Generic_Blog87: March 2006

When we arrived at †Culture I met with Mark at the youth drop, since there was a ping pong table, I decided to play him. He was pretty good, but I feel we walked away with an equal game.
Anyway afterwards we traversed upstairs for morning worship. After some more time spent in worshiping our Lord, Aaron White talked to us about opening our eyes;

Open Your Eyes- Notes taken in a discussion by: Aaron White; Side commentary by Brent White
Ezekial 37;
How freaky it would've been to be traversing along as Ezekial and then bam, God places you in a crypt full of, oh guess what? Dead, dusty bones. You can see the darkness and smell the stench of the place full of death. Ezekial is forced to face a reality in this crypt; just like how our missions forced us to look around in the darker places of Vancouver to see the hardships there. What is a reality check though? Well plainly put it is forcing you to be aware of the things around you; or forcing you to see the reality of harsh times.

When the Lord brought Ezekial to this crypt it was the reality check that the Lord wanted him to experience. God forces Ezekial to face these bones (which represented his people); to look at this depression, this death, and defeat.

Looking at loss isn't easy to look at. Take this time to find a place in your life where you were defeated. Mine wasn't long ago. We were playing soccer in gym class, and the other team just beat us, watching their victory was not fun, they were laughing, patting each other on the butt, busting out the high fives; while our team trailed off to the bench in defeat, in failure. Looking at defeat is hard.

But Aaron brought up the good point in his discussion; just like Ezekial we are going to be forced to look at, to look at these dry bones.

Then Ezekial, after being forced to look at these bones, is asked by God, the seemingly impossible: "Can these bones live?". Which Ezekial being an intellectual prophet replies the only answer that seems reasonable; "Only you know Lord."

You see God wants us to look at the unseen in our lives, like if there is hope in the dry bones around us. Still only God knows the answer whether they can live or not, and we should work towards the goal he wants.

We were brought to RAW to be able to look past our comfy couches and our warm churches. We needed to have our eyes opened so we could see the dry bones in our own world.

Aaron meations a few dry bones that can be overlooked and go unseen

World Poverty
War
Child Slavery
Parents killed in Africa
Unadoptable Foster Children
Suicide
Addicts

We see these dry bones on the television sometimes, or we hear about them, but at RAW we couldn't change the channel to some of these, and it taught us not to. It taught us to ask the question; Can these dry bones live?

It is these dry bones God will use for great things, not us, we are used to breath life into these dry bones, to bring hope to the hopeless so that they may do the great things God has in store for his army.

So take an eye test, what are the dry bones in your life, and can these dry bones live?

So after Aaron talked to us, we went to go have lunch, which was nice except for the fact that I'm allergic to mustard and can't eat it and so I couldn't eat my sandwich. Alas, our first mission for that day came next and it was the prayer room.

Mission One- Prayer Room

So everyone was getting in the mood of prayer to God, I started to pray for the other groups and their missions, I heard God ask me if I wanted to learn more about Obedience. Well God then told me to wear sock on my ears as a sign of obedience, at first I was pretty skepitcal if this was God, or more own insanity. As a sign of obedience to God, I decided to wear my socks on my ears anyway. Other than looking like an idiot I really didn't see the point, but as time went through reading God's word and talking to him, I began to forget about the socks, until I had problems with them falling off. Now God told me to keep them on, so I decided to tape the socks to my ears so they wouldnt fall off. Now this hurt alot for anyone who has hair by their ears. But the tape represented that even though the task was hard, I needed to perservere and be durable for my God. The socks actually represented my obedience, and how obedience can only be a part of you if you listen to what God says and then do it, and to be durable in completing the task, even if it becomes more difficult. I'm just glad that I didn't have to wear socks on my ears all day, nor have any pictures of me with socks on my ears. Thank you oh God of mercy.

After our first mission then we got to hear from Jonathan Evans either before or after our night worship.

He talked about the breath in dry bones, and how prophecy was that breath, b/c Ezekial had to prophecy into those bones, and tell them what they were, before the breath of God came upon them.

He brought up key points about prophesy;

We first have to receieve prophesy, then interpret, then apply it. You have to have all parts for the prophesy to really work.

Jesus was the breath of life, and he gave life to the dry bones of his disciples, although, I'm pretty sure when he did it, he didn't look like he was vomiting all over them.

Then Aaron White made us practice breathing, and then I think worship followed.

Anyway afterwards we were off to Re:Cr8 again, where I met Ricky and Alfredo, both cool and interesting guys.

By the time the night was over I was pooped b/c of the long day, and all the stuff I had learnt.

All of the day two pictures: (Click to enlarge)