Covered in His dust

Today I leave for the Village! 

I am also overjoyed to share with you that the LIV4Change Team has had 3 Zoom meetings over the past couple of weeks! We had our first group call on 16 January, then another 2 on the 23rd and 24th. It was so special to “meet” everyone, and put faces to names (Snenhlanhla, Ralph, Lauren, Matt, Jacob, Eleanor, and of course, Jess). The joy and excitement were tangible! We also spent a lot of time praying together specifically over this waiting period as God has been preparing our hearts, as well as for visas to arrive on time for those coming from the UK.

What also took place last week was Every Nation’s prayer and fast that my sister, Kels, partook in. I was incredibly blessed to have been invited to journey alongside her—to pray into her specific prayer points. We prayed intentionally into her identity and worth as a daughter of Christ. How God spoke to her (and to have witnessed firsthand how the Spirit moved in her heart) was inspiring and encouraging, to say the least! Little did I know, though, that the verses I felt the Spirit lead me to pray over my sister would in turn speak to my heart, too. (I love how the God works!)

2 Corinthians 5:17

Isaiah 43:19

Hosea 2:14-20

2 Corinthians 3:18

These verses speak to who we are becoming in Christ. As John Mark Comer says, "We are each becoming something. That’s the crux of the human experience: the process of becoming a person. To be human is to change. To grow. To evolve. This is by God’s design. The question is not, Am I becoming a person? It’s, Who or what am I becoming?"

I love the meaning behind the first-century Jewish blessing: “May you be covered in the dust of your rabbi”. In the Jewish educational system, to apprentice under a rabbi, students would spend every minute of every day with their teacher—walking behind him, covered in his dust—for the purpose of becoming like him. As Jesus says in Luke 6:40, “The student is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like their teacher.”

With that in mind, I find Spurgeon’s commentary enlightening: "It has been said by someone that ‘the proper study of mankind is man.’ I will not oppose the idea, but I believe it is equally true that the proper study of God’s elect is God; the proper study of a Christian is the Godhead. The highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy, which can ever engage the attention of a child of God, is the name, the nature, the person, the work, the doings, the existence of the great God whom he calls his Father."

This makes me think of the story of Mary sitting at Jesus’s feet, listening to what He said and giving Him her undivided attention (Luke 10:39). Indeed, she chose what was best, “and it will not be taken away from her” (v39). In that case (and seeing as LIV4Change is a Discipleship Training Program), this is a journey of discipleship/apprenticeship. Returning to John Mark Comer, he simply but profoundly explains what apprenticeship to Jesus entails: "The meaning of discipleship is perfectly clear: To follow Jesus is to become His apprentice. It’s to organize your entire life around three driving goals: 1. Be with Jesus. 2. Become like Him. 3. Do as He did."

The closer we draw to Him, the hungrier we grow for even more of Him. And as our knowledge of Him deepens, so our understanding of ourselves grows. Relationship with Him is our answer for identity and purpose; He is our ‘why’. I have an inkling that this precious period at LIV is intended for me to sit at the Father’s feet, and to lose myself in His glorious presence and in the freedom of His Word. So, as the Program will soon officially commence, would you pray with me that God opens our eyes and hearts to new ways He is revealing Himself to us—that He shows me and the rest of the L4C team more of His glory and staggering beauty?

That, in abiding in Christ, we make a home in Him, and He makes His home in us.