Fighting to be a Leaky Vessel

In the time since my last post, the challenges that I have faced have shifted.  I feel like I have found my place amongst the other students and I am finding London as my home for the summer.  No longer am I fighting to fit in, but instead I see where I belong in this group of people.  It has been such a relief, and has strengthened my friendships with the other students.

Instead my challenge is fighting for time with God.  I see how I have left God hanging as I have found my place.  I lost my dependency on God, thinking that everything was sorted out.  As I entered this place, I chose to put the people in program and activities infront of God.

God convicted me of this early on last week, but each day I continued to do the same.  I would spend my evenings watching TV shows or hanging out with the other students, only spending time with God in the mornings.  Everyday God would convict me and everyday I would sink back into those old habits.  Habits that I have done in the past in order to numb my feelings and desires.

Finally, God broke in and reminded me that He came to give me life and life abundantly, not a life of numbness; not a life left in the haze.  He longs to break in and bring me more alive, awakening my longings and desires.  One of these desires that He is awakening in my right now is the longing for more of Him.

Even while choosing other lovers, God has been showing me my need for Him.  I don't think I have ever wanted God more.  I am desperate for Him.  My heart aches for time with Him, to hear His voice, and to feel His presence.  I long to be used as His vessel, to host His presence and see miracles happen.

However, in order to see this happen I must choose to press in.  I have to fight to spend time with Him. That is why I feel God inviting me to spend two hours a day in prayer.  To be filled with His love while soaking in His presence.  In doing this the love of God will be able to flow through me, awakening the lives of the people it touches.

This reminds me of a piece of artwork that I created last summer.  It was made up of three drawings.  In each one was a clay jar and water being poured in it.  The only difference the amount of water being poured in.  Each jar had a different size mouth, so the largest received the most water.  Something else that the jars had in common was that each one had a crack and was leaking water.  However, the one receiving the most water also released the most water through the chip of the jar.

We are the clay jars and the more we open ourselves to God, the more He can flow through us.  I want to be the vessel receiving the most water and leaking He presence onto the people that I encounter.  In order to do that I must soak in His presence and open myself to receive from Him.  I pray that I would be that leaky vessel!!

New Adventure Means New Challenges

So, I've been in London for nearly two weeks and let me tell you, this adventure has not been what I thought it would be.  It has been so much harder!  

When I entered into this grand new adventure I expected fun times, new friends, and great stories to return home with, and the whole time I thought that it would be effortless.  I was so wrong!  Yes, I am having fun times, making new friends, and I'm sure I will have great stories to share with my family and friends when I get back, but it has been difficult. 

In the midst of these challenges, I can see how God is drawing me closer to him.  I feel that in order to just survive I have to cling to my Papa God.  It is so easy to become drained and when that happens I often shut down.  I become numb to my heart, and basically give up.  God has not let that happen so far.  Instead He is leading me down a path that constantly brings me back to Him, but I still have to choose into taking that path.

As I have followed Jesus down this narrow path I have been able to see the Father’s good heart.  I see the way that He is fathering me, as a Dad teaches and encourages his son.  I have also seen how He is wooing my heart back to Himself, as a husband romances His bride.  God’s heart for me is good and He truly cares for me. 

Over the past two weeks, I haven’t always felt this much at peace with my challenging adventures.  I have had my fair share of freak out moments, where I have asked God, multiple times, “Why?”  Why did He bring me here?  Is this a punishment?  Does He actually love me?  If so, why I am here in London and not with my community back at home? 

Through my tears and anger God still spoke to me.  He asked me to trust Him.  To trust that His plan for me here in London, is good.  He gave me a picture of a father holding his crying infant in the night.  The father was holding his child close to his chest whispering, “Hush my child, it will all be alright.  When have I left you hungry?  When have I not comforted you?  I have always been there for you, even before the beginning of time.”

This picture and these words gave me peace.  Although I still struggle daily to trust my Father, I come back to His promises and can trust that He will never leave me, nor forsake me.  He is my Papa God, leading me down this great adventure.  Drawing me closer to His heart.  Inviting me to take the next step with Him, even if the way seems unclear.  He is asking me to trust Him, and that is what I am choosing to do!

It would be too hard to share with you everything that God has been doing in my heart.  This is just a glimpse at the marvelous work He is up to in my life although I want to share with you one more thing.

Even though it has been a struggle living here in London, I see how God is growing my heart for this city.  Every morning I eat breakfast and look out our kitchen window, watching this busy city.  My heart breaks for the people here.  I long for them to see the living God, who loves them and desires to call them His own.  I ask that you would join me in praying for this city.  That God would come and open eyes and soften hearts, that He would be welcomed here to move in new ways, ways that this city has never seen before. 

