What Journey Is
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. ~ Mark 12:30
We love him, because he first loved us. ~ 1 John 4:19
We all know that we are supposed to love God with everything we are, but many of us find that difficult, many of us do not even know what that looks or feels like. The amazing fact, is that God loved us first, He simply desires that we return His love. But first we have to trust that He loves us, and surrender all to Him. Only then will we understand that loving God is not a duty, it is a joy.
Some of us are confident in God's love, and for that group, Journey is an incredible chance to spend some precious time with God in a beautiful place that proclaims His goodness, and power. For some of us, we have been told that God loves us, and with our heads we are convinced that we believe it, but in our hearts we wonder if it's true, and we feel that since we do not love Him as much as we should, there is something wrong with us.
God does not desire you to live your Christian life in such doubt.. He desires you to KNOW His love "that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye being rooted, and grounded IN LOVE, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the length and breadth and depth and hight, and TO KNOW the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fullness of God." Ephesians 3:17-19
Journey to the Heart was created to give young people, and now even parents, an opportunity to discover the person of God in a way they have never experienced before. For ten days, you have a chance to get rid of anything that hinders you from knowing God's love and the victory He desires you to have. This time away gives you an opportunity to continue, or even begin the Journey of loving Him with all your heart soul mind and strength.
The key to not only this Journey, but to your entire Christian life, is surrender.
We are often afraid of surrender. We are afraid that once we surrender everything to God He will take everything away from us. We believe that our lives will be miserable, and that He'll make us do terribly hard things that we'll have to struggle to accomplish. Or we just think that giving everything to God won't be worth it. 
But if you will purpose to surrender everything you are to God, if you will trust His power and His love for you, and if you will obey Him as He reveals Himself to you, then He will give you the grace to live a life of peace, joy, freedom, and victory! Big promises? Yes! Why? Because God is big, and He has made these promises to you. "In my presence is FULLNESS of JOY!"
"And the Peace of God which passeth understanding shall keep your hearts and minds by Christ Jesus." ~ Philippians 4:7
"Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us." ~ Rom 8:37
