simple gathering

friends on a morning walk

let me first start off by saying that winter retreat was truly great- i learned a
ton and was reminded of certain convictions that i had somewhat forgotten
during my first quarter of college. i really appreciate how pastor nick taught
us without sugarcoating or oversimplifying anything- although the way he
presented everything academically was difficult to keep up with note-taking
wise. but still, i found that as the retreat went on, i took less notes and tried
to simply listen. this time around, i had new friends from efc east valley!
or...they weren't new, but it was a new experience for me to interact with
another church as much as i did at winter retreat. and gbc played mafia with
us during the last night! games and fun aside, there have been two things
that i think God has been teaching me the most- though i'm sure He is
teaching me a thousand other things that i am unaware of. 1) the greatest
commandment. more specifically, loving God with all our heart and mind.
we are often taught to love God with everything- our entire being. but, and
this was discussed at retreat during small group time, conflict arises within
ourselves when what our heart feels does not align with what our minds
say. if you know me well, then you know that i rarely let my feelings get
the better of me and that i'm usually calm and collective. you also know
that when it comes to charismatics, i tend to shy away- reject even (i hope,
ihop, i hope not). you know that i delight in exegetical bible teaching.
but this tendency to seek knowledge and leave my feelings behind has
often caused me to not love God with all my heart and mind. i've come to
realize that although the heart and the mind are distinct, they were never
meant to be separate. what does this mean? it means that if we say we
love God with all our heart, but not all our mind, we don't really love God
with all our heart. same goes for the mind. so, it doesn't matter that you
feel good about God- even if you are happy- if you don't know who God
is or what the reason for your joy is, then your heart is not fully worshiping
Him. and then, for the thinker, like me, it doesn't matter how much you
know about God or the bible- if thinking about the character of God, for
example, if thinking about the goodness of God doesn't excite you or pull
on your "heartstrings," then your mind is not fully worshiping God.
naturally, our hearts don't always agree with our minds. but it is by His
grace and by the power of the Holy Spirit within us that our hearts and
minds can work together to produce such beautiful worship.