Power?

Alright, the counseling school has gotten off the ground and so far so good. The first two weeks are spent going through a Biblical counseling program that will serve has the foundation of the rest of the school, it’s called: The Divine Plumline. The reference verse for this study can be found in Amos 7:7-9 and it involves indentifying places in your life that you’re suffering a “Deficit of Love” and how that love deficit is manifesting itself in feeling rejection or acting out in rebellion. Believe me there’s a lot more to it but I hesitate to write more until I learn more about it in the upcoming week.

Something that kind of “hit” me this week was the fact that the changes that I’ve made in my life over the last 6 months I’m going to have to keep for the next 40 – 50 years and that kind of intimidated me because in many ways the last 6 months have been the hardest months I’ve ever lived. If I’m really going to call myself a Christian than that means that I don’t get to make my own decisions anymore, I have to base everything on the Bible and if God tells me to stay here in Chile and being a life long missionary than I have to do it. But I don’t think it’s the concept of staying here that’s making me nervous (because so far I really don’t feel that’s the call I have), I think that it’s the fact that I have a new found clarity of what sin is and I can’t live in ignorance of it anymore. It’s easier to live “holy” in a Christian bubble like but what happens when I do eventually go back home, I know too much truth now to try and justify myself down to a level of lukewarmness that will result in me being a hypocrite. Here’s a verse and conversation that I got yesterday that helped me wrap my mind around this a little.

Proverbs 8:12-14
“I, Wisdom, dwell with prudence, and I find knowledge and discretion. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil; pride and arrogance and the evil way, and the perverted mouth, I hate. Counsel is mine and sound wisdom; I am understanding, power is mine.”

“Power is mine”… what could that mean? This question confused me until I remembered of a conversation I had with one of my favorite girls on a drive up north highway 1. It was fairly early in the morning and I can’t quite remember how we got on the subject but she was explaining to me some benefits to being Vegan that I hadn’t really thought about before. She said that before going vegan something that would have been constantly in the back of she mind on the drive would have been “what tasty (slash unhealthy) treat am I going to get for breakfast when we get to our destination. However after going vegan she said she feels so much healthier and in control of not only her diet but her life because she doesn’t think like that anymore. She’s committed to being Vegan and knows that she’s not going to break Vegan just for a bacon and egg breakfast or a maple bar; she has power over that problem area of her life.

I think Christian can have this same kind of “power” over choosing to sin or not if we’re really as committed as were called to be. Our minds won’t wander to the pleasures of sin if our conviction is so strong that it’s not even an option. Just like our Vegan in question isn’t “tempted” anymore by every McDonalds ad she sees, I need to get to that same level in my Christianity.