Marnie> Hi! Welcome to 10 Steps to Fulfilling Your Divine Destiny
[kumara1] im interested int the topic because i want to be closer to God
Marnie> That's good. :) You've come to the right place then :)
Marnie> Rosa, how about you? What do you hope to gain from tonight's class?
Marnie> Let me introduce myself... I'm Marnie Pehrson, the author of 10 Steps to Fulfilling Your Divine Destiny and founder of SheLovesGod.com.
[MRosa] Hi Marnie, Millie here
Marnie> Hi Millie!
[kumara1] hi im Kahu
[MRosa] I can't wait to read your book
[MRosa] Hi Kahu
Marnie> Thanks... A little bit about how the book came to be...
Marnie> Through two of my dear friends and helping them in their walk with Christ, I discovered these 10 steps. One friend is a "perfect model" of the first 3 steps and my 2nd friend is the "perfect model" for the next 4 and by helping them, I was able to go thru the last 3. :)
Marnie> Since then, I've talked to other people and seen that they too have worked their way thru these 10 steps. Once you start to see how God works in people's lives, you'll see how anyone who truly comes unto Christ, goes through these 10 steps and in the process discovers their divine destiny.
[kumara1] wow
[MRosa] Marnie, I have been searching for His plan for me but can't seem to get the answer
[MRosa] I need to understand the steps.
Marnie> Well, let's review the steps and then maybe you'll find the piece your missing? :)
[MRosa] Thanks
Marnie> I like to have people draw this out to visualize it... can you grab a piece of paper and a pen?
[kumara1] yep
[MRosa] okay
Marnie> Welcome cmona. This is Marnie Pehrson, your instructor for 10 Steps to Fulfilling Your Divine Destiny.
[cmona1] Thanks.
Marnie> Grab a piece of paper... and turn it sideways (landscape). Then draw 10 steps starting in the lower left corner and working up to the upper right-hand corner.
[cmona1] Done!
Marnie> Good...Now, under the first step, put a 1 and write the word DESIRE
[cmona1] ok
Marnie> Each of you have just expressed a DESIRE to grow closer to the Lord and to learn and live your divine destiny. That's a key ingredient. Nobody can give you a desire... that's got to come from within. And as you go through these steps, your desire to live "God's will" will just continue to grow... but it all starts with a spark of desire.
Marnie> Now, under step 2, put a 2 and write the word ASK
Marnie> We are told in the New Testament over 2 dozen times to "Ask and ye shall receive, knock and it shall be opened" or some other wording of that that tells us to ASK for what we want. The old saying "necessity is the mother of intervention" could be rephrased, "questions are the mother of inspiration." If we never seek, we'll never find. If we never knock, it won't be opened. God won't force Himself upon us. He'll gently lead us, prompt us and guide us, but he wants us to get to the point where we will ASK for His help.
[cmona1] God is a gentleman, in other words....
Marnie> Exactly
Marnie> He gives us our free will. It's amazing, but the same God who gave us our free will to choose, lets us use it to "not" choose him.
Marnie> Step 3: Learn -- Jesus said, "Learn of Me"
Marnie> How important do you think reading the Word is?
[cmona1] How can we know God's heart if we don't?
[MRosa] ditto
Marnie> Exactly! If you wanted to get to know a friend, neighbor or relative, you'd of course want to know their thoughts on things. The scriptures are God's instruction manual. :)
Marnie> So if we want to get to know Him, we have to learn about him. John 5:39 says, "Search the scriptures for in them ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."
Marnie> So we learn from this that we need to "search" the scriptures.. that's much different than scanning or simply reading. It involves studying, pondering, cross referencing, making notes, applying a passage to our own life. We may wear different clothes and have more modern technology, but human nature is the same yesterday and today. We can still apply ancient scripture to modern-day problems. It takes some thinking, but we can.
Marnie> A good way to study the scriptures that I've found is to keep a scripture journal, or simply make notes in our own words about what we've read. Have any of y'all read the article I did a few weeks back on 'Move Over Nostradamus, Make Room for Isaiah?"
[cmona1] No, is it online somewhere?
Marnie> Yes, you'll see it listed at http://www.shelovesgod.com/study.cfm
[kumara1] yes
Marnie> The content of the article is not so important for this discussion, but it is an illustration of how writing down what we've read gives us our own "personal revelation" My dad showed me that verse in Isaiah about when the towers fall... so I looked it up and decided to read the whole chapter. The first time I read the surrounding verses, they made no sense at all to me.
