Prophesy

Wow! So much has happened between my last post and this one, and I will have to result to the highlights, but let me just say God is so real! He has been working in and through me, pruning my branches and taking away the things that were dead in me so that I can produce more fruit for Him. I am a piece of clay in the hands of a master sculpter!

I'm going to give you an overview of "Holy Spirit" week. The lectures were centered around spiritual giftings and the characteristics of Holy Spirit that we either didn't know, or can go to Him for help. I was super excited for this week because Holy Spirit is definitely the most unknown of the trinity, but He's right here in our hearts everyday ministering to our spirit.

Right off the bat Nick Gough (our speaker) started prophesying over all of the students in the classroom. He was speaking truth over many of my friends, and he was even being very specific in some cases. I had never seen this done before so I was feeling a mix of confusion and excitement. As he was prophesying over the students I had one thought in my mind: "maybe if I stare at him long enough, he will notice me, and then he will prophesy over meeeee!!!" However, once he looked at me and waited for God to download information to him, my heart felt like it was going to explode out of my chest. I was ready for it, but just really anxious and even kind of intimidated that he is going to tell me about my life... it's kind of a weird idea when you think about it.

Here's what I wrote down right after he spoke... so you know it's accurate: I will be like a brother figure to the people around me. I connect with multiple groups. I have completely put my trust in God. On outreach I will be a peacemaker; a buffer. People can come to me and feel safe and secure; at peace. I will prophecy with authority.

Isn't that ahwesome!!! I felt strongly encouraged and uplifted after hearing that. Especially that I will prophesy with authority! The fact that what I experienced through prophecy will also be something I can give to another. Shazam! Everything he said is so true with my character. I love comforting others when they are going through conflict. I feel like it is my job as a brother in Christ to give hope to others when they are down and out. Fellowship through the body of Christ is an important thing to me.

This is interesting too... while Nick moved on to prophesy over others, I got a verse. John 4:44. Check this out, John is the fourth gospel. Look at that verse like this now: 4 4 :44. Boom! So I figured God was trying to say something to me through the number 4. I thought maybe it had something to do with the connotation of numbers in the Bible, how they have a deeper meaning when they are repeated. I researched the meaning behind the number 4 in the Bible for awhile and found out that it is the number of creation. Four seasons, four points on the compass, four times of the day. I just thought that was quite a quinkydink :) It's like God is creating prophecy in me so that I can take to every corner of the Earth and use it for His glory! Also, later after prophecy week (10/7/11), I gave a prophecy for my roommate. Right after that I flipped open my Bible to Mark 6:4, which goes even further into describing how a prophet is not welcome in his own hometown.

Sheesh! There's soooooo much I could tell you guys! These last couple of weeks were quite eventful. Day two of Nick Gough's week of lectures, we had an intense time of worship at night. People were screaming, praying in tongues, falling asleep in the Holy Spirit. I gotta admit, it was freaking me out. I was such a skeptic of this kind of stuff before I came to DTS, but that has completely changed. It all started with me getting a couple of prophecies from two completely different guys, but the message of the prophecies were similar in content. They both said that I was very gifted and there were many things that God could unlock in me if I only let him. Also, they both stated that I would step out of my comfort zone to trust God, and the gifts he's given to me. So I thought that was pretty cool, and I was just anxious to see how it would turn out. Later that evening, I went oer to give a prophecy I had gotten to a guy I barely even talk to. After that, a staff leader comes over and prays over us. He was just speaking truth into our outreach teams when I started nodding me head. At first I just thought of it as acknowledgement of what he was saying, but then my head kept nodding... and nodding. Even after he had finished praying for us, I felt like a bobble-head! For some reason though, I had such a peace about what was happening. Even crazier, my head bobbing had now increased to a full blown writhing on the floor without the utmost control of my body. I was just shaking back and forth, not really thinking of anything. Then God told me he was taking control of my body, and that I just needed to stay calm. All of a sudden, God said "be still," and it all stopped. I was literally frozen. I couldn't move, and didn't want to. This whole time I was still, God was just telling me that he loved me, but I am not giving Him all of the credit for the prophecies he had given to me. That really humbled me. I realized that I had just gotten into the fascination that I could speak truth to come over people, and not point it all back to God. After God let me out of my stillness I literally repeated the phrase "it's all you God" for about an hour and a half. Once again, I just lost control :) I felt so relieved though after that night. GOD IS REAL!!! He moves in ways that are a mystery, and I'm still confuzzled by some of the things he's done to me, but He does it so that we come to a conclusion that we really don't have anything figured out for ourselves. He holds the reins :)

The Oregon Trails... n stuff

Howdy!

