Training camp is over. All I have to say about this crazy week is, I survived and made it back home alive. I could write you a long blog explaining to you all the nitty-gritty details of my extremely challenging week. However, I thought I would leave you with a few key things you should know (which in reality ended up being much longer than I had desired it to be initially, sorry).
I wanted to inform you that I am confident in the team the Lord has placed me on. I am certain the Lord has completely brought together and ordained the team of 6 (Will Gibbs, ChanelI Copeland, Daniel Auzenne, Madison Chistie, Teresa McMillan), that I will be traveling with, doing intentional community with and ministering along side of next year.
What I am not so certain about is my choice of pillow, my Keen shoes, the compression bags I purchased, and my ability to eat really random and bizarre foods, specifically for breakfast. On a more serious note, I have been left having to pray through and really seek the Lord over some things that were brought up during training camp concerning doctrine and theology. Would you pray with me for an open heart, yet to have discernment? I desire nothing more then Christ, and Christ proclaimed, might we do so boldly and clearly.
I walked away from the week at training camp not on a spiritual mountain top like many of my other squad mates, but rather with a consistency in my intimacy with Jesus. Though at first I was first disappointed. I felt like everyone around me was just encountering the Lord like never before, yet I just was just remaining, I was so frustrated; I don’t want to ever become stagnant.
(I asked) Jesus, what is wrong with me? Why am I not being overwhelmed with the Holy Spirit in the midst of this emotionally charged worship, and feeling closer to you in this moment? (as this is typically what happens)
I think I can honestly say I am happy to have it this way though. So many times I have traveled away to camps, conferences and “spiritual events” only to experience an emotionally charged, extremely overwhelming spiritual high or mountaintop experience with Jesus. The problem for me with these experiences is that though in the moment they are wonderful and something to be cherished, I come home and then cannot manage to recreate the emotional charge of worship or manage to rekindle the experiences I had with the Lord. This leaves me frustrated. I desire to feel the Lord like I felt him at those events, in those places… In the past because of this, I had begun to live out my relationship with the Lord through remembrance of what he did at past events…striving to be at something similar in the future so that I could experience Jesus in such a real way again.
Webster’s dictionary describes an affair as “a romantic or passionate attachment typically of limited duration”. It describes intimacy as, “the state of being intimate.” The Word intimate is a verb, which means we must do something, which in turn implies that intimacy requires action. Webster’s dictionary also gives synonyms for intimacy as “belonging, closeness, inseparability, familiarity, and nearness”. I want you to understand for years of my life, I would attend all sorts of Christian events and organized worship occasions, simply to reach a spiritual mountaintop experience with Jesus so that I could come home and look back to that event, to that place, for this romanticized and passion I felt for Christ in those moments. I cheated myself for years of what the Lord truly wanted to offer me, I traded in the genuine intimacy of walking with him daily for the counterfeit fling of occasionally “feeling him closely”.
You see my questions from above that I asked, He answered.
When I asked: Jesus, what is wrong with me?Why am I not being overwhelmed with the Holy Spirit in the midst of this emotionally charged worship, and feeling closer to you in this moment? (as this is typically what happens)
God answered: Nothing is wrong with you, I have created you, I do not make mistakes, I do not make errors. My child, you are no longer having an affair with me, enjoying my presence for a limited time… Because you have been learning to live in the presence of the holy spirit daily. You have been learning how to walk with me closely in intimacy. This experience in the current moment is simply the familiar to you because you are seeking me out, walking with me, and growing deeply with me daily. This presence of the Holy Spirit is not unfamiliar to you, but rather familiar because it is the place you are learning to reside.
For me to walk away from training camp and not be on a spiritual mountaintop was in actuality not a disappointment (like I first thought) but rather a breakthrough in my relationship and intimacy with the Lord. To realized if I had come home from training camp on a “spiritual mountaintop” I would of simply had an affair with the Lord, that would of only lasted a limited duration of time. And before I knew it I would be back trying to recreate the experiences and emotional charged spiritual-ness of the week, trying to cling to what happen there in that place, longing to experience something similar, rather than just walking in intimacy with Christ.
Training camp solidified that I am no longer just having flings with Jesus or weeklong affairs with the Lord. But that I am walking and growing daily with him that I am growing in Intimacy with Christ. Because I am intimate with Jesus daily, there is nearness, inseparability, and a familiarity about him, I am learning so much about who my father is and the heart that he has. The longings and desires of my heart are being realistically met daily in Christ.
(Disclaimer: I am not saying that if you experienced (or experience for future world racers) a spiritual mountain top experience with the Lord during training camp that you are not intimate with the Lord daily on a regular basis. I simply just had to share my heart and what the Lord was teaching me.)
Colossians 2:6-7 “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.”
