If God is for us, who can be against us?
No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
-- Romans 8:31-37
In GrX small group today, we talked about the transformation power of the Holy Spirit. The opening question that was asked of us was to describe a time that we felt spiritually empowered. I shared about my summer missions experience in 1999, and realizing that given the huge barriers my teammates and I faced, we were still able to see so many come to Christ, and ackonwledging that it could have only been through the Holy Spirit's power.
Later on during the study, we read Romans 8:1-37... a passage I've often studied in my church life, from KCPC to Wellspring to GrX. And it further reminded me about my trip, because as I was journaling and recording my lessons learned during debriefing after returning to the States, I picked a verse, Romans 8:37, talking about how we are more than conquerers when God is on our side, with His strength -- rather than our own -- working to change us and others around us. We're simutaneously witnesses to His work.
Yup, I think it was another "nudge" from God. After small group tonight, I decided to re-read my testimony that I wrote after my summer missions trip in 1999, which I've now put online under my faith section.
Reading it was simultaneously encouraging and somewhat depressing as well. Encouraging in seeing the genuine passion that God instilled in my heart then, and the genesis of my desire to go back to work in Asia that continues undiminished to this day. Depressing in the sense that I wonder how could I have been so holy back then -- is the person who wrote that and the person that's writing this now the same?!?
And I realize that these feelings of insecurity, frustration, and despite all of this, laziness and complacency is a manifestation of me placing my worldly pursuit above the Godly. That I need to change that, by not only acknowledging the Spirits power, but our own powerlessness too.