So I just got back from Passion 2011 in Atlanta. Honestly, it was the most incredible experiences I have ever had, and not only because it was fun, and entertaining, and productive, but it's completely because of GOD. So much was thrown at me and into my mind that I'm still trying to process it all, but here's a look at the three main things I'm taking away from it.
-taye
YOU make beautiful things out of us
Before I begin going on about everything that God showed me during this weekend, I want to start by saying all the things He blessed me with this weekend.
He blessed me with wonderful roommates. I already knew I was rooming with them months in advance, and I've known them since I was born basically, but I continued to realize just how amazing and productive it is when your closest friends are just as in love with God as you are.
He blessed me with wonderful new friends. The community groups (or small groups) continually got better and more effective as the weekend progressed. The groups were supposed to have only eight people in them, but mine had twelve...however, looking at it, each and every single of the dozen people in our not-so-small group were significant and each and every one has and will play a role in influencing my life, and God brought each one into my life for a purpose. The groups were called family groups, but I had no idea how truly like family they would become.
He blessed me with focus. If you know me, you know that I get so easily distracted, but throughout this weekend, I was so much more focused than I usually am. I'm not going to lie and say I never zoned out once during a speaker, or that not once did I find myself singing without praising, but I was more focused and I think I was able to get so much more out of it because of that.
Those were just a few of the tremendous blessings from this weekend. But now for the best stuff...what God has showed me. He showed me so so so much but these are the three main things that really just kind of slapped me in the face.
He showed me His glory. All the time I go to church or read my Bible without even taking a though to think about how glorious and mighty and worthy God is. Isn't that terrible? It makes me sad to think that, but over this weekend I was just shown how powerful and perfect Christ is, especially when I look at myself next to Him. I look so small compared to Him and His perfection.
He showed me His love. Pretty much all of my high school life, but more so this past semester, I have been constantly searching for love. It's like I knew God's love was better, but I thought that I could find something better, because I didn't experience Christ's love on a daily basis. How blind I have been. On Saturday night, some of us went to the David Crowder concert (so incredible in and of itself, but that's not the point. The majority of the concert was Christmas music, but at one point he sang How He Loves and it was like God just jumped out of nowhere right in front of my face and just looked at me and "I. Love. You., why have you not seen that?" It's so wonderful how patient God is with us, but that after a while He just has to jump in front of us and show us where we've gone wrong. After that I felt so loved, and not just knowing Christ's and yet looking for it elsewhere, but knowing His love and being perfectly content in that. In the song By Your Side by Tenth Avenue North, there's a line that I've always loved, it says "Why are you looking for love? Why are you still searching as if I'M not enough? Where will you go child? Tell me, where will you run?" I love that because, first off, that's exactly what I've been doing: continuing to search for love, even though Jesus' love was always right there.
He showed me joy. Being completely joyful; completely and utterly happy, has always been kind of a struggle for me, especially lately (which I think ties in with the whole looking elsewhere for love thing). This was the first time in my entire life where I have felt completely alive and fully happy. This was also the first time in my life where I got truly excited to praise God. I found that almost every time we went to worship, I would be singing my heart out and sometimes I would have to stop singing because I could not help but smile. That's what true joy is. Also, in when John Piper spoke on Monday night, he spoke about joy, and how necessary it is to have GOD as the foundation of our joy rather than ourselves, and I think before this weekend, I had myself as the bottom of the foundation, but Christ close on top of that so that I thought I had Him at the bottom, but in reality it was myself.
Passion 2012 will be at the Georgia Dome next year in Atlanta. I would recommend it to everyone high school senior-college. It will change your life, but really Passion won't change your life, God will.
"Yes, LORD, walking in the way of your laws,
we wait for You;
Your name and renown
are the desire of our hearts"
-Isaiah 26:8
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