Crush those idols, burn it and make those suckers drink it! This was posted on David Perkins’ blog. Good stuff.
I’ve had quite a few conversations with people this last few months. Some have lost their ’steady’ jobs, some have lost certainty of their future, some have lost relationships, some are just loosing focus, or just loosing grip. Lives aren’t necessarily falling apart, but people are loosing things that were going really well, including myself, and having to find a solid foundation.
Out of all the conversations I had, one thing rang through all of them, that these people that I know, my friends and family, have decided that even in all of this, they will put their trust in God and Got alone. I’ve had to put my trust back in God. I’ve had to come back to a place where God is my everything. We are so quick to put our identity in what we are a part of or what we are doing, but God is it. God is our identity. Coming to a place of prayer and love where we can connect with God again, as we used to, and truly love Him with our lives.
So thank you friends. Thank you family. For showing me how to put my life back in God’s hands and trust that He will hold me forever. For helping me find my identity in God again and for loving me through it. You make my life so much better.
The last two weeks I’ve been leading worship for JV Fusion, our Junior High youth group here at Element Church. I led before I left for Colorado Springs, and I’m going to be leading for the next few months that I’m home. The first week I led it was incredible. Not that I was amazing or anything, but the response from the kids was awesome. I really feel like this year is going to be a breakthrough in worship and spiritual growth in JV and Varsity. I’m so excited about it.
This last Wednesday we were about 15-20 minutes from the start of service and I was sort of pacing around the place, praying. Praying for the night, praying for God to touch lives and for people to be transformed. Then I started thinking about the pride I’d let build in my heart about being the worship leader. I’m the ‘cool guy’ around here, right? Ya….. So the last thing I prayed was: “God, humble me”. Simple. Effective. I was thinking, ‘God just help me not to have such a big head in leading. I want to do really well for you tonight’. Of course I want to do well ‘for God’, but did I really mean it?
So we started the night with a game and then I was up. Started off with a jump-jump song. Heh. The kids like those ones. Then did a few more “serious” songs. During these my guitar went out of tune and I started singing really weird. So I finished up and I prayed and left the stage. I remember thinking of how horrible it went. I didn’t want to talk to anyone about it. So we finished the night and I left pretty quickly. Just kinda wanted to get home and enjoy the company of some people. So I got home and soon after Andy gave me a call. He told me he didn’t catch me before I left, but wanted to tell me that I did an amazing job tonight and he thought the kids responded really well. Thinking back, I also remember that the kids were responding to the worship really well. I thanked him…
…then it hit me. I’m not there to lead worship for myself. Yes, if I’m worshipping it makes it that much easier for the kids, but that’s not the reason for me leading. I’m leading for the kids. I’m leading them into the presence of God, and allowing Him to touch their lives. I’m creating an environment where the students can meet God, and God and draw near to them. Yes, there are times when I mess up a lyric or play the wrong chords, but if I let those things ruin my meeting with God, and ruin the kid’s meeting with God, I’ve failed. My number one goal is to first create an environment where God feels more real than ever, and to second be an example of a worshipper.
When I realized this, everything changed, and it humbled me. Then I remembered what I prayed, “God, humble me”. Hm… He sure did. Why am I leading worship? Why do I care about it so much? What is my attitude going in and afterwards? What does leading worship truly mean? How do lead worship and not have a big head about it? Glenn Packiam has a great blog about some of these ideas HERE. Check it!
Humbled and being humbled,
Morgan
God’s been working a lot of things on my heart the past two or three weeks. I’ve been really confused in a lot of situations and needing clarity in my life. My thought: to get away for a few days, focus on God and read His word and allow Him to speak to me and bring vision to my life. Great idea.
So yesterday sometime after church I took off. With a pack full of a tent, sleeping bag and anything else I’ll need to “survive” for a day or two. I was excited about what God was going to do, and really excited to finally bring my mind to peace. Turns out, I wasn’t as prepared for this as I thought I was. A few situations came up on the way there. Thought I lost my phone, and got pulled over doing ten over, oblivious to the 35 mph sign that I had just passed. Great…. Good start to this trip, but I was going to push through and worry about all of that when I got back.
So I get to my spot and hiked about a half mile off the road. Set up camp on the top of a hill overlooking a gorgeous view of the Poudre River Canyon and the area, and then got a fire going. About that time I was attacked, big time. Thoughts of self-hatred and lust and doubt flood my mind. Immediately I knew this was a bad idea. I shouldn’t have come, or I should have prepared my mind and spirit more before I went. I was expecting my spirit to be renewed there, but I needed to be renewed before I went.
