Written by Mike Verkaik

For this reason, I kneel before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives it’s name.  Ephesians 3:14

There is something about the posture of kneeling that reorients our whole relationship with God, our Abba Father. It says, I am needy. I am reverent. I submit. Kneeling expresses longing, for restoration, for answers, for intimacy with a Father who sees and hears us even when we don’t feel it.

In the deepest part of us we all carry expectations and hopes for God. At the start of our encounter we asked each student to write those hopes in their prayer journals. Yes, those prayers can sound selfish at times, like lists of what we want, but they also expose our truest yearning: to be seen, known, and met by our Father.

Jesus invites that kind of honesty, and gives permission to lay needs before Him when he asked, “What do you want me to do for you?”. First to His disciples:

Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.” “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked. They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”  Mark 10:35-37

But, also to a blind man longing to receive his sight:

Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus. “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him. The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.” Mark 10:50-51

As students journey to South Africa many of them carry a simple hope; to be seen and to sense the Spirit’s presence with them. I’d like to share Emma’s account as she wrote about the encouragement she received from the power of God’s presence:

If I had to choose one word to describe today, I would choose powerful. Today the Holy Spirit moved through all the people in our group in indescribable ways.

At night we went to Overflow church. I think I can speak for everyone when I say this church service was more than impactful to our lives. Through this church service I could really feel the Holy Spirit working through me and could see him working in everyone else as well. After we sang a few songs and had intermittent prayer, Pastor Ryan invited our group to sit in front of their church community. He invited the church members forward to say a prayer or just speak over our members. I never would have expected for this to have the impact on us that it did. 

The members of the church had something so specific and special to say to each member of our group individually but also as a whole. It was amazing to see how the Holy Spirit could speak to us through these people. I think that every member of our group was crying at least one time tonight at the power of the Lord working through us in that moment. It is just so hard to imagine how these people could possibly know the things that are going on in our lives, and so specifically to each one of us. 

Personally I felt so touched by the Holy Spirit tonight and felt seen in a way I never have before by Christ. I am beyond thankful for the opportunity we had to meet Pastor Ryan and experience Christ’s love so deeply. Tonight I so strongly felt the Holy Spirit working through me. I could probably speak forever about how impactful tonight was for me and for my life but its still kind of processing. 

When we got back to the retreat center, me and a lot of the girls had an opportunity to all sit together and talk about the impact the Holy Spirit had on us that night. I think this gave us a really amazing opportunity to get to know each other on a much deeper level. I feel so close to these girls in the group and I felt so safe and comfortable being able to share my experience with the girls and hearing them share their experiences as well. Overall this night has been so beyond impactful on all of our lives and I feel so seen and loved by Jesus Christ right now and I am so thankful for the things we were able to experience today. What an amazing and powerful day. God is so good.

Mark Batterson in his book, Draw the Circle writes this, “What if Jesus asked you the same question: What do you want me to do for you?  Would you be able to spell out the promises, miracles and dreams God has put on your heart?” Kneel before the Father and let it be known.

Writen by Mike Verkaik

I pray that you being rooted and established in love, may have POWER, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long, and deep and high is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of ALL the fulness of God.    Eph. 3:17-19

This past spring I taught a New Testament Bible class on proximity to God and people. One requirement was to memorize seven verses from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Not wanting to miss out, I joined the class and chose Paul’s prayer including the verse above. Memorization isn’t the easiest for me, so I practiced by reciting the verses to Dawn while we ran errands and on our way back from bringing our son home. As I quoted it she had to continually remind me of two words I kept missing: POWER and ALL. It really became comical. I’d be in mid-sentence and she’d interject, “POWER,” then later, “ALL.” Being competitive, I didn’t always take the interruptions graciously, but through the failure of recollection God highlighted the depth of His presence in me, and engaged my heart and focused my prayers for the Kingdom Encounter we just finished leading in South Africa.

As I continued to memorize and reflect on those missing words, I was reminded again of how passionately our Father pursues intimacy with us. So much so that He is willing to equip us and pour out every attribute of Himself into our lives. This enlightened me to ponder again Paul’s joy in his weakness. It actually makes more sense in light of the truth that in our weakness God’s power becomes more active and noticeable.   (2 Cor. 12:9–10).

Over the coming weeks we’ll be sharing the evidence of His POWER and ALL the fullness of His presence through the words of the students who participated on the trip. We will highlight short testimonies of what they saw, how they were changed, and how God met them in weakness with His overwhelming strength.

This week is the reminder of the connectedness of His fullness in all of us. The connectedness that gives us eyes to see, ears to hear what was previously unknown.  On the first day of our encounter the students climbed up Elsie’s Peak to spend time alone with their Abba Father.  At the top they were challenged to journal the expectations and hopes they’d brought with them from God, read letters written by prayer partners, and dwell on John 14:15-27.

On our way down I asked a student how his time of journaling went. He said, “Mike, it was an amazing time of affirmation. God has already answered my desire. After I wrote my hopes, I read a letter from a student I don’t even know. As I read it was like he knew my heart and desires. Everything I journaled he sensed the Holy Spirit telling him to pray for while I was here. Details no one else could have known.” That moment beautifully illustrated our spiritual connectedness. How the same Holy Spirit lives in all believers, moves between us, and reveals and answers our deep longings. I was struck by the tenth grader’s courage and his willingness to obey what he sensed the Spirit saying.

And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.  Romans 5:5

Oh, how our Father desires to be heard by His children. May Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3 be our prayer for one another as we seek more of His power and all of His fullness. Stay tuned for more student testimonies from our South Africa trip in the coming weeks.