YWAM Kona--Dreaming and Adventuring with God
Aloha from Hawaii!
WOW! I cannot believe I am actually here. Being in Kona and doing a DTS (discipleship training school) have been two dreams of my heart for a few years and to be in the place where these two things are combined is crazy! A friend described this process as a six month honeymoon with Jesus and Hawaii has been the perfect setting for this process. 😃
I have been thanking the Lord for bringing me on this adventure in Hawaii and teaching me what it looks like to dream with Him through this process. Last year I got a chance to visit the University of the Nations on a missions trip where I worked on the organic farm for two weeks. During that time, the Lord brought me into a deep revelation of His Father's heart and His desire for me to dream and adventure with Him. I felt the Lord wanting me to share some of the things He spoke to my heart during that time because it has opened my eyes to what joy there is in living in communion with a heavenly Father who knows us. He knows the desires of our hearts and wants them fulfilled just as much as we do.
God wants His children to know He is always a Father first. He loves us in greater ways than we know. His heart as a Father is always to see us walk in more freedom and greater revelation of His love. As I was thinking and praying about coming to do a DTS, I was met with the hesitation that I might feel like the Lord is telling me to go to Hawaii because deep down that is what I want to do. I kept trying to suppress the things I wanted to do and tried to spend time listening to hear God's heart on the matter. After a time of listening, I talked with some of the staff and my leader on the trip about what I was thinking and processing through with my decision about DTS. One of the staff on the base listened to me explain how I was excited to be at the base and ready to figure out what God wanted me to do next, but how I wasn't hearing anything clearly yet. She asked me the simple question, "Well Melissa, what do you want to do?" This question honestly caught me off guard and I responded by saying I was trying to put aside what I wanted to do and hear what God wanted me to do.
After taking some time with the Lord to think about the question she had asked me, I sensed He was asking me the same question. "Melissa, what do you want to do?" As He asked me this question, I was flooded with emotion as I realized He wants to be a Father to us first. I've known for a long time that we as followers of Jesus need to know our identity as daughters and sons first and foremost in order to fulfill the calling and the purpose God has for our lives. We need to know our identity as loved before we can truly love other people well. However, I had never really stopped to think about the fact that in order for me to be a daughter first, I had to see God as my Father first. And just like a good Father, God desires to teach us to obey and follow His voice and then releases us to partner with Him for each decision we make. He does not want to dictate every step we take, He desires to walk alongside us and invite us into the dreams and desires He has created us with.
He fulfills His promises to us! He whispers promises to our hearts that He plans on fulfilling in His perfect timing. We need to wait and trust in His plan and timing because the steps we take in obedience before the promise is fulfilled are important to the full manifestation of the promise itself.
The first few weeks of DTS have been amazing, exhausting, challenging, encouraging, exciting, emotional, and so many other things! The first week we talked about the Gospel story. We took a deeper dive into the story of the gospel and how our eyes need to be refreshed and look at Jesus anew. I have heard the Gospel so many times, but my heart's desire is that it would never become too familiar. I pray it would always shake me, stir me, and open my eyes to God's character in fresh ways every time I hear it. The Gospel never gets old because IT'S JUST THAT GOOD. God opened my eyes to the beauty of the trinity this week. Trent Sheppard, our speaker for the week, described the trinity as a dance happening between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They are enjoying a beautiful, loving, pure, and holy dance together when Jesus, the Son, leaves the dance to bring us from the sidelines into communion with the Father and Holy Spirit. Jesus has made a way for us to be welcomed into this beautiful dance. He has made a way for us to enter into a loving covenant with the Father and He has given us the Holy Spirit as our Helper. I am so in awe of the humanity of Jesus and how His humanity has made a way for us to be one with the trinity. How amazing!!
The second week was focused on hearing God's voice. It was a sweet reminder that God loves to speak to His children. David Gava, the speaker for this week, explained that creation is eagerly waiting for us to discover our identities as sons and daughters and partner with our Father to bring the Kingdom of God to this earth. David taught us one way to determine the difference between God's voice and the enemy's voice is to recognize that the enemy always speaks to our old nature. The enemy does not know our future so he always speaks to us from our past. It is beautiful the way God always speaks to our new nature and never to our old. Hearing God's voice is a muscle that needs to be strengthened. I pray I continue to grow in hearing His voice and I have faith that my obedience will be a blessing to many in this generation and in the ones to come! Praise God!