Marnie> Then I read them a couple more times. Then one Sunday night I sat down with my Bible open in front of my computer and started verse-by-verse putting what Isaiah was saying down in my own words. When I got done, it was amazing and the parallels to our day were amazing. But not until I sat down with my scriptures and my keyboard and started to write, did I understand and get the answers I was seeking. This is an illustration of what I'm talking about under the LEARN step. We can also learn from other people, from inspirational speakers, books, etc.
[Bettybee] what chapter of Isaiah?
Marnie> Remember Jesus said the scriptures "testify of me"... so things that lead us to Jesus Christ come from God...
Marnie> Isaiah 30:25
Marnie> Ok, Step 4: FAITH
Marnie> And not just any old faith, but FAITH in Jesus Christ Faith is something that grows throughout a lifetime. And you certainly don't have to have perfect faith to start fulfilling your divine destiny. If you wanted to be a body builder, would you start out trying to lift 500 pounds?
[cmona1] Only once. :)
[MRosa] I believe my faith is very strong
Marnie> :) Right. Of course not, you'd work small and work your way up to heavier weights.
Marnie> That's great!
[cmona1] Like a mustard seed?
Marnie> Right... that mustard seed starts small and grows into a huge tree that birds lodge in and people can sit under. Notice that mustard seed eventually becomes something that is great and is used to serve others! That's a clue about your divine destiny!
[cmona1] Nice parallel!
Marnie> Let me give a quick analogy of how faith grows...
Marnie> I used to teach computer classes from my home. People would come in and I'd teach them about 8-10 hours on a software package. Then I'd give them an evaluation project to work on their own (a test). I quickly learned that if I stayed in the room with people, they'd ask me a bunch of questions and I'd get pulled into helping them too much -- defeating the purpose of the evaluation. So I told them I'd leave the room and let them work on it. I'd be in the kitchen doing dishes or something and they could yell for me if they really needed me, but to try to work through the project the best they could on their own. By the end of this 2-hour period, the person had a confidence that they didn't have before that they could go out and use the software on the job.
Marnie> They knew what they knew.
Marnie> Have you ever felt that God wanted you to do something and then you did it, but afterwards you felt like you were out there hanging on a limb by yourself. You may have thought, Ok God, I did what you wanted me to, now why do I feel so alone?
Marnie> Anybody experience anything like that?
[cmona1] I have the tshirt to prove it. :)
[kumara1] yes
[Bettybee] sometimes I know in my heart that I'm doing what I should but, I feel like I'm doing it in vain!
[kumara1] seems too often
[MRosa] I kind of feel the opposite. I believe I was doing what I was supposed to be doing, but everything went wrong and then I realize I probably wasn;t doing what God wanted me to be doing
[Bettybee] I mean I don't see fruit from it-just more to pray about.
[cmona1] Or, you do what you know God wants you to do and you get these looks from people
[cmona1] that say...HUH???
[MRosa] and in both cases there were and are moments of feeling "alone"
Marnie> Right...recognize those feelings and instances for what they are ... EVALUATION points.
[Bettybee] Yes, you feel like you're the only one who feels the way you do
[cmona1] What, evaluation of how strong our faith really is?
Marnie> Normally these come after great spiritual experiences. It's like we're taught a lesson and then God leaves us "alone" (not really) to see what we'll do with it. And it's not really that God doesn't know what you're made of. It is YOU who needs to learn what you're made of. And just how strong your faith really is.
[MRosa] that's exactly what has happened to me and how I feel
[cmona1] Doesn't it also have to do with obedience?
Marnie> When you get past it, hopefully your confidence will have grown, because although you may feel you didn't perform so well under the strain, when you turn to God and say, "I give up, I can't do this on my own" then He always answers and your faith grows.
Marnie> Yes obedience is a big part of what we're all learning.
Marnie> Ok, Step 5: Repent or what I call "Lay Down Your Yoke"
Marnie> You know that verse "Come unto me, take my yoke upon you for my yoke is easy and my burden is light?"
Marnie> Yet when you become a Christian, don't you sometimes feel like there are a lot of should's and shoudn'ts and sometimes you just end up feeling guilty?
[cmona1] AMEN!
