Week 6: Plumbline

This was arguably the best week of the entire DTS for me. God is making so many changes in my life!

Monday

On Monday, we started a topic called Plumb Line. Unbeknownst to me before this class, a plumb line is something that keeps a wall straight. The idea of Plumb Line Week is that our lives are walls, and the bricks are our values and reactions. If we’re built out of bad things; bad experiences, bad thoughts, bad habits; we have to let God tear us down and rebuild us with Him as our plumb line, or what keeps us straight. So in class on Monday, we started with going through our reactions to adversity. The Holy Spirit pointed out to me many things I need to surrender to God. Then, we had Monday night service and it was one of the best services I’ve ever attended. For worship, they played a song that has become extraordinarily important to me: It Is Well (click to play). After that, we had a lesson on forgiveness and three very important points were made: forgiveness is not an event or an emotion. It is a journey and a choice. We need to choose to forgive until there is no pain left in the memories we have of the situation. We can either live in the bitterness of unforgiveness or the freedom of forgiveness. Also, God wants to take your biggest defeat and turn it into your biggest victory. 

Tuesday

This day was important because I finally surrendered to God all the things I had been worried about. He brought 1 Peter 5:7 to my mind and it was something I thought about all morning. I need to remember that God is always willing to listen to me and He always wants to help and further our relationship. In class, we learned about ungodly beliefs and how to surrender them to God and have them replaced with godly beliefs. This was absolutely instrumental in my life. I feel like a brand new person after that time of prayer. I feel revived and ready to continue in my walk with God.

After intercession, I went into Antigua and had dinner and went shopping with Maya, Madison, and Robert. It was super cool to spend time with them because usually we don’t hang out a ton together.

Wednesday

Wednesday was a very, very important day. We continued on in Plumb Line week, and I took a lot of time examining my life before the Lord and asking Him to set me free of my past. As always, the Lord was faithful and I started that afternoon truly feeling like a new creation in Christ.

After lunch, another incredibly important event took place: my mom texted me and told me that my visa to India didn’t go through, yet again. I went up to the roof to pray, and I asked God if He even wanted me to go to India with my group. Very clearly, He told me know. He told me that He wanted me to stay here in Antigua a while longer. At that time, I had absolutely no idea what I was to do except stay and wait on the Lord’s direction. After many, many works of confirmation from God, I ended the day sure that it had truly been Him working in my life and guiding me.

Thursday

Thursday was the final day of Plumb Line class. During my quiet time in the morning, God showed me that I just need to wait on the next step, not the big picture. After quiet times, all the girls went to a staff member named Emma’s house for pray together and talk about what God had been doing in our lives, and get closure about the things we were trying to root out of our lives during the week. During that time, God gave me my next step: I was to attend the school for Teaching English as a Foreign Language here in Antigua. I won’t go through it all here, but God was very clear in the way He demonstrated that to me. (If you want the full story, feel free to send me a Facebook message or an e-mail.) So then, God put the idea in my head to go visit the school, so I went with Bailey, Madison, and Maya and we had a girls’ day out. After visiting the school, in which I felt totally at peace and sure that it was God’s plan for me to go there, we went to a café to talk and pray together.

Finally, after dinner, we went to another staff member’s house for a girls’ night. It was a really great time of bonding for us and it was great to spend time together. Also, the desserts were great too.

Friday

Another wonderful, wonderful, wonderful day. I am so thankful for the group God has placed me with.

After our normal Friday morning activities, which are breakfast, worship, and intercession, we had our girls’ small group at a coffee plantation. I got what was possibly the best coffee I’ve ever had in my entire life. We hung out there for a long, long time, and then “got stuck in traffic” on the way home, so we didn’t get back until 6:30. I didn’t find out until later that we were actually stalling for a reason….

For our family night that evening, the guys had been working all day to set up the “Restaurant Los Hombres” for us girls. We knew something was up as soon as we got home and they were all wearing nice clothes. Then, they gave us half an hour to get ready before they took us up to the roof, where they had set up a “restaurant” for us, complete with Christmas lights and flowers and candles. Then they served us dinner! Ryan even read us poetry he wrote for each of us, which is possibly the funniest thing I’ve ever experienced.

However, the best was yet to come. By best, I mean a real-life mariachi band. I was actually in shock. I’ll just let the pictures tell the rest of the story…

Saturday

On Saturday, I got up and talked with a couple of the boys that live close to the base. It was cool to talk to them, and I was very pleased to get to practice my Spanish. Then, Cody and I went into Antigua to run some errands and get some work done in the café. It was a great, productive, peaceful afternoon! Then, we went to Soul Patrol with Mark. Brief summary: on Saturday and Sunday nights, a staff member here and father of my dear friend Bailey goes to the central park and does illusion tricks to draw a crowd and then presents the Gospel to them. It’s a really fun experience. It was cold and rainy, but people were brought to Jesus so it was eternally worth it!

Sunday

After church, I slept and just hung out until dinner, but then I read my book for the report due the next day. It was really impactful and made me think a lot. I’ll paste my essay here:

The main theme of this book is learning to praise God even in the midst of difficulty and darkness, based on belief that He is truly in control of every aspect of our lives. Reading this book had a big impact on me toward the end, as God revealed to me just how often I “put Him in a box”; when others say that God is off doing more important things than watching over my daily affairs, I know in my mind that it is not true, but that is how I live the majority of the time. I live, believing in God’s power in the major areas in my life, but not in the little ones; not in that I woke up with a hundred mosquito bites, that someone at the market overcharged me, that someone accidentally said something rude to me that hurt my feelings. I do not live with the realization that everything that happens in my life must first be approved by God, and that everything I find disagreeable He has allowed because it has the possibility to benefit me in the future. Merlin uses the verse Romans 8:28 many times: In all things, God works for the good of those who love Him. And I believe in this verse, and I quote it to myself and to others in the middle of a hard time. But I do not live this verse to its full extent, so that is the commitment I am making after reading this book: I will be more mindful that God’s hand is over every single second of my daily life, and He is active and present and entirely in control. Because of this, I can praise Him and thank Him for all things. Not only for the good things, like having pancakes for breakfast or getting to help with English class, but also for the things that I don’t like: having to get up early, doing work duties, or having to spend money on things I need.

God is ultimately good, and He holds the whole universe in His hand, and He is in control of every single thing that happens in it, and He wants me to have joy and be thankful in all things, as He says in 1st Thessalonians. This is something I have known for a long time, but not really understood or seen put into practice until reading this book. Not only were the concepts presented helpful, but even more so, the countless examples that the author gave of them working. God really spoke through Merlin in writing this book, knowing that someday I would be sitting outside, far from home, having to read it for a school requirement. He knew exactly what to have Merlin write to speak to me and thousands of others. That is the kind of God I want to believe in and live for; a God that is not only ever-present, but ever working in my life to the smallest detail to make sure every situation results in the highest good for me.