This is part 2 of a 4 part series on what the summer before my World Race mission trip looked like. If you missed part 1, click here to read about what the summer before training looked like for me.
Most of my squadmates’ blogs about training camp have mentioned something about “letting go of expectations.” World Race training camp is meant to prepare you for the mission field, to get you out of your comfort zone and begin stripping away any baggage that might take away your “saltiness” and hinder your ability to spread the Gospel (See Matthew 5:13).
I’d explained how up until that point God had been making my paths straight, but another part of Proverbs 3:5-6 is to “trust in the Lord and lean not on your own understanding.” I want to take two blogs (hence why I’ve changed this to a four-part series) to share with you two separate entries from my journal, written during training camp. I hope this gives you a snapshot of my personal journey of learning to trust and lean on the Lord.
Let me tell you a little bit of where I was when I wrote this journal entry.
The first night of training camp, the very first speaker was talking about “trusting the system.” He didn’t have us crack our bibles once (okay, he did make a casual reference to John 15, which I of course decided to read while half-listening to the rest of his talk).
Oookay. So if you have known me for any time in my life you know that would be the first thing I would jump on…noooo wayyy will I trust your “system,” especially if it’s not biblically based. No way no how. Those were the thoughts going through my head. But if you’ve also followed my journey, you know that at my one-year mark of what I consider my rededication date (Easter) I vowed to stop complaining or being cynical about the weaknesses of the Church, and to actually do something about it, or at least to start to trust that God’s behind it all. That being said, it’s really been a battle for me to fully submit to the authority of the church. Yet God stopped these “no way” thoughts that very night, and whispered to me “Trust My Church.”
This journal entry is taken from the next day.
Today I felt like a hypocrite. My worship felt empty—that I was going through the motions and not experiencing God like everyone else. I was comparing myself and my worship style with everyone else’s. It reminded me of the camps I would go to in junior high and high school that were church-based—that you have to get on this “spiritual high” and have some sort of emotional reaction to experience God.
Yet at the same time, I don’t want this week to end and leave not feeling the presence of God at all. I don’t want to just leave with a bunch of new friendships (not that that’s not totally a blessing…my previous experiences at these camps were of feeling awkward, left out, and not part of the group…all of these people have been incredibly welcoming and supportive).
I guess I’m just hungry. Hungry to experience and be in the presence of God, and hungry to cultivate deep relationships with my squad and future team. I feel like we’re just acquaintances right now [okay, by the way—it was like day 2], and we still haven’t done any squad-specific activities, which I hope happens soon. I can’t wait until I have my team too, I really need that small group experience out here, and just that assurance that people have my back and are looking out for me.
I’m finding out early in this that I’m not as independent as I’d like to think. Also, the food hasn’t been that bad, which is awesome. [lol, I couldn’t help but leave this last sentence in]
“As a deer pants for flowing streams, so my soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” Ps. 42:1-2
“My soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” Ps. 63:1
I was just begging to see God that week. I wasn’t having doubts about Him, but I was having a TON of doubts about me and if I was enough, and how I fit in to this whole “missionary” role. I started to wonder if He would only speak to me or if I could only experience Him if I was jumping around or crying or something. No one spoke over me, like they were over my other squadmates. No one seemed to think I needed to hear from Him audibly—I felt like another face in the crowd and that God thought the same about me. But given His whisper to me to “trust His church,” I was learning to just trust and just be.
In the next blog I’ll share with you what happened the next day, and what that did to the rest of my training experience.
