Personal

Tonight I had 6 women who came to my Old Testament Bible Study. We only had 45 minutes and were going to study Joshua 24. I opened with an ice-breaker. Plot some of the times in your life where God has been most apparant. I went first and shared some pretty basic things. Then I sat captivated as these middle aged women shared very personal stories with one another. They listened carefully to each other. Some shed tears as they told their faith stories. It took the full 45 minutes to go around the table and share these stories. It was awesome to hear how God has been with them and recognize that it's the same God I know and have felt supporting me. After everyone shared I read from Joshua 24 when the people were recounting their own salvation history and the surprising response of Joshua. He warns them to stay true to their commitment to follow the Lord now that their lives will be getting much more comfortable compared with the wilderness. I intended to then spend the bulk of our time discussing how important our history with God is and how easy it is to forget what God has done. But we ran out of time. The most amazing thing of the evening was when I asked these women how well they knew each other. I figured that they must have some history with one another to share such personal things. They admitted that they didn't know each other at all and that some of them had met only minutes ago.

I'm amazed at how strong our desire to share ourselves with others is. We really do want to be known. I need to spend more time in my Bible studies giving people the opportunity to share of themselves. Next time though, I want to make sure that they also have the opportunity to let scripture shape thier understandings too. I'm very humbled by my job tonight.