I went to the InterVarsity Central Region Fall Conference this weekend at Kansas City, about 3 hours away from Des Moines. It started out as a respite/getaway to my hectic week so I wasn't really expecting much to happen. I was wrong! The first night itself, I was blown away and convicted by the message that Tom Lin spoke to us. He talked about how we need to put God first in our lives instead of our careers, relationships and comfort. I have been struggling with this aspect in my life for the past few weeks and it was a confirmation of what God wants me to do for Him. I admit that it has not been easy, to give up control of your life and the desires of your heart in obedience to Him. But, it's all for our good because He has bigger and better things in store for us. All we have to do is to have faith and trust in Him.
We also had smaller sessions and I actually signed up for the session on Prayer but I got bumped into the session on Evangelism and I admit that when I first found out, I was disappointed and thought it was going to be another boring session of how to witness to people. Again I was wrong! One of the exercises is for us to draw a concept map of all the networks of people that we're connected to. I was in a triad consisting of this guy I've met at Catalyst over the summer from Wash U and this other girl from Coe College and after we completed drawing out maps, I realized that mine was so much wider and bigger than theirs. I was so connected to people and all this while, I didn't realize it and I didn't use the many opportunities I had to bless them. I felt once again so convicted that I had all these opportunities that I didn't use and I don't think I was put into that session on accident.
Also as Christians, we tend to sanitize the word of God. We don't see the whole story as it was meant to be told. When Paul wrote to the church in Colosse, he was writing in thanksgiving to the church of Gentiles. When I think of Gentiles, I was like...oh...they were just non-Jewish people. But in fact, they were the outcasts of society. The thieves, adulterers, homosexuals, murders, sorcerers..etc. that no one wanted to associate with. This guy, Dr. Franklin I think really impacted all of us that were there at the conference. It shows how much we stereotype people and how we don't bother making the effort to love and care for everybody just the way they are.
My point here is that we can get so caught up in our problems that we fail to see the bigger picture, the plans that He has for us and all the things that He wants us to do for him. We just end up being mediocre Christians, trying to solve the problems in our lives instead of doing what we're supposed to do...to serve and love others. We are called to do two things in life, to love God and love people. That's all there is. So this conference was a wake up call for me, to see that there are people out there, just like me, going through the exact same problems and feeling broken and the best thing about it is that we can encourage and spur each other on in the race.
I'm very glad that I went, despite the many issues that cropped up that seemed discouraging at first. I just got back and although I'm physically and mentally tired from the trip, something has definitely changed inside of me, and it's good.
No comments:
Post a Comment