Jackson Hole Update

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!