This past weekend I took my family to Puerto Penasco, Mexico for the church’s annual Rocky Point mission trip. It was the first time that I have gone and what an awesome experience! If you have never gone, you need to seriously consider going next year. The church sent over 300 people and built 7 homes for Mexican families. Additionally, separate teams put on a children’s program for the barrio kids and there was an entire team responsible for feeding all of us! There were quite a few students who went, and I can’t even begin to express how impressed I was by the students who were there and worked their tails off for God.

It was a pretty challenging weekend for me personally - mainly because I don’t really have any handyman skills. Don’t get me wrong, I know how to drive a nail and how to use a saw, but I didn’t have a clue about a lot of the stuff we were doing. But that was the really cool part - there were other people there who could teach and train me to do the stuff I didn’t know how to do (or they just did it instead of me). It was amazing to see how 20+ people who had never built a home together could work as a team to built a two-bedroom home in only two and a half days! But with everyone doing their part and working together, the house was built so quickly.

It is actually a pretty cool analogy to what the body of Christ should be - each one of us doing our part for the kingdom of God. When we can all work together, it is amazing how God can use us to change the world. But when only a few people are working while others watch, things never seem to go as they should. So what is it that you would like to start doing as part of the body of Christ?

So on Sunday morning I talked about the idea of what it means to sit at the feet of Jesus. The message came from the story of Martha and Mary in Luke 10:38-42 and it really spoke to me. You see, I am definitely a Martha personality, it feels like I am busy all the time - and to be totally honest, I can take pride in appearing busy. It makes me feel like I am being a productive Christian, but does God really desire us to be “productive” for Him if it means we aren’t really spending any time with Him? Well, I felt pretty convicted about it and decided this morning that I was going to spend some alone time with Him in one of my favorite settings - the desert.

After sending Nathan off to school and saying goodbye to April and Logan (they went to the zoo), I packed up a backpack with my Bible and some water and went off hiking trails with God. I had no agenda, no timetable and I turned off my cell phone so there would be no distractions. Just me, God, and His creation in the desert. And I can’t tell you how awesome it was! I spent an hour and a half talking with Him, noticing his handiwork in nature, sitting in silence with Him - it is totally what my soul needed. Normally on a hike I don’t take any time to stop and observe nature happening around me, I am usually too busy try to reach the goal of getting to the top to notice anything. But with no agenda and no “goal,” I found that I was able to see a lot of things I would have never noticed otherwise. Like the design of certain cactuses, or all the different kinds of bugs around. I was even able to observe a couple of jackrabbits just off the trail; one of which I saw later on in my hike - he let me get about 15 feet away before he took off.

When I can spend alone time with God in nature, it is so much easier for me to see the creative and inspiring God that we serve. I hope to find more times like this morning where I can just be with God and enjoy just hanging out with Him.