My time in Peru has been rough, spiritually. And, yes I realize it’s only been a few weeks!
We had our Squad Coordinator, Holli Scott, here in Trujillo with us for this first week. Every night was spiritually draining. But I mean that in the best way possible. We learned about the importance of vulnerability within our squad.
We spent hours every night
exposing the darkness of strongholds,
asking the Spirit to come,
praying for confidence,
worshiping Him for His forgiveness,
and
crying.
It was rough.
It was raw.
It was freeing.
It was glorious.
It was N Squad, exposed and completely vulnerable.
In addition to staying up until 1 a.m. every night with my 60 squad mates reaching a new level of brotherhood in Christ, I also decided to do a less “structured” but more tracked personal bible study—not that that makes ANY sense to you, but I’ll try to explain.
I am a more of a “pray, open bible and read where I feel led, pray, journal” daily quiet time person. While that’s great, I felt the desire to do a more cohesive morning quiet time, focusing on just one book of the bible at a time. After praying, I felt led to Hebrews.
Day one (February 8): I woke up, got dressed, went outside to my ledge on the planter box where I often sit, prayed and opened up to Hebrews, where I decided I’d just read a chapter a day until I was finished with the book.
Within seconds of the first chapter, I was confused and blown away all at the same time. The entire first chapter was devoted to justifying how Jesus is superior to the angels. Well,— DUH! I didn’t grasp why that had to be clarified in an entire chapter, because he is, after all, the son of God. Of course he holds a higher place than the angels!
Then, I turned to my commentaries on my handy dandy Olive Tree app. Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary says that many Jews used to have idolatry thoughts about the angels and that it was necessary, in that time, to clarify that Jesus was the center of all things and not the angels.
Then things started to make more sense and became increasingly clear.
Sometimes, I feel like the things I read in the bible go right over my head because I don’t understand the simplicity of it. I want to make it more complex than it is meant to be. Although the bible is always relevant, I sometimes forget that it was written in a different time and that it was originally intended for a different people who were spiritually in a different place than I am at right now. I sometimes get lost in my own pride or ignorance and skim through passages I don’t deem relevant in my life, even though there is still plenty of relevance in it.
I have always been challenged with grasping certain parts of the bible in application to my own life. Some parts, I honestly just regard as stories. I can’t apply a “lesson” to my life, I don’t understand why they are even part of the bible and they seem irrelevant to the time or place that I am living in—either physically or spiritually.
However, God has been showing me that it’s not about me. I have been super selfish in my reading of the bible. I have been told so many times already on this trip by multiple different people that I have a gift of encouragement, which is probably the last gift I would have said I have. But I’ve also been shown examples of how things I say are definitely from God and my desire is to have more biblical knowledge to back that up.
How many people have been helped by Hebrews 1? How many people have seen redemption in breaking their strongholds of idolatry because of the chapter that seemed irrelevant to me?! God has blessed me so that I have never struggled with the stronghold of idolatry, so I don’t know how relevant that passage can be to those struggling with that on a daily basis.
Through this, God is building up my knowledge of His word that I may use whenever I see that attack, even if it’s not in my own life.
I have now added ammo against idolatry to my arsenal to aid in my attack that I may slowly be fully prepared for any battle in the daily spiritual warfare we are all engaged in as Christians.
“Let the thoughts of this world make us watchful, diligent and desirous of that better world.”
Matthew Henry
And that was all just Day One of my study on the book of Hebrews!
Every day since then, I have had morning after morning where I have been able to dig deeper into the word; deeper than I ever thought that I could!
Before this week, the only biblical references I could give were ones that I only knew because it was something that I had experienced myself and knew verses that relate to it like a need for courage or hymns of praise in hard times. Now, I’m learning to also equip myself with other references so that I may fight on behalf of and encourage my squad mates because of our vulnerability to each other.
Being vulnerable doesn’t mean you’re weak. It’s all about bringing the shame of what you’re experiencing out into the light so that it may die.
With Jesus and vulnerability, there is nothing you should be ashamed of.
Shame lives in the darkness and dies in the light.
