Rise, let us be going

So for those of you who have been reading the last couple of weeks, you'll know that I've enjoyed meeting people at The Way, enjoyed the music, enjoyed the communion, but haven't really resonated with the teaching. The first week was like WOAH in your face and extremely forceful. It didn't really jive with me. Last week was pretty good, but it was a guest teacher so I didn't put a whole lot of stock into it. Last night ROCKED MY FACE OFF. When I got there, I met up with Katie and then saw several people from Quarterlife (the young adults ministry I used to go to but has since been dissolved). It was cool to catch up! The music was excellent and then John Mark started teaching - he was teaching about 5 steps of a revival. He did 2 last night and will do another 3 next week. The first two were PRAYER and PASSION. Everything he said about prayer was just so stinkin' awesome. He talked about Isaiah 30, where we see God as a SLOW God. We're used to living life 90 miles per hour and God isn't that way! (Side note: did you know that today we receive more information in ONE DAY than people in the 8th century did in their entire LIFETIME?) We want God to be so fast... and he's not. God as a slow God is a beautiful image and a great thing to be reminded of. When we're really praying IN JESUS' NAME (not just using it as a way to close our prayers)... and praying for things that are of Him... He will answer. And if He does not... it is because it's NOT TIME YET. Because this is a college-age and young adults ministry, he made fun of a lot of people... "But God, I'm 19 years old!!! Why am I not married yet?!?!?!" So true. :) We don't KNOW if having a new job, or graduating, or finding a boyfriend is In Jesus's Name... but we KNOW that peace is. We know that revival is. We know that love is. Those things we can pray for and know that God will be faithful to those. We're so silly and think it's about us... and it's about him. I could go on for a long time, he provided a lot of great images of God. It was beautiful. At the end - we prayed. Instead of him closing in prayer, we got into small groups and poured our hearts out. I prayed this beautiful prayer than I have no idea where it came from... but it was great. We had communion and sang some more, and that was the end. John Mark always says at the end "is church over? No - it's JUST GETTING STARTED". And it's true - people linger for a long time! I saw one of Geoff's brother's friends which was cool, more Quarterlife people, some of the new friends I had made... it was great. I was invited to go to The Cheesecake Factory with a few folks, but I wanted to go home and just be with God. I felt my relationship with him getting more quiet and more intimate and it was awesome. We had a really good time together last night. He's so stinkin' good. I'm absolutely blown away.