Answered prayers and chocolate from Holland!

Our teacher Corrie who brought us chocolate from Holland that spelled SOW! So sweet!!!

"I don't understand your ways, oh but i will give you my song, I'll give you ALL of my praise…"

I found myself singing that song yesterday. I was very stressed out because it had been 2 weeks since I had heard from my contacts in Iceland and the Faroe Islands. We are leaving for Iceland in just over a week and I still didn't have a place for us to stay. So yesterday, I got so stressed out just by everything and decided to skip lunch to pray and fast for the outreach. I began to sing out those words, crying out to God b/c i just couldn't understand why it was taking so long for them to get back to me!  Earlier that morning in my quiet time i was reading in Psalms. I always learn so much from David and how he would talk to God and yesterday was no exception. I was meditating on Psalm 141:1 which says, "Oh Lord, I call upon You; hasten to me! Give ear to my voice when I call you!". I first just breezed over it but then something brought me back to it. The word "Hasten". Then i thought, ok what does that word me. When you hasten something you make it go faster. He was telling God to hurry up b/c he needed Him NOW! David spoke so directly to God. He didn't beat around the bush. As I was meditating on that verse, my eyes wandered to the other page to chapter 143 verse 7 which says " Answer me quickly, O Lord, my spirit fails. Do not hide your face from me or i will become as those who go down to the pit." I imagined Him taking God's face in both of His hands and turning it towards his and saying "GOD LOOK AT ME!!! Look at my situation! I need HELP!". So during my time of prayer, worship and fasting, that was my goal. To take God's face in both of my hands and tell Him exactly what was going on and what I needed from Him. I felt so helpless. I felt like David. If i didn't have God right then, I wouldn't have been able to make it. I wish i could say i left that time feeling at peace and trusting that God had everything under control but I didn't. I was still stressed. 

Thursday is the day that Petri and I go into town to do the grocery shopping, so we went and did that. I had it planned out in my mind that i would get home and there would be an email waiting for me. Well this was not the case, so i sat on my bed with my Bible reading those verses over and over and i just cried. I didn't know what to do. 

Later that evening, Mirjami and I got the phone number for the base in Iceland and decided to call them. The first couple of times nobody answered. We were about to give up but Mirjami decided to try once more. Thank God for her perseverance when I don't have any b/c it was that time that somebody answered! We were able to get all the information we needed!! Praise the Lord! Then today after a long day of recording and working with the Kings Kids in Kuopio, I got home and checked my email and there was a message from my contact in the Faroe Islands!!! I now have all the information i needed!!! God is good, ALL the time! Just b/c things dont happen the way I think they should or when I'd like them to, doesn't make Him any less good. I trust Him. I honestly do b/c He is so trustworthy. He's a great God.

Fastest week EVER!

Youth Group from Tornio, Finland

Wow, what a week. Seriously I'm not even sure I know how to completely explain this week very well. But I will do my best.

First I will start off by talking about last weekend. We had a youth group from Tornio which is where two very good friends of mine are from. I must say, it was a good weekend but it was also very hard. I had to take last weeks teacher to the airport at 4:30am so I was pretty exhausted for the weekend. I've also found the language barrier kinda hard lately. There was one time we were having a time of worship and since of course we are in Finland and we were working with a Finnish youth group we sang songs in Finnish! Now I have learned a few songs in finnish but I really have a hard time not checking out because I don't understand. Now it really frustrated me because I've really been trying to worship God no matter what. So I started asking God how the heck I was supposed to worship Him when I had no idea what was going on. He reminded me that He looks at my heart. If I'm trying my best to sing even though I don't understand, it doesn't matter if my pronunciation is wrong or if I really have to focus on what I'm saying because God is not limited to english! He can speak to me through finnish if He wants to but I have to be open to that. So once again, I learned something new. But you can for sure be praying for me in this area. The language barrier has been something I'm having a hard time with lately.

Next I will talk about this week's teaching. Our teacher Jon has been speaking on the prophetic in worship. Honestly as much stuff happened this week, it's almost impossible to actually put into words. I've learned that I'm very prophetic. Stuff that I thought was just my imagination is way more real than I think. It's time for me to realize what God is doing instead of just pass it off as daydreaming or being visual. I've been really learning the importance of meditating on scripture. It's crazy how I can take just one verse in the Bible and be stuck on it for an hour and God just shows me SOOOOOO much!! I love it! I kinda got stuck in a mindset of having to really read a lot of scripture rather than just take one and really really really understand it before I move on. When you sit down and really think about what God is saying in that one particular scripture it changes your perception of reading the Bible. God put every verse in there for a reason. He didn't just mindlessly say oh lets stick this story in there so that it will be thicker. No way jose! Thats so not God. I'm so grateful that He gave us the Bible. It really is so helpful. Smart thinking God! :)
Ok well, this doesn't even come close to how impacting this week was but I really don't even have any words. I just really thank God for this week. It's been a very hard week but it's been a very good week. That seems to be how they all go.

