Not To Us...

Yesterday, I had to attend the first of two training meetings for the mission trip. At first, I was completely weirded out. No denying that, but then again, this whole mission thing is completely new and I have no idea what's in store. I trust that God will help me get comfortable with the situations he's putting me into.

Right of the bat, I'm told we are to take our shoes off and enter the room to pray. The praying didn't bother me so much, but the taking our shoes off bit had me wondering which socks I had on and if they were holey as opposed to holy. I got over the shoe bit. After praying silently to ourselves, we were asked to get into groups of four or five and pray together for the mission. Ok, I am getting very comfortable with praying to God... when I'm all alone in a room by myself. Put me a room with total strangers and it's only natural for me to start getting freaked out.

Tangent: Prayer for me is such a personal thing it's hard to... share... that with other people. I notice that when we have to pray in any group, I can't focus on the prayer that's being offered. Don't know exactly why, but I think it has something to do with how personal, how one on one with God, prayer is for me.

Back to the story: I, of course, was the last one in my small group to speak. Just spoke from the heart and apparently my heart is filled with ums and uhs. But I digress.

We were given journals to start writing about our experiences. And, from time to time, I am going to share some of my writings. Like right now:

Luke 11:17 - Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, "Any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined and a house divided against itself will fall."

We were assigned a Bible Verse to share with the group and mine was the above. All of the verses dealt with Mission and doing God's work. I thought the verse I was assigned was especially poignant. We may be divided by class, culture, race, etc, but if we cannot work together, then we're screwed. A good thought for a mission trip. Then, I realized I wasn't assigned Luke 11:17, but Mark 11:17. The fact that the verse still applies to the subject matter is, at least, interesting.

Psalm 115:1 sums up the purpose of this mission trip:

Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness.

We shouldn't be on this trip to pat ourselves on the back. We are going to mourn with these people. We are going to give God glory. That's the attitude we have to have on this trip. That's the attitude I hope to apply to my life.