The Long Haul

I'd say... Hm. Yeah, I'd consider this a "God post". Maybe I'll make that a thing, sometime. Like a "God post" tag or something.

Anyway! I wrote this last year, a week after my church's summer camp, but never got around to posting it. I mostly wrote it for me, just to get things sorted out. Sometimes my ideas and thoughts make more sense once they have happy little letters sticking to them. I've been wanting to share it for a while - perhaps it can help you, too!

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So here it is. I've been to camp 7 times. I know the drill. When I know the drill, I tend to focus on the movements themselves, rather than the reason behind the motion. This year shook me up in that regard - God held up a mirror, and I saw. Like, really SAW. Every single year has been awesome, and I always learn a lot and have a blast with super-fab peeps. But there's always that nagging feeling - disappointment, maybe failure?


See, it's never ME that receives the miraculous healing. I never get huge revelations from God on his calling for my life. I always seem to walk away wondering what I did wrong. I think to myself, every year, that my skepticism led to a lack of faith, making me not quite... enough. 

But you know what? I noticed something BIG and kind of obvious, this week. Slap-to-the-face obvious, really. Here it is.

I've simply been focusing on what God is not doing.

That's it. I've totally been believing that if God doesn't move exactly how I want, right when I want him to, that he just isn't moving at all. 

Hello! God is outside of freaking TIME and SPACE. First off, he sees the whole picture. Second, he's got me in his hands and is crazy about me. Soooo, it stands to reason that he's gonna do the right thing for me. And "for me" doesn't necessarily mean making me comfortable, but rather, shaping me to be more like HIM, and working through me for the good of his KINGDOM. At camp, God opened my eyes to see the amazing things he was doing in other people's lives. I realized that he was doing things just as amazing in my life, too. I just hadn't been paying attention, because I was busy writing out a wishlist of all my supposed "needs". It's kind of embarrassing how groundbreaking it was, that he's not just "yes"ing and "no"ing my prayers for the heck of it, but that everything that he does is part of something so. much. bigger. than I ever dreamed I could be a part of. All my dreams of being part of something eternal were smothered by my shallow, earthly desires to have God cater to me. I say I want to give him my life, yet I get mad when he tries to use it. Sigh. 

However! That mirror I mentioned? Yeah, my eyes are open. The image of God I used to hold is in there. The unnecessary burdens I bear are there. My selfishness is exposed there. I looked that selfishness square in the face and realized what I've been doing. It's gonna take more than any expected camp experience to defeat it - we're talking about hanging in there for the long haul.

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Reading this and looking back... I'm almost glad for the camp highs I never completely got. Knowing myself, I would have become dependent on them, and not God. I never would have learned that relationships - all relationships - are messy, and require sacrifice. And wasn't that what I wanted all along? Sacrifice? I can see now that I would have become content with my idea of sacrifice, had I rested in certain experiences. Experiences cannot sustain a relationship.

Like... Going on dates can be fun for a couple, and they can be completely enamored with each other during those dates. If they go home, however, and intentionally cease all communication simply because they're "not on a date", would we even call that a relationship? My passion for surrender is fully reignited when I remember that life with God is a journey, not a required list of feelings, actions, and pain. In the end, no experience will compensate for a life lived in ignorance of relationship and grace.