Just got back from Oregon about a week or so ago, and it was a blasty-blast! The road trip there took about 14 hours, but I love van rides so there's really no harm in that! Some people got drugged up on Dramamine and slept the whole trip, and others (me) would be that annoying guy in the van that everyone wants to shut-up :P I just don't have the self-discipline to sleep the whole way. Nevertheless, the trip there and back was pretty smooth, and the only problem was that a tire on one of the vans got flat... or exploded... or something.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=2115579651458&set=vb.1304713176&type=2&theater

The Salem base was pretty cool! It was very roomy to say the least. They had about 15 acres of land, whereas, we only have about 7. In other words... it was a big base :) The guys all were cramped into a couple of rooms. I was in the room that looked like your typical bunk-bed kids retreat setup, with about 40 other guys. Now, I'm used to having two roommates, so this is quite the transition. I talk in my sleep, so I was a little hesitant to stay in a large room due to recent outbursts of involuntary verbal statements in my sleep. For example, just last night I apparently woke up one of my roommates. I said, "Daniel!... base jumping. Base jumping!!! No..... Parkour.....Parkour!!!" So nearly every night of my time in Salem I would talk in my sleep and wake someone up. Or if you're another one of my friends, he delights in interrogating me in my sleep. Talk about a living nightmare... because I actually answer some of his questions.
           Anywho, God showed up sooooo much! The highlight for me was when I walked around at night looking at the stars and just waiting on God (I do that quite often). I asked Him the questions, "who are you? Where are you?" and I looked back up to the stars. I started thinking that God was in the stars and the trees and around me, but then I stopped all of a sudden. I was looking straight ahead, and there was a double-shadow. Usually when you see a double shadow, it is around the same size as your original shadow, but this one was different. It was gigantic! Instantly I knew that God was right next to me. Even funnier, I was holding hands with my "double shadow." So I walked around with God for awhile just acknowledging that He was there, and telling Him how much I loved Him. He said "I love you too." And when God starts saying 'I love you,' He doesn't stop until you tell Him you get it, and then His love is still too deep for us to understand.
         

Experiencing Injustice. Something every human being should go through in my opinion. Right up there with visiting a third world country. You're just not the same after you've seen (and I'm not talking about on the NEWS), ya dig? Basically, this is a program that happens in every DTS where stations are setup for seeing the things that need to be set right in this world. Immediately we all prepared our hearts, and then we split up into teams of about seven and headed out. As we were walking over to the first station, God spoke to my heart. He said, "Be strong, but get hurt." over, and over, and over. Very calming words huh? So I was already pretty riled up when we got to the first station: Human Trafficking. This really made me mad. Like none other. Some actors played a scene where they were in a brothel, and a man came in and wanted to buy a 15-year old girl for sex. She was resisting him, so he smacked her and she fell to the floor. At this point, my blood was boiling... my teeth were gritting. I had to keep reminding myself that this was just a scenario, or I definitely would've been involved, and I would've unleashed the hurt locker on this guy. So right from the start, I knew that I wanted to fix this injustice with a passion. There were many others, but the ones that impacted me the most were unclean water (we got to drink a cup of taco seasoned water), persecution, and abortion. Persecution felt so real. We were bagged, pushed around, verbally abused, forced to pull the trigger on some people. One girl told me during that experience, one of the persecutors told her that they were going to rape her. Just when she said that to me, I was outraged. There really are no words to describe what we went through. So many people were crying after we gathered together again. The good news is that God is sooooo much bigger than these injustices, and He is equipping us to help fight against them. Our hearts are being stirred up to go out to the nations and fix what the corruption of the world has set into motion. I don't know about you, but that just makes me so stoked that I get to be a part of God's great plan! Slowly but surely, He is raising up world changers in us!!!


This week's lectures were on the topic of "Hearing the Voice of God." Haha! Just going into this week, I was pretty scared, gotta admit. I do not have much experience with listening very well, even though I know God is constantly talking. Surprisingly though, I have heard Holy Spirit so clearly in some of the exercises we do. One morning we interceded for a woman by the name of Christine. All we knew about her was that she had an adult daughter. That's it. So we were instructed to press into Holy Spirit and ask for things we can pray for/pictures/words/etc. Instantly when we started interceding, I got the feeling that there was an intense hostility between the two of them. Like that there were some things that have gone unforgiven in their relationship, and that has corroded their relationship almost in its entirety. BAM! Mike told me that ever since Christine had gotten divorced, she was sleeping around with men, and that had separated her from her daughter, and they were both pretty angry with each other. CRASEY!!!
           We had a day of fasting on Thursday, and we gathered together in our meeting area. Right from the start we had some quiet time with God, and I sort of slipped into somewhat of a dream-like state. It was sooooo weird. almost like I was daydreaming, but so vivid. I got a picture for two girls, and then God spoke to me what he thought of another girl in our DTS, and a prophecy of what she'd do. It was shweeet! Here's the quirk though... He didn't want me to tell them right away. I got the thought that He wanted me to tell them later so we could continue interceding throughout the day instead of just pouring everything out during session and then shutting down for the rest of the day. Even better, both of the words I got were spot on for each of the girls. BOOM! Holy Spirit knows what's up :)


I started recording my song yesterday in the studio for about an hour. I LOVE STUDIOS!!! Sorry, just had to get that out :P Right off the bat, I pounded out the guitar scratch track, and the vocal scratch. So stoked! Now I just need to practice my face off with the band for the next week before I get back in the studio. There are still many things to add to the song. It's very complex, and I'm very OCD... bad combo. It sounds pretty good so far though! I'm excited to see how it will turn out!

Godspeed!

-Spencer