Heat Pump

We have a new heat pump in the prayer room and in the office upstairs. Next years interns are going to be living it up… no more huddling round the one or two gas heaters at 8am on a winter morning!

The Word from the Stand

There’s this excellent little prayer in Psalm 61:2. The verse reads, “From the ends of the earth I call to you: when my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” There are times when my life is fantastic and all is going awesome, but there are also times where I relate to this phrase far better than I want to.

It happens to the best of us… sometimes circumstances beyond our control get a bit out of hand, or too much is going on, or we get tired and a bit ‘burnt-out.’ It’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture, or of our vision… it’s even easier to start freaking out or worrying, and trying to plan and plot and strategise our way out of it. If you ever call my cellphone and I’m driving aimlessly around Lower Hutt with no particular destination, it probably means I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed.

That’s where this verse comes in… when my heart is overwhelmed, I want to be led to the Rock that is higher than I. That Rock is the Lord. Numbers 23.19 tells us that “God is not a human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfil.” It gives me incredible security to know that God’s still in control… His character and His nature don’t change… that my Creator is on my side.

So, if things seem to be a bit hectic… don’t get busy trying to make it all work out… take it to the Lord, get before Him, and trust in the fact that Romans 8 says that all things work together for GOOD.

Have a great rest of the week…

Kate

As we were meant to be…

Most of this is directly taken from a book report that I had to do on DTS… the book was The Man with the Bird on His Head, by John Rush & Abbe Anderson. There’s some good thoughts on missions here… I took out all the book-specific stuff.

[In regard to the Lord's call on our lives...] We need to accept our role… even if it means moving forward with caution, there’s a need to understand the hour and the call, and to do it regardless of how we feel about it personally, because otherwise key opportunities may be missed.  Missions is not about integrating western culture along with the Christian message… it’s about Christianity coming and redeeming cultures.  God will connect the dots for us… what we refer to as ‘divine appointments’ are the hand of God in real-time working on our behalf. Stuff like visas, being accepted for specific outreaches, being where we need to be when we need to be there, finances… God’s going to get us where he needs us to be.

When I go to [the nations] it’s not about me going as a New Zealander, or any of us going as representatives from our nations… we go representing the Father. Our goal is not to take New Zealand culture or American or Singaporean or Canadian or Swiss or French or Egyptian culture to [the nations]… our vision is to make Jesus known. It’s why we embrace local culture – the food, the dress, their style of church and worship – because Jesus is not a white person. I can be confident in going overseas because of the fact that I know God has called me there… all I have to do is to hear his voice and obey… to walk in the fullness of what He has anointed me for. I know that God has divine appointments – people for me to meet and lead to Him, people that I can pray for who will get healed… my finances will work out, visas will work out, I’ll be where I need to be when I need to be there, since I know he works on my behalf. I shouldn’t go without faith… not believing that God can use me… because I know he will, it’s actually pride if I think he can’t… “God can’t use me”… that sets a limit on the Lord, yet nothing is impossible for Him.

Progressive Thoughts

I had a lot of time to think today… I cleaned windows and painted at my parents for three hours, then I painted at my youth pastors house for another three hours… good times, but there wasn’t really many people to talk to, except the builder guy at Kirk’s, and my mom down the street at their property.

I hate letting people down… or reacting badly to situations that push me outside my comfort zone or when my normal is being redefined. I had one of those weekends (can we say, ‘weeks?’) that leave you thinking, what the heck was I thinking / where did that come from / why was my reaction like that. It wasn’t even anything specific… just occasional things I said, attitudes of my heart… but the only thing that I can really do is repent… make it right with people… push delete, start over, and ask for the Lord’s grace.

I’ve been pretty messed up by a CD called ‘the longing’ which comes out of IHOP-Atlanta. There’s a few songs on there that I’ve been listening to on repeat as I drive around… its good, and its making me wonder what’s going on, what I’m built for. At the moment I’m having to do a bit of self-assessment… God-assessment… and work out where I want to go with this prayer thing… if I want to move into co-leading our young adults internship… if I want to take a bigger leadership role in the prayer room… lots of stuff like that…

Yay, staff meeting tomorrow. I like Tuesday staff meetings, especially since we usually go to starbucks

es-cat-a-logical?