Peek-a-Boo! I See YOU!

Our teacher for the week, Mike Payne

The phrase I can't seem to get away from this week is, "I See You". It's like God's trying to cram it into my head. "I see you. I see your heart. I see your thoughts. I see every word you think but choose not to say. You see all the bad things that you think about, but I see that you chose to not think about them. You choose not to say them. I see your heart!"

It's so easy for us to fall into condemnation and guilt when it comes to our thoughts because we know what we think about and we are the only ones who know what we think about. Other than God of course. So even though we may not say those things out loud we are still thinking them. Those thoughts are still there and at times we get really frustrated because we know we shouldn't be thinking those thoughts. I had a of couple days this week where I kept having negative thoughts. It was so frustrating because I was like ah! where is this coming from! And I found myself apologizing to God a lot for thinking those thoughts. But you know what God says to me? Sarah, I'm proud of you! What?!?!?! He's proud of me??? My thoughts were totally not lining up with His thoughts and He's proud of that? Thats when He reminded me that not all thoughts are my own. I have an enemy that likes to whisper lies in my ear. It's my choice to listen to them, dwell on them, and accept them; or to say, NO! I refuse to listen to this or dwell on it! It's all about our heart.

Snowball Fight!!! 10/15/10

God went on to explain to me that He sees my heart. My heart is not to think negative thoughts. My heart is to run from those negative thoughts and learn to think only what He is thinking. That's what He sees and that's what He's so proud of! Now if I chose to continue to dwell on those negative thoughts and allow them to take up residence in my mind, then that's when it becomes wrong. But still, He is so gracious because He knows I'm still learning how to renew my mind. He will continue to help me in this process which shows so much patience on His part because He's going into it knowing that it's going to take a lifetime! Ah! He's a great God!
When we realize what God focus' on, condemnation and guilt don't have a chance! God doesn't see our mistakes. He see's our heart in the matter. He loves us way to much to focus on how much we mess up. He cares more about our hearts. If our hearts are for righteousness, He sees that!
Condemnation and guilt keep us from true repentance. Repentance is not sitting right where we fell and staying there screaming out "God I'm so sorry!!!". No it's running into His arms saying "God I'm sorry that I messed up. I've learned my lesson and I never want to go back there again." Our response comes from our heart. A condemned heart doesn't feel worthy of being in God's presence because of their sin. Which is false humility (aka pride). A repentant heart loves God way too much to allow sin to get in the way (this is humility). God knows the difference between a condemned heart and a repentant heart. He sees our heart!

So that was my lesson of the week. And trust me, it didn't just come in one quiet time. This was learned over many hours of just sitting in his presence, asking Him what the heck is wrong with me and allowing Him to speak. His presence is my favorite. It's the safest place I know.

I'm Alive to Learn

Two days in a row! Go me! This week has been quite difficult emotionally for me. I'm thankful for it though because I have learned so much.
Since sunday night, the enemy has been trying to throw my past in my face, but right when I started to feel really condemned and depressed, I found a note that one of my best friends wrote me. It had scriptures on it saying how I'm redeemed and set free. It also said that God doesn't remember my past. He chooses to forget! How great is that! So if He chooses to forget, then why do I chose to remember? So then when the enemy tried to throw my past at me again, I simply thought "I did what? No way. I don't remember that". :)
It sounds like denial, but thats not what it is. I know what I've done, and if God wants to use my past to help others then I'll talk about it. But I refuse to dwell on something that God chooses to forget. What good does it do for me to dwell on my past sin and shame. It doesn't. So there. Haha sucka! You tried to take me down but really just made me confident in who I am.
Then!!! I tell you this week it was never ending!!! Ok so the other day during class, our teacher (Fernando) told us to 1.) go outside and find something that inspires us to worship God and then 2.) to ask God if there is something He wants us to give to someone else as an act of worship as well. So I closed my eyes and was like "Ok God, what do I have that I can give away?". Well I'm expecting Him to tell me to give away something like my ipod or some money or idk something that I feel like would be hard for me. I mean I use my ipod to fall asleep so that would be really tough. But anyway, God brought to my mind not my ipod but this little box that I have. It was given to me by someone that I love a lot and it means so much to me! Well as soon as that came to my mind I felt so sick. I thought, you have got to be kidding me. I fought with God and was like no one is even gonna appreciate this the way I do. And God told me that's exactly why I needed to give it away. I was emotionally attached to a box!! Oh goodness. So with tears, I gave it away. Joyful obedience is something I'm still working on.
The last story from this week I will tell is from my quiet time this morning. It's gonna sound really lame of me but I didn't feel like putting much effort into spending time with God, (don't judge me) so I decided to finish listening to a podcast I had started. Heidi Baker was the one speaking and I love to listen to her because no matter what mood I'm in, her joy is so contagious that it makes me laugh. One of the stories she told was about God mulitplying food. Which apparently He does for them all the time. It made me think that so often we dream of having money and good jobs so that we don't have to worry about food and stuff but then we ask God to do miracles! We don't need miracles if we never have situations that require miracles. We have a serious problem with contradicting ourselves. But then something else hit me! God likes to BAKE!! Lately I've been baking a TON! I think it's actually my way of coping with things but I really enjoy baking. I love when I discover something that me and God have in common. It makes us closer! Now when I bake, I can invite Him to bake with me because it's something we both enjoy! Oh how fun. I love my friendship with God. It's the most valuable one I have. I wouldn't trade it for the world.
Ok well I'm done for now. What a great week. Hard but do I really wanna go through life without ever growing? How boring is that.