I feel called to pray Psalm 67 over London, every day from now until I leave, and I'm inviting you to join me! 

A New Adventure!

Hello All!

So last summer I shared about my experience in Kansas City as I was able to love and serve the people of the inner city.  It was a life changing experience!  This summer I decided to travel to London, England on Central College's Study Abroad program, and today I arrived!!

As I prayed back in the fall, I felt led to come to London in order to set our on new adventures and to have new stories to tell.  I was all excited, but as the date drew closer reality began to sink in and just last week I sat at home, anxious about this journey.  I decided it would be good for me to sit down and spend time praying and processing what exactly I was feeling.  As I did I realized that what I really wanted was to be in control.  I wanted to know everything!  God showed me that I couldn't and I had to trust Him.  He gave me a picture of me falling backwards into His arms, this whole experience was going to be a GIANT trust fall.

As I continued to pray, I felt God's peace cover me from head to foot.  This did not last for long, but instead is something that I was and still am called to choose into.  I have to trust the my Papa God will take care of me!!

God also shared with me a little hint of what to expect from this great big adventure.  The words that He used to defined it were Love and Service.  I thought that this was a little strange, especially since I'm not working in the "mission" field, like I did last summer.  However, I am called to live a life that is missional!  I am called to love all those that I come in contact with, and serve them!  I can't wait to see how God uses me as I live a life of Love and Service here in London!

Last summer I wanted to focused on how God was taking the broken city of KC and turning it into something beautiful, all because He loves every single person in that city.  This summer I believe that God wants me to focus on me.  How is He taking me, a poor peasant boy and transforming me into a Royal Prince, a son of the King of Kings!  So, my blogs this summer will share my adventures here in London, but will focus on how God is rising me up out of the ashes to sit with the Prince of Peace, the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords!

It is going to be one crazy adventure!!

Weeks Nine and Ten: The End is Here

Sorry it has been so long since I've posted, the last couple of weeks of the internship were a little crazy. Because this blog is covering the last two weeks, it will probably be a little long, but I will try my best to only include the major stuff.

Two weeks ago I served my last week at the Kansas City Urban Youth Center.  All of us who volunteered there struggled that whole week as we prepared ourselves for Friday.  There were a lot of tears, from both us and the kids.  A really exciting part of the week though, was going on a field trip with the kids.  We went to Sea Life in Kansas City.  We wanted to do this to spend time with the kids outside of the classroom.

When the day came for the field trip I was excited, but nervous because I knew I would be drained by the end of the day.  When it came time to split up into groups I became even more nervous when I realized that my group was going to be a handful.  To be honest I was really dreading it.  As the day went on though I was paired up with two little boys out of my group, to keep my eyes on them at the aquarium.  I had struggled with each of these boys when working with them in the classroom, but while we explored they clung to me and wanted me to experience everything with them.  The afternoon was so great!  I saw how God used the time to redeem the way I looked at these two boys.  He began to reveal to me the way that He sees them.

That weekend we also found out where we would be spending our next week.  Every summer they take all the interns to Colorado for a wilderness trip, but because of the fires we had to change our plans.  The staff kept it a secret from us until just a few days before we were going to leave.  We ended up going to Lake of the Ozarks and having a family vacation for a few days.

It was so great to spend those four days with all the other interns and a few of the staff.  We stayed in a condo where all 13 of us fit.  On that Monday we went canoeing down a river, stopping every once and awhile to jump in and play in the shallow water.  On Tuesday we explored a cave and spent the afternoon swimming.  Wednesday we spent our afternoon at a state park having a day of solitude.  During the day we read The Final Quest by Rick Joyner, which is a great book, but is super intense!

During our little "family vacation" we spent time meditating on the character of God.  We talked about the playfulness of God and how he has a sense of humor.  We also discussed His desire to take us on an adventure and bring transformation to our lives.  Our time in the Ozarks was very relaxing and a lot of fun, totally different from my experience in Colorado last year.

When we returned to Kansas City we had a teaching on transitions and discussed our transitions back to home and school.  I was so thankful for this!  Even though I had already experienced all that, last year was really hard, so it was good to have this teaching to help with this year.

During those last few days I looked back on the summer to see what the Lord had all taught me.  I've realized that a theme this summer has been God inviting me in stepping into the man He created me to be.  He is continuing to show me that I am His son, which makes me a prince.  He is also showing me that He loves my heart.  He gave me my passions and desires and He wants to use them to great the Kingdom.

