Hello everyone, Abbey reporting back to you!
As I sleepily woke up to my 7:30 alarm, I heard the rain and saw the moody morning outside and decided to press “stop”. You thought I was going to say snooze, didn’t you? Well, reader, I am working on being more self-disciplined and despite me waking up 10 minutes after that alarm, I still woke up at 7:40 and got 30 minutes of Bible reading in before I started my day. I could hear the downpour that was happening outside as I read Genesis 29-31, still curled up in a blanket. I gingerly got out of bed and made my way downstairs to get ready for the day. After brushing my teeth and washing my face, I tossed two eggs in my pocket and walked over to the kitchen to make breakfast.
If you read my blog Set Free you know about my healing. Since receiving that, I have been reading scripture before I eat. So, I read Genesis 31 again before I ate. Some of my teammates made their way to the kitchen and sat down to eat too. After a bit of chatting, we realized the time, quickly cleaned up breakfast, and made our way to our morning team meeting. This is pretty typical during our time of ATL (ask the Lord).
We meet as a team every morning, and rotate who leads our devo and planning the day. Our team has some main objectives in the morning which are:
- Devo, teaching, or sharing something we are personally learning
- Check-ins on how are doing individually
- Feedback (calling each other higher and encouraging one another)
- Prayer for our squad
- Prayer for direction for the day
Today was Lynneal’s turn. She started with a time of worship, and then prayed us into our time together. During the check-in time, she asked three questions to hear how we were doing individually:
- What’s one thing that brought you joy this week?
- What is one answered prayer?
- What is one burning question you have?
After we thought through the questions and each answered, Lynneal taught about renewing our minds. She then led us into a practical application of the teaching with a focus on saturating our minds in scripture. We spent 20 minutes individually finding and memorizing a passage of the Bible. When she called us back to the group, she split us into pairs to practice reciting what we had worked on memorizing. I chose Ezekiel 36:26 and Victoria, my partner, chose 1 Timothy 4:7-8.
After we our activation from her teaching, we moved into a time of praying for our squad. Each of us picks a team or leadership, and then we all pray at once. We like to call it a “mighty roar”. We have had a lot of attacks on our squad recently, so I ask you to keep us in your prayers too. Some people have had to travel back home to be with family. My team has chosen to be intentional about praying for everyone on our squad at this time.
Next up was feedback. Feedback is something you either love or hate. It can be challenging, but overall necessary in community. It’s a time to call each other higher and bring to light areas that can be blind spots. It’s also a time to encourage one another by sharing areas where we’ve seen each other grow or serve well. When you have something in your teeth, you would want someone to tell you, right? That’s how feedback works. When I have something in my teeth, I want someone to tell me. So if I am speaking poorly about myself, I want others to encourage me to speak more kindly about myself.
Once feedback was over, we moved into a time of planning our day. We are getting ready to trek soon, so as a team, we decided to head into town to get more information about trails, guest homes, and anything else we need to prepare for. Generally, after we have our morning meeting we head off for lunch and let the Holy Spirit take over our day. We try to be interruptible, and if people are highlighted, we stop and talk to them. These encounters often ended in prayer, exchanging numbers to keep in touch, plans to meet up again, or sometimes, just a simple goodbye. Everyday is different, but for the most part our mornings are fairly the same.
ATL looks different for everyone, and it can range from having Lunch with John Travolta or Going Back To College. My team has been able to slowly release control of the day to the Lord and walk in submission with Him. ATL is a partnership and we have to constantly go back to Him. We had amazing relationships come from our time in Turkey. Although I have struggled with ATL and sometimes feeling like we haven’t been making a difference without a ministry host, I look back and see our impact in each place we’ve been. Our mornings spent together as a team and listening to God’s voice are a vital part of setting us up to make that positive impact in the kingdom around us.
Love it Abbey.
From Creative Devo’s and those awesome 3 questions to memorizing a verse for 20 minutes, to “a mighty roar” Korean or popcorn prayer :).
ATL is definitely a bit awkward maybe but it’s so cool how God shows up and super-navigates is providentially when we ask Him to show us “the man or woman of peace”
So proud of ya Abbey. To journey with Jesus , seek out and wait for His still small voice and then yield and money His prompts and leading. Miracles , divine appointments and GOSPEL convos happen.
I think we could all use some serious ATL in our lives! It’s so cool that you are living that out every day. Constant surrender, obedience and trust… I love it!