Africa

For those of you following this blog, or maybe clicked the wrong blog and stumbled upon mine, I would like to inform you that I will be spending this next semester, Jan 14-May 30, in Botswana, Africa.  This is not through the school, but through the IMB.  I will be doing mission work under the leadership of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Fortenberry.  I will be doing God's work along side with Allison Hunter, Brett Barnhil, and Stirling Foxworth.  These three attend school with me at MC and are very dear to me, they are like family.  While in Botswana we will be doing full out missions which consist of: evangelism through stories and other ways that help the locals understand, we will be hanging out with the locals trying to build life long friendships, we will be going to local schools telling the kids about purity and abstinence and why we all should stay pure before marriage, and most importantly we will be praising and glorifying God in all that we do.  I write this not only to inform what we will doing, but also so that you can be praying for us.  While we are there the devil and his evil forces will be attacking us at every corner and I believe that this spiritual battle has already begun as well as will last beyond the time we leave.  I ask you to pray first and foremost that the Lord will be glorified through it all and that nothing will hinder that.  I also hope and ask that you will pray for spucific things that include: pray specifically that God will adjust our personal & cultural behavior so that we will enter our new community as a learner with a servant’s heart, pray that we will be flexible and that God will help us maintain a positive attitude which allows us to look for blessings in every situation – even the hard ones, pray that the Lord will prepare our hearts, pray that we will be obedient to the Holy Spirit and submit ourselves to the Holy Spirit so that when the Lord guides our thoughts we will have pure and humble thoughts, so that when the Lord guides our feet we will go where He leads us, so that when the Lord guides our conversations we will say exactly what we are suppose to, so that when we pray we know what to pray for, and so that in all we do we bring glory to God and we don't grieve the Holy Spirit. 

This is just a short list of things to pray for.  I also ask prayer for the people we come into contact with.  I ask that you will pray that God will prepare their hearts.  Pray that they will be open to hear and listen, that God will open their eyes and ears(both spiritually and physically).  Also pray that there will be healing for those who need it(again physically and spiritually).  And finally pray that God will be glorified in their lives.  Thank ya'll so much for taking the time out of your day for prayer.  It is needed.  If the Lord prompts you to pray for anything else please do so.  I hope ya'll have a great 2009 and God bless.

                                     In Him,

                                         Hunter Clark 

My part in God's story

The reason I created this blog, I am not, is because I wanted to inform those interested, how I am being used in God's story.  Let me try to explain what I mean by saying "God's story".  After reading Louie Giglio's book, "I am not, but i know I AM", I realized that there is a bigger story out there other than my own.  It's the only real story.  The one everyone and everything lives, moves, and functions in.  It is the one that God is the Author, publisher, and main character.  He is the center of it all.  The story that was from the beginning, still being written today, and will continue until the end; God's story.  All the others are made up with an ending that is never satisfying.  

I finally realized that I had been trying to live in a story that I had made up.  In this story I am the main character, where everything is about me.  In this story I let God be a character, but not the main character, and He's only in the story when I feel like He's needed.  In doing so, my story sucks.  It is lifeless.  It is unsatisfying.  It is empty.  And worst of all it is not worth reading.  Don't get me wrong it feels good being the main character, but that feeling only last for a brief time.  When the feeling is gone emptiness and an feeling of being lost appears.  What gets me is the fact that every time I decide to jump back into the Lord's story, He lets me.  Its as if I hadn't done anything wrong, which I did.  I spat in his face every second I was saying NO to His story and I was living it up in my own.  No matter how many times I turned back to my story the Lord forgave me.  And because of this grace, only found in Him, every time I come back to the Lord, He gives me a role in His story, weather its small or large.  It is satisfying, full of joy, filled, and best of all its the best read out there. 

 You may ask, "If the story is so good and yours sucks, then why in the world would you not give up being the main character of a bad story that no one will read to being a character of a great story that everyone will read?"  The sad thing is, I had to ask myself the same question.  The answer i've come up with is the Devil!!  Yes i know this is cliche, but it is true.  Lying is the Devil's native tongue (John 8:44).  He is the father of lies.  Since lying is a sin and we all sin (Romans 3:23), it is because of the Devil that I have written my own story, and it is because of the Devil I keep going back to it to write more time and time again instead of being in the Lord's story.  It is the Devil that fills my head with all the lies, telling me that my story is better than the Lord's since I can be a main character in mine.

I have realized, not perfected, that being in the Lord's story is a daily struggle.  There are spiritual wars going on behind the scene every second.  As well as the worldly struggles we go through each day that are visible.  Needless to say, we all have the option to either submit and be in the Lord's story that will bring meaning and allow us to be prosperous eternally, or we can write our own that will be unsatisfying, and will make us miss the mark ( the mark being spending eternity with the Lord).  This is why I have started this blog.  To show others how the Lord is using me in His stories.  I will also reveal the times I stumble and start to write my own.  Hope you enjoy and I hope I can stand firm every second so that the Lord will be glorified with my character!