Well….Ive been home for about 3 weeks now and I am finally starting to get into a routine. I have started work and am loving it! I love my living arrangements (with my sister, brother-in-law and nephew), and I am LOVING the weather! As I settle in, I am daily reminded of what I am missing….great friends, good fellowship, and amazing co-workers and students! I am gently reminded every day that it is an opportunity to reinvent myself and to make new friends and to get out there and do things! I was able to spend the weekend in San Diego with one of my longest and best friends Andrea. We were able to talk about old friends, new friends and life. It is so good to have a friend that is my age, and is in the same boat as me in many different areas of life. I went with her to her home church and was able to hear Jody Newberry speak (PBR championA) as well as the chaplain for the PBR (professional bull riders). They were talking about the Father and his love for his children…since it was fathers day and all…..I was humbly reminded of a few things that night! 1)It is so much more about a relationship with Jesus than it is about knowledge. 2)Radical encounters with Jesus are all to often overlooked for scriptural knowledge. 3)How can I show the love that the Father has for me if I don’t know it, understand it, and feel it? Now, please do not hear my say that Biblical knowledge is not good or necessary, what I am saying is that without the relationship, than all the knowledge means nothing. I love hearing stories of people who have had an encounter with my Jesus and who have been eternally changed. Jesus doesn’t want us to be a church full of people who have the most knowledge and the most scripture memorized. He wants us to be a church that has a relationship with Him and with those around us and in that we are then able to share the knowledge and scripture. This was something that really convicted me this weekend and I have every intention of really having a relationship with Jesus in order to better show His love to those around me!
