Sunday, September 29, 2013

Sleepless Morning=Blessing in Disguise

I was discouraged when I woke up this morning from a great night's sleep despite the fact that I was in a tent, because I still had 3 hours before we had to be awake.

It is the Sunday morning of Camp Your Face Off, my church's fall youth retreat.  I didn't get there until around 6:00 Saturday evening because of a cross country meet in Bristol.  I was upset because I had to miss all the fun on Friday night and then the service on Saturday morning, so laying there with all kinds of thoughts was not good.  I now feel bad for taking the service the night before for granted, but after being awake for an hour, it hit me.  God convicted me big time.  I was being so selfish right then.  I felt like I was wasting my time.  All these scriptures and notes I looked back at opened my eyes to see the sin I had inside me at that very moment.  To be honest, I felt so stupid.  God humbled me this morning.  On a beautiful morning, I had some time to myself to be humbled before anyone was awake.  Almost in tears, I pulled out my Bible and my notes from the previous night.  The speaker, Jay, read from Galations 5:1, 16-25.  I was feeling that war that he spoke of inside me like crazy.  Those conflicting thoughts are evidence of Christ in me.  "For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature.  They are in conflict with one another, so that you do not do what you want." (vs 17)  I then found a verse falling out of a page I had written on a notesheet.  It was 1 John 2:15-17, "Do not love the world or anything in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  For everything in the world-the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does-comes not from the Father but from the world.  The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever."  Holy cow, that's no coincidence.  This is exactly what I was doing.  I was upset for one thing because one of my guy friends didn't ask me about how the cross country meet went.  The reason I wanted him to ask was so he could hear how "great" I did.  Selfish.  I also wanted to do the fun things at CYFO that I wanted to do.  It's not about me!  It's about fellowship and learning about and praising God!  I just had the best day and was planning on the weekend just getting better, and there I was miserable.  I needed a renewed spirit.  God woke me up this morning to open my eyes to things I needed to change.  This weekend was still a blessing, and He had things for me to learn. After some praying and reading in Galatians where we had been this weekend, Hebrews where we were in our regular study, and looking up verses I still want to look into, I found a new light to the day.  Next week's chapter in Hebrews was titled A Sabbath-Rest for the People of God.  Again...whoa.  God's word never fails.

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