This past week was another busy one, full to the brim with good gifts and blessings from the Lord. Every night we had a different event, in addition to our meetings, campus time, and time spent with friends. Monday, as usual, was English Club at FitzPatrick's. We still have quite a crowd coming, and a whole new group of "regulars" who seem committed to continuing to come. I got to spend some time with our favorite Indian doctoral students (Hindu friends of our good friend Girish - a Christian Indian student in their same program). They recently moved into an apartment, and during the course of the night (I think we were discussing good Indian restaurants here in Montpellier) they invited us over to be their first dinner guests! They hosted us last night for dinner - which turned out to be a full cultural experience! We ate traditional food, (though they told us they cut the normal spice amount in half...I was still at my limit of spice tolerance!) in the traditional way (they showed us how to eat with our hand - Megan and Kim had pretty good technique), accompanied by a traditional drink of sweetened almond milk. It was delicious!
Tuesday was the first Parcours Alpha (or Alpha Course) meeting. The Alpha Course is a seeker Bible study developed for churches to help teach the basics of Christianity and create space for dialogue and exchange. I participated last year with a Muslim friend Doaha, but she was very busy and so we didn't go to all of the sessions. This year, Richard (a pastor from La Clé - another Protestant church here in Montpellier) is leading an Alpha Course specifically for students! We invited our friend Aline (see previous posts) who has already showed an interest in spiritual things, and she told Jeanette afterwards that she really enjoyed it. She said it wasn't at all preachy or boring like she thought it might be, instead she had a really good time and is excited to come back!
Wednesday was a game night instead of our normal Agapé meeting - and we had a ton of new faces! Kimberly introduced us to the perfect opening game for a game night called "Over the mountain." We all sat in chairs in a big circle, with one chair-less person in the middle who asked us to cross over the mountain if...and then picked a possible descriptor like "if you wear glasses" or "if you are a student." If their statement is true of you, you have to get up and try to find a new seat before they are all taken, and the last person standing gets to share their name and the next "over the mountain" statement It was a ton of fun, and a great way to get people talking to each other and decrease any initial feelings of awkwardness. My personal favorite was "Cross over the mountain if you have violently run into one of your neighbors during the course of this game." There were very few people left seated! My favorite part of the night was meeting Judith, a non-Christian friend of our non-Christian friend Israel. It meant so much to me to see our non-Christian friends inviting their friends - what a testimony to see that they trust us that much!
Thursday night we had our second groupe de serviteurs (servant leaders) meeting at our house. Four out of our five student leaders were able to come, have dinner with us (cooked by my lovely and talented roomie Kimberly), and talk together about the upcoming Agapé weekend in November. It was a lovely night, and such an encouragement to us to see how God is growing this group to really be a movement, and a movement after His own heart.
Friday night we had dinner with our dear Priscilla - a sweet Swiss girl who came to Montpellier for two weeks with her class, and wanted to stay with a Christian host family. Little did we know that responding to Daniel (a pastor at the Pompignanne church) and volunteering to house her made us a French host family! The irony was not lost on Megan or myself as we picked her up two weeks ago, surrounded by French families, at the bus stop. We are not a traditional family, nor are we French, but we had a wonderful time together! It was so much fun for us, and such a blessing, to be able to host Priscilla. She wanted to cook for us before she left, so we ate a delicious meal together before exchanging small gifts and notes, and accompanying her to her bus. It was very sad to see her go! She did tell us that we are welcome to visit her anytime we are in Switzerland, so maybe we will see each other again.
In the middle of all of this crazy busyness, I realized that I needed to take some extra time with the Lord. After meeting with my coach/discipler Lindsey on Thursday and talking with her about my spiritual and emotional state in the midst of a very full week, she shared some insights with me that really pushed me to reflect. I took Friday morning off and headed to my favorite coffee shop with my Bible and journal. I poured my heart out to the Lord, and He gently brought sin issues to light and helped me to bring them before Him and to confess my dependence. Over and over, I kept coming back to the phrase "I need you." As someone who is often competent, fairly responsible, and gifted in several areas, it is easy to depend on myself - on my own talents, capabilities, and strengths. God lovingly reminded me that my relationship with Him is one of dependence, that I truly need Him every minute of every day for everything! He led me to several passages in Psalm 16 that really challenged me to think about where I have been finding my joy, purpose, identity, and value outside of the Lord. After bringing those different idols to Him, I reread this Psalm and was reminded of who God is - that He is worthy of my trust and dependence! I'd love to share just a few insights that God gave me in reading this passage.
"I said to the Lord, 'You are my Lord; apart from You I have no good thing.'" (Psalm 16:2) God is the giver of good gifts, so everything good comes from God, and without Him I don't receive anything good. In another sense, even the good gifts He gives are not good apart from Him - when I separate them from God and He is not in them, they become idols in my life and separate me from Him. Unless He is in it, nothing is good.
"Lord, You have assigned me my portion and my cup; You have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance." (Psalm 16:5-6) The Lord is my provider - He is the One who knows me best, who knows exactly what I need, and He is able and willing to provide for me. There is never a reason to be discontented, the Lord gives all that I need. Not necessarily all that I want, or even all that I think I need, but I always have what I truly need when I come to Him to provide for me. God is the One who defines my boundaries, and He makes them fall in pleasant places. When I am stretched too thin or exhausted by my commitments, how often is it because I have not asked God to show me the boundaries He has defined for me, or because I didn't listen when He told me? As in everything else, I need God's wisdom to know when to say yes, and when to say no, as well as where - and with whom - I should invest myself. And He promises that the boundary lines He will draw for me are pleasant. In all this, I know that my ultimate joy comes from my eternal inheritance. God has provided for me in a big way, and as His child I can claim Heaven as my inheritance.
"You have made known to me the path of life; You will fill me with joy in Your presence, with eternal pleasures at Your right hand." (Psalm 16:11) Lastly, joy, life, and true pleasure comes from following God - and I need Him for every step of the way. He is the one who showed me the path of life, and enables me to live for Him. He is also the one who fills me with joy and gives me His eternal, lasting pleasures. Like any good gift, I cannot expect to find it apart from God. No wonder my vain idols failed to bring me joy, life, and pleasure! These things can only really be found in God. I need to be near to Him, in His presence, to be able to truly listen to His guidance, to receive His provision, and to live joyfully. Anything else this world can offer is not a lasting, eternal pleasure, but instead an earthly, temporal one.
Thank you so much for your continued prayers and support! This journey is not an easy one, and it is never fun to be confronted by my own insufficiency and idols, but I know that God is continuing the good work He began in me, and I know that the eternal pleasure and joy I experience in Him is worth all of the growing pains. Please continue to pray that God would work in my life, my teammates' lives, and the lives of our students to sanctify us and help us reflect Jesus Christ more and more each day. Merci beaucoup!
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