Memphisis.

 SBS was an intense course and and now I've had time to take in all that I learned. Well, that hasn't really happened much but it's been nice to read and just do creative things.
I have however figured out how much I did learn..it's weird how that always seems to happen later.

Being home has really made me value my family too. Of course I always do, its not just a temporary thing, but I just love being around them.
A friend told me that it was so cool to see a family that genuinely liked being around each other and wanted each other's company.

Kris Vallotton, How God Feels About Abortion...

I got chills...more than once.

Ending and Beginning

So, I've finished up with my 2nd quarter of SBS (woo!) and I've already plunged into the 3rd quarter here now. It's crazy how time really has flown by even though I really didn't think that it would.

It was a hard quarter last quarter, I'm not gonna lie, but I know that I grew a lot. Actually the other day someone asked me how my class was going and I gave the regular response of "well we have a lot of work and it gets stressful but it's good." Then later I was thinking about it and I don't think I can describe the understatement that was. I was kind of upset that I answered so terribly about it later...

So I've just been thinking about this class, all that I've learned, and what I came here to learn. I wanted to know God more, to understand the God of the New Testament AND the Old Testament not as 2 separate gods. And I have, definitely. I've seen God's love throughout the OT in ways that I didn't think I would, I didn't think that I'd find His love in the sacrifices that I felt He forced on them, no, it was totally opposite. It was all out of love, all of it, to be close to His people. And as far as me knowing God more, definitely as well. I've learned to talk to Him and go to Him when I'm having problems or whenI don't understand something. Really releasing my prayers to Him and fully trusting has made our relationship so much stdeeper and substantial to me. I'm trying to go to Him because I want to go to Him, just to be. Not to pray because I have a need, and it's so hard to get out of that mindset.

I guess what I'm saying is that I've learned that God IS everything. Everything in my life...my present my future. All that I am is from Him. He's the beginning of everything and the end; He controls it all.

I don't know how to describe God anymore (after just trying ^^there). I know all the words to say because I've heard them so often, but He's so much more than the words can describe. Wow, that's cliche, but honestly what do I say about Him?

So good, so great, so unbelievable.

 

 

 

 

It's love.

For a while now I've been struggling with the thoughts of whether it's more about getting the work done or whether it's about finding God. Yeah, the answer seems obvious, but when you've devoted time and money to be in a place to do work, things get jumbled.
I've been looking for the balance; the balance that I know everyone looks for. Whether its a job and God, or a ministry and God, or school and God, but I think it's a test. It's a test from God whether or not we can put Him first even though everything else seems more important.
I've determined that I would rather fail this class than get all of my work and be totally drained because I haven't spent time with Him. I mean, it's love. It's all about showing Him we love Him.
Praising Him through song and nature, glorifying Him by learning more of Him through His word, loving Him through taking time to just be silent; it's all about Him.
All the rest of the things that we do should just fall behind Him.

I know that I can't get through this if I'm just going off of what I knew of Him. I have to keep knowing Him. I've just seen so much that I can't just pause our relationship when I have things to do; it just doesn't work that way. He has to be first and however that happens doesn't really matter as long as He knows where He is.

I had a pretty amazing revelation today; about love of course! I realized that the cross is love. Whenever I think about the cross or see a picture, it's Jesus on the cross in pain and suffering. And that's what I attach to it; all I can think about is how bad I feel for Jesus and how amazing He is to have suffered for me. And that's a wonderful thing to receive from the cross.
But I don't think that's all Jesus wanted us to see.
He didn't die on the cross for our sympathy, He did it because He wanted us to really realize His love for us.
 We were singing the song "How He Loves" by John Mark McMillan at that time and my favorite line: "Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss" came up.
And that's it.
The cross is a big wet kiss from Jesus. I mean, if I think about it that way, well of course it still makes me cry, but it's not a cry of sympathy; it's a cry of awe.

I'm learning that there's no use in me worrying over things that I don't know or understand...

Since I've been back here we've studied John, Revelation, Matthew, and this week we're preparing to teach.
I absolutely loved John, it was such a personal book and I really feel like I've come to know Jesus better through it. It wasn't just, Jesus did this and then He did this, and then He did this, but it went inside Jesus and His ministry and why He did things and even how He felt. So, I couldn't have asked for anything more than that! Revelation was very interesting; definitely controversial in areas so now I don't really know what to believe, but I know a lot more about it now that I did before. I've just come to the conclusion that we'll never know exactly what was mean by Revelation, but that God will reveal what He wants me to know through the book when He wants to.

So now this week we're teaching in churches and on the base here, and of course I'm a little nervous. I'm a little bit excited, surprisingly, but I have to speak for 20-30 minutes so I'm just hoping I have enough things to say! We'll be teaching the inductive method of studying that we use in my school, and I will be showing people just how to observe the text. This is actually my favorite part of the whole process so that's exciting, but I'm just praying that it's not me speaking but God. I'm not an eloquent speaker, but I want this to touch people like it has me, studying the word for what it says, and I know that I can't do it on my own. If you think of it, please pray that I wouldn't be teaching out of my heart but of His.
I would love to hear from you, so you can comment here or e-mail me!

I want to make sure that the time I spend here studying God's word is made worthwhile.
That I don't just treat it like school or like something I have to do because God would like it, but I want it to be something that I look back and am just so glad that I did it.
I keep finding that it's so easy to be studious and forget that there is a purpose behind what I'm doing. I could just start doing the "homework" and be reading about God yet lose all of my thoughts that really matter about Him.
So yeah I've just been trying to make sure these past couple days that I don't get into a groove but that I'm being jilted all the time by Him.