The Believer’s Destiny

Owen Furr // UGA Student & Kids/College Ministry Intern

I volunteered to write the blog post on February 7th, full of excitement for the words to come and the ideas I would share with you guys. Here I am, March 17th, three days before the blog is due, fumbling with the words to describe the beauties our insurmountable God has taught me over the past year. I’ve wrestled with what to share, and what most of those reading would resonate with. I concluded that I can only speak from my story, and to the few of you (or maybe many of you) who resonate with it, may the Lord speak life into you in new and profound ways.

My story of the past year has been one of confusion. I was confused how someone, namely myself, could serve the Church in so many ways yet feel so distant from a God who claimed to send his one son to die for us who did not deserve it. I was confused how I could “pursue” a loving God in such “religious” ways, yet not feel an ounce of the love He claimed to have for me. I felt the pains of prayer that had gone unanswered, and the silence of God who I thought was living. I was lost and painfully aware of my brokenness.

I had grown to worship a God who was more concerned with what I was doing than who I was becoming. The God I thought I knew was more of a constructed deity I had pieced together than he was a relational being who knew me deeply and invited me to deeply know Him. I had begun to measure the quality of my faith on how good my quiet times were, or on how many times a week I was serving at the church. Ultimately, it broke me.

The Lord was faithful amid it all and guided me through some hard questions I had to ask myself and allow for others to speak into. On that note, I want to thank a lot of the guys in my life, y’all know who you are! Thanks for giving me the space to work through the tough questions.

I do not have the word count to tackle all my questions, but there is one question that specifically comes to mind at the center of all other questions I asked myself.

Question: What is our purpose?

So often, we tend to view our lives as a sort of broken waiting period we must get through until we get to the end, either Heaven or Hell. We are so focused on the ending of our lives while Jesus is so focused on our current lives. Our current lives are not just a period of 70-80 years of hunkering down until we go on to eternity. Our current lives allow for a glimpse into the Heaven that Jesus promises us. We can experience a form of Heaven on Earth in the ways that we relate to the Lord, the ways we commune with others, and the ways we pursue Christlikeness.

As a church, it is so easy to perceive our purpose in life as a list of Christianese tasks, such as sharing at Tate once a week from 3-4, serving in kids or youth ministry once a week, telling someone the Gospel every now and again. What if these tasks are not our purpose but instead means through which we achieve our purpose and are molded more and more into the image of our beautiful savior Jesus Christ?

What if our lives are not a list of things to do, but instead a person to become?

When we think of purpose, we need to see it through the lens of why we live our lives in the way we do. We find our answer in Romans 8:29- “For those he foreknew (which is us) he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.”

We are “to be conformed to the image of his Son…” We are to grow in our Christlikeness. We are to grow in the ways that we love the one anothers in our lives. We are to stake our lives on Christ and in turn His greatest commandments: “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all you mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22:36-40). We are to run the race with endurance and l trust that at the end of the race is a Savior with His arms wide open ready to receive us as any good good Father would.

My question to all of you is how are you growing more like Christ?

A.W. Tozer writes, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” Tozer reminds us that how we see God directly influences the ways we live. If you view God as a God of judgement, you in turn will become a person of judgement. If you view God as a God of anger, you in turn will become a person of anger. If you view God as a God who holds a record of wrongs, you in turn will become a person who holds a record of wrongs.

As the Singaporean contemplative Hwee Hwee Tan puts it: “you become what you contemplate.”

In my story, I was not contemplating the love of Jesus that in turn leads me into love. I was contemplating the things I had to do, the ways I was serving, the ways I wanted people to perceive me, the ways I fell short, all of the ways I was not becoming like Jesus. Ultimately, I was not becoming more like Jesus in any sense of the imagination. I could pull off the bit, make my life look pretty to those looking in, but my heart was so full of malice, spite, hurt, envy, and pain for the ways I was looking for God but could not find Him.

When I think of viewing God as a loving Father, I am reminded by Tyler Staton in his book Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools that, “our hearts are Peter Pan-forever young, never growing up. We never outgrow the need to be reminded by the day, by the hour, sometimes even by the minute, ‘You’ll always love me no matter what, though, Dad.’ Because the second we forget that, the second it’s diluted into a trope or held in the intellect while a story of our sufficiency or control or performance lives in our bones, our lives unravel, and so does our faith.”

Your Father loves you, and Heaven on Earth is found in dwelling in the love of God day in and day out. It is found in knowing that for those in Jesus, there is no condemnation. No mistake, no flaw, nothing can ever separate you from the love of God in Jesus. You will never be more loved than you are right now by our Father, and the finality of that love was sealed for us all on the Cross in Jesus Christ.

This past week at Tribe, Kaitlin Minter shared a piece she wrote that was such a sweet exhortation to live like followers of Jesus. I had to get special permission to break the word count, but I promise it’s worth it, and nothing in our lives will bring more fulfillment than being more conformed to our savior day in and day out. As N.T. Wright wrote in his work on Paul- “love is the believer’s destiny.”

“You do not belong to darkness.

You do not belong to your past.

You do not belong to your future.

You do not belong to disappointment or failure.

You do not belong to your grades.

You do not belong to gossip or rumors.

You do not belong to social media.

You do not belong to divorce.

You do not belong to a relationship.

You do not belong to your addiction.

You do not belong to porn.

You do not belong to grief or anxiety or heartbreak or depression.

You do not belong to your enemies and you DO NOT belong to sin

You are a child of light, so live like it”

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Owen is a fourth year student at the University of Georgia. He is studying Elementary Education, and hopes to one day be a principal! He is a third year intern and has served predominantly in the kids and college ministries. His hobbies are anything sports related (except pickleball, sorry), reading, and hanging out with friends!

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The Intimacy of Honesty

Kaitlyn Lambert // UGA Student & Community Outreach Intern

The other night, I was driving around the back-roads of Watkinsville with a friend, and I burned a whole quarter-tank of gas. I didn’t have a GPS up, it was past ten, and I was taking random turns while rambling every thought I was having–for like, two hours straight.

She sat in my passenger seat, making thoughtful comments every now and again, but mostly listening in the cool dark of my car. I cannot impress upon you how much I was rambling. I was coming off a hard week, bouncing from topic to topic, throwing things off my chest. I had so many thoughts and feelings. Some of them unfair, many of them human, and all of them as raw and unresolved as they are before I verbally process them. Ill-practiced, awkward, uncomfortable.

At eighteen, this would have been one of those conversations I never would have had with anyone except God Himself. At nineteen, I would have cherry-picked the more palatable aspects of my struggles and spoon-fed them to a select panel. At twenty, I would have gone on a walk by myself and tried to run away from my own brain. Twenty-one, I would have probably had this conversation. But I would have woken up ashamed and embarrassed of proving my imperfection to another human being. Trying to deal with my own humanness between the Lord and I alone, not wanting others to know me as I know me.

At twenty-two, I shared with a friend my feelings, and they were not pretty. While missing turns and fumbling words, I said the kind of silly things you say when it’s winter, and you’re tired, and you feel your emotions so deeply, before you have a good night’s sleep and breakfast and realize that it’s not as world-ending as it felt before. My friend listened, spoke God over me. And after, I dropped her off at her house, went back to my own, and woke up to a new day with even better mercies. All for the cost of a quarter-tank. I was already feeling and thinking. Just then, another human being knew about it, and in turn knew me. And loved me even more. All for the cost of vulnerability.

In 2013, the New York Times published Tim Kreider’s famous op-ed, “I Know What You Think of Me.” In it, he talks about insecurities and other people’s witness of those insecurities, of “loving someone despite their infuriating flaws and essential absurdity.”

What’s most relevant here is the end. “Years ago,” writes Kreider, “a friend of mine had a dream about a strange invention; a staircase you could descend deep underground, in which you heard recordings of all the things anyone had ever said about you, both good and bad. The catch was, you had to pass through all the worst things people had said before you could get to the highest compliments at the very bottom. There is no way I would ever make it more than two and a half steps down such a staircase, but I understand its terrible logic: if we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.”

We, who are wounded and naked and broken little things, cannot know honest love without honest life. Life in community, life in the sharing of burdens and the fracture of our own pride. We are messes of our own making. We time our jokes poorly and no one laughs. We leave our plates behind in the kitchen and make our roommates clean it up. We dance very badly and don’t always know the lyrics to songs we’re singing. We don’t ask how our friends are doing nearly often enough. And we have, at times, been hurt by people in gut-wrenching ways and are weak enough to need a car ride to fix it.

To head back to the Bible, I think often of the heart-break of Genesis 3:9-10: “But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’And he said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.’”

What always gets me here is that their nakedness existed whether they hid or not. And God knew about their nakedness whether they hid or not. But they hid from God and, paradoxically, from each other.

There are no fig leaves between us. Not truly. We either walk down the staircase of “being known,” or we linger uncomfortably near the door-way, and either way we are not invulnerable. Our nakedness exists regardless. Our sin, our mistakes, our personality quirks, our rough edges, our goofy phrases, our bad outfits, our lateness to church services, our lazy love, our hypocrisy and cognitive-dissonance and forgetfulness and inescapable humanness in what it means to be a believer that is sanctified every day until death or resurrection–it’s all there, but bleeding us out in the hiding. A horrible, losing game of masquerade that no one has ever won.

This is a lesson I have learned bitterly. Unwillingly, even now. I ask myself a lot these days, What do I gain by not being honest? And I’ve yet to come up with an answer that matches how much easier it is to breathe when you just…share what you’re struggling with. Love with the boldness of a kid. Confess your mistakes and let other people give you grace. Get in the car, go on the drive, and stop making a home out in the hidden places.

Paul begged the church at Corinth for vulnerability too: “Dear, dear Corinthians, I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way. I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!” (2 Corinthians 6:11-13).

Right now, God is teaching me how to widen my heart and open up my life. To my friends, to my family, to my church, to neighbors and baristas and drivers that sit next to me at the red-light and watch me air-drum to Imagine Dragons even though Imagine Dragons is approximately a decade off-trend. (I’m embarrassed. But I drum anyway.)

Right now, this “wide-open, spacious life” is for us as image-bearers.

Lord, let us enter it.

I hope to meet you there, authentic and real and with all your heart on the line.

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Kaitlyn Lambert is a Community Outreach intern at Watty. She just graduated from UGA with a degree in English and is now pursuing her Master in Public Affairs at UGA. Her favorite hobbies are playing pickleball, writing poetry, and talking theology. As a part-time job, she woodworks and likes to imagine Jesus woodworking too. Last year she went to 7 national parks in 14 days, and her 2024 goal is to go to the Hawaiian National Parks!

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Where Is Your Identity?

Grant Miller // UGA Student & College Intern

Hey there! My name is Grant Miller (but I also go by many other names… including but certainly not limited to… Grass, Gravy, Garganchuon, Grint, Gregos, Grunter, Grade, Gross, Gradient, Gerald, Grizzle, Gragante, G Man, G Money, Big G, George, Giuseppe, Gourd, Great, Goat, Green, Gront, Ferris, Grindstone, Grantavious, Gazpacho, Google, Groog, Lrant, Egregious, Garbanzo Bean, El Guapo, Gordo, BobBob, Brotato Chip, Granter the Enchanter, G Swizzle, Jared, Gragananant, Greed, Gelato, Gork, Grag, Grant-Cracker, Grantnite, Gargantuan Sauce, Garage, Gregus, Grungle, Garent, Gorgeous, Grantasaurus Rex, Grunk, Grantamos, Grey’s Anatomy, Grnt, Grantamus, Grantholomeu, Lugnut, Granty, GDP (or Grant Domestic Product), Grantpa, Gillette, Gorgenant, Grab, Greta Thunberg, Grunt, Gragnart, Grantalones, Grudge, Grung, Garganatius, Grungus, Gorgonzola, Garnt, Gernt, Gripe, Gregory, Greg, and Phil)… 

If you really read each and every one of those… I am so so sorry, and I am concerned for you. If you decided to skip reading them entirely, I can’t say I blame you. But just rest assured that yes, I have been called each of these names at least once, and if you were to shout any one of them in public, I would quickly turn around, knowing you’re talking to me. 

Now, believe it or not, this goofy little intro does serve a purpose other than (hopefully) making you laugh and showcasing my name repertoire… because I want to talk about identity. 

My one precious hope, for the rest of the time you spend reading this blog post, is that no matter where you’re at in your life (a struggling Christian or a thriving one, an unbelieving soul or a searching one) God in his irrepressibly redeeming nature would somehow take the scatter-brained thoughts and makeshift wisdom of a sinner like me, and miraculously transform your heart and begin or continue to cleave it firmly to His. Because the only way we can move from darkness into light is if the Lord of light and everything good, pulls us out of the shadows and hems us into His loving heart. It has nothing to do with our capabilities, our strength, our wisdom, or our willpower to overcome sin, but it has everything to do with His irrevocable saving hand.  

