Trust
Buckle up friends! Hope the spirit can fill you up through some neat stuff God is doing around here!
I want to start by sharing what the Lord has been teaching me recently. A good friend, brother and mentor during my apprenticeship year texted me a screenshot of a debrief he wrote regarding the first sermon I ever preached. He said "Remember this?" haha take a look,
Not sure if you can relate here but sometimes I go to church, sing these songs of praise, I pray for people with this confidence, delight and reference scripture etc. yet when I face insecurities, worries, pain, hardship, I forget. I forget that "God sees me fully and chooses to love me fully" that the "Jesus of Nazareth is not just my king but my friend" that "as I laugh and cry and worry and think, that the carpenter's son is with me in this"-Oof. I pray friends that we don't forget God's mightiness and presence especially in those sudden moments where satan wants to consume us with lies.
Through Isaiah 25, I've been praying I can be more attentive at the ways the Lord is working. I pray that in those crippling moments I can recall the Lord's faithfulness and therefore enter into this submission of deep trust and praise.
1 Lord, you are my God;
I will exalt you and praise your name,
for in perfect faithfulness
you have done wonderful things,
things planned long ago.
2 You have made the city a heap of rubble,
the fortified town a ruin,
the foreigners’ stronghold a city no more;
it will never be rebuilt.
3 Therefore strong peoples will honor you;
cities of ruthless nations will revere you.
4 You have been a refuge for the poor,
a refuge for the needy in their distress,
a shelter from the storm
and a shade from the heat.
For the breath of the ruthless
is like a storm driving against a wall
5 and like the heat of the desert.
You silence the uproar of foreigners;
as heat is reduced by the shadow of a cloud,
so the song of the ruthless is stilled.
6 On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare
a feast of rich food for all peoples,
a banquet of aged wine—
the best of meats and the finest of wines.
7 On this mountain he will destroy
the shroud that enfolds all peoples,
the sheet that covers all nations;
8 he will swallow up death forever.
The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears
from all faces;
he will remove his people’s disgrace
from all the earth.
The Lord has spoken.
9 In that day they will say,
“Surely this is our God;
we trusted in him, and he saved us.
This is the Lord, we trusted in him;
let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.”
10 The hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain;
but Moab will be trampled in their land
as straw is trampled down in the manure.
11 They will stretch out their hands in it,
as swimmers stretch out their hands to swim.
God will bring down their pride
despite the cleverness[a] of their hands.
12 He will bring down your high fortified walls
and lay them low;
he will bring them down to the ground,
to the very dust.
We wrapped up a great school year! We had our last corefa gathering where we celebrated with pizza and a baseball game (corefas vs pastors). We also had our end of year banquet where we praised God for his faithfulness and reflected on the ways he showed up. One of the many highlights was remembering where our ministry stood that night compared to Welcome Week, the first 3 weeks of school where our staff dedicated their time to only reach out to students on our Collin campuses. Fruit was bared for sure!
It's May and we are deep in SICM (Student Institute of Campus Ministry) 10 days where, 11 of our Collin students along with 80 students from other DFW campuses have been connecting with the Lord, getting equipped with discipleship tools so that wherever they go they can continue to be Jesus and make disciples.
Though these 10 days were meant for our students, as I saw the Lord working in the hearts of our students I was reminded of when I came as a student back in SICM of 2015. Can't help but feel overwhelmed as I reflect on the Lord's faithfulness in my personal life and ministry.
I never imagined the Lord would tenderly exchange my heart for Him and campus ministry. Its been in many ways stretching, challenging, at times very uncomfortable but overall fruitful. Reminds me of Matthew 11:30 "For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." -its true.
I've seen the Lord use my experience, my ethnicity and pursuit for God in campus ministry as a platform to minister and encourage other students of color. I've seen the Lord also use campus ministry as a way to work in the hearts of my parents -I've prayed my parents can know Jesus. There are countless examples I can pin point of God's faithfulness this far.
I am thankful for the ways the Spirit worked in me and through our students this SICM trip. Here's our Collin SICM group,
- Pray for our students that just got back from SICM, ask they don't loose sight of the Lord, ask that their faith only continues to increase as they move forward this summer and jump into a new school year.
- This Thursday we kick off Summer Focus with all of our DFW campuses (UNT, UTA, Collin, UTD, TWU, TWU Dallas, Richland, TCC, SMU)! Pray that our students experience Jesus, friendship, and are only convinced that life can only be done with Jesus in it.
- Pray for my core. Though we wrapped up the school year, we still plan to hangout and be purposeful. Pray that friendships are deepened.
- This summer I am a fundraising coach. Pray I can be an encouragement and support to my team as I guide them in this season. Pray we are reminded to trust in the Lord, he was faithful before and will be faithful again through this process.
- Pray for my friends, the Castro's they've been in the process of healing after pregnancy failure. Pray they can feel the Lord's nearness as they seek answers and long to form a family. Pray their faith is only increased as they process the trauma, the tiredness of not finding answers, and the overall weight.
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