A2 Community

Amy Wingfield, an Asian Access alumnus and missionary candidate, recently attended Urbana '06 as an A2 representative.

Amy's blog is found here:  http://www.xanga.com/wingfiea

She has given us permission to re-post her entries here on our site. Here are her reflections from Urbana...

Urbana 2006

Sunday, December 31, 2006 (8:04 AM)

So I'm here.  Not so much as a college student, but as an exhibitor.  If you're here...stop by the Asian Access booth on isle 800.

 
It's interesting to be here, observing college students.  Watching them roam around hundreds of booths, talking to schools and missionary agencies, seeking out God's will for their lives.  The pump and hype...join me in praying that it would not be only feeling and hype, but rather that there would be deep and lasting changing in their hearts concerning God's love for all people and the calling on their lives which rises from a combination of that love and the love we are able to have for others, because of God's love for us. 

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What Does He Want?

Sunday, January 14, 2007 (9:46 PM)

A Reflection on URBANA

I remember those days in College where I began to wonder about God’s will for my life.  I remember praying for it, looking for it, wanting so badly to answer the question, “God, what do you want for my life?”  Eventually, I found it, not in a 6 step formula to learning God’s will, not in having all the right answers in bible study, not in being perfect, and certainly not in the back pew.  I found and realized God’s will for our lives during moments (yes, plural…it didn’t hit me all at once) of quiet devotion, time in the word, time on my knees and times just waiting and looking for God (not me) in the world around me.

A few weeks ago, 22 thousand people from every state, and 140 countries gathered together for Urbana.  Most if not all delegates there were looking either for God himself, or the answer to the question at the top of the page…they went looking for God’s will.  The week progressed, Ephesians was studied, praises were lifted, and speakers were heard.  Delegates had the opportunity to venture around a room of 300 exhibitors related to everything from Christian colleges to mission agencies like Asian Access, Campus Crusade, and even InterVarsity itself.  To most it was information overload.  To many it was all about getting whatever you possibly could for free.  And too some, it was, at least for now, an answer to their future.

I sit here typing, and after reflecting for a couple weeks on the experience, I hope and pray that God’s will wasn’t missed by a single delegate.  Yes, I think I know what God wants specifically for my life, but that’s secondary to understanding God’s will for us as a whole.  We ask and pray, but what God has taught me is that His will doesn’t lie in a single act that we do.  We don’t have to be missionaries to live in his will.  We don’t have to be in ministry.  God’s will lies in who we are, and how that plays out in our lives.  The Bible tells us that we are to love God above all, and then to love our neighbors as ourselves.  If we keep our eyes focused on the first of those commandments (loving God), that love will naturally overflow onto our neighbors, whether they reside next door, or on the other side of the world.  As we learn about God, we begin to see that his will isn’t for me (the individual) but rather for us (His Creation).

What does he want?  Reconciliation.  Understanding.  Renewal.  And most of all…he wants the Glory, the recognition by all that he is the Lord God, Almighty, Creator over all.  I’m reminded of the words of God as spoken through Moses…

      “And this is what to Lord says, ‘Let my people go, so that they may worship me…I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth’”. (Exodus 9:13,16)

As described in Ephesians, God, Lord over all, created us, and though we sinned, reconciled us through His Son Christ.  Now, we have power and authority in Him, our Lord.  As He continues to reveal His truth to us, and fill us with love, we are in turn asked to recognize and live for the others that he loves…the ones that just don’t know it yet.  To Him all are equal, there is no favoritism, there is no one too poor or weak, there is no sin too great for his grace.  There is no crime that outstands His love.  Christ died for all of us...and God's will is that we would all know that...and Praise Him as God of All.

What does He want?  For those of you at Urbana, you may not have recognized it, but you experienced His will in a way that few can.  22,000 people from 140 countries around the world.  All joining together, despite theological differences, despite the sins that filled their past, despite language and culture barriers…all together praising the ONE Lord God.  This is His will for us, all of us.  I hope you saw it, standing among people from all over, coming together to worship God.  Keep that image in your heart…that is His will.  We know it as it is written:

“After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb.  They were wearing white robes and were holding branches in their hands.  And they cried out in a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” (Revelations 7:9-10)