PaulPrins.net

I wasn?t really not sure what to title this entry. While I?m working really hard on releasing my personal concerns and frustrations to God and trusting Him with them this month I feel as though I should write about what?s gone on this past week. The speaker last Thursday got to me, he was talking about how we need to reach out to those around us and personally invite them into the body of believers here at Stout. Being a former student here it was his biggest regret of the time he spent here. This hit me really hard, not that I am very deficient in this area (though I need some definite improvement), because of what happened the night before I came to stout. When I was prayed over one of the things that he brought up was that I would be standing as a pillar while others fell around me. This speakers vision casting hit me because it made me realize that I wasn?t ready for something like that (being one whom is pulling others up and helping them build strength in Christ) and didn?t know how to deal with it.

Next step, leadership retreat? It was awesome and was really excited that we put it on (can?t remember having so much fun with markers and a swing set). What I didn?t expect was the number of people from my team (servant versus shepherd) who are in their last semester. I know that God will provide for the movement but we are loosing so many people in key roles, not necessarily position wise, but in their knowledge and experience. I believe that seven of the twelve will be turning over this semester. Part of it is a hesitation on my part, feelings as though I won?t be able to seek Christ as I?ll need to. Not that God hasn?t been there before in very obvious ways, just that it feels as though I?m not ready to seek Him like he is asking me too. When it?s written that way it sounds really ridiculous (not that it isn?t) but it makes a lot of sense because of the things I?ve been holding onto. Holding onto this idea of who I want God to make me into and not understanding that it?s becoming the man God needs me to be for Him? not me. Christ has had so much grace with me in letting me stray far enough to realize what has been going through my mind and then hitting me with such clarity it?s hurting. As of last Friday night (first night of our leadership retreat) I had stopped praying in hopes that ignoring God would pass the responsibility, I felt him pressing on me, to someone else. I can?t think of a time that I have been so strong headed against God where my prayer life had completely ceased out of protest against Him. It?s something I?m really ashamed of but have felt such grace about since.

It just sounds silly to think that someone would try to tell our all-knowing God that you know best. It probably stems from when I tried to grasp everything around me while going through my depression, but that is something I need to let go of. Early Monday morning (think it was around 2 am) I was about to go to bed but for some reason felt the need to work through this distance I was feeling and the conflict I was going through. I ended up walking around Menomonie for over an hour in prayer and spending most of the time listening for understanding and what I needed to pray for next. God really broke me down and took away the image of who I want to be and I?ve grown so much in the past couple days it?s been crazy. Now it?s not like my idea of who I wanted to be was so far fetched that God needed to intercede, rather that I had lost my focus on Him and was trying to do things instead of letting Him do them.

This week has just been a lot of prayer and feeling the desire that I have for it. I joked earlier about praying to much and one of my friends told me that there was nothing wrong about it. Here is to prayer without ceasing!

Keep seeking Gods glory and grace,
~paul

Fluttering lights flicker past
Windows streaked by rain
Tonight as the sun sets
Hidden behind confused clouds
Ringing themselves into nothing
As horns sound in the distance
Turning my eyes to streaks
Drips who glide so consistently
Its rhythm sends my mind.

Away, back to you
Thoughts suddenly flood in
Remembering nights alone with hope
Warmth resonating from your eyes
Caring from afar
how you pick me up
from the May storm
i long to forget?
You were there, so now I smile.

As the sun finally sets
My hand caresses the switch
Lights go out leaving a void
Darkness creeps in with a chill
It?s cold, I?m cold
where are you
come here
i need you
please,
I love you

please?
thank you.

7/4/04 - Paris, France

If you were to start walking how far would you go before you reached the end? What time would you walk until, what hour would you turn around at? This weekend has made something real that I wasn?t sure could happen. Not matter how many times I had seen it foretold I still put it out of my mind as something other than it was to be. I see the people around me and can?t bring myself to see now what it is I?ve already seen.

It?s hard for me to think that I am the one that he wants to use. As I sit here in waiting for the day that makes all of this labor and living worthwhile I can?t sit idol hearted with busy hands. There was so much that was so easy to give up, so many things that in the long run are so petty. I saw how God could provide for me and has He ever done so. I?ve been so blessed and can?t help my understanding that because I?ve made such a commitment to Christ already that He desires me to keep going past the things I see as so inconsequential (career, friends, college, degree, breaks, work) to the things that I don?t want to let go of. These are the hardest because you don?t even realize that you are holding onto them so tightly until they are being tugged at. When you look into a mirror you don?t see them because they are held so tightly inside that it just seems to be part of who you are.

All the while Satan is hardening your heart through those things you hold so close.

