SLAM Week Impact

Journal Prompt

SLAM Nashville week: What did you learn? How were you challenged? What will you take away from this experience?

My Thoughts

I learned that I am a bit out of shape, both physically and spiritually lol. Honestly though, I did feel the challenge of having to lay down my life for my friends. We learned that laying down your life partly has to do with laying down your will, your agenda, the way you think things should go. I think that the most tension I felt during this week has been in regard to leadership roles and people in our team trying to take them on and just struggling to figure out leadership dynamics. In those moments I got so frustrated because there was often a clash of perspectives and some implicit feelings of someone's opinion or thoughts being more or less authorized. It got really easy for me to forget the goal, and the goal was not to be right or to be in charge, the goal was to do God’s will together. Mr. Garner touched on this during the SLAM Bible study sessions throughout the week that we want the type of friends and want to be the type of friends who will care more about what God wants than what we want. But man is that easier said than done, especially when we think what we want is what God wants. The reality is we are still so young and still have so much to learn even about the Lord, and our walk with him and with one another is just starting. I’m really excited for all the ways we will get to serve together and deepen our relationships with the Lord and with one another. I got a glimpse of that at SLAM, but I also got a glimpse of how hard it’s going to be for me to stay out of my head and engaged in the present.

I am taking with me from this experience moments from worship and service projects where we had to push through tiredness or insecurities to do the work set before us and do it well with everything we had. I am taking with me moments from worship where I learned to stop looking for God’s presence based on a feeling but looked for him according to his word and what he says in it. I’m taking with me the hard lessons of choosing joy whenever I feel beat or numb. I’m taking with me the truth that friends and sisters prayed over me that I am loved and needed and I don’t have to carry all the weight in my life on my own, that God has my back and has given me friends who are learning to do the same. That my story and all of our stories are important and God wants to listen to them and we should do the same for one another. I am taking with me God’s word when he talks to his son who is so in his head and set on his way and what he thinks is right, “Why are you angry and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted?” And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must master it” (Gen 4:6-7). Now Cain didn’t master sin, those shortcomings, but Jesus did and he showed us it’s possible, just like God told Cain it was and Jesus also told his disciples that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Mr. Garner talked about that with us and how it’s not saying the flesh is too strong that the spirit can’t overcome it, but rather that when the flesh is weak is the time we need to overcome it, when we are most able to overcome it. I’ll hold onto these things moving forward and hopefully we’ll see how the Lord uses these lessons!