Pressing Into Mondays by Julie Gibbons

Since 2010 Mondays have been my favorite day of the week. In high school and college it was because of the outreach ministry Young Life. Young Life gave me the environment to meet Jesus and learn the difference between the love we get from the Lord and surface level love. For me Mondays had been days of hanging out with fun people, laughing at silly skits, and singing my heart out even if I didn’t know the words to the songs, which I usually didn’t. More than any of that Mondays were the days I got to hear the gospel in a way I could understand and relate to. In college they were the days I got to share the gospel with my friends who were in high school.

This year Mondays are still the best days of the week, but it is not because of Young Life. Mondays are the days I look forward to each week because they are filled with great people and so much Jesus. In the Nashville Fellows Program the day consists of learning in the classroom, networking with Nashville Leaders, fellowship that includes food and worship, and finishing the night getting to know each other on a deeper basis through testimonies.

Mondays have also humbled me. I didn’t realize how little I knew about the Bible and how static my faith has been because I had been choosing to love Jesus and spread His word in ways that were comfortable to me, yet sometimes only striking the surface.

Before this Fellowship started we read a book called “Life Together” by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer talks about emotional faith compared to faith that is based in the truth of God. He says, “God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth”. I was really convicted after reading this because I finally started seeing the bubble that confined my faith, and I desired for the Lord's truth to be the foundation of my faith. While an emotional connection to God isn’t bad, it leaves our faith more vulnerable to hardship and lies that Satan whispers in our ears. A faith based on the truth stands firm.

Matthew 7:24-27 says, 24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

I have been reading and even teaching this parable since I was in high school, but it wasn’t until this year that I realized the rock in which we need to build our foundation on is the truth of God. The way to know and understand the truth is by digging deeper into the Bible, and especially growing outside the comfort zones of what we already understand.

I have been humbled by this experience. Knowing that even after following Jesus since high school, my faith journey has barely crossed the starting line in this marathon of a life we are living.

As for now, I want to fall more deeply in love with Jesus and the Bible. I want to know and understand scripture more than ever before. I want to give this year to Jesus because I know if I don’t I will be consumed by the distractions of this beautiful city and the dreams of what I want my life to look like.

Here I am Lord, my arms stretched out, ready for what you have in store for me.