Updates from Ed Ross

We were blessed with half an hour's extra sleep this morning, which was nice. Each week we have one "sleep in". Then during Quiet Time, we read Psalm 40, and were asked to list things which we are thankful to God for. I was able to come up with quite a long list, which is good.

At the start of the first lecture of the day (still about The Father Heart of God), we were asked to go outside, find a quiet spot and ask God to speak to us. I went near one of the ponds, and stood next to a large tree. It is great to be this close to nature. I realised that I have not been this close for this long for quite some time. I'm enjoying this experience quite a lot. I tried pushing the tree, and discovered that it was very firmly rooted - it would not budge. It got me thinking about Psalm 1, which starts:

The rest of the teaching, when we got back to the class was excellent today. The basic message was that we don't need to strive to change things in our lives. We don't have the resources in ourselves to cause lasting change. Only by allowing God to speak in to our hearts, and having Him change us, will change take place. God is like a father: the baby can not do anything for themselves, and yet the father still loves them. The baby needs everything done for them, and thinks the universe revolves around them, but the father loves them, and wants the best for them. In the same way, God the Father sees us, and how incapable of self change we are, and wants to come in to our lives and help us become the people we were meant to be.

The teacher went on to draw a great diagram which I shall attempt to recreate and add to this blog post. The picture is a representation of how God created humans - a skin on the outside, followed by a layer encompassing the soul, mind, emotions and will, followed by an inner layer - the spirit. The Bible shows how when man decided to go his own way, the spirit died. This was where we had our connection with God, so now we try to satisfy the needs we have through our bodies and soul/mind layers, However, these needs can only truly be satisfied by God - the need for love, acceptance, worth and security. Try as we might to meet those needs through other means - money, sex, power, influence over others etc, only a restored relationship with God will revive our spirit and enable us to be satisfied in those areas. We still find it hard to hear from God sometimes though, and that could be down to the fact that we still fall back on the actions we took to satisfy those needs before we knew God. It is a struggle quite well summed up in Romans 7 and 8.

Today instead of lunch we had a prayer meeting for Zimbabwe. There is a couple from Zimbabwe on the base, so one of them came and told us about the current situation. I knew it was bad out there, but the way she described it, I couldn't quite believe she was talking about somewhere else on the same planet that I'm on. It's so awful that these things happening there have been allowed to happen. Through our prayer and fasting we can do some difference though. The money we didn't use for food for lunch is going to go there and help instead.

For "Community Care" today, I mostly cleaned the floors in the toilets and shower rooms. Someone today suggested that perhaps the other two in my team are faster than me because there are two of them and only one of me, so together they can get through their work faster than me. This helped me.

Today we found out which local outreach we will be a part of. I have been put in the outreach for homeless people. This will involve meeting up with some full time volunteers on Friday nights, and going to some of the homeless people in Brighton with some food and encouragement for them. It is funny: once (just once) before I left for university I went down to Brighton to help hand out soup to some homeless people with friends from church, so it will be almost a continuation of that, just 8 years later!

I got to rest a bit this afternoon, and then we had dinner, which was a celebration of America, in the form of Sloppy Joes. The Americans on my table said that what we had, and what Sloppy Joes are really like is slightly different, but I was happy either way. It was nice to finally have something called a Sloppy Joe, as I've known about them since I was in secondary school, but never had one.

In the evening I played a bit of volleyball, then had my first "one to one" meeting with one of the leaders on the YWAM DTS course. These are designed to be an open environment where I can share my thoughts on the week/lectures/other events, and raise any concerns/ask questions I want to ask.

"Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved."