What Good Can Come From Nazareth?

"Even now, this is the Lord's declaration: Turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, weeping, and mourning. Tear your hearts, not just your clothes, and return to the Lord your God. For he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, rich in faithful love, and he relents from sending disaster." Joel 2:12-13 (HCSB)

There are times in which God's people, in a nation facing great national crisis, or moral decline, are commanded by God to drop every denominational, racial, gender, and age barrier and unite together in fasting, prayer, humility, and repentance. America is in such a time.

Our nation is in desperate need of an undeserved mercy from God and another great spiritual awakening. When there's no hope for a nation, when there's no remedy, God still has a holy prescription. 

I had the opportunity this past weekend to spend 24 full hours without food and sleep to simply be in the presence of Jesus and intercede for whatever He wanted me to. I couldn't get enough of it. When the 24 hours was over, I asked for another 24 hours. I could've gone another 24 hours without sleep! That's how simply satisfying our Jesus is.

I've come to realize the importance of prayer and fasting. When you set aside a specific period of time (minutes, hours, days, months, or years) to fully devote yourself to prayer and fasting, God moves. It's a fact. It's as if God is leaning over his heavenly balcony, looking down on us--on Detroit, on the MidWest, on America--connecting his eyes with ours, saying, "Move Me." Those eyes of his, that are filled with fire, are daring us to move him. Can we really move God, the creator of the Universe? Yes, we can! He calls us to! This is how it works: throughout the Bible, God calls his people to sacrifice everything they have to come to repentance. And every time God's people repented, God moved. He did. Look it up. He is faithful and good and wants to see change. He wants to be moved by us.

He wants revival.

Revival is coming, people. Detroit, get ready. There is a special anointing upon that city...the ground is shaking and the air is changing. I'll definitely be back there soon, because I felt a tug to the city when I first got there. I'm going to be part of this revival God has in store. Pray for me, for us who are stepping up to the call to change our nation and bring it back to the One who gave us freedom!

You know, if you're like me, you're probably thinking, "Detroit? Why on earth would God choose Detroit of all places to start a revival? What good can come from Detroit?" I thought this very thing before I got there. I kept saying, "I can't believe I'm going to Detroit for a weekend of prayer. I'd much rather be going to NYC or L.A! What good can come from Detroit? It's so washed up. What a waste." Yeah, I'm that judgmental. But instantly when I thought those things, God reminded me of John 1:46. Jesus is seeking out his disciples, and after he finds Philip, Phil goes to find his buddy Nathanael to tell him that he's found the Messiah, the One they've been waiting for; His name is Jesus, that guy from Nazareth. Nathanael's response was, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Phil simply replied, "Come and see." All I needed to do was "come and see" Detroit to see that even though it's not a shining, glorious city in the U.S., God has big plans to come from it. Remember that our Savior was born in a barn in a tiny town. Our Savior grew up in a dirty, unpopular city. Our Savior used fisherman, lepers, prostitutes, and people on the outskirts to further His Kingdom. God has a thing for using the unpopular and the rejected.
That's what Detroit is, right now. Unpopular and rejected. Stricken with poverty, crime, racism, and injustice. Detroit is exactly what God needs.

So that's a brief, brief summary of The Call last weekend. God is really stirring hearts and shaking lives of young people in our nation...and I'm so, so honored and stoked to be a part of it...

OUTREACH UPDATE:
If you have any interest in supporting me and/or my team, please please please let me know! As of now, I need $2,700 by December 10. It's a big deal, but nothing's too big for my God to handle. I have full trust that I'll have that support.

The things I'm learning here in Discipleship Training School every day are absolutely revolutionary to the way I'm going to live the rest of my life. I wish I could blog about every single sermon I hear, every class period I sit in on, every revelation God gives me, and every experience my friends go through. If you guys could only see the ways God is moving...

Don't hesitate to email me, call me, text me, anything! I miss and love you guys, and I really want you all to hear about the things I'm learning! If you have questions about Detroit, The Call, the upcoming revival, or anything else I've said, please ask :)

Peace.

the call.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

This is a gathering place for the nations. 

The "melting pot."

There's a reason. 

I pray we realize why it is here that all people gather to be free. 

ONE NATION. ONE PEOPLE. UNDER GOD.

I pray I seek my place in this country. I trust You, God.


Above is a little excerpt from my journal I scribbled as we were corporately praying for the U.S. on Monday morning.

Well, tomorrow (Thursday) morning at 6:30 a.m. I will be ready to jump in a van and drive for 24 hours up to Detroit, MI. I'm so, so excited! The Call is an opportunity for Americans to gather together in one place and lift up our nation, our home, in much-needed prayer. I have a video of how it began in my previous blog post.
I'm just so stoked!!
I'm also very excited to come back on Sunday and relay to you guys everything that happens this weekend. I'm sure that's a blog post you won't want to ignore!

So, if you would, please pray for my classmates and I as we head up north tomorrow morning. We won't get the conveniences of beds OR showers, so pray for our heath and our spirits...that they're as lifted up as possible (even in a crowded van full of 20-somethings who haven't showered in 4 days)! :)

And if you get the chance, check out my India Newsletter on facebook!

Peace.

Break My Heart For What Breaks Yours...

Friends!
Today is an absolutely gorgeous day. The weather here in Texas is getting chilly in the mornings and evenings, and mid-day is a beautiful, comfortable, sunny temperature of 70 degrees. It's definitely not a Minnesota November, but I'm content :) (I'm still praying for a white Christmas down here...join me if you'd like! Texas needs all the prayer it can get!)

This week was Ministry Prep Week here at YWAM Tyler, which means all 3 outreach teams are preparing and sharpening the skills and activities we'll need when we go on outreach. We've been learning dramas, mini skits, VBS programs, hip-hop dances, children's sports, and have also learned how to prepare and share our testimonies with different types of people in different situations. My assignments for outreach are to be part of the hip-hop team and the children's activities team. This means 2 things: one is that my secret, life-long dream of being a hip-hop dancer is coming true (eeek! so excited!), and the second thing is that I'll be doing crafts, braiding hair, painting faces, and just tangibly loving on the Indian girls and boys that don't necessarily care to be a part of the sports activities and just want to chill (which is exactly my personality, as well!). So this week has been incredibly tiring, and a lot of us are physically worn out, but it's so worth it. I'm very excited to see how we can use our new talents and skills to represent a little bit of Jesus' love to the 3 countries we're visiting.

This morning, my OutreachTeam and I popped popcorn, cracked open cans of Mountain Dew, and sat in front of a television to watch Slumdog Millionaire together. Here's a little clip from the beginning of the movie, just click on the link:
(this movie is rated R for language, a little violence, and simply the harsh reality of life in the slums)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgZ399tSsQo&feature=related

Did you watch it?
I cried.
I've seen this movie before. But now that I'm watching it with the reality of me actually being there hit me hard. And it broke my heart. I'm not sure where my heart was when I watched it for the first time, but now that my heart has been begging God to break for the things that break His heart, I completely lost it watching that clip. The way children live in the slums of India breaks God's heart. The way they live in constant fear and have little freedom to live as children breaks God's heart. The evil and violence and cruelty that goes on in the middle of streets breaks God's heart. The dirty, disgusting, filthy wasteland parents are forced to raise their children in breaks God's heart.
And I'm going to see it with my eyes.
Jesus sees it with His eyes...every single day. 

Every day, I get the undeserving privelege of looking waking up in a bed with clean sheets and a fluffy pillow. I get to look out the window and decide what is appropriate to wear based on the temperature. I get to walk outside and look at this beautiful Texan ranch and walk to a meal consisting of all food groups and clean water. The beauty of the scenery and the comfort of the atmosphere in this place is utterly overwhelming compared to what exists in the life of a 20 year old girl in Mumbai.
.

Another awesome privilege I get to experience is The Call next weekend. Check out this video:

We are leaving next Thursday in vans and heading up to Detroit for the weekend. Please pray for us as we prepare our hearts and gather our funds for this awesome event. And maybe consider coming yourself! Don't pass up an opportunity to pray for our Nation...I'm really excited to see what God does when his people pray next weekend.
But prayer doesn't need to be a scheduled event of epic proportions. You can be praying right now and God will move in just as big of ways as he does when 50,000 people are gathered in a football stadium. It's about heart and motive.
Oh, and I learned a thing or two from Justin Bieber (yes, Justin Bieber) the other day, watching his music video, Pray. Prayer doesn't start with you blabbing out the first thing you think of to God. Prayer is about being close to His heart and listening to Him first. Listen to what He has to say to you today. Listen to what He wants you to pray about.

God speaks in the silence of the heart; listening is the beginning of prayer.

Silence your heart today. Listen for what God has to tell you. If you're bold, ask Him to give you the things that break His heart...

 

peace.