anyway, I'm sure you'll see what I mean simply by reading the two and recognizing how different they are. 

A few nights ago I was at Bethel's prayer house which is open 24/7.  Eventually I will take pictures of it because pictures really are worth a thousand words.  Especially when it comes to a place as beautiful as the prayer house.  However, I do have to explain that outside,  in the back of the house there are gardens surrounding a pool.  They aptly named the pool, the pool of Bethesda- the pool in the Bible that would be stirred daily by an angel.  Flowing into the pool from a stack of natural rocks is a miniature waterfall which creates the incredibly peaceful sound of flowing water.  It's awesome.  Leading to the garden in the back of the house there is a path that runs from the entrance of the prayer house, and around the side of it to the back. 

That night I was walking along that side pathway with an unbelievably clear sky above me.  As I walked past this one spot I was hit with an unusually tangible presence of God.  It felt as if I stepped into a circle where angels were worshipping and adoring Jesus.  There was such a sense of adoration for the person of Jesus that it literally took my breath away.  What was unusual for me was that I was able to discern exactly what was going on in the spirit.  Literally, Jesus was being adored.  That's what the angels had on their minds.  I paused for a second just to be in that place and continued walking.  The sensation left.  So I walked back to that spot and BAM.  Tears started forming in my eyes because there was so much love being poured out onto Jesus in that one area it was overwhelming. 

I stayed there in that spot and did the only thing I could do- kneel down and join the angels that were so obviously present, in adoring and loving Jesus.  Ever since that moment, my ability to connect with God in worship has increaced so much!  It's like I just turn my thoughts on Him, and that same sensation comes over me- as if those same angels join with me whenever and wherever I begin to worship. 

Today God told me why that was.  He told me that angels of adoration are attracted to me.  When I worship, they like to join me and adore with me.  And it feels strange but awesome.  I'll be worshipping by myself but I won't feel like I'm alone.  It's like whenever I start singing, praying or even just thinking about the goodness of Father God, these angels of adoration are just attracted to that like a magnet and immediately join in with me.  Sometimes I hear them when I stop, saying "Don't stop, don't stop!  Just keep going!  Go deeper go deeper!"  It's incredible.

A rude awakening!

Today was a fun day.  I was feeling adventerous so I decided to do something really extravegant.  Something I would remember for years to come and be able to tell my children about.  Can you guess?  I'll give you a hint.  It involved me traveling to a local pizza joint, purchasing a regular cheese slice, and ingesting it for the sole purpose of comparing it to New York's pizza.  Need another hint?  Hopefully not.  I mean if you need another hint to understand that I went rattlesnake hunting then you need some serious help. 

Anyway, I did try the pizza.  Or should I say, "pizza."  Now as expected, I do have a few (12 to be exact) complaints.  However instead of just writing them down in a boring list I think it would be much more fun to write down a series of  highly dramatic idioms that describe my "pizza" experience here in Redding.  I may even throw in some sarcasm.  You know what?  It was that bad, I have to throw in some sarcasm.  Let's begin shall we. 

So what exactly IS it like to eat "pizza" outside of New York state?
It was like diving into a pool of low expectations and coming out more dissapointed than expected. 
It was like wandering through a desert hoping to arrive at an oasis only to find more desert. 
It was like being mauled by a bear and coming out of it with no limbs and only half your organs still inside your body.  You expect it to be bad, but THAT bad? 
It was like watching The Room.  For those of you who have seen The Room, enough said...
It was like swimming in a lake of crushed dreams and hopeless futures. 
It filled my mind with thoughts of pain and torment.  And then I realized that these thoughts were only an extension of the pain and torment my taste buds were experiencing. 
It was so bad, immediately after I finished I drowned out the taste with massive amounts of peanut butter... I hate peanut butter. 

I could go on and on but I'm actually out of ideas.  Figure that one out...  The point is, it was bad.  It wasn't terrible ( I was just having fun with the colorful descriptions), but it definitely wasn't as good as I would have liked.  It tasted like cheap microwave pizza that was just heated up in the oven instead.  BUT!  They did have the courtesy to conveniently cut my slice in half thus eliminating the daunting and agonizingly tumultuous task of folding it in half.  How kind.  Now I'm not going to name the name of this particular pizza shop (Luigi's)  but it doesn't matter because it's not their fault.  Who's fault is it?  Canada's.  And that settles that.

Expectations

So my fourth day of being in Redding is coming to a close and the reality of what life is like here is starting to settle in.  I've been to the lake, I've seen the mountains, I've gone to the services at Bethel and I've experienced the wonder of $1 movie theaters.  Super 8- INCREDIBLE!  Anyway, now that I'm mostly settled in I can start to focus on the real reason I moved across the country. 

Every person that comes to Bethel comes with a level of expectation.  Bethel truly is an amazing place where miracles, healings, and deliverances are common.  Just today at the sunday night service a man shared his testimony about how he came to Bethel in October of last year with a case of serious dislexia.  Well, he's dislexia free now.  Good news for him being that he's a pastor.  Imagine trying to read a passage of scripture to your congregation with dislexia.  "Jesus wept," and "Wept Jesus," are very different.  Anyway he's free of that burden now which is awesome. 

It's stories like this that feed the expectations of everyone who visits there.  This especially goes for the students of their ministry school.  I feel like we have such high expectations of what we're going to experience while at Bethel simply due to the incredible testimonies that come out of here.  We expect radical encounters with God; we expect to see visions; we expect to have incredible prophetic words spoken over us.  And rightfully so.  Our high expectations don't intimidate God.  He is more than willing and more than able to encounter his children in radical ways. 

