Wow, what a month this has been! It's so funny how our process in growth never ceases. When god exposés and corrects me on 1 thing I tend to think "hmm I'm Ok now" not realizing that there is more ugly in me that needs to be exposed and pruned. The beautiful thing is this; although I am full of ugliness and filth God has still called and chosen me to do his work. This stupendous reality magnifies the grace, compassion, and tenderness of christ so much more. This is why I am thankful that this month was full of examining my heart, experiencing adventure, being corrected, laboring and growing in Christ.
First Let me speak on the adventure! By far the most frightening yet adventurous day I've had on the race was the day I was called to fight a massive forest fire. This was one of those things that I had previously only seen on tv but had not fully grasped the seriousness of them nor understood the damage they could do so rapidly. This day, it all became a live reality! The first thing I thought to myself when I saw this forest fire spread across the outer parts of the village was " dear God everything that had life has just died in the fire right before my eyes and if we do not put the fire out we will die too." At that very moment something snapped in me called "survival mode." Basically do whatever you have to do to survive the situation at hand! Either this fire was going to consume the village or we were going to consume the fire. Soon after we gathered all of the tools that we needed to fight, all of the men rushed into the forest which felt like a firery furnace while all of the women frantically gathered as much water as possible. The only tools we had were fire brooms, buckets of water, a group of willing men and women, and the grace of God. After fighting this Goliath for a few hours we finally conquered the forest fire and walked away in victory. We realized that our persistence paid off and that if at any point we would have given up the result could have been lot worst.
The best thing about this experience is that we all learned a spiritual lesson from it. During the time of the fire my team was going through the fire spiritually and as I reminisced on our labor, our diligence, our team work, our fearlessness, and our attitude towards the natural fire it was as though God was saying " go and do likewise." Go and do what likewise? Go and fight this spiritual fire with greater diligence, greater labor, greater team work, greater boldness, and greater faith lest you be consumed. I took heed, but it wasn't until the the end of this month that God allowed this fire to be put out. Although the fire took longer to be put out it kept me on my knees before Christ and there is no place I'd rather be.
If what Christ did on the cross isn't able to consume any fire then I will be consumed because I will not put my trust in another.
