Sorry that I haven’t been able to write much since I have
been here. We are now on day 14 and we have 10 days left. First off let me just
say that God is good, God is good. I have been learning more than I ever
thought possible and I could not be more blessed
.
The first week I was here, we learned a lot about the Gospel
and how it applies to our life. One of the major things I took out of this week
was God’s grace and how important it is in my life. Although I knew that God’s
grace was a freely given, undeserving gift, I don’t think I quite grasped that
fully. After understanding this concept better, I realized that I am a sinner
and will forever be unworthy of God’s grace. Realizing this helped me
understand how much I need to rely on God throughout my daily life. He loves me
even though I am a sinner, like how awesome is that? Two big verses that helped
me with this were Ephesians 2:8-9 and Romans 5:6-8.
Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For it is by grace you have been
saved, through faith- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not
by works, so that no one can boast.” And Romans 5:6-8 says, “You see, at just
the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very
rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might
possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While
we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
The second week, we learned a lot about how to study the
Bible and how to live out the Christian faith in a world that makes it very
hard to do so. There were two major things that stuck with me this week: quiet
time and idols.
When we talked about studying the Bible, we talked a lot
about quiet time and spending time with the Lord. I have done this often
throughout my life, but it has been more a scheduled thing than something I
desired to do. Being here has made me desire time with the Lord, which is
something that I have been praying about for a while now. Right now, I am
reading through Galatians in my quiet time and it is full of wisdom. One verse
that I thought I would include in here is Galatians 3:22, which says “But the
Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was
promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those
who believe.”
Another topic we have been discussing is our idols in our
lives that take our attention away from God. This was something that hit me,
and everyone else pretty hard because it was very convicting. Most people think
of idols as something physical, like something that you can physically see that
will distract you from God. What I learned was that there are many more idols
that just the ones you can see; there are idols of the heart. Coming to terms
with my idols was a huge step in my faith because now I realize what has been
holding me back from God in certain parts of my life.
We are starting a third week now and I have already learned
so much. Last night in small group, we talked about things that we have issues
with in terms of trusting them to God. My big issue is that I LOVE to make
plans and have my life planned out. As I have been realizing over this past
year, God has way better plans but I have still been struggling with it a
little bit. Well I opened my Jesus Calling book this morning during quiet time
(the first time I have opened it since I have been here) and today’s devotional
was all about God’s plan. Funny how that works right? It was a huge eye opener
for me. One of the verses was Proverbs 16:9, which I had heard before but kinda
just skipped over. I now realize that it is going to become a critical verse in
my understanding of how God has a plan for me. It says “In his heart a man
plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.” This was huge for me
because it helped me realize that even though I can make all these plans in my
heart, the Lord ultimately determines my steps so even though I have all these
plans, they will not happen unless the Lord guides my steps towards them.
This does not even begin to cover half of the stuff I have
learned but I hope it gives you some insight into how amazing this trip has
been and I still have 10 days left! I am also going to do another post talking
about all the trips we have taken since we have been here, including
Yellowstone and the Tetons!
I hope you have a wonderful week! God Bless!
