Keep on pressing

I just wanted to share something that was on my heart about pressing into the presence of God while in worship [reverent honor and respect paid to God] through song and dance. This has been placed on my heart and I wanted to share it with everyone, hopefully this will be a word of encouragement!

Yesterday I had work, and work was long and tiring. I haven’t worked a 12 hour shift in awhile so it was physically draining. Work involved a lot of lifting, moving, pushing, and carrying as it is the nature of the business. I am truly blessed with the job God gave me and I love it. The fact that I get to be involved with people all day makes the time spent there worth it. So I got home late, and had to wake up early for school the next morning.

I wasn’t feeling to well when I woke up the next morning as I got ready for Chapel. I was overly tired, my feet were hurting, and my arms were sore. Let us say I would rather be in bed. For those of you who don’t know, we have a class called Chapel at the beginning of the day which involves worship, the word, announcements, and our leadership group meetings at the end. Now I had a choice during worship, I could have just sat there in the seats and enjoyed some good music, maybe stand for a little bit OR I could make the choice to truly press into the presence of God even though my physical body wanted otherwise. This meant standing when I wanted to sit, jumping when I couldn’t jump, and raising my hands when my arms when I couldn’t. Doing this while my arms ached, feet hurt, and body was sore. True sacrifice which in turn is true worship and I believe God honors that.

It was awe inspiring. The feeling of worshiping God when my physical body couldn’t gave me unbelievable energy. The presence of God was so overwhelming that I started to literally cry. The presence of His love for me was truly amazing and I hope everyone has the chance to feel His love for us. He loves you so much and wants to share His love with you, but you need to let Him. He already loves you unconditionally; He just wants you to love Him the same.

My challenge for anyone who reads this is when in worship, when you feel like sitting down, don’t. When you want to lower your hands, press in harder, when you want to stop praying, pray louder. Truly give all you are to Him.

Psalm 59:16
But I will sing of your strength, in the morning I will sing of your love; for you are my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble

Psalm 28:7
The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song.

Go! Go! Go!

So a couple weeks have gone by since my last entry and a lot has happened. It’s crazy to think that I’ve been here for over two months!

Once more, Happy Birthday to all who have birthday’s in March! I’m 19! Almost out of my teenage years with one more year till 20! It’s weird, I remember turning 13 and thought I was so much old because I was a teenager, ha-ha.

So let us talk about work for a moment. My job is amazing! I love it so much. I’ve only been working there for a couple weeks, but it’s been sweet. I got the opportunity to start work with a group of people new to the business as well, so we were all in the same boat. A lot of the people I met working also started work a couple weeks ago as well. One great thing about this job is that I’m always working with people, whether it’s serving or my work mates; we have a great time and have fun. I couldn’t have asked for a better job! The uniforms are sweet to, there all black, and there easy to move around in, the cool thing is we don’t have to take our uniforms home, we get them at the start of the shift from the dry cleaners in the basement of the hotel and bring them back at the end, so our uniforms are always clean! So cool! We get to use this cool machine when we start shift, all you have to do is enter your employee number and then you put your finger print on the scanner and it signs you in and out. So overall I am very happy to work at Hilton and am glad that God placed me there.

Last week for college, we volunteered at the Colour Your World Women’s Conference from Wednesday to Saturday. That was an experience hard to describe. The Acer arena was filled with 17,000 women. I mean, 17,000 women! It was insane. You can imagine the worship. The preachers were amazing. I was hosting at the door for seating so I got to listen to a lot of the Word being spoken and messages preached and even as a man it impacted my life for the most part as it was mainly geared towards women! [Would you have guessed?] I got to meet some amazing ladies that really impacted my life with there generosity and kindness, they truly made the conference a blast! [Shout-out to Merrily if you’re reading this! Thanks for being so awesome!] Although there was only one bathroom for the males [By the way, the Acer arena for people from Edmonton, is just as big as the Rexall Place] But even with all the toilets [As Australians like to refer to them as] there was still massive lines to wait through for the ladies. One thing about Australians I find is they like their coffee. A LOT! You can find two or three coffee shops on every corner and every café has a barista to attend to the coffee machines they use. Well the line-ups for coffee were worse than the toilet, which I thought was funny. My door was by one and through out the whole conference there was a queue. I have had a couple coffees since I’ve been here and they are quite amazing, although I rather drink tea than coffee.

So after the conference was over, which was sad, but it was an amazing event nevertheless! The very next day [Sunday, March 18] Hillsong recorded their church album at the arena. So once again the Acer arena was packed full of Christians worshiping God. It was awesome. I feel so blessed to be apart of it.

[Thanks Jana for the picture of the Kangaroo from the Zoo, although I still have yet to see one!]So last week was a tiresome one, but the Joy of the Lord is my strength. Even with only 5 hours of sleep a day, it was worth every last bit. The lucky thing about going to college is we get to do the same thing for another two conferences further into the year!

Speaking of God providing, I just wanted to share how awesome He has been the past couple of weeks. Everything has been falling into place so perfectly. It’s awesome how when you follow his plan, everything works out for the better. Even when you’re not sure how things are going to turn out, you know that He has your best interest in mind. It’s great to know that you’re following the will of God and that you have the creator of the world and all that exists looking out for you. How awesome is He.

Anyways, I think that covers everything that is going on right now. I can’t think of anything else. So yah, have a great day, be blessed!



Represent.

A new job!

A quick entry to say...I got a job at Hilton Hotels! Glory be to God! How amazing He is! That picture, my friends is the place where I will be working! That actual building! Nice eh? Just today I got the answer I was waiting for, my training starts next Monday at 8:45 AM! I can't wait to get involved there! I will be helping out with banquets, so that includes setting up the rooms for banquets, serving, and as well as taking everything down! God is my provider! It's been crazy, living on the edge. Just when you think your alone, God shows up and reminds you that He has been there the whole time. It is awesome.

I just want to encourage you with this verse that my sister gave to me.

1 Timothy 4:12 Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.

"In my life, be lifted high,
In our world, be lifted high,
In our love, be lifted high"

Let it be, Jesus.

March!

I must say March is my favorite month! A lot of great things happen in March! Birthdays! So if your birthday is in March, consider yourself lucky because we share a great month. If your birthday is in any other month also consider yourself lucky, because I'm sure your month is just as exciting! I turn 19 on the 19 of March!

Today was a good day. Today was my day off. I went for a couple of walks [more than once] to the same place. I went swimming twice. I worked on some homework for a little bit. I had a bowl of cereal for breakfast. I had two great peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch [Honestly, the key is cold bread and jelly, wow].


Some great potato and bacon soup for supper. It's been a great day.

I love shout outs! This one for a very special two persons, an answer to prayer, amazing people! Just being awesome people and doing the will of God, it's what I love about em! Thanks for being there when I needed you the most, I'll try to do the same! Love you lots!

P.S. Comments are free, so leave one! ;)