Truly Believing: I Am Not Alone

A few months ago I felt God probe my mind with a question: do I long for intimacy? Do I desire emotional and physical intimacy? To have a lover? The answer is yes. I think that would be the natural answer for most of us. Then the question turned in a different direction; Is Jesus the lover of my soul as much as He could be? I thought of past relationships and thoughts, feelings and characteristics from intimate relationship...

Wanting to hold someones hand when you walk around. Being proud to be seen with them. Going places together. Giving gifts. Wanting to make them happy.  Freely spending money on them. Loving to be held. Communicating. Not wanting to go a day without saying something to each other. Saying goodnight. Making plans to go on adventures together.  Asking questions and getting to know each other more deeply. Talking about the future...

I thought of a time in my life when I was particularly lost. I wrote a love song about a girl and I was sitting alone in my house singing. In that moment, my longing for intimacy and fulfillment was all directed onto someone else. I thought to myself, where was Jesus then? He responded, "I was sitting there washing your feet". But why? I couldn't even see Him there. I didn't acknowledge Him or cry out to Him. He replied..."this is my humblest form of love; to love you when your heart is far from me. To love you when it hurts. Still, I will love you. I can't stop loving you."

So why do I so often avoid God's love and His presence? Why do I avoid being alone and still, when that is the perfect place to have intimate time with Him? The answer came to me in the form of three words I had heard from God before...the orphan spirit [see previous post 'An Orphan, a Savior and a Violin']. He said to me, "you've spent so long feeling alone, it's still hard for you to believe that you're not. You run to distractions to make yourself feel okay...a form of control to make being alone seem okay.

Every morning, wake up and rebuke that orphan spirit. Speak these words of life over yourself - I Am Not Alone! And the truth will breed life. Step into each day declaring this truth and you will find it easier to walk closely with me. We will grow in our intimacy".

Jesus, You will be my lover.
You will have every part of my heart.

I am not alone!

Kiddos, Rakes and Bibles (San Jose, Costa Rica)

Holla from San Jose, Costa Rica!

We've been in Costa Rica almost three weeks now and I wanted to give y'all an update on what's been going on before we head out to our next city! Our first day of ministry we ventured out to a rural area of San Jose to do Bible Distribution. YWAM currently has a global initiative to put a Bible in every home and the bases in Costa Rica are very involved in that effort locally. We were partnering with a pastor in Jaris, San Jose who was just beginning a church in his home. We went out in teams and gifted about 80 Bibles to different families and homes in the community that day, but the most special part was our encounters and conversations with the people there. The culture is so hospitable and it's refreshing to be in a place where practically everyone believes in God, whether or not they necessarily have a personal relationship with Him. I think those factors really help this type of door to door ministry to be fruitful. And it certainly makes an impact when they see people who have come from all across the world just to bring them a gift and to share God's love with them.

                               {{ The Bible Distribution squad hits the road in Jaris, San Jose, Costa Rica }}

We had some great times of talking with people and getting to encourage them and pray for them. My group visited one house where we talked to the mother for quite a while. She was a believer and was very open with us about her relationship with God and her struggles. She seemed to have had some un-going struggles with a man who she described as a hindrance to her walk with God and a source of a lot of spiritual attack. We got to encourage her with Ephesians 6 (the Armor of God passage) as a way to help keep her protected in times of discouragement and attack. I really felt like I should ask her if she had been baptized. She said she had been as a baby in a Catholic ceremony. I felt like getting baptized again might be very significant for her and a step that could bring a lot of breakthrough in her life. I didn't get a chance to share all of that with her but I'm hoping that the Holy Spirit might bring it back up with her again in the future. Whatever the case, I know that God is walking with her in tireless love and dedication. It always amazes me when people open up and God gives me such a sense of love and empathy for them and sometimes even shares things with me to encourage and impact them. It's a reminder to me of the huge heart of our Father God. It confirms deeper in my heart that He is a God of love. How crazy big is that love, not just for me but for the whole world.

 

                                                                      {{ Making friends on the streets }}

                                       {{ Our dream team - praying for healing for strangers on the street }}

Another day we went out around the base in a more urban setting and a Christian family invited us in after we stopped at their house to give them a Bible. They made us fresh pineapple smoothies and some food (that crazy Tico hospitality!). We hung out and talked with them for about an hour and all of our students got words of encouragement and prophecy for them that they shared. They shared some prophecy over the young son that the mom and grandmother said really lined up with their family heritage and their prayers to dedicate the son to God. The grandma said that just that morning she had been praying and God told her that people were going to come along to encourage her and the family. How cool is that! God is so good and the students on this team are seriously awesome.

The other ministry that we've been predominately involved with in the past weeks is Metro Ministry (Kids Ministry). They go out about four times a week into different neighborhoods to be with the kids - doing games, crafts, skits, songs, and lessons on Biblical principles. The really cool thing about this ministry is that they return to the same handful of neighborhoods week after week so they're able to really develop relationships with the kids and families and to continually sow into them // make a lasting impact. Lots of energy. Lots of fun. We had a great time working with this ministry. 

                                                                        

 We also spent a lot of time serving on the base while we were here doing everything from moving furniture and setting up new offices, washing cars, kitchen cleanups and a whole lot of raking leaves. They throw all their leaves in the river but a pretty huge pile had accumulated on the river bed over the months, so the other day I selected the task of pushing that massive pile of leaves into the river. It would get clogged in a lot of spots so I would take my little rake and keep pushing it on-wards, and also occasionally move rocks to create better flow. It sounds silly but I had a lot of fun.

OKAY, ONE MORE REPORT! The other night we went to downtown San Jose with free hugs/free prayer signs, a guitar and a drum. It was so much fun! It was so cool to see the team spreading joy just by hugging random strangers and praying for people. And worshiping in such a busy, urban setting was pretty cool too. Bringing the Kingdom and God's love into any situation can be simple sometimes. Something I've been learning about myself the past year or so is that I love big cities and urban environments. It's so cool to feel God's heartbeat for humanity in the crowd. I find it challenges me to dream bigger dreams and to be more sold out and hungry to seek and serve Christ in all that I do, because we really need Him. We really do.

 

If you made it this far, thank you so much for reading! Thank you so much for your love, friendship, prayers and support! Here's a little video from our time downtown the other night. Look forward to sharing more in the coming weeks. Dios te bendiga! Pura Vida mae!

The International Jesus :: Famous In Our Hearts

Heelloo from Costa Rica!

My team and I have been here for a week now, and everything is going so well. I'm excited to report on everything that's been happening but there's something else I want to share tonight. Something special that Jesus showed me today...

This morning we went to a church in the local community around the YWAM San Jose base. No one really spoke English there and the service was all in Spanish, but it felt welcoming to me as we walked in. The music and worship began right away, and as soon as it did I felt the Holy Spirit speaking to me. I looked around at a room full of strangers who I could hardly even communicate with, but I felt such a connection with them. I saw them worship and I recognized a common thread that we all shared; the connection is Jesus,

And these thoughts entered my mind and spirit. How great it is to see that Jesus is so good and alive in every nation. That He is worshiped in every nation. In the sweetness of this congregations worship I had a fresh revelation of the beauty and goodness of Jesus Christ. Their worship was so sweet because it was in response to the touch of Jesus in their lives. His presence was apparent. How beautiful it was to see the glory and power of Jesus in wider perspective. To see the imprint of His goodness in the hearts and lives that now freely worship Him...

I can tend to see God through such a narrow perspective. Through my here and now and how I'm feeling. I forget the ways He has touched my own life. The ways He has pursued me, saved and delivered me, forgiven me, healed me, guided, provided for and loved me, I become numb to the awesomeness of Jesus written all up and down the pages of our life together. But He is gracious to remind me, and my tears confirm His goodness within my soul.

How sweet it is to be here in a foreign country and to worship with total strangers, and in that to have a greater revelation of how good Jesus is. Who is this guy who has the capacity to love all the nations of the earth while still loving every single person so passionately and personally? No one is overlooked in the eyes of Christ. He died for all and for each. His Gospel is for all and for each.

Who is Jesus? He is the Son of God, who reveals to us the heart of our Heavenly Father. All around the earth we worship Him, because He has touched our lives and we can never be the same.

Savior.
Lover.
Best Friend.

Jesus.

Return to Panama & Costa Rica!!

I am thrilled to announce that at the end of this month I'll be heading out to lead a three month missions trip to Costa Rica and Panama! This time last year I was just getting back from there and I am so excited to be returning! Our team consists of my co-leader Jane and three students from Wales, the Netherlands and the U.S. As a team we are enthusiastic to seize the time we have, love with boldness and leave a lasting impact where we go.

The What: What We're Doing Abroad
Our time in Costa Rica will be spent partnering with the YWAM base in San Jose doing everything from working with orphanages, local churches, Bible distribution and serving in the construction of new YWAM base led by my friend who I worked with last year. In Panama we will be partnering with the YWAM base in Chiriqui working on building relationship and sharing God's love with the Ngäbe tribe, an indigenous people group that has only been 8% reached by the Gospel. We also have the opportunity to work in a boys home, a nursing home, and do more Bible distribution as part of YWAM's current global effort to get a Bible into every home. Working with these two YWAM bases was the highlight of my experience last time around and I am so grateful to be able to serve with them again and love on the communities that they are constantly reaching out to!

The How: I Need Support to Get There!
Because of the small size of our team we as staff need to raise extra funds in order to cover the costs of the trip, in addition to the monthly fees we pay to be on staff with YWAM LA. I need to raise $1,500 for my part of this outreach. Please join with me in prayer for God's provision for our team and consider contributing towards this journey! I have less than a month to raise it, but I recall countless instances of God's incredible provision in my life and the lives of others that gives me great confidence. Where there's God's will, there's definitely a way!

If you'd like to contribute you can make a tax deductible donation at http://ywamla.wufoo.com/forms/make-a-donation/ 

 

Thank you so much for reading these updates and for your thoughts, prayers and support! I truly could not walk the journey that God has laid out for me without you! Stay tuned on my Facebook and blog to hear more reports on how our time in Costa Rica and Panama unfolds.

Blessings, gratitude, and many thanks!

- Trevor

Lead with Spiritual Hunger

Have you ever been busy with a task when your stomach starts to grumble, and suddenly it's hard to concentrate on anything but your hunger? There are a million things that can take up our attention throughout the day, but when hunger sets in it's likely to take priority over everything else. It's one of the most basic driving forces and motivators.

On Friday the three month School of Ministry of Ministry Development that I've been staffing here at YWAM LA came to a close. On our last morning of teaching our speaker talked about how to stay hungry and not spiritually plateau.

I love the incredibly simple promise of Jesus; "blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled" [Matthew 5:6]. Seems pretty straightforward, but how do you hunger when you're not hungry? That can be simple too; ask God for hunger! Every day I can wake up, give my day to God and pray for more hunger. And if I'm spending time with Him, time in His word, and time around other hungry people chances are I'm going to have a vibrant spiritual hunger and a vibrant walk with God.

Our teacher said that to avoid falling into a spiritual plateau we should continually assess ourselves. What skills do I want to sharpen? What books should I read? What relationships do I want to cultivate? That's a major one for me. Who do I look to for coaching and mentorship? Who do I intentionally disciple and pour into? Challenging. Good thoughts to think. Our spiritual hunger must be coupled with accountability. We're all fragile and we need other people to pick us up, hold us up, and launch us forward.

I love what our speaker, Jim Orred, said; "accountability happens when you invite others into your life to give input on your priorities and your relationships". Hunger leads to growth, but growth requires humility and a fare dose of discomfort.