The third week was focused on the Father heart of God. Kumu and Mel Vasconcellos spoke this week and it was amazing to watch them teach in partnership with the Holy Spirit. This week was one of the most impactful for me in so many ways. I went into the week with a deep revelation of the Father's heart but excited for the Lord to reveal more of Himself to me. He is boundless and there is always more sides of His face to see and experience which is the beauty of following a limitless, triune God. During this week, there was an anointing on our class for vulnerability. I experienced a vulnerability with a body of believers in a deeper way than I ever have before and the freedom the Holy Spirit released was so evident and brought tears to my eyes on many occasions! We talked through the power of forgiveness and letting go of any bitterness or offense we carry. We wrestled through the effects of unforgiveness and how it can hinder our ability to hear the voice of God. We learned about the power of confessing our sins to another believer and the power confession has in being completely healed.
Jesus set me completely free from the power of shame during these sessions!! There was a root of shame I had been carrying that I didn't even realize I had until we were challenged to confess our darkest sin and shame to a staff member in the school. God again revealed to me that He wants me free. He wants me free from anything that comes against my life to hinder me from walking out in the fullness of who He made me to be. He wants me free from any small reminder the enemy wants to use of my past life and my old nature and invites me to stand in complete freedom. He invites me to confess my sin and shame and warrant it powerless by the blood of my Savior. I want to be the purest expression of the image of God. I want to be in the form of my original design because this is how Jesus has always intended me to be. I want to cut off any false identities, roots of sin and shame, and hindrances that the enemy has tried to place over my life so that I may run freely with the Lord and be the true representation of His nature through my life on earth.
Jesus died and took on all of our sin and shame so that we could walk completely free from it. These things no longer have a hold on us if we are willing to expose light to the dark and vulnerable places and invite Jesus to have the victory in our lives. Oh what a joy it is to live in freedom. Won't you let Him do it for you too??
I am so excited to continue this journey with the Lord and see all the revelations and the intimacy He has in store for the next few months. It is such a privilege to be with Him, partner with Him, and minister to His people. Last week I found out I will be going to Thailand and Mongolia on outreach!! I will be in Thailand working in the red-light district and ministering to men and women who have been victims of sex trafficking. In Mongolia, our team will go through training and be sent out to distribute Bibles throughout the nation. It will be surreal to hand someone the Word of God for the first time in their native language!! How amazing is our God!
So to sum it all up, this month has been one of falling more madly in love with Jesus, experiencing the Father and His pleasure every day of my life, and feeling a stirring like never before from the Holy Spirit to live my life completely sold out to Him. My "YES" to Him has taken me on the greatest adventure of my life and it just keeps getting better and better. My Abba is a good good Father and I am so thankful to Jesus for rescuing me from a normal and mundane life and teaching me to run as a reckless child into the arms of the Most High God. He is so good!!
♥ Melissa
WOW! I cannot believe I am actually here. Being in Kona and doing a DTS (discipleship training school) have been two dreams of my heart for a few years and to be in the place where these two things are combined is crazy! A friend described this process as a six month honeymoon with Jesus and Hawaii has been the perfect setting for this process. 😃
God wants His children to know He is always a Father first. He loves us in greater ways than we know. His heart as a Father is always to see us walk in more freedom and greater revelation of His love. As I was thinking and praying about coming to do a DTS, I was met with the hesitation that I might feel like the Lord is telling me to go to Hawaii because deep down that is what I want to do. I kept trying to suppress the things I wanted to do and tried to spend time listening to hear God's heart on the matter. After a time of listening, I talked with some of the staff and my leader on the trip about what I was thinking and processing through with my decision about DTS. One of the staff on the base listened to me explain how I was excited to be at the base and ready to figure out what God wanted me to do next, but how I wasn't hearing anything clearly yet. She asked me the simple question, "Well Melissa, what do you want to do?" This question honestly caught me off guard and I responded by saying I was trying to put aside what I wanted to do and hear what God wanted me to do.
After taking some time with the Lord to think about the question she had asked me, I sensed He was asking me the same question. "Melissa, what do you want to do?" As He asked me this question, I was flooded with emotion as I realized He wants to be a Father to us first. I've known for a long time that we as followers of Jesus need to know our identity as daughters and sons first and foremost in order to fulfill the calling and the purpose God has for our lives. We need to know our identity as loved before we can truly love other people well. However, I had never really stopped to think about the fact that in order for me to be a daughter first, I had to see God as my Father first. And just like a good Father, God desires to teach us to obey and follow His voice and then releases us to partner with Him for each decision we make. He does not want to dictate every step we take, He desires to walk alongside us and invite us into the dreams and desires He has created us with.