I had had some conversations with some key people in my life about doing this. I got words of agreement on the idea, but also cautionary concern. I was reminded of what Dan Perkins had told us (DLA) once about allowing yourself to become lazy and not active right after a big event and how that can be more harmful than anything else. Well I just got done with a big event. It’s called DLA and it’s 7 months long. Pretty big. So I took that advice with a grain of salt and head out anyway. Not ignoring the advice, taking it to heart, but still wanting to fight for and do this thing.
When these thoughts hit me, God said, “Get out, now!”, so I did. It was started to get dark already, but I knew I had to leave. So I packed up everything and left. By the time I started heading to my car it was already dark and kinda nerve racking. Just the thought of walking through the forest in the middle of the night, alone, with only a 3 inch knife, and a can of bear mace (thanks Curtis). Ya…. So I got to my car and just started driving back. So confused as to what had just happened, but really relieved. Praying the whole way down, rebuking all of these things that had come against me and just crying out to God. I started to feel immediately better.
When I got home the next morning, after spending the night in a Wal-Mart parking lot, and told my parents all of this and some more, my mom said, “And imagine how Jesus must have felt in the desert for 40 days…”. That struck me. Not that I had failed, but I was doing what God told me to. And God told His Son to go to the desert for 40 days, and He told me to get the heck out of there. I wasn’t nearly prepared for this and now I know it. I can’t imagine the torment and trials that Jesus faced in the desert. I got only a taste of it. Probably about 12 hours. Jesus had 960 hours. Thank you God for facing these things, and now I can overcome them by your blood and the word of my testimony. Thank you thank you thank you.
I feel like God had so much mercy on me in that time. I really learned a lot, and was challenged. I didn’t want to go through that to learn the things I did, but I did, and now I know. And to all my friends I talked to about this: Thank you. Thank you for talking to me and making me more aware of the situation than I was. Thank you for caring about me and making sure that I was knowing exactly what I was getting myself into. It was those conversations that gave me the strength and knowledge to get out. And God of course.
There is a rainbow of mercy around You
It’s calling me closer, closer
The blood of Your Son has made me a way
A way to come closer, closer
For You delight in showing me mercy
And You desire me to draw near
Now You have caused me to come and approach You
And I am blessed among men
Now there is one thing I will desire
And there is one thing I will seek
That I may behold You in all of Your glory
To gaze on the beauty of the King
Closer by Matt Gilman
Reeling… but so calm in my God,
Morgan
My first year of DLA is over. The Second is only 4.5 months away. But what does that mean? What changed? What was taken away? What was added? What did I find out? What did I forget?
There are so many emotions running through my veins at the very moment that I write this. Emotions of doubt, of love, of joy, of uncertainty, of willingness, of unwillingness, of desire, of passion, of fervor, of exhaustion, of longing.
Is my walk with God more intimate because of what I know? Or because of what I experienced? It is so easy for me to spout off the answers that I know are requested, and to do that things that I know I’m supposed to do. But what happens when we get good and living good? When I come home tomorrow I’m not expecting for people to understand me, or to understand all of the changes that took place. People will be confused by my answers and stare blankly while I explain something. That I know. And I’ll spend time will God and I’ll read His very words. But why? Because I long for and desire to know God more, or because I need to have God times?
My heart has been changed. Here in this world and in the world that only God sees. I have experienced many things and know that God is always working in me, but I can never live off of those experiences. Like the Israelites, I need to go out daily and collect my mana for that day. If I try to live off of yesterdays mana it will become stale and useless. Daily I need to search for God’s heart. If I choose to live off of my DLA experience then I will become old and stale. I don’t live for DLA or for Element, or for my family or friends, or for anything in this life. My reward is Jesus. Plain and simple, but so complex. My reward isn’t my DLA diploma or the knowledge that I have, but Jesus.
Even at this, people will not quite understand. I don’t at times. My experiences are what have molded me into the person that I am today, but they aren’t my life or my food. DLA did so much, and will continue to do so much in my life, but it isn’t my life. DLA was and is the vehicle that God chose to change my life and the lives of so many others. We know this and we know who we are. We are DLA, but more than that, we are children of our God. Sons and Daughters. The Bride of Christ. His creation and desire.
