Re: Phase I Week 3 Chapter 1 & 2 Blackaby

[ebenezer...@verizon.net]

 

 i did not get week 5, please forward it

 

Sr. Judith Jean-Baptiste BA, 
Certified Youth Leader, Certified Counselor 
Cell: 914-207-5369
Teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom

 

On 01/23/12, New York Youth Leaders Association<youthlea...@gmail.com> wrote:

 

Read Chapter 1 & 2 Henry Blackaby experiencing GOD

1. Share a testimony of an experience in your life that brought you to
know God more intimately and personally and gave you a deeper
knowledge of Him.
2. When God gives you a directive, how much should you trust your
human knowledge, common sense, and wisdom to guide your actions?
3. How should you respond to an assignment from God when you know you
don’t have the power, skill, or resources to accomplish what he is
asking you to do?

I look forward to reading your post.

[Kevin Armstrong]

1. Share a testimony of an experience in your life that brought you
to
know God more intimately and personally and gave you a deeper
knowledge of Him.

Since December 1991, I have been diagnosed and treated for several
different medical issues including Stage 1 Non-Hodgkins Lymphatic
Cancer (6 mos. of Chemotherapy), Mild Stroke, Congestive Heart
Failure, Heart Attack, Implanted Heart Assist Device, Heart Transplant
Surgery, Type I Diabetes, Coronary Artery Disease and placement of 4
Arterial Heart Stents. This lasted until December of 2003. Through all
of this, I claimed to know God and considered myself a Christian while
all the time being angry, worried and unsure with God and the path He
had me on.
On December 17th, 2003, I went to the hospital for what had become a
routine procedure for me, a bi-monthly Angiogram/Biopsy. That is a a
catheter being snaked though your main arteries and placed into the
chambers of your heart to check the pressures and to retrieve pieces
of heart tissue to determine whether your immune system was rejecting
your transplanted organ. I remember being in a hurry as it was a short
procedure but with a long prep time and a long recovery time. I was
coaching HS basketball and had an away game later that day so I was
insistent on getting back in time. During the procedure, they pump a
fluid through your arteries to make them easier to see on the X-ray
machine. During this, one of my arteries became 100% blocked and began
to spasm. I thought it was another heart attack and began to ask God,
"Not like this please" The doctor was able to relieve the pressure but
insisted on me staying overnight for observation.That was the last
thing I remembered. 29 days later, I awoke in ICU. not realizing that
I had a massive heart attack, loss of pulse for 45 minutes, my organs
began to shut down, had been on a heart/lung machine and heart assist
device until I recieved a 2nd Heart Transplant on Jan.4th 2004. that
my chest cavity had remained open and my chest muscle was wrapped
around my heart and the the whole thing was being protected by an air
tight plastic sealed vacuumed tight to my chest and that for the past
11 days, I had been in a unconcious, semi coma state with a feeding
tube, tracheotomy tube and IV's all connected to me. It took from Jan
15th to March 8th 2004 for me to heal and recover enough to return
home.
After a few months, I began to learn from my wife and family the full
details of what I had been through and one thought kept my mind and
spirit and soul restless. How did so many events work together to save
my life? I believed in God but still was a firm believer in fate up
until that point but now I could not explain away the multitude of
miraculous things that allowed me to continue to live and breathe.
After wrestling with emotions and my own limited knowledge, I had to
acknowledge that God had truly stepped in and made a way for me when
it seemed like it was over. I even remember the enemy trying to play
on those emotions and telling me I was living "on borrowed time." But
God sent His Word to me in Jeramiah 29:11 ans told me, " For I know
the plans I have for you, says the Lord. They are to prosper you and
not harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future." Never before did
those words mean as much as they did at that very point in my life. I
felt as if God had reached down from heaven and spoke directly to my
heart. At that point, I knew that I moved from knowing God to actually
experiencing God as a real, living, breathing person in my life.I
began to understand His Word more now and His promises to us. I now
tell people that I was "saved" when I was 6 years old but I met and
knew God for the first time when I was 36 years old. Since then, I
have been diagnosed with End Stage Kidney Failure and am presently on
daily Dialysis and I am on the list for a Kidney Transplant. But I no
longer worry and fret like I used to. My God is bigger that anything
that could happen to me physically and I count it as a privlilege and
an honor to share my testimony with others about what God has done for
me and how He still heals, He still restores and He still works. I am
now happy to say that I KNOW God and that every day, I try to
experience Him just a little more in my life.

2. When God gives you a directive, how much should you trust your
human knowledge, common sense, and wisdom to guide your actions?

When God gives a directive to you, it is His will for your life and
for His glory to be shown through it. If we allow ourselves into that
equation by trying to utilize our own knowledge,sense and wisdom to
tell us what to do: it undermines God's true purpose for us in the
first place. If we truly die to self and are now are slaves to
obedience and righteousness in the will of God, our own feeling s and
emotions have no place within that., If we allow God to work through
us, then we will be able to reap the rewards of following His leading
and utilizing His wisdom and power for His purposes for our benefit.

3. How should you respond to an assignment from God when you know you
don’t have the power, skill, or resources to accomplish what he is
asking you to do?

We should always stand firm in fact that when we are weak, He is
strong. Where we don;t have the skill for a task that He will provide
the skill set or the skilled person/s for it. That when we are
lacking the resources to complete a task, that He will provide all the
resources we will need and more, if necessary. We should respond with
faith and trust that God would never send us on an assignment that He
has not equipped and prepared us for.Sometimes, we say we can't do it
because in our own power, we can't. Our limited ability to reach
beyond what we think and see keeps us from trusting God. But once we
truly have faith in what God has called us to do, we know that all
things are possible through Christ and God, our Father.

On Feb 13, 9:40 pm, ebenezerblessi...@verizon.net wrote:
>
>
>  i did not get week 5, please forward it
>
>
>
> Sr. Judith Jean-Baptiste BA,
> Certified Youth Leader, Certified Counselor
> Cell: 914-207-5369
> Teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom
>
>
>

> On 01/23/12,New York Youth Leaders Association<youthlea...@gmail.com>wrote: