Staff Conference and the First Surf of the Season

This past week the entire staff of YWAM Maui met to prepare for the upcoming DTS school. What started out as a simple 9-12 meeting every morning quickly turned into something much more powerful than what anyone here expected.

The unofficial theme of our staff conference was "the fear of the Lord". Not exactly the motivational topic you'd expect before a bunch of DTS students come into town. We read some passages out of Ezekiel about how unholy Israel was, prostituting herself to other gods and nations. At the beginning of the conference, I couldn't help but think, "what the heck does this have to do with me working for YWAM Maui?".

Throughout the week God began revealing some pretty big things to us. Not necessarily brand new stuff, but rather a deeper revelation of His character and what He wants from me. One of the main things was that I do not make an honest effort to be holy before God.

Holiness is not something that most Christians like to talk about, mostly I think, because we realize that we are not holy. The idea holiness is something that we like to think should be left between that individual and God. After all, we're all holy because we take on Christ's holiness right? Well, yes... but what I'm learning is that even though Christ covers our iniquities, the process of sanctification is a long road. So naturally, my question is, "How do I become holy without becoming some legalistic prude?"

This is where the fear of the Lord comes in. When someone says "fear of the Lord", I automatically think of some backwoods preacher, spitting fire and brimstone-- Old Testament, burn your city and turn you into a pillar of salt because you sinned type of thing. Fear of God is not being afraid that God will cause harm to me because I sin, but rather a reverence for how high and holy He is. It is this holiness that draws us to repentance and into responding to God's grace.

When we begin to understand this more (as we in YWAM are beginning to), we naturally start to desire the things that God desires rather than what the world wants. Tuesday, we had a time of corporate and individual repentance, not because of guilt, but because we as a base want to be pure for our God who loves us. Intense stuff, but we are learning to desire God's best for us.



The boys on our early morning surf mission


On a MUCH lighter note, Saturday I got to use my new surfboard for the first time. Me and the boys woke up at 4:15 (yes, thats a.m.) to drive to the south side of the island and surf a few spots called Shark Pits and Acid Drops. We were first in the water and had the joy of watching the sunrise over the West Maui mountains while we waited for waves. The water was really shallow, I didn't see any sharks, and even though the waves were inconsistent, it was good to be out in the water relaxing with some new (and old) friends.

Hope y'all are all doing well, and feel free to call or e-mail me anytime!

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