Speak the Truth

Even though I only moved into my apartment a week ago, I'm back home until Sunday. I met up with a group of people from church for a relaxing few days at the river and I had a blast. We had 12 people there and we just hung out on the river, played a lot of cards, and loved on Jesus. It was such a great way to end the summer. While I was at the river and even leading up to the trip, some things had been in my mind a lot. I've always struggled with fear. Fear of future plans, fear of the unknown, and even fear of fear. It's been something I've had to surrender daily. This time, it's a different fear. It's a fear that makes me reconsider things and reprioritize some things.

First off, I've been thinking a lot about the things I worship and cherish. I love my family and my church family more than anything. But it shouldn't be like that. If God took my family away from me, I wouldn't be okay. I know I wouldn't be able to handle it. Shouldn't Christ be all I need? Shouldn't He be enough to fulfill everything in my life? This scares me. It scares me that I put things above Christ and it scares me that Christ might take something along these lines away from me and I'll be completely lost. I know it's something that I'll have to work on. Like someone at the river said this week, I "have to take my family off that altar and put Christ in its place." They also pointed out to me that even though I love my family  now, when I put Christ ahead of them I'll be able to love them even more and even deeper than before.

The next thing that hit me was that I really need to start paying attention to the lyrics of the songs I'm worshiping to. If I'm singing something that I'm not whole heartedly trusting in, should I even be singing it? I should be afraid to be singing lyrics I'm not completely sure about. If I'm singing something, I need to be ready for God to throw something at me to test it out. Take a look at these 2 sets of lyrics.

To you our hearts are open

nothing here is hidden

you are our one desire.

you only are holy

you only are worthy

My foes are many

They rise against me

But I will hold my ground

I will not fear the war

I will not fear the storm

My help is on the way

My help is on the way

Oh, my God

He will not delay

My refuge and strength always

I will not fear

His promise is true

My God will come through always

Always

If I had to live that out, could I? Is He my one and only desire? I don't know if I can honestly say that this point that He is the only thing I need. If everyone in my life was fighting against me, would I find refuge in God and not fear the storm? It'd be hard for me. It's something that I need to get right with or just need to stop singing. I wanna sing these words and I want to be fine with just Christ as my one desire so I'm gonna work on it. 

On a lighter note, I had a blast at the river. One day our 4 hour float turned out to be an 8 hour float and I was pretty sure my body was just gonna quit moving. As exhausting as that day was, i wouldn't trade it. We all got closer as a group and God is definitely doing some awesome things in all of our lives.