Well, today marks our day of rest as Camp Highland staff after two weeks of staff training. It's been intense, deep, challenging, and of course a lot of fun. This summer has a lot of new things in store for the campers who will be coming, and it has been a cool opportunity to take part in making these new things possible. After two weeks, we're finally ready to welcome the kids to camp tomorrow morning. And even after only two weeks, the Lord has done countless wonders and taught innumerable valuable lessons that I'm going to try to remember so I can share them.
As soon as I drove through the front gate, everything felt surreal. It can't really be true that it's been a whole year since last summer. It felt as if it had only been a few weeks. As the staff began to trickle in Monday morning, I started to get more and more excited for training to start and for the campers to get here, as I saw just how many staff we have returning from last year and just how incredible all the new staff are. And to top it off, my friend Johnny from Journey showed up! Journey/Choose to Invest is a group that partners with Camp Highland to send a team of college students on a 6-8-week mission trip in Kenya every summer. Johnny was one of the team members that I connected with, and we kept each other updated on the happenings at camp and in Kenya throughout the summer. This year Johnny is one of the team leaders, so it was awesome to see how God orchestrated everything so that we would both end up camp again this week so that we could reconnect.
For me the biggest thing God has been doing in me has been constantly immersing me in His Spirit. Usually when I think of experiencing God's presence, I think of big emotional experiences that produce spiritual highs. Although I did experience a spiritual high during the first week of training, the Lord has been teaching me to seek Him in other ways, especially when I don't feel Him. The first week involved a lot of huge revelations for all of the staff, as well as a rapid development of openness with each other. Prophetic encouragement led to people realizing their purpose for being here at camp. Testimonies of strengthened faith through hardships, especially a very recent death of a close loved one, shook all of us up and stirred us up to pursue the Lord in greater faith. The "camp bubble" atmosphere of freedom from the darkness and chaos of the outside world has been growing me in making me more comfortable with allowing the Lord to speak through me whenever He wants to, and He has been teaching me to simply open my mouth and let Him speak.
The second week, however, took a different turn. While praying at the end of the first week, thanking God for just how encouraging the first week had been, He quietly warned me that the following week would not be the same as the first. This week would be filled with difficulties and tests of faith and patience. And I'm glad He told me that, because I'm not sure I would have made it through the week in one piece (mentally and spiritually) if I had simply been thrown into it. I tend to be very idealistic, and it's very easy for me to be disappointed when someone I look up to fails to meet my expectations. That happened a few times this week, and I began to become impatient, though it might not have been apparent outwardly. But last night God had to correct me, not for being impatient, but for misunderstanding what true impatience is. (In fact, these last two weeks have involved a lot of redefining of terms, specifically humility and pride.) He reassured me that the "impatience" I was experiencing was actually justified indignation at what displeases Him. He has given me the same righteous anger He has about the things that defy Him. But He also reminded me that vengeance is His to repay. He told me to welcome what I have termed "impatience" because it is a sign of His just character, but to outwardly demonstrate patience and love, and to not foster impatience and anger, lest it grow to become hatred not of sin but of the sinner.
The biggest truth the Lord revealed to me this week came while I was praying one day. My allergies have been plaguing me incessantly, and I think it actually developed into a minor cold/fever after I got a little sunburned, so my morning TAG time (Time Alone with God) for several days was spent going in and out of the bathroom to blow my nose, which kept me from getting very deep into my reading. Instead, my time was spent praying and listening. Finally, I was tired of not being able to read for longer than three minutes at a time, so one night during some down time, I sat down and read some, then returned to praying. While I prayed, I started to complain to God, "Why do I feel so disconnected from You?" He said, "You're not." At first, that was reassuring and gave me a sense of peace. He was telling me that despite my sense of being distant from Him, my feelings were deceiving me, and He was, in fact, near and using all things to grow me. But I took His response as a correction to my question. But after deeper searching later that night, the Lord revealed that His response was actually His answer to my question. I feel disconnected from Him because I am securely connected to Him. At camp, our mission is "to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ through the use of high adventure," which means that, naturally, high ropes courses, climbing walls, and enormous swings are heavily used and always related to a spiritual concept that can be put to practical use. So naturally God related His answer of security to the use of a harness. When climbing a rock wall or walking through a high ropes course, a harness is a necessity for safety. Of course you feel the harness when you first put it on, and you can always tell that it is on securely as you progress through your task, but do you really feel it all the way through the course or all the way up the tower? Is your attention on the harness and the belay rope, or is it on your next handhold or your next step across a rickety rope bridge with loose boards? While you know that your harness is keeping you safe, your attention should be on the task at hand. If your sense of the harness overwhelms your sense of accomplishing a task, then it must be uncomfortable and something must be wrong with the harness. Not very reassuring. A true sense of security is evidenced by a tendency to forget about the harness while performing a task. A more personal analogy that I feel conveys the message more clearly is the way that I cannot feel the infusion site of my insulin pump once it has been inserted correctly. The concept of an infusion site is similar to an IV that you might get at the hospital. Once it's in, yes, you know it's there, but if it has been inserted properly, you should have very little physical sensation of it being there. Any feeling stimulated by the infusion site or IV is evidence that it is uncomfortable, giving reason to adjust it or change it completely. When I go through my day-to-day life, I don't feel my infusion site at all. And that is the proof that it is working well. Likewise, because I didn't feel God as strongly this week, I had reason to believe that God was entrusting me with more of Himself because I no longer need constant emotional experiences to prove to me that God is real. I felt disconnected from God because He is closer to me now than ever before. Needless to say, that was an exciting discovery!
And there's still more! This week the leadership staff from Stone Mountain Park and Wild Adventure came to camp for their staff training, and we got to train and hang out with them while they were here. It was encouraging to hear how they noticed Christ in us as we demonstrated unity and love for one another and for them. Some of them even came to know Christ in a deeper personal way during their time here, which is really exciting! God moved in them here, and I can't wait to hear how He moves through them as they go back to lead their staff by the power of the Holy Spirit.
But along with all of this encouragement also came some conviction. God called my attention again to my diabetes and revealed to me that I have been a victim of spiritual diabetes. While I receive wisdom and insight from the Lord and continue to seek more from Him, and while I share what He teaches me, very little of what He teaches me comes across in practical application in my everyday life. I ingest spiritual carbohydrates, but I am lacking in spiritual insulin to make my spiritual food useful for action. I want to see this change. Lord, replace my spiritual pancreas with Your Spirit, Your spring of Living Water.
There's still much more that God has been doing, but this is the last thing I'm going to share for now, until next time, because I'm running out of time, and I've already given you enough to read for now. The unity and support our staff have demonstrated in our support for each other has been a huge encouragement to me. A few of us spent one night sharpening each other as iron sharpens iron in a heated debate. All sides of the discussion were passionate about their stance and were fully convinced of the Lord's will in that area, and it was cool to see how the Spirit spoke truth into the situation through so many wise individuals, growing us all to have a united cause: to make the name of Jesus glorified abundantly. Another night was spent being vulnerable in confession and encouraging a brother that God is not finished with His work in him yet. Just hearing his story makes me excited about the ministry opportunity he has, to share the gospel with a unique group of people and to be a like a living stone (1 Peter 2:5), evidence of God's sovereignty and His ability to make good out of the worst of circumstances.
Thank you to everyone who has been praying and supporting me as I prepare to work at camp this summer! I can't fully express how much it means to me that you would set aside part of your day to keep me and our staff in your prayers, and I pray that you would be encouraged to know that God is working because of you. We are fighting for the hearts and souls of the kids who will be coming here, and your prayers strengthen us for the Lord's purposes. Campers arrive tomorrow! To arms, prayer warriors! God bless!
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