Enrich

It has been a little while since I have last posted, with school holidays and job searching happening i haven't had a lot of time to put into writing. I also think it is because I am still not used to this whole blog thing yet either!

This weekend was the Enrich Women's conference at my church, I had the privilege of running the lights for each session, behind the scenes stuff. It was good to be able to serve both the women of the church and community as well as God in that way. It was a very encouraging program, there were lots of stories and testimonies shared by women of their prior struggles and their walk with God.

We also had Colleen Hurst, a Christian psychologist from Sydney, she discussed how the mind cn be rewritten, nothing is set in stone, we can change how we think about ourselves and the things we do. Even though this was targeted at women i still got a lot out of it, and the message itself was helpful for anyone. Most of the brain stuff she discussed I already knew (being a Psychology student in 3rd year myself) but how she linked it to God and the bible was truly wonderful. Here was a linking of science and theology that helped strengthen my faith. 

One of the things she discussed was the linking of a set of findings studying the success of children left in unfortunate circumstances in a longitudinal study (over time *between 5 and 20 in this case). The study involved a questionnaire that asked what were the two things that helped them get through to where they were. The results revealed that the number one thing the participants said they had needed to get through was hope in God (rephrased to hope, faith and well being in the published paper), the second was relationships and friends and family. Colleen pointed out that this is spot on to what Jesus said in the Gospels when he was asked what the two most important commandments were. He replied "love God with all your heart", and the second was "love your neighbour as yourself" (Matthew 22:36-40). 

This just helps us understand that we as humans are naturally inclined to seek out the things that God made  for, to follow his commandments. But we often try to seek fulfilment in things such as money and earthly things to replace the hole we make when we separate ourselves from God. But he is eagerly waiting for the day when we turn back to him to fill the hole we so urgently seek to fill.

³⁶ “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” ³⁷ And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. ³⁸ This is the great and first commandment. ³⁹ And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. ⁴⁰ On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Mattew 22:36-40 (ESV)

Seminars and sunrises

I was up at 6 this morning to prepare for a day of seminars, let me tell you this is not the norm for the regular teenager. It was more than worth it for the beautiful sunrise I witnessed. god's creation is truly a marvel. I watched as the sun burst over the horizon, a boiling fission reactor working for billions of years from millions of kilometres away, sustaining life on earth with its warmth and light. It lasted only a few minutes before rising and disappearing behind the clouds that are common in the mornings. True beauty right there.

Seminars were a real encouragement, being able to teach kids who may not hear about Christ any other way. We are blessed here in Australia to still have scripture in high schools.

An unwavering plan

Before I came to know God my life was pretty standard for a teenager, school work, hanging with friends and arguing with parents who always thought lectures were a conversation starter. But there was one thing that hung over all this situations like thick fog, I was quite nervous and anxious in many situations that I had to go through myself. Things like making phone calls and finding a new classroom, even going to parties at places I have never been before.

For the last half of my high school life this was a private struggle, something I kept to myself, I don't know why I just seemed to do so. When I was with people I put on a happy 'nothing is wrong face' and often just being around others helped. I didn't have to go alone. It is hard to describe how I felt in the moments I was anxious, I mostly remember stressing that I would walk in the wrong door, call the wrong person or be embarrassed in some way.

I dealt with my anxiety by avoiding these situations entirely, often making excuses such as I am sick or busy when people asked why I wasn't coming. It wasn't until a close friend of mine got her P's that I began going places because I didn't have to do it alone.

This is when I began coming to youth group at my local church. Here I began to hear about a God who had a plan for my life, one that couldn't be wavered, a reassuring thought that was but it wasn't quite enough, because even if God had a plan I could still stuff up. As I learnt more and more about what the bible had to say on God's plan for my life, I began to understand that it was more than just a plan that I could follow, but rather a path that God was lovingly going to lead me down, picking me up when I fell and carrying me when I couldn't go on. This was a massive change in both my perspective and how I dealt with my anxiety. I no longer avoid these situations but step into them knowing and praying to God that he is watching my back, he has a plan that will get me through it. It isn't that my anxiety is gone, I still get anxious in these circumstances but now I am comforted by the knowledge that God has it all covered.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29:11 NIV)

Science of creation

This week I was reading about the evidence of dark matter discovered by a particle detector on the International Space Station - article can be found here
- http://news.discovery.com/space/dark-matter-found-orbital-experiment-130403.htm

Science is forever bringing us new and exciting discoveries which reveal more and more about the universe and world we live in, some of which seem to contradict the creation story that Christianity is based on. Many people than ask 'how can you believe in something that can't be proven?'. I must admit that this was a struggle for me when I first begun to come to know God. Many questions ran through my mind, most of which focused around how God and creation could fit into the modern scientific perception.

My answers came in the form of a book by Alister McGrath called A Fine Tuned Universe: the quest for God in science and theology. It discussed how modern day science and theology can be viewed together. A lot of scientific discoveries reveal to us the precise and perfect structures, elements and conditions that form our universe, but more often than not science puts these down as accidents and coincidence, an impossible probability that just happened to occur. This claim of random chance doesn't leave much purpose to life and the universe, we as humans are merely an anomaly. 

From a Theological perspective, this is evidence to the creation of the universe, something so perfect, something so near impossible to have occurred must surely point to a creator. God created the perfect world  with mere words and the evidence is all around us, the improbability of life speaks volumes. It is amazing to view the world through this perspective, to see everything that exists to have been created for a purpose, something far greater than we can ever imagine and it is revealed right in front of us.

Only Grace

This last weekend I went on a youth camp. I headed into it with a leader attitude (being a leader,as I was), determined to share God's majesty with the youth, helping them learn more about the amazing grace given to us through Christ. What I didn't expect was a challenge to my own faith that made me rethink how I lived my own life. 

The theme of the camp was God's grace and how it was all we need, I was overwhelmed by how many of the youth, people whom I have known for a long time and people whom I have never met, that knew this Grace in their own lives, many of which were heart wrenching stories. The stories that were shared made me think about my own story and how I came to know God's grace myself. 

I must admit that at first I thought my story was simple, even dull compared to those I heard. I quickly came to realise that it wasn't the story that was important but the fact that in every one of them, God's grace was evident and had changed their lives. Looking back on my own story the same was true, yes it wasn't dramatic, but that wasn't on my mind any more, because to God my story is as important as everyone else's important enough for Him to send Christ to save me. 

Everyone has a story, and no ones story is a perfect one, we all need Christ, for the hope of an eternity with God in a place without suffering, pain, anger, hatred, judgement, loneliness or dishonesty. 

-It is by Grace you have been saved. Ephesians 2:5