Shifting Devotions

The Seniors' Retreat Camp was indeed a blessing to all who participated.  I just got a report that the Seniors' still has hangover were they kept singing their theme song this morning during their first period.  So funny, I have never heard of such a real hangover of a camp that goes like that, even disrupting class hours because the joy cannot be contained.

Going back to my blog topic on Shifting Devotions.  The camp actually has a devotional material that we need to use.  But it seems God said to me early morning on our second day not to use it.  Instead, I started to think and ask, what do You want me to use for my staff then?  And suddenly, it just popped out use the evaluation technique of devotion to heighten the leadership skills of your staff.

I have never had such a sudden shift of feeling especially on camp devotion.  Usually, I would still use the material and shift a little bit to fit my group needs.  But this time, I felt God was telling me to set it aside.

Since the previous day the emphasis of our activity was on the washing of the disciples' feet.  We revisited this old familiar passage and try to learn new things from it.  We focused on servanthood and discipleship.  The topic was good, we had good insights and God spoke to each one of us during our devotion on discipleship as a ministry.  Convictions and commitments were made on the spot.

Comes the third day, again I do not know what to use but I recalled our activities on the second day on clinging on to Jesus with firm faith.  So, as I flip my Bible,  it went to John 15 on the topic of the vine and the branches.  Again, we had a wonderful discussion of insights were God really spoke to each one of us.  So much refreshing and new learning again on clinging on to Jesus as we go through the journey of life, which is the topic of the camp: Ready For Life.

The last day, seems odd.  So, I waited and retrace our activities again.  We are really going for the conclusion already and main conclusion was all about faith.  We used Hebrews 11, we talked about strengthening of our faith in different circumstances in life.  The final analysis of our ministry is to have faith - firm faith that will maintain our connectedness with Christ, who will guide us through the rest of our life.

One thing I learned from this devotion was being actively listening to the prodding of the Holy Spirit in my life.  The book I read entitled, Blink by Malcolm Gladwell says the first 3 seconds of our thoughts are important.  High accuracy of being able to determine the right thing to do.  I felt that in our initial decisions in life, our initial thoughts in our life has a thumb print of the Holy Spirit.  He immediately tells us and guide us.  The only thing we do, is to be sensitive to what the Holy Spirit was saying.

Yes, our devotion topic was shifting but it has refreshed us according to what the Holy Spirit wanted us to learn as a team.  Praise be to God.