Life Lessons #1 - The Shed

I have recently decided that I will have a feature on my blog called “Life Lessons.” This section will simply be me writing about things I have learned just by living life. I really have no idea how often I will feature this on my blog because that will primarily be decided by whenever I learn a lesson from life. Without further adieu, here it goes:

As I stated previously in my blog, I am currently taking part in the amazing opportunity to work at Red Rock Bible Camp for the next 4 months. My job for May and June is to be on the maintenance crew so my responsibilities mostly include cleaning up after the groups that come through, as well as whatever other jobs need to be done in preparation for our summer camping season.

Last week myself and another worker had the opportunity to put wood siding on an old shed in an effort to make it less of an eyesore around camp. I quite enjoyed this job as I like learning new things that make me feel more adequate as a handyman (although I am no handyman my any stretch of the imagination). After we finished this job, we had one more job to do on the shed, and that was to increase the support system underneath the shed.

In theory, this sounded fairly simple. The four corners of the shed were sitting on cinder blocks and all we had to do was jack the shed up and slip some 2x10 boards on top of the cinder blocks so the weight would be more evenly distributed among the joists underneath the shed. Well, unfortunately, it wasn’t as easy as I would have liked.

Due to the shed resting on relatively