April 2011
44 posts
God has been faithfully guiding me for the future. By his grace he has challenged my sin and brought me closer to him.
Thanks for people actively coming up to us at Inside Out and starting conversations about God and not even wanting free biscuits!
Thank God that I’ve been able to have good conversations with my housemate and the joy she had when she understood the cross and what Jesus did for us. She’s not quite there yet but I continue to pray that one day she will be in glory with me!
For the past couple of years I have had some health issues that also caused me to suffer from very bad fatigue where I was constantly physically and emotionally exhausted, sometimes so much that I didn’t even have the strength to get out of bed. At the beginning of events week I prayed God would give me the strength for everything I was involved with – he actually completely healed me of fatigue!!...
1: God reigns over all things! He is my strength. I can do nothing without him. I am nothing without him.
2: He has given me better direction
3: He has reminded me of the things that are really important
4: God strengthened my character
You opened my friends’ hearts and they asked questions and genuinely listened to my answers.
Thank you God for the people at this university. Life back home has taken a bit of a battering, lots of things going wrong, lots of pain, lots of hurt; yet through God and his amazing love this term has been awesome – and relatively pain-free considering. God is amazing! He protects those who are vulnerable and weak and he is always there for all.
Thanks for cu football and that community of guys. It’s such an easy thing to invite non-Christians to and it’s great to show Christians are normal people not just weird people in a church!
God smashed my worldview with a demolition ball. Then asked me to rebuild it with Jesus as the foundation stone.
This past term I have learnt what a real privilege it is that we can bring our requests to God in prayer.
Amazing work at hall group with a non-Christian coming regularly!
God has given me all I could ever want over this past term. He’s given me more courage than courage wolf could ever dream to inspire, in addition to several amazing friends and opportunities - but most of all (best of all) I have a relationship with Him again. My cup overflows. Thank you so much.
God gave me the courage to confront my problems and to talk to someone about them.
Thank you for making my sister well enough to leave hospital, please keep her safe so she can stay with us from now on.
We have a temporary housemate, a visiting scholar from Turkey. He had been attending a few Christian meetings before he had to move out of halls and moved into ours last Wednesday. There was another life course (a bit like Alpha) that very evening and at the end he decided it was real and gave his life to our Lord Jesus (first night moving in!). Pray that he would grow deep in his faith in Christ...
Jesus, Jesus, all for Jesus. Lord thank you for guiding us. Thanks for providing for us and for encouraging us. What a love. What a cost. What an incredible saviour. Worship the Lord. Praise his name. He alone is worthy
God our provider
1: Thank you for giving me such a welcoming church and for brilliant flatmates. You've helped me find my way at uni and it has been amazing thus far! I pray I can be faithful and your will be done!
2: Thank you God for being my provider and giving me everything I need when I need it – even when I don’t know I need it. I thank you most of all for your abounding peace, especially when I don’t deserve through my own mistakes and bad decisions, like this week. He is always good to me.
3: God has given me great friends in halls and on my course.
4: The forever call on my life continuing. God laying the path of my life before me, even if I can't see the next step until it's taken. But the journey to where God wants me to be is amazing!
Thank Jesus for my niece’s safe delivery after all the complications.
My coursemate and her boyfriend are attending Alpha following events week
“And although now “I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord...”
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I have been feeling quite far away from God, being attacked by those against Christ and reluctant to the Good News and I’ve been finding it difficult to be back in my hometown over Easter. However yesterday I went to see Rob Bell in London with my family and God really spoke to me about his...
God working in our lives
1: He has given me true joy and contentment.
2: I have realised how my identity really is found in who God says I am.
3: God - Jesus - you were there for me when I was broken
4: Giving me peace after having a serious knee injury
One thing I find difficult about testimonies is that we can be reluctant to give them until the situation is resolved and a happy ending reached. But life isn’t always like that; sometimes God doesn’t fly in and save the day. Sometimes there is no quick fix, instead the start of a slow and painful journey. My testimony is that of a God who, for reasons I am yet to understand, is...
Praise God for the 50+ bibles we have been able to give away last term!
He spoke to me - even through a centuries old, boring poem on a rainy day in the library when I didn’t know why I had to read all this. He has given me JOY and HOPE even when things were completely messed up! He is amazing and always there for those who trust in him!
