6-29 Day Thirty Two

It shouldn't come as a surprise; my morning began in the Word, in Seven Stars. Habakkuk is awesome. I'm compiling all my notes again into a Google Doc (like I did for Romans 12). I read Habakkuk 2, which was God's response to the previous chapter. God is just; He will deal with the unrighteous, and all throughout this book, we see a plea to discipline the world. How can God let so much bad happen? God has all authority and can and will conquer evil. There is a reason there is no suffering in Heaven. Evil cannot exist in the presence of God. 

We had our team meeting this morning, then planned out our week. It is going to be insanely toasty in Providence this week, and fortunately, we have a lot of computer work that needs to be done. My role has been shifting around quite a bit for our presentation for the church. Hopefully, after today, there will be no more. Rather than covering indigeneity, I will be presenting on the success of our outreach and our survey findings. Should be fun! I am also no longer doing any work on the presentation, but instead focusing solely on the deliverable. I am learning how to not have control over things; this will be a beneficial lesson to learn, even though it is hard right now. Dying to oneself, the lesson of the summer! 

Tonight I got crazy, instead of being with the "why do bad things happen?" crew, I was with "what happens after you die?" It was awesome. We talked to a guy named Victor who claimed to be a Christian yet believed that when we die, our souls go to a new galaxy. He was so curious about the Christian life, and we shared a lot with him. I hope that he can linger on it more, that the Lord would stir something within him. I talked to my first Jehovah's Witness! I basically listened to misinterpretations of the Bible for the entire time we talked. I told her that I would like to pause our conversation and take time to also have an arsenal of Scripture on hand, like she did. We are planning to get coffee sometime before the summer ends (11 days). 

In my meetings with people of different beliefs, my goal is not radical, on-the-spot conversion. I want the people I meet with to be confronted with the truth of the gospel. While only God can transform a heart, each person is called to respond to the gospel by repenting and placing their faith in Christ. I have no power to change a person's heart, and while it would be an incredible joy to see someone trust in Christ in that very moment, people can often tell when they are being treated as a project rather than loved as a person. By faithfully following the Lord and extending Christ's love to them, we have the privilege of planting and watering seeds while trusting God to bring the growth.

1 Corinthians 3:7 "So then, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth."