Friday, August 14, 2009

Manning My Post
















Location: A shady corner of the porch overlooking mountains to my left and the camp's basketball court to my right; it is about 4:30pm on Friday, the 14th of August.

Yesterday about this time, I sat down to write this post, but alas, it never happened. You see, duty calls, and here it calls frequently and unexpectedly. As you can see in the photos, we are hard at work here! My buddy G. enjoys looking like one of the original Ghostbusters with his leaf-blower strapped on his back, and he enjoys being haunted by the souls in the kitchen, especially the one he is married to! The other one is showing you the mashed-potato mess that kept me from posting this update yesterday. And by the way, I included the headless photo of G. so that you could see the weedwacker at the bottom (it was strapped to me) so that you would not think I was on vacation while my friends were working!

The other picture is of A., and I took it this after lunch out the back of our dishroom. I wanted you to see another beautiful picture of what ministry looks like. Not long ago, it looked like cleaning out gutters and saying hello in what is now my daily rendez-vous with our nearly 80-year-old neighbor. Sometimes it looks like cooking for ninety people. But early this afternoon, it looked like a tired A. taking a moment from her busy day to sit and talk to a tiny French girl, reminding the latter that no matter what, she is valuable and loved. It was a fleeting moment, but one I hope not to forget for a long time.

So yes, it has been busy, but less busy for me than the previous camp. Not only did we restructure our workload, but I changed my schedule so that I could make it to morning worship and teachings, doing my work in the afternoons as much as I can. This means that I miss out on all of the hikes and rock-climbing, etc., but it is a more manageable pace, with more peace. And though I participated in the Australian bush dancing last night(!), and helped out a little with the Western night a couple of nights ago, I often cut out the evening activities so I can get a little sleep. I am now sharing a room with four other guys, soon to be five.


But back to work! They say here that I do the work of six men! I am not so sure about that. You may know that I work hard and enjoy working, but I am making sure to repose as I need to. And G. and S. and C. and the others around here are workhorses themselves, so I think my accomplished tasks are being slightly exaggerated! Nonetheless, they will assure you that my appetite at meals is not exaggerated, and I quickly earned the reputation for eating the food of ten men! I will let you decide if that is because my friends the cooks are excellent at their work, or if it is simply because I work hard enough to get rather hungry, but I humbly admit that this is less of an exaggeration and my meals usually prove my reputation true.


Nonetheless, I hope that much more than my reputation for a hearty appetite or even hard work precedes me in the next steps on my lifes journey. As I pray and discuss opportunities with my family, friends, and mentors, I am leaning toward committing to a four-month internship in Romania that will begin in September. But wherever I go, I hope that I am seen not as a bottomless appetite, not as a tireless laborer, but as a humble vessel astounded to have been chosen by the Most High God to house His Holy Spirit and live His message of Truth and Hope in Jesus Christ.


You are by now familiar with the situation. I am cleaning toilets and washing dishes in France. Before this month, I washed dishes in a small village in Northern France, and I also washed dishes in Romania. Some people think I am on a great vacation. Others think I am wasting the skills, resources, and youth God has given me. Some declare that I just need to marry and settle down into real life. Many seem to think I am completely lost and searching for an unknown something. Maybe there is truth in all of these.


Yet...


Yet it is these same people that ask me when next I will be back in their neighborhood. These same people ask me to pray for them. These same people tell me of their longings to experience what I have seen or done. These same people often dread their 9 to 5 jobs, feel chained to their responsibilities, or believe that happiness is a thing of fairy-tale endings.


I am the first to admit that my life is unlike most others. I did not forsee it looking like this, and few others would have predicted it correctly, either. But I love it! Everyday, God teaches me something new! Everyday, I am happy to be alive! I am blessed to know hard work, to meet people all over the world, to have to trust in the Lord. Few people are free to stop and talk with someone on the side of the road, or to play with a child, or listen to a neighbor tell of the good old days. Few people get to immerse themselves in international hospitality, breathe the success of challenges met, get to live out their answers to the world's "why?'s". Few people get to know the God of the Universe personally through His Son Jesus Christ; too often instead they get distracted by the broken institutions of Christiandom or the hypocritical religious folks try to make of God idols or images that the rational brain can easily grasp.


