Hearing God's Voice and Hot Chocolate

Wow. Only my second week here in San Fran and yet I feel like I’ve been here years! It is so great to get into routine, explore our ministry here and grow deeper in our relationships with each other. Especially our relationship with God!

This week our speaker taught on Hearing God’s Voice. For me that was something new, I never understood my parent’s “calling” and honestly I thought it was some vague desire that they had and not God at all. But this week I learned there’s so many different ways that God uses to speak to us, and I have myself heard Him numerous times. Extremely encouraging! One thing that stuck out to me was on the first day of teaching, when the speaker was telling us that the whole reason God talks to us on such a personal level and that we have that right is because we’re sons and daughters. If He is the King and we’re His sons and daughters, what does that make us? Princes and princesses! I almost barfed at first because I never wanted to be a princess but then she kept explaining. We don’t need an invitation to go into the throne room when we get hurt, God invites us to crawl up on His knee and tell Him all about it. All the privileges and special perks we have in the Kingdom because we are children of God, heirs of His love and mercy. That for me was never realized before, I always considered myself as not good enough.

So I’ve been breaking that bond this week. One thing that I noticed throughout this week and last is that God is breaking through everything I have in me. I asked for this, but I was more than a little surprised it is happening so soon... And as things are broken through, as wounds are surfaced and false beliefs of the past that it’s my fault and I’m not good enough surface, I once again get the urge to cut... This urge has grown stronger when I fail at something or I do something enormously stupid, such as lose the check that I was supposed to hand in for my tuition... Talk about nerve wracking! Things like that which happen either because of me or inadvertently or not at all related to me but I still feel responsible. My first impulse is still, “you should be ashamed. You’re so careless and stupid! You need to be punished for that.” Thankfully, I am proud to say that not once have I given in to that desire! Only by prayers of those around me and through Jesus is that possible... I’m writing this not to glory myself but to admit with all humility that for myself I would have given in, but by the strength of Jesus He restrained my hand and took the blade from my thoughts.

Tonight we had hot chocolate ministry, which is where we go out with a jug of hot chocolate and offer it to people we meet on the streets. Some are homeless, some are drunk, some are high, and a lot are mentally unstable... But the warm reception and how happy they are that you are giving them that hot chocolate almost breaks my heart. The sincere thanks they say after you ask about their night, where they are from, etc and actually truly listen (if only for 5 minutes)... It’s breathtakingly humbling. How can we not love our brothers and sisters on the streets? How can we not be doing everything physically and spiritually possible to love and encourage them? What higher purpose is there in life than to show God’s love and kindness?

So, this is what I learned this week. I made this post shorter just because I knew if I shared everything I’d be writing until morning and even then not tell everything! This is the gist of things and I hope you enjoyed reading it and God showed you something through it. J