Originally, I had this great lay out in my head about how I would do one post about my day and my thoughts and another post about my quiet time. But somehow that didn't work and I ended up with 3 posts that i'm now trying to combine into 2. I think i'll start this one off by explaining why I am here. Not just at this conference in Southern California, but why i'm desiring a medical profession, and why i'm considering the military.
When I was about 12 or 13 my family watched a movie The Guardian which is about the Coast Guard. This was my main inspiration to join the military and my heart was set on the Coast Guard. I was already a natural swimmer, so to my adolescent mind I was already 75% of the way there. As I got older and realized there were such things as boot camps and hell weeks, I started to seriously doubt my decision to join the military. Eventually, I dismissed the idea all together because I just wasn't built to survive that rigorous of training. Looking back in hindsight I see where God kept brining the idea back to my attention, but I was quick to dismiss it time and time again because I was so sure I couldn't survive bootcamp. Then, in my junior year of high school I decided to write my major research paper over PTSD. I had never heard of this before, and only happened to stumble upon it after realizing I desperately needed to narrow my original topic down quite a bit. I have no idea what my original topic was, but it had something to do with neurological disorders and their affects on people or something to that nature. To gather my resources for this paper I talked to several soldiers with and without PTSD. I went to the VA and talked to the staff there. I read article after article on PTSD and the limited knowledge we have on it and how so many are suffering from it. Then, 2 years later a friend of mine deployed for about 8 months. This really got me thinking about the army as I was hearing more and more about the war going on overseas and worrying about my friend being over there. Around thanksgiving I found myself looking around on the army website checking out the different careers. I stumbled upon the 68W (health care specialist) and knew that was what I wanted to do. Unfortunately, I would have to enlist to get that particular MOS, and that was just out of the question as my parents and just about everyone I talked to told me I should get my degree first. This was SO frustrating as I was pretty much ready to go ASAP. I'd figured out all the documents I would need for the recruiter, I knew what questions to ask, when I wanted to talk to them, what I wanted to do. I just needed to get it on paper and signed. Then God showed me a different path: Army Reserves Officer Training Corps, or AROTC. They were right there on my campus. I'd seen them drill several times on campus and seen them just walking around. It meant I could join the army and still get my degree, I would just have to wait about 3 more years. This program sounded absolutely perfect until I realized that commissioning as an officer at the end of my 3 years meant that I couldn't be a 68W; my dream job. I still struggle with this one detail, the one flaw in an otherwise perfect program. But I trust that God will place me where I need to be. Recently i've been asked why I want to do ROTC. Why I want to be a medic, and why I want to be a medic in the army of all places. Well, to answer that question I would toss out my typical "I just always wanted to do something medical and the army has been a big part of my life due to family and friends so it basically just fit." What I realized though is that this was an absolutely terrible reason to want to join. So I sat and thought for a bit and came to the conclusion that first and foremost, God has called me to this area in life. From 12 years of age on, He has revealed that He wants me to do something in heath care, and over my high school and even college years He has slowly taken me through each career until bringing me to where I am today. I want to join the army because I have a love and a passion for it. I love the challenge, I love the pride that comes from doing something for my country, for every single person that lives here. But mostly I love the people that serve, and I believe they don't get the right care or the proper respect that they deserve. These people also face death on a daily basis. I want to be there to tend to their physical, emotional, and spiritual needs; and I feel that God has equipped me in two of these 3 aspects, and that He is currently training and equipping me in the third. I follow several 68W blogs on tumblr and I love seeing the pictures of the medics reaching out to those in need, whether they are enemies or allies, or just an innocent bystander. You can see so clearly that they represent strength and power....something that is meant to be feared and respected. But you also see their mercy. Someone that has the power to destroy reaches down to a child and tends to them, comforts them. They perfectly represent the meekness of Christ, His compassion and mercy, His strength, His love, His protection. I can see so much in just one simple picture, and I crave that. I want to be that representation, I want to be that person. This is why i want to join the army, and why i want to be a health care specialist. I want to give hope to those who have none and give peace to those who are terrified.
