Relentless Love

Two weeks ago our Elevate class headed to Raleigh, North Carolina (all 97 of us). Our purpose was to help a new Antioch Church plant get started and to bring in the fish. We pretty much just spent a week of blasting NC State campus with God’s love and we were victorious at doing so. This is what our day would look like: Wake up, spend time with Jesus, breakfast, from 9-12:30 ministry/sermon/get filled up, outreach on campus, free time at 3, dinner and outreach until 10. Now, it may just seem very ordinary, but add the power of the spirit to every moment of that day and you get the kingdom of heaven falling down to earth. If I took one theme away from this trip it would be “Relentless Love.” It was amazing to see the way God had been pursuing His children. He orchestrated every moment so that they may know His love, that they may experience His grace, and have life to the full. I learned that God will never let up on, with hold from, or abandon His sons and daughters. He is so jealous that He will go to extremes to make us see Him.

Below are some of the testimonies of the ways God worked on this trip:

These stories are just a taste of what our week looked like. We counted about 20 salvations (that we know of), 20 healings (that we know of),3 deliverances, and we planted over 1,500 seeds.

He is Our Provider:

On this trip, money just rained down from Heaven. Literally. Our Daddy has the biggest bank account in the universe and he loves loves loves to meet the needs of his kids.

~There are many people in our class who were struggling to pay for Elevate tuition. It is kind of hard to pull out a couple thousand dollars out of your pocket. On our way to Raleigh, a few of us were talking about how they still needed the majority of their tuition (like 90%). These girls were Aida, Kassie, and Paula. They had Sarah pray in faith over them that God would meet their needs financially. As we were leaving the plane, a lady pulled Paula and Kassie aside and said, “I’m not sure what group you are a part of, but keep doing what you are doing!” She handed them each a bill… a one hundred dollar bill! Ask and you shall receive:]

~Aida walked into her hotel room one night and saw an envelope sitting on her bed with her name on it. It also had three hundred dollars inside!

~On our way back to Dallas, our friend Ryan opened his Bible and found a crisp $100 bill.

~My friend Bethany and I were talking about how many people in ministry, including missionaries, live off of support from others. And I personally have been trying to seek God’s wisdom on that and see where He stands. I was especially nervous considering I am probably going to be heading into this type of lifestyle. Bethany prayed over me, that God would give me wisdom and peace in this area. When we finished, a $5 bill appeared next to us. We had no idea where it came from so we asked God what to do with it, but never received a clear answer. As I was going to bed, God started speaking to me and he said that He had an angel drop that $5 off. It represented a promise that God will always provide for me and Bethany’s ministry and that we will never be in lack! Thank you God for your faithfulness!

~This last Thursday in class, one of the directors came to the front with some exciting news. They had received three anonymous donations for Elevate tuition. Two of them came during that class period. One was for Chris- $500. One for Paula- $2,000! And one for Kassie- $3,000! I seriously started crying… along with our whole class. (and remember those two girls were the ones who were prayed for on the plane) God blows my mind!!

He is Faithful

One night Paula, Tania and I headed to share the Gospel on campus. We noticed this brick on the ground that had “5+2” written on it. Paula made the connection of the 5 loaves and 2 fish. We decided that the next person who walked over the brick would be the lucky person we got to pray for. So we awkwardly waited around that area and eventually someone stepped over the brick. We chased her down :). Her name was Shelby. We asked if we could pray for her and just started talking about God. The Lord gave us many words to encourage her with. It was really neat to see the way God was ministering to her heart. Evangelism is really worth it when you see chains being broken and identity being placed on people. We eventually pray for her and the power of the spirit showed up.. how do I know this? She started laughing.. a lot. We exchange information and part our way that night. The next day I am with my friend Breanna on campus and I see Shelby across the quad. She is sitting with a friend flipping through a Bible. I walk up to her to say hi and she introduces to me to her friend, Faith. Faith immediately says, “SHELBY TELL HER WHAT JUST HAPPENED!” without really giving her a chance to respond, Faith rejoices with, “SHE JUST ACCEPTED CHRIST!!” Faith also explained that she had been praying for Shelby for months now (Intercession!!) They continued to talk and said that these two girls were going to meet every Thursday to talk about Jesus (Discipleship!!). It was cool to see that our obedience + Faith’s prayers +God’s divine appointment = Someone’s eternity changed. It was cool to see the process of what God is doing. Many times when we pray for people, we never really get to see the fullness of what God did. But this time God allowed me to see that the seeds we are planting are bearing much fruit!

He is our Healer

The whole week my right knee was hurting and there was no explanation why. I had many of my friends pray healing over it, but it didn’t seem to get any better. I actually got to a point where I would pray for anyone I saw with knee problems because I didn’t want these people to feel the pain I was feeling haha. However, there was this one day when it completely stopped hurting! The next day, Elizabeth (my roommie) and I felt like God said to go to Talley Cafeteria for lunch.  As we were heading that way, my knee started hurting again. When we got to the cafeteria, hardly anyone was there, so we thought we might have heard wrong. However, Elizabeth caught a glimpse of a guy who started limping. He had injured his right knee the other day and hasn’t been able to walk well since. He let us pray for him and the first time it felt a little better. So we prayed again and the second time it was completely healed! He said he hadn’t been able to bend his knee back that far since he injured it! And also my knee didn’t hurt the rest of the day either :)

He is Living

So from Talley cafeteria, we felt like God said to go up the stairs and to the right. Elizabeth hoped that He was giving us directions to the restroom because she needed to go haha. We obediently went up the stairs and to the right but unfortunately there were no restrooms around. So that only meant God had someone there for us to talk to. There was only one guy around, so we figured he was the one. His name was Eric. We asked if we could pray for him… he said we asked the wrong guy because he is an atheist. So that easily led us into a conversation about God. I challenged him with the question, “What if the presence of God showed up right now?” and asked if we could pray for that to happen. Surprisingly, he allowed us to pray. He said he felt a warmth and electricity (Luke 3:16), but then he quickly tried to reason how that could not be God (even though it totally was God).  We kept talking and asked if he had ever had a dream with God in it. He said he had: that he was in a room and could hear two people’s conversation like they were right next to him but he couldn’t see them because of a wall. Then there because a rift in the wall and he could see this girl’s eyes. She looked at him and said, “Whether it be now or a billion years from now, God will always have a plan for your life.” Eric said that this dream almost scared him into being a Christian. We told him that God speaks to us today and asked if he wanted to try and hear his voice. He said he would only believe if it was audible, but he would give it a try. Even though he didn’t hear anything, God spoke some words for me to tell him. One was the interpretation of the dream: That the wall symbolized all the doubt, reasons, disbelief, and everything Eric was building up so that he can’t see God/ keep him out. But God was able to break through and reveal himself. God is going to continue to break through his life so that Eric would know Him. Also, I saw God pointing to Eric’s heart and He said, “I like what I see. I like what I see.” God not only loves Eric, but He LIKES Eric. When you read this, you might think, that sounds kind of cheesy, but I loved seeing Eric’s heart soften in God’s presence. God knows exactly what his heart needed to hear. This story to me testifies that when we are in the presence of God, it is impossible to stay the same!