Off to Uganda!

It feels like my DTS is coming to a close as we finish our last day of lectures but in reality this is only the beginning.

I am so beyond thankful for everything God has done in my life in the last eleven weeks. They feel like they have gone by so quickly, but in reality the transformation and the healing that took place was a slow journey. I think that in our western culture we are always trying to keep up with the world moving so quickly around us, and we become so focused on the destination, we forget that the journey is so important. Sometimes God does not reveal the final destination, because he wants to walk the journey with you. Sometimes you may not experience instant and complete healing from your pain because God wants to take down your wall brick by brick. But the journey is not supposed to be scary or painful, instead it is supposed to build relationship and trust with God and that sums up my time on this DTS so far.

Since I last posted we had a week on the Living Word (the Bible), we had a prayer conference, and this past week was about Lordship. 

During the Living Word week, I really grew a passion for the Bible, especially the Old Testament. At the beginning of the week the speaker asked who had read the whole Bible, and while I have tried many times, I have never stuck with it. This convicted me because I feel like it is so easy to say I am a Christian, but I am seeking to know more about God constantly, and am I seeking to know Him fully? Because the Old Testament is a part of His story. The speaker also addressed all the fears or lies that may stop us from reading the Bible. For me, I was also ok with reading the New Testament, but I think that the Old Testament kind of intimidated me or made me feel overwhelmed, but after that week I am so excited to read through the Old Testament. Seeing how intentional God is and all the things that He ties in from the old to the new is so interesting. I am genuinely so excited to get to actually study through the whole Bible.

Prayer conference was also really powerful. For the week we had 24/7 prayer and worship and it was so amazing to just see God moving. Each school was assigned an hour to lead the prayer and worship and the first night I was so worried about how exhausted I would be the next day, but then we sang a song and it said, “I won’t worry about tomorrow cause all I want to do is know you.” That hit me. I so easily focus and begin to worry about the future instead of just being present and instead of just seeking God. So that night I stayed the whole night. Yes, I had a moment where I was on the verge of falling asleep but it just reminded me to rely on God. That night ended up being the most powerful night of the whole week. God did some amazing things through my obedience to Him. Then the next day He gave me more energy than all the people that slept the whole night. 

Another thing that challenged me during the prayer conference was the story of Mary and Martha. I have heard that story so many times and often probably allow the familiarity to allow me to lose focus. This time though God spoke so clearly. He kind of just asked me why I was serving. I had to ask myself, “Am I like Martha, serving to be acknowledged or because she feels she must?” Unfortunately, I feel like I had fallen into that pattern. We are called to serve out of what we have received, not serve in order to receive. I feel like God is really just bringing me into a time of being like Mary, a time of just sitting at Jesus’s feet and receiving, and honestly I am excited. I feel like until you stop trying to earn love you can never truly experience love. Since I decided to stop serving to earn love, I have been so moved by the love that I have been shown because I know that it is actual love not just love being returned out of obligation. 

This week has not yet come to a close as I write this and I know that tomorrow has so much in store. The biggest take away from this week though is moving the idea of grace from my head to my heart and how to truly receive grace. We sang a song about how God is always waiting for you and also one about God being like a house on a hill with a light on just waiting for you to come home and I just started crying. Because although I have memorized verses and learned all about God’s grace, in that moment it was real. It hit me so hard that when we sin, when we feel like failures, God is not disappointed. God is not looking at you wondering why you are the way you are. He is there loving you through the whole thing, but love is a choice. So although He wants to give you His grace and mercy, because of His love he gives you the choice to choose if you want to receive them. So many times I fall into the trap of being mad at myself for my weaknesses or for committing the same sin again but that is not how you will react if you have received grace. When you receive grace you can stop looking for a darker place to hide your sin and just abide in Him.

That sums up the last three weeks of lectures, but outside of lectures so much happened also. If you want to feel and experience God in the corporate settings it must start in the private. This post is already super long though, so I will just write about one. 

At the beginning of last week, each of us had to give a twenty-minute sermon. Twenty minutes may not sound like a long time but trust me when it comes to talking, it is. I had allowed myself to become fairly stressed and spent all weekend trying to write out word for word a twenty-minute sermon. Then the night before, as I sat there typing, out of nowhere my laptop just turns off and right away this thought just enters my mind, “Do I actually trust God to speak through me and use me?” Wow. This whole time I have been preparing and worrying because I was relying on myself. I was not leaving any room for God to move because that meant possibly running out of things to say. I had been telling myself that I was just being prepared, but I was really being self-reliant. So I went the next morning with just a paper with some Bible verses written down and a lot of prayers for God to speak through me. And guess what? I only had nineteen seconds left out of the twenty minutes. When you step out in obedience, God WILL show up. At the end I was overwhelmed by joy because I did it with God instead of for God.

As I said at the beginning, this is just the start. This Monday (Sunday Chicago time) we leave for outreach and I know that God is going to do some amazing things. I am expectant to see him working but also just continuing to seek intimacy with him above all else. I am very nervous going into it though and have a lot to do before we leave on Monday so I am just praying for peace.

(This is my travel path from Australia to Uganda and approximate departure times)