Worship is worth dying for....right?

The freedom to worship God is something that I as an American have, but unfortunately it's taken just about 22 years for me to appreciate it. I was homeschooled from 2nd - 12th grade and my mom used a christian based curriculum for most of our schoolwork. History being one of those subjects, I spent so much of my life learning about not only american and world history but the history of christianity as well. I have so much knowledge about how much persecution people went through to give me what I have today but have never really understood exactly how costly worship is.

Our teacher this week is Fernando Dantes. He said something today that almost brought me to tears. He told a story about how he went to the Colosseum in Italy and they had a worship time outside the stadium. It was during that time God spoke to him that he had that freedom to worship because people died in that very stadium. Fernando went on to say that there are times when we have the nerve to decide that we don't feel like worshiping because we are tired! Bleh!! He is so right!!! I can't even count how many times i've sat down during a worship service because I was tired or just did not feel like worshiping God. Yet had I been alive during a different era of history, I would have to fight possibly even to death for the very freedom that I'm choosing to reject! Ugh, how sick is that! Not only did people throughout history die for my freedom of worship, but God's only Son even died! By my decision to sit down during worship or even just decide I don't feel like worshiping is the greatest disrespect I can show to the all of those who gave up literally everything. Are we really that self-centered?

If I had been alive during a time when worshiping God was life threatening, would I still worship God? If someone came to me right now and put a gun to my head and told me if to stop worshiping God, would I stop? Is my love for God so shallow that I'm even asking these questions? Why do I worship God? Just because I can? Worship has to be more than something I just do without thinking about it. If it's something I do mindlessly, then it's not something worth dying for and all of those who died for this have died in vain. They knew God in a way that not even death could make them stop worshiping Him. That's true worship. I want that.

God I pray that the next time I don't "feel" like worshiping you that you will remind me of this revelation.

Were following the leader the leader the....oh wait, I'm the leader! AHHH!

Our teacher for the week, Jan Honningdal!

God is full of surprises. I never really know just what I'm getting into when He tells me to do something. He always leaves out parts, which is probably very smart on His part because I may not do what He wants me to then. Ha! That being said, I got a pretty big surprise this week. At the beginning of the week, Mary, Mirjami and I were in our room getting ready for bed and Mary says to me, "Sarah, theres something I'd like you to pray about". Last time she said that, I moved to Finland. Well this time wasn't much different. She asked me to pray about leading the outreach for the school.
Now anyone who knows me really well knows that it takes me quite some time to calm my mind down to go to sleep. And thats just on any normal night, but add something like this!! Ha! Sleep can pretty much be considered impossible. So I told her I would pray about it. Everything within me was freaking out. Staffing the school is one thing. It's easy to just help out where needed, but to lead something you've never led before. Yikes! So I escaped to the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face and freak out to God. Well I got in the bathroom, locked the door and went to open my mouth to give God every excuse in the book as to why I am not fit to lead this outreach when I clearly heard Him say, "Sarah, you know you're supposed to do this so don't even start speaking out excuses". How can you argue with that??? Well you can't. So I was able to go to bed with an answer which I gave to Mary the next day.

Our outreach will be to Iceland and the Faroe Islands. God has been speaking so much to me already. During one of my quiet times, God started speaking a ton of things to me about outreach. He's giving me such a heart and passion for this time in these countries. I'm really excited about it. Nervous but excited. We are a small team (me and 3 students), but God has really challenged me to not think about our numbers. God + us is always the majority! I know it's going to be so great. I look forward to how much I myself am going to learn during this time. God also really put it on my heart to start writing songs based on scripture so I can sing out His word! I told Him to give me scriptures so that I could do this, and since then, two people have emailed me with verses that God gave them for me! He's so freakin faithful! I know that He will be with me on every step of this outreach. Every decision He will make with me. He will be my guide and give me wisdom for every situation. I trust Him.

This is the verse God gave me to remember whenever I feel like I can't do this:

"No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.

 ⁶ "Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. ⁷ Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. ⁸ Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. ⁹ Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go." Joshua 1:5-9

What can I say. He's good and I love Him.