Best Weekend Ever!
Our family just returned from Gatlinburg, Tennessee where we held our annual Crossroads Winter Conference. Clayton and I started this conference 21 years ago as a way to build up and encourage middle and high school students halfway through the school year, giving them the godly boost they needed to continue in their faith and finish well.
Have you ever walked away from a church service, conference or event thinking, “How could this get any better?” Well, that’s how I felt as Clayton and I drove away from the Gatlinburg Conference Center. But, here’s what’s crazy, I can’t give you an earthly explanation of why....for real...it was just God.
The message I gave was titled: Do You Believe in Miracles? The heart of the message was a challenge that many times we ask God for a miracle. Here is a small snippet of that message:
Have you ever seen a miracle? Did it change you internally? If we only focus a miracle’s physical expression, we miss the meaning behind miracle; we miss our opportunity for heartchange. When we think of or ask for a miracle, we often expect a physical change of circumstance. But, God doesn’t primarily do miracles to relieve our inconvenience. His miracles areintended to reveal His glory, to change our hearts and the hearts of the people around us. The temptation of the miracle is to focus on the physical, the exterior sign, without noticing the spiritual, emotional and interior change.
When you hear the name Moses, what miracles do you think of? The parting of the Red Sea, the plagues in Egypt, Passover, manna falling from heaven or water spewing from the earth, or a white faced man coming down from Mt. Sinai with the Ten Commandments? These outward signs are amazing, but their impact was minimal compared to the internal heartchange they produced. On the outside, it seems God sought out a cowardly murderer to rescue his adulterous people. But if we look below the surface, we see God asked a displaced Moses who had been leading sheep to find new purpose in shepherding his people out of slavery into a promised land. When Moses died on Mount Nebo, I guarantee you he understood the greatness of a miracle isn’t the actual sign or wonder, but the resulted heartchange.
We talked about how Jesus is always working miracles in our lives. They may bot look like a Red Sea parting or manna falling from heaven, but Jesus is in your life. Perhaps you haven’t noticed, or perhaps you are blinded because you are looking for a sign when he’s asking you to be a participant of his miracle in your heart, but he is trying to work a miracle in you.
There is so much more to this message, but I feel incapable of communicating it completely through this blog, so here’s a link to watch it online. You can also check out the messages from all our other speakers: Brian Burgess, Clayton King, Dan Lian, and Algernon Tennyson. As you watch, will you begin to pray for next year’s conference? This year the room was so full we had to turn people away, so we are praying for how to serve more people. Will you pray that we are wise in this transition?
That’s all for today Fam! Thanks so much for your love and support of me and our ministry family. I pray you would move forward in your faith until next time!
-Sharie King
In case you missed it...
On Saturday night after I spoke we did a big thing, we released my new podcast! You can find it on iTunes and read more about it on the Podcast Page on the site.
I am so excited to provide you with this resource so make sure to check it out.
You can also subscribe and leave a review on the podcast app to make sure you get each weeks episode automatically downloaded to your phone!
