United with Dan on a Mission

6.3 My Progress

Week 1 Orientation

We covered the 3 pillars of YWAM: Mercy Ministry, Evangelism and Training, and some of the DTS goals, e.g. enabling people to grow in God, prepare people for an active world mission (or home) and to acclimatize people to YWAM.

We also learned that there are three main players in discipleship: ourselves, God and everyone else / world / media. [Matthew 28:18-20]

And covered the belief tree: Fruits of the tree (us) are dependent on our values (the trunk), and on many aspects of our worldviews (the roots), be it religion, gender, life experiences, culture, class etc. [Romans 12:2]

Finally they left us with some questions:

1. Why have I come for a DTS?
2. What do I want to see happen, and
3. If discipleship means change what am I willing and not willing to change.

While this may be subject to change, at this point they are as follows:

1: Because it’s in Scotland; to continue to experience God encounters; to be aware of His   presence; to get direction in life and to learn how to make God a part of me. For fellowship, growth in faith, and to acquire the tools of the Spirit, and to put the ‘co-incidence’ excuse to the sword.

2. To grow in leadership, to see change, healing, miracles, spread and growth of joy, and to witness the sheer awe of God’s power.
3. Willing: probably everything… habits (easy) way of life (easy) worldviews (easy) attitudes (meh) pride (hard) independence (hard) and addictions (hard)

Not willing (or rather reluctant to be honest): Identity, culture, likes and dislikes, some ideologies, security, comfort, being in control.

I also prayed that God hit me with a wave, drop some bombs, and be a mighty wind directing my ship on the adventure of a lifetime.

Week 2: Spiritual Formation

We covered a lot on how to decipher the voice of God from the rest – basically whether it’s a word of life or death; having a number of connotations relating to both. For the rest, this week was very theological in many ways – a lot of ideas were thrown our way, a number of things were good, but others I just couldn’t come to agree on. For example, the Psalm of Hope mentioned earlier in the chapter and in the uncovering of what Hades and Gahanna actually are, were really cool things to dive into, but ideas of ‘anything secular is rooted in evil, and that dreams, desires and passions are of the flesh and therefore also need to be crucified’ just don’t sit well with. If anything, it gets my back up. Sure, there is bad in them, but to blanket all the good things too is just foolish. Besides there are many scriptures that promise blessings, provisions of wishes, dreams and desires, such as Ps 37:4. As the week came to a close, we were given a good strategy of identifying parts of our ‘characters’ that need attention. Unfortunately for me, after lots and lots of reflection, many of my characteristics are just too interwoven to be isolated and addressed, and personally, I don’t actually want to change most of the characteristics, as then I would cease to be me, and actually disagree with the idea that ‘everyone’ should aim to fit these ‘cookie-cutter’ identities. I’ll quote what Nathan commented in regards to the secular:

“God created the world and gave us the ability to co-create – He gave us imagination and initiative. While things that are secular can be evil, not all is evil. And even the things that are evil, cannot affect u if u have the Holy Spirit within you. If a car, that is then evil because it is secular, is used by a Christian… then isn’t that Christian sinning? No, of course not! If everything that is secular is evil, then our clothes too are evil, and we should walk around naked, yet doing that is a sin too?”

In light of this I have decided to bury Romans 12:2 [Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God… by Rom 12:2] in my heart. I’ve received a number of words saying that I should hold onto my colourful / unique character and I think that I will do just that. Of course this does not mean I will remain the same.

Week 3: Character of God

We started off by hearing that by what we, the church and religion, have made out of God, is such a small part of the pie of his character. We were asked to share what aspect of God He has highlighted to us of late. I responded by saying, “the heart of the Father or more specifically compassion in examples set by Jesus… and wisdom, but that has always been a central aspect for me.” The speaker for the week then proceeded to prophecy and blessed me saying: “Daniel, God is your Judge – Not man!” [This tied in with a word I had received earlier the day from someone else: “You’re colourful and different, hold onto that and don’t worry about what others say or think.] Well, for the last 5-6 years or so, that was me in a nut shell. The speaker proceeded to prophecy that God would stir up a furnace in me that produces very pure gold ingots, but I need to remember to have compassion for myself, and in doing so, it will overflow to everyone else, and God will give me wisdom to ‘mine’ them. God and I will work as a team, and his plans are enormous. Thus I should not hesitate to dive in and chance the dreams God gives me.

The next day 2^nd October we dove into the nature and character of God, further exploring these things. In summary, His nature is BIG and His character is GOOD. Personally I found Psalm 139 to be the best summary of God by a means we can comprehend.

All in all this has been an amazing week; my favourite so far. Many things have been highlighted for me the last while, but things have been very overwhelming; so many things to think about, new ideas to reason with etc. This past week alone some central aspects were: delighting in Jesus, Courage, Wisdom and Compassion, Jesus always with me, God is my Judge, Dynamis, and Trust. I’ve made one MAJOR breakthrough in deepening my relationship with Jesus / God, and that is the identification of the problem: “I need the courage to trust.” I’ve come from just hoping, to fully believing and growing faith, but trust is the next obstacle.  I shrugged the idea at first thinking, “but I can trust people easily.” (Which is actually contrary to my experience in March with Ryan)But the idea kept coming back to me; I played with it until I awoke to a cold realisation… the reason I can ‘trust’ people so easily is because I’ve written off all care about trust. I talk easily, say my thoughts, am open and direct because I couldn’t care less whether the person I am speaking to is trustworthy with that information or not. At least in all matters that I am willing to trust people in, I couldn’t care less weather they could be trusted in the first place. However, actually working this now seems like a huge obstacle that I have absolutely no idea where to start with, I mean… trust. It’s no secret why it’s hard to trust.

On the 5^th I went to a Light and Life evangelism event in Glasgow. After completing a driving test with Ian (base leader) a number of days prior, I drove half the DTS team to Glasgow and back. It was quite the adventure on its own. After arriving, I joined the healing team. Through the course of the evening we ended up praying for 5 people. The first was Mary, for whom we prayed for Emotional healing. By the end, she was convinced that she had received that healing. Next was a newlywed named Gordon; he had recently suddenly been suffering from panic attacks and no doctor could diagnose the cause. He, being a Christian, began to wonder if it was a spiritual attack. He was really a kind hearted fellow, so we began praying for him. At a point during the prayer, he shook, and then exclaimed that he had felt something leaving him. I can’t be certain, but I believe that something changed in his eyes, from before to after. He thanked us deeply and promised to keep in touch, but for now I am doing all I can to believe that he was healed. Next was a Louise whom we prayed for relief from discomfort. Unfortunately while she claimed she could feel the presence of God, her discomfort didn’t dissipate but we hope that God may yet work in her. Finally we prayed from someone’s ankles which were painful – they weren’t immediately healed; and another person’s back, which I am pretty sure is now fine.

Week 4 is about to begin and I can’t wait for what’s in store.

P.S: I know I’ve been slacking on the photos. Connecting my phone to the PC has been a pain. Will update as soon as I get that sorted out. Thanks for reading!