Weekend 180 was amazing...to so many ends. I wish I could explain every last thing I enjoyed about this weekend, but I honestly couldn't...there were too many! I found myself so wrapped up in God's word through the different sessions we did. After each session we were challenged to 'hang our hammock' and respond to what we learned. Each time I just learned something so profound; something I never had learned or thought about before. There was something real about this weekend, and there was no doubt in my mind that it was Holy Spirit. This is just the things I wrote after each session, and it's the only way I could describe the feelings deep inside my heart.
Session 1: My Decision for the Journey
...I want to move. Without moving forward I know I will find myself stuck and unable to recover when I fall. It's just like I am physically--I can't stop moving, I'm always talking, running, jumping, laughing, crying, shouting. When I'm told to stay still I get frusterated, uneasy, figetty, angry, upset. That's the way I am spiritually too. If I'm not moving, I can't see the future God wants me to see, I won't be able to experience the new roads, new places, new ideas and new relationships God has in mind for me. When I choose to move my time will be expanded, my adventures lengthened, my experiences elaborated, and my relationships deepened. When I choose to move my life won't be boring because everything will always be different from before. When I choose to move my heart will be hurt, my ideas challenged, my beliefs tested, and my mind expanded. The more I'm willing to move, the more my life and my heart will be shaped. I've made a decision to move to glorify God and all that he is worth. As I talk I'm glorifying God, as I laugh I'm glorifying God, as I cry, shout, run, surrender--I am glorifying God. Even though I don't know what the future holds--as I move, God will be in the car as we journey...and he will be driving as I soak in the adventure around me.
Session 2: Focus
Heartache keeps my focus most right now. Without heartache I wouldn't realize who it is I need to rely on in order to survive. Heartache brings me to the point of brokeness when I realize I can't do it on my own. Heartache brings me to the point where I see and I feel it can't be done on my own. Without this, my focus wouldn't be where it is supposed to be right now. I want to focus on God. I want to look back at this and see where it leads me. I want to be a child of God so focused on Him, that when the world crumbles at my feet I won't even notice.
Session 3: On a Team
My calling is simple. Be completely humble and gentle. Be patient; bearing one another in love, through love, with love. Make every effort to keep the unity. Not just when you feel like it, not just when things are good, but just the opposite too. Be patient when a situation is out of control. Be gentle when you're angry and you're about to explode. Be humble when all you want to do is think about yourself. Be loving when no one else wants to love; be loving when you don't want to love. Make peace when everything is chaotic and when it's so much easier to be angry or split apart. That's what it's about. Doing things that we don't want to do sometimes. Being the person that no one else wants to be. You know, it's not about me and it's not about what works for me, but about what glorifies God.
"Faith as I'm growing to understand it more is about looking beyond my circumstance to a person. To have faith in better circumstances, even in God creating better circumstances, is not true faith. I want to be the kind of man who can watch every dream go down in flames, and still yearn to be intimately involved in kingdom living, intimately involved with my friend the King, and still be willing to take another risk, just because it delights him for me to do so."
