I'm so inconsistent that this is never updated. So good luck to you.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

As I sit and think...this could be aweful

Well I'm here in the intern office waiting patiently and I realized that I totally lied on my last blog about writing in it again the next day. It has been a little while. So my apologies for the misleading information given in my former blog. Mostly I'm sorry that you had to wait to read the next masterpiece that is sure to ensue from this point forward. So back to the actual blogging.(That sounds painful) I am sitting here and thinking about my week and the things that are running through my mind are beyond my grasp of understanding. Let me explain...

This last weekend I went to winter camp with the High School group to relive the glory days. By glory days, I mean finding my self doubt and fear of women. I was up there and the camp speaker was absolutely amazing. His name is Darrin McWaters. He was phenomenal. He spoke on a multitude of ideas but this one has stuck in my mind. If we do this Christian faith for anything other the Glory of God then we will fail and fall away. I had to think about this for a minute because I thought, well ok, but doing student ministry to see life change is part of glorifying God so that is one in the same. So I was thinking that this was just semantics. But then he brought up the promise of Heaven. Would we follow Christ even if the promise of heaven was off the table? (He said that this would never happen, and it's completely hypothetical) Well wanting to go to heaven isn't a bad thing either so then I felt challenged. Was I there for the glory of God or was I there for the result of the Glorification of God. Here is how I can best explain this in my mind, not sure if it is correct but it makes sense in my head.

I am not a big fan of watching basketball. It just doesn't thrill me. But I do like to know the stats and the records. I like all the nerdy things about the game rather the actual game. If the game means something or I am watching it with some one who really cares then i can get into it, but not on my own time. At any rate. The game isn't my concern it is the benefits of the game that make me interested. Here are where the parallels rest. The glory of God is the game itself, it isn't the stat. The stats would be the life change, or the results of what God does in people. If we only serve to see results, what happens when those results don't happen? What happens when the stats stop being interest? Do we stop watching the game? When it comes to basketball I do. I will only watch if it means something to me. The same is in ministry, if we don't see the results we want people drop out. That's why there is so much turn over in high school staff members. The burn out happens when we take our focus off the game because the stats don't match our expectations. If we are only there to see life change and we don't get to see that, then we are more likely to get frustrated and fall off.

On the other side of it, I love baseball. I love the dodgers. Here is my best explanation of what it should look like in our faith. I will watch a dodgers game from the first inning till the last. It doesn't matter if they win or lose. The stats don't sway me from watching the game. Though I would love to see monster stats our of Penny and to see Joe Torre bring home the big prize, I am no less a fan if they win or lose. Which is fortunate because they haven't won since 1988. Same is true with ministry and the Christian faith. Do we want to see results? You bet. But my faith shouldn't be dependent on anything, I mean anything other my desire to bring God glory.

Now I heard this and I resonate with it but there wasn't the connection of, is this how I live? Then when we got home from camp the Lord really tried to show me what is in my heart. We had a young man who excepted Christ up at camp. It was an awesome experience. He claimed to be an Atheist. We prayer hard for him and did whatever we could to be used by God in this guy's life. The day after we got home he told people at school that he didn't really except, that it was just an emotional experience and he responded in kind. I was crushed by this. My demeanor was affected and my thoughts were swirling and I had the thought of, "I can't do this any more, it's too hard" Then it hit me. I'm not doing this for the Glory of God but for the results that it brings. The results aren't bad, but if I don't get the anticipated results, then I shut down.

I hope this hasn't been too boring, so I will finish up right here. I have to switch my mind set to Glorify God rather than to serve with expectation. It needs to be a labor prompted by love, not a labor prompted by results. My love for Jesus needs to guide my actions, not the results. Thanks for reading, sorry if I bore you, but this was more for me than it was for you.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey Josh!
Great to find you in the blogosphere... always love hearing from old Cypress friends.

Hang in there with the discouragement of high schoolers' hearts. They can be so fickle, but you are doing eternal work. Maybe that kid who "reversed" his decision will come around some day.

Nothing you do for God is ever wasted. God's glory shines in your love and concern for these kids. It is His heart you display.

Dawn

February 2, 2008 at 10:47 PM

 

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