Update Mate

Today is Wednesday, but you could have told me otherwise and I would have believed you. My days have been thrown so off kilter that it's slightly unnerving. Schedules are generally my friend and routine in small doses is also nice, which is slowly making it's way back into my life. Hi, i'm slightly ocd about those kinds of things.

Anyway, so this past week or so has been a crazy whirlwind of fun, new people, new places, adventures, revelations, and insights. Last week we talked about Kingdom Culture and what that involved and how to apply it to our daily lives. The five basic parts of Kingdom Culture are intimacy, honor, gratitude, life in the Spirit, and family, which can all be broken down and expounded upon. For instance, my small group took the five and wrote down our own thoughts concerning a particular aspect and then what we could recall from what we got in lecture time. I got the word intimacy and broke it down basically to 'knowing love from another without the fear of judgement' and then related it back to Song of Songs 4:7 which talks of how God sees us without flaw or blemish. Which really is a beautiful picture. I love that book of the bible anyway.

This week, starting yesterday, was the official start of lecture week. We have a local pastor, Black Mattocks, coming up the mountain all week to talk about the nature and character of God and so far it has been insanely awesome! He's laying down the building blocks and introducing us to his character in a really cool way. He's very engaging and excited about what God has done and shown him in his life and about teaching it to us. I'm excited too, to be honest. Yesterday he was talking about how there are no posers in the Kingdom of God. We're not allowed to have walls or fake identities because we've declared that we have surrendered that to God if we also declare that we are His children. It reminded me of that scripture, I think it's in John, where it talks about how nothing is hidden from God, but everything is uncovered and laid bare before Him, which is exactly how we're supposed to be living before God and before the body of Christ and the world. He's called us to be His ambassadors and we can't do that if we're pretending we're someone or something that we're not. He sees through our disguises so might as well take them off and surrender them willingly to begin with. Can I get an "Amen"??! :D

Anyway, I will write of more exciting God things soon, but right now I am wiped out. This upcoming week, Monday through Wednesday, our whole DTS group plus the other four ywam bases in CO, which adds up to somewhere around 400 people will be in Colorado Springs. We're going to this conference called Acts 1 and it's supposed to be awesome. I'm expecting amazing things to come out of this next week...and these next five months. I'm stoked, guys...to the core. I miss you all back home and hope to keep you more updated. Love!

~Josie