Turbulent Passions

"When at any time the passions are turbulent, a gentle retreat inward unto a present God, easily deadens and pacfies them; and any other way of contending with them rather irritates than appeases them."
    -Madame Guyon  (A Short and Easy Method of Prayer, Chapter 11)

Peace is one of the hardest things to gain and it can be one of the easiest things to lose.  It's so hard to stay in a place of constant peace, a place where the mind is still, the soul is settled and the spirit rules.

There is a clarity one has when they can live in a place of peace, there is an ease to connecting with God and hearing his voice, why is it that we so quickly trade that for the chaos of our own solutions?

"Notice the way God does things; then fall into line. Don't fight the
ways of God, for who can straighten out what he has made crooked?"
-Ecclesiastes 7:13

I believe peace is a decision, we have to allow ourselves to be robbed of our peace.  The more your mind is in control, the more you are ruled by your fleshly desires, the more offensive the ways of God will be to you.  God's ways are not our ways, when we allow our peace to be taken from us it shows the reality of our heart.  That we don't believe God knows what He's doing, that He does not know what is best for us, that He doesn't have our best in mind. 

The sooner we can allow ourselves to slip back into a place of trust and release the control of our destiny and simply listen and obey, the sooner we can return to the green pastures and still waters the Lord desires to lead us to.

God knows the desires of our heart and he knows the pains of our struggles, surely the one who bore all of our iniquities to the cross can relate to our everyday struggles.

God knows our situations intimately and instead of fighting and struggling through the valley of the shadow of death, we should seek to have no fear and follow the Shepherd asking how we can agree with what He is doing instead of complaining like the Isrealites and condemning ourselves to wandering in the wilderness until we can walk in victory.

A New Blog

This message marks a change in my blog thus far.  Previous to this I had this blog to keep people updated on what I was doing in New Hampshire while I interned and was on staff with Streams Ministries.  Now the purpose of this blog is just for to put up what ever I please, maybe reflections, things God is speaking to me, things I think warrant thought, whatever!

Time will tell if I keep updating this so don't hold your breath!


-Dustin

I'm back?!

Yeah I know it's been a while, this really isn't going to be much of a post, I'm more writing this to let you know not to hold your breathe.

I've been so busy as of late on staff here at Streams Academy, there is always a lot going on and in my spare time, I like to relax, read and not think about what I have to think about all the time, so hence, I end up not writing much here.

But just so you know. God is in the heavens and he does as he wishes. (Psalm 115:3) It's not always what I would choose for myself, and sometimes it's almost scary because I start asking, hmmm, how come I need to know some of this stuff? What does he really have planned for me?

Well, the best things don't come easy and I don't intend to settle, so maybe I'm resigning myself to a life of difficulty, but I'd rather pay for it on the front-end personally.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to sound as if I'm complaining, I wouldn't trade what God has for me for anything, even though I don't know really what that is, I get glimpses every now and then. That for me is good enough, it's enough for me to know that He knows what He's doing. As long as that's still true, I'll be ok with it.

What I would appreciate in this season is your prayers, specifically for wisdom, I desire to get everything I can out of this season, I don't want anything to happen unnecessarily, I'd like the wisdom to see what God is doing so I can partner with that.

Thanks for reading, I still get people asking me when am I going to update this, I got to admit, the amount of people who've read this still surprises me, I never thought that many people besides my family would read this, but well, here you are! I can't promise many new updates anytime soon, but you never do know now do you?

What is new is I added links to testimonies from my intern year in Salem, that's 2006-2007, there are two MP3's you can download, look for those on the right!

Until later...

Animal Magnetism

So I've seen a lot of animals lately.

Pretty unremarkable maybe. But I'm going to share the tally with you anyways.

In the last month, I've seen:

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4 Deer


1 Fisher Cat


2 Skunk


1 Great Horned Owl


1 Porcupine


1,000,000 Wild Turkeys

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I gotta say, it's pretty exciting chasing skunks, running after porcupines, scaring wild turkeys and pursuing fisher cats. It kind of sounds like I may be turning into a dog or something though, I think maybe in the future I'll try to use more discretion in the animals I'm chasing...



Hmm... Well there really is a lot new, but not much that I want to type about right now. We are finishing up our Salem outreach today. We'll be leaving soon for Haunted Happenings, the final day, Halloween! It will be crazy busy, I'll try to update with some pictures after, we've just been so crazy busy that when I do have a moment I haven't felt like doing this!


I will however throw up a picture and a video from my adventure with Matt Stinton to Boston to see Of Montreal in concert. Yes it was weird, but it was also fun.


Picture: Matt and I on the train


Picture: Oh Look! A guy with wings...


Picture: Slumber Party!


Video: A Wee Short Clip

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Now playing: Luke Temple - Family Vacation

A few pictures to catch up on

As promised here are some extra pictures from last week/weekend...

Picture: Here's Elisa in Salem, MA by the Atlantic ocean taking a picture of herself.


Picture: Some of the interns at The Gathering Church


Picture: Here I am.


Picture: Here be Dan.


