On Thursday, I attend the local Officer’s Christian Fellowship (OCF) Bible Study here in Pensacola. OCF is an organization whose mission is to raise up a group of “Christian officers exercising biblical leadership to raise up a godly military.” Here in Pensacola our bible study consist of sharing a meal together, worship God in song, and teaching of God’s Word. I have really enjoy the time I spend Thursday nights at OCF for several reasons. One reason is that I love the people at OCF. The other reason is that I have really enjoyed sitting under the teachings of Ken Vechik. Ken is a very insightful teacher of God’s Word and he always has something to say that applies to me and what I am struggling with or what God wants to teach me.

This evenings lesson came out of a problem Ken saw in the dynamics of the group. The problem he saw was that there are groups inside the group and that often times we do not make new people feel welcome in the group. Which causes the new people to never return and causes the group to miss opportunities to minister to them. I can attest that I am as guilt as everyone else in this area. I feel very uncomfortable getting to know new people and often have no idea what to say to them when getting to know them. Part of this is because I am wired as an introverted person, I am extremely uncomfortable around large groups of people and that feeling of uncomfortableness goes up exponentially when it is a group of people I don’t know. On top of that some other reasons I do not interact with people I do not know include not feeling as though I have anything in common with them. Othertimes I feel as though I am just trying to make conversation and the other person sees right through my attempts and sees that I might not really care. Other reasons include not knowing how to walk the fine line between professionalism and fraternization with officers and enlisted. How do I get over these fears of social interaction? I guess the biggest thing is that God needs to play a bigger role in my life for two reasons. First reason He is the one who is greater than all my fears and second I need his love to heal me.

Ken also mentioned something that made me think last night and I am still chewing on even as I write this. He said that God brings people into a group for me to minister to them. I believe this is a true statement. God brought me to this OCF group to have Ken and others in the group minister to me individually. However, if God brings people to the group for me to minister to them, how and what am I supposed to minister to them? I do not know what makes me so special that I can minister to others; I have realized that at the moment I have several issues that I am working through to better my relationship with God. Yet, I probably am not the only one wrestling with these issues of relationships and faith but my question is how am I to minister to someone when I am wrestling with the very same issues. Maybe by partnering together with another and wrestling together in these issues of faith I am ministering to them and they in turn are ministering to me. Maybe just by listening and being honest with the other person you are ministering with them. I do not truly know but maybe we are never meant to truly know every spiritual thing.
This is probably off topic but Ken keeps mentioning a verse. He keeps mentioning John 10:10, “The thief [aka Satan] comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” The more he mentions it, the more I think about this verse and the more I find it to be true. Satan is good at what he does, his mission in life is to keep us from God. He has an incredible arsenal at his disposal to do this. Every negative thought we have about ourself; Satan will use as ammo against us in his war against God. In my life when I have lived by a performance based Christianity. Every time I broke a commandment and thought that I was no good and God could never love me. I unknowingly was giving the enemy a weapon against me, another foothold to stop me from growing more intimate with God. Satan wants to steal us from God, kill us spiritually and destroy us. Christ has come to give us life, not just a mediocre life but life to the fullest. I can not even fathom what a full life in my life would look like but I want it. Sorry about the small tangent but according to Ken and I think I can agree is that by not interacting with people is giving Satan more ammo both in your life and in the life of the person who you did not interact with. Let us join together to reach out to others outside of our social group and our own comfort zone, first because we are commanded to do so and second to defeat Satan and stop him from stealing what we deserve a life lived to the fullest.