INSANE!

so my life has been crazy. i have not heard God speak as stronly as i heard him speak when i was at home, ever before in my life. now, back at school for a few days, God has not spoken to me in that way. i was telling a friend of mine about this last night and as i was saying it, i realized there is a reason. see we do the whole season of lent because we need to realize that sometimes we have dry spells and sometimes it rains spiritually in our lives. in the rain we are soaked in God's love and feel it strongly. if all we had was rain, we would stop enjoying it. we have dry spells so that when the rain comes we don't run and hide our heads as the beetles sang, but instead we soak it in. we bask in every moment that we have. as i was telling this friend about how i hadn't experienced anything mind blowing in half a week i realized this is a mini dry season for me. God gave me this spiritual gift of encouragement. he told me it was for life. and then he used me for it quite a bit. he told me to talk to my dad about how god was proud of him. the chance to do that for my dad was amazing. right now i am finally starting the real feeling you are supposed to get during lent. to remember the rainy season through the dry spell and to strive for the rain so that when it comes we can passionately enjoy it. when you look at it, the israelites who hoarded the manna had the right attitude, just about the wrong aspect of their life. God told them to take a days worth and they got greedy. i think in the rainy seasons we needs to hoard the rain. to try to soak in as much as we can. he says he will alwyas provide for us and he does in the physcal sense, so we should share our things and only take what we need. in the spiritual we should gather so much it spills on those around us.

the other thing that God told me last week about my dad was to tell him " well done my good and faithful servant. i godsipped my mom, so now its dad's turn. God has been showing my brother, one of the pastors back home some amazing direction to take the young adults group as a way to set and example for the church. and my dad has had to balance letting his son who was given a vision from God lead, and supporting his son, with the fun task of making it known it is not him showing his son favoritism. so God told me to tell my dad well done for Him. the thing is when God told me " andrew you are a man after my own heart" ( amazing moment, by the way, but thats a whole other blog)i felt that it was the " not dead" version of " well done my good and faithful servant." so telling my dad the line i had kind of seen as a heaven only ting, scared me. i could not shake the feeling my dad was going to die in his desk as i sat there in the little chair and told him well Done my good and faithful servant for God. i could see him hearing the sentence start in my voice and end in God's voice because my dad was dead. and this image was very real and very scary. so i didn;t want to tell my dad this. but i knew God had told me to. so i told God i would. i said " you're will be done" and thought and prayed that it would be and abraham sacrificing Isaac thing (with the generational roles reversed) but i sincerely thought my dad might die. the next day i was talking to my dad, and i knew it was time to say it. i had told him all the things i had to say, but the one. so i started to speak, and i got choked up. but i wasn't about to cry. in that moment i felt God setting a thought process in motion. and i felt a peace and a joy return to me. so i told my dad the bit of encouragement i had to say, and we talked some more. he's still alive. i have the gift of encouragement, not prophecy. lucky me, cause my dad would be dead.

so last night i was talking to my friend and i told her about all that and as i was saying it the thought God started in me came to fruition. i realized that God was preparing me. see my spiritual gift of encouragement was set aside for me for life. not that i will always be used in thins, but that it will never be off my mind. god made me choose to obey him or to keep the thing most dear to me at that moment. and that is my Dad. he told me that now i knew what i meant to be willing to offer up everything i had to follow Him. and there will be times when i will be scared to go tell people the words God has given me to say, but i will always be able to remember that i chose to speak words that might lead directly to the death of my father( in my mind) because God told me to. after handling this while i figured out what my spiritual gift was, now that i know, nothing i will have to risk to say God's words to someone will be strong enough to stop me.

Go with peace to love and serve the Lord.