Beginning with meeting 60 people all at once and trying to get to know everyone in such a short amount of time is not normal. I’ve surrendered time in A/C while we’ve been outside in 90 degree humidity while doing strenuous team building exercises, which have challenged our communication styles, and the way we achieve goals. I’ve surrendered cleanliness as we’ve camped outside under the stars and have worn the same dirty smelly clothes sometimes for days straight. I’ve surrendered my me time and my freedoms as I’ve gone from moving as a single unit and doing things on my own to moving around as a group of 60 people. I’ve wondered if I’m really up for this. I’ve questioned if this is something I can push myself to do for the next year. I’ve grown so comfortable living and being in community with friends who are very similar to me. I’ve already built my own family of friends that I trust and can rely on and whom I absolutely cherish as treasures to me. But this next year, I will be forging new friendships with a new family who I’ll be traveling with, living with, eating with, serving with and growing in the Lord with. Experiencing amazing moments where we’re laughing together and yet dealing with pain and the heaviness of global issues together. This new family will be from various backgrounds, different ages, different life styles, and a mixture of personalities. I know this will be a huge stretch and challenging in so many ways. But I also know there is a very beautiful element in this. The one who is uniting us is Jesus Christ and our immense love for Him. Our love and devotion to Him will be the element that unites us and draws us close together to be that family.
God has also turned up the heat in my time with Him this week. There have been built in times of coming before the Lord in times of surrender and letting go of those things I cling to so that He can have His way with me. One of our speakers, Ron Halborn, challenged us to pray that “God would do anything He needed to do in me, so that He could do everything He wanted to do through me.” Its been a week of dying to myself, letting go of my future plans, my hopes, my dreams, my expectations. But this week the fire has also been lit in my heart again. God igniting in me a deeper passion for Him to want more so that He can do more in and through me.
I know the “heat” has only just begun, but if this heat will be the spark God uses in my life to melt away the dross of my life and wreck me from the ordinary and be His flame of fire and speak His truth in love to the nations, then I say TURN THE HEAT UP!
