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)