Faith vs. Trust
**if you want to skip over my insane train of thoughts that I put in here unedited, you can scroll down to my summary :)
Today, during my quiet time I will admit I had no idea what to do. I'd done quiet times before but I was always easily distracted, so I never really learned how to actually have a quiet time with God. I prayed that God would just show me a verse to at least think on or something for the next hour and a half. I started reading through Psalms, and got distracted. So then I started in Proverbs and again got distracted. So with my two favorite books already marked off my list I gave up and went to my verse that i've been posting at the end of each of my blogs: James 2:19. I was a little frustrated giving up and giving into what I thought was just a simple "out" so I wouldn't actually have to read the bible. Boy was I wrong. In this verse two parts stood out to me, so I underlined them. James 2:19 (NLT) "Do you still think it's enough to just believe that there is one God? Well, even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror!" Oddly enough I made a connection with my second underlined section and a verse i'd absentmindedly read in Proverbs 1:7 "Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline." I started to find a pattern here and began breaking down each word, learning its actual definition or matching a word or phrase to a different verse in the bible. From this verse I realized a new meaning for the word discipline, one that related to me perfectly. Fools don't just despise wisdom and "being rebuked for something they did wrong", but they despise self control, especially when it comes to spending time with God and learning more about Him. So then i looked up the word Despise, which means to dislike very much. So what does dislike mean? It means you have a feeling of aversion or disapproval. What's the definition for aversion? The act of turning away. So now, in my own words, Proverbs 1:7 reads: "Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true knowledge, but fools turn away from wisdom and discipline (self-control." It also struck home with me how, in James 2:19b it talks about how the demons tremble in terror. Which means they were afraid. I connected this to the first word of Proverbs 1:7 - FEAR. Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true knowledge. So basically i'm seeing that, 1.) My belief alone isn't enough 2.) my belief is not instilling fear or reverence for God in my heart which means I don't even have that foundation of true knowledge that Proverbs 1:7 talks about.
Then I kept reading past James 2:19 and made a connection between James 2:20 and Proverbs 1:7. "How Foolish! Can you not see that faith without works is useless?" So who will actually want to believe me if I say I believe, but my actions say otherwise. I came to the realization that I had no earthly idea what the difference was between faith and belief. I knew I had belief, but did i have faith? Again I took to the dictionary and looked up their definitions.
Faith: Complete trust or confidence in someone or something
Belief: An acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists.
I don't know how i came to this conclusion, but i realized that the difference between faith and belief is that BELIEF is not an action changing trust. It is merely acceptance. FAITH is accepting something as truth and changing your ACTIONS to reflect that. And that's what i've been missing. I believed, but my actions were never affected. I accepted God as truth but I never put my faith in it like i thought I had.
**So through my quiet time I learned that I had been foolish. I'd "turned away from wisdom and discipline" with the idea that I was being wise, and that I could still do what I wanted and believe in God. The sad truth was, if belief was as far as I was willing to go then my previous state of mind was correct. I could believe in God all I wanted and still do what I wanted to do, because I was merely accepting him like I would a compliment. Its great when I want or need it but i'm not changing my actions based off it. What good is my belief if It doesn't change me, If it does not produce that fear that leads to a foundation of true knowledge?
I know my logic here probably isn't theologically sound, or that these verses are out of context or whatever, but i'm not trying to make a theologically sound argument for the Bible, i'm just merely stating what I learned during my 1.5 hour quite time and how that has helped reshaped my previous way of thinking. I also apologize for my crazy train of though throughout the second part of my blog. I am impatient to post this rather that save it and reread it tomorrow so unfortunately this isn't being proof read and it is so grammatically incorrect its almost unbearable. But I just want to get my thoughts out there and maybe i'll come back and edit it later. Until then, don't forget to be open to where God wants to take you and to listen closely for what He has to tell you.
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