I, on the other hand, have these privileges. I have the privilege of having time to work, to help, to listen, to laugh, to play, to sit in silence, to rest. I have the honor of knowing people all over the world, not great and famous names, but everyday names, people from the storybook of real life. And I have the blessing of knowing my Savior, Jesus, intimately, and having His Spirit living in and through me, leading and teaching and using me for the Father's glory.


You can, too.


Do not quit your job. Do not jump out of an airplane. Do not purchase a vintage Corvette.


But ask yourself what is important in life. What really matters? And invest yourself in it. Invest yourself so fully that you could never go back. Invest yourself so entirely that it requires all of who you are and what you have. Invest yourself so completely that you cannot be known apart from it.


"Who does that?" you ask? "Won't people think I'm crazy?" you wonder?


Sure, people will think you are crazy, but who cares what they think? Maybe you think I am crazy, but that is what I have done.


I realized that a life of complete obedience and dedication to the God who revealed Himself through Jesus Christ is the only life worth living. And that is what you are seeing in me. It would look different in other people, I am sure. Neither do I know what it will look like tomorrow or further into the future. But I do know this:

I think YOU are crazy if you stay stuck in a miserable rut from which you could escape.


If your life has purpose, happiness, and value, then praise God and thank Him for it every day. May it continue as long as you live, and may the length of your life be eternity with your Father!


But if you feel worthless, susceptible to everyone else's opinions, miserable, lost, confused, jealous, or hopeless, maybe it is time for a change. Maybe what you initially though was important is not. Maybe what the world exalted as valuable turned out to be a cheap imitation.


I will never try to get you to follow the life I am living. I will never be able to convince you that what I think is best really is. But if you are at a loss to figure out what is important in life, what gives purpose, what makes sense, I would highly recommend you look into knowing a man called Jesus. I am not talking about the Jesus painted into medieval icons, nor the Jesus screamed by frenzied evangelists, nor the Jesus etched into the wrinkles of lifeless parishioners. I am talking about the Jesus who is the living Son of God, who came to reveal His Father to us, to make knowable the amazing Author of all life and love, to invite us to step into a very real life of relationship with Him. Look into Him in the Bible: check out the New Testament books of Mark or John. Pray what may seem like an empty prayer to Him who may seem like an imaginary deity, and ask God to reveal Himself to you in a way you can understand. Ask someone you respect who claims to know this Jesus, and decide for yourself if he or she truly does.


Do not take my word for it. Do not even take my life for it. Take His. He gave His life so that you and I might have the opportunity to live it. It would be a shame to waste it.


That said, back to the work of six men, or maybe of just One. I bless you in His Name, the Name of Jesus.
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A Rose From Home

A Rose From Home

My Story (As prepared for my church congregation this spring--2009)


I have a story to tell you. I am the main character, but the story is not about me. I have traveled several parts of the world, but my adventure has been closer to home. I am twenty-six years old. My story begins like many of yours…

I grew up going to church. I had been born into a family who labeled themselves “Christian,” in a country that labels itself “Christian.” Every Sunday found me attending a worship service and Sunday school in a mainline denomination church. I served as an acolyte, attended Vacation Bible School, helped my dad count and record the offering money, sang in the youth choir, was a leader in the youth group, and occasionally served as liturgist. Baptized as an infant, I was confirmed at the age of twelve, thus becoming an “official” member of the church. Then, hurt by the church, my family left to find another.

Have you ever been hurt by the Church?

After months of searching, we settled into a very large independent church. Things were different there, and I was quickly welcomed and at home among new friends that truly had a passion for Jesus. The Word of God was taught boldly from the pulpit, and I was introduced to a missions-aware lifestyle. So it was with regret that I said goodbye only a couple of years later to move with my family to another church. I purposely remained aloof, not wanting to make new friendships before I left for college a year later. Besides, I was loosing my faith—or so I thought—and I didn’t want anyone to know. I was asking scary questions like “Is there really a God?” and, if so, “Is He the Christian God?” and “Would I be Christian if I had been born in another part of the world?”

Have you ever asked yourself unsettling questions about what you believe?

So I headed into college under a cloud of confusion that only worsened for the next two years. Though I didn’t know what I believed anymore, I continued to go to church every Sunday, and to help lead worship in chapel. Most importantly, even during this questioning, I continued my morning habit of daily study of the Bible. I had begun at age twelve, reading at first a chapter per day, then ten minutes each morning, then an half-hour, and so on. So, only by the grace of the very God I doubted, I remained anchored in His Word and in His community, though I felt like a fake most of the time. Since then I have learned that “fake” is the worst insult the world can give us; that is why the label of “hypocrite” is so offensive.

Have you ever felt like a fake?

Six weeks with missionaries in South Africa followed by a year in France began to teach me what life with God is all about. I began rebuilding my faith, this time it belonged to me, in contrast to me borrowing the faith of my parents, church, or anyone else. In my parent’s basement in 2003, on either Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve, I invited Jesus to live in me; perhaps I had done so before, but I didn’t recall—but since 2003, I have never forgotten that moment. Unfortunately, nothing changed. I continued to do my best to act like a Christian, as I had done for so long.

Have you ever found yourself “doing your best” to be a good person, or to act like a Christian?

Though I did not realize it at the time, I was quenching the Spirit, even though I had welcomed Him into my life. During the next few years, the LORD continued to nurture me, and slowly things began to change. Several tough months in Idaho birthed my prayer-life. I spent three years being humbled in a job that was my informal seminary training. In 2007, a short stint in Mexico helped me to see things as they were, and not long afterward, I was baptized by immersion. No baptism of any kind can save a lost soul—only Jesus can do that. However, this baptism was an important covenant between me and God, symbolizing not only my death and resurrection with Jesus and my public profession of faith, but it also my life change, the beginning of my bearing fruit. “For each tree is known by its own fruit…”according to Luke 6:44. During the past year and a half, the LORD has provided me with an informal pastoral internship in my church, teaching me every aspect of discipleship. Simultaneously, I have been studying unceasing prayer and worship. I am now very different than I was five years ago.

In the Book of Acts (which tells the story of the earliest years of the Church) every time a person decided to follow Christ, two things took place—though not always in the same order. Each person experienced a life change, which I call the “baptism of repentance,” as well as the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, which I call the “baptism of the Spirit.” Looking back, I realize that the Holy Spirit was living in me in 2003, but it wasn’t until I surrendered everything to God, as represented by my immersion, that I allowed the Spirit to have His way in me and transform my life. “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now life in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. (Galatians 2:20)”

Have you invited Jesus to live in you? Have you allowed the Spirit to transform your life?

I tell you this story for two reasons. First, I tell this story in order to boast in the LORD! May God our Father get all praise and glory forever! Second, I tell this story because it is relevant to you. Likely you have heard that I am leaving the country: I have let my light shine before you; please let your light shine within the Church, too! This congregation is in revival, and as each of you allows the Spirit to revive you, the entire Church will be revived and utterly transformed, to the glory of the Most High God. And for His glory is the reason He created us; the reason He sent His only Son to reveal Himself to us; the reason He became Sin for us and died for us on the cross—while we were still sinners; and the reason that He conquered death and offered us eternal life with Him.

It will cost you a lot—in fact, it will cost you everything, your very life. But if you have never surrendered your life to Christ Jesus, if you have never invited Him to send His Spirit into you and to transform your life, then do it right now. Just let go of everything to which you are desperately clinging; stop trying to do it yourself! This is the very reason you are still breathing in this physical life—God has been delaying His judgment of this sinful world because He is waiting for you—2 Peter 3:9 says He wants none to perish!

If you have already invited the Spirit into your life, then live like it! Bear fruit! Anyone and everyone who meets you or knows you or sees you or hears you should know immediately and clearly that Jesus the Christ lives in you and loves them! That is how stark the contrast should be between your life and the world around you!

Have you immersed yourself in God’s Word and in prayer in the last twenty-four hours?

If you call yourself a follower of Christ, then there is no excuse for not communing with Him daily! Anchor yourself in the Word! God has revealed Himself to us through His Son, Jesus Christ, and the Bible is a complete and accurate record of that revelation. And prayer is humbly letting Him love us. Let Him love you! God doesn’t need us, but He wants us! God doesn’t need us to live for Him—He wants to live in and through us! Let us love and fellowship with one another, even when you disagree! Pray for each other—the names in the church directory are a great place to start! Church, we are not only the Body of Christ, but we are the Bride of Christ. We have allowed ourselves to get bedraggled and stained—now let us stand to the glory of God! Let’s let Him purify us, restore us, and love us!

My dear Brothers and Sisters, if you have ever once been blessed by God our Father at work in me, then I urge you, please, take seriously His desire to love and work in you, beyond anything you can ask or imagine! I have told you the beginning of my story—may it end in glory to the Father, in the Name of Jesus, by way of His Spirit.

Now, what is your story?