What I found though, for myself at least was that my expectations were turning into expectation driven anxiety.  Knowing that encounters are commonplace here, I began thinking... "Ok, when is that going to happen to me?  What kind of encounter am I going to have.  Will it be a dream?  Vision?  Will I be taken up to heaven and experience the throne room of God?  When will it happen?  Probably when I'm not expecting it.  But I can't help thinking about it every time I pray or worship." 

Those are just some of the things that I've pondered since I got here, and it started bugging me.  It was getting pretty annoying actually.  God spoke to me though and what He said really put my mind at ease.  So I figured I'd blog about it because, as of 3 days ago I am obsessed with blogging. 

He said, "Stop trying to write your story.  Let me write it for you." 

Those of you who know me, know that I love to write so you can understand how relevant that word was to me.  By trying to create the conditions of my encounter beforehand I was actually robbing God of his right to write the story of my life.  The right I gave Him when I said, "Lord come dwell in my heart."  God has a way of speaking to you in a way that fits you.  A way that you can relate to.  Moses probably being the exception because I'm sure he had little to no experience with burning bushes.  Although it wasn't a radically new or deep word, the way He worded it really drove the point home.  It's not up to me to ponder the whats and hows and whens of my life.  I may love to write, but my life story is one story that I can't write.  God, my loving Father who knew me before creation already has all my steps planned out.  He's already written my story, and He's got everything under control.  So to everyone who desperately longs to encounter God in an incredible tangible way, I would say just be faithful.  Just do what you have to do.  Pray, read His word, spend time in the secret place, and don't dwell on having the encounter before you have it.  You'll just drive yourself crazy like I have done. 

Instead, just understand that 1) It's ok to want to have an encounter with God, whether it be a vision or getting caught up into Heaven and experiencing the tangible love of God.  It's ok for children to want to encounter the love of their parents.  It's natural in fact.  This blog was just about crossing that line of expectations into expectation driven anxiety.  And 2) God desperately wants you to encounter Him in a tangible way.  He promises that He will satisfy all those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.  Righeousness is a person.  His name is Jesus.  Anyone who hungers to encounter the person of Jesus will be satisfied.  Don't sweat it. 

This one's for real.

Just as I promised, I am writing another entry to fill in the many blanks in my first blog.  And don't worry, it's the middle of the afternoon, I'm well rested, and am beyond ready to do this (like a boss)!  So lets have fun shall we?

So on Wednesday August 31, I started my trip to Redding, California in order to attend Bethel Church's School of Supernatural Ministry.  It's a magical place where Heaven manifests on Earth in the form of miracles, divine healings, and In and Out Burger.  Seriously, if you have never had a burger from In and Out, you are missing out on what is possibly the closest resemblance we have in the real world to the absolute goodness of a krabby patty.  But I digress. 

My trip there was pretty uneventful.  My flight from JFK airport to Los Angeles left around half an hour late, but somehow managed to arrive 15 minutes early.  I flew on Delta airlines which is cool because they have mini TVs on the back of every headrest.  One of the game options they have is a trivia game where you can pit yourself against the other passangers in a battle of who's the smartest.  As it turns out I was the smartest out of 10 other losers who decided to fly delta that day.  I was a little bit afraid though because I used my real name to sign in, and the man in the seat next to me was also playing.  This could have been an issue because at the end of each round it would post the rankings of the participating passangers AND their seat numbers.  So the guy next to me, who I JUST beat by a hair by the way, not only knew that it was me who beat him, but my name as well.  Thank God He didn't say anything to me because somehow, the fact that I guessed on the majority of the questions didn't seem to me like it would be any consolation to him. 

So other than winning airplane trivia by accident, my trip was long and boring.  16 hours of reading, waiting, sleeping, and drinking starbucks.  Eventually after 2 airplane rides and a bus ride I arrived in Redding.  I was met by 2 of my roomates, Ethan and Sam, who sat on a bench holding a carboard sign with my name on it.  I could tell instantly that we were going to be close friends.  Especially Sam, because up untill that point I don't think I had ever met a legit Canadian.  They took me, after I used the bathroom, to the prayer house at Bethel which is open 24/7.  What an amazing place!  It's a small circular building on top of a hill.  It has windowssurrounding almost the entire main prayer room which allows you to have an incredible view of part of the city, and the mountains beyond the city limits.  More impressive than the view though, was the tangibility of the presence of God in that room.  It didn't take long before my body just began to tremble from the weight of God's presence.  It was awesome!

The next day we went with a few other friends to Whiskeytown Lake.  I'm not going to describe the lake simply because I took pictures and posted them on facebook.  Also, I'm just lazy and descriptions are boring to read.  After spending some time at the lake though, we went to a frozen yogurt shop.  It was called Spoon Me, and boy did my taste buds get spooned!  I couldn't help but think of Michale Jackson going there with a huge dose of false hope. 

Anyway, life here in Redding is truly awesome!  I still haven't tried the pizza though.  I actually had a dream last night about eating New York pizza for breakfast.  I'm almost positive that the pizza I ate in my dream will taste better than the pizza here, but who knows?  I could be wrong.  I don't think so though.  Why?  Because I WON AIRPLANE TRIVIA AND I'M A GENIOUS!  That's why!  Well, that's all for now! 

2 Days In.

This is going to be a very short blog due to the fact that I am excruciatingly tired, but I had to start writing something, even if it was minimal.  So on Thursday at 1 in the morning I arrived in Redding after traveling for 16 hours from Long Island New York.  (More details to come on the trip, which even though it was incredibly boring, some good old fashion truth stretching can fix that).
So far, I've encountered God in so many ways, met really awesome people and had some crazy awesome bburgers and frozen yogurt.  Vague?  Yes, but it's also almost midnight.  3 AM if I were in New York.  What I'm trying to say is that I'm going to sleep.  Peace out!   I'll write a more detailed blog about my experiences later.