Revelation was an amazing book, but was a difficult one for me. We had a lot of time to do Revelation, and because of that I did exactly what I didn't want to do, I slacked off....a lot. But God is good, and He taught me heaps through it, and was faithful to help me out of the hole I dug for myself after I repented and laid myself at His feet again. It was amazing going through Revelation and seeing it in a new light and realizing how wrong I had been in how I had looked at it before. Going through the bible this way has made me realize how silly it is to try and just take the things written in the context of our culture instead of focusing on what it meant to the original reader, and showed me that I have always done that with Revelation, which led me to not understand it at all and just get confused and avoid it. Through studying it this time I was able to see how it is basically a rallying call to the Christians to continue to persevere through the persecution and suffering that they were experiencing (most likely under Domitian) because Jesus is victorious and we get to join in His victory (it actually says twice "Here is a call for the endurance of the saints" - 13:10; 14:12 ESV). It was an awesome experience to get a better understanding on one of the most misunderstood books of the bible, even if it wasn't the easiest book to get through.
If you've been reading my recent posts you know that I I've been thinking a lot about the future lately, and that I strongly feel like God wants to use my passions for rock climbing and the outdoors for His glory. This is amazing news and is really exciting, but it was because of this that I got myself into a hole with Revelation. I had been thinking about the future so much and starting to look at rock climbing websites and videos so much that I started to lose focus on what God was doing in my life NOW. I was starting to focus so much on the future that I wasn't giving my all to SBS and was starting to look at it as a stepping stone or something I had to get through before I could go onto bigger and better things.
Thankfully, God is faithful and last Sunday He showed me how I was doing this when I was slacking off instead of working since I had pretty much taken Saturday as my Sabbath because I had surf ministry last weekend. God really convicted me about how much I had been paying attention to rock climbing and was showing me that I was even starting to covet rock climbing and was starting to wish I was already done SBS just so I could be rock climbing. So that night I spent some time praying and humbling myself on my knees before Him and repented of how I had let rock climbing almost become an idol to me by focusing on it too much.
The next morning at base meeting one of our base staff, Martin, spoke about giving God our first fruits and giving God our current situation and being 100% where He had put us. This spoke directly to my heart and completely connected with what God had been speaking to me the night before. This really helped me realize that I had been focusing on the future so much that I was completely missing out on the present and was missing out on the amazing gift that God has given me in allowing me to do SBS and study His Word as a full time job. This definitely refocused me, and really humbled me and helped me to get back on my knees at His feet and admit that I was weak and needed His help to finish the work that I had to do.
With His help I was able to finish Revelation, even though I had to pull an all-nighter. He definitely gave me strength when I was weak and enabled me to get it done on time and still be able to do my outloud read for Genesis and study for our test on the entire New Testament the next day, which I did great on. Praise God.
Through this experience God really showed me how He is faithful to help us, even when we mess up and dig ourselves into a hole because of our own stupidity. He also showed me that I really need to stop thinking and praying about the future for now and just trust Him that He will bring it together in His timing, and to really focus on the amazing gift that He is giving me over the next 5 months in SBS.
Because of all of this, I've decided that I'm not going to pray about the future until the end of this term, and am going to try not to even think about it until then. That will still give me enough time to figure out if I'm going to do Titus Project (http://www.ywamtaiwan.org/us/training/titus.html) after SBS before the deadline to apply, and will help me to stay focused on what I'm here to do. I've also realized that I need to not allow rock climbing to distract me from the work that I'm doing, so I'm going to limit myself to not looking at any rock climbing websites or videos or anything except on my Sabbath. I know that this may sound kinda silly to some people, but God has really reminded me through this how easily I can get consumed by my passions and how I tend to have a hard time waiting to get the things that I want. These are things that I have always struggled with and that I need to continue to give to God and to look to Him for strength in.
Through all of this I have really been refreshed and have gotten excited again about studying the bible, especially with us starting the Old Testament. I can't wait to see how everything connects to the New Testament, and I'm already starting to see how God had a plan from the very beginning to redeem us and that the bible is just one big love story between God and the people who didn't deserve and often didn't even appreciate the love that He gave them. It has also just been an awesome change to get into some stories and narrative since the New Testament started to get a little repetitive by the end of it since as you study it more closely you can see how it is basically just telling us about God's love and about how we need to show that love by putting others first over and over again. It has been an amazing gift so far being able to understand the bible so much better, and I'm so excited to see what else God has for me through the rest of my time here.
As I mentioned earlier, I am now doing surf ministry with a couple guys from our base that head up Christian Surfers Taiwan. I go for 6 hours every other week, and last week was my first week. Unfortunately there was basically no surf, but we had an amazing time hanging out with some Taiwanese people and I was able to meet a couple really awesome Taiwanese and spent the day just hanging out with them and showing the love of Jesus to the people we came across at the beach and the surf shop. I'm really excited to be a part of this ministry and to learn more from Chris and Zack about how they use their passion for surfing to spread the gospel, since this is something that God has put on my heart to do with rock climbing. It's also just an amazing atmosphere to meet some Taiwanese people that may not have ever heard the gospel or even met any Christians before, and show them God's love through friendship and fellowship. Chris has made some amazing relationships with the surfers here over the last few years, and I'm blessed and excited to be a part of it.
This week we're studying Genesis all week. We started it on Wednesday, and have had 1 lecture so far and still have 3 more to go. This is a really big book and is done a little differently than we did the New Testament, so please be praying that God will help me to get through it and will help me adjust to the new style of charting and the new style of writing too.
I hope you are all having a great summer back home, and thanks so much for spending the time to read my blog. It really means a lot to me. I love you and miss you all.
God bless,
Matt
Prayer Requests:
- That God will help me to stay focused on what He has for me now and that He will be speaking to me through my studies
- That I won't get overwhelmed by the size of the books in the OT, especially since we go through them really quickly
- That I will adjust well to the change from the NT to the OT
- That I will make good connections with people and will show God's love to the people I meet in surf ministry and throughout my time in Taiwan
- That I will continue to focus on God and to be willing to learn everything that He wants to teach me through this time
- For my Grandpa who just had open heart surgery that he will have a quick and full recovery (and thanks that he was able to get in so quickly)
- That God will comfort me when I'm missing home or feeling lonely
- That God will be empowering and leading our staff as they help us through SBS and teach the different books (for the schedule of what books were studying, see my last post)
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