If you know me, you know that thunder storms are one of my absolute favorite things. Our time in South Africa was decorated with many intense thunder storms. Thunder echoed for miles, lightening filled the sky like fireworks, and the sound of rain on our tin roofs filled the house. So we weren’t too surprised when another storm rolled in in time for dinner and team time.
Wednesday nights are worship nights and bible study for our team. We come together to glorify God and challenge each other to go deeper in our relationships with Him.
For this specific night of worship it was decided to relive some of the songs we sang over and over again during our ten days of training camp, one of those songs being “Your love is fierce”. As we began singing the words, “like a tidal wave, washing over me, rushing in to meet me here. Your love is fierce. Like a hurricane, that I can’t escape, bursting through the atmosphere. Your love is fierce.” struck deep within me. As we sang those words straight to God, He showed up in all of His glory as the rain and thunder grew, as if proving to us in that moment how truly fierce His love is. Our voices perfectly complimenting His power in that moment, I already felt more connected with Him than I’d been the entire week before.
We closed out worship and picked up in our bible study where we had left off the week before. We have been going through the book of First John. We were studying chapter 3 and verse 6 stuck out to me. It says, “No one who lives in Him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen Him or known Him.”
We started to discuss that sometimes as Christians we don’t acknowledge that when we practice a sin daily and we are aware of those sins but continue in them, we are not truly abiding in God. This can be a difficult pill to swallow sometimes and as I listened to my teammates debate it, I thought through the ways it applied to my life. The biggest example I could think of was my most recent baptism, at almost 21. But when I turned 21 I went through a stage of life where abusing alcohol was a major problem in my life. I had outwardly expressed my new inward faith, but I walked in sin. I practiced things I didn’t believe in and that I knew weren’t of God. And looking back now, I recognize that my heart wasn’t in a place to be baptized; I didn’t know God nor did I have a relationship with Him. I was willing to go through the motions and give God certain areas of my life but I wanted to keep the rest for myself. I had a checklist in mind of what identified a “good Christian” and did what I thought made me a good christian.
Almost as suddenly as that thought entered my head, I heard God call me to be baptized by my teammates in the storm right then and there. So I leaned to my teammate Kailaa and asked her if she’d baptize me outside in the rain and she agreed. Suddenly filled with so much excitement, I could barely hold my tongue until my teammates had finished talking. And as I explained out loud to my team what had just happened, they excitedly agreed to be a part of this incredible moment with me.
Everyone gathered outside in the lightening storm and watched as I dedicated my life publicly to God, knowing in my heart that this was the real deal. Each drop that touched my skin washed me in love and grace. Immediately I felt God’s embrace with echoes of my teammates cheers intensifying the moment as God welcomed me home.
As we reined in our excitement to get back into our bible study, I noticed that the storm had become only distant sounds. The rain and wind had stopped and things were calm. He wanted me to be washed by the African rain in the dark with thunder roaring and lightening striking all around me. I could’ve never planned it to be more beautiful than that.
Too many times we limit our relationships with God to a checklist. We take the things society tells us make us Christian and that’s all we are willing to give; God can have us Sunday mornings and possibly Wednesday nights (if we are feeling gracious), but we want the rest for ourselves. Things like baptisms and communions are just things that happen, rarely do we grasp the true meaning. But I have some incredible news for you, THERE IS SO MUCH MORE.
God has amazing plans for us filled with things that we could never imagine and He wants to help us fulfill them. He wants us to engage actively in a relationship with Him; He sacrificed Himself so that nothing could stand in our way of getting to Him. Things won’t always be easy in a world full of sin, but with God anything is possible.
He calls us to press into Him daily, to seek Him and His plans for our lives. Each day is God’s gift to us saying, “here’s one more time to go make a difference, touch a heart, encourage a mind, inspire a soul, and share me in every moment, medium, and form.” We don’t have to clean ourselves up before we can have a true relationship with Him. He wants us to come covered in dirt and brokenness, so He can wash us clean and make us new. God is always ready to pull us into His embrace and welcome us home. Don’t wait another moment or another day to grab ahold of a real relationship with God and live the plans He has for you.
I challenge each one of you to truly press into God and ask Him how you can improve your relationship with Him. Ask Him to show you the things that are hindering you from having a full relationship with God. I challenge you to take God out of the box and stop viewing faith as a mental checklist of things to do.
Continue to pray for our team as we get settled into our month in Vietnam. Things this month will without a doubt be more challenging in certain aspects, but we have faith that God will present Himself in new and beautiful ways in this country.
