"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me besides QUIET waters.
HE RESTORES MY SOUL.
He leads me in paths of righteousness, for his name's sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil
FOR YOU ARE WITH ME, your rod and your staff they comfort me."
This weekend me and four of the girls decided that we needed to go be rejuvinated. So, we looked up places to camp around Querétaro and found an awesome place about 45 minutes outside of the city. We went to the mercado to buy some fruits and veggies, almonds and tortillas. Saturday morning we hopped in a taxi and made our way out. Our taxi driver was the absolute cutest thing in the whole world (he kind of looked like the big fat guy from Mulan), just an absolute teddy bear. On our way there he showed us this shape in the mountain that everyone calls the body of Christ, because it looks like Christ lying down. We all thought this was absolutely amazing. Of all the people they could have identified this shape as, they chose to call it the body of Christ. COOL. When we showed up to the site, we were absolutely estatic. In these past three months I have found that I NEED TO BE OUT IN NATURE! Living in the city just doesn't do it for me. So, we checked into our little cute cabin and then all took off on our own to go be with Jesus. I spent a few hours journaling and reading. I just started reading Forgotten God by Francis Chan, so I was so excited to have some undivided time to focus and really dive into it. The Lord has truly blessed him with immense wisdom. His point in writing the book is to address the modern church's neglect of the Holy Spirit and to spur us on to seek the true character and power of the Spirit. It took me forever to read the chapter because I was literally writing every other line down in my journal. I love the incredible amount of Scripture that he includes, so I spent time looking up all of the verses he quoted and reading the surrounding text to put it in perspective.
One of the things that stresses is our fear of what other people will think of us, regarding our view of the Holy Spirit. He encourages us to give up the search for approval of others, and to honestly seek the truth of the Spirit. I had this overwhelming sense and vision for what this could look like in my life and the lives of those around me. In the spring I am going back to join a student led worship team, and this whole semester I have been praying that the Holy Spirit would really move in those times of worship and begin to transform us as the body of Christ at Westmont. I really feel that the Spirit inspired me today to challenge the group and those who attend to throw off our desire for approval of others and to earnestly seek to be a community radically aware of the Holy Spirit's presence in our lives. That we would accept each other and that it would be a safe place for people to come and express what they feel like the Lord is inspiring in them. I don't know if this is making sense to you, but God so clearly was stirring in my heart this weekend and I decided I should try to express it to you all.
As for me, I have found IMMENSE JOY in following Christ in these past few three weeks. I honestly can't even begin to explain in words the joy that the Father has filled me with. Looking ahead I have three more weeks here, and I cannot even begin to imagine how strange leaving is going to feel. SO, with that being said, will you continue to pray the God will allow me to be JOYFULLY PRESENT. I don't want to just be present, but I want to be fully joyful and content in the next few weeks that God has for me to grow! I know that never again will I have this opportunity, so I want to go out with a bang, continuing to seek the Lord with excitement and anticipation. Not to mention the fact that I get to go to India to continue seeking and serving him 20 days after I get home! LORD help me to align my heart with your purpose for me in these next weeks here, then in India and beyond into the rest of my life. Thank you for filling me with your joy.
Love jumping pictures
God's beautiful creation
JOY
Creepy! We bought this face mask mud stuff from this ceramic place in Oaxaca and finally got to use it. Sorry about it bathroom floor of our cabin. We might have made a mess...
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