I have learned so much since arriving here at YWAM. Each week I am overwhelmed by how much more I learn and grow. Each week I think it can’t possibly be more than I learned or grew in the previous week, and each time I am proven wrong. I would like to illustrate something that has been so powerful of an image in my life since I’ve been here. This image is one of a fire inside of each of us.
I used to struggle with hearing God’s voice and understanding his will for me. I knew I was made for him, I knew I was made to glorify him, but I didn’t know how to do that. I felt lost, not knowing where to start and feeling like there was too much ground to possibly cover before he could ever be satisfied with me. I still feel that way, but I feel like now I at least have some hope and direction. I have learned so much about hearing God’s voice, how to seek him out, and how important it is to make time just to listen to him. I learned that I can ask him questions and actually expect an answer from him. I had never thought about it like that before! I can expect that God will answer me, and he will, in his own time and for his own glory. I learned also that I do have a calling from God. A specific calling and will from him. I can try my best to follow and even if I choose the wrong direction on accident or out of selfish ambitions, God can either stop me in my tracks or use the situation to make the best of it. But I can ask and seek from God, I can see where my passions, strengths, and the areas that are in need of service all line up. Even if I don’t hear God’s voice clearly, it doesn’t mean he isn’t speaking into my life in other ways and guiding me. “To be out of God’s will, you have to know God’s will and choose otherwise”- Esther Lehmann.
I think that all of these ideas have to do with this idea of a fire inside us because these things are all what keeps the fire alive. I love this idea of having a fire within us, a fire that never dies and that is always pouring out of us. It’s a continual thing that we light each day and have to continue to pour into, like stoking a fire, in order to get the product out of it. We have to keep adding logs in order to receive the warmth and the strength and zeal a fire gives. Matthew 16:24 says in order to truly live for God I must die to my own will and life, every single day that I wake up. I must choose to live that day for God and in his will and not my own.
I pray that as this school goes on, lighting this fire, spending time with God and listening for his voice and calling, becomes a habit in our lives and we create such a natural relationship with Him. And I pray that we take care of this fire inside of us, we don’t let it go out or grow weak. I pray that we continue to share this heat, this fire with everyone around us and that this fire would affect people around us who see us and hear us and that they would want more of us. That we would be warm and comforting, yet strong and powerful. I pray it would spread like wildfire and that eventually everyone would have this fire set inside of themselves.
-Sierra Smith
Jan 2018 DTS
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