GYC SE 2014: The Daily Battle

Dating Isn't For Cowards

Alan Parker

GYC Southeast

Dating Isn’t For Cowards- Part 1

All right, I think we're ready to officially begin.

Father God, we thank you for being with us as we go into the seminar.

We ask for your Holy Spirit to be present.

We pray, Lord, that you will give us guidance as to how to effectively use your word and use the guidance we've been given in the spirit of prophecy in order to be able to shape our understanding of how we should engage in bringing 2 lives together.

We pray now that you will also be with the other presentations and help us to surrender our lives to you for we ask it in Jesus name, amen.

So the title as I mentioned is dating isn't for cowards.

So I'm going to just pretend that you and your potential or your current partner are sitting on a plane together And you're about to go off on the wonderful trip of marriage.

And so you're all excited, you're giggling, and you're sitting next to each other and getting warmed up, and you're just so excited about what's going to take place here.

And then The air hostess comes along and she says, I just need to alert you to something before you get too far into this journey.

And you're like, well, what is it, what is it?

And she says, well, you know, we have pretty bad accident statistics here.

In fact, just getting up to where we get above the clouds, there's like a 95% chance that the plane will crash.

But once you get above the clouds, it's a whole lot better.

It's only between 30 to 50 percent of the planes crash at that point.

Now how many of you are interested in going on this plane flight?

And yet every day people decide to make this decision.

Because the shocking statistics suggest this.

According to 1 study in England, the average woman will kiss 15 men before settling down and getting married.

I mean, this is the average, so again, you know, this is not a Christian perspective, but you know, that's what most people out there are going to face.

41% of first marriages end in divorce, 60% of second marriages, and 73% of third marriages.

I mean, your chance of not making it is pretty high.

So why would you even consider getting married?

Why would you even consider getting married?

Alright, why would you consider getting married?

In spite of the statistics, marriage is still biblical.

And you always figure out, I won't be 1 of the statistics.

And hopefully by the time we're done with this seminar, you'll be far better along with not being 1 of those statistics.

I do believe, however, that there is a problem with today's dating strategy.

You know, it's kind of, let's get in there, have a quick meet and greet, and then if we're lucky, we get to see each other again.

And things go fast pretty rapidly from there.

So what goes on in a traditional dating scenario?

Well the first thing that happens is the hormones kick in.

You come along, and suddenly you experience the tingles.

I just met someone, and I just felt this incredible sensation and feeling.

You can get the tingles for people who are absolutely wrong for you.

I mean, I remember getting the tingles for this girl who had come for a wedding.

And this girl had come, she was 1 of my friend's friends, red hair, beautiful smile.

And we were walking along the beach, and somehow her shoulder brushed against mine.

And she smiles back at me, and she doesn't seem to mind.

And so I'm there next to her, and she was pretty aggressive.

And I'm like, and then it happened again.

So we spend the day, we barely talk to each other, we just go along in this mist of hormones, wandering down the beach.

And then when we finally, that evening, we're kind of sitting there, everyone else is talking about us, because they've seen us walking hand in hand.

And finally, when we get a little further on, I go, by the way, what denomination are you?

And I said, yeah, Pentecostals are great.

And I said, but tell me more about your life.

And she was like totally emotional, and I have a much more logical strain to me.

And as we talked more and more, I was like, we have nothing in common.

And she's like, well, what was that that we've experienced back there?

You know, the tingles don't always make sense.

This couple, they work with a lot of premarital couples.

Natural chemicals such as dopamine, endorphins, serotonin, oxytocin, what's called the love hormone, can cause the same reaction as an illicit what?

Dating and engaged couples often find themselves in a chemically induced condition.

And so they have the uncanny ability to focus on their partner's positive strengths and traits while rarely noticing the reality of their partner's weaknesses.

It's like the couple we had come over to our house once.

Overcoming Escapism: The Life and Death Battle For Your Mind

Nicole Parker

Overcoming Escapism- Part 1

Father in heaven, thank you so much that we can come together and study your word and understand more of its applications to our lives We pray for your Holy Spirit to come now Lord and to speak to each 1 of our hearts cleanse us of sin Open us to your leading and help us to understand more of what we need so that we can be closer to you and more ready for your coming.

Today I'm talking about overcoming escapism.

And my husband and I have an unofficial bet going as to whether I can actually make it through all of these slides or not because he insists that I've never made it through this many slides in this short a time before.

Yeah, except I don't have a cable and I don't have any way to show my slides.

I have other gifts, this isn't 1 of them.

Right, so we're talking about overcoming escapism, and I have a lot of information to share, so I may run a little fast.

Talking about escapism, there are so many different aspects of escapism.

