What a glorious Sabbath! I know I am really going to look forward to Sundays this summer. This morning, I got up a little earlier so I could get into the Word with another one of the Room Leaders, Abby. It was good to go through it together this morning. We had been trying to do it for a couple of days but I’m so glad that the Lord ordained it to be this morning because I needed help interpreting that scripture! Then off we went to church. We had “campus time” first in which just the UNA and Northwest Shoals kids hung out and we talked about the importance of going to church. The service was great and it was so wonderful to see the room filled. This church only has 25 committed members. James preached on Ruth again. The main point he made was that just because you are living life by faith, doesn’t mean that it will be a life of comfort and ease. God teaches us through hardships. It was so great to hear this repeated while we are down here. Some people are still looking for jobs and the oil is projected to hit the coast tomorrow. But we all know we must trust in the Lord. We must continue to praise Him like Job did. We must praise Him through this “storm.” We also had communion at church which is such a blessing.
Afterwards, we as a campus went out to lunch and shared in fellowship together. And of course, we hit the beach! Most of Project was out there today which made it fun. It was still a red flag today so needless to say, a bunch of us were out in the waves. Unfortunately, a lifeguard told us to “stay shallow” so we didn’t get to mess around anymore. We had Olive Garden catered for dinner (spoiled I know) and then had Reflection Time. For Reflection Time, we can go anywhere in the Ft. Walton area and just reflect on the past week on what God’s been teaching us. My sorority sister Shelly and I went to the bay. It was very peaceful. But that was our second attempt. We went to one side of the bay first where children were playing, adults were talking on their cell phones, and boats drove by with their radios turned up. I told Shelly I needed to be in silence and solitude; that bay side was not cutting it. After Reflection Time was Worship Planning. We worshipped, had a talk on how our whole life is worship, prayer time, and time to plan out our week. Afterwards, when my girls came back to our room, we laughed and cut up for over an hour. We had a blast! We are definitely growing closer together as a group. I just pray that it will carry over to our discipleship group. Our first official meeting is tomorrow night. I will be spending most of tomorrow planning for it.
So for this summer, as a whole Project, we are reading David Platt’s Radical. David Platt preaches at the Church of Brook Hills in Birmingham. Apparently it is a phenomenal church. This book is about turning the American Dream upside down. I just finished Crazy Love and have been convicted about how I’m making some things important like what I wear, what car I drive, and what cell phone I talk on. The first chapter of Radical is called “Someone Worth Losing Everything For: What Radical Abandonment to Jesus Really Means.” Let me share with you a few things he said that stuck out to me.
“We as Christ followers in American churches have embraced values and ideas that are not only unbiblical but that actually contradict the gospel we claim to believe.”
“But if Jesus is who he said he is, and if his promises are as rewarding as the Bible claims they are, then we may discover that satisfaction in our lives and success in the church are not found in what our culture deems most important but in radical abandonment to Jesus.”
“We were settling for a Christianity that revolves around catering to ourselves when the central message of Christianity is actually about abandoning ourselves.”
This is only a glimpse of one chapter of this book. I highly recommend it to anyone.
Please pray for me as I prepare for our first discipleship group.
Stay tuned and recklessly abandoned to Christ.
In Christ,
Christine ><>
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