Freedom.
As Americans freedom is a word we toss around with out much thought. It doesn’t have a whole lot of meaning to us outside of the fact that we are free, that our ancestors defeated the English winning us our independence.
But free from what?
Free to live our lives as we please?
Yes, but free from fear? From guilt? Do we really have the freedom to do what we believe is right? Or are we trapped in our own prisons of fear. The fear of trying something but failing. The fear of what other people will say or think about something we know to be the right thing. We are trapped in our own prisons of bitterness, regret, or thinking we can never be good enough. The worst part is these are prisons that we built ourselves. Prisons with only 3 walls, we have an easy way of escape. All we have to do is step out of our prison, but we choose not to either because we don’t know we are in a prison or we make excuses because we are afraid. What we don’t realize though is how dumb it is that we have put ourselves in that prison. We hold in regret for something God forgave us for before we even committed the wrong. Or we refuse to forgive others for very minor grievances in the grand scheme of life. Then we compare ourselves with others. Upset with what God gave us, saying we cant achieve anything in life with the way God made us. But the fact is God gave us exactly what we need to follow his plan.
The last four days have been strange but very impactful for me. They started camp off by telling us to grab the 3 items we wanted that night, that we wouldn’t be able to get to our bags again until the morning. Then they handed us 2 tarps and some rope and told us to make a shelter for the night. Thank God I grabbed my sleeping bag and pillow. We had several good sermons during our camp, and one of the nights we did an exercise on hearing from God. We would close our eyes, then a random person would come up and we would try to hear from God while we prayed for this person without knowing who they were.
Although all of this was fun, I left training camp not feeling I had really been very prepared for the next 2 months. But then after arriving in Africa on the bus to our hotel something one of the girls told me during that prayer exercise hit me. She told me nothing but that “I’m ready.” Something I brushed off at first as being a wise word of comfort, but not from God. I realized then that all I had to do was believe I was ready. I was ready to let go of all my fears and go crazy the next 2 months. That the only thing holding me back from making an impact in Uganda was myself. I just had to make a daily decision to stay focused on God, always looking for an opportunity he might have open for me to serve or to lead. And I would make my impact.
If I were to give one word of advice to anyone else going into a future training camp, it would be to give up all your expectations. An expectation is confidence that a desire of yours will be fulfilled in the future. Give up your expectations and you will give up your feeling of entitlement. Then you will do great things.
