A teachable spirit

One of my New Year's resolutions, and something I've been praying about, is to get to know God better and spend more time with Him. Request: GRANTED! Last night was the first night of our 15-week Perspectives course to prepare us for Missions, and it was really amazing. I admit, I walked in with fairly low expectations and a distinct lack of motivation, but the lesson was really incredible. I am so excited about the work God is doing in Mongolia and I admit, I am a little jealous of the joy the Mongolian church has for God. I often feel that joy, but I don't often express it...ours is not a church where you shout things and weep and dance in the aisles. We're too...Seattle-y. Sometimes I wish everyone would shout and clap and jump up and down, just a little, because ours is a God who is worthy of rejoicing. Lots and lots of rejoicing.

I learned a lot last night, and am busy soaking up and reviewing the new revelations about our amazing God. I have lots more, though...today I went to our church's Women's Training Day at the Shoreline campus and had an absolutely incredible day of training and fellowship with lots and lots of Mars Hill ladies. All the ladies from our community group were there (and fortunately, we didn't clump, but got to know some other ladies as well - yay!) so it will be fun to talk about what we learned when we meet on Monday. We read through James...wow. I learned a ton and was very convicted to pray more for the things that I know I can't (and CAN) do myself. Sometimes God gives us trials , but He gives us trials that we can handle when we lean on Him. Sometimes the trials are seasons of suffering, and sometimes the trials are to remove idols, like comfort (hadn't thought of that before), and sometimes the trials don't feel like trials because we're oh so comfortable in our sin. Point is, we should be praying with fervor and supplication all the time. I'll admit, I suck at this. But I know how important it is and what an amazing aspect of God's grace that we even get to have relationship with our Creator, so I'll pray that God would help me mature in my faith and improve. James says that if we ask for something that glorifies God, He will grant it. What an awesome thing.

I'm off to work on my homework for Perspectives, and I'm looking forward to what I'm going to learn about God as I work. Thank you, God, for reaching out to me. I'm glad you've got big, long monkey arms, cuz it's a long way down to where I'm at.