Rest

Rest.

That moment when you realize God is not just giving you an opportunity to rest, but when He is calling you into rest. 

I made it to YWAM Chico about a week ago.  Spent the first weekend getting to know the amazing team that I will be spending this season with, and then began navigating the way through a week full of lectures and training matched with preparation for coming students. 

Somewhere in the first few days I caught a nasty cold. With no chance to slow down or take things slow it was grin and bare it. 

There are heaps of things left on the todo list before the DTS and CDTS students arrive on Tuesday, but today is the day to put everything aside and stop.

God talks a lot about rest.  He makes it a mandatory thing, He doesn't just give us the opportunity for rest.  

Psalms 23 says "He makes me lay down in green pastures." That whole "MAKES" word isn't just a request kindly asking us to do what we are told. It's a full force word. You don't slow down, He will make you slow down.

I was reading Matthew 11:28-30 this morning where it says, " Come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

So, today, with lists of things to do and not enough time to do everything, I am resting. Resting in the promises of God's tomorrow. Resting in the fact that this is my day to rest. Resting in the arms of my Papa. Resting to restore my soul. Resting because that's what I need to do. 

And it is so good!

Prayer update-

Pray for these people and the staff!

Pray for deep revelation and growth

Pray for unity

Pray for finances

The Lecture fees are $1750

The Outreach fees will be $3200-$3500

If you feel God is leading you to support me financially, you can donate online at this link… DONATE

Make sure to make a note that it is for Jodi Noordmans FALL BOLD school.

Or

you can send checks payable to YWAM Chico with a note saying it’s for my BOLD School Support.  (note: please do not write my name directly on the check) 

You can also just send me really fun mail to this address! :)

Send mail to:

Jodi Noordmans

BOLD AUG 2016

YWAM Chico 

15850 Richardson Springs Road

Chico, CA 95973

Thank you!

Jodi

YWAM round 2

Hey everyone!

New and exciting adventures are on the horizon! 

I am headed back to Chico California. I believe that God has a whole lot more for me to learn and experience there. I will be involved in a school called BOLD. It is the Basics Of Leadership Development school.  I’m excited to see God use my leadership skills and develop me deeper in his design for my personal leadership.

I believe that God is working in me to pull all the piece of my life together. I have a lot of different random pieces from my life, that up to this point have felt like this thing and that thing, Never fitting together or really being helpful from one area to the next. I believe that God is about to change that and bring everything together.

The school will run from Mid August through Mid February. It is a two part school, the first section will be held at the YWAM Chico base and be a series of lectures and trainings.  The second will be an outreach putting into practice the tools we have learned during phase one.

Please join me in prayer for this school.

Pray for the students and staff

Pray for deep revelation and growth

Pray for unity

Pray for finances

The Lecture fees are $1750

The Outreach fees will be $3200-$3500

If you would like to support me financially, you can send checks payable to YWAM Chico with a note saying it’s for my BOLD School Support.  (note: please do not write my name directly on the check) You can also just send me really fun mail to this address! 

Send to:

Jodi Noordmans

BOLD AUG 2016

YWAM Chico

15850 Richardson Springs Road

Chico, CA 95973

OR you can donate online at this link… DONATE

Make sure to make a note that it is for Jodi Noordmans FALL BOLD school.

Thank you so much for your prayers and support in this season!

Blessings,

Jodi

The Light Shines Through

#wherethelightshinesthrough

As I sat there listening to the song “Where the light shines through” by Switchfoot, God gave me a view I had never expected…

There he was in my minds eye. A man. His head was bowed and his shoulders slumped, as if the weight of the entire world was sitting on him. As I watched this man, I saw him raise his arms and cry out. With the cry, the man lifted his hands as if in surrender and release of everything he was carrying.

It didn’t take a second. I saw the Holy Spirit jump like being released from a tight hold. The battle was epic, immediate and heavy. It was over almost as soon as it had begun. The damage left behind should have been more then crippling.

Yet…

I saw the man breath deeply and lift his arms. As he lifted his arm a strange mysterious light was shining out of him. In surprise he looked down at his body.  There was light shining out of him in several different places.  It was as if every area in his life that had been attacked by the evil lies was now shining with a strange, but declarative truth.

The battle had done it’s job and done it well.  The lies, the fears, the anger, the bitter pain, all of this gone as the Holy Spirit beamed truth, life, joy, faith, freedom out of this man.

No longer was he a slave to anything of this world, he knew beyond anything else that he had a freedom living inside him. 

His wounds is where the light shines though!

perfectly imperfect

I spend hours staring at my artwork. Flipping it over and over and over. I critic it with a critical eye and study every flaw and misplaced line.  I get frustrated and throw it on the floor.

Three or four days later I pick up that piece of paper and look with fresh eyes at the lines I had scribbled on the paper.

I take a step back and I stare at it with new perspective. The mistakes have not changed, it hasn’t improved over time.

But My HEART has.

For me, everything I start to draw or sketch starts in my heart. It starts with a idea placed inside me by the Holy Spirit. A vision that I cannot see with my eyes, but can feel inside my soul.  

 

As this idea works its way to my brain, things start to take shape and I start to put my own personal human twist into the vision.

I start to sketch things out and nothing seems quite perfect or quite right. Nothing ever seems quite like I wanted it to in my mind. By the time I’m done with the first sketch things are sometimes quite out of perspective of the “idea” I had.  Thus the throwing it all on the floor and walking away.

Little do I ever understand with God is doing inside me. The healing, the growing, the deepening, the searching, the surrender, the molding, the shaping, the strengthening.  Rarely do I recognize the deep knife surgery that is happening inside my soul as my fingers fly over the surface of the paper.

When I pick up that piece of paper a few days later and study it, it is not with my eyes that I see it, but with the heart that God was changing as I worked. It is a piece of who I am. A struggle of my soul, and Sharpening of my heart. 

It is my heart that beats in time to the Holy Spirit. It is me pouring out the love the Father has given me. It’s me seeing with the eyes the of my Father. It’s seeing the flaws and knowing their part in the whole picture. It’s surrendering the messed up parts of me to be seen through the eyes that make all things beautiful.

My artwork isn’t perfect or without flaw. It’s not meant to be. It’s meant to reflect with unfinished work of the Holy Spirit in my life. If I were perfect, my art would probably be perfect too. But there are days when all I can achieve is a beautiful disaster.  That’s ok. Jesus love’s the disaster. He loves the broken pieces. He loves us, His messed up, dirt covered, bloodied kneed, tear stained, giggling, crazy little children.

Thank you Jesus, for loving the imperfect messed up me.

Watching Time. tick-tock...

Time….hours, minutes, seconds, years, months, decades, moments, eras, age, period, young, old, midlife crisis, prime, birthdays, anniversary, goal, stages, grades, paycheck, job, season, series, ….we have so many different ways to describe time.

Time fly’s by, time stands still. Do we value time?

Do we expect life to happen to us in this life of time? Or do we happen to this time in our lives?

I was sitting here thinking about life. How we don’t have a clue how long we are going to live in this world. How long or short our lives are going to be.

We often look at the death of people under a certain age and say or think something like… “they where taken before their time.” Or “they never got a chance to live out their lives.”

Maybe our perspective is way off! I mean if you can live your full calling in this world by the age of 4, why wouldn’t you not want to go start your eternity with Christ?

I’ve watched the pain of passing life and often thought about the sadness it brings into peoples worlds. I think we misunderstand death. The focus is the idea and focus of the negative and hurt of separation. 

But inside the love of Jesus there is so much beauty on the other side of death.

To be dead to self, is to be alive in Jesus.  Do be dead to this world is to be alive in the arms of Christ.

There have been times when I wonder at the reason for a miscarried child or even the older generation that struggles to hold on even when they seem to be internally gone.  Like, did you fulfill your purpose in life before you entered the world? Or what is it that you still need to do on this earth before you can go home?

Time is what we want most, but what we use worst. –William Penn.

YOU- right now, what is the meaning of time in your life? Does it mark off the hours till your done with work? Does it even impact your brain at all? Do you think about the passing days? Do you wonder if you are created for more then the thing you are doing?

Do you ever get up in the morning and think, if this is my last day on earth, what do I want to leave behind?

Do you ever think that, and then think, I will start tomorrow…kid, what part of your LAST day on this earth did you miss?

Do you think you have a choice as to what you do with this life? Or do you see yourself as stuck in what you are doing?

Do you love what you do? Or do you struggle to make sense of the everyday mundane happenings?

If You Don’t Make The Time To Work On Creating The Life You Want,

You're eventually going to be forced to spend a lot of time dealing with a life you don't want. – Kevin Ngo

I feel like there’s a lot of questions in this whole thing, but seriously I would encourage you to think about it. Don’t just let this life live around you, live a life that is alive! You can!

You where never meant to just survive. You where created to thrive!