Make Yourself at Home

"I've loved you the way My Father has loved Me. Make yourselves at home in My love. If you keep My commands, you'll remain intimately at home in My love. That's what I've done - kept My Father's commands and made Myself at home in His love." John 15:9-10 (Message)

Make yourself at home in My love.

Jesus' sweet invitation. How beautiful is that?!
He asked me what I thought He meant by "home". This is what I came up with:

Get comfortable with His love, know it inside and out like my own home. Own it and make it yours - this love is mine. I am my Beloved's and He is mine. He has been inviting me to make myself at home in Him. To throw my bean bag chair in the middle of His living room, rummage through His cupboards, sing in His kitchen, walk in His gardens.

It's so beautiful and I'm just beginning to learn what this invitations means. I don't think I've even scratched the surface.

All I know is, I'm so in love with Jesus, and this invitation has changed my life. The God of the universe has invited us to never leave His Presence, to make ourselves at home in His love.

And it's not to get anything from Him. Yes, intimacy leads to impact. All ministry flows from intimacy. But may we never pursue intimacy to only get things from God. He is so much bigger than that. May we long to know Jesus simply because He's Jesus, the One who's worth it all.

When you're at home you can be completely yourself, completely at rest. Striving and performance ceases because you're with family. They know your crap. They know your joys. And they want to hangout with you anyways. Jesus says, "Come to Me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Or. In my paraphrase:
"Stop trying so hard and working from your own strength. Plop yourself down on My couch and let Me teach you. It's really not as hard as you think. It's so simple. You just walk hand-in-hand with Me and watch Me. We'll change the world, but let's hangout while we do it. The more time we spend together, the more you'll become like Me and you'll realize how simple it all really is. I love you. Make yourself at home in that - I love you."

And then He said something terrible cheesy and silly, but oh so profound to this kid from Oregon: "You're a mobile home of love." Yup. All the hippy cheese.

A camper cart bike. How epic is that. 

But seriously. I literally am the temple, the dwelling place, the carrier, the host, the home to the Presence of Love Himself. I was created to be the living, moving, breathing conduit of the manifest Presence of God to bring His ridiculously beautiful love to a lost and dying world.

It all starts with being at home in His love. How can I tell someone about something that I haven't really experienced or don't really truly know? And if I don't have His love in me and I'm not literally just breathing for love for Him, everything I do is nothing. I'm nothing. "I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in Him." (Philippians 3)

So yeah. He's inviting you to make yourself at home in His love. To know Him, to delight in Him, to simply be with Him all the time, any place, anywhere. And everything else will come naturally from that place.

October Update: DTS Team, Local Outreach, and Amsterdam!

Hello friends!

Greetings from Scotland! Thank you for your continued prayers and support. These last almost two months have been so good, so full of Jesus, and so rewarding already. Thank you for being a part of it! 

This is the ginormous house I live in, 
aka The Seamill Centre

It's hard to believe I've been here for nearly 7 weeks already. Time here has absolutely flown by! Every day has been completely different and always full, rarely a dull moment! Living on base has been so life giving and encouraging. Everyone here is so passionate and longs to know the Presence of Jesus in every moment of every day. You can read a short blog post I wrote for YWAM Seamill's website about my first month on staff and being in community here at this link: 

 Joining New Staff

I'll just give you a quick synopsis of what life's been like here. I am part of the DTS staff team (currently consists of just three of us) and my "job" is registration. I get to email with potential DTS participants - answering questions, checking in, and giving encouragement! I love being able to communicate with them because I get to share in their excitement and in their dreams of what Jesus could do in their lives. 

As staff we have been preparing for the DTS to begin in February. We meet together once a week to specifically intercede for the coming school. Intercession has become one of my favorite times of the week because it's during these times that I really find God's heart for this school. And let me tell you, God is super excited for February! Our theme for this DTS is Inheritance - what is our inheritance in Christ and how does that affect our lives here on earth? What does being "blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ" mean? I believe a lot of the blessing of our inheritance comes from knowing our identity as sons and daughters of God because it's the children, the heirs, who receive inheritance. It's some pretty cool stuff and the Bible is chalk-full of promises of what our inheritance could be. We have received revelation after revelation about inheritance as we study it together and individually.