Picture: Noah(Massachusetts) eating some pizza(well, not in this picture, but...)


Picture: Here I am, with my Scottish mentor, being as Scottish as I can muster



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Now playing: Handsome Furs - Sing! Captain

Preparing for Salem

Last weekend we all packed up and headed out to Salem for training before Haunted Happenings this halloween.

It was a lot of fun and really good as well. As a special bonus treat for you all, we got all technological here and Tom (Los Angeles) recorded the session with Pastor Phil as he talked about what a pagan actually was, how to relate to them and everything in between. The recording isn't the best but hopefully when I have time to improve it I will post a new one. Until then, you can find this audio file here and on the right side of my blog where I'll post any other audio recordings that I make.

Check out Phil Wyman's blog at http://squarenomore.blogspot.com/

I'll throw up some pictures here later but I wanted to toss up this file for anyone who's interested. It's almost 2 hours long but it's gold!

The Whooping of Mt. Kearsearge

It's true, I took Mt. Kearsearge down. Well, I didn't do it alone. Most of the interns and staff came as well.

In fact, I took a group picture, minus myself because I took the picture of course.

Picture: The group, I'm too lazy to write all the names...

Mt. Kearsearge is a pretty big mountain in these areas but back home we know this kind of thing as a large hill. It was not a long hike maybe 20 minutes up and a 7 minute run down for me, but it's a ton of fun doing something that light and hanging out at the top. There is an amazing 360 degree view especially if you go up into the tower they have there.


Picture: If you really squint you can see Jess Mott up there

Thought I'd throw up a few pictures from the hike, other than that, it was a free weekend so we did a lot of relaxing and hanging out with each other. All in all, good clean fun!


Picture: Elisa and I in the windy tower!


Picture: Matthew M(California) climbing the tower


Picture: Sharon(South Carolina), Ali(Connecticut), Jessica H(Michigan) and Charles(Colorado) taking a breather at the top

But wait! That's not all! Just when you thought this blog post couldn't get any better I pull out amazing news like this. I know you all are dying to get into the excitement of my life so I thought I'd share with you one of the most exciting things that's happened to me tonight.

I finally got around to pulling out a big 'ole food dryer that was left here. So as I write this, unspeakably delightful delicacies are rapidly becoming devoid of all moisture while locking in the deliciously delectable flavours that will prove to be a potent prescription of palatable pleasure that I imagine to be hardly sustainable by myself.


Picture: Here I am testing an unfinished apple.


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Now playing: M. Ward - Sad, Sad Song

Update-O-Rama

All the interns arrived on Saturday, well, all save my sister Elisa that is. You can keep her in your prayers as she has been having difficulty with customs people getting her Visa but she'll be here soon enough!

Everyone has been getting adjusted, most are finished unpacking and setting up their rooms and we've even started our first classes! Scott Evelyn started teaching the ISD 101 class (The Art of Hearing God) Monday morning and has been doing that every morning thus far. "How come you aren't there?" you may be asking. Well let me tell you. Today is my morning off which has been amazing thus far. It's so nice to get a break and to be able to sleep in a little bit and to be able to find some time to update you all!

It's definitely different being in leadership this year as opposed to an intern last year. I haven't worked out exactly the nature of all the differences but it's definitely more tiring! I really am finding it an amazing exercise in being in tune with God all the time. I am constantly asking God what He's doing, what's going on, for insight, wisdom and everything in between! It's tiring but so rewarding and I've really noticed personal growth in my perceptions of things as I try to ask God to be always revealing His will in every situation that comes up.

I think I'm starting to have a glimpse of what Jesus meant when he said, "I only do what I see my Father doing.". I'm painfully aware of when I don't do what I'm supposed to, but I'm starting to see how I can make God a constant part of my day, how I can walk in his will all the time. There's a big difference between remembering to ask God what to do and then making an adjustment in your walk/day/attitude/decision than trying to be sensitive and aware to what God is doing constantly.

It's a shift that I cannot explain, I think it's kind of by revelation that we can learn to walk in it. All I know is that it's exciting, I see God move more and it can be tiring.

Scott Evelyn said during the 101 class this week that, "We cannot become more spiritual, but we can become less fleshly.", I feel like that kind of is a summary of what God and I are doing lately and it's been a lot of work to try and continually walk in the spirit, it's much easier to do things the way I think they should be done. It's a constant battle, during the day when I feel myself slipping into the way I think things should be done and into my own perceptions, I have to consistently ask God to align myself with His will and kingdom plans for myself and for everyone around me.

It's been good though and I would really appreciate your prayers for continued and greater discernment, wisdom and understanding.



Other than that, things are going pretty good, I still don't have any pictures really, I'll try to work on that, soon hopefully I'll get a picture with all the interns on it so you can picture them and pray for them as well!

I also have an address for all you people out there, I know you are all dying to send me care packages, well friends, fret no more because below is my mailing address!

Dustin Zupancic
88 Main St.
New London, NH
03257


Until later, bless you all a whole bunch!




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Now playing: Battles - Race In