Urbana: Prayer Room

 All week I had been keeping myself busy at the Urbana Student Missions Conference by making sure I attended every seminar I possibly could, trying to get through the exhibit hall, worried that I was going to miss an exhibit I should have visited, and looking through the book store to see if there were any MUST haves.  In a way I had been putting off going to the prayer rooms they offered.  There was so much else that I had to get done!  I couldn't miss anything!  But, the whole conference long in the back of my mind I knew I should spend a little time there.  Maybe a half hour before dinner or something.  The last full day of Urbana I finally made my way to the ministry prayer room.  It was pretty neat!  They had booths set up with guidance questions, verses, and activities to help think and pray through confession, forgiveness, identity, fear, and things like that.  I spent some time walking around and looking at what was there.

Finally I sat down against the wall and tried to clear my mind.  I felt that God was speaking to me, so I got out my notebook at started to compose a letter to myself from God containing what I believe he was speaking to me during that time.  This is what I heard the Lord saying, and I hope He uses this to speak to you as well:

"My Dear Child, 
Find peace in me, come to me
relax and find joy in me.  
Stop trying to fill the "empty space"
with busy, meaningless work.
COME TO ME.  Come and give
me your burdens,  I WANT
to be with you, but sometimes
you consistently avoid me.
Stop trying to put conditions on me like "if He would 
just speak clearly I'll be content."
You'll always be in a struggle and you'll always
want more, but instead of getting anxious enjoy
my presence, lose yourself
in me.  Lose yourself and
focus on me.  Only then will you see yourself through
my eyes only then will you be filled with truth and
 freed from fear.  Come.  Enjoy.  Have peace.  I enjoy you,
and I long for you to enjoy me.  I love you,
Daddy"

A lot of this probably doesn't make sense, and this is definitely not the Bible.  This is just my humble human effort to put into words what I believe God was speaking, but I hope you can see God's truths in this personal letter and that you can make it your own.  God ENJOYS you!  He loves you and longs for time with you!  He wants you to just BE with Him.  After writing this, God led me to read the story of Jesus' visit to Mary and Martha found in Luke 10:38-42.  In this passage, Martha opens her home to Jesus but then gets "distracted by all the preparations that had to be made."  While she's rushing around trying to make everything perfect to please Jesus, Martha's sister Mary is just sitting at Jesus' feet soaking up His words.  Martha gets upset that Mary isn't helping her so she goes to Jesus and says "Lord don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself?  Tell her to help me!"  I can identify with Martha.  So many times I can get caught up in all the preparations.  I get distracted by all the things I have to get done.  I need to serve here and go there and make sure I do the right thing in this situation and say that to this person.  Serve, serve, serve, work, work, work as if I could earn the approval of God or somehow make myself presentable to Him or pleasing to Him.  Don't get me wrong, serving is awesome!  We're called to serve God and others as Christians, but we do this out of our love for God and amazement at His love for us, not because it will get us anything or earn us anything in return.  Jesus responds to Martha in verses 41-42, "'Martha, Martha,' the Lord answered, 'you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed.  Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.'"  What Jesus says about Martha is the same for me.  I get so worried and upset about so many things, but the only thing that is needed is Jesus.  Maybe you can relate.  After reading this, I felt God saying this to me: Are you going to busy yourself with preparations while I wait, or will you come and listen and enjoy me?  Your "good deeds" won't make you valuable. I DO."  It's up to you.  Don't miss out on spending time with God!  He's calling you, He enjoys you, and He loves you.  Spend some time with Him not asking Him for anything, not worrying about anything, not getting upset over anything, but just enjoy being in His presence!

Urbana 2012: Summary

  For those of you who don't know, Urbana Student Missions Conference is one of the worlds largest missions conferences!  It is a 5 day conference that is held every three years.  Students from all over the globe come to worship together, pray together, learn together, eat together, buy books, and connect with 250+ missions agencies, seminaries, organizations, and ministries!  I had the incredible opportunity to attend this conference with 3 other students from my school!
  Each day of Urbana started with Bible study in our hotel.  We would look over a passage of scripture and come up with observations and questions to share in a small group of people around us and then with the the whole group.  This was a great time to really look carefully at scripture and to hear the different things different people saw in the stories and teaching us Jesus.  Everyone had a different take on the scripture or different background knowledge that made it very interesting and helped me to see things in the passage I had never seen before!
   Each morning, after Bible study, and night, to end the day, we had sessions in the dome that consisted of worship in MANY different languages, testimonies from students on how missions had changed their lives, testimonies from people who have worked in missions, dramas, dancing, and a message.  One night we got to pack 32,000 medical kits to send to caregivers in Swaziland!  Hundreds of people gave their lives to Christ and rededicated their lives to Christ and thousands committed to sharing the gospel with their unreached friends, doing short term missions, and even doing long-term missions!  It was super exciting!  Our last session in the dome was to ring in the New Year!  We danced and worshipped together and rang in the New year with a Hindi song "Yeshu Tera Naam" finishing off our time together by going crazy to "I Am Free."
   During the day we got to pick different seminar teachings to attend.  There were SO MANY it was so hard to choose!  I went to seminars on women in missions, building community for at-risk children and youth, contemplative activism, living in the slums, ending extreme poverty, human trafficking, and multicultural worship!  I took lots of notes and received a lot of useful information!  Between and after seminars we had a little time to go to the book store of "apostolic proportions," where they had great deals on books of every topic imaginable!  There was also an exhibit hall full of 250+ booths representing missions agencies, ministries, seminaries, organizations, and things like that!  I spend time talking with people at these booths and getting information on ministries I could potentially work with!  It was overwhelming, but exciting!  At Urbana they also had several different prayers rooms.  They had a worship room, ministry prayer room, and missional prayer room.
   Needless to say, we had hardly any free time and were overwhelmed with information, but it was all wonderful!  I may post later about some specific things I learned as I go through my notes, books, and pamphlets trying to process the loads of information I received.  Overall, this experience was encouraging, as I joined together with thousands of people on fire for God and His mission in the world, informational, as I sat through teachings and seminaries and had conversations with people, and very inspirational!