Skipping Rocks with Jesus
- Cameron Lofthouse
- Nov 3, 2024
- 7 min read
Updated: Feb 8, 2025
Oh, man! God is so good. The last two weeks have consisted of a lot of things. Throughout that time I got to be a part of a 12-hour prayer/worship run, I participated in program-wide technology fast, I had the opportunity to see a really good friend from home, see an English futbol match with the lads in my program (Wrexham v Charlton), and go to the Send Experience in St. Albans. It has been very busy, but also so good; and on top of all of this we had two incredible weeks of teaching.
In Week 5 we had Dan Baumann speak to us about friendship with God, and oh my, what a treat. If you ever have to chance to hear Dan’s story and testimony, it is well worth it. He is such an example of what it means to walk with God.
Dan’s teaching centred around the idea that “Everything we do with God is an overflow of our intimacy with God,” and he truly lives this out. When he was 16 years old he first experienced God while he was skipping rocks. God spoke to him saying, “Can I throw rocks with you?” At first, he didn’t think anything of it. Then he heard the question again, “Can I throw rocks with you?” Confused, he looked around; seeing no one he thought “Could it be God? Surely not, why would God want to do such a mundane activity.” Then again and again and again Dan heard, “Can I throw rocks with you?” Finally, Dan asked “God, I think you’re asking to throw rocks with me. But why? Why would you want to throw rocks with me? I mean, you’re concerned about the world and all its problems. You can't possibly care about throwing rocks with me.” Then he heard the voice again, and even clearer, “I want to throw rocks with you because you want to throw rocks. I just want to hang out with you and do whatever you are doing. I just want us to be together so that our friendship will grow. Dan again questioned, “That’s it?”, and Jesus responded, “That’s it.” This encounter would mark Dan’s life.
Dan teaches that Jesus is so madly in love with us. He is desperately desiring to spend time with you and with me. He loves us when we are doing spiritual things like reading our Bible and going to church, and he is just as in love with us when we are relaxing, playing a game, watching a movie, or throwing rocks. Jesus loves us without restraints or conditions. He is personally in love with each of us and just wants to be our friend and spend time with us, it is that simple. Jesus is more into you than you could ever be into Him. It is Jesus continually going, “Get more of my love.” The love of God is a never-ending story, where God loves us again and again, and then we get to heaven and we get to do it again and again.
We will not always get it right. The Christian life is not about getting it right, but about who we are trusting. Our calling is not to get it right, it is just to love Him and be with Him. To stare at Him staring back at us, and as we stare at Him we can trust to guide us and lead us. We will not always be able to perfectly follow Jesus and always walk 100% in His perfect will. Dan would argue if we are 51%-99% sure, that’s enough. Figuring out what’s next does not matter, because God’s got it. We desire to feel confident, but what God wants is for us to trust Him. We need to come to a place where we believe that God wants better things for us than we want for ourselves. He is a loving God who wants to give His children good things! And, even if things do not go the way we necessarily want, it is just another opportunity to look back at God, an invitation to run to Him. God wants to be a part of our everyday life, where He gets to encounter us, and He wants to take us on a journey. He will get us where we need to go because He is more committed to us than we are to Him. God is just that good. In the words of Dan, “I got older and I discovered God was really good. Then I realized that was not true, because God was really, really, really good. God wants to add another really. Even when you have moments in life where you do not want to trust, you need to choose to trust Him. They are invitations to worship Jesus.“
This teaching changed me. I have struggled with living a legalistic life for so long, and that is not what God has wanted for me. It was never about following a set of rules. It was only ever about being loved by Jesus and loving Him back. As Jesus says, when asked about the greatest commandment in Matthew 22:36, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” The greatest calling on our lives is to love God with everything, and He loves us far more than we could ever love Him. Even when we fail and fall short, He is quick to forgive and continue inviting us to walk with Him. It is to stare back at Him lovely staring at us.
Week 5 beautifully led into week 6, with David Gava who taught on the fear of the Lord. Much of his teaching was also centred around intimacy and obedience. “The purpose of the Fear of the Lord is to bring us into intimacy. Jesus died for you so that we may have the same relationship He had with the Father.” Everything we do should come out of the place. It is when we understand this and walk in it, that we enter authority. This all comes about through the process of discipleship. It took God 1 day to take Israel out of Egypt, but 40 years to take Egypt out of Israel. They had to learn to first walk with God, and worship the creator, not the creation. They had to come to a place of repentance where they learned to have a teachable spirit as they spent time with God. It took the disciples 3 years to come into authority, as they walked, learned, and spent time with Jesus. Then when they were ready the Holy Spirit came, empowering them, to not only walk in the gifts of the Spirit but in the fear of the Lord, which brought authority. As Christians, we must divorce anything in our lives that prevents us from walking in intimacy with God. The fear of the Lord is an invitation to holiness. We must go deeper, we must continually say yes to Him. We all can encounter God, but it is up to us just how much.
This stems from a place of obedience. We often have a split second to obey God, but we often take too much time and talk ourselves out of walking in obedience. We need to stop trying to test God and just step out and obey. We must let go of fear and our control. God is waiting for us to take the first step of obedience. It is not about what we are going to do for Him, but what He wants to do for us. He just wants to give us a revelation of who He is. He wants to bring us into a place of loving Him and honouring Him. We need to come to a place where we are more concerned about His will, over our will, being done. We need to posture our hearts and attitudes towards Him and His character, which goes back to intimacy. The more we know God, the more we know His character, and the more we know His character the easier it becomes to obey, even amid fear. As we behold God and who He is, fear loses its power because we realize that God is so much greater. A.W. Tozer says, “The character of God is the Christian's final ground of assurance and the solution of many, if not most, of his practical religious problems. Some persons, for instance, believe that God answered prayer in Bible times but will not do so today, and others hold that the miracles of olden days can never be repeated. To believe so is to deny or at least to ignore almost everything God has revealed about Himself. We must remember that God always acts like Himself. He has never at any time anywhere in the vast universe acted otherwise than in character with His infinite perfections. This knowledge should be a warning to the enemies of God, and it cannot but be an immense consolation to His friends.”
To walk in this level of obedience and authority starts with intimacy, and through intimacy, we come to understand our identity in Christ. David says, “Your calling is always connected to your destiny. Your identity releases you into authority, and your authority releases your inheritance. If the enemy can knock out your identity, he can knock out your authority.” We must understand that we're given our identity from God, as we are His unique masterpieces. He created us in His image, with dominion and authority over the earth. We must never compromise this identity. Satan will try and take this knowledge and understanding away, which is why a lot of our warfare is in our souls. We must then fight for our intimacy with God, as it is the very place we come to understand our identity and calling. We must stop compromising and allowing other things to get in the way of our intimacy with God because as we do we continually open a door to the enemy. Just because something is good, it does not necessarily mean it is God. We must remove everything that stands in the way of God, whether it is our pride, entitlement, or idols. The question we must ask is, is God worth it? Following God, walking with Him, and walking in the fear of the Lord will cost everything. Will we hold onto our pride, entitlement, or idols and remain in bondage, or will we walk in full obedience and exchange them for the fullness of intimacy with God?
Thank you again for following along. This week my outreach team will be in Derby working with the homeless, church ministries, cafe ministries, and doing evangelism. Pray for us as we engage with the community that we may be filled with the Holy Spirit, and obey God as He leads.
Grace and Peace,
Cam
If you have any interest in hearing Dan’s story, all 4 sessions will be posted here in the next 2 weeks:
and/or you can listen to him speak at our Thursday night gathering from 2 weeks ago
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