?Retire from the world and all conversation, only for one month. Neither write, nor read, nor debate anything with yourself. Stop all he former workings of your heart and mind. And, with all the strength of your heart, stand all this month, as continually as you can, in the following form of prayer to God. Offer it frequently on your knees. But whether sitting, walking, or standing be always inwardly longing and earnestly praying this one prayer to God:…?

I?m going to try to hard to seek God in prayer this month at times like those listed above. This may not make the most sense in the world, but I know that humility helps protect you from spiritual attacks and they are only going to get more intense. I must be broken and humble before my Father, our God, so that I might finish the race.

Keep seeking His face,
~paul

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added on 9/27/04 at 10:59:02 am

is it not crazy how God opens up passages of scripture to you when you need them.

?Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem:

??I remember the devotion of your youth,
how as a bride you loved me
and followed me through he desert,
through a land not sown.
Israel was holy to the Lord,
the firstfruits of his harvest;
all who devoured her were held guilty,
and disaster overtook them.??
~ Jeremiah 2:2-3

I remember a time when I loved Him so much and didn?t let such small things get in the way of that or keep me from Christ. I?ve followed God to some of the darkest and driest corners of this planet (France) and would go again jut to be following after Him. Man I wish these funks could just never happen, but without them I wouldn?t have nearly the drive and love for Christ that I do. Thank you Father for your patients with me, today will be a good day with You.

The sun rises and shimmers across the tops of the trees with the start of the day. You stand there looking out to what is set before you. You’re there to pick the apples in an orchard and bring in the crop. You?re there picking handful after handful until your arms are overflowing with apples!! You are making trip after trip across the farm back to the storage barn to drop them off and feeling so blessed by the number of apples that are ripened. Every trip affirms what you?re doing and you?re doing GREAT work there for the orchard. You can?t think of anything you?d rather be doing.

But what if?
What if before you got there you had made yourself a basket to put the apple in. You could carry five times as many apples!! What a blessing that would be! Now you?d be making so many less trips across the orchard to drop off that which you?re picking. You would be filling several barrels more with apples every day then if you were doing it by hand! Truly you would be blessed by how much more productive your labor is than without the basket! There is no way that you would consider doing this work without it. Your labor is so obvious as you stand at the door of the storage facility looking back on what your work that day brought in!

But what if?
What if we spent more time preparing a backpack? A backpack that let you carry three times as many apples as the basket alone! Every time you would fill the basket you would empty it into your backpack and then continue picking, two times you could empty that basket into the backpack before you bag could hold no more. After filling the basket again you could then head back to store the apples. Now you?re filling a whole barrel every time you reach the storage barn (it?s a heavy load at first but you bulk up and are able to handle it with ease after a couple days of work). At the end of the day it takes two hands to count all the barrels of fruit that you brought in.

But what if?
What if you had taken the time to make a truck? A truck that could carry nine barrels through the orchard with you and you would be able to fill the barrels as you walked the aisles of apple trees. You wouldn?t need to go back all the way across the orchard every time your bag and basket got full!! You wouldn?t even need the backpack anymore because it would take just as long to pour the fresh apples into barrels on the truck. How much more of that field could you harvest in a day! How much sooner until your work would be completed!! You could do a truckload of apples before lunch where before it would take a whole day to fill nine barrels of apples. The satisfaction and blessing of looking back on your work at the end of the day would be that much greater!

But what if?
What if you weren?t alone? That as you were building that truck and people asked you about what you were doing, and showing interest. What if you were to talk to them, tell them what it?s for and got them to help! How much sooner would the truck be ready to drive (I know nothing about engines so it would take me quite some time on my own), how much readier for the harvest will you be, then think of the speed at which you AND your friends could harvest that orchard when you get there. Truckload after truckload each day would be brought back into storage. Each of you helping to fill the barrels till there is no way to stack more into each one, basketful after basketful till every barrel was full time and time again! As you stood there next to your truck picking apples, watching those around you laboring away, everyone singing and joking, could you imagine doing it alone with nothing but your own arms. The task would seem impossible!

Why now?
When the harvest arrives the sight of it will leave you overwhelmed and taken back. So great is the view before you that you see your own arms and realized that you need something more and try so hard and feverishly to make a truck to speed up your work. You are wasting the harvest! You?ve spent your life to get to this point, to be where God has placed you to work and you see that now you desire to have more! How much easier would it be to add onto a truck then to try to make the truck? How much less effort to make a trailer to double the number of barrels you could carry? It would take a tenth the time to make a trailer because you already know how to make the truck! What if you had so many people with you that you were able to even make a whole other truck to double your efforts! It?s so important to get to the point where we are so prepared for the bountiful harvest that is coming to us. The time is coming when the angles will call out to us and tell us to reap ??because the time to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is ripe? (rev 14:15) and how grand is all the earth!

