Page 215 was another conference day, which being a college student conference means that the schedule wasn’t designed for a person of my age. 🙂  I went to bed last night, or technically early this morning, thinking that I would have a somewhat relaxing day today as I wasn’t scheduled to teach until 4 PM.  So when the alarm went off, I decided to skip breakfast and get a little extra sleep.  When I did get up, I decided to check the schedule to see when the first session started after breakfast.  In doing so, I noticed that my workshop today was actually at 9:30 AM and not 4:00 PM!  Fortunately, I was ready  for it and still had an hour to get up and over to the workshop room.  Today’s teaching was on developing a lifestyle of prayer in the real world.  While not as large of a group as my first session, there were still more people in attendance than I had anticipated.  God allowed me to teach and minister to a lot of people during this conference and I consider it an honor for Him to entrust me with such a task.  After the workshop, I spent time talking with some students and campus ministry staff until it was time for lunch.  When lunch was over, it was finally time for a nap.  I slept for an hour or so, and then finished out the afternoon free time with a walk under a very overcast sky.  

I had decided it wasn’t going to be the full six mile trail that I took yesterday so my plan was to walk the trail to the two-mile mark and then turn around and come back for a total of four.  About a mile and a half into the walk, a light rain began to fall and when I made the turn at the two-mile mark, I began to hear thunder.  As most of the trail is through a wooded area, the rain didn’t make it through the tree canopy enough to drench me or my camera equipment so it didn’t turn out to be too bad.  Today’s picture is looking out through the mist at the continuation of the trail as I approached my turn around point.  After the walk, it was time for a shower and then head to dinner for some more conversations about the prayer ministry.  After dinner I was asked to take a group photo of the entire conference, or at least all who came for this evening’s session.  So I climbed a ladder on stage and put my photography skills and equipment to work.  When the session was over, it was time for some more conversations before coming back to the room to write today’s page and wrap up the day.

As I thought about the day, my mind reflected on how often we get our mind set on things being a certain way and sometimes have no real basis for our beliefs.  I don’t know why I thought my workshop was at four, but I’m glad I found the truth before it was too late.  In some of my conversations today about prayer, it is apparent that many of us hold on to beliefs about our relationship with God and what is fitting to talk with Him about and what isn’t, that have no basis in the truth of His desire for us.  I thought about how often we become convicted by God’s Spirit to grow in our relationship with Him through prayer or another of the spiritual disciplines, only to give up before we even begin because we’re afraid our attempt won’t be finished or will leave us “soaked”.  Even if life “drizzles” on us, there is something refreshing about finishing our commitments to spend time with God pursuing a growth in our relationship with Him.

I pray that you and I would always seek God’s truth above what we believe to be true.  I pray that we would make our pursuit of God a priority that nothing would deter us from.  I pray that we would be an encouragement to others as they journey through life.  I pray that we would spend the time necessary to figure out how God would have us to serve others, but that we wouldn’t wait to serve until we have it all figured out.