Smorgasbord

Smor-gas-bord n. a meal served buffet style, consisting of a large variety of hot or cold dishes; a restaurant featuring a smorgasbord; a wide variety.

This is a variety of random thoughts based on a wonderful weekend.

I love camp. I just had an awesome weekend. I don’t mean awesome the way the world thinks of it. I mean awesome as in I saw God in awesome ways. I was at a leadership training retreat for YoungLife volunteers. It was great. We had times of worship, teaching and fellowshipping.

The worship was great because it was just a guitar and our voices. We filled the room with our voices in worship to the Lord. I felt drawn to Lord in worship.

Our speaker was a man named Bill Paige. He has a really cool life story and he shared of the work that the Lord has done in his life. He applied it to going out and doing YoungLife and WyldLife in schools.

For those who don’t know YoungLife is a mission to win the right to be heard by students by going to where they are. In winning that right we are able to share the gospel and help nurture new faith.

Bill talked about how broken kids, poor kids, white kids, black kids, rich kids, smart kids, stupid kids and all kids need to hear the gospel and when we share that we give them new hope and the opportunity to have new life. He said that if he had been shared the gospel as a kid his life would be different.

He challenged us and said that we can’t talk about Jesus without cultivating a relationship with Him. One of the talks that really hit me was on forgiveness. God used Bill to convict me of the need to forgive some people and the need to be forgiven by others. He said that forgiving and being forgiven are keys to being spiritually healthy. God used that talk to show me that I’m holding onto some anger. He used it to help me start praying that I can forgive so that I can draw closer to Him.

We had great times as a team. We sat and got ready to go to the schools this fall and it was really encouraging to set goals for the school year.

Tonight I went to Vespers. It is a worship service at Bethel. I went twice. The worship was awesome. God was glorified and used it again to show me how prideful I am. I can’t wait for the day when I will be able to worship God without sin. I can’t even make it through a whole service without sinning against God.

One of the songs at Vespers said something about giving it all to God and humbly bowing before Him. I started thinking about that. I need to pray so often that I will give my all to God. Not only that but when I do that I need to do it without being proud. And I need to show that it was not me that did it but Him. Something to be praying about.

I want to encourage you to seek out what God is doing in your heart. Is He convicting you of sin? Does He want you to give Him your all? Do you need to forgive someone?

These are all questions that I’m wrestling.

Psalm 46:10
Be still and know that I am God
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!

Be still, listen, ask questions, listen, be still and do it all again.

Praying for stillness,
Greta