Recently we attended church camp which was held at a wonderful campsite called Lyrebird Park. The facilities are fantastic, the food was great and the hosts of the campsite are just a lovely bunch of people. I also found out that the Lyrebird is an Australian native bird that has the amazing ability to mimic natural and artificial sounds in its environment. This made me wonder if the moo-ing sounds I heard every morning were from real cows or a Lyrebird.
Church camps are good because they are a time when we get away from our usual routine to focus on God and wait upon Him and let Him realign things in our life. I know we should be doing this everyday but I admit that I get distracted easily by a billion things that happen everyday. Somehow, driving to somewhere further and more rural reduces the distractions to just two - drinking and eating. I believe it is biblical because people in the bible used to climb up mountains or go to deserts or get away from the crowd and to somewhere secluded to pray and commune with God. This often results in God giving them a word or a revelation.
For me, I felt that God spoke to me about one or two things during the camp. One of it was during the group activities when we did rock climbing. Rock climbing was never one of my strengths, I am usually better at coming down than climbing up. Also, my natural talent for procrastinating makes rock climbing even harder because I'd be stuck in the middle of the wall and I would be looking up, indecisive of which hold to go for and by the time I want to go for it, my arms are worn out from gripping the holds for too long. Anyway, after 2 failed attempts at reaching the top (which actually isn't very high but that's not the point), I was feeling quite exhausted and rather perplexed as to why I couldn't get past the last two meters. Then after a while, someone came and told me this: you can't rely on your hand holds, you should use your legs to step up even if you don't have a very firm hold on your hand, you can't wait for your hand to get a 100% secure grip, otherwise you won't move up. How true that is. My procrastinating, or lack of faith or focusing on plan-Bs keeps me from moving forward in God's plan for my life. By gripping and hanging on to the holds I am on and wondering if the next 'hold' would be secure, I'm just waiting for the inevitable to happen - my strength and confidence to be fully zapped and me falling off the wall.
Before attending the camp, I kinda have a feeling where God is leading me next in my life, and I have roughly decided what I would do; but at the same time, I can't help but keep thinking of the 'what ifs', and either consciously or sub-consciously, I create back-up plans for the different 'what if' possibilities, which wears me out. So this camp has reminded me once again that I have to stop doubting (it will be a struggle) and just move forward in faith.
By the way, I did climb to the top of the wall on my third try (by the grace of God of course). :)
Church camps are good because they are a time when we get away from our usual routine to focus on God and wait upon Him and let Him realign things in our life. I know we should be doing this everyday but I admit that I get distracted easily by a billion things that happen everyday. Somehow, driving to somewhere further and more rural reduces the distractions to just two - drinking and eating. I believe it is biblical because people in the bible used to climb up mountains or go to deserts or get away from the crowd and to somewhere secluded to pray and commune with God. This often results in God giving them a word or a revelation.
For me, I felt that God spoke to me about one or two things during the camp. One of it was during the group activities when we did rock climbing. Rock climbing was never one of my strengths, I am usually better at coming down than climbing up. Also, my natural talent for procrastinating makes rock climbing even harder because I'd be stuck in the middle of the wall and I would be looking up, indecisive of which hold to go for and by the time I want to go for it, my arms are worn out from gripping the holds for too long. Anyway, after 2 failed attempts at reaching the top (which actually isn't very high but that's not the point), I was feeling quite exhausted and rather perplexed as to why I couldn't get past the last two meters. Then after a while, someone came and told me this: you can't rely on your hand holds, you should use your legs to step up even if you don't have a very firm hold on your hand, you can't wait for your hand to get a 100% secure grip, otherwise you won't move up. How true that is. My procrastinating, or lack of faith or focusing on plan-Bs keeps me from moving forward in God's plan for my life. By gripping and hanging on to the holds I am on and wondering if the next 'hold' would be secure, I'm just waiting for the inevitable to happen - my strength and confidence to be fully zapped and me falling off the wall.
Before attending the camp, I kinda have a feeling where God is leading me next in my life, and I have roughly decided what I would do; but at the same time, I can't help but keep thinking of the 'what ifs', and either consciously or sub-consciously, I create back-up plans for the different 'what if' possibilities, which wears me out. So this camp has reminded me once again that I have to stop doubting (it will be a struggle) and just move forward in faith.
By the way, I did climb to the top of the wall on my third try (by the grace of God of course). :)
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