Alcohol, drugs, you know all those things, but I'm not really focusing on those things today.

I'm talking more about the things that good Christians may think it's okay to escape to, mostly.

Because it's a struggle for every single 1 of us.

I remember a friend that I worked with, we were Bible workers together, and he struggled sometimes with movies.

He would just be like, I really just want to watch a movie, Nicole.

And he would walk out and then come back 10 minutes later.

But then later on in life, as he started drifting away from the Lord, there were other things that he was escaping to.

And he said, well, for a while he was escaping to homosexuality.

Then when I talked to him later, I said, how are you doing?

He said, that's actually not a battle for me anymore.

Now what I'm dealing with is just alcohol if only I could stop drinking like this And then there were other times that he would be dealing with drugs and other times that he would be struggling with smoking Just so many different things the thing with His problem was he wasn't just addicted to many different things.

He was really addicted to 1 thing, and that's escape.

He wanted to escape from his pain, escape from having to think deeply about his life.

So when he was escaping, what he was really escaping from, was God.

Allowing God to be the center of his life and his identity and his worship.

Escapism is a problem and it's a very scary problem because It's about worship.

You know, you can tell where a person's heart is by how they use their spare time.

And that's a frightening thing to think about with the way that many of us use our spare time these days.

So I'm going to talk a lot today about socially acceptable methods of escape and how those principles apply to all escapism.

I'm sure the Lord will help you to understand.

First, it's probably useful for us to define what escapism is.

I looked up online for dictionary definitions of it and found a couple of them I thought were very useful.

1 is the tendency to seek distraction and relief from unpleasant realities, especially by seeking entertainment or engaging in fantasy.

The avoidance of reality by absorption of the mind and entertainment or in an imaginative situation, activity, etc.

So you can see that's a pretty broad category, right?

It can be video gaming, movies, music, food, sex, whatever.

There are all kinds of things that people can escape to instead of escaping to God.

Some of them that are very common are like food addictions and that can be anorexia, sometimes a control addiction combined with food, or it can be more of a bulimia, I just give in and tumble, go ahead and gorge myself, and then either feel terrible and get fatter, or maybe purge and set up a dangerous cycle of teaching my body to throw up.

There's pornography or sex or lust, music, shopping.

Shopping is such a socially acceptable 1 that people will just advertise.

It's like it's a common theme that people think isn't even serious, but it can be serious I've known people who are so compulsive about their shopping that they're running up bills thousands and thousands of dollars and their spouse can't even put food on the table for their children.

And then it's finding stashes of expensive shoes and clothes and things that this person is buying because they are compulsively trying to escape and feel better about themselves through their shopping addiction.

We also have movies, social networking, popularity, compulsive behaviors, romantic relationships, substance abuse.

I'm sure some of you can relate to some of these, and all of you know people who have these issues.

These are some of the things that I figure are the most likely to be issues on our campus, but there's by no means an exhaustive list here.

Some research shows individuals have been shown to watch TV when they have a lower need for cognition, or in other words, to prevent them from thinking.

Escapism is the opposite of mindfulness, Wanting to get away from it all.

And that's such a common phrase these days.

You'd think that we in Western culture who have enough food and safe shelters to live in, and for the majority of things, we have everything we need and most of what we want, you'd think we wouldn't be the ones so desperate to escape.

It would be people in other countries who are refugees, who are desperate, who are dealing with grief as their friends and families are killed or missing.

But we in America have a massive problem with escapism.

Because there's a part of us that when we hear that, we're like, but we do need to get away sometimes, don't we?

No, and we'll talk about that a little bit later.

But it is dangerous in the way that we are living nowadays.

But escape in our culture is considered normal and even necessary.

I've had so many times people tell me when I'm like, you know, we need to get something done.

I just want to kick back and go not do anything, I don't want to accomplish anything, I want to go have fun.

And then their way to have fun and escape is some form of entertainment typically.

And whatever that Entertainment is, it's a substitute for what God wants to give us, which is recreation.

He does want us to find a healthy way to rejuvenate ourselves, but escapism is not it.

Now, for example, when I was a teenager, before I had given my life to Christ, I remember I was addicted to movies.

Now we lived in the middle of nowhere, which was a fantastic thing in so many ways.

My sisters and I were out in the woods a lot and working in the garden.

But we didn't have a television, but we did have eventually the opportunity to watch movies.

And my mom would let us pick out a movie at Blockbuster or something.

We'd pick out something to watch and bring it home.

I liked to let my sister go and blockbuster with my mom and get her to pick something, because she was better at persuading mom to get something really fun.

My sister's over here, so I can talk about her behind her back.

