7 Things I Learned at Florida Family CFO This Year

I spent last week at one of my favorite places on the planet. It isn’t really the place itself that makes it so special (although it is beautiful), rather the people that I see there. And the God that I get to spend so much time with while I’m there. We were attending our annual CFO (Camp Farthest Out) family camp at Lake Yale, Florida. For my wife and I, this was our fourteenth consecutive year. Some folks have been going for more than 30 years, and about a quarter of the people attending this year were there for their first time. It’s always an incredible week of learning, worshiping, fellowshipping and soaking. Funny, we say we go there to rest but “rest” is not really what happens. In the Spirit, yes, but in the natural we are typically pretty busy! 

Any of you who have read my words in this space before, know that I speak – and write – about this camp a lot. It’s at this camp where God first put it on my heart to begin writing and start this blog. You will be seeing me post more in the near future – including a series of devotions based on my time with the Youth of our camp, early in the morning as we shared The Word and Communion together. 

For this piece, though, I want to share with you seven of my biggest takeaways – God Nuggets if you will – from our week. It’s hard to pick just seven, but since the number seven represents completeness and perfection in the Bible, it seemed right to share that many. Are you ready? Here we go…

Number 1 – “We are people who bear fruit, not the One who produces the fruit.”

John Hobbs Sr. was speaking on the passage in John Chapter 15 about the vine and the branches. John pointed out and reminded us that it is HIS vineyard, HIS house and HIS rules. HE does the pruning. As such, we should stop trying to always prove ourselves and instead remember that if we abide in Him, He will do in us what needs to be done. If there is fruit to bear, He will be the one to produce it.

Number 2 – “If we ask (in prayer) we need to be prepared for an answer with pen, paper and Bible.”

Marie Yates was sharing about praying and hearing God’s voice. She pointed out that much or our prayer life consists of us telling God things (as if He didn’t already know) as opposed to asking Him things. And when we ask, whether for insight, direction or anything really, we need to expect Him to answer. And when He does, we need to respect that answer by writing it down and referring to The Word if necessary. How often, when we do hear Him, do we later forget exactly what He said because we didn’t take the effort to record it?

Number 3 – “In the church today we have a lust for knowledge and deeper things. We always want to hear something new, while God just really wants us to get a hold of what He’s already given us.”

John Hobbs Jr. was speaking about the state of the church in America today and how we live in a time when there is so much available to us. We constantly crave the new and are always looking for something deeper. However, it would be better if we became masters at living out what we have already learned. The “simpler” things, like obedience to our Father and loving one another.

Number 4 – “The degree to which we embrace the process is the degree to which we are transformed.”

Teaching on transformation, the Sr. John Hobbs was preaching out of 2 Kings Chapter 6. Specifically, about Elisha’s servant seeing through spiritual eyes to see the angels surrounding them, ready to come to their defense. In his own strength, Elisha and his servant could never have won the battle that followed. But Elisha, being one who embraced the process and submitted to God’s authority, won the battles he faced. The less we go through this life kicking and screaming, wanting to do it our way, and the more we accept and embrace what God is doing in and through us, the more we become the person He designed us to be.

Number 5 – “Hopefulness and helplessness are both contagious”

John Jr. again, this time preaching about the importance of maintaining hope – not just for our sake, but for those around us, as well. When we are hopeful, we are encouraging. And the world around us yearns for and needs all the encouragement it can get. When we are helpless, we tend to look for agreement in our helplessness, “misery loves company”, if you will. And that just leads to a downward cycle toward nothing good.

Number 6 – “The challenge of abiding in our faith is not our inability to hear God’s voice, the challenge is our willingness to hear other voices.”

Later in the same talk, John Jr. was discussing Luke Chapter 8 and the Parable of the Sower. It is the individual who hears from God, but then allows other voices to “choke His voice out” that he was referring to. And isn’t that all of us at times? We hear from God, then, almost immediately, we start to hear other voices – some in our heads or spiritually, and some in the flesh – that try to convince us that we really didn’t hear from God. We should be more confident that that first voice we hear is from The Lord. It’s the enemy sowing seeds of doubt afterwards that we should tune out.  

Number 7 – “It wouldn’t be called pressing in if there wasn’t resistance.”

This was a comment made by Jason Baumgardner, almost in passing, during a separate discussion. It really stuck with me, though. We speak often about “pressing in” to hear God’s voice, to worship or to just spend time in His presence. I never thought about the implication of resistance in that wording before. But, it makes so much sense. How often do we get distracted or interrupted while we’re trying to spend time with our heavenly Father? It makes me more aware now, to expect resistance and guard against it.

These are just seven brief snapshots of a week filled with insight and revelation. If you asked, you would probably get a different list of seven from each and every person there! These are my seven though and I wanted to share them with you. I hope they speak to you. I hope at least one of them touches your heart, your mind, or your soul the way they touched mine.

Photo Credit: Skip Bressler