Hey everyone!
Incase you didn’t know I recently got home from training camp. 10 hot, humid, rainy days in Gainesville, Georgia. Where we slept in stuffy, sweaty tents, used bug infested porta-potties, took freezing cold bucket showers (in the dark!), sat through multiple sessions a day, worshiped like maniacs, and ate enough white rice to last a lifetime because Indian food was not our jam! @Emma
To sum it up, training camp went above and beyond anything I could have ever expected. Here’s just a little of what God is beginning to teach me…
If I’m being honest, before I left for TC I thought to become a better Christian I needed to know more. I needed to memorize more scripture or have more answers when people ask me questions about God. This was filling my heart with fear because I kept telling myself lies such as, you’re not capable enough to go on the race. Even while I was at TC I felt as if my teammates were smarter or “holier” than me! Although I didn’t know it yet, God was speaking so much truth over my life and ever since i’ve gotten home, I can see how just how much my perspective has changed already.
One night, one of our speakers, Deon, said that if we try to have complete knowledge of God, then technically we are making him an idol. Because that’s what an idol is… a “god” you have complete knowledge on and you worship everything you comprehend it to be. So actually I was driving myself away from God and closer to my own idea of God. Don’t get me wrong, I still want to know more about the Lord, but before my heart was in the wrong place. I wanted so bad to understand him more like a textbook and less through faith and a relationship.
We’ve all had that one friend UGLY cry during a chick flick. But we don’t even shed a tear… Were watching the same movie, we saw the same thing, but the way the story was told didn’t affect you the same way it did to your friend… A lot of this is based on how we grew up, what kind of culture we live in, our morals, etc.
God is so complex that the good news of the gospel for me (what drives my faith) might mean absolutely nothing to the next person I tell it to, even if I say it the same way. Just like the movie example I was talking about. The same thing goes for God and the Bible, he’s telling the same message but depending on the messaging it affects what an individual might take away from it. Knowing this, without compromising biblical truth, we have to have a less textbook approach to the Bible! Instead when we share the gospel we need to create relationships and tell stories. Doing this will also expand our own understanding and will open our eyes to how complex God really is.
He can not be put in a box of our own understanding. God is so much bigger than any religion, culture, or time. He can’t be labeled or categorized.
I think I can speak on behalf of my squad when I say; God spoke to all 33 of us at training camp and reaffirmed to us that we are all equipped and capable enough to go on this journey. We are never going to have full understanding and for a lot of people, we will never be truly “ready” to do what we’re doing. But this is not for our benefit, God has called us to help expand HIS kingdom. He doesn’t call the equipped, he equips the called. We are His hands and feet, and so those crazy stories you hear about healing and salvation in the Bible, I have no doubt that God is going to use us as his vessels to do those same miracles today, even though we’re just 18,19, and 20.
I’m so excited that I get to go to South Africa next month with this new zeal for the Lord, before I didn’t know was even possible.
