When I got to the Atlanta airport, went through security and found my gate I decided that with the hour and a half that I had left before my flight that I was going to have to find a charging station for my phone.I found one a few gates from mine that had little desks attached and slumped over it. After a few moments of pure exhaustion I decided that the time waiting for my flight would better be used for processing the week than sleeping, so I pulled out my journal and wrote this:
“Things are going to change in me over the next year. Especially if so much has changed in just a week!
It’s crazy to think that after a week of training camp the people I was afraid of meeting at the airport are the same people that my heart hurt to leave less than 20 minutes ago. I know that moving forward it is going to be difficult–home, launch, the Race, but aren’t those most difficult things in life the very things that mean the most to us?
We won squad wars, prayed for healing, met our teams, ate with our hands, and learned that we needed to grow in out understanding and pursuit of God.
If I could learn to discern the voice of God better… I can’t even imagine it yet. I’ve never thought of myself as “distant” from God but I realized this week that I am not as close to Him as I want to be. I want to know Him more. I want to speak right out of His very breath. I want to run and never stop.
During the first day of squad exercise we ran for half an hour. I wanted to run and be in better shape but I’m not and I couldn’t. I couldn’t even hold onto a steady jog. In our quiet time, after our exercise, I sat there asking God to allow me to feel Him. To allow me to experience Him. (That was a huge thing for me this week, wanting to feel Him and experience Him more.) I thought of the song we sang in worship, ” I want to fly on wings like eagles, I want to run and never stop, I want to climb Your holy mountain, I want to meet with you my God.” and in that moment I realized that sheer want wouldn’t allow me to reach God in that deep intimacy any more than wanting would allow me to run a 5k right now, unless they allowed me to “run” a car in it.
I need training both in my relation and intimacy with Him as well as the physical stamina to run in any kind of race.”
There is more to come about camp, I promise it will come. Camp was an amazing, stretching experience but because of how much information and growth that was presented I can’t imagine typing a single blog that anyone would want to read that would also condense it all.
My challenge to you (and obviously to myself) is to chase, or to continue to chase, after God and to not be discouraged by not being as close to Him as you may want or as others may seem right from the start.
