“They will be called oaks of Righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor” - Isaiah 61:3 

This August, forty women from across the country armed with Bibles and beach towels headed down to Destin, Florida for a week of worshiping God, digging into His word, and tanning on the beach at Redeemed Girl Institute. Multiple girls told me that it was one of the best weeks of their life, and everyone, including the teachers, agreed that they had learned so much about God and themselves. Reflecting on the week, however, I realized that we all have a choice to make.

I can come away from the week with just thirty new Facebook friends, seven new twitter followers, and feeling closer to God. 

But is that all I want? Did all thirty of us attendees save money, clear schedules, and drive up to 12 hours for friends and feelings? 

I think not. I think we all came to RGI because we wanted to become more like Christ and grow in our faith.  Although I heard 20 amazing talks by four different speakers, that won’t make me grow an eight of a centimeter if I don’t put their teaching into practice. 

So my second option is to do just that: take what we learned and put it into practice. This option might take a little more work (like I said, we learned a lot). I might have to pour over my notes again and think of practical ways to put it into action. Even then, I still I have to make the choice to change and live my life differently. 

Here are some topics we covered at RGI. Hopefully we will all make the effort to grow in these areas this year: 

• To really serve our redeemer, we need to know who He is. At RGI, we looked into Jesus’ lineage, birthplace, family, life, struggles and ministry. We learned that Jesus is “The Word,” “God,” Eternal,” “Creator,” “The Light,” “Incarnate Son of God,” and “Full of Grace and Truth,” and why these things matter. To become like Christ, we need to know and continually remind ourselves who Christ is.

• We need to renew our minds daily. Even twice or three times daily. We are told not to conform ourselves after the world (Romans 12:2), and to do that we need to spend enough time with the One who is not of this world. 

• We need to be Christ-like in our relationships. As friends, daughters and (potentially) wives, we studied what type of women the bible says we should be.  

• We need to remember our identity. Knowing that we are redeemed and chosen children of God gives us a new identity and new desires. In other words, knowing who we are determines what we do. Reminding ourselves of these things daily is so important in our pursuit to live like Christ. 

• Prayer is powerful. We learned a lot about prayer from Marian Jordan’s talk, but I also learned a lot by seeing every. single. one. of our prayers for the institute answered. Before the institute, we prayed for finances to provide more scholarships. Over half of the girls were able to attend because of scholarships. We prayed for unity, and there was an outpouring of love and community among the girls.  We prayed that God would be preparing their hearts, and every girl came in excited and ready to dig into the word. Prayer after prayer was answered!

• We need to leave a legacy. To leave an eternal legacy, we need to share the gospel. 

• We are Oaks of Righteousness (Isaiah 61:3). This was the theme of the week, and means that we were planted by the Lord with the sole purpose of displaying His splendor. All the things I already mentioned, I should do because they bring God glory.  

I could go on (and on), but I think you get the idea of how amazing this week was. We not only got to dig into the word with Marian Jordan, Marianne Henry, Millie Welsh, and Leigh Kohler, but we enjoyed twice-daily worship led by the amazing (and fashionable) Jourdan Johnson, daily mind-blowing private devotionals, and lots of girl time (think tanning, movie nights, and impromptu karaoke). Thanks for all of your support... we can’t wait for RGI 2012!