We are not molded by our jobs or our peers or even by our churches. We are molded by our Lover. He makes like He desires and we let Him. Some have gone soft and some more may, but we are still the ones who are DLA 2009. Nothing will change that and nothing will change what happened in our hearts and souls.
We drew near to God and He drew near to us. (James 4:8) We prayed like it all depended on God. (Luke 18:1) We sought one thing and one thing only. Christ. (1 Thes. 5:23-24) We lived like it all depended on us. We lived the VOW. Not just in our head, but in our hearts. That is our cry and that is what it means to leave this place. To live the VOW day in and out. It’s not legalistic, but a way of life. People don’t like it and we love that people don’t like it. We feed off of Christ as our source. That is who we are and will be.
What’s milling in my brain,
Morgan
It seems so weird. We are basically done with DLA, but there is still so much to do. We are done because we have no more classes, no more papers to write, no more scriptures that are required to memorize, no more workouts, no more anything normal it seems. We went to our last required MILL this last friday and this Tuesday and Wednesday are our last Revival Town and _tag. Crazy.
But! There is hope. We still have so much to do. We are still going to climb Pikes Peak this Wednesday. We are going repelling somewhere tomorrow. We’re jumping out of airplanes on Thursday. There is some special stuff happening this weekend. More surprises. Yay! And then cleanup and then graduation and then banquet and then we’re done.
It’s weird to think about going home. To be practicing the songs that we’re going to be playing the Sunday after I get back. To be planning out some stuff I want to do with the youth. To be thinking about the conversations I’m going to have with people when I get done. Crazy all around. We are so done, and yet so far away. I’ve still got two stinkin’ weeks to be a first year in DLA. I’ll never get this opportunity again. I’m going to, “Be very careful, then, how you live-not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.” Romans 5:15-16
Anticipating the beginning of the end,
Morgan
Growing up, some of my most vivid memories are in the car. Nothing too exact, I just remember being in the car a lot. Sitting in the back with my brother, going to Lovell, or Rapid City, or California, or wherever. We didn’t fly. We drove. Almost always. But I remember some of the strangest things from being in the car. Listening to Avalon with my mom… and loving it. (???) I don’t know what happened there. But anyway…memories. Fighting with my brother over nothing; singing Linkin Park with my brother, doing the two separate parts together; and crazy things like that. Listening to Hootie and the Blowfish, and driving over the Big Horn mountains. I don’t know where this comes from, it just does. But one thing in particular that I remember is something that, when looked at like this, has a deeper meaning then it ever meant.
Often times when we were driving, my dad (or mom) would pull up to a stop sign, traffic would be coming from both ways, and then there would be a God-given break in the seemingly endless line of cars. At that moment my mom (or dad) would say, “You’re good my way,” meaning that there were no cars coming from the right side, as my mom was the passenger, and that my dad was good to go if his way was clear. My dad would see that his side was clear and drive through the intersection. Did he ever check her way? I don’t know. But that’s not the point. The point is that he trusted her. He trusted that we were “good her way”. He knew that if she said we were good, we were good.
So what’s the point? How many times, in my life and yours, do we get to an intersection of life and traffic is coming from all directions it seems. Things are blocking our view of the other side that we need to get to. Traffic like sins, generational curses, distractions, other ambitions, and ourselves are not letting us across. We get to busy doing our hair in the mirror that we miss the one opportunity that comes along. Then when that opportunity does come God says, “You’re good my way”. He never screams, because that wouldn’t be necessary. He just says calmly, you’re good to go. Do we trust Him enough to go? To go without checking His side too. If we have our side under control, and we trust God when He tells us to go, we should have no problem. But our problem is that we don’t trust Him.
We miss the hole. We say, “Ya know what God, I’m pretty good at driving my life by myself. I don’t really need your help. But I do appreciate it. You gave me some good directions that one time and you saved me from that accident that other time, but right now, I know when I need to turn. I got this”. Do we not? This isn’t a Jesus take the wheel speech, but a Jesus guide my driving. We can’t just tell Jesus to take it, and go in the back and sleep. We still have to drive. Instead, “Jesus, I trust you know what you’re doing and if you say go, I’ll go.” Too too often we get too busy checking the side that is Jesus’ responsibility and we miss our time. And He just wants us to take care of our side and He’ll take care of his.