That is our identity, my friend. It’s in Him and Him alone, if our faith and souls are surrendered to the saving act of His son, Jesus Christ.  

If that’s more of a reminder to you than a new revelation, then thanks be to God! But if the very idea of finding identity externally is something new to you, then I’d be delighted to point you to where I got such a countercultural idea. If you have a Bible, I’d encourage you to open it up right now, and flip to Ephesians chapter 2. And if you don’t have a Bible, you needn’t worry. I’ll explain what you need to know. 

Ephesians 2:1 “As for you, you were dead…”

 That’s it. Let’s stop right there before continuing… Ponder right now… what does it mean to be dead? What does this verse not say? It doesn’t say “you were clinging on to life.” It doesn’t say “you were almost dead.” It doesn’t say “you were sick.” It doesn’t say “you were in trouble but there’s a way to save yourself.” It says, very plainly and quite bluntly… You. Were. Dead.  

It’s scary, and I draw attention to this morbid word, because in the same way that a fish that’s always lived in the ocean does not know it’s wet, we were born into a corrupt, sinful, and dead world, unable to comprehend the full nature of death and evil because it’s all we’ve ever known.  

Here’s another metaphor for you… Think about a toddler, dressed up in his little overalls, an extra small button up shirt, and with his hair in a combover, on his way to church with his loving Christian parents… cute right?  

NO! 

WRONG! SO WRONG! 

That baby knows how to be needy, demanding, and self-centered before it knows how to walk! That same morning, he probably cried for breakfast ten minutes after being fed! Pastor Voddie Baucham calls babies “vipers in diapers.” Hehe. It’s funny, but the point is serious. Sin is inherent with everything walking on this earth, even adorable babies, meaning that we are condemned and dead from the start. In the same sermon, Baucham explains in excellent detail the three staples of evil which hem us in to our sinful nature, and how we so ignorantly believe that attempting to individually conquer or escape any one of those three things can save us.  

If you isolate yourself from the evils of the world, going into the middle of the woods and avoiding any contact with the creations of man, the temptations and waking evil of the flesh and the devil still subjugate your heart. If you look at yourself in the mirror, every morning and repeat “I can do this. I can do this,” watching motivational videos and stirring up your will power to conquer your flesh, the world and the devil will still overtake you, because your willpower is unable to overcome the forces of evil. If you acknowledge the devil’s presence and influence, running from him daily, your already poisoned mind and the evil world around you will take you back to square one. 

We are hemmed in on all sides. Winning is NOT possible. It’s just not. I repeat, as Ephesians 2 says, “you were dead.” A dead man cannot save himself. Because well… he’s dead. Our identity is that of a dead person… 

But let’s keep reading, because “you were dead,” is past tense right? Could that mean something happened to change our dead state?

Verse 3, “All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest we were by nature deserving of wrath…” 

“BUT…” (Verse 4).

“Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich and mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions…”

And here’s the real kicker… 

“it is by GRACE you have been saved” (Verse 5).

GRACE. Not grace and then works. Not works and then grace. Just… grace. God has offered His son as a living sacrifice for your tattered life, so that if you believe in His resurrection, God will look upon you and see not the broken life you’ve lived, but the perfectly sanctified life of His son, Jesus Christ!  

My whole life, even after becoming a Christian, I have battled against a false gospel that tells me that even though God has saved me, I am required to go to church and I am required to spread the Gospel and I am required to live a righteous life. But no, I get to go to church, and I get to spread the Gospel and I get to live a righteous life. Because each of those things has been given to me, not earned. Many people look at Christian lifestyles and immediately see a set of rules that restricts them from living the life they want to live. But when God authored the ten commandments and when God authored the outline for living a New Testament Christian life, he never intended it to be seen as a complicated pathway to salvation. The purpose of these “rules” was never intended to be our identity.

Look at Romans 5:20-21

“The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”  

The purpose of the law was to show us that we are incapable of following it! It is a gift to beleaguered sinners like you and me who are hemmed in and unable to locate the shallow limits of our willpower and self-righteousness.  

This doesn’t mean we should continue sinning, as Paul further explains in Romans 6, but it does mean that the compass of our longing for salvation and peace should be pointed to someone who can fulfill the law – Jesus Christ. 

Therefore, here at the end of my little deep dive into identity, I encourage you, the reader, to ponder these verses and these truths more deeply. Where do you put your identity? Is it in the things of this world that are temporary and fading? Success. Fame. Money. Popularity. Self-Righteousness. Pleasure… These things seek to destroy you and rob you of your joy… Or is your identity in Christ Jesus, the only one who can drive away evil and retrieve us from the world and its principalities, plunging us into His heart and giving us the power to step into eternal kingship with Him? 

These are heavy questions and cannot be answered in a quick sit-down. So I implore you, my friend, on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God and seek out someone who has pondered these questions before. I myself, would be thrilled to entertain any questions you have, and if these questions aren’t new to you, I would still welcome any conversation you have to offer. And if you are the reader who has already pondered these questions, take courage and share with someone today that their burden can be relieved. It is our Matthew 28 calling, after all :) 

God bless, and may His light forever illuminate your path! 

Also, I wanted to include the link to Voddie Baucham’s Sermon, “The World, The Flesh, and The Devil.” If you watch it you’ll quickly realize this post is heavily inspired by His own words. But there’s so much more truth to be explored in His video!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yaj7tBY2UGI&t=384s

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Grant is a third year Management major at the University of Georgia and a College Intern at Watkinsville this year. In his free time, he enjoys playing the piano, spending time with friends, and breaking out dance moves at unexpected times. He spends his Wednesdays hanging out at the Woelfl-Bates Tribe, and loves talking about the Lord!

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The Story That Seems Impossible

Nate Castleman // UGA Student

When I was asked to write a blog about what God has done in my life and how he has changed it, I was hesitant at first. However, a friend encouraged me saying this story is too good to go untold, which gave me the confidence I needed to write about my life and what God has done in it.

I’ll rip the band-aid right off… If you didn’t know this about me, I was born with dyslexia, meaning I had trouble reading and writing, among other things. I struggled in school my whole life from kindergarten to my senior year of high school. I personally didn't know I had dyslexia till 7th or 8th grade, but my parents knew I had it since I entered elementary school. I wouldn’t say it completely controlled my life, but it definitely played a strong role in showing me what I could and couldn’t do school-wise. I struggled to compare things in the classroom, struggled to read, and struggled to write. I knew I couldn’t read as great as other people in my class because I had a 4th-grade reading level in the 7th grade. Among that, I was either failing most of my classes or barely passing them. However, I was never held back. I always passed along with the other kids getting all A’s in their classes. At that point in time, my parents and I were questioning why God gave me this if all I was bound to do was fail in school and struggle with so much personally.

My 7th-grade year was a long and horrific year for me. In the middle of the first semester of 7th grade, I got therapy for my dyslexia. During this, I had to relearn pretty much everything related to writing and reading, from the alphabet to just writing a basic sentence. This did help a little bit, but I still struggled in school a lot. I got bullied, to say the least; people called me names because of my dyslexia. I lost almost all of my friends during that year, besides a couple of true friends that stuck by my side. Due to the bullying, my grades were slipping, and I was not doing as well in sports. On top of that, I didn’t go to church as much anymore, didn’t pray, and didn’t do what I knew was right. I think this was probably one of the lowest points in my life because I had nobody to talk to about how I felt, or how I was doing personally.

Thankfully, one of those four friends I had that were in my group invited me to church on Wednesday night just to check it out. I did, and I fell in love with what our church was doing for high school and college students. That’s when I started going back to church and serving with the church I was attending. That summer, between my Sophomore and Junior year, I went to an FCA camp. During the last night’s service, they told everyone to close their eyes and that those that wanted to be saved to stand up. That night I gave my life to Jesus for the first time alongside two of my other teammates.

Going into junior year, one of my teachers said something so disrespectful that I believe she got fired after saying it. Every year since going to school, I have had meetings with my coaches, teachers, and parents to see how I was doing in classes. In these meetings, all the teachers gave me high praise for paying attention, answering questions, turning in homework, and doing well on quizzes and tests. However, one day, my Language Arts teacher said, and I quote “your son got a 94 on the benchmark midterm for this semester, but this is the most successful he will be in all his school life. Your son should drop out of high school and never go to college because I don't see him accomplishing much in the future school-wise.” Now hearing that, as a student in high school, was just so discouraging, especially coming from a teacher.

My senior year was more of the same during the first semester. However, something bad happened in the spring of 2020, and everybody knows it well…COVID. A lockdown happened, which meant that no one could even leave the house. During this time, I stopped going to church once again. I just didn’t find a reason or a purpose to go. Those choices led me down a path of darkness and sin. I got into all of those things because of the people around me and the groups I hung out with. I still felt a hole in my heart, but instead of changing anything, I kept doing what I was doing. This led to me losing friends and ultimately breaking up with my girlfriend.

Eventually, I asked my friend, “hey, you brought me back into the Christian life once, can you do it again?” He just smiled and responded, “I would love to.” I felt like I was too far gone this time but I remembered what God did for me and this changed me as a person.

Continuing in 2020, I started my college career at UNG Gainesville, which was the only school that I got into with a high-school GPA of 2.89. Despite everything I had been told and made fun of for, I wanted to prove that God had a bigger plan for me. In my first semester at UNG, I received all A’s and B’s. Let me tell you, I was jumping up and down because I have never gotten grades like this before. The spring of 2021 was an interesting semester. Once again, I finished with A’s and B’s, for the second time ever. And this was God's way of telling me that this is what he had in store for me. That summer, my mom and I took a visit to UGA because I was thinking of transferring out of UNG. My mom delivered this famous line: “how cool would it be if you got into UGA and went here?” I replied, “that will never happen.” 

Skipping ahead to fall of 2021, around the middle of the semester, I got an email from UNG saying that I was on the President’s List of UNG. I sent this to my parents and they were so proud of me. I'd been through so much in my life up to that point and been written off by so many people, I was basically doing the impossible in my eyes and in my parents’ eyes as well. All glory goes to God because he put me on the path to work hard in my classes. After my fall semester, I finished with all A’s, which I thought I could never do. I mean come on, a dyslexic guy that graduated high school with a 2.8, finishing a semester with a 4.0? Even saying that now doesn’t seem real to me. 

In 2022, my semester kicked off the same way. I got an email from UNG congratulating me for being put on the Dean's list because of my 4.0 standing from the last fall. Now I’m not going to lie, that caught me off guard. I had to read it again and it said “Dean's List.” I started to cry tears of joy. This was yet another achievement that seemed impossible to me. During that spring semester, I was in a class with two of my friends who applied to transfer to UGA. At this point, I was still on the fence about applying, but my mom said “just do it, the worst that could happen is that you don't get in.'' I decided to apply, and then played the waiting game. A couple of weeks passed by and my friends both received emails that they got into UGA for the fall of 2022. I started to feel bad because I thought I didn’t get into UGA. However, on St. Patrick’s Day, I was working with some friends when I received an email from UGA. I opened it and it said, “Nathan Castleman, Congratulations! You have been accepted into UGA for the fall of 2022, you're officially a bulldog.” After I read that email, I broke down crying for a good reason, because I never thought getting into UGA was going to be possible. I told my friends, and they gave me hugs and congratulated me. Then I went into my manager's office, and she started to cry because she was so happy for me. When I called my parents and told them the news, they started to cry as well. Once again, saying I got into UGA sounds surreal. To be honest, I still feel like I’m about to wake up from a dream. I always tell myself that God has put me on a path with many setbacks because he always has something greater in store for me. Therefore, the path he picks for me is the path that I am most grateful for. Ever since I got into UGA, I read this verse my mother sends me every morning.

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13

This is my life story. Jesus has done amazing things in my life, and he has helped me through the rough patches as well. I really can’t thank him enough, because I truly wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for him. Now I’ve told this story to a small number of friends in Athens, and they are amazed at the power and wisdom Jesus has displayed in my life. When they tell me that, I cry a little because they know how much I’ve been through to become the person I am today. Finally, I will end this off on a high note. I wanted to thank my parents (I know you're reading this) for never giving up on me and always having my back. God has done so much in my life, and I know he will continue to do more! I want to thank you for reading and leave you with this verse for encouragement.

“But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth” 2 Timothy 4:17

God is always on your side and always has your back. He knows what’s best for you. I hope this story was encouraging to you, I hope it leads you to seek out hurting people in your life, and I hope it motivates you to invite them into a loving Christian community because that changed my life.

