Primero Reflections (and primero spanish palabra)

Let me just start off by saying I am the sweatiest creature right now. I just ran and man does Maracaibo make you sweat! (Great news about that by the way that I just found out is that the water is shut off. That's pretty funny seeing as that was the only reason I ran, was so that I'd have an excuse to shower.) My poor little keyboard is probably not a fan of all the moisture, but I have best my thinking when I run, and I just came up with a lot of thoughts so now is the time to write them down before I forget.

I actually am not in too great of a mood today, particularly because I am still SOOO sore from doing yoga a few nights ago and that is really frustrating, and running didn't seem to improve that even though I feel like the point of exercising is to relieve stress. Anyway, sorry if a lot of these thoughts are negative. My goal is to be honest and not just sound super spiritual because that's not how I feel right now, and in fact I have been very rebellious against acting really spiritual this year. So here are some of my thoughts as I reflect on the past 8 months in Venezuela. More will come, you can be certain.

I really want a peppermint patty right now. Oh wait, that has nothing to do with Venezuela.

I'll start off with my most horrifically honest feelings. I haven't felt like I've grown closer to God this year or needed to depend on Him, which sucks, because that was obviously one thing I really wanted to happen this year. (Ugh, I just dropped my ipod on the ground again, story of its life.) My thoughts on why that is? I didn't ever get excited about coming here this year. I don't have a clue what I was thinking when I decided to come here, and that doesn't mean it wasn't God's will or that it was a bad idea, but honestly I really don't know why I chose to came. All I can say is it was assuredly the work of the Lord! Anyways, all summer I was lacking motivation in my walk with God, which was disappointing because I was really looking forward to growing through faith during MPD like I had heard so many stories about, but nothing really spectacular happened. I kept waiting for motivation to study Spanish and kept waiting for excitement about going to Venezuela. Let me tell you, it is real hard to get motivated to leave home for a year and go somewhere completely unknown when you'll be leaving your boyfriend (why??) and you aren't getting AAAANY information from anyone about what your new home will be like. That is tough. So what ended up happening was I never got too excited about it because let's face it, I'm not a very exciteable girl, and the closer it got to leaving the more I wanted to stay. I never really had any desire to unattach from my life back home and never found any real reason to look forward in my new life. So there it is. I'm not a super spiritual STINTer missionary. But that's OKAY because you know what? That's real life! We're not always going to be on top of the mountain, and I'm not going to start lie about that.

Now that that's out in the open, I can feel free to share with you the ways that God HAS been working in my life, because of course He has been - He is God and that's what He does - He's always working in us even when we don't feel it or it's not what we expected.

I have finally learned what faith means. I read the "Transferrable Concept" by Bill Bright about How to Be Filled with the Spirit, and I was pretty skeptical reading it as he told stories of people's lives being changed and blah blah fluffy stories. But it worked and happened in my life so now I believe it!! [Background: there are two major things we need faith for. Number 1: Salvation. Number 2: Living like Christ. Choosing to obey Him. Pleasing Him.] To live according to God's Word, we must be filled with the Holy Spirit (duh, we can't please God without God working in us). How are we filled with the Spirit? We ask for God's filling. How do we ask? BY FAITH. What does that even mean? I feel like faith is such a meaningless, fluffy word - it's so impractical! What we want is not a spiritual answer, we want to know what WE need to do in our walk with God. Haha, but that is not what God's plan is! We need the impracticality of faith because we need to not work for God, we need Him to work in us. I think that was a tangent. One more example to get you thinking about what faith is before I answer it for you (oh yeah I am going to answer it - are you ready for that??) is the role of faith in salvation. When we are saved, we are saved through faith. Remember hearing that about one time? :P When we receive Christ, we receive Him through faith. We confess our sins, admit our need for a Savior, acknowledge that He is King and God, and ask Him for forgiveness and thus eternal life (salvation!). We do those things through faith. Okay, now what is faith? What does that mean? It means TRUST. When we 1. pray for Jesus to save us and 2. pray for the Holy Spirit to fill us, we have to TRUST and HAVE FAITH that He DID do those things when we asked Him! It is a simple, simple thing for us to pray those things and for God to do them because that's all there is to it - just one request and then God fulfills His promise - He does what we asked. The problem is that we barely ever believe that He did answer us when we prayed. [I have a cookie now so maybe I will be in a less ridiculous mood....oh wait, where did that logic come from?] How many times have you "prayed to receive Christ?" maybe not that many times (if not, that's great. as for me, I used to be unsure about that. But how many times have you prayed for SOMETHING over and over again - just to make sure God heard you?) Friend, God promises that if we confess and believe in Jesus, we will have the life! God promises that if we ask for the Spirit, He will overflow us! So when you pray, have FAITH in God's Word that He will do what He says He will do. For me this means asking to be filled with the Spirit, and then knowing that I am, and living like it (instead of continuing to ask and not really feeling like anything changed). For unbelievers and people who don't have 100% assurance of salvation, this means trusting that if you ask God into your heart, He is there! There is absolutely no need to keep "praying to receive Christ" if He already lives in you. Doing so insults the Word of God.

Well, this turned more into a soap box than just some cute little quiet reflections, so I will bring more of those thoughts to you later.