thoughts on my time at Capernwray

Thoughts on my time at Capernwray.

so this isn't an update really, one will be coming sometime this week hopefully, I was sitting on the plane from Brisbane to the Whitsundays and just started writing, this is what followed.

Capernwray was an unforgettable 5 months of my life, at time when I went from excuses to reasons, worries to peace and doubts to understanding/faith. As one of my good friends from Capers put it, its more of a time of personal growth/development in faith then a time of learning to get a degree. Of course I did learn many things, such as parallels between Old Testament things and Jesus life, application of the lives of Abraham and David, church history, prayer, abiding life and many more topics. As for the other side of it, Maxy asked me a good question a week after school was done, he asked what I gained from being at Capernwray.

The first thing that came to mind was self confidence. Confidence in Christ working through me in situations and being able to rely on him in situations. I had to rely on the Holy Spirit for courage as I did things like public speaking and missions/prac week. I think my understanding of grace was hugely impacted as well, knowing that I can’t achieve heaven, eternal life, the Holy Spirit or Gods love and forgiveness, everything we receive is a gift of God’s grace. No matter how hard we screw up we aren’t condemned, we are just loved and forgiven.

Adding to that, assurance of salvation seemed to be a theme for me early on in the semester. I know my faith and believe it, I see God in so many places, movies, nature, circumstances, friends, worship music (hmm I think that was more just a thought that popped into my head at the time then adding onto salvation, but its true more now than ever). Anyways just understanding that I am saved no matter what...so why do I do anything you may ask. Because I am committed to Jesus as Lord of my life and why not? I mean He has done so much and God is Love, nothing is greater or more powerful than God. It is not a matter of doing things against my pleasure (life doesn’t always go our way though, we have trials and tough times to grow in areas like patience, and our faith is often proved in the dry times when we are struggling). It is more a matter of doing things against my sinful nature, and as my heart is transformed by the Holy Spirit, my will becomes his will, but still with my character and gifts, his joy becomes my joy, as the Holy Spirit works in me. Its Jesus working in me to create something greater, to bring out the fruits of the spirit in me and as I choose to let him flow and have control in my heart, be led by the spirit, be the change, be the light, be the influence, spreading God’s love (harder than it sounds I know, thats why we can’t do it on our own, it can’t just be in the head, it has to go to the heart).

Letting the Holy Spirit lead me...being faithful in prayer, which involves quietness and patience, not just a one way convo, and listening for him to speak to me in different ways (like pictures and moments and tongues when I was in Hong Kong). Quiet days at school were always good, spending the day in prayer, silence, in the word and in reflection. Also being in the word, not just speed reading to see how far you get (done that haha) but reading and absorbing and understanding and applying it to life. Side note applies here from, a journaling tool for doing daily devotions from Hillsong conference: SOAP-Scripture, observation, application, prayer. Bringing things to God in prayer has been an idea that has had its importance reinforced in my in the last 6 months. Prayer is so powerful, and it really does things.

Hm oh and Peace. Peace is another thing that has been solidified in me, trusting God with control. Presenting a devotion on Peace revealed to me how God has given me peace, even early on in my walk with God, at a time when I didn’t realize the Holy Spirit could do that. My other devotion was on God’s faithfulness and I definitely gained from that too.

Another area I enjoyed was God’s will, which was a major topic for a number of us students. Generally God’s will is that we embrace Jesus and share God’s love through Jesus to the world, ie spreading the Gospel. But as for God’s will for my life and whether or not I am in God’s will, one way of explaining it was that God’s will is like a pilots silence zone. A pilot has a flight path that is a parallel zone that if he goes off either side of it, warning lights go off. God has bells for us to, that interrupt our peace, anther explanation is the red light green light. It is simply to keep going til you hit a red light, then change/stop and go again. Or another explanation is that we are on a chessboard, we have certain parameters and can move anywhere on the chess board, forward or back, right or left.hmm while I don’t know what God wants me to do with my life, ie a calling, I know God has things planned for me and I just need to trust him and listen for the alarmbells or red lights or opportunity to grab. I memorized a verse last week, from Proverbs 3:5-6 “trust in God in all ways and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” Cool verse.

Adding on to the Peace topic, A verse my sister Natalie gave me the night before I left for Australia is Phil 4:6-7, its all about peace and we had to memorize it in the second week of school, its a great verse and I definitely relied on it, and it was the easiest to memorize. There were many things I learned, too many to mention, I’ll have to have a look back in my big binder and review that stuff. Some of the things I mentioned here are things that I knew somewhat but just got a better understanding of, mostly through experience. I am thinking of more things as I type this, so I'll just post this before it gets too incredibly long, let me know if you enjoyed reading this. Faith is nothing until its put into action.

Another big thing this semester was friends, again not necessarily a big learning thing (although I think I did learn some things, as happens). I made a number of friends, some closer than others, some differently than others. Of course there were some that were more dependable than others also. More importantly I discovered that some really did show me Jesus’s love, and one of the keys to getting along with everyone was accepting and forgiving others and my own shortcomings. Love looks past that and cares about the person, I made friendships that I hope will always continue, even though there are differences. I can’t say how important those friendships were in the time at capers, and I hope and pray to see everyone in the future, and of course I have to do my part (as in any friendship) to keep those friendships going. The staff were also great, they were there for us, and we could tell.

Now I move onto the next chapter, back home with family and friends, and for now enjoying my last weeks and days in this beautiful country called Australia.

thats all for now,

thanks for reading,

from down under

Adam