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Nate is a second year Management and Information Systems Major with a Minor in Criminal Justice at UGA. He has been attending Watkinsville since August of this year, as this is his first semester since he transferred from UNG Gainesville. On Tuesdays, he spends his evenings with the Barnes tribe praying for the many missions teams around the world. One thing you should know about Nate is that he enjoys trying new things, whether it is joining a small group or taking opportunities.

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What are you Training for?

Natalie Stembel // UGA Student & Worship Intern

Hi. My name is Noot. The government calls me Natalie; I seldom answer. I love the color green. It reminds me of life and peace and the green pastures we’re welcomed into with our Heavenly Father by our side. I like to workout and to feel the accomplishment of pushing the limits of my strength. I’m a visual person. I experience the Lord in mighty ways when I get to interact with His creation. If you read nothing else that I write, read this:

I was created in the image of my Father. I was born into a world that, although made in His image, has been warped by the curse of sin. Sin is a part of me. Only by the grace and kindness of He who called us into His eternity, my story doesn’t have to end there. These things are true of every human. Thankfully, oh so thankfully, my story continues. Although sin is a part of me, and will be as long as the Lord keeps me on this earth for His purpose, it no longer steals, kills, and destroys. In Galatians, it says we have been crucified with Christ. It says, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me.” What wonderful news! Although sin is a part of me, Christ is now too. He lives within me. He lives within me! In 2 Corinthians, after talking about what it means to be with Jesus and be known by Him in intimacy like this, it says when we are in Christ the old has ‘passed away’. It says to behold, that the new has come. In Hebrew, the word behold means “to fix the eyes upon; to see with attention; to observe with care.” In Hebrew, to behold means to ‘observe with care’ that our new life in Christ has come. To see with attention, to fix our eyes upon, He who saved us and called us to a holy calling, abolishing life and death and bringing immortality to light through the gospel.

Okay. That was a lot all at once. Let’s recap: The Lord created me. I have seen the Lord through the abundance of His presence in His world. And I live in a world that, while created perfectly, now experiences the consequences that come only from living in sin.

One product of when man originally disobeyed God in Genesis 3 (known as The Fall) is the growing crisis of mental health. Let me be very clear: Reading Genesis 1, we see that the Lord created earth, everything in it, and the human mind. And it was very good! Satan, referred to kindly as the father of lies in John 8, did not start calling shots until Genesis 3. This is when we see the Fall of Man, an account written by Moses, of the first time man disobeyed God. This opened the door for sin to enter the world that the Lord had made. As someone who knows what it means to pray and feel the lament of Psalm 77, “my soul refuses to be comforted,” I’m familiar with Satan as the Father of Lies.

It hasn’t been a battle void of all peace. It ebbs and flows. I’ve found that a weighted vest helps my mental state. It grounds me. The prison my mind has chained me to often makes it feel that my mind is stuck but my body is floating away. Drifting. For me, the term ‘live in the moment’ means more than the fall decor section at Hobby Lobby. It means changing my environment to remind me of where I am. Often, that looks like wearing a weighted vest. I use it to run, hike, and walk. The energy required to workout increases exponentially with a weighted vest, and both exercise and the weight calms my brain and slows the panic that so often takes captive my ability to think logically. When I’m not exercising, I use a sandbag or two from the vest and lay them on my chest or in my lap, which grounds me with the added benefit of not making me sweat profusely. Recently, I’ve discovered a metronome app. My brain notices sound textures and gets easily overwhelmed by them. I listen to the metronome at 40 bpm and it gives my brain a sound that is consistent and predictable when my world is spinning. If I’m listening to music, I will often also have the metronome playing. If we’re having a conversation and I’m wearing headphones, I’m listening to the metronome. It does not distract me; it’s what makes it possible to listen.

As it turns out, wearing a weighted vest on campus with headphones and a look of laser focus causes people to turn heads. I often get asked, “What are you training for?”

I laugh every time I’m asked this, but not because the question is unreasonable. I laugh because that question reminds me: “while some use a vest to train for something, I need it to survive.” It has become one of the clearest examples of the Lord’s nearness.

I am training for something. Looking back, I’ve lived in survival mode for as long as I can remember. I’ve never been great at thinking about the future. It’s hard to devote energy to thinking 5 or 10 or 50 years down the road when it takes all the energy I have to function.

On Saturday, I managed to drop a couch on my foot while 3 people were sitting on it. (Please refrain from questions on ‘how’ because I have no answers to give.) That night, I slept in a hammock. I drove home 2 ½ hours the next day and walked almost 1.8 miles. Sunday night I was alone for the first time since Friday. Although I tried to fall asleep, the pain and wrong sensations in my foot reminded me of the psalmist who said, “You hold my eyelids open; I am so troubled that I cannot speak.” That night was filled with Miss Congeniality 2, Cool Ranch Doritos, checking the hours of the health center, calling the emergency room to see if they thought I needed to come in, and rest. And ice. And compression. And elevation.

Monday was filled with x-rays, waiting rooms, crying while waiting in pitch black patient rooms because the light hurts your eyes, and the overwhelming reminders of how Jesus calls me a person for His own possession (1 Peter 2:9) . When I foolishly drove myself to urgent care, I saw the Lord’s gentleness in a friend reminding me I could leave and go somewhere else after I waited 90 minutes and still wasn’t seen. As I foolishly drove myself to the health center, I saw the Lord’s creativity when He gave me the idea to call a friend who could tell me funny stories, giving me a fighting chance of stopping the tears enough to make out the lines on the highway, precariously balancing my right foot over the gear shift as my left foot controlled the pedals. The fact that I made it to the health center alive shows me that when Paul said in Philippians 4 that the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard my heart and mind in Christ Jesus, He meant it literally. When David said surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever (Psalm 23), I thought, goodness and mercy are not words that would describe my life at all. If this is possible, it at least must not begin until after my earthly body dies. The Lord reminds me that not only is it possible, but it is available to me. Goodness and mercy are words that can describe my life!

I am now at what I affectionately refer to as ‘my home house.’ I still have no answers on what exactly I did to my foot. The pain is increasing exponentially. The love of The Father is not. He loves me infinitely and always has. Although I am currently more aware of His love because I have ample time for sitting and pondering, this has no effect on the magnitude of His love.

Next time someone asks me what I’m training for, I will have a better idea of what I can tell them. I will explain that the Lord has been intricately knitting together each moment in love, allowing the pain to serve a purpose in His kingdom. I will tell them the good news. Jesus Christ came to earth, lived a perfect life so that He could take on the wrath of God for sinners, of whom I am foremost. He died the death I deserved, taking on shame and humility and foot pain that doesn’t ever cease. I will invite them into the loving kindness that He so graciously invited me into.

While looking for a verse to end this with, the Lord so carefully chose two from Romans to remind me of.

I thought the verse I was looking for was in Romans 16. When I opened that chapter I saw the same verse that I used to get myself through every moment in South Asia this summer, and though my current state is much more debilitating, it’s also a rather humorous verse to meditate on in this time.

The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you (Romans 16:20).

When we would wake up in South Asia to children we had never seen before sitting on our bed, I would tell myself that the God of peace will soon crush Satan under my feet. Some of the guys I went overseas with had the brilliant idea to get bottles of water for the team before we boarded our final flight. We graciously accepted, oblivious to the quickly approaching deadline to board. Three of the nine had already boarded, and Alexis and I were waiting for the guys who went for water with their luggage, passports, and boarding passes. When the flight attendant approached, I kindly reminded him that 4 of my friends were buying the rest of us water and we were holding their passports and nothing he said could make me get on that plane without them. It was at this moment that the God of peace reminded me that the God of peace will soon crush Satan under my feet.

Today, though, I am extra thankful that the God of peace will soon crush Satan under my feet because I know that my foot will be crushing nothing but an ice pack.

After I realized the verse I was looking for was not in Romans 16, or 20 (which doesn’t exist), or 18, or 15, He led me to chapter 10. As I was writing this I questioned many times whether or not I should add something, delete something, start new, choose a new topic…

Then I read verse 15,

How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!

Oh man. Thank you Jesus! How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!!! He used this verse to remind me that none of my words mean anything, but that my feet are beautiful because I preach the good news.

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Natalie is a third year Cognitive Science major with a minor in American Sign Language. She has been coming to Watty since her freshman year, and has been a Worship intern since sophomore year. On Tuesdays, she spends her evenings convincing the Barnes’ Tribe that Cheez-it Grooves are indeed a type of cheese (and the best type). She also had the privilege of spending the summer in South Asia with Watkinsville. She is passionate about the church body and sees the Lord moving immensely through the ways He prepares His disciples to carry out Matthew 28:18-20!

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Leaving the Mountaintop

Kaitlyn Lambert // UGA Student & Community Outreach Intern

When I was first asked about writing a post for the college blog, I really thought I had the post essentially pre-written in my mind. It was going to be a summation of my summer in Athens, some paragraphs about day-to-day faithful obedience, and a few neat little anecdotes about the lessons the Lord had been teaching me recently. I hoped it would an easily-digestible encouragement in this busy college season. I even had a clever title, all ready to go.

However, I wonder if what is more useful (for you and me both) is not to share what I’ve learned, but what I’m learning—daily and constantly and with much toil. And so, this is not that original blog post. Rather, this is a story of painful failure, and the things I have done wrong, so that now I might do them right.

Let me set the scene for you: by about the end of my freshman year here at UGA, I fervently believed I had hit the jackpot, so to speak, of the Christian life. I had a bountiful community of close friends, of various ministries and churches in Athens. I had a church home I loved dearly. I was on leadership for a Christian retreat. I knew a decently large amount of the greater Christian community, and people either knew me or knew those I knew. Everything I did was alongside fellow believers, and everywhere I looked (with the kind of dim, rose-colored eyes of my freshman year) was Jesus, and people who knew Jesus, and people who loved Jesus. We all went to church together, and had game nights together, and talked about theology together, and spent (what felt like) every waking moment together. For someone who came into college broken and desperate for Christian community, it felt like a great turnaround. It felt like I had finally “won.”

Sure, I lived in a high-rise dorm with hundreds of students that I never interacted with. Sure, I had classes with people over Zoom—talked with them, responded to their discussion posts. And sure, there were people at the dining halls; around campus; at the grocery store; at the check-out counter; on every packed street I walked on and in the door-to-door hallway I lived on—most of whom were not Christian, did not know the Gospel, and had no significant relationships with those who professed to live for Jesus. Most of them probably didn’t go to church, or had never been to church, or even knew the name of a single church in the city. And sure, statistically, there are an estimated 100,000 lost in Athens, a sizable minority of them at the University of Georgia, but for me, I had so much Jesus in my life that it was nearly impossible to imagine anything but. I was trying, well-intended, to live “in the world” instead of “of it” (John 17:14), attempting to separate myself from a secular, non-Christian influence and culture while in college. It seemed like what “good Christians” did. It was what I had been told to do, just before I had left my small, Bible-belt hometown after high school graduation.

Sophomore year was much the same. I plugged in more at church, got to serving in kids ministry. Met even more believers, deepened those Christian friendships I already had. Got coffee with people and talked about Jesus and what it was like to follow Him in college. Felt like I was winning a needle in a haystack when I would meet someone new who was a believer, and I could connect with them on our shared faith. Stayed on leadership for that same Christian retreat. Joined a tribe. Looked into going on mission for the summer in Turkey or Boston. Applied for the church internship. And kept up this same routine of, sure, going to classes and living in a new apartment complex and going grocery shopping at the Kroger off College Station and waiting for the shuttle at Chicopee Complex for my off-campus parking spot and doing the necessary tasks in a fallen world, but overwhelmingly, nearly entirely, doing life surrounded by and dedicated to Christian community. I’d had more than a few conversations with some friends about feeling like I was living in a “bubble” of believers, and my Tribe had really shifted many of my perspectives on the heart of evangelical mission, and I had (rather half-heartedly) tried to make connections with my classmates and with some old high school friends. And I wore the Christian t-shirts and bracelets, and I told people I was Christian and what my church was, and I smiled and said, “Have a good day!” everywhere I went and attempted to live with a kind of Christ-exterior that people might notice. And at the time, it really felt like it was just enough effort, even if my Google Calendar looked like a color-coded translation of commitments and tasks best titled “church” or “Christian” or “avoiding secular pursuits.”

It took until May of this year, some twenty-one months of living in Athens and going to college here, when on a sheet of paper I was told to write down the names of people in my life I could share the Gospel with, and I found that I couldn’t.

Now, if the task had been to write down the names of people that I knew, I could jot down a decent number. Co-workers. Old freshman year roommate. High school friends. A couple of family members. People I sat next to in class. The shuttle driver I rode with every day. My neighbors at my apartment complex.

