It's all about the LOVE!

Week ONE! (September 10-14)
Nature and Character of God with the esteemed David Painting.
Can I just begin with the fact that I received massive amounts of revelation about God and His love for me this past week...It's been just incredible and massive and overwhelming. I'm still processing all of it and wondering how it all applies so that I can be more whole and more restored and just more of Him and less and less and less of me.

He began with God's nature: He is omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-knowing), and omnipresent (all-present). He is Creative, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Infinite. In His character, He is just, loving, merciful, faithful, self-sacrificial, righteous, forgiving, risk-taking, and a communicator. But most of all HE IS LOVE.
He is LOVE.
LOVE.
That is the very essence of God.
He is LOVE.
He doesn't just love.
He actually is LOVE.
We were created out of His LOVE.
And His Love looks to express itself. After the perfect relationship of the Triune, He had to create to bring relationship that has the very character of God. The characteristics of the people must be like Him. And that likeness to Him is LOVE.

So that means that He embodies I Corinthians 13
Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away.

Love at heart allows freedom of its own choice. It does not insist on its own way.

During the creation, the Triune paused and counted the cost of creation. Is it worth it? What if people make the choice to not love? And they said it was worth it. All worth it for humans to partake in the love of relationship. It is so important to create that even though there is an incredible cost, it is worth. You are worth it. Just mind-blowing. I feel so saturated in God's LOVE.

We are created to be in relationship with God.
We are not created to work for Him.
We are not created to glorify Him.
We are created to be in relationship with Him. To share in the perfect love of the Triune.

God created things that were good and things that were very good. He looked at man and thought not good...because the man isn't in relationship. God chose to create man with a need that He chooses not to fulfill. He created woman so that man and woman could be in relationship with each other just as He is in relationship with Himself.
God expresses His nature through the filter of His character.

When it comes to choices people typically believe that either God is all-powerful, so if He hasn't stopped the suffering, He must want it there, or that God is trying to teach me a lesson
-OR-
God is all-loving, but given what there is, He must be powerless to do anything about it.

The true meaning is that God intervenes or mitigates the situation and turns good from the evil that has occured. Remain in Christ and in His calling and He is able to bring far more good than the evel the enemy can bring.

If God intervenes in my situations, He's taken away my choice to act and if this influences our choices, our opportunity and ability for relationship is gone. Because love never insists on its own way and since God is love, He will not insist on His own way.

Our primary objective is to have the unhindered, unfettered, unclouded Presence of God.
Be Holy as I am Holy (set apart, different).

Jesus empties Himself of the nature of God so that He can be completely full of love. That's our call. To completely empty ourselves of us so that we can be full of His love. Acting out of His love. Moving out of His love. Being in His love.

It boggles my mind and stirs up my spirit and quenches thirst, but makes me hungry for more. And overwhelms. And overwhelms. And overwhelms.

Introductions, arriving, and being raw before the LORD

Where do I even begin? I'll try to start at the beginning, but knowing me I'll just jump around and hopefully my points will come across.

I've been here in Carlisle for a month now and DTS started two weeks ago. Our first students arrived on Friday, August 31st and our last student arrived on Sept 14th. We are now a complete family...all of the members are present and accounted for. There are 10 DTS students, representing 5 different nations, and 7 staff members, representing 3 nations. I suppose it'd be easiest to list in order of arrival.
DTS students:
Jayce (24) from FL, Ben (18) from Canada, Lee (32) and Pip (30) from England (and married), Carolyn (25) from England, Lucy (22) from England, Ashley (18) from CO, Grace (23) from England, Nath (23) from Australia, and Hye Won (25) from South Korea.
It thrills me that our DTS has started and that the students have finally arrived, all safe and sound.

Our staff consists of our base and school leader, Richard Lowe, Emma, who led my school and co-led my outreach to South Africa, Jemma from England (she did her DTS at another English base, Holmstead Manor), and Jeremy, Naomi, and Jenean who were all on the school with me. Jemma, Jeremy, Naomi, Jenean, and I are all doing BLS (Basic Leadership School) which means that we're incredibly busy and loving it and stressed and trying to figure out what it means to be a leader all at the same time.

We had an introductory week that began on Sept. 3rd. Basically trying to introduce YWAM to the students, what we're about, what we want them to get out the school, possibly scare them, show them that God is so much bigger than then ever dreamed of.... We started off with the mighty John Campbell Sr, who is a brilliant 75 year old Scotsman who is drenched in the living, breathing, active Word of God. He talked about rejoicing in the Lord always..based on Philippians 4:4 and delighting ourselves in the Lord. With the joy of the Lord, any benefit should be spiritual.

We then moved swiftly to Richard. He spoke on faith and what kills faith, based on John 20:24-29. He said that "Trust is resting in the evidence of God's character and Word."....just brilliant. He also spoke on growing through feeding on the Word, studying God's ways with man, prayer, reflecting on the character of God, and welcoming God-given challenges. "Trust is the most fragile aspect of love, therefore investing trust in others is risky." So true...and so hard to be that vulnerable and risk our hearts.

We prayed about God's original design for the school and the schemes of the enemy during this time. We had some amazing times of intercession and lifting each other up to the Lord.

Probably the most impactful part of the week for me was our ministry time with Darren. Darren is a man who just flows with the Holy Spirit. He gets words and pictures and prophecy for people. He is incredibly open to the working of the Spirit and although it can be a completely new experience for people and sometimes unexpected, it is also an incredible place for people to be raw and wrecked before God. Students began to get emotional healing and physical healing as well. They just got flooded with God's love and His heart. Well at least I got flooded with more of Him. I know that I'm going to be given a task that is too big for me to handle on my own, but I'm not meant to handle it by myself. He's preparing me for the huge-ness of going into the nations and being part of a ministry that is just incredibly intense and will grow me and allow others to see His heart for them....I feel like I don't even have the words for the magnitude of it all.

That commenced our first week with students....