Our God is a God who heals. One of our classmates was rushed to hospital with septicaemia a few weeks ago. The prognosis wasn’t good. We told him we would pray that God would heal him. A couple of days later he was released from hospital, healed! Wow! What an answer to prayer! Praise his name!
“We rejoice in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance:...”
– I was tired and struggling with what God had asked me to do. But then I read Romans 5:3-5.
Hope does not disappoint.
“Since Christmas I have felt really envigorated in Prayer and Praise!”
practicalities!
1: God resolved a really difficult housing situation with his abounding love!
2: God has given me strength throughout this term and supernaturally helped me manage my time
3: Thank you God for blessing me with a fantastic house to live in next year, and teaching me to be patient and trust in you throughout that whole process.
4: This term God has just always given me enough time to do all I need to do and more.
“What a joy to come as a visitor to this uni and see God so at work in my brothers and sisters in Christ here. Love you guys! Keep going!”
more answers to prayer!
“On Friday at Unite (2 April) a friend asked for prayer for his knee. He had been playing football and it was painful and swollen. So we prayed for it and he said afterwards that the pain, which had throbbing throughout Unite, was gone. I told him to check the swelling too later to see how it was.
Also, there was a guy who had problems with his stomach and nausea who had received prayer...
“My flatmate (who isn’t a christian) always gets really involved in TAT. She comes and makes toasties even when it’s not in our flat, she tells people to pray for each other and answers the questions! It’s amazing to see how God is working in her and shows His sense of humour!”
the gospel impacting our friends
1: "God has definitely be at work in my life this term. Me and 2 friends started a seeker Bible study – I would never have had the confidence to do that before uni – 2 days later someone had a word for me for going into leadership in Church! I have never considered myself a leader or ever confident but evidently God has!"
2: "I have been able to read the Bible with my non-Christian friend."
3: "Thank you for growing our seeker bible study from 3 to 9!"
4: "God has made my friendship with my housemate a lot better: lots more good conversations and good time spent together."
“God has helped me face some personal issues with self-esteem, confidence and how I view myself. He has completely changed that and started to heal me. He’s told me who I am in Him and has given me such grace and confidence to be myself and accept how He has made me.”
iCafe Cycle Trip
“Don’t we have a great God! At the end of term 71 of us went across to the Isle of Wight on the annual International Cafe cycle trip; the largest yet. 52 of the group were international students, most of whom borrowed bikes on loan from CU members.
God was good in so many ways. Despite relatively bad cycling (and falling off!) on fast roads, everyone was kept safe. We were able to borrow...
“Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit...”
– Micah 7:8
I was feeling really low after failing an exam. This verse was a massive encouragement, and with God’s grace and help I passed my resit and my recent exams and am loving my course again. God is awesome!
Seeker Bible studies
“I have had the opportunity of starting a Bible seekers’ discussion with five non-Christian girls. What an amazing, God-given, God-led and God-inspired opportunity. These girls are hearing the word of the living God directly from the source itself. May He bless it to their lives and change their hearts through it.” (Amen!!)
(P.S. We’re seeing more of these pop up across...
“Thank you God for the peace that you have brought me, & strength to continue”
Hallelujah!
“After 12 years of prayer my dad gave his life to Christ in Jan 2011”
“Thank God for opening up so many opportunities to witness to students who are Muslims recently. I didn’t think I had ‘a heart’ for Muslims, but God has broken my heart by showing me how He loves non-Christian students on campus and how He yearns to see the lost return to Him.”
“I came back to Soton at the beginning of Febuary. I didn’t want to, and I was scared about how I would settle back here, and what was for me here. But God has been so present, to let me look back with gladness and not regret, to be with me in sadness and loneliness, and he has provided for all I could need.”
“God has given me both strong friendship and fellowship with as many as 30 other lads my age through cu football, and something as simple as that has given me an amazing foothold in my first year at University, and has kickstarted my 3 year journey as a Christian at the University of Southampton. Praise the Lord!”
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest”
– In hall groups we have been studying Jonah, and in Chapter 2 Jonah is in a position where he can do nothing but cry out to God. I have found that there is no better place to be than in the arms of our saviour. Whatever we face, even doubting God himself, there is no better place to be than resting...
“He sets the captive free. I once was enslaved by my sins but now am free. And now I am embraced by His Love. This term I have become so thankful of this, and I thank the Lord for just revealing Himself more and more in my life.”