God doesn’t just say that He has good plans for us, but He says that He has plans that are for our good and to prosper us. He is never going to let us pull into traffic. He is never going to let us get blindsided or get in a state of life that is impossible to come out of. God gives us just enough strength for today as I’m quickly discovering these past few weeks. He doesn’t leave us high and dry, but rather restores us and gets on our feet. Many times we think we know what’s going on and pull into traffic and get hit, hard. To stick with the analogy, in this case, God then accepts our apology for getting into a wreck, gets our car fixed for us and then gets us back on the road. We’re more inclined to listen the second time around. And the third and the forth and so on.
Trust trust trust. Basically, we are to trust God. Easy to say, hard to do all the time. There are a lot of things that I want to keep from God and do on my own, but I know that things will be that much better if I give them to Him.
I don’t know if that even makes sense to me, let alone someone else. Here’s to hoping that it does. That’s what been going through my mind the past few weeks.
Awww Yaaaa!!!,
Morgan
Day two we woke up nice and late. They let us sleep in after our flights there and the crazy early morning. It’s a good thing too, because I got about 15 minutes of sleep the night before. No joke. We had a missions prayer meeting then I hung out for a little bit and then went home and made final checks on everything. By the time it was all said and done it was 2:00 AM and we were leaving at 2:30. Great…
So we went out to the meeting area of the compound and met up with the girls. We cooked and ate a breakfast of pancakes and eggs, which quickly became the staple breakfast meal, and had our own personal God Time. About an hour later Jeff and Michael showed up. Jeff ran us through the next two weeks. Telling us what the days coming were going to look like and what we would be doing. He then instructed us on making care packages that we were going to be handing out to the village people on the mountain that Jeff is ministering to. The care packages consisted of rice, beans, cooking oil, salt, toys for the kids, vitamins, a spanish bible, and some other things essential for life. We made about 30 of them and got it done in lightning speed. We’re DLA.
After finishing up those packages they told us to go get our trunks on, cuz we’re going swimming. Ok. So we got ready and hopped in the bus. This was actually the first of many times that we rode the school bus that took us everywhere we went while in Honduras. Saleen, our bus driver, was a great man. He didn’t speak a lick of English, but I could just tell that he had a great heart. So we were on the bus for a little while and ended up at this house. Michael payed the man there some money and they let us through. We started walking through the jungle and towards a river. We kept walking for about 5 minutes and showed up at our destination. A waterfall that fell into a pool of water and then the river flowed from there. It was beautiful.
We didn’t need to be told what to do. We dropped our essentials, and the guys dropped our shirts (an opportunity to take our shirts off? You better believe we’ll take advantage of that. 
), and ran to the water. I was expecting it to be pretty warm, considering we were in Honduras. But nope, it was pretty stinking cold. Not like glacial runoff cold, but like just-came-from-the-top-of-a-mountain cold. Of course some jumped right in and others took about 45 minutes to get in. I on the other hand was busy watching our bags with Jacob. We were two of the three sweepers on our team and just as we started getting in, a couple guys showed up behind us. So we had to watch our bags. Just in case you know. Jeff then showed up and we were free to swim. We swam for a little while.
Then after that, we climbed up the waterfall and went to a pool above it and swam in that for a while. Jumped in from the rocks and such and just hung out. Then we left, and picked up trash on the way back to the bus. This was something we did everywhere we went. Honduras is littered, literally, with trash, and we just did everyone a service by picking up trash everywhere we went and putting it in bags we were given. We picked up tons of it, but didn’t even put a dent in it. It was really sad actually.
Next we drove home, had a little time of prayer and worship for the upcoming week and ate dinner. Over the course of the week, Jeff hired a cook from his church to come a cook for us. She was a Honduran lady, and let me tell you, she made some stinking amazing food. That night we had eggs, rice, beans and this stuff called queso crema. It was basically a thinner version of sour cream. So good.
After a night of just chilling we all went to bed and had sweet dreams of honduras.
What was going to happen,
Morgan
So I’m going to do something new and a heck of a lot easier on me. ha. I’m going to write a blog every day for each day that was spent in Honduras. So I’ll start on Sunday, and we left two weeks ago on Sunday, so it’ll be really cute like that.
So this day two weeks ago was simply the day that we left. We showed up at the World Prayer Center at 3:00 AM ready to go. Our whole team of 25 people loaded up in two vans and headed to Denver to fly out of DIA. We showed up to DIA at about 5:30ish. Our flight left at 8:30. We got our bags checked, full of peanut butter, jelly, spanish bibles, random toys, and other random things. Oh and 10 lbs of our own stuff. The guys on our team were told to pack really light and we were going to be packing our packs to 50 lbs with other things that we needed to bring. Food and such. So we did. My pack was 16 lbs before everything and that was about the norm. We all had nice and heavy packs after we packed them full.