And you know what we would say as our prime way to persuade my mom to let us watch a movie?

You guys are familiar with this feeling, right?

Partnering With God

John Chung

Partnering With God- Part 1

Dearly Father, thank you so much for this opportunity to study your word.

I pray that you, your Holy Spirit, will be here with us and Open our hearts and minds to receive your word in Jesus' name.

It was last Christmas day, December 25, 2013.

We went to, Our family and I decided to go to Northern California for vacation.

And so, our plane landed in San Francisco at 11 o'clock.

And we had a lunch engagement at 1 o'clock.

So, you know, 2 hours, renting a car, and going there.

And that rental car was actually about 5 miles from the airport, called Payless.

When I got there, it was almost 12 o'clock.

And it was, people were actually coming out of the, coming, I mean the line was so long for the rental car.

People were actually, the line was outside the rental car center.

You know how long it takes to rent a car, per 1?

And when I looked inside, there was only 1 person who was trying to do all the transaction.

And funny thing was, when I saw the parking lot, there were no cars.

And talking to this, the man at the counter, very, very upset.

Said, I had my reservation, where is the car?

And this man said, sir, I told you we ran out of cars.

We're trying to get cars from other airports, San Jose and Oakland.

And it may take an hour, maybe it may take 2 hours.

And so we called the person that we're going to go eat with and said, I don't think we're going to make it by 1.

We may be much longer wait than you want to.

I'm just sitting there, standing there, very frustrated.

So we're trying to look for other rental car places, but they all rent out a car too.

What I found out later on was that December 25 is its busiest day to rent a car.

I thought they would be quiet, but actually December 25th.

If you're to rent a car, do not rent a car on December 25th, okay?

He had flown from Korea, landed in San Francisco.

1 was a daughter, the other was a son, and they were going to UC Berkeley.

And He was yelling at him and said, I have to go, I've been waiting here for 2 hours, I have my reservation.

And then, the next person goes, he said, I'm from Norway.

We've been waiting, I mean, 1 by 1, they're just beating this guy up with their words.

And I was not very happy, But I, it was my turn.

So I went, I went to him and it was my turn to say some angry words.

And at that time, Holy Spirit spoke to me.

He said, you need to have a better attitude.

And so, all these people are just talking and they're all upset in this room.

I said, you're having a pretty bad day, aren't you?

Would you rather be here or with your family?

I mean, this is a Christmas day after all.

So there's nothing you can do about this, right?

You're just working here, and you're doing the best that you can.

Dear Heavenly Father, please be with this man.

And I asked that you give him peace, and also help this problem to be resolved, so everybody can get a car.

As I looked at him afterwards, and he was just beaming, I saw peace on his face.

And that room, right after prayer, became absolutely silent.

Anil Kanda

The Representative of the General

God is doing some wonderful things, right?

Because it's a time for us to be able to dress up and to show our best to each other.

The time of church is a special time where God's people come together to worship the Lord in majesty and sincerity, to bring before God our hearts and to give Him our love.

The time of worship is a very special time And it's encompassed in the Sabbath.

The Sabbath is a wonderful time where God pours out his blessings in such special ways.

You know, Saturday morning, when you wake up, you wake up with just this immediate feeling that it's the Sabbath day.

It's a very warm feeling, and it hits you and it just reminds you that this day is special to God.

The Sabbath shows us that God values time.

He values relationships over materialism.

The Sabbath is a special time where God wants to bless us in tremendous ways.

Why don't we begin with the word of prayer and let's ask Jesus to bless us with his Holy Spirit.

Father in heaven, right now we just want to take a moment of silence to pray.

God, we've been told that this is also a special day of praying and fasting for those who are part of this Ebola crisis.

We thank you Lord that you've laid this burden upon our general conference leaders.

So right now we just want to pause in this moment to pray for those that are affected by this Ebola crisis.

And Father we just thank you so much for hearing our prayer.

Right now we ask for the present blessing in Jesus' name.

We're going to be talking about some interesting things.

Yesterday we talked about talents, right?

We talked about committing your talents to God.

We talked about using your talents for God and asking God to multiply your talents as He continues to give you more and more opportunity.

Back to Menu

All Teachings

Dating Isn’t For Cowards- Part 1

41m

Overcoming Escapism- Part 1

47m

Partnering With God- Part 1

48m

The Representative of the General

58m

The Heavenly Battleship

1h

Adam’s College Life

52m

Lion-like Faces

41m

5- Safe and Secure, or Not so Sure?

53m

4- What will it Take?

1h

3- Wretched, Miserable, Victorious

1h

2- The Savior’s Solution

54m

1- The Laodicean Dilemma

1h

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