Impact of All Church Retreat: Carli Weber
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“...all of these changes and heartaches will transform me as his promises are fulfilled.”
This was the fourth year that I have been able to attend All Church Retreat and I was yet again blown away by how the Lord uses his word and his servants to grow me and draw me closer to him. There were many things the Lord used to prune me but looking back I can see three major themes: humility, prayer, and leading.
HUMILITY
I am not sure if you know this or not, but God always starts teaching you what he wants to show you at retreat before you even arrive. Humility was one of those things that the Lord has been showing me. This was based on where I am in life.
I am in the dark night, but I am also so full of peace and hope in that. Now let me explain myself because I know that sounds odd. These last few months have been full of a lot of heartbreak, mourning for people that aren’t next to me, yearning for those same people, while also including some hard decisions. When all this started snowballing, I found a sermon by Brian Clark I listened to that talks about how to survive the dark night. It is based on Acts 27, and it describes the space that is in between God making a promise and him fulfilling it. I was in a place of having to wait and hope in that delay and wait for the day. The day is when we rejoice in the hope, but the dark is where we learn to hope. His promises are what anchor us and through this, the Lord has taught me how to never stop praising his name (Psa 34) and how to never stop giving him thanks. Because of this, I can be in this place of peace and assurance in the midst of the dark.
Hebrews 10:23 Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)
Psalm 61:2-4, 8 From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I. 3 For thou hast been a shelter for me, and a strong tower from the enemy. 4 I will abide in thy tabernacle forever: I will trust in the covert of thy wings. Selah. 8 So will I sing praise unto thy name for ever, that I may daily perform my vows.
With all that the Lord had taught me within the months leading up to retreat, I was curious what the Lord was going to show me when I was actually there; it became clear the first morning. Joe McKaig taught that humility is wrought in suffering and that hope is the foundation of suffering. This is exactly where I am: clinging to the hope of his promises through what I am going through. It has brought me to a place of humility because as Joe said many times, “These situations were way above my pay grade.” I do not have all the answers or reasons for everything that happens and why people make certain decisions or why the Lord leads in certain ways. The only thing I have is Jesus and his word, and that is humbling (1 Pet 1:3-5). He also mentioned that God is wanting to transform us from who we are to who he wants us to be. It was then that I realized that one of the things the Lord was going to show me during this retreat was how all of these changes and heartaches will transform me as his promises are fulfilled.
1 Kings 8:56 Blessed be the LORD, that hath given rest unto his people Israel, according to all that he promised: there hath not failed one word of all his good promise, which he promised by the hand of Moses his servant.
“...prayer is the bridge that brings our intimacy with the Lord to our ministry.”
PRAYER
Thursday morning I was in the Psalms, and I wrote down Psalm 51:12-19 in my journal. It made me really giddy when Dan Reneau preached from this same passage the same morning. I shouldn’t have been surprised though because God is so cool. But he also wasn’t done with me in this place. In my own time, I had spent time remembering my salvation. On August 3rd, it will be four years since I accepted the free gift of salvation through the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. I have been thinking a lot about his sacrifice for my sin that separates me from the Father (Rom 5:12, 10:9-10 & Eph 2:8-9). There is so much joy to be had from that decision as I am not even close to the same person. As that was the focus of my individual time with the Lord, he still had more to say.
I realized throughout Dan’s sermon that I had been lacking in the area of prayer, and I needed to repent for my lack of pursuit. Everything is dependent on us crying out to God in desperation, and I have been in a season of missing out on a lot of blessings and answered prayer. I have not sat at the Lord’s feet with the endurance needed to call out to him for the things I desire him to move in. It has been a shallow season in this area and frankly, I have just dropped the ball. I find myself in situations where a moment hits me and I’m thinking, “Crap, I forgot to pray over that this week…” What follows is a wimpy prayer trying to make up for a lack of stewardship that is usually very surface level and has no power to it. What Dan taught was the fact that prayer is the bridge that brings our intimacy with the Lord to our ministry. Dwelling in prayer with more depth is what God is calling me to.
The next morning gave more clarity on this topic of prayer as Alan Shelby said that prayer is a plea for God to fulfill what he has already promised. And again, I am in a place of waiting for his promises to be fulfilled in his timing. Alan also preached from Luke 18:1-8 where there is a woman who is very diligent to seek the judge of the story. She is faced with resistance and through that, she forges a resilience and becomes a fighter. I am a soldier of the Lord (2 Tim 2:4) and through this resistance, he is teaching me how to be resilient and how to fight. But I can truly only fight through prayer. As I put on the armor of God, (Eph 6) I need to pray.
LEADING
George Grace challenged me to be the leader that God has called me to be, and that is a Berean (Acts 17:10-11). There have been a few verses and passages lately that the Lord has pricked me to study out further, and I have given up very easily when it didn’t seem like it was going to be an easy search. If I truly want to put all my eggs in the basket of the Bible, then there is no room for me to give up that easily. The Lord has things he wants to show me, and it could also be necessary for my investment in the people around me.
As I grow in the understanding of the word, there is also a need for me to grow in how to serve the people I am leading. I am to serve them the way Jesus serves his disciples in John 13:1-13. It needs to be unconditional and full of humility. I need to be willing to lay down my life for the people the Lord has entrusted me with and die constantly to prefer them.
These sermons will be ingrained into my walk and will continue to push me forward in faith as I trust God to keep me low, pray without ceasing, and lead the way he needs me to. His promises will be fulfilled, and through these transitions, I can only hope that I will look more like Christ on the other side of it.
“I do not have any time to waste.”
At the end of all this, this verse is the prayer of my heart as I move forward in life. Everything that I want should be for the Lord to get the glory and for his name to be exalted. I do not have any time to waste.
Psalm 57:7-11 My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise. 8 Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early. 9 I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people: I will sing unto thee among the nations. 10 For thy mercy is great unto the heavens, and thy truth unto the clouds. 11 Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens: let thy glory be above all the earth.
Carli Weber is a discipler and small group leader in Midtown Baptist Temple’s College and Young Adults ministry. She serves in Kidtown and on C&YA Hospitality. She leads one of the UMKC Women’s Bible studies.