2 Kings chapter 5 tells the story of Naaman, the commander of a kings army who had leprosy. On the word of an Israelite servant girl he traveled to seek healing from a foreign prophet he did not know, Elisha. He was hungry to receive his healing. Even though he was angered by Elisha's methods, still he obeyed his instructions and was healed. Hunger trumped his pride. And how did Elisha have such power and spiritual authority? Because he too was hungry. He had followed an incredible spiritual leader. He followed Elijah to the very end of his life even when Elijah had tried to turn him away, and he asked for a double portion of the spirit that Elijah possessed [2 Kings 2].

God created us and the noble dreams and desires within us, but they are only an invitation. It's up to us to go after them! He must be so excited when we get hungry for Him because there are so many amazing things He wants to give us!

Life may place a lot of demands on me, but I hope that wherever I am and whatever I'm doing I will have an underlying spiritual hunger that pushes me forward. Just like that growling in my stomach, I want a stirring in my spirit that tells me there is more. Father, help us to be hungry! You are so good and so vast. There is more!


"Draw near to God and He will draw near to you" - James 4:8

Thank you Jesus!

Unbound: God's Story For Our Summer

When we seek God and wait to hear His voice,what He speaks will shape us.

This spring I took on the task of coordinating our summer missions program for youth groups and high school students, Mission Adventures. Mission Adventures leaders from around the world gathered in Ireland months ago and prayed about what our focus should be for MA, and God spoke Unbound. And there were three specific issues that God highlighted underneath that --- keys to our students living an unbound life --- Bravery, Identity and Idolatry. Is that the kind of stuff you usually talk about on a fun youth trip? Let's circle back to that in a little bit...

 [Packing over 700 boxes of food bound for Honduras at Children's Hunger Fund]

We had four teams come July, about 40 students altogether. They stayed with us on our campus for the first couple of days and had teaching on everything from evangelism, servant-hood, and the link between prayer and missions before going out into the city for outreach. We had a wonderful mix of outreach activities throughout our weeks, from working with food distribution programs in the San Fernando Valley and South Central LA, evangelism in Hollywood and Santa Monica, working with three different missions in Skid Row, serving meals to seniors with the Salvation Army and cheering for athletes at the Special Olympics. I felt really blessed to be able to experience more of my city, humbled by the amount of neediness that we have, and so thankful that we could partner with so many different people who are working day in and day out to care for our communities. 

                                         [Prepping food for distribution at M.E.N.D. in the San Fernando Valley]


It was undoubtedly a growing experience for our students. Every week we had our first teaching from our Calling All Skaters founder Shaun Hover on evangelism and bravery. He taught us to celebrate bravery in one another, even if we go up to talk to someone and they aren't receptive. We know that God is good and that we're called to share His love, not only in our speech, but in our lifestyle. So many of our students stepped out and talked to strangers and wound up praying for them for the first time. Even seeing the level of poverty in Skid Row was incredibly challenging for some of our students, and while our culture conditions us to be uncomfortable and avoid the homeless community, we saw that the love of God compels us to reach out and love them.

[Taking the crew out to evangelize on Hollywood Blvd]

Here's my absolute favorite part. The final week we had two groups and on our last night together we spent time sharing highlights and testimonies from the week. I was expecting to hear stories about our students highlights and most impactful moments, and it certainly began that way. But as the night went on they began to open up about very personal issues, dark parts of their testimonies and share about struggles with identity. Their bravery lead to so much freedom and breakthrough in the room and opened up an amazing time of prayer as God came in and ministered to us. It was a powerful moment in time. It was community as it should be. And suddenly it hit me; God had fulfilled what He spoke to us --- we were being Unbound.

I saw so much bravery in our kids. Not just on outreach, but in their transparent brokenness with one another. I saw God affirm them in their identity and tear down the lies of the enemy that had been robbing them of their true beauty and worth. And I felt God challenging us on the last piece of the puzzle; idolatry. It's easy to grow closer to God when you dedicate a week to going after Him and being used by Him. It's easy to go all in for a week when it's structured for spiritual growth. But are we consistent? I felt God challenging me to tear down my own idols. For instance, I'm kind of an entertainment junkie. I love to veg in front of the tv at the end of the day. Too often entertainment is my main source of comfort and rest when I should firstly find those things in God. What things distract us and rob time that we know should be spent with our Father?