But I wasn’t asked that. Instead, I was asked, “Who in your oikos could you share the Gospel with?” The word “oikos” being Ancient Greek for “sphere of influence,” or “household”—that is, people you actually have relationship with, that you interact with and truly know. That is, not just superficially intersect with, but that you have genuine influence over. Not just people you could text after months of not speaking, but that are present in your life.

And my answer was, to my sudden and piercing shame: I didn’t have any. There was no one for me to share the Gospel with, not without me falsely pursuing sudden relationship with people.

I could’ve given dozens of names of lovely, dear, and Proverbs 27, iron-sharpened Christians, but as for the lost around me, those living without any knowledge of the carpenter that died for them, I didn’t even know them.

That moment, a blank sheet of paper staring at me with just my name written down in the center, was a realization of a series of failures as a Christian. I really thought I had done it right. I got the Christian community, and I grew my Christian community, and I did everything involved with my Christian community, and I held onto that community with tightened fists, prioritizing it above all else. And it was good. And it was for God. But eventually, what was intended to “stir [me] up…to love and good works” (Hebrews10:24) had become what was hindering me from following what Jesus had directed to His disciples on that Galilean mountain: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20).

And my failure has not really been that I had no one to share the Gospel with, but that I had so deeply integrated myself in a man-made kingdom of Christ-followers that I had forgotten that there is a Kingdom to come (Matthew 6:10), and that this world this is not my home (Hebrew 13:14). That there is an entire earth of created beings, an entire city, an entire state university, of people who do not know that Jesus has hung on a cross for them and has given them new life apart from this broken existence, and yet I did not allow myself to realize that I had been hiding away in the midst of the richest harvest.

If I were to go look for Jesus in the days of His ministry, if I really wanted to search for Him, I would not have gone to the synagogues and the temples (though He did spend time there). I would go to the countryside hilltops, where He told parables of things no one had ever heard. I would go to the dinner tables, where He sat with people who did not even love Him. I would go Him gathering with the disciples, perhaps along the road for a rest, where He told them, “If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray?” (Matthew 18:12).

Could I? Leave my ninety-nine friends? My church? My home? For that one sheep (that I have been), so lost and tender and worth knowing, beyond the confines of our white-washed Christian walls?

How many times am I walking past the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4)? How many times am I rushing through the crowd of Pharisees with stones in their hands and a woman who does not know she has been forgiven (John 8)? How often is there a Zacchaeus in my path, leaning out of a sycamore tree, searching for sight of Jesus (Luke 19)? How often am I eating with the tax collectors and sinners of the modern world (Mark 2)? How often am I pressed in-between a dozen students on a UGA bus, impatient to be on my way to my household of already-saved, Christ-loving girls? How often am I checking the clock in my class of thirty people whose names I don’t know and already thinking about church that night? How often am I viewing the earthly life I live as a distraction to endure instead of the purpose for which I am made?

There was a time when I thought I had “made it” as a Christian. I really believed I had succeeded in what my community and lifestyle was meant to exhibit, what its purpose was meant to be. I have spent the months since learning how to be the “light of the world” (Matthew 5:14), rather than the light of those who have already been made to see. Trying to make my oikos a picture of genuine relationship with the lost and broken, rather than those who are already found. I don’t know how well I do it even now, preaching as I am to myself. I think I will spend my entire lifetime learning. Learning how to do it right, how to do it wholeheartedly. Cherishing my Christian community and its Proverbial iron-sharpening, but in order that I might better cultivate the Kingdom-to-come, rather than the kingdom that is here.

I wonder if I don’t see Jesus all the more clearly in the harvest-field, away from all the comforts and pleasures of the home I’ve precariously built on the mountaintop—nothing but the pure, unflinching brokenness of the world He has called me to love.

He loved it too. He died for it, and He has called me to live in it.

May we all love our world, our every breath and opportunity and interaction and person, well. May we love one another so well, that we are all on hands and knees in the dirt, looking around us and finding that the laborers for the Gospel are ever-increasing, that they look less like our friends and more like “a great multitude that no one [can] number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb” (Revelation 7:9) at the end of all things.

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Kaitlyn is a third year English major with minors in Religion and Public Policy & Management at UGA. She has been attending Watkinsville FBC since January of her freshman year, serves in WatKIDSville, and is a Community Outreach/Hospitality Intern. On Thursday, she hangs out at the Jones Tribe. She can’t wait to see how Athens can become a college town that is on fire for the Gospel!

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When I am Weak, Then I am Strong

Anna Hicks // UGA Student & Communications Intern

One of the biggest lessons I’ve had to learn is that God can take the most difficult circumstances and use them for His glory. In my life, this has looked like an arc in my story that I never would have written for myself, but that He ended up turning into an opportunity to share the greatest Story ever written. Let me explain. 

When I was five, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor and had to have surgery to remove it. By God’s grace, the doctor was able to get rid of the tumor completely and it has never come back. Unfortunately, due to complications from the surgery, sometimes pressure builds up in my brain and I must have emergency surgery. This always happens at random and has happened seven times over the past thirteen years. Although the symptoms are clear enough that we always know to go to the hospital when it happens, I have to live with the fact that if we don’t catch it before the pressure builds up too much, things could go really bad for me really fast. Knowing this could happen any day makes things like moving away from my parents and going overseas on my own difficult, scary, and in some cases logistically impossible. Living with this hanging over my head certainly isn’t easy, and when I have to go in for surgery it can be hard to see how any good can come of the situation at all.

 In the New Testament, Paul calls his own recurring trial the “thorn in his flesh.”

“Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

Although the New Testament doesn’t say specifically what Paul’s thorn is, we can be sure it was something unpleasant, something he pleaded to have taken away. Yet this passage also shows us an example of the godly way to respond to these trials. When Paul pleaded for his thorn to be taken away, God’s answer was “no.” But instead of complaining and trying to find a way to get rid of his thorn on his own, Paul said he would boast gladly in his weakness - even delight in his weakness. The automatic response to difficulties in our world today is not to delight in them. So how does Paul do it? The answer is there in the first verse - “[God’s] power is made perfect in weakness.” When we are weak, our inability to deal with our own difficulties proves that God alone is powerful. Our trials and hardships are opportunities for us to give God the glory and boast in HIS power instead of our own. Serving God through our difficulties looks like taking our sorrow and hurt and turning them around into awe and wonder at the power of a God who, when we are weak, remains strong.

In my story, this mindset switch came in the form of an incredible opportunity during my church’s mission trip to Bogotá, Colombia. Our team had to write stories through which we could share the gospel, and as I tried to brainstorm a topic for the story I would share, the Lord put my own story on my heart. As I sat down at the table to write it out, the elements of my story and the gospel narrative started falling into place side by side, leaving me awestruck at how the Lord had been working in my life without me even realizing it.

In my story, I was born with a sickness that I couldn’t do anything about on my own, one that would eventually kill me if nothing was done about it. In the same way, every one of us is born with a terrible sickness called sin, which we are helpless to fix on our own, and which will result in eternal death if nothing is done about it.

In my story, my doctor offered me a solution to my sickness - he could take away the tumor for good. God offers us a solution to our sin disease when he extends to us the gift of salvation, and just like I accepted my doctor’s offer and was healed of my tumor, if we accept the gift of salvation God will forgive us of our sins - past, present, and future - leaving us healed.

However, just because I am healed of my tumor doesn’t mean I don’t suffer from its effects. The problems resulting from the tumor are something I’ll have to deal with until I die, but I know that if I go to my doctor he is willing and able to fix it for me. Similarly, as long as we are living on this fallen earth we as Christians will have to deal with the effects of sin on our bodies, minds, and spirits. However, if we have accepted the gift of salvation we can have confidence that we can come to the Father and he has already forgiven us completely and freely!

In Colombia, I was able to share this story - my story - with the people as a method of sharing the gospel with them. Although only God knows how He used it to work in the hearts of the people who heard it, I know for sure that the Lord used that experience to change my own heart. Before writing my story, I struggled to see how my medical challenges were something that the Lord could use for good - how could something that caused me and those around me so much pain bring Him glory? But when God said “no” to Paul’s pleas for relief from the thorn in his flesh, Paul found out that in his own weakness, the strength of God was made more evident in his life. Through writing my story, the Lord showed me how one of the most difficult parts of my own story is actually such a gift because I can use it to share the most important story - the story of the gospel.

Please don’t hear me saying that if you give your trials to God it will make them any easier. Jesus told his followers in John 16:33,

“In this world you will have troubles. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

Just because we choose to trust God with our troubles and use them to glorify Him doesn’t mean that they are going to go away. Paul had to deal with the thorn in his flesh for the rest of his life, and my doctors might not ever figure out how to completely get rid of the complications from my tumor. But what it does mean is that we can have confidence that even when we can’t see how, God’s power is made perfect in our weakness. When trials and tribulations come our way and the thorns in our flesh seem too hard to bear, we can choose to count it all joy and with Paul claim that “when I am weak, then I am strong.”

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Anna is a second year English and intended Public Relations double-major at UGA. She started attending Watkinsville FBC consistently in January. She serves as a Communications Intern this school year and is in the Jones tribe. She is excited to see how the Lord uses her to serve His people this year at Watkinsville!

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The Body of Christ

Kirsten Brucker // UGA Student & College Intern

This year I am a sophomore at the University of Georgia and I have been reflecting on what my life was like a year ago. I was the typical nervous freshman coming onto campus not knowing many people. I was praying for and seeking out a community that would point me to Jesus in all things. I longed for this community in order to be strengthened by other believers so that we could then go out and share Jesus with those around us.

As it tells us in Proverbs,

“Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.” Proverbs 27:17

It is clear that we have been created to be strengthened by each other. One year later and I can gratefully say that God answered this prayer of community…but it didn’t happen overnight. Freshman year consisted of attending various campus ministries and churches and figuring out which friendships would make it past the surface level conversations of “Where are you from?” and “What’s your major?”

An encouragement to any freshman reading this: You may not know who your best friends are the first week of college, but God does. Rest in that truth that He already knows and goes before you in all that you will face this school year.“

“The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.” Proverbs 16:9

The unique thing about Athens and UGA that I had not experienced in my hometown was the diversity and strength of the body of Christ. I experienced this right before my freshman year started at the ARCH Retreat, a weekend for Athens freshmen to get connected within the body of Christ. It was amazing to be a part of believers from various churches and ministries all coming together with one goal: to make Christ known. This community is unique because everyone is coming from different places and with different experiences and gifts. Paul mentions this in 1 Corinthians 12,

“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.” 1 Corinthians 12:4-6

We can rejoice in the fact that the motive behind all that we do is driven by something greater than ourselves, Jesus Christ and what He did for us on the cross.

During my freshman year, I began to notice that within the body of believers, there are ranges of spiritual maturity. One warning; however, that accompanies this is comparison. The fleshly side of me wanted to compare my walk with Christ to others, but I realized the beauty in the truth that Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12 about us being members of the body but making up different parts.

“For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be?” 1 Corinthians‬ ‭12:14-19

I love this metaphor because it reminds me of all my body parts that have to work together to accomplish a goal. Think of a simple task we do everyday such as walking. From a broad perspective, our legs and feet are moving us forward, and our eyes are directing our steps because our brain tells them to do so. Not to mention the fact that we use about 200 muscles to take a single step forward, and all of the various internal body parts that are working as we are moving.

This is the same picture of the body of Christ which I have experienced more recently as a Watkinsville Intern. There are different sectors of the internship such as worship, kids, youth, college, community outreach, and missions. All of these have different roles within them. It has been amazing to see just within the sector of college interns how God has given each of us unique gifts to be able to work together and accomplish more for His name.

Regarding the beauty of us having varieties of talents and gifts, we also have an enemy named satan. He tries to tell us that because we aren’t gifted in a certain area like someone else is, we aren’t good enough. These are all lies because it’s not about what we can do for God anyway. God uses our unique gifts to spread the love of Christ. If we embrace the unique gifts we have been given, we can be messengers on this Earth to bring awareness to our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Satan also tries to tell us that just because our story doesn’t look like someone else's, it’s not significant. Maybe you’re the one that grew up in church and have been saved since you were young. Or maybe you went down the worldly path for a while and have an incredible testimony of God bringing you from death to life. Both of these stories are of equal value, and it is all by God’s saving grace. You never know how much God can use your testimony to change lives until you start sharing it. Through sharing your story, you can strengthen members of the body.

“But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.” 1 Corinthians 12:24-26

There is so much to learn from those around you, don’t let comparison steal your joy. What a gift it is that the weight is not on our shoulders alone. This is the beauty of being on a team, that we all bear each other's burdens and lift each other up. This is the body of Christ, working together with different strengths and weaknesses, which amplifies the overall glory we give to God.

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Kirsten is a second year intended Marketing major at UGA. She consistently has been attending Watkinsville FBC since January and was baptized in May at the church. She is an intern within the college ministry this school year and will be leading a Tribe as well. She is so excited to see all that God does through this internship, in her heart and in the lives of those around her!

