I LOVE GOING TO JOYSHOPS!

I am probably way too tired to be sitting at a computer trying to write on my blog but since I don't know if anyone will really read this anyway....why not say what's on my heart, tired or not tired?

Tonight I just finished my 77th JoyShop which was held at LMH. Around 100 students/adults were in attendance. It's hard for me to believe that I have continued on with the same message for three+ years. I can still remember the first JoyShop I ever did on Jan. 15, 2005, at my home church, Manor Church. My heart burned with the message of JoyShop, "SEEK HIM FIRST", and I wanted the whole world to hear it. Of course, at that time I did not know that I would ever teach another JoyShop. It was just a way to serve my church. Little did I know how God would use this simple workshop on reading your Bible, to motivate others and to bring hope to all of us struggling Christians.

Sometimes I come home from a JoyShop and ask myself, how much longer can you go on this one message? Won't you get tired of telling the same message over and over? Well, amazingly I have not gotten tired of the message...it still burns in my heart and I still feel that I have to tell the world. What keeps me going? God's strength, the knowledge and confidence that he has called me to this, the team of support volunteers God has given me, and the encouraging remarks I get from every age group to keep going with this message that the Church needs to hear.

Tonight I confessed a dream publicly that I have only expressed very privately to few people. I told the audience that I am asking God to send me to Creation and The Call to encourage all believers to become persistant God Seekers, and not part time seekers like the trap that so many of us fall into. I have noticed in the Church that there are three types of God Seekers:
The Pretend Seeker
The Partime Seeker
The Persisitent Seeker

The Pretend Seeker goes to church every Sunday just because it seems the thing to do.
The Part time Seeker seeks God when it is convenient with his schedule which is almost never.
The Persisitent Seeker rises every morning to Seek God and to grow in intimacy with his Father.
Webster defines the word "seek"--to look intently, to want to find. Are we really looking intently for God? Do we really desire to find him, or are we just too busy doing life that we have no time to seek God?

O God, forgive us for our lack of interest in really caring enough about our relationship with you to seek you daily.

Well, this God Seeker's brain is starting to shut down so I want to close by saying thank you to Jesus for allowing me to serve the body of Christ through the JoyShop. It brings me great joy even in the exhaustion. "Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain." II Corinthians 15:58 AMEN and AMEN!