This past week I have been out of town at a dance camp in the Niagara/St. Catherine's area. I have been going to this camp for the past I-don't-know-how-many years, but for the past three or four years, it has been my favorite week of the year.
As a dancer, it's amazing. It stretches you, (literally) and pushes you to new levels of accomplishment. The teaching is amazing, the teachers are very uplifting and... Just awesome.
The best part about it in my opinion though, is that the week is focused on God. Every morning we gather for morning session in which the bible is taught, there is another hour set aside for bible study, we have some time for personal devotions, and often the evening session is focused on worship, prayer, etc. This year we had one day focused on sharing our testimonies.
In the end, I usually find that I have loved every minute of the week, but the most valuable thing to me is the way that God worked, and the ways that I have grown spiritually.
That was a little bit of a long tangent. The point I was trying to get to was something that I feel God has been teaching me through this past week.
It started on one of the days in bible study when our bible teacher, who is also my oldest sister, asked, "Do you feel like God requires something of you?"
Of course everyone said yes. The answers were things like Our lives, Obedience, Our trust, etc. For me, it was Faithfulness. All of the above, yes, but mostly Faithfulness.
She told us to make a list of the things that He required from us, but that was the only thing I could think of. In the end, I had only one thing on my list.
Then she asked, "Do you feel like you can't give God what He requires of you?"
YES.
This has been such a struggle for me. I always try to be faithful, I try to follow God, but it's like I am not strong enough and somehow I always fail. Eventually, I always feel like a untrustworthy servant, a disobedient child, and an unfaithful bride.
We had just been looking at John 4, where Jesus asks for a drink from the Samaritan woman.
Rachel, our bible teacher, pointed out something that I have never noticed in this passage before.
Jesus asks her for water.
A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." (John 4:7)
Rachel pointed out something here that gave me even more understanding of her reply, and that was that this woman probably was sort of an outcast. Firstly, the Samaritans were looked down on by the Jews because they considered themselves to be part of God's chosen nation, but the Jews knew that they were not. So her answer at first, "How is it that you, being a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?" (vs. 9) is fairly defensive.
If you add onto that what her position in society probably was, she had been married five times, which clearly says a lot of rejection. And also, women usually came to the well in groups, but she was alone, which means she was probably used to being an outcast.
In light of this, her reaction to His request basically shouts, NOTICE ME. I AM LEGITIMATE.
Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water." (vs. 10)
The point that Rachel was making in this, (which was also apparent in a few other passages we were looking at) was that God asks things of us, but whenever He requires something of us, it is because He wants to give it to us first.
In our own humanity and weakness, we cannot give God what He requires of us, unless we first receive it from Him.
That struck me in a new way. Jesus was asking of me faithfulness, because He wanted to be faithful to me. And He wanted to give me the power, through His faithfulness to me, to be faithful to Him.
After that realization, I pondered it for the rest of the week, and time and time again my eyes were opened to ways that He was being faithful to me.
At the end of the week, we had all of our stuff packed up and we were cleaning before we left. I was scrubbing a toilet, while thinking about God's faithfulness and singing a line in a song which said, "I believe everything that You say You are, I believe and I have seen your unchanging heart."
And as I sang and scrubbed, my cousin walked into the bathroom and said, "Oh Keturah, you're so faithful."
She could have said anything. "You're so diligent," "You're such a hard worker," "You're such a servant," any of which I would have been extremely encouraged to hear, but she said, "You're so faithful."
I believe God put those words in her mouth. After she left the bathroom I could only thank God saying, "Thank you for that! Thank you for making me faithful!"
I still don't feel faithful. But I know that God is working in me, and His constant faithfulness to me is proof that He wants to make me faithful in return.
So I guess I will end with restating that God does not require something of you that He does not first want to give to you. And that is awesome.
END NOTES:
The dance camp that I talked about really is all and more than I said it was. If you are a dancer, want to be a dancer, or just feel like it might be fun to try out for a week, here is the website which has more information. http://www.one11ministries.com/artscamp/
My sister Rachel is awesome! She is an author, editor, and speaker with 1:11 Ministries. If you are interested in reading some things she wrote, finding out about her career, or even getting to know her, here is her website. http://www.rachelstarrthomson.com/
