God is Amazing!

This year at Pepperdine has already been life changing for me and I am only half way through the first semester. All summer I prayed the prayer that God would teach me something new about Himself, something that I had not experienced before and He has answered that prayer. Ryan, one of the campus ministers, started a small group that goes through a workbook called Experiencing God. We complete five short devos in the course of a week and meet on Tuesday nights to review what we should be learning and discuss any questions. The first few weeks were mainly just about getting used to spending time in quiet with God and really working on a love relationship with Him. Now we are concentrating on hearing and listening to God's voice and adjusting our lives to His purpose. It's not an easy thing but our meetings have become times to talk about our struggles in life and how we are seeing God working around us and in us. I have come to know and trust some new people that I didn't know before. The group is great and I look forward to sharing our stories each week. Working through this book forces me to spend time with God, something that I was trying to figure out how to keep myself doing last year. I have noticed that spending that time with Him everyday has brought me closer to Him and now even when I am not working on a devo I take the time to say a little prayer throughout the day and communicate with God. He has been revealing Himself to me in different ways that I had not experienced before and challenging me to look at things in a new light. In church I have never questioned things, but just accepted them for fact and left it at that. This year for the first time I am questioning things that I grew up with and figuring out what I really think about things for myself instead of just what my parents have told me. A friend of mine here at Pepperdine has really been there for me through this and answering questions that I have. He doesn't try to convince me of what he believes to be true but encourages me to think about it and weigh the pros and cons. Our discussions have been powerful and helpful to me and even though I may not be decided on some of the issues I know what the supporting and dissenting arguments are. I am excited to see what else God has to show me this year and what challenges He will send my way.