Training Camp: Expectations, the Holy Spirit, and Good Fruit

Thank you, Lord, for the sweet gift of the World Race.

The past four weeks have been everything I never knew I needed. Coming in I didn’t have very many expectations because I had heard over and over to forget anything I thought I knew or was expecting. This was funny because AIM gave us barely any information so I didn’t have any premises to build assumptions on anyway, leaving me the ability to have a very open mind in all aspects of this training camp, and the overall trip in general. Well, praise God because I don’t know if I would have been able to be fully present if I was spending my time expecting things to go the way I wanted. And I don’t ever again want to be in a position or heart posture so “me” focused that I become closed off to what the Father has in store.

However, I’m not going to lie, sometimes it is easier to think about myself and complain because I don’t want to do something or I don’t like the food or my squad is annoying me. It has been a struggle to work on overcoming my fleshly desires but the Lord is kind and has been renewing my mind slowly day by day, helping me to learn how to focus my eyes on Him. I have learned so many new things about the Father and His character and His heart for us. I have learned that the Holy Spirit is not just an essence or presence around us sometimes, but that He is the physical indwelling of the power of God INSIDE OF US and is there as our friend, interceding to the Father on our behalf. At home, I feel like we never talk about the Holy Spirit like we value Him as an equal part of the Trinity. So when it felt like we were focusing on and talking about Him a lot more than the Father and the Son, I realized it was needed because most of my squad had never heard about the Holy Spirit in the ways He was being portrayed. Also, I realized that we weren’t necessarily focusing on the Holy Spirit more than the other two, but instead that He was being spoken about as equally as we talk about the others, which seemed like more because, again, it is something that doesn’t happen at home for a lot of us.

The Lord has put on my heart recently and has been revealing new pieces of wisdom about the fruit of the Spirit. My whole life I have struggled with comparing myself to others in some way wherever I go. Sometimes I compare myself to them in a way that makes me feel like I am better than them, while most of the time when I compare it is because of the fact that I feel like I am lacking something that they have. It could be appearance, personality, money, style, you name it. However, as I matured in my faith throughout high school, there were multiple times when, on top of the things previously listed, I would compare myself to my friends that were believers. For some, I would judge them for the negative things they would do to make myself feel like I was a better Christian. While for others, I felt like an inferior Christian because I didn’t act as kind or patient, loving, or joyful, and that would hurt me probably more than comparing myself to other things would. So that was something that I wrestled with at different times over the past couple of years, and the most recent time was here at training camp. I showed up and realized that some people were genuinely so kind, gentle, and loving that it made me feel like I was doing something wrong. And over the last two weeks of training camp, I felt the Lord convicting me about gentleness, particularly in the way I treat His children. After the last time I wrestled with wanting to be a better person I was trying to do it myself so ended up giving up and just accepting that I am who I am (which is true) and that I just shouldn’t try to change anymore (which I have found to be untrue). Changing for other people is so unhealthy, but when the Lord calls you higher to be an example of Christ to the world, I don’t see why you would say no. So lately I have been wrestling through what it means to trust someone else to change me instead of myself. And let me tell you, it is a struggle. But God has been gracious and is revealing to me new things along the way.

Some things that I have learned is that first of all I don’t need to pray for the gift of gentleness because I already have it. Because we have the Holy Spirit inside of us we already have all of the gifts, some may just be more prominent than others. Something else God highlighted to me in a quiet time a few weeks ago was John 15 where Jesus says “Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine and you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me, you can do nothing…This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourself to be my disciples.” This really spoke to me because I have always prayed to God and asked Him to help me have more of whatever fruit I felt that I was lacking, but then would go about it my own way and try to change my heart myself, which is why I always failed. So God opened my eyes at that moment to realize that just like an earthly garden, growing fruit is a process that takes time and is really not about ourselves at all. In order to grow fruit, we have to be a branch connected to the vine (Jesus). And the branches get cut off or pruned by the gardener (God), in order that the Spirit can work to grow more good fruit within us. So we can do nothing ourselves because it is for God’s glory. The only thing we can do is remain in relationship with Jesus and pursue the Holy Spirit. Only then will all these things be added to us.

Thank you, Lord, for new revelations and the way you are kind to give us knowledge.

I am so expectant for the way you will continue to move over the next 8 months.

To end things out I will list a couple of highlights and lowlights.

My highs so far are: Launch day, team time, ultimate frisbee, squad wars, WORSHIP, being baptized in the Holy Spirit, witnessing physical healings, swing dancing, the random selfies of Brooke I find on my phone, and the Mt Yonah sunset!

But with every action is an equal opposite reaction so unfortunately there were a couple of lows which were: I had a bad allergic reaction in my eyes/face to my sleeping bag which lasted for about 5 days. Then when that was over I got a staph infection, also on my face/neck, which lasted for about a week and a half. Those two weeks were really challenging and came with a lot of insecurity and a craving for isolation, which I believe was from the devil, so praise the Lord that it is over and that I feel much better.

Sorry for the very long post but I love you all and will be updating you about North Carolina (where we are doing ministry for two weeks) soon!