Our DTS team (Rachel, Alex and I) get to go to Amsterdam for nearly two weeks at the end of November (from the 15^th- the 27^th or so)!!! We will be attending a DTS Foundational Workshop at YWAM Amsterdam from the 15^th-20^th, and then we will stay an extra week to do outreach in the city, do some team building, and to seek the Lord’s heart for what He wants to do in the upcoming school in February. I am really looking forward to meeting other DTS staff from all over Europe and to be better equipped to staff on the school.

That’s all cool, Katy, but what has God been doing? Fantastic question! So glad you asked. :)

My office space :)

I have had the opportunity to join the leader team for a youth ministry organization called FireStarters. FireStarters’ vision statement is “A generation set on fire for Jesus to be sparks of revival.” And basically, I get to hangout with middle and high school students from all over Scotland for an entire weekend once a month. They come from Friday night to Sunday afternoon to learn more about Jesus, their faith, evangelism, prophetic art, worship and to study the Bible together. There were over 40 gathered for the first weekend that happened earlier this month! I love it. I get to just hangout with teens, pray with them, walk with them, and hopefully help them know Jesus more! It was really cool to see several of the kids really get touched by Holy Spirit and receive breakthrough in their relationship with Him. They have a huge hunger to see revival happen, to see salvations, to see Jesus do miracles, signs and wonders through their prayers of faith, and to grow in their own relationship with Him.

God has also been opening doors of opportunity in the community of West Kilbride. A couple weeks ago, Rachel, Alex and I went out for local outreach. We spent time praying and worshiping before we went out. We all received words of encouragement and pictures from the Lord for specific people in the village, but we didn’t know who they were for! We wrote and drew them out so we could give something tangible to whoever we met.

We talked to a lot of people, but I still didn’t feel to give any of them the picture I had drawn. Then Rachel and I went into the pharmacy, and Jesus told me to give my picture to one of the pharmacists. I got to share what He had put on my heart for this lady, and she was blown away. I was blown away! It humbles me every time that the Lord would choose to speak to someone else through me.

Our outreach in the village has mostly been about building relationships with people here. The Scottish people are story tellers, and their stories they will tell if you stop and listen! Many of the conversations I have with people are no less than 15 minutes because they are such a relational culture. I was talking with an older gentleman named Norman in the ice cream shop and ended up just sitting in his booth with him because he kept talking! He didn’t even blink an eye when I sat down! I saw Norman again at church last Sunday and we talked again for at least 15 minutes.

It’s really cool to have this kind of relationship with shop owners as well. Business is rather slow during the week, so it’s a perfect opportunity to talk with bored shop owners!

Jesus has been teaching me a lot in the last month. It’s kind of crazy, but everything that I have felt Him speaking to me and challenging me to grow in personally has come up in our corporate community times. God is not a god of random or coincidence – He knows what He’s doing. He’s been inviting me and our community to deeper intimacy with Him, to be disciplined in guarding our time with Him and to fight for those sweet moments with Him. He has also been inviting me to dream with Him about why I’m in Scotland, right here, right now. How does He want to use my passions, gifts, and dreams for this nation to bring revival here? I’m just starting to catch His vision, and it is so exciting!

And so… this is how you can be praying!

-       Pray for more opportunities in the community, especially to simply share the Gospel and pray with people

-       For courage to speak up and step out when those opportunities come!

-       Pray for the next FireStarters weekend (November 6-8), for deeper connections with the kids

-       Pray for finances for my team as we go to Amsterdam and for accommodations for the week of outreach because we don’t actually know where we’re staying yet

-       Pray for me that I would fall more and more in love with Jesus

-       Pray that I would continue to find my place here at the base

-   For more dreams, ideas and bigger vision for what Jesus wants to do in Scotland!