When we see the beauty of who we are in Christ, we can live bravely for Him and all the idols of this world can't hold a candle to the greatness of our God. This was more than the story of what God wanted to do with a group of kids this summer. This is the story of what He wants for me always; to be unbound. To be wild and free for my King.




Here's some footage from our time this summer with some explanation about MA from our new program directors and testimonies from students and youth group leaders.

God is good! Thanks for reading!

My Burden // My Jesus

Do you ever feel like you're carrying an enormous burden...weary, and like the weight of life is sometimes too great for you? It's a rhetorical question. We all do. Our world is busy and often chaotic and we will sometimes have to endure burdens and weariness physically, psychologically and spiritually.

Last night I was reading a popular passage of scripture that speaks to this issue in Matthew chapter 11, and God was showing me some things through His Word that I felt inspired to share.

In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus says "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light".

Jesus starts by making an invitation that applies to each and every one of us. If you don't feel weary today you are blessed, but it won't last forever. Burdens are inevitable and so is the weariness that follows. But secondly, Jesus gives us a promise: come to me and I will give you rest. When I picture rest I most often imagine laying down, but Jesus' next instruction is to take His yoke upon us, for He is gentle and humble in heart. Farmers used yokes to bind their oxen together so yokes came to represent labour, service and submission to authority. Why on earth is Jesus suggesting that we take a yoke upon ourselves in order to find rest? Well, before you can answer that you must consider what your burden is...

In the yoke analogy we would say that our burdens are tied to us and being carried behind us. On a basic level, labour is one of our many burdens. We all must work to provide for ourselves. And I believe that God has created each of us with unique talents and abilities, desires in our hearts and a certain sense of destiny as to what we want to accomplish in our lives. When you put all of that together, life is far from easy. Often our greatest sense of burden comes from our deepest dreams and the desire to fulfil them. Other burdens may be found in relationships; In our physical, mental, social and spiritual needs. In this life, we carry so much. So what about yoking myself with Jesus is going to give me rest from my burdens and weariness?

While I may be weak and incredibly limited, my Jesus is perfectly strong and infinite. Where I am limited in knowledge, my Jesus is perfect in wisdom. Though I will ceaselessly grow weary, when I am with Jesus I find rest for my soul. Why is that? Why can't I find that same level of rest on my own? I can try diet and exercise, drugs and alcohol, meditation, mysticism, spiritualism...nothing works. I think the absolute worst feeling we can experience as human beings is the feeling of loneliness. Why is that?...

Well, the answer is found in our Creator. When we look to the very beginning of scripture we see that we were created in God's likeness and created to live in an intimate and harmonious relationship with Him. That is why a piece of our soul will always be vacant and unfulfilled apart from the love of God. And because we once were so lost in legalism and religion, Jesus came to show us who God really is. All powerful, holy and righteous, but also full of love, mercy, grace and compassion - even for the greatest of sinners.

Why do I find rest when I yoke myself with Jesus Christ? Because I know how good He is. I know how much He loves me. And the thought that He would willingly yoke Himself with me and help me carry my burdens is unspeakably beautiful to me. He teaches me and guides me with gentleness and humility. As I read this passage of scripture and prayed, I pictured Jesus by my side as we were joined together by the same yoke. Not only does He unite Himself with me to help me and give me strength, but so that I won't wander away from Him and the beautiful life He has planned for me. And if I wander, He will pursue me forever until I turn back to Him. We are joined together carrying a large plough behind us, tilling the soil and working the field so that beautiful things might grow in our path...and He is smiling. He looks at me and smiles with so much love and delight. He gave His very life for this: for intimacy, that we might walk together always. And when my strength fails, He will carry me. Come hell or high water, He will never let me go.

Twice in this passage Jesus makes us a promise. Come to me, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you...and you will find rest for your soul.