As many of you may know, I had my World Race training camp last week. I am sorry it has taken me so long to write a blog about it, but I needed time to process through everything. I could go on and on of the physical aspect of training camp including 6:00 am wake up calls, packing and repacking my pack and tent every day, to sleeping on a bus with 40 squad mates, bucket showers, mosquitos bites, sleeping on the ground, eating weird food, 30 minute hikes, team building activities, thunderstorms which scared the living day lights out of me in my tent, pure exhaustion. But If I am going to be honest in this blog, (and believe me that is hard, I don’t tend to let people down to deepest parts of my heart. I tend to keep things bottled up.) It was truly the spiritual aspect that I needed training camp for. I would have to say I have been very distant from God. My relationship with him has been lacking in so many areas. I would say this distance did not happened over night, it was a slow fade which made it harder to recognize and harder to get back. When I realized how far away I had grown from Him, I tried to get back what I once had with God. But instead it felt as though I was in pit climbing, crawling, and grasping to reach my way back to him, but I could not find the right footholds to get to the top. It was not until training camp, that God awakened my soul and help me to see a new way of thinking and a way back to him. The sermons were entitled Soul Care. There were several insights that I learned which led me to 7 questions which I needed to ask myself. And maybe these questions can shed insight into your own life.
- Am I pouring in as much as I am pouring out?
This is so important. In order to have a relationship with the Lord, You have to be willing to pour into yourself. This is not something I do well. Being a Children’s minister at my church I spend so much of my time planning, teaching, recruiting that I did not set time aside for myself. I found myself pouring out into ministry and not pouring into myself. And this hindered me in my relationship with the Lord and in my ministry at church. I learned that everyone connects with the Lord differently. I may not be able to sit in on services at church because I am teaching, but I need to find the balance of how to connect with God outside of teaching.
- Am I succumbing to the lies the enemy has whispered in my ears?
The enemy is so good at deceiving us, it’s his oldest trick. So why do we still allow his lies to affect us? His three main lies take form into people pleasing, performance, and control. We can be so overcome with trying to make people like us, performing to make other people happy, and trying so hard to control the things in our life that we can become drained or even depressed when things don’t go our way. God has told us over and over in his word that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. We are his sons and daughters. We can get so caught up in the lies of the devil, that we forget the truths which God has laid out before the foundations of the earth.
- Have I fully forgiven people who have offended me?
This is a hard one. We cannot be in right standing with God until we have forgiven all who have offended us. Forgiveness = freedom. If you are anything like me, it is hard to forgive someone especially if they have hurt me deeply. Why is it so important to forgive? First, it is a commandment from God. Second, bitterness only hinders you. Third, bitterness gives Satan a foothold into your life. We have to remember God’s grace to us and pray blessings on those people. It is a process, but it is also a choice.
- Am I truly grieving pain or am I just medicating it? Am I allowing God to heal my wounds?
We all have wounds. Some are big. Some are small. Some are skin deep and some cut to the core. We have to grieve them all. When we do not grieve our emotions can get bottled up. We lie to ourselves by saying we’re fine. I am guilty of this. If I am hurting or upset I tend to hide behind a smile. But when you shut yourself off to pain, you also shut yourself off to joy. Our hearts can become hard when we do not grieve. Grieving will soften our hearts to God. We have to acknowledge the loss and express our feelings about the loss similar to the Psalmist. Allow God to heal your wounds.
- Am I allowing the Holy Spirit to have free range over my entire life?
A lot of times the church knows the role of the Father and the role of Jesus Christ, but I believe we get a little clouded on the role of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit plays a vital role in our situation, in our life, in our maturity, and the one most forgotten our empowerment. It is easy to allow the Holy Spirit to be our guide and our meditator, but sometimes we can put up a wall to the power he has to offer. The first mark of the Holy Spirit is power. We have to be willing to accept that power in our spiritual gifts, in our witness, and in our ministry.
- Am I listening to the voice of the Lord?
It can be so easy to say, “yes, the Lord told me this or the Lord told me that.” But how often are we sure it was really God speaking to us and not just the thoughts in our head. We have to actively practice listening and asking God to speak to us. We have to make sure it lines up with Scripture, uplifts Christ, bring good fruit, and is it ultimately fulfilled. We can become such good talkers to God that we forget the sound of his voice. It is important to stop talking and just listen.
- Can God really use my story?
Sometimes I feel my story is ineffective or in parts to personal to share. But in a matter of a couple of days, I began sharing my story all of it, the good the bad the ugly with my team mates who I had only known for a short time. But just by sharing it, I felt a sense of freedom. There was no judgment, no guilt, only love from my squad mates. It helped me to realize that God allowed me to have this story for a reason. He will allow good to come from it. Yes there may be parts of it that are hard for me to share, but he has my best intentions in mind. He knows what he is doing. My story is important to him and he can use it for his glory.
Each of these questions can either bring us closer to God if answered accordingly, but if not they can draw us far far away from God. Unfortunately, it was the latter in my life. I was looking in all the wrong areas in my life to grow closer to God when really I just need to take care of my soul. There are a lot of things God has opened my eyes to and things I need to work on. I’m not where I want to be, but I am definitely not where I used to be. If training camp was packed full of so much wisdom, then I cannot wait to see what this next years holds. And God has placed such an amazing squad who I already love to experience this growth with. And I have 6 awesome ladies on my team with the perfect name. Team R.O.A.R.—Renewed on Abba’s River.
Please continue to remember me in your prayers as I work on these things, and as I prepare for my journey. And praise the Lord I am 50% funded for the race.
