A long time ago the Vikings were some of the strongest warriors around. They kept winning many battles.  When they arrived with their boats at the location, they would get off them and then burn them. You might ask yourself, why would they burn a perfectly functioning ship? Because they went into all of the situations with the faith that they would win and by burning the boats they didn’t have a way out of it.

That is true for our faith too. To grow we need to start burning “boats” things that we lean on for security outside of God. Things that hold us back from fully trusting in Him. We all have those and they are different for each one of us. But as soon as we know them and cut them out we have only one way and that is trusting God that he will show up. Lets take Moses as an example: He stood in front of the most powerful ruler of that time and was supposed to tell him to let his whole free work force go. What do you think was Moses boat that he had to burn? Probably fear. He needed God to show up or he would be in really big trouble. There would be no going back as soon as he walked into that palace. But guess what, God showed up. When we look at the man in Mark 9.24 we see that he had to give up his disappointment and get a fresh start. He had to fully trust again that Jesus would heal his son even after probably many experiences with others where his son didn’t get healed. But then what happens? Jesus heals his son and strengthens his faith.

We want to encourage you to start burning boats in your life that hold you back from fully trusting God. Spend some time praying and thinking about it and then ask God to help you in those areas of unbelieve to burn the boats and to fully trust him. It takes time, but over time your faith will grow and you will be able to take on bigger challenges for the Kingdom.

Hi our friend

First of all we hope you had an awesome week!! It’s wild to think that soon 4 months of 2020 are already over. How did God use you in those months? Ask him and let him encourage you through it!!

This week the summer arrived early in San Francisco at least for a little bit. It was so wonderful to go on a walk in the sunshine. Also this week we got to hear from Loren Cunningham the founder of YWAM at a zoom call which was an encouraging time. We had also many wonderful zoom calls with friends in the neighborhood with a drop in and our normal meetups. We could see every time how God encourages people through those little encounters. We want to encourage you to use some of this time to get Gods heart and love for your neighbors and show it to them during this time from home and after with a real connection!!

Don’t forget to pray this week and let God speak to you about your “boats” that need to be burned!!

God bless you

Markus and Jen