I figure if I pull out the American pronounciation of eschatological around here, it might get some questions. I’m told that I have a weird accent, somewhere between Canadian and American, yet I picked it up before I ever went to America and I’m not sure where from. The results range from people simply asking where I’m from with a slightly confused look on their face, to those who automatically assume I’m here on holiday or for study. See, we pronounce eschatology as in es-ka-to-logical. It’s just the different pronounciation of ‘a’, we say it like the ‘a’ in car.

I’m live-blogging from the prayer room computer, feeling like some social time, but having decided not to go to the big event that everyone else is at, my options are a little limited, and most of my friends who aren’t going are also being antisocial, or specific-social. Greg Laurie, Harvest 07, is in its final night in the city, but last night they had overflow of like 1000 people. I’d far rather that someone can go and take their non-Christian mate and get a seat, than I go. The Newsboys and Katinas are great, but they don’t really make me excited either… and at home, Drew is studying because he has an exam tomorrow. TV is kind of bad tonight.. Scary Movie 3 (oh yay?) or a 2 hour CSI: Miami special, both of which put me to sleep. I suppose I could do things which I’ve needed to do for ages… like start my India scrapbook or something… although I have no photos printed so that really wouldn’t work…. the gym closes early… there really is nothing to do on a Sunday night when there’s no leaders meeting or church! And I’m not inspired to be in the prayer room right now… should suck it up I suppose and do some serious prayer time… I dunno, guess we’ll see how it goes.

Home again

Now that I’m at home again, and not having to contend with the countdown clock on the email at the backpackers, I can post properly! I’m in the middle of watching Survivor: China (they should so do survivor New Zealand. that’d be fun. stick them on the desert road or something.)

I did the roadtrip… and came home today, missing the afternoon class and getting back about 7pm. I wasn’t sure how long it’d take – it ended up only taking just over 6 hours – so I left earlier, but I could have stuck around probably. I only stopped once on the way home… which wasn’t very smart, but I stopped at Taupo, then realised 4 hours later at Otaki that I hadn’t stopped again so just made it all the way home.

I listened to about 12 hours of teaching in the car… Mike Bickle, overcoming thru martyrdom, the power of a focused life, and part of extreme times require extreme measures… as well as Allen Hood, I’ve started this big series I have on ’sermons of Jesus’ which was run as an FCF class a couple of years ago, on cd four of like 10?

 Loved being at the House of Prayer… I’m a bit tired to blog coherently though.

Oh yeah…

It’s been nearly two years since I visited IHOP in Kansas City. Since then, it’s all been local church prayer rooms… except for yesterday and today. Today, I remembered. I like harp and bowl. I like being with more than just myself in a prayer room. I like going somewhere together, when the room all engages. I like LIVE MUSIC, and not mp3 all the time except for Godspace on Tuesday nights…

I know its not about how many ‘hours we do’, but today I stayed engaged for the longest time that I’ve stayed engaged for in ages. It was good. Something pretty significant is going on at the Tauranga House of Prayer (www.thop.co.nz) and if you’re ever in New Zealand, make sure you get there.

Tauranga

Well, I made the last minute decision to come up to the Tauranga House of Prayer for a few days, I’m not even sure when I’m heading home or where I’m heading home via! At any rate I’ll hit the prayer room for up to 8 hour each day, as well as attending their intern classes over the next two days… today was really good.

God, move me into the wilderness…

Morning service!

This morning we had a really good morning service. I have to admit that I don’t always go in the mornings… evenings are required for my staff commitment though. But the theme of the message was ‘You are not alone’ which was really good… then we had a morning altar call (which doesn’t happen so frequently. usually night times.) and I got prayed for, and it was good.

Now, its 1.30pm and I have done nothing, but I’m going to visit Rachel

Footloose

I have no idea what the footloose movie is about but I’m at Rachel’s birthday party and we’re watching it and I’m being fairly antisocial and sitting on my computer and writing a blog entry at the same time as we watch it. it’s one of the useful things of being able to watch a movie and not have to look at the computer screen becaue I can type fairly well without needing to watch and make sure I know what I’m typing.

over the last couple of days I’ve found my heart coming alive (well, it always is…) with the desire to pray. My prayer has just been ‘Lord, let my life become a raging furnace of prayer.’ I want to carry weight and authority when I pray… I want to be good at praying in English not just in the Spirit… I want to be exhilarated by the knowledge of the Holy One of Israel and I want to see the Lord break in over Lower Hutt. All that kind of stuff.

Jesus, come move in our city… come make my life a raging furnace of prayer…