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Humility In God's Timing

Mackenzie Pitts // UNG Student & Kids Intern/Intern Coordinator

Living and growing in a college town where both your environment and the people around you are constantly changing can be hard when you seem to be constantly staying the same. God’s timing is a concept I’ve been struggling with lately and with that has come an abundance of humility. The Lord’s timing and plan for my life is unique to say the least, not reflecting what’s typical in the world. I’m 22 years old and I won’t graduate in four years, maybe not even five, I won’t get married after four years of college, and I won’t get to start my desired career at this young age. Coming to these realizations has left me questioning myself and God. When will it be my turn? What’s wrong with me? Has God forgotten about me? Has everyone else forgotten about me? Along with these doubtful thoughts have come extreme thoughts of pride. Aren’t I great too? Don’t I deserve this or that? Haven’t I waited long enough? What do I need to do to get that?

In Mark 10, James and John leave the other disciples to approach Jesus. Confident in their own greatness, they ask Jesus to sit at His left and right hands in heaven, sharing in His glory. They didn’t want to share support in His suffering, they wanted to be famous. I’m reading Humility by CJ Mahaney right now and this quote is constantly circling in my head: “Can you see yourself in this story? It’s easy for us at times to disdain the disciples and fail to recognize our face in their portrait. They argued on the road about who was the greatest; we may not openly argue about this, but don’t we engage in the same debate everyday in our private thoughts? If you’re like me, you compare yourself to others and look for opportunities to claim greater importance than them, just as the disciples did.”

When comparison creeps in and plans to steal all my joy, instead of turning to prideful, woe-is-me minded thoughts, I turn to gratitude. If I was on track in school to graduate in four years, summer classes included, would I have had the opportunity to spend the summer in Boston last year? Would I have the opportunity to go back this year? The answer to both, especially the opportunity this year, would be no. Would I have the opportunity to intern for a fourth year at Watkinsville in a brand-new ministry area, allowing the Lord to take me out of my comfort zone and challenge me in new ways? The answer is also no. Would I have the opportunity to live with some of my closest friends in August if I was getting married? Again, no. Would my relationship with Jesus have been crafted the same way if my life reflected the typical timeline? I genuinely feel like I wouldn’t know the Lord the way I do if my path to where I am right now would have been even the slightest bit different.

If I can so clearly and tangibly see the ways the Lord has orchestrated the things of my life in the past, why do I doubt Him now? Just because some big life stages are coming up, He’s going to leave me now? If I can look back and thank God, shouldn’t I be able to look forward and trust God? 

Lamentations 3:21-23 says,

“Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is His faithfulness; His mercies begin afresh each morning.”

This life is not about me telling God what I want my life to look like or placing expectations on His plans for my life. He has proved time and time again how much better His plans are than mine. Is this the time I’ll finally grasp that? What a humbling way to realize that I will never be able to answer those doubt filled questions when I want to exclude God as the Creator of my life. 

The purpose of pride is to rob God of His glory and to pursue self-glorification for ourselves. In essence, we are depriving God of something only He is worthy to receive. No wonder the Bible repeatedly emphasizes how much God opposes pride.

“When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom”  Proverbs 11:2

“In your relationship with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death- even death on a cross!” Philippians 2:5-8

These verses in Philippians exemplify true greatness displayed by Jesus. When He was sent to earth in human form, He could have taken on the role of God planning to be served by all. Instead, He Himself came to serve. This is what life is all about. It isn’t about timelines or what I think is best for my life within a certain time frame, it is about exemplifying the true greatness of Jesus. God is the only one worthy to receive our lives wholehearted on display for His glory. 

One of my favorite worship songs is “Run to The Father” by Cody Carnes. The line the Lord constantly places on my heart is, “I don’t have a context for that kind of love, I don’t understand, I can’t comprehend, all I know is I need You”. It’s a gift to know that God’s goodness is completely and utterly independent of my response to it. He’s good because He is, not because I’ve done anything to deserve it. 

God’s timing is meant to protect me, to guide me, and is used to help me grow my dependence and trust in Him. I need to step aside and let God be God. Praise God that I don’t have the power or sovereignty over my own life.

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Mack is a fourth year secondary math education major at UNG. She has been a kids intern for 3 years and got to be an intern coordinator this year! She is also involved in the Fagan/Martin tribe, went to Boston last summer, and is going to Boston with Watty this summer. In the fall, she is planning on interning with the youth!

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God Revives and Redirects Dreams

Rebekah Emerson // UGA Student & Worship Intern

I am a dreamer. Since I was a little girl I have loved dreaming. Daydreaming, dreaming in my sleep, or even dreaming big whimsical, romantic ideas of hopes for the future have always been my favorite pastimes. We are all taught to dream. In elementary school, we are met with the question “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, and this question seems to stick with us for the rest of our lives. Our answers change from “Popstar” and “Astronaut” to “Biochemical Engineer” and “Financial Planner”, but the idea of the dream stays the same. You have a desire and a passion to be something that will hopefully use your gifts and talents. For me, my answer changed almost daily, and to be honest, it still does. Growing up, I wanted to be a pop star. I wanted to sing and entertain the world. In high school, this dream took a little bit of shaping and turned into wanting to be on Broadway. With this dream now set as my goal, I got to training. Nine years of training to be front and center on a stage. Nine years of trying to be the best in the room. Nine years of singing for the approval of others. Nine years of grooming myself as this dream turned into an idol. That idol quickly ate away at any passion I had for singing, so I eventually gave up. Nine years seemingly gone down the drain, but I simply could not carry on trying to outperform those around me while simultaneously seeking fulfillment from those same people. 

I went to college to study Communications. I threw in the towel and turned off the light on ever using my voice again. Freshman year, I hid my ability to sing from those around me. No one needed to know because if I started singing again it would become a competition, and I had no more fight in me. Freshman year went by, and ended in a global pandemic. I was now given time to sit with my thoughts. No distractions, just me, God, and my pink colored walls. I spent nights crying out to God, asking Him why I felt a hole in me. Why did I have an itch that I couldn’t seem to scratch? Something I learned over this period of time is that when God has gifted you with something and you stop using it for His kingdom, you feel a restless and relentless pull.

“Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” Isaiah 43:19

A mentor of mine sent this to me during quarantine, and I meditated on it day and night. God was doing something new in me and in my life. He was creating paths that had yet to be created. He was and still is “doing a new thing”. 

Sophomore year came and I was ready to start serving the Lord in my community again, and so I led a small group. I was cool with God doing a new thing, so long as it wasn’t singing, and leading a small group was something I had never done before. I made it to November when the itch came back. I was so frustrated with God, and I was ready to give up on Him. I didn’t understand what he was doing. I was serving Him, and I was more in the word and prayer than I had ever been. What more did He want from me? 

Everything. He wanted every single thing. 

I wanted to only give Him what didn’t hurt me. I didn’t want Him to see the ugly in me, and I didn’t want Him to use something that had corrupted me. Singing caused me to stray away from Him, so why would He want it? How could He possibly use it? God wanted to heal me; so that way He could use me. He needed to heal me from my need to outperform and my need to be perfect. God doesn’t ask for perfect, He’s asking for you. God is not asking for a performance, He is asking for true, unfiltered, selfless worship. I had to fall into His arms and relinquish control. I then began the search for verses on how to go about this healing, and here is what I found:

“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.” ~ 2 Chronicles 7:14-15

“‘He himself bore our sins’ in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live for righteousness; ‘by his wounds you have been healed.’” ~ 1 Peter 2:24

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”~ Matthew 11:28-30

“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” ~ 1 Corinthians 10:13

In searching for healing from God, healing is what I found. In Matthew 7:7-11 Jesus tells us to ask, seek, and knock. I asked God to show me what was wrong. He answered. I searched for His healing, and I found it. The knock. Where was I to knock? Did I have the strength to finally knock? The answer that I found in my search was yes. I had realigned myself with God’s Word. I had been spending intimate time with Him leaning into what He was saying, and He led me to this verse, “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.” Proverbs 16:9. I just had to trust that He would guide my steps. So, I knocked, and the door was opened, a door that I thought would never open again. I began leading worship again. I have been leading worship now for a year at Watkinsville. 

I once had a dream to sing on stage and to entertain. As my walk with God deepened and matured I thought that dream had to die. I was sure that those passions and desires could never be a part of my walk with God, but God is the God of revival. I thought it was impossible to ever enjoy singing again, but because God has redirected my passions, I now only sing for an audience of One. I sing for God, not for others. I thought dreams were dead and buried, but as I walk in love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, and self-control, the Lord has revived dreams and repurposed them for His glory. 

I leave you with this Psalm: 

“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? When evildoers assail me to eat up my flesh, my adversaries and foes, it is they who stumble and fall. Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war arise against me, yet I will be confident. One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will lift me high upon a rock. And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me, and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing and make melody to the Lord. Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud; be gracious to me and answer me! You have said, “Seek my face.” My heart says to you, “Your face, Lord, do I seek.” Hide not your face from me. Turn not your servant away in anger, O you who have been my help. Cast me not off; forsake me not, O God of my salvation! For my father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me in. Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me on a level path because of my enemies. Give me not up to the will of my adversaries; for false witnesses have risen against me, and they breathe out violence. I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living! Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” -Psalm 27

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Rebekah is a third year communications major with a religion minor at UGA. She is a worship intern, involved in the Fagan/Martin tribe, and is going to Boston with Watty this summer! She leads worship during the services on Sundays and for various kids, youth, and college events. She is passionate about living your life in worship to the Lord and leads so authentically.

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The Gospel in the Wilderness

Lindsay Wilson // UGA Student & Worship Intern

One of the most wondrous things about scripture is that we can find our story within the greater story of the gospel. It is no coincidence that the Lord has had me reading the Old Testament this semester. Since January, I have read Genesis-Deuteronomy (that one year reading plan, iykyk.) In these books, we see the story of the Israelites in a season of living in the wilderness after the Lord delivered them from slavery. I’ve never understood what people meant when they would refer to their spiritual lives and say they were “in a season of wilderness,” until I recently went through my own. 

When senior year began in the fall, someone told me “Senior year is crazy because you start out with so many unknowns, and throughout the year, everything becomes known.”

This could not be anymore true for me this year. Flashback to August, I was already anticipating all of the changes that were going to happen this year. I am a creature of habit and do not like change, so I was dreading the long-awaited challenges that come with graduating college. This year has been categorized by exhausted prayers, confused direction, and difficulty trusting the Lord with my future. However, God has been so good to me. I didn’t realize how much I needed to walk with Him in a season of uncertainty. Even though it has been one of the hardest seasons of my life, I have also been pushed to grow in my relationship with Christ in new ways everyday.

I have spent my days consumed by my circumstances. I bombarded the Lord with so many questions -

“Where will I go to grad school? Will I even get in?”

“Am I getting married soon? If so, when?”

“Where am I going to live next year? Am I going to have to leave Athens?”

“What happens if none of this works out?”

I’m sure you have experienced similar seasons of questioning God’s plans for you. There were some days where I felt extremely thankful for all that God was doing in my life, and there were some spent in frustration feeling like the Lord wasn’t answering. Looking back, I can see how the Lord was walking closely beside me as my Friend, Deliverer, and Provider. The Lord diligently worked through idols in my heart and returned my gaze upon Him. Idols such as knowledge of the future, comfort, and control were torn down with each glimpse of His sovereignty. 

Reading through these chapters of scripture, I was encouraged over and over again by God’s grace when the Israelites were in the wilderness. He provided what they needed, listened to their prayers, and delivered them into the promised land.

And from there they continued to Beer; that is the well of which the Lord said to Moses, “Gather the people together, so that I may give them water.” Then Israel sang this song:

“Spring up, O well!—Sing to it!—

the well that the princes made,

that the nobles of the people dug,

with the scepter and with their staffs.”

And from the wilderness they went on to Mattanah,  and from Mattanah to Nahaliel, and from Nahaliel to Bamoth,  and from Bamoth to the valley lying in the region of Moab by the top of Pisgah that looks down on the desert. Numbers 21: 16-20

Just like I was questioning how the Lord would provide, the Israelites spent time wondering how the Lord would provide for them, or even why He was leading them through the wilderness. As I read this passage in Numbers one day, I saw how the Israelites missed the point of God’s provision. God provided a very basic need of theirs - water - and instead of praising Him, they praised the provision. God is right there, giving them water, and they begin to sing and worship the well instead of the God who gave it to them. They recognize the princes and the people as the source of the well instead of God. I was quickly convicted about how I was living the same way. I was desperately waiting on God to provide, and trying to manipulate my circumstances so that He would provide exactly what I wanted. Instead, the Lord began shifting my heart to praise Him, instead of just what I wanted Him to give me. The Lord has provided so much for me this year, and a lot of it looks different than I would’ve provided myself, but I am so grateful that His plans are better than mine. 