Marnie> How does His yoke being easy and light equate with the way we really feel?
Marnie> Doesn't seem to jive, does it?
[MRosa] not really
[cmona1] But thank goodness you can grow out of the "shoulds" and go on to the living and being human part
Marnie> The thing is, when Jesus said to take his yoke upon us, he didn't mean for us to keep our own yoke and tack his on on top. And that's what most of us try to do! He meant for us to lay down our yoke first. Anybody know what a yoke is?
[Bettybee] sin, burdens
[MRosa] problesm?
[cmona1] Something they put on oxen to be able to guide them
Marnie> Can be... I did some research into yokes. A yoke is something that animals or people use to carry burdens. A well-fitted yoke can help a person or an animal carry huge burdens that they couldn't normally carry on their own. A yoke that is ill-fitted will knock the wearer off balance, cause chafing and soreness and not serve the wearer in carrying the burden.
Marnie> A properly fitted yoke is "easy" or "kindly" and doesn't chafe the wearer, doesn't knock them off balance, and helps lighten the load.
Marnie> When we choose to follow Christ, our problems don't disappear, we still have burdens. It's just we have better tools for dealing with them. Think of your yoke ... as the way you deal with problems.
Marnie> Some people deal with the challenges of life by numbing themselves with alcohol or drugs. others escape into their work. Others sit in front of the TV for hours on end.
[cmona1] or the computer...:)
Marnie> EXACTLY! OUCH! :) But these are all our own ill-fitted yokes that knock us off balance. What we need to do is lay down our yoke... repent of our bad habits and take up Christ's way of dealing with life's problems. This is why Christ said we can't serve two masters -- we'll either hate the one and love the other... We can't keep our old yoke AND add Christ's and expect to feel balanced or in His Will. The bulk of my book talks about this process of laying down our yokes... too much to cover here.
Marnie> Step 6: COMMIT, Taking Up Christ's Yoke
Marnie> Committing often involves taking a step into the darkness... to discover that the way ahead is lighted for a footstep or two... and then another and another.
[cmona1] Overcoming fear.
Marnie> I believe Step 6, Commitment is where people get stuck most frequently... and that's why Jesus said that that path was "straight and narrow and few there be that enter therein"
Marnie> Yes... fear is the root of your "yoke-fastened" burdens.
Marnie> After you truly commit, you get to step 7: A MIGHTY CHANGE OF HEART.
Marnie> This is something that Christ's does for us... HE changes our hearts. We don't muster the willpower to do it. He makes us have no more desire to do evil, but to do good continually.
Marnie> STEP 8: Pure Love of Christ
Marnie> The evidence of this mighty change of heart or "conversion" to Jesus Christ is an increase in love for others. We want to serve others and help them. We treat each other better. An important passage on this you can read on your own is the parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25:31-45
Marnie> STEP 9: Catching a Vision of your Divine Destiny
Marnie> As you catch this vision, it will be something natural and flowing. You feel self-propelled from within. You know what you were born to do and you WANT to do this. It’s when you finally find out who you are and what you have to give the world and you can’t wait to do it. It flows out of you… not to say you won’t face opposition or even a learning curve, but it’s something that you enjoy and want to do and it flows naturally from your past experience and talents. This is a joyful happy experience. It’s sort of like a bird that’s been caged its whole life being set free and realizing that it was born to fly and it’s exhilirated and joyful about finally being able to fill the measure of its creation.

Hint: Your divine destiny involves using your talents, abilities and life experiences to selflessly serve others.
Marnie> STEP 10: Remember. Remember the mire God pulled you out of. Methods for remembering include reading your scriptures, praying, listening to uplifting music, keeping a prayer journal, scripture journal, etc. People are prone to forget, so we must do everything within our power to see that we don't.
Marnie> That's it... your 10 steps for fulfilling your divine destiny. :)
[cmona1] Thank you so much!
Marnie> Thank you! Any quick questions before I turn the room over to Debbie for Conquering Household Clutter?
[LisaPa] Thanks!
[LisaPa] Where can we get your book?
Marnie> http://www.shelovesgod.com/book/
[kumara1] God Bless that was awesome
Marnie> You're welcome to email me at webmaster@shelovesgod.com with any particular questions you may have.
Marnie> Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it. Ok Debbie, the table's yours. :)
[MRosa] thanks Marnie