He fulfills His promises to us! He whispers promises to our hearts that He plans on fulfilling in His perfect timing. We need to wait and trust in His plan and timing because the steps we take in obedience before the promise is fulfilled are important to the full manifestation of the promise itself.The first few weeks of DTS have been amazing, exhausting, challenging, encouraging, exciting, emotional, and so many other things! The first week we talked about the Gospel story. We took a deeper dive into the story of the gospel and how our eyes need to be refreshed and look at Jesus anew. I have heard the Gospel so many times, but my heart's desire is that it would never become too familiar. I pray it would always shake me, stir me, and open my eyes to God's character in fresh ways every time I hear it. The Gospel never gets old because IT'S JUST THAT GOOD. God opened my eyes to the beauty of the trinity this week. Trent Sheppard, our speaker for the week, described the trinity as a dance happening between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They are enjoying a beautiful, loving, pure, and holy dance together when Jesus, the Son, leaves the dance to bring us from the sidelines into communion with the Father and Holy Spirit. Jesus has made a way for us to be welcomed into this beautiful dance. He has made a way for us to enter into a loving covenant with the Father and He has given us the Holy Spirit as our Helper. I am so in awe of the humanity of Jesus and how His humanity has made a way for us to be one with the trinity. How amazing!!
The second week was focused on hearing God's voice. It was a sweet reminder that God loves to speak to His children. David Gava, the speaker for this week, explained that creation is eagerly waiting for us to discover our identities as sons and daughters and partner with our Father to bring the Kingdom of God to this earth. David taught us one way to determine the difference between God's voice and the enemy's voice is to recognize that the enemy always speaks to our old nature. The enemy does not know our future so he always speaks to us from our past. It is beautiful the way God always speaks to our new nature and never to our old. Hearing God's voice is a muscle that needs to be strengthened. I pray I continue to grow in hearing His voice and I have faith that my obedience will be a blessing to many in this generation and in the ones to come! Praise God!
The third week was focused on the Father heart of God. Kumu and Mel Vasconcellos spoke this week and it was amazing to watch them teach in partnership with the Holy Spirit. This week was one of the most impactful for me in so many ways. I went into the week with a deep revelation of the Father's heart but excited for the Lord to reveal more of Himself to me. He is boundless and there is always more sides of His face to see and experience which is the beauty of following a limitless, triune God. During this week, there was an anointing on our class for vulnerability. I experienced a vulnerability with a body of believers in a deeper way than I ever have before and the freedom the Holy Spirit released was so evident and brought tears to my eyes on many occasions! We talked through the power of forgiveness and letting go of any bitterness or offense we carry. We wrestled through the effects of unforgiveness and how it can hinder our ability to hear the voice of God. We learned about the power of confessing our sins to another believer and the power confession has in being completely healed.
James 5:16 "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective."
Jesus set me completely free from the power of shame during these sessions!! There was a root of shame I had been carrying that I didn't even realize I had until we were challenged to confess our darkest sin and shame to a staff member in the school. God again revealed to me that He wants me free. He wants me free from anything that comes against my life to hinder me from walking out in the fullness of who He made me to be. He wants me free from any small reminder the enemy wants to use of my past life and my old nature and invites me to stand in complete freedom. He invites me to confess my sin and shame and warrant it powerless by the blood of my Savior. I want to be the purest expression of the image of God. I want to be in the form of my original design because this is how Jesus has always intended me to be. I want to cut off any false identities, roots of sin and shame, and hindrances that the enemy has tried to place over my life so that I may run freely with the Lord and be the true representation of His nature through my life on earth.
Jesus died and took on all of our sin and shame so that we could walk completely free from it. These things no longer have a hold on us if we are willing to expose light to the dark and vulnerable places and invite Jesus to have the victory in our lives. Oh what a joy it is to live in freedom. Won't you let Him do it for you too??
I am so excited to continue this journey with the Lord and see all the revelations and the intimacy He has in store for the next few months. It is such a privilege to be with Him, partner with Him, and minister to His people. Last week I found out I will be going to Thailand and Mongolia on outreach!! I will be in Thailand working in the red-light district and ministering to men and women who have been victims of sex trafficking. In Mongolia, our team will go through training and be sent out to distribute Bibles throughout the nation. It will be surreal to hand someone the Word of God for the first time in their native language!! How amazing is our God!So to sum it all up, this month has been one of falling more madly in love with Jesus, experiencing the Father and His pleasure every day of my life, and feeling a stirring like never before from the Holy Spirit to live my life completely sold out to Him. My "YES" to Him has taken me on the greatest adventure of my life and it just keeps getting better and better. My Abba is a good good Father and I am so thankful to Jesus for rescuing me from a normal and mundane life and teaching me to run as a reckless child into the arms of the Most High God. He is so good!!
Romans 10:17 {So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.}
♥ Melissa
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