Deuteronomy 2:7 says “For the Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He knows your going through this great wilderness. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you. You have lacked nothing.”

Every time the Israelites felt alone, they never were. Every time they felt like they didn’t have enough, they had exactly what they needed. It took me reading this for myself, for the Holy Spirit to reveal that this was true about me too. Each moment of feeling unheard by God, He was with me. Each moment of what I considered to be the “wilderness,” God was WITH me. How amazing is it that we have a God that is with His people! I lack nothing because Jesus has given me everything. Everything I have and don’t have is a result of God’s goodness to me. He is walking with me, constantly providing me with what I need each and every day.

We often think our circumstances need to change in order for us to be able to trust God or find joy, but in reality, we need a work of God’s grace to shift our perspective back to Him and allow the gospel to be enough for us. I hope and pray that as I graduate college and get married, as my circumstances continue changing, that the source of my life is the sure, unchanging gift of the gospel.

Christ died so that we could live. In His death and resurrection we find all that we need. As Paul says in Philippians 2:19, “God will supply every need of [ours] according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” As we celebrate Easter this weekend, let’s celebrate that this world does not determine our abundance, but our hope in Christ gives us abundant life for all of eternity. 

Thank you Jesus, for this life that I don’t deserve but can live because of your grace. You are always good to me.

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Lindsay is a fourth year speech therapy major at UGA, graduating in May! She is a worship intern and is went to Boston with Watty last summer! She is also involved in the Albers tribe on Mondays. She is passionate about the local church and seeing the way the Lord can use and minister to even the overlooked.

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Is God Good?

Andy Sanders // UGA Student & Worship Intern

My family used to fish with dynamite. No, really. Let me explain a little further. Back before dynamite was illegal for just anyone to buy, you used to be able to buy it in hardware stores. This was convenient for my dad, his cousins, and my great-grandfather. I can recall a particular story where they used it to fish one day. The idea is pretty simple: throw dynamite in the water, boom, and the shockwave stuns the fish, causing them to float to the top.

 One day, my dad, his uncle, and my great-grandfather were in a small boat on a river. Keep in mind, rivers have a current. Current causes things to float downstream. They were just about to start their first blast of the day to bring up fish. The uncle lit the dynamite, and threw it in the water. No big deal, a typical throw-your-dynamite-in-the-water situation. Now remember, I mentioned that current. This would have been helpful for the uncle to remember on that day, but unfortunately, he did not. In fact, he quickly realized this because he had thrown the dynamite upstream of their little boat. The next 30 seconds became very interesting. Shouting, prayers, and an ear-ringing boom followed with a splash of water on their faces. Luckily, no damage was done. The dynamite missed the boat, barely. The uncle was not invited to fish with dynamite again after that day.

            It’s a funny story, but I say all that as an analogy for this: sometimes in life we have questions, big questions about God. These sometimes don’t cause much effect, but there are other ones that float a little too close to the boat, and they have explosive results on our spiritual lives. It’s with questions like these that we wrestle. We must go beyond a 15 minute quiet time with God for these answers, and we search for them in Scripture, in chapters and books that have dust between the pages.

I have one of these questions I’d like to share with you. A question that I have wrestled with for a long time, and still do. Is God good? Seems simple doesn’t it? But I’ve learned that in the practice of our daily life, there’s nothing simple about it.

I’d like to take you back to Job, a book I’ve been reading lately. I use a good bit of Scripture here because I think its words have a lot more weight than mine. Many of us know the story of Job. A blameless man, upright before God. He was by today's standards, a “good guy.”

“Where have you come from?” the Lord asked Satan. Satan answered the Lord, “I have been patrolling the earth, watching everything that’s going on.” Then the Lord asked Satan, “Have you noticed my servant Job? He is the finest man in all the earth. He is blameless—a man of complete integrity. He fears God and stays away from evil.” Satan replied to the Lord, “Yes, but Job has good reason to fear God. 10 You have always put a wall of protection around him and his home and his property. You have made him prosper in everything he does. Look how rich he is! But reach out and take away everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face!” “All right, you may test him,” the Lord said to Satan. “Do whatever you want with everything he possesses, but don’t harm him physically.” So Satan left the Lord’s presence. Job 1:7-12 NLT

And we see that Job loses everything, even his family. Yet, Job never cursed God or sinned by being angry. Job mourns after this, understandably so. He has a few smart-mouthed friends that come and mostly offer bad advice during his mourning. In all this, Job is confused, probably frustrated, unsure of why he is suffering. Then God finally speaks, and the answer isn’t what you might expect.

            Then the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind: “Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorant words? Brace yourself like a man, because I have some questions for you, and you must answer them. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know so much. Who determined its dimensions and stretched out the surveying line? What supports its foundations, and who laid its cornerstone as the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? Who kept the sea inside its boundaries as it burst from the womb, and as I clothed it with clouds and wrapped it in thick darkness? For I locked it behind barred gates, limiting its shores. I said, ‘This far and no farther will you come. Here your proud waves must stop!’ Have you ever commanded the morning to appear and caused the dawn to rise in the east? Have you made daylight spread to the ends of the earth, to bring an end to the night’s wickedness? As the light approaches, the earth takes shape like clay pressed beneath a seal; it is robed in brilliant color. The light disturbs the wicked and stops the arm that is raised in violence. Have you explored the springs from which the seas come? Have you explored their depths? Do you know where the gates of death are located? Have you seen the gates of utter gloom?” Job 38: 1-17 NLT

 I’ll be honest, this isn’t what I expected to hear from God when I read this. The Lord goes on for another chapter or two showing His mighty power to Job. Job answers with,

 “I know that you can do anything, and no one can stop you. You asked, ‘Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorance?’ It is I—and I was talking about things I knew nothing about, things far too wonderful for me. You said, ‘Listen and I will speak! I have some questions for you, and you must answer them.’ I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes. I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance.” Job 42:1-6 NLT

When I read this, it was humbling. Yet, I still didn’t understand God’s answer. Here Job is suffering, and God tells him how little Job is and awesome He is. It didn’t make sense. But, I kept searching.

Recently I keep coming back to one verse that brings me some solace.

“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. The rain and snow come down from the heavens and stay on the ground to water the earth. They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry. It is the same with my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to,  and it will prosper everywhere I send it.” Isaiah 55:8-11 NLT

This reminds me of God’s response to Job. His plans are far beyond human comprehension, so much more complex than you could ever think or dream. Lately, I came across this verse during Jesus’ encounters.

 As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man who had been blind from birth. “Rabbi,” his disciples asked him, “why was this man born blind? Was it because of his own sins or his parents’ sins?” “It was not because of his sins or his parents’ sins,” Jesus answered. “This happened so the power of God could be seen in him.” John 1:1-3 NLT

 Jesus goes on to restore his sight. A man, born blind from birth, unable to choose his fate, is used by God to allow others to see the Lord’s power. For years this man begged, was mocked, lived in the dirt, and now God brings about sight and new life, not only to him, but to people thousands of years later that read that story and believe in the power of the gospel. Was the 20 or so years of suffering blind worth it? It would seem so, but this still didn’t answer my question. Job and the blind man are restored in the end. What about people that didn’t get to see God’s restoration in their lifetime, people who suffered and no good came of it, at least not in their lifetime? And what about suffering that doesn’t always result in a miracle, but rather a tragedy?

This brought me to a dark chapter in Israel's past. Exodus 32. It may be familiar to you. It’s the day Moses went to the mountain, and Israel stayed behind, making idols of gold images. Here Israel is after having been delivered, after receiving God’s favor and protection, and they mock the God who saved them from Egypt, choosing to credit their salvation from slavery to an idol-nothing more than a pile of rocks. What an unloyal, terrible, stubborn thing to do. But, it sounds like someone I know well, someone I see in the mirror every day. Moses comes down the mountain and sees what is taking place. What happens next is shocking.

Moses told them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Each of you, take your swords and go back and forth from one end of the camp to the other. Kill everyone—even your brothers, friends, and neighbors.” The Levites obeyed Moses’ command, and about 3,000 people died that day. Then Moses told the Levites, “Today you have ordained yourselves for the service of the Lord, for you obeyed him even though it meant killing your own sons and brothers. Today you have earned a blessing.” Exodus 32: 26-29

Three thousand were killed that day and paid for their sin with their lives. They died at the hands of their own neighbors and friends they escaped Egypt with. How is it God could allow such killing? It seems that the root of all this is sin. It was sin that led to this outcome. A similar event happens in Joshua 7. Achan, a warrior of Israel, takes spoils from a conquered city after God has commanded the people not to. Achan, along with all his family and all his possessions, are stoned and burned. In both accounts, the price for sin was literal death. Unlike Job or the blind man, Achan and the unbelieving Israelites sufferings did not end with a miracle or a blessing. It seems like rebellion against God, sin itself, brought about their ends. In fact, sin is a big reason the Israelites were even allowed to conquer so many of the Canaanite cities and kings. It wasn’t because God liked the nation of Israel any better or saw them as more righteous, but simply because the foreign cities were engrossed in sin.

“After the Lord your God has done this for you, don’t say in your hearts, ‘The Lord has given us this land because we are such good people!’ No, it is because of the wickedness of the other nations that he is pushing them out of your way. It is not because you are so good or have such integrity that you are about to occupy their land. The Lord your God will drive these nations out ahead of you only because of their wickedness, and to fulfill the oath he swore to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” Deuteronomy 9:4-5 NLT

 I’m beginning to see a pattern. Where there is sin, there is suffering.

        And this makes sense, like the Scriptures say, “For the wages of sin is death…” Romans 6:23 NLT Not only did sin begin in the garden, but it spread to all. “When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.” Rom 5:12 NLT And again in James 1:15 it says, “These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death.”

 But this leaves me confused. I understand sin leads to death, but what hope is there? Will we then all suffer because of sin or to bring God eventual glory like Job and the blind man? And even still, when Cain kills his brother Abel in Genesis, God says:

“You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master.” Genesis 4:6 NLT

 But how can I be sin’s master? Surely I can’t master sin. I can try, sure, but it seems like it always gets the upper hand in life. This is when I realized, I wasn’t ever supposed to be the master over sin. I never could be. And this is where I found God’s grace. How fitting that my question of God’s character brings me back to the greatest thing about this whole story, His love.

  I came across these verses in the Old Testament about God’s faithfulness to show love.

 Where is another God like you, who pardons the guilt of the remnant, overlooking the sins of his special people? You will not stay angry with your people forever,  because you delight in showing unfailing love. Once again you will have compassion on us. You will trample our sins under your feet and throw them into the depths of the ocean! You will show us your faithfulness and unfailing love as you promised to our ancestors Abraham and Jacob long ago. Micah 7:18-20 NLT

 I found a similar verse in Nehemiah.

 But in your great mercy, you did not destroy them completely or abandon them forever. What a gracious and merciful God you are! “And now, our God, the great and mighty and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of unfailing love, do not let all the hardships we have suffered seem insignificant to you. Great trouble has come upon us and upon our kings and leaders and priests and prophets and ancestors—all of your people—from the days when the kings of Assyria first triumphed over us until now. Every time you punished us you were being just. We have sinned greatly, and you gave us only what we deserved.” Nehemiah 9:31-33 NLT

The verse that ties all this together for me is one about Jesus.

 For God saved us and called us to live a holy life. He did this, not because we deserved it, but because that was his plan from before the beginning of time—to show us his grace through Christ Jesus. And now he has made all of this plain to us by the appearing of Christ Jesus, our Savior. He broke the power of death and illuminated the way to life and immortality through the Good News. 2 Timothy 1:9-10 NLT

 God really did care in the end. In fact, he cared so much he paid the ultimate price, death. Death on a cross, a gruesome, and horrible suffering that few people will ever know. And it’s through this that I and all who believe have life. Suffering is a part of this life just as sin is. Not all suffering comes from sin, but usually, the two go hand in hand. But the suffering that exists in life pales in comparison to what is to come, the day when suffering is removed  and every burden is lifted in the presence of our Creator. We now can master over sin and suffering not because of our great power (as God showed Job), not because of our great works of righteousness (our sin made this impossible), but only because Jesus Christ, God, who suffered for our sake, has done what no human could ever do. God is good.

I know this answer isn’t complete, but it’s enough for me. I can’t fully understand an eternal God, and I don’t pretend to. If you struggle with this question like I do, search for these answers deeper on your own. Meditate on these verses. I believe God will show you the truth in the end. Everything I have written here is not for my own gain. I write these things because God has changed my life. He alone takes the glory. I leave you with this, “You are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power. For you created all things, and they exist because you created what you pleased.” Revelations 4:11 NLT

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Andy is a third year agricultural engineer major at UGA. He is a worship intern and is going to Boston with Watty this summer! He is also involved in the Woodall tribe on Sundays. Serving the Lord and connecting with the people around him are some of his biggest passions.

