Wednesday, January 21, 2009

a little precept and a lot of God on the west coast

So my friend Yasmin (who I interned with from Precept) came to LA about a week ago.  It was SO much fun to see her!  She decided to go on a road trip to visit a couple of her friends in California, before she left for Spain!  Yes, Spain people.  She is going to be doing a lot of ministry over in Spain with a missionary that she is close to over there.  She will be leading Biblestudies and helping in a discipleship type of program for an entire Semester!!!  So, if you remember, please pray for her and the people of Spain that the Lord, through her and the team, will be ministering to.

Other news, I have completed 2 weeks of my last semester here at school.  There are a lot of things going on in my life right now and the Lord is blessing me beyond anything I've ever imagined.

The first big thing is that, since coming back from Focus on the Family, I have been praying that the Lord would open up doors for me to engage in ministry.  I have had so much different training and although this semester is going to be full (19 units), it isn't going to be as difficult as last semesters.  I have been poured into A LOT in the past year and I was praying for the Lord to really use what I have learned so I could pour out into others.  

At Cal Baptist we have a new Spiritual Life Director, Brian Zunigha, who is implementing a new discipleship program on campus.  He has formed a group of Freshmen, Sophomores, and Juniors that have leadership qualities but may not have the chance to use their leadership skills to their full capacity.  Well, one night Bryce and I were praying in the prayer chapel about what to do in ministry and what the Lord wanted us to do this semester because we really didn't know what to do.  After we got back to my apartment from the prayer chapel, one of our close friends, Ethan (who is the graduate assistant to Brian), asked me to be a part of the discipleship program!  What timing the Lord has!  He introduced me to Brian and he asked me to be a leader over 3 girls in the program.  Through this discipleship program, he wants to teach the students a few things and one of those is how to study your Bible inductively, on their own.  So, once he found out I had some background with Precept he asked me to teach the entire group the Precept method!

So, Monday and Tuesday of this week I taught, by the grace of God alone, how to study your Bible in 2 hours. :)  Wow, it was so awesome.  I loved every minute of it.  The Lord taught me A LOT through those two days.  It is so neat to see Him prepare you and then prepare the way for you.  It was nothing I did, He totally set up everything!  

Then, I was meeting with my New Testament Professor the other day to catch up on what I had learned through Precept this summer and Focus this Fall.  We started talking about the 19 units I'm taking and a couple classes that I'm just taking to get the units and he offered to set up a meeting with the youth pastor at his church.  He expressed that he wanted to help me practice what I had learned this summer by possibly leading a "How to study your Bible" study at the youth group at his church across the street.  So we went to a meeting and the youth pastor totally has the vision for teaching his youth how to study the Bible for themselves.  Exciting!  So I went to their church on Sunday to advertise for it and we are now waiting for the Lord to provide the students for the group.  The coolest thing about this study is that the Dean of Christian Studies (Dr. Dan is awesome!) is going to let me lead the study for units toward my undergrad this semester!  I will be doing hands on training for what I really feel the Lord has called me to do in the future. 

The Lord is giving me opportunity after opportunity to teach and I have received more confirmation in the last week than ever before about my teaching.  I don't know how seminary will fit into plans after I graduate or if I even am supposed to go to seminary, but I know that the Lord has been faithful thus far and I know He is going to pave my way.  He is so good and I am blown away everyday by sitting in the passenger seat and letting Him drive.  It is tough at times and sometimes I beg for Him to drive, but He is so gracious to calm my trivial worries.  He continues to point back to His faithfulness and that makes me realize of how unfaithful at times I can be.  

Oh Lord, make me more faithful.  I have no justification to worry because you are God over everything.  You will get Your glory and may I be a vessel that you use to show Your glory.

1 comment:

Jillian, Riverside said...

wow. i think it's so cool that you are able to use what you've learned in the past few months here at cbu...to think that the Lord had even greater plans than you ever thought. wow. very cool h.strand.