I first met Mark Fee (check out my links) a few months ago. He and his team have begun a ministry called “First Loved”. They came and did a weekend seminar, showing us all these verses that tell us how much God loves us. He taught us about personalizing these verses, as God talking directly to you. It was very powerful. This was where I first really started to understand my heart of stone, and how God wants to change it.
This time we had was eye opening, and I went home feeling pissed off. That in all my years of Bible stuff, how to be a good christian, realizing what a bad christian I was, just how far I fell short etc. That I was unable to FEEL God’s love for me. In fact had been taught that feelings really don’t matter. I just felt gipped, lied to- educated into disbelief. (christians who hardly acknowledge a spiritual world?)
Now in this in between time, this preparation for where we are going, I feel like my whole world is turned upside down, so much stuff that I hadn’t thought about has been shaken up. Rethinking so much about life, relationships, what matters, and God. More determined than ever, but at the same time feeling like a bigger failure than ever.
At the training (world race training in Georgia) we were told we really needed to have someone discipling us, and I had no idea what that really meant. I meet sometimes with my pastor, and we have our small group, isn’t that enough? I am doing more christian stuff than ever, and it just gets frustrating.
Our church had invited the ‘First Loved’ team back to teach us more, to get it to really sink in, so that we could share this- that we love because He first loved us. For me this means I have to actually let God’s love sink in, where I just view myself as unlovable and unable to love. This is like small rays of sun breaking through the clouds, still pretty overcast. But there is a high pressure system coming in- it is inevitable, and the sun is going to shine.
So, when I was put in Mark’s small group, I decided I would ask him for some of his time. The time we had spent, I could feel God’s love shining through him, and he had said some stuff that was so dead on- I knew I needed to spend more time with him. Its funny, I actually got nervous about asking him (fear of rejection), and was even more nervous that he would get to know me- and agree that God wouldn’t/couldn’t/shouldn’t love me.
We went for a walk today, this was our second time getting together, and I hadn’t done any of the stuff he had suggested last week. It has just been a struggle and I have escaped into other things. So I went into this time, yup, feeling like a failure and expecting to see the disappointment on his face.
Mark had just been running and I could tell his endorphins were flowing, so he just started talking about his week and a message he gave last night, about Shammah, one of David’s mighty men. Shammah (2 Samuel 23:11-12) stands alone (Israel’s other troops deserted him) in a field of lentils and fights the Philistines and God gives the victory. The point of this is Shammah, who is listed as one of David’s mightiest men, thought a hill of beans was worth defending. He wasn’t going to give up ANY ground. Mark connected this to Proverbs 4:23, “Above all else guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of your life”, and talked about the small battles we don’t recognize, or don’t realize their importance. Like how I use my time, or the stuff I think about, or look at. All of this is the battle for my heart, my mind. And I would not be listed under anyone’s mighty men, because I keep running from the battle.
So this was a very encouraging time, as my life changes, I have the privilege of being with and hearing from some of God’s mightiest men, on a regular and personal basis- it is incredible, OH GOD THANK YOU, help me to fight on, drive on, press on!
And thankyou Mark, Seth (and the rest of you from AIM, this is a huge list), Chuck Oblom for defending this hill of beans, and SHOWING me how to fight!