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What's Next

Caroline Clark // UGA Student & Communications Intern

A SHIFT IN SEASONS

I have all of the sudden found myself in an extremely interesting season of life. One characterized by graduation, wedding planning, major transitions, graduate school applications, and anticipating what’s next - despite the fact that I have very little clue what that is exactly. One of my favorite parts of being a graduating senior is the iconic question asked at any given moment – “What are you doing after May?”

Alright fine, that’s complete sarcasm. This question sends me down a mental spiral way too easily. The convicting part of this is that so often, I’m the one asking that question. I’m not just talking about questioning my peers in a similar life stage, I’m thinking about all the times I’ve cried out to God asking these kinds of questions.

“What now?”

“What’s next”

“Where do I go from here?”

Let’s zoom out and sit in that for a second. I’m not sure if you struggle with this too, but why does contemplating what’s next consistently elicit anxiety and doubt in our minds? As believers, we have nothing if we don’t have hope in Jesus for what’s to come.

AN ATTACK ON OUR PEACE

A couple of days before my 17th birthday, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Months of painful symptoms all of the sudden had a name, and the enemy tried his hardest to capitalize in that season of weakness. As a junior in high school at the time, I never imagined circumstances like missing prom to have brain surgery or missing months of school because I was not physically strong enough to walk the halls and sit in class. Although that was almost 5 years ago, this season held many moments of pain, frustration, anxiety, and at times, hopelessness. The peace I had known in Jesus was being attacked. Where was I supposed to go from there?

It was not until a mentor walked with me through Romans 5 that I stopped seeing the circumstances as my enemy, but rather a path to know Christ better and make Him known to those around me. Romans 5: 3-5 says “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

This changed everything for me because not only does God give purpose to our pain, but He gives us a step by step model to move through hardship and reclaim our hope. Rather than bulldozing through our emotions to get to what’s next, trials and hardships are an invitation to mimic Christ’s character through endurance and to know Him and the hope he offers better because of it. That should give us confidence to face the next moment!

While this part of my story may be an extreme example, it’s so important to apply this to normative moments and everyday emotions you may feel!

Graduating.

Moments of anxiety.

Disappointment in something / someone.

Discouragement.

Feeling stuck in depression.

Restoring a broken relationship.

And the list goes on….  

I know you may be thinking, “Oh great! another blog post telling me to ignore my emotions and trust Jesus instead!” à Wrong! If anything, I want to invite you to feel what you’re feeling and process those emotions with the Lord rather than apart from Him. Processing my emotions is not a strength of mine, but throughout the past few years, I’ve learned how necessary it is in order to move forward without any bitterness or underlying doubt. The gospel was not given to us for our moments of complete understanding. Why would we need it if we could depend on what we know apart from Jesus? God sent His son, Jesus, to live a sinless life on this Earth and die on the cross before defeating death and raising to life again. He did that because we are broken people in bondage to our sin and sentenced to death without a savior. When Jesus rose from death, He offered us freedom from sin and death well as an invitation for us to spend eternity with Him in Heaven. (John 3:16-17; Romans 3:23-25; Romans 5:8; 1 Timothy 1:15; 1 Peter 2:24-25).

When we feel stuck in a moment or can’t process an emotion, our imperfect human nature asks what comes next, but because of the gospel, God has already told us that what’s next is eternal freedom and life with Him.

JESUS IN OUR CIRCUMSTANCES

All I’m saying is that we complicate the idea of “next”. So often we want to clearly see the moment we’re in. Then we want an extensive outline of what the future will hold, and when we don’t get that, our faith wavers. I’m preaching straight back to myself, because I’ve been there. And my response to that is look at Luke 8 and notice we’re in good company.

 Luke 8: 22-25

22 One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side of the lake.” So they set out, 23 and as they sailed he fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water and were in danger. 24 And they went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was a calm. 25 He said to them, “Where is your faith?” And they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?”

Sometimes I read this story and I want to criticize the disciples because I mean come on! They literally and physically had Jesus in the middle of their storm with them, and even still they feared their circumstances. But isn’t this us? If the Holy Spirit dwells within us (which it does) and if Jesus is present in every moment with us (which He is) then our doubt in the middle of a storm is no different than the disciple’s. Jesus emphasizes in this story that He is always present in our chaos, and He is a firm foundation to depend on no matter what our circumstances are.   

CHRIST AS OUR FIRM FOUNDATION

The truth is our response to hard things really should not be that different than our response to something we define as “good”. Because of who Jesus is and who He has proven himself to be time and time again, we don’t have to be afraid of what comes next. We don’t have to feel stuck in a moment or emotion. Psalm 113:3 says “From the rising of the sun to its setting same, the name of the Lord is to be praised.”

So what’s next?

What comes after pain? We praise Him.

What comes after joy? We praise Him.

What comes after discouragement? We praise Him.

What do we do in the middle of anxiety and depression? We praise Him.

What do we do when we are trying to make a decision? We praise Him.

Where do we go from here? WE PRAISE HIM!

Friends, He is endlessly worthy of our praise. He is the firm foundation where we can place our hope no matter what. He is worth believing in, trusting in, and hoping in. May each moment we find ourselves in, both the joyful and the painful, bring us to a place of deeper praise and reverence for our King Jesus!

As you go, here are some songs that help me meditate on this:

-       Firm Foundation (Cody Carnes)

-       Honey In the Rock (Brooke Ligertwood and Brandon Lake)

-       Gratitude (Brandon Lake)

-       Peace Be Still (Lauren Daigle)

-       Promises (Maverick City Music)

-       It’s Always Been You (Phil Wickham)

-       1,000 Names (Phil Wickham)

-       Be Still (Red Rocks Worship)

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Caroline is a Human Development and Family Sciences major and biology minor at UGA, graduating in the fall! She is a communications intern and went to Boston with Watty this past summer! She is also involved in the Albers tribe on Mondays. Serving the local church and getting to know people are some of her biggest passions!

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My Good Shepherd

Natalie Tyndall // UGA Student & Missions Intern

They say college is the best 4 years of your life. As a second-year college student, I can confidently say, by the world’s standards, so far, it is definitely not the best. For the past two years, I have struggled with extreme fear and loneliness that was given a few names about a year ago. In May of 2021, I was diagnosed with general anxiety, severe depression, and a panic disorder. OCD was recently added to the list. The weight of this has, most days, seemed almost too heavy to bear. Lies hide themselves so well, I am often confused on what is true and what is not. Fear wrecked my relationship with the Lord, and Satan began to have a heyday with my mind, convincing me that this loving Father whose Son died so that I could live, was a cruel man out to get me. Satan began to scare me out of living, whispering lies that this intense suffering would never end and that there would never again be hope. Praise the Lord that He is the only and surest hope anyone can have. By my Father’s standards, the past few years have been the best of my life. I want to share my story in praise for the Lord’s work and to encourage those suffering right now. So here is how the Lord has saved my life from the pit of destruction and has set my feet on a rock, His rock, making my steps secure (Psalm 40).

Counting Myself Out

            Being saved since I was 6 years old, I never imagined I would struggle so intensely with such deep sadness. After an official diagnosis, I felt lost. Where was this joy that was promised to us? The whole story of the Gospel is that we are NOT hopeless, but why did I feel so constantly distraught? I began to believe the lies that I could not continue to lead a d-group, participate in serving the church, or even pray aloud in tribe because of the intensity of my suffering. I felt as if there was something I had done, or was not doing, that kept me in this pit. Philippians 4:6 tells us not to be anxious but to pray with thanksgiving, and we will be given peace. This God of peace had never felt further. I was scared to go to bed at night because I knew how fearful I would be to wake up and live the next day. I feared the Lord was angry at me. I was quite literally scared of God. And how perfect His timing is that just 3 weeks after a diagnosis, I was off on a plane to spend the summer serving Him in Boston.

Counting on the Lord

I like to call this summer the Miracle Summer, because I truly believe the Lord worked miracles in my life. After sharing with my team about everything going on, they began to battle for me in prayer. Some would stay up late into the night, fighting alongside angels for my heart and mind. The Lord pursued me through His people, giving me some of the dearest friendships I have ever had and still have today. Pastor Shippey shared a story of someone dear to him who had dealt with similar things, saying the Lord healed her with a miracle. So, alongside my team, I decided I would pray for a miracle. The Enemy was working hard to keep me far from the only One we all knew had the power to calm the storm. About halfway through the summer, a flip switched. I was no longer afraid to live, but I was alive in who my Father had made me, safe in His embrace. He taught me to trust His heart, that even if things persisted, that there was a purpose: “that they may see and know, may consider and understand together that the hand of the Lord has done this, the Holy One of Israel has created it” (Isaiah 41:20). God’s heart for His children is that they would trust His. I came home, knowing my heart was safe with the one who knit it together. He restored our relationship and taught me to count on Him.

Counting it all JOY

Recently, it feels as if nothing in my brain or my physical body has changed. While the Lord is refining my heart and is so near, my circumstances have not shifted. A few weeks ago at the prayer gathering, Carlos encouraged us to pray boldly for breakthrough. The Lord met me in my despair and brought James 1 to my mind. Through tears, I read:

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

How could I count any of this past year's joy when my battles didn’t seem to be changing, despite my circumstances and my friends’ constantly changing? Because He is the God of endurance, whose steadfast love is better than life itself (Psalm 63:3). We do not suffer because God is cruel. Psalm 23 says, “When I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..” We will all suffer. It is a result of the fall. But just like He always does, the Lord takes these broken pieces and makes them into a beautiful story, showing His Gospel again and again. After reading in James, the Lord reminded me of Psalm 23. Psalm 23:1 says, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I lack nothing.” We suffer so that we might lack nothing. Resting in the Father, abiding in Him, I lack nothing– He is not angry, He is not out to get us, He is not punishing us. 

To live the abundant life Jesus promises us, we must learn to count it all joy, whether it be the most joyous season or one of deep heartache. Here are some ways my Father has taught me to dance through mourning, counting it all joy. (This is really hard and I am still working on it, day by day.)

1.     The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in Spirit. Psalm 34:18

Suffering pins you to the throne of God, crying out to Him over and over again, because there comes a point where your own self is gone and all you have is your Savior. Crazily enough, that is sufficient. How sweet it is to be near to the Savior, wrapped in His embrace, holding on to His love for dear life.

2.     After counting on Him, the Lord really taught me what it means to count on His people, the Church– our family now.

For months, my prayer has been for people– to be surrounded by those who would fight with me and for me when I can no longer. The Lord will ALWAYS provide. Last semester, His nearness taught me of His friendship, teaching me how to walk and talk to Him like someone I would walk around campus with. What a friend we have in Jesus. And then He extends His arms of love through His children through the friends, mentors, pastors, classmates He puts in our lives. Lean on your community of brothers and sisters.

3.     I get to share the authenticity of the Gospel because I have experienced it in a whole new way this season. I can walk side by side with others struggling, disciple my high schoolers better, and meet people in their brokenness. Psalm 40 talks about the pit of destruction, and I often find myself sitting there, praying for Him to “incline to me and hear my cry” (verse 1). But, He’s teaching me to rejoice in the waiting. Maybe I am still in the “pit of destruction” because there are others down there too who need to hear of the Hope of the Ages and have someone to hold on to.

Counting on Eternity

            The Enemy is out to steal, kill, and destroy. My dad always reminds me that if Satan cannot keep us from salvation, he will do everything in his power to make us ineffective for the Gospel. Satan has been trying to keep me out of the game.

            When I am feeling particularly down or struggling through a week of depression, a friend once encouraged me to dwell on Heaven. I never really understood the hope we have in Jesus until He began to show me Heaven. Psalm 23 ends with, “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Our promised inheritance is the hope of the Gospel, that we will get to spend eternity with our Father in perfect communion.

            There have been many days when all I wanted to do was be in Heaven, instead of on Earth. In 2 Corinthians, Paul talks about the thorn in his side, and maybe mental illness is just the one in mine. In a time of panic the other day, a friend reminded me of this reality but the juxtaposing truth where I could have hope in a hopeless situation: that even in my weakness, His grace is sufficient. Even if I am never healed on this side of Heaven, He has already given me Himself, and that will get me through. This weakness will not be my end, it will not kill me like the Enemy intends. On the contrary, it allows me to hope and count it for joy. Again, I lack nothing.