So what?s the catch?
Unlike the person in this story who was going into the apple orchard we don?t know where in life God will place us to serve His Kingdom (our personal Orchard). This is where your faith to earnestly seeking after Christ is important. God desires us to be as prepared as we can be for what he has to set before us, though we don?t know what that plan is. God does and He knows what we need to be there with our truck (a plethora of spiritual knowledge, tools and gifts), with our friends (brothers and sisters in Christ). Honestly you will be pretty confused as to why you are learning the things He desires to teach and show you without knowing where you?re going to labor later in your life. You might even think that making a backpack (having less spiritual knowledge, tools and gifts) to work with would be enough because it?s so much more work to build that truck. Even more work when you can?t see and don?t understand how it will be used. This is why it is important to have faith and believe that God is working in your life to be building you up for where He wants to use you (could be in ministry, teaching, or business, in addition to our daily lives). God will bless you and reward you for your labor in something as simple as preparing yourself! Everyone working for the kingdom is blessed but the man who is able to do more work is blessed more through their roll in bringing in apples (people) into storage (salvation).

Our walks with Christ in college are so similar to the preparation that would go into creating the basket, the backpack, or even the truck. The more that you seek after God, take steps to grow in faith, the more you?ll grow into the person of God that He desires you to be and you?ll be the person who is ready for the harvest with a truck full of spiritual knowledge and tools. It is so easy to loose our heart and motivation when your efforts seem fruitless but take solace in scripture ?because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain? (1 Cor 15:58)!! That even as you are seeking hard after him to become more refined in Gods hands He has a reason for what he is teaching you. That He desires to teach you and show you these things so that your truck is ready for the dawn of tomorrow when the harvest in your field is ready! So when you see the fields ripe in the world and ready for harvest that you are ready to go and don?t need to be learning how to make your truck while you?re trying to use it. Continually seek hard after him so that we can reach the world for Christ. Seek after Him so that the world will realize who He with our generation.

How do I?
As God calls out your name to you don?t sit there waiting, He wouldn?t call out to you if you weren?t ready for what He wants to reveal! You already have everything you need to be molded into the person of God that He desires you to be. It?s in your bible, the word of God for you to learn from. When those words were written down He had you in mind, so that you could read them and grow in Him. If you are looking for somewhere to start really focus on prayer. Prayer is how we truly seek out Christ and humble ourselves before His throne. Practice listening to what he has to show you in His word, it will get easier to hear Him with time, and practice. While Gods voice may not thunder down from the heavens, it can shake your life if you are listening for Him to speak to you and learn where to listen. He communicates to all of us in different ways and at different times (see 1 Kings 19:11-13). That is why it?s important to seek out Christ to give Him praise and ask Him to teach you. Then you?ll grow into the person of God that He needs you to become for the harvest he has waiting for you. That when your day of labor for the harvest is done seek after Him once again to praise Him and to ask him to prepare you for tomorrow!

?I sought the LORD, and he answered me;
he delivered me from all my fears? Psalm 34:4
?Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask because we obey his commands and do what pleases him.? 1 John 3:21-22

Written on 22 September 2004 by Paul Prins

The last several days have been, not so sound over dramatic, AMAZING. Well since Sunday anyway. Sunday I was realizing that I needed to seek harder after Christ again in my life (could have something to do with Peter Haas? sermon on Saturday night!) and was brought back to what I?ve really been focusing on the last couple months (for personal growth). Just prayed my little brains out best He could and wow. Things have been sooooo different this week. If anyone is wondering what to study start with prayer.

With pray a strong in your spiritual discipline you are seek out Christ so much easier and more effectively. It?s so hard to see people desiring so much for their lives, so much that God wants them to have, and see them unsure of how to attain it. Looking at it as thought it?s on display in a department store street window and they don?t have the money to buy it yet. Does not God own everything including the money you have and don?t have! You don?t have what you need because you?ve yet to either; ask for it (truly seeking God and believe in faith that he will answer your petition), don?t realize you need it, or haven?t asked correctly (the bible says that when you ask you HAVE received, so if you don?t receive it there must be something wrong in how you ask). Now onto yesterday!

so had D-time with Chris (room mate) and ben. Ben and me are doing a fast for a day and a half starting tomorrow. Then one of my friends at a different school was talking to be online as I was putting something together for Ben and I told her what I was doing. Now she is doing it as well! They both really just want to know God better and more personally and it?s sooooo awesome.

Then I went up to the rock to talk to jay about some girl stuff, bleh, but I get up there and they are kicking tom out of the house (tom has been kicked out of his house, this time he left, bad relationships with his family and a lot of personal baggage). They are kicking him out because he?s been there for two weeks and nothing has really changed in his life aside from him getting a job.

