Wednesday, June 26, 2013

June

June has been a time of refocusing and renewing.

I've officially graduated from high school. And I am officially pursuing God's call to serve in missions this next year. Can you believe it?!

This August I plan to head to Cote d'Ivoire with World Venture in order to grow more in my understanding of God and what he wants to do in the world by living alongside West Africans and learning how to serve them.

But why do I go? 

I go because God is who he says He is. He is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, and He rearranged my college plans to lead me into cross cultural missions. And that is exactly what I want to talk about in this blog update: who God is. 

Some of you might know that God has many names, in particular God is called many different things in Hebrew and Greek throughout the Bible. Some of the more common names are:


ELOHIM: God “Creator, Mighty and Strong” (Genesis 17:7Jeremiah 31:33)
ADONAI: “Lord” (Genesis 15:2Judges 6:15)
EL ELYON: “Most High" (Deuteronomy 26:19)
YHWH / YAHWEH / JEHOVAH: “LORD” (Deuteronomy 6:4Daniel 9:14)
YAHWEH-RAPHA: "The Lord Who Heals" (Exodus 15:26)
YAHWEH-TSIDKENU: "The Lord Our Righteousness” (Jeremiah 33:16)

All of God's names are beautiful, but most recently He has been YAHWEH-JIREH to me. Yahweh-Jireh or more commonly heard Jehovah-Jireh means "The LORD will provide". The name was given to God by Abraham when the LORD provided a sacrificial ram to replace Abraham's son Isaac (Genesis 22:14). 

God has been doing amazing things here as well. One day I read on Facebook that one of my teammates for next year Hannah (read her blog here) was feeling discouraged in her process of building a partnership team. I had other things but Hannah stayed on my mind all day. That night I had to prepare a lesson for a Sunday School class I teach, and, ironically, the curriculum had me teaching the story of Hannah. As I read through the passages in Samuel, I began to see the beauty of the parallel. Hannah in the bible became so upset that she could not eat. So she went and prayed fervently to the LORD for a son. And she promised that her son's life would be dedicated to the LORD's service. My friend Hannah has dedicated next year to learning God's heart for missions and service, and she is feeling discouraged. Upon realizing that this was too much coincidence to not be the Holy Spirit, I went ahead and emailed Hannah. But I think God intended for me also to understand more how he works. The words that are used in the passage say, "The LORD remembered Hannah" and I know that He will remember me.

I'm praying for a lot this month, but one of my prayers is for all my partners and everyone reading this, as well as myself that we will become more aware of the all-providing God. 



After I re-listened to this song it helped me realize 
the theme of God's provision over this past month.



If you're interested in more of my story, becoming a partner, or making a donation you'll find all of that here.