Returning to God
By: Ellen Strachan
W
hen I passed by you again and saw you,
behold, you were at the age for love,
and I spread the corner of My garment over
you and covered your nakedness; I made My
vow to you and entered into a covenant with
you, declares the Lord God, and you became
mine” (Ezekiel 16:8).
How long it took me to realize the truth!
God is in a covenant of love with me, and it
cannot be broken. I took the hard path to come
to this. It took removing me from my home,
my family, my friends, my boyfriend, my
world, and coming to a new environment, new
people, new ideas, new goals, new life. That’s
what Camp Tejas was to me. I lived thinking
I was following God’s will but realized when I
got here, I was only following the will I had for
myself. I had fallen into the belief that I could
never come back to God, and He would never
accept me. Then I realized that I do belong to
the Lord! I have come to desire the moments
I spend with God, and I recognize my need for
that peace everyday.
God showed me this summer how His
plans for me are much better than my own
plans. Although I thought my plans were perfect, God revealed many ?aws in them. He
showed me how, even though it may be extremely dif?cult, it is so much better to follow
Him though it may bring sorrow. “Blessed
are those who weep, for they will comforted”
(Matthew 5:4).
Being in a place like Camp Tejas stretched
me so much spiritually that the only choice
I had was to turn to God. He gave me the
strength to keep going. I always thought I
knew God, and that I was growing. The more I
learn of Him, the greater I realize that I know
nothing! It was made clear to me this summer
that while at one point I had been growing, I
was caught in a standstill. My walk was about
experience and emotions, not trust and obe-
dience.
Thanks to the opportunity to serve at
Camp Tejas this summer, I am fully convinced that my walk with the Lord is a real
and true thing, not one that falls away as before. Rather, I pick up my cross everyday and
follow. I focus on the goal, and take up Jesus’
yoke. He has put a real and true peace in my
heart.
tejas journal
you became mine
26
Servanthood
By: Kim Eskew
T
many.” Likewise, Philippians 2:5-8 speaks of
Christ’s willingness to lay down His rights as
God and become the servant of His own creation. The passage states that our attitude
should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.
Therefore, if Christ was willing to make Himself our servant, how much more should we
be eager and willing to serve others.
I’ve come to realize this summer that to
hear these words and to actually live them
out are two entirely different things. Consider Christ’s example for a moment. He was
not just serving when He died on the cross
or when He washed His disciples’ feet. Although these are great examples of His servant’s heart, Jesus served everyone He met at
all times. In other words, serving others consumed all of His time. It was not until I came
to camp that I realized that we are called to do
the same as followers of Christ. Being a servant means that we should be willing to serve
others in our everyday lives, not just when it
is easy or fun. You see, the most important
lesson I’ve learned this summer is that you
are not just a servant sometimes. Being a servant is an act of constant humility, always
placing others before yourself every moment
of every day.
attitude
should be
the same
as that of Christ Jesus
o live in an environment where you are
constantly required to put the interests of
others before yourself was a foreign concept
to me. The dictionary de?nes a servant as one
who expresses submission, recognizance, or a
debt to another; but for the Summer Ministry
Team, these mere words cannot come close to
expressing the de?nition we now have of being a servant.
One of the things we have been focusing
on is serving others the way Christ served.
Mark 10:45, our theme verse, says, “For even
the Son of Man did not come to be served, but
to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for