As jay and me are talking out back tom comes out after the guys of the house finish telling him he has to leave, he?s very broken down at this point and so we invite him over. God really calmed toms heart and talked through me to him, where he was at. After a couple hours we actually even came up with a good plan for what to do to get his life back on track so that he can serve the lord. Came up with a really good way to start to mend things with his family. Also has a very good approach to start to untangle his personal life so that he doesn?t need to be so dependant and can truly start giving to others. He?s really pretty excited. I saw him give that smile that you only see on someone?s face when they see hope and something that’s been gone for a long time

Then tonight was talking to Teal online and we got into our first really deep spiritual conversation after an off hand comment of mine where I said that “all she needed to do was stand up.” I went into more depth and God just gave us an amazing conversation. For some time now I?ve been praying and seeking for a way to explain to people the importance of seeking hard after Christ NOW rather then later. It?s quite awesome what God revealed to us, I?ll post it in a couple days (as, just like me, it is going through a refining process) on here. So yea, wow. Great day!

Keep living His blessing

The Future

My soul longs for words to say,
For direction to show the way,
To find comfort in this place

The world revolves within its grove,
For me it doesn?t seem to move,
No matter how hard I try.

It?s adorn me with no face,
This cold world and quickened pace,
What I?d give for a shimmer of grace.

I?ve hung on as long as I can,
Only wondering where you?ve been,
In short time it will happen.

What I don?t know,
But I?m not willing to go.

/paul prins 9-5-03

To see the words I wrote a year ago, to feel the emotion and pain that was so evident in my life them. Looking to where I sought refuge from it all. I can?t help but be filled with praise for these words, for finding them today and how they effected my outlook on tomorrow and the future. It took me several more months after I wrote this to really understand what I was desiring and seeking. Nearly four months to the day I filled out my application to spend the summer in France, seven and a half months later I applied to be the evangelism team leader, eight months later I was the team leader, and I could keep going. I spent so much time seeking out different things to satisfy me. That would cure my need for grace and love. I exhausted myself looking and searching everywhere I knew too. When I went to rest I was caught up into the arms of Christ.

Thank you father for taking me when I didn?t dare utter your name and for showing me the world which you died for. Thank you for giving me your life, may I live it until I no longer can and meet you face to face.

keep living His blessing,
~paul

No matter how hard I try or pray it seems as though the timing is never my thing. If you don?t believe me lets list some examples?

-Growing up to fast It could be that because I grew up to fast (a combination of my depression with my business work forced me to grow up really fast) that now I am trying so hard to slow everything down. I never realized how hard it would be to look back and see so many things that I feel I?ve missed out on, and I?d rather take my time to feel that I did everything I wanted too. However unrealistic this is.

-The Wrong Time Paul It wouldn?t be the first time I?ve heard this. I tend to get caught up in the moment really easy and more importantly miss the moment that it ends? For a kid who doesn?t say much out of place I sure do at the very wrong times. Can think of one example from France off the top of my head.

-Bad Timing While similar to the one above, I just tend to bring things up at awkward times and places. Not that much really gets me all that uncomfortable anymore (and could be one reason I have problems here) but as much as I look out for those around me there are moments where I wait to long, or will jump the gun. It something I hope to get better at and realize that none of us will ever perfect. Just felt like making my list longer…

-Waiting Here is the kicker, after all of those things so far listed lead me to wait. I wait for a lot of things; to plan, to travel, to make deep friendships, to eat (I miss so many meals by accident), and relationships. This actually brings me right to the reason for this entry.

Whenever it seems I am finally content and trust God to provide for me, well He does just that. Often much faster then I expected. When I resigned from skiing to take some time to figure out where He needed me I was expecting it to take a year or more. Within a couple months I felt His pull on my life for ministry. When I started to really get into running after Christ I now find myself leading a team of fellow students that is responsible for all the evangelism at Stout.

Again I?m in a position that I am wishing had an easy solution and regrettably there isn?t one. I have agreed with Christ not to date this semester so that I can really focus on helping build up His body of believers here and work on my obligations as the Evangelism team leader. Because of those obligations I wouldn’t be able to treat her how she would deserve to be treated, wouldn’t have the time for her, and would just feel like I wasn’t givning her everything she desirves. Sure enough that waiting thing? one of my sisters here at stout is just amazing. I honestly don?t know if anyone here understands me as well as she does. Here is the issue though, Christ needs me to wait for Him (interestingly enought she is in the same spot!). I would be so torn if I ever were to put myself in a position where I wasn?t ready for what he had coming because I didn?t listen to Him. So my prayers are that her smile will still be here when the time is right. That when the time is right we will see it and know it.

keep living His blessing,
~paul