As our time in Kansas City came to a close we celebrated the summer that we shared together, but mourned leaving.

Week Eight: HOT! HOT! HOT!

Last week seems so far away.  I can't actually remember a lot of stuff that happened.

Monday was Alan's birthday.  It was awesome!!  There was a dance party in the middle of Ryan's.  Of course the classic cake and ice cream, which was followed by frosting food fight.  Later than we went to get some frozen yogurt.  It was such a great night.

The worst part of that night was that our air conditioner died.  None of us slept well that night because our rooms got so hot!  We didn't get the air conditioner fixed then until Thursday afternoon, so after a couple of days of 100 degrees our house was really hot.  Wednesday night we had to spend the night at Ryan's because our house was too hot.  We were so thankful by Thursday evening.

Thursday night a few of us went to the midnight premier of Dark Knight Rises.  It was epic!  I haven't been a huge fan of Batman in years past, but I wanted to go for the experience.  I love that type of atmosphere!  What made it even better was that we decided to go on a whim, like 3 hours before it started.  The only bad part about that night was that I only got two hours of sleep.

Even thought I only got two hours of sleep, God had a lot of grace on me.  I felt pretty refreshed when I woke up and then service was super great.  I aware of Him most of the time and I was able to spend a lot of time in prayer while working with the kids.  That afternoon we had our second beach outing with the inner city guys that Jeff works out with.  We had a few more guys this time so that was awesome.  We all had a lot of fun hanging out.  I thought I would be super tired by that point, but I still had so much energy.

After the beach outing us second year guys headed back up to Pella for the weekend.  We didn't get to Pella until almost 10:00pm and after we pulled in I hung out with some of the interns and a few of the staff until midnight.

It was so awesome how God was my strength that day, even if the reason I got so little sleep was for my own enjoyment.  I think that just goes to show us how God cares for His children and wants us to have fun in the midst of serving and loving Him.  He loves what we love and He wants us to delight in Him in the things that we enjoy.

That's a quick run down of last week.  I can't believe after this week we only have one week left, and that's the wilderness trip.  CRAZY!!!  This summer has gone by so fast!

Week 7: Psalm 137

Last week was a pretty average week.  I don't remember a lot of stuff that happened during the week.  There was the normal challenges with the kids at Kansas City Urban Youth, we had our five mile challenge, which was a challenge, and our Friday night movie night.  The one thing that was out of the ordinary was that my parents came down for the weekend.

It was so good to see them.  I gave them a tour of our inner city house and we went to the World War I museum.  After that we went out to eat and did some shopping.  On Sunday we went to church together with a couple of other interns.  We went to Redeemer Fellowship, which we had heard about from Aaron, an Ascent staff.  It was awesome!

The worship team had a folk sound, complete with banjo.  It was very interesting, but refreshing, something different from what I have grown up with.  For two of their songs we sang Psalms, which was just a really cool experience.  The sermon was on Psalm 137, which isn't often a Psalm talked about.  The main focus was on verse 4 which says...

How shall we sing the LORD's song while in a foreign land?

Much of the time then was talking about how hard it is to praise God in the midst of suffering.  The man giving the sermon was very vulnerable in sharing part of his family's suffering.  It reminded me of a teaching we had early this summer of what true worship it.  Ryan taught that true worship is agreeing to God's will in every aspect, even in the midst of challenges or suffering.  This was all really good to hear and had a major impact on my heart.  I think my favorite part however was the very end of Psalm 137.

Oh daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us!  Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock! Psalm 137:8-9

The guy preaching talked about how many churches and theologians do not believe that this belongs in the Bible.  That this prayer right here is not the inspired Word of God.  That is why it is often ignored in churches.  I was so glad then, that he took on the challenge of preaching from this Psalm.  

He said that this is very much inspired by God.  He explained the situation that Israel was in during this time, that they were in captivity and that their captors did these things to the children of Israel.  This prayer then is a cry for justice.  The people of Israel would have remembered the words spoken by the prophets, of how YAHWEH would bring justice to those who persecuted His people.  This is still true for us today.  As we read the book of Revelation we see Jesus as a passionate, loving Judge, who desires to bring justice.  We can be sure that He is going to bring about justice for all the times that we have experienced pain.  

These verses then are a prayer, reminding God of promises that He has made, not because He has forgotten, but for us to acknowledge them and then partnering and agreeing with Him.  It also helps us realize how to sing the LORD'S song in the midst of suffering.

