Hello 🙂
I am back in Anaheim for my 3rd term of training! One thing I’ve learned over this past interim… is just that I am still a failure.. I endeavored to fail less by making some practical arrangements (interim email updates being one of them!) that would help preserve me and keep me from being idle. But I think I tried to safeguard my spiritual health by just filling my days with the saints and with church related activities, instead of realizing that true ‘safeguard’ is just the solid daily supply from the Lord. I realized that I’m still so used to being fed, and struggle with feeding myself.
During the week of pretraining, I noticed that my faith in the Lord and in the training had weakened significantly and I was fully vulnerable to the enemy’s accusations. I was becoming extremely introspective and full of self-pity. And in my head, I knew it was from the enemy, but because I agreed with everything he was saying, it was so difficult for me to reject him and take the tree of life. Although I subjected myself to the speaking of the brothers by presenting my body, hoping to be infused with faith, I still could not break through! Actually, the enemy even used the brothers’ speaking to accuse me even more.
I was stuck in my condition, the Lord felt far away, and I felt alone and too weak to press on. But then I texted another sister, a trainee who graduated last term, and just told her I was struggling. She texted back strong prayers and her recent enlightenments from the Lord, how the Lord has been reminding her that God’s economy is entirely in faith. Through this fellowship, I was a little released. I was so grateful for the Body, and was grateful to see a little more of how important it is to be open to, connected to the members of the Body!
Brother Dennis shared on Deut 1:1 footnote 1 in our first second year ECAL class last week. “’In this book, as in the entire Bible, God is manifested, man is exposed, and Christ is unveiled.’ In the training, and in the church life, we realize that I am the worst of the worst. This is what the training helps us to see. And failures come because you are pursuing Christ. The training helps us to know what to do when the failure comes. Not just the superficial failures but the ones that are deep within us. He is the One that is faithful, we put our trust in Him.”
I am encouraged because I have the saints, I have the Word and the ministry, and most importantly I have this great and wonderful High Priest. Faithful is He who calls you, who also will do it! So one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind and stretching forward to the things which are before.
I have a few prayer requests! Please pray for me to:
– Be open to the Lord in every way
– To be more equipped with the Word
– To have definite times in the afternoon set aside to pray everyday
– To exercise to prophesy in class
