Iron Sharpening Iron

Wow. I feel like my question for God right now is how do I sift out the best of the best to share with you? Bethel Church is a phenomenal place and has created a marvelous atmosphere area in Redding. I feel like the theme of the past 48 hours has been iron sharpening iron. It's a constant encouragement to be around people who are so passionate about God. Let me share with you a piece of my whirlwind thus far:

1. I was greeted with such a warm welcome from my roommates when I arrived at our apartment in Redding. I'm living with two girls from Iowa, and two girls from Australia. We all get along really well and encourage each other in our faith just by being around one another.

2. The first night I was here there were extra friends in our apartment from the moment I arrived until probably 1:00 AM, so I didn't even really have a second to think about where I was for a long time. The girls were cooking dinner when I came and so we all ate together with other BSW students who were over visiting. Then later in the evening a few other new friends the girls had made came over to have a worship time with us.

I didn't sing much as we worshiped because I just felt the need to quiet my spirit and soak in God without words. The night was phenomenal as one of the guys who had come over began prophesying over many of us; it was really refreshing and encouraging to hear a fresh Word from the Lord.

Later in the evening this same guy shared with us a story about an exercise his friend had shown him as a means to get rid of unbelief and grow your faith. The exercise is that you hold a penny to the wall with your finger and ask the Holy Spirit to hold it there...and He does. The amazing revelation that comes with this is that 1) He works through each and every one of us, and 2) if God can care about something as irrelevant to our lives as holding a penny to the wall, then how much more do you think He cares about healing cancer for instance? So cool. The reason why he shared this story was because my roommates asked about this penny that was stuck on our wall since they had arrived. Once the guys left we decided to try this for ourselves and sure enough, one by one, we were each blown away as we saw our pennies stick to the wall!

We probably spent the next hour asking the Holy Spirit to hold coins to the wall all around our living room; and it was such an incredible exercise of faith. What was great for me to realize was that it didn't matter if the penny stuck or fell or how long it stayed because it wasn't about me, it was about the power of the Holy Spirit. I can't explain why some of ours would stick and some of ours wouldn't, but the important thing I do know is that I was careful to detect any disappointment in my own heart when one of them would fall because that showed me that I saw the miracle as being conditional based on my own doing. Yet in reality it has nothing to do with me; it's all God. As our faith built we started putting up pennies around the room for certain people or healings. For example, we have a specific area of the wall that is for the increase of faith for the healing of cancer. Needless to say our living room is still decorated with change and we even taught some of the neighbor kids the exercise too.

3. Wednesday we slept in, went on a massive grocery shopping spree, and then had people over for dinner again before another night of worship. The night started off with us praying/prophesying for one of my roommate's dads over the phone since it was his birthday. I had a picture of the color red over his nose and mouth and I wasn't sure what it meant, but eventually he said something about having a sinus infection and I knew that had to do with my word so I ask to pray for him and he could breathe again/better when I was done! Yeah, God! The rest of the night was full of worship and more prophetic words for one another. I'm definitely growing in confidence with the words and pictures that God shows me about other people.

4. Today was our first day of school which included registration, a great time in worship, a message from Brian Johnson, a lunch break, "get to know you" intros from all the staff of BSW, and a message from Kris Vallotton. Brian basically talked about calling us back to the 'heart of worship' and how we can't be here to compare ourselves to others. He talked a lot about God's timing in releasing people and how it's important to not get ahead of God or you won't be able to have the full impact that He intends for you. Hearing Kris speak was similar to hearing Bill Johnson speak, where you can't write things down fast enough and your brain can't fully compute the truth he's releasing, but you just have to trust your spirit received it. He spoke about the importance of having the willingness to be pruned (John 15). He testified to his discovery that the one thing he has found to be in common between all those he has seen fall away from God is their lack of ability to receive instruction. He elaborated on this in a profound way, talking about how 'instruction' refers to the structures within in us and it's definition is discipline and reprove...as opposed to 'teaching.' Sorry to leave you hanging, but I don't have my notes with me so I'll just leave it at that.

5. After out first long day we all came back tired. I went on the computer for a bit and then had a great conversation with one of my Aussie roommates about some differences between American and Australian cultures particularly in respect to racism and disparities between social classes. I had so much fun talking about many of the things I had learned in my 'Understanding Diversity' class this past semester. The conversation reminded me how much I love education and culture. Then, we heard a knock on the door which turned out to be three BSW guys coming for a visit - Tim from Wales, Simeon from England, and a third guy from Texas, I forget his name. (We have officially called our place the "Tent of Meeting" in reference to the Old Testament since we draw in so many people all the time.) So we invited them in and we all hung out and talked for a long while about all sorts of things and even had a brief worship time too. My favorite part of the evening was talking to Simeon about England for probably a half an hour. It made me so happy to be able to talk about all the places I had been to, the literature I had studied, and the things I had done, and it turned out that I had even spent a night in Durham where he goes to University! What a small world! So combining the two culture-oriented conversations I had today I feel like God was really validating a love in my heart that I have for culture, people, and travel because those topics brought me such joy.

Oh, and by the way, we also taught Simeon, Tim, and the third guy about the pennies on the wall, which they proceeded to stick on the walls as well. So cool!

In conclusion, I have to say there is so much more fellowship here than I ever imagined. It's like constant community, which is phenomenal. I really have some of the greatest roommates -- they are truly that iron sharpening iron that I was talking about. Today I was planning on having more down time to process, but that never happened. Maybe God just wants me to make more and more friends! Bring on Day 2!