Another huge thing that I took away from these verses is that it encourages us to be real with God.  He already knows what we are going through and what are thoughts are.  He desires us to be real with Him even if that isn't always pretty.  We get so good about putting on faces for those that we see face to face during the day, that we then can't be real with God.  He doesn't care if we are all put together when we come before Him, actually I wonder if He prefers that we aren't, that way we have to acknowledge that we NEED Him!

Week Six: My Own Little World

Last week was jam packed with activities with the other interns and intense revelations during my prayer time.  I'm not really sure where I want to begin...

On the Fourth of July we discussed the different books that we had read for the first half of the summer.  The book that I read, along with the rest of the second years, was Beyond Racial Gridlock by George Yancey.  It was a really good book.  I don't want to share all of it because there is a lot that Yancey discussed, plus you should probably just go read it yourself.  The main point of the book was looking at how our secular theories of trying to solve racism will never work, because they do not contain Jesus.  Yancey's model was called mutual responsibility, and it reveals that both European Americans and African Americans have sinned against one another, whether it be individualistically or corporately.  He then talked about corporate repentance and forgiveness.  Yancey also looked at the way that Jesus addressed racial difference.  It is a great book and I would really suggest!

After our book discussion we had lunch all together at the Faust house and then spent the afternoon at the World War I museum here in Kansas City.  It was a really great place to spend Independence Day, reminding us that our freedom here in America does not come without a cost, nor does our spiritual freedom.  It was also great because there is not usually a lot of focus on WWI, so it was good to be reminded of the whole story behind the war.  Museums are just cool in general because they bring about a reality to the things I learned in history class.

In the evening we went to this giant Fourth of July get together here in Kansas City.  It was a lot of fun, being surrounded by thousands of people celebrating our independence.  We did some grilling, played a few games, and just had some really good, genuine, conversations.  And then of course we watched an awesome fireworks show.  It was a great day!!

God spoke to me so much last week.  One of the main ways God spoke was through one of my kids at KCUYC.  One of the little boys that I work with, might be autistic.  He hasn't been tested, but his older brother is and he shows some serious signs.  He spends most of his day in his own little world and it is really hard for any of the teachers to get, and keep his attention.  On Monday during our teaching Ryan brought up how I had fallen in love with my kids last summer and God spoke to me using them.  As I heard this I just internally asked God to reveal to me different ways He is using these kids to speak to me this summer.  Immediately I felt like God say that I was this little boy.

At first I was thrown off by this, but then God explained to me.  Just like this little boy I spend most of my time in my own little world, not even aware of His existence.  I'm not aware that He is desiring to speak to me, calling my attention back to Him hundreds of times a day.  He is continually saying "Tate.  Tate!  Tate, I need your eyes to be on me."

This struck me so hard that I was blown away.  It was so true.  This did not only make me more aware of how God is desiring to speak to me during the day, but it also helped my relationship with this little boy.  The next day I had a lot more patience in working with him.  I spoke more tenderly and changed my whole heart posture as I interacted with him.  I saw myself as an ambassador of the LORD and realized that He desired me to treat this little boy the way that He treats me, with a deep love.

Another area where God really spoke to me last week was through art.  Early on in the week God was revealing to me how He enjoys the things that I enjoy and one of those areas are the Arts.  Sometimes it is really hard to accept this is something I enjoy and desire, because in the world this is seen as feminine.  God wants to change that for me.  He helped reveal to me that Arts are masculine because it is a way that God penetrates the hardest of hearts.

As I sat with this later on in the week I felt like God inviting me into spending part of my prayer on Thursday partnering with Him in creating.  I was a little reluctant, but did it anyway.  As I was drawing I became upset realizing that what I was doing, wasn't that great.  I really struggled with this.  God wants to use art to penetrate through the hearts of people, but how can He do that if what I am creating isn't that great and probably won't ever be displayed?

As I sat with God thinking about this I became more and more frustrated.  How then, is the art that I am creating masculine?  Very quickly I felt God answer.  I heard that art takes a lot of time and effort to reach the final product.  It includes perseverance and pressing in, which is part of the true masculine.  After I heard that I was then able to press in and finish the project that I was working on, enjoying co-creating with the Creator.

Prayer Requests

• That I would continually be being made more aware of the ways God is trying to speak to me.
• That I would continue learning how to embrace the things that I enjoy and the things that God might be inviting me into, even when it seems risky.
• That we as interns would continue growing closer together as a community.
• We have another movie night this Friday, so that we would have lots of people and have good interaction with those who show up.
• We have our five mile challenge this week, I'm sure I will need prayer for that!