Some songs for days when you need to dwell on Heaven:

Just Like Heaven by Brandon Lake

Hymn of Heaven by Phil Whickam

Tin Roof by Chris Tomlin

No Doubt About It by We the Kingdom

Endless Praise by Charity Gayle

Counting to Come

Seasons of suffering will come and go. In our exhausted states, God is not too tired to keep holding us. Psalm 3 reminds us that He is the lifter of our heads. The past month, God has begun to lift my head in a new way. Although my mind is racing, my heart is at peace because I can say, “It is well with my soul.” He has taught me to count again. Remembering Psalm 23, once again, the other day, I had a breakthrough.

He prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. (Psalm 23:5)

God is not ashamed of me or my struggles– in fact the truth is quite the opposite. He prepares a TABLE, a FEAST, for me and Him in the presence of my enemies– fear, anxiety, doubt, depression. He sits down and dines with us, regardless of what is sitting at the table too. He is big enough to look at those unwanted guests and cause them to flee whenever He pleases. Because of this, I have begun to pray for miracles again. He has done it once, I believe He can do it again.

Oh the joy it is to dine with the Savior with the hope of dwelling with Him for all of eternity! And when I set my mind on that truth, I know I truly lack nothing in the safety of my Good Shepherd.

 While I wish to end this with, “God has completely healed me and I am better than ever!” that is not reality, and truly– that it is okay. Because instead, I have the nearness of my Savior and His people like never before. He promises to waste nothing, and I can count on Him to use all of this one day, prayerfully on the mission field.

 Please know you are not alone. He is near. Your church is here. His kingdom is coming. Hold fast to the grip of your Heavenly Father!

 I cannot wait to spend eternity with you all, healed and made complete, worshiping our Savior forever.

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Natalie is an elementary education major with a Spanish minor at UGA. She is a missions intern and went to Boston with Watty this past summer! She is also involved in the Jones tribe on Thursdays. Serving the local church and seeing people on mission both abroad and locally are some of her biggest passions!

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Boldness

Jacob Furr // UGA Student & Watty Intern

Recently I have felt so encouraged and uplifted, yet also so convicted by the freedom of religion in the United States.  I think of how we can meet corporately on Sundays to engage in life-giving fellowship, and then I imagine four believers coming together in a musty basement to read a lamp-lit Bible for five hours at a time - that was their monthly church gathering.  I think of how I can go out to the Tate plaza with a handful of Great Exchange surveys and talk about my hope in Jesus to whoever says “yes” to me, and then my heart breaks to imagine the number of persecuted brothers and sisters that have felt the great division of wanting to shout on the rooftops of their hope in Jesus, only to be quieted by the imminent reality of death through evangelism.

It puts a lot of thoughts into perspective for me.  On a given day of talking to people about Jesus, we could encounter someone who has no desire to learn more about Him, we could talk to someone who is searching and needs direction, or we could even meet another Christian.  In any persecuted country, we could be intensely persecuted, we could be imprisoned, and we could even be martyred for sharing the name of Jesus.

Yet even then, the Church does not remain silent.

And that is what convicts me - that with the reality of actual persecution, imprisonment, and martyrdom on the horizon, our persecuted brothers and sisters do not remain silent, but instead have “boldness in our God to declare the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict” (1 Thess. 2:2).  Upon first look, our relation to God Almighty is no different than our persecuted brothers and sisters: we all have the same Holy Spirit and feed off the same eternal Word. Yet such a drastic difference in sharing and our day-to-day walk seems to come from obedience and boldness.  How often am I so cowardly towards sharing the Gospel with people who do not know my Savior.

Jesus speaks to His disciples in John 14:25-27 saying:

“These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you.  But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.  Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.”

Jesus says these words to His disciples, who were yet to receive the Holy Spirit. Further promises regarding the Holy Spirit come only a few chapters later, in John 16:4-15, where Jesus says:

“Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you.  But if I go, I will send Him to you.  And when He comes, He will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment… He will guide you into all the truth…He will glorify me, for He will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

But sandwiched in between these promises is Jesus’s command in John 15:5-8:

“I am the vine; you are the branches.  Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.  If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers… By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.”

In all of these promises and commands, Jesus highlights that abiding in Him and relying on the Holy Spirit to strengthen us and to grow fruits in our conduct is how we prove to be His disciples.   Obedience is evident in boldness.  The convicting truth that’s been on my heart recently is that if I do not share, I am being disobedient.  And yes, sharing can look different in different situations, but in both word and deed I must display the love of Jesus Christ.  That is why boldness has become such a heavy word recently.  Not because I do it well, but because I am so shy to share about a King whose Holy Spirit seals people for eternity.  

I have been reading Acts 4 over and over again, because it has provided me with encouragement towards being bold.  Peter and John, after healing a lame beggar, are confronted by the “priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees” and are imprisoned for “proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.”  The next day, the priests and Sadducees ask Peter and John “‘By what power or by what name did you do this?’” And Peter responds with this in Acts 4:8-13:

“Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, ‘Rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead - by Him this man is standing before you well.  This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.  And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.’ Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished.  And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.”

That last verse gets me.  It is by their boldness that they showed that they had been with Jesus, or to take the words of Jesus in the gospel of John, “and so prove to be my disciples.” This was the same Peter that denied Jesus three times and the same Peter who doubted Jesus on the water - the only difference between then and Acts 4 was that Peter had received the promised Holy Spirit.  By the Holy Spirit, Peter proclaims the truth of Jesus Christ for all to hear, thus exemplifying exactly what Jesus promised would happen when his disciples receive the Holy Spirit.  The following section, Acts 4:23-31, continues to show the weight of boldness:

“When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them.  And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, ‘Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them… look upon their threats and grant to Your servants to continue to speak Your Word with all boldness, while You stretch out Your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of Your holy servant Jesus.’  And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the Word of God with boldness.”

The believers gathered together not to pray that the persecution would stop - they knew because of their overflowing love towards Jesus, they would preach His Name regardless of the consequences.  They did not ask God to grant them a gentler approach to sharing the Gospel - they knew because of their commitment to the truth, they would proclaim Christ Crucified in its fullest.  Instead they prayed for boldness, that regardless of how they would be treated, they would value the souls of their neighbors and sacrifice their lives to spread the name of a Savior and King and Creator who offers eternal life to all who believe in Him.

My prayer now is for overflowing love for our Father as we come to know His grace and mercy by reading His Word.  My prayer now is for boldness in our lives to share the Good News with people we encounter day in and day out, regardless of how crazy we look.  And my prayer now is for the persecuted Church to continue to be bold, and that we would be challenged to be quicker to share about Jesus.

We will never be perfect in this, but praise Him who does not expect perfection, simply obedience.

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Jacob is an economics and communications studies major at UGA. He is a missions intern and works with Carlos! He also leads the Jones tribe on Thursdays! He is passionate about reaching the nations and pouring into the people around him!

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Contact Alexis Kelley or email college@watkinsville.org with your idea and we’ll talk about posting it here!

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Daily Portion

Alexis Kelley // UGA Student & College and Communications Intern

There is a simple way to be full. Eat every day. At the beginning of this semester, after a conference like Reset, I want to encourage everyone to eat every day. Yes, eat food, but more importantly, dig into the Word. As we start this year and figure out our new schedules, I cannot stress enough the importance of spending time with the Lord every day. So, to encourage you in this, I’m going to walk you through one of my own wanderings through the Word. I will also leave you with some practical things that many wise people have taught me to do when approaching a more consistent time in God’s Word.

I recently heard a talk on How to Meet with God taught by David Mathis in which he mentioned Exodus chapter 16. If you find a moment, go read the entire chapter, but to give some context, the Israelites had just been freed from Egypt. They saw the power of God through the plagues and through the parting of the Red Sea. God had already provided water for them in the wilderness, but still they started to complain again. There was not enough food for them to eat, but the Lord heard them. This is what happened:

Then Moses said to Aaron, “Say to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, ‘Come near before the Lord, for he has heard your grumbling.’”  And as soon as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. And the Lord said to Moses, “I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel. Say to them, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’”

Now at first, this doesn’t sound like it has anything to do with meeting with God every day. It never talks about the greatness of God’s Word, but it does show us the greatness of His character. We see how He longs to fill us and provide for us. He told Moses, “And the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day”. A daily provision from the Lord fills us up to do all the things that He has put in front of us that day.

With all of that in mind, I thought of how God says He is the bread of life, so I decided to search for the times that bread is mentioned in the Bible. One of the first places it took me was the temptation of Jesus in Matthew 4. Every time Satan tries to tempt Jesus, He fights back with scripture. When Satan tried to capitalize on Jesus’ physical hunger, he told Him to turn the stones into bread. Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 8:3 which says,

 “He humbled you by letting you go hungry; then He gave you manna to eat, which you and your fathers had not known, so that you might learn that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord”.

God gave the Israelites manna so that they would learn the importance of the Word of God! So even though at first the story of manna in Exodus 16 doesn’t seem like it’s talking about the Word at all, even scripture points to the ways that it is! I love finding themes like this in the Bible. It is so simple to just search for different words that jump out to you and see them show up in different passages. It always ends up showing you a thread of the Bible that portrays the gospel in a way you never might have otherwise noticed. God desires to show us Himself, and He went so far as to give His only Son so that we may be filled and known. John 6:51 says,

  “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever.  The bread that I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.”

When we are consumed with the awe of that, how can we not go to Him every single day?

Just like the Israelites, we are to gather truth from the Lord every day. It’s not something that we go to store up and prepare for the rest of the week. We approach going to a grocery store like that. Just like God took even the possibility of gathering manna for a week away from the Israelites, so we should abandon our grocery store habits. Instead, think of it as your daily dinner, a table you can sit down at and feast from. It will be enough for that day, never leaving you hungry.

Please don’t hear any guilt or shame in my words if you haven’t been spending time with the Lord daily. I understand the busyness and demands that grab our attention. Waking up earlier, going to bed later, or finding time that is quiet in the middle of our day seems near impossible with the variety and chaotic nature of being a college student. But I want to encourage you. I want to remind you that our God longs to meet with you. He wrote and rendered the entire story of the Bible so that He could dwell with us. Learning about that kind of love is what draws us deeper into the Word.

So what are some practical things that you can do to start a habit of meeting with God every day? I love that part of the passage in Exodus 16 says,

“They gathered, some more, some less. But when they measured it with an omer, whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack. Each of them gathered as much as he could eat.”

It is a growing relationship. You never have to feel like you’re not doing enough because it’s not about you at all. It’s about how God is enough. He provides the filling. Don’t compare to the people around you, but instead approach the Word with a heart ready to meet with a Person. In my notes from that sermon by David Mathis, it says, “Our most pressing need is not to master the Bible, but to be mastered by God”

Simple steps that have helped me:

1.     Make a plan – Go ahead and set a time in your schedule to read. Make it a nonnegotiable time, even if it’s just 10 minutes. And decide what you’ll do once you get to that time. Do you want to read a book of the Bible? Is there a reading plan that sounds particularly helpful to you? Do you want to journal? What will you pray for? (Watkinsville has a reading plan you can find here! It’s not too late to join in!)

2.     Find accountability – yes, this should be a time between you and God, but He has put people on this earth that can help us face to face! I have found that it’s helpful for me to take a picture of what I’ve read that day and send it to my accountability partner. We don’t have to read what each other has written, but it’s so encouraging to know that someone is waiting for you to send a picture of your time with the Lord every day. If not that, maybe do a plan together on the Bible app! Or find time to meet and talk about what you’ve been reading! It’s easier to get excited about things when other people are around you getting excited too!

3.     Minimize distractions – start your time by asking God to settle your heart and minimize distractions. I like to keep a pad of sticky notes close by so that if I start to let my mind wander about something, I can just put it on that sticky note and forget about it until I’m done. Do your best to be in a place where you know no one will interrupt. Maybe put your phone on do not disturb, or if you’re not using it to help you study, put it in another room!

4.     Look for God’s character – again, these daily moments are simply times for us to continue preaching the gospel to ourselves. They are to teach us more about the heart of God. His character is what draws us in, and what invites us to imitate Him! The Bible is the best way to seek the Lord. And as you read and think about more truth, the more the lies will fade away.

I hope this encourages you at the start of this semester! There are so many resources for us to use while reading the Bible. Find what works for you, but never deemphasize the importance of the Word. It is powerful and what we use to find both fulfillment and identity and strength to fight against the schemes of the Devil. I am praying that your daily portion is rich today, that it leaves you completely satisfied and expectant for tomorrow. 

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Alexis is an English and marketing major at UGA. She is a Watty college and communications intern and is involved in the Woodall tribe! She also spent the summer in Boston through Watty this past summer. She is passionate about building relationships and getting to know people’s stories and loves serving the church!

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HAVE A COOL IDEA FOR A BLOG POST?

Contact Alexis Kelley or email college@watkinsville.org with your idea and we’ll talk about posting it here!

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Check out our most recent posts below!