"The Lord confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them. My eyes are ever on the Lord, for only he will release my feet from the snare."
- Psalm 25:14, 15 (NIV)
This week we were finally able to return to normalcy by spending it back in Arkansas at the base. For the past two weeks we had either been camping or traveling for hours on end, so being in a familiar place was much appreciated. Our topic for this week was on the Fear of the Lord and our speaker was a lady by the name of Dawn Borchers. Dawn was a lady in her 50's and single, and not the type of person I was expecting. I'm not sure what type of person I was expecting when I heard those things about her, but regardless I was pleasantly surprised to have her as our speaker. She was a strong speaker, very open and honest with her walk with God and how she'd changed and how she's still changing to this day. Furthermore, I was very excited for the topic she was going to be presenting as I had never had a firm understanding of what it meant to fear the Lord. I was hoping I would be able to really understand what it meant to do such a thing and what it would look like in my life as well, and I was not let down by Dawn.
The biggest thing I felt I learned from that week was the simple realization that fearing the Lord did not mean being afraid of Him. It wasn't even that difficult of a statement to establish either as it is quite blatantly expressed in the Bible:
"When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, 'Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.' Moses said to the people, 'Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be will you to keep you from sinning.'"
Exodus 20:18-20 (NIV)
This was taught to us on the first day, and I was already taken aback because I had always thought having fear of the Lord was, well, fearing Him. After hearing this I knew I was in for a treat the rest of the week as to figuring out what fearing the Lord was like, and it was a treat. Here is a list of some key things I learned this week:
- According to Psalm 25:14, we find that the Lord is intimate (confides, is a friend, counsels, trusts) with those who fear Him, and we know that while you can love literally anybody that you want, you cannot have an intimate relationship with anyone as that requires a mutual desire to do so.
- We have a hard time desiring this intimacy with God because with intimacy comes vulnerability and lots of trust, and especially with intimacy with God comes a lack of faith in results because of how He is not visible, and it also causes one to be afraid of losing control of our own life; a valid fear I have had to embrace in past weeks.
- Fearing the Lord means giving God his proper place by standing in awe, giving Him praise, honor, reverance, glory, and worship. Verses supporting this are Psalm 33:8, 22: 23, 89:6, 7, Malachi 2:5, and Revelation 15:4.
- Proverbs 9:10 shows how the fear of the Lord is wisdom; it is knowledge of the Holy One.
- We grow in the fear of the Lord by realizing that it is our choice, by being honest with God as to where we our, by simply asking Him for it, by being diligent and studying His word, and by dealing with sin in our lives.
- Dealing with sin involves confessing the sin, repenting from the sin, renouncing the sin, and by seeking restitution
I somewhat felt on a high all week as God revealed Himself to me more and more and let me experience Him more and more.
Friday night we had the very first annual YWAM Ozarks Talent Night, which was a good ol' time watching people make a fool of themselves and whatnot, but Friday had something else in store for me as well. Friday morning I had started to feel somewhat ill. I was starting to have a fever as well as a cough and a small headache. It wasn't very comfortable, but it wasn't to the point where I couldn't function. Sleeping that evening however, was downright awful. I woke up perhaps at least every hour from either coughing so much or being blazing hot under my comforter. The next morning I felt far worse than the day before and didn't have much willpower to do anything really (the reason this blog is a week late!). That night was even worse than the one before, and the next one even more worse. Sunday I finally took my temperature and found out I had a temperature of 102.4 degrees; I wasn't just imagining this fever. By Monday morning I felt the worse I had ever from a lack of sleep, intense fever, headache, shortness of breath, coughing, and stomach pains - I was a mess.
That morning just so happened to be the same day that we were leaving to go on a camping/climbing trip for a few days with our speaker for the week, John Ray. I told staff I could not make it on the trip, at least not on the first day, for fear of what camping in the cold would do to my state of being, especially with the fever. They agreed with me and I stayed back. Later in the day I finally went to the doctor and found out my temperature had increased to 104 degrees and I was later diagnosed with Bacterial Pneumonia, I wasn't quite expecting that but I suppose it made sense with my shortness of breath and cough. They gave me a shot in my hip (I'm not sure why they say hip, they mean to say upper-buttocks I'm sure, because that's where I got my shot), gave me a couple prescriptions for the pneumonia and for sleeping at night, and told me to come back the next couple of days for more hip (butt) shots. Within an hour of my shot I felt my fever sweating away and energy flowing back into my body. The next day my temperature died down to 98.2 and I was feeling great. The next few days I continued to heal and on Wednesday evening, the rest of the school returned from camping/climbing and we were re-united. It had been an uneventful few days and I was glad to see activity back on the campus. Thursday morning I left with them to go to Fayetteville, about an hour or so north of Ozark and meet John Ray there. He gave us a lesson on Thursday, my first (and only, really) lesson from him throughout the week.
He talked to us about Transformation, and what that really means. He gave the illustration, that I really appreciated, that transformation was not supposed to be viewed as a bad person becoming good, but rather as a dead man becoming alive. He talked further about how transformation would change our sense of truth (becoming wise), goodness (becoming just), and beauty (becoming free). There was particular emphasis on the latter on how this would come from by practicing hospitality. I valued what he said and I was distraught that I was unable to benefit from his previous lessons.
That evening we went further north to Springdale and visited a youth group for primarily college students and took part in their service. We had worship followed by a couple of volunteers from our DTS giving their testimonies and how the DTS had been a part of that testimony. I was one of the volunteers. We were told to keep it short to five minutes, and I don't think I went on extremely long, but I know I went over five minutes. It wasn't because I didn't know what to say, rather I knew exactly what I wanted to say, it was that I simply enjoyed it quite a bit. I got up there and felt more comfortable than I had in the past when I'd spoken, and I had a good time. I hadn't intended to make people laugh, but it happened regardless, and I just went along with it. I knew that it was not because of me that I enjoyed it and I know it wasn't because of me that the people enjoyed it, I knew that it was totally the Holy Spirit, and I was quite alright with that. That night really helped me feel better about God's calling for me to be a Pastor, and I still get afraid of the thought of it, but I can see how God is slowly but surely molding me into that type of person, and I hope I embrace it and let Him mold me.
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