As I was struggling to find the words to write about, I opened the notes page on my computer to find my last note about a book I had read and taken a few notes on, “Not a Fan” by Kyle Idleman. It is about living a life for God as a follower rather than a fan. It’s funny how He will put things right in front of you and it all just suddenly clicks. He speaks to us in the most fascinating ways. The words that I had written down while reading the book are bolded in the text.
Upon finding these notes, it made me reflect on my time at training camp and how I have been living a life for Him as a fan. I grew up going to church, believing in God and reading the Bible. I knew about God, but I didn’t have a relationship with Him. He wants us to know Him personally, not just know about him. Training camp showed me that it was time to do just that. On the last day of camp, we had the opportunity to be baptized. When the speaker at session told us this, God spoke to me and said He wanted me to do this with Him. It was time to re-commit my life for The Lord and walk on this journey together. One of the notes that I had written while reading the book “Not a Fan” had said: “Come to me..walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly” -Matt. 11:28-30 I chose to fully surrender my life to Him that day at training camp and for every day after that to come.
When I sit here and think about how to sum up the feelings I had experienced during the 10 days of training camp, I would have to use the phrase “be comfortable being uncomfortable”. Fans grow tired of trying to maintain an outer appearance that doesn’t match an inner passion. Allowing ourselves to be completely open and vulnerable with one another is terrifying yet extremely rewarding. We as humans try to bottle things up and put on a “mask” towards others that’s hiding our pain and true emotions. I think I can speak for my entire squad of 32 that we all “took off our masks” and the pain and emotions were revealed. It was something that felt very uncomfortable for myself personally, but I realized that these things that had been bottled up inside were keeping the Holy Spirit from being allowed into my life. I had to empty out the bad to be filled with the good. You cannot be a follower unless you are filled with the HS.
Training camp was mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually draining in the most rewarding way. I don’t know about you, but showing up and meeting a group of 32 people who you are going to call family for the next year is pretty intimidating. It’s a blessing from The Lord to know that He put each and every one of us together on this journey for a specific reason. We are all one body working together and using our different talents to glorify Him, and we could not do this without each other. God has called us to go and make disciples together, and there is so much comfort in knowing that.
Fans try to follow Jesus out of their own strength, but followers are empowered by the Holy Spirit. I can tell you now that this next year is not going to be easy. At the sessions, a few of the speakers who have gone on The World Race explained it as “drinking out of a firehose.” That doesn’t sound so simple if you ask me. But, knowing that the Lord is going to be by my side each and every step of the way is what’s going to get me through those tough days. What a comforting feeling knowing that He’s is always by our side, through the good & the bad.