The day before we had a meeting where we got our roles assigned to us. A role is basically how you can help the team and how each of us can contribute. We also have parters that we had to be by at all times in Honduras. Safety reason’s obviously. So my parters were Jacob Wheeler and Chad. We were the only three first year guys on our team. Our team was: the three of us, Ben Johnson, Kinzli, Andrea, Alyssa Huwe, Jana, Jess Bowles, Kylie, Adrienne and Lara. The three of us were the sweepers for our team. Basically we make sure everyone is where we need to be and that wherever we are people are safe. Our girls especially. Making sure they are safe and that they feel safe too. I was also the team photographer. Fun times.
So we checked our bags, four coolers, and two med packs. We got all of our boarding passes for the day and went to our gate. We had about 2 hours before we boarded. So I went with my parters, Jacob and Chad and walked around the airport for a little while. When we came back we found just about everyone passed out on the floor.
We then flew from Denver to Miami, hung out in Miami for a few hours and boarded a plane headed for Pedro San Sula, Honduras. It still hadn’t hit me that we were heading for Honduras yet. It was crazy.
So we landed in Honduras and got off the plane. We got our bags and went out to meet our contact. Jeff Hines and his son Michael met us in the terminal. We then loaded up a bus with all of our bags and coolers and such and headed to Le Cieba. It was a 2 1/2 hour drive there and on the way we stopped at a gas station to get some food. There was a cop just inside the door with a sawed-off shotgun. It was then that I realized that we were in Honduras. We then got to the house we were staying at. It was on the edge of town right by the ocean, and surrounded by walls on all sides. So it quickly became known as The Compound. Unfortunately, into the ocean flowed a river that was mostly comprised of sewage and crap, literally, so that, in turn, made the ocean pretty nasty. Lame. But we could walk about half a mile and the ocean was nice, so that was ok.
So that night we all went to bed, exhausted from the day of travel and the early morning. Excited for the weeks to come, and not knowing what to expect.
Pumped by this time,
Morgan
So there isn’t a Honduras “recap” blog up yet (heck, I don’t even have a Tour blog up), but this is just too crazy. So we left Honduras a few days early. About a week actually. We were supposed to be flying out today actually, but we left last Saturday, the 23rd. The reason was because we got sick. A girl on our team was sick the day before we left and didn’t tell anyone. Just some stomach virus thing. Puking and all that junk. Fun. So about two days into our mission, one more girl got sick, and then 3 more girls, and then a guy and another girl. So we had 7 people sick in a matter of days. So they got us the heck out of there. With the medical treatment that we could receive in Honduras, we would still be sick and things would have gotten nasty. So New Life pulled us out. When we heard about this, we were obviously super bummed. Who wants to leave their mission field early? No one. And people are still bummed. We got a heck of a lot done, but it feels like there was so much more to do. People have really been down about it this week. We’ve been allowing the Devil to kick us in the pants with it.
Well yesterday morning, right before God Time started, Ben Johnson got on the mic and announced that there had been an earthquake in La Ceiba, the city that we were in, yesterday. A 7.1 that shook the whole city ragged and then a 4.8 aftershock. Johnson called the Hines, our contacts in Honduras, and asked how everything was. They are ok, the village people that we were ministering to are all ok as well. In this quake there was only one death, and some missing people, who I’m sure will be found. One crazy thing though is that the only bridge between La Ceiba and San Pedro Sula, the city we flew in and out of, was now out. The quake took it out. And by the looks of it, it’s quite a detour to get there any other way. That bridge was one of two that connected San Pedro Sula to the rest of Honduras. And I’m sure there were tons of flight delays because of this. So basically, we would have been stuck there. For a while. And to add to that, a girl just recently got diagnosed with appendicitis and has to get her appendix out today. So we pretty much would have been stuck in Honduras with a lot of sick people and a girl with an exploding appendix. Awesome. Ha.
God got us out of there. Perfectly. No one is sick anymore, we weren’t hit by an earthquake, and we got done what we needed to get done. This is crazy. I can’t believe it. It couldn’t have been more perfect. I pray that God is with the families in Honduras who are missing people and with the family of the dead. And I praise God for getting us the heck out of there. I see now that the choice was obviously a good one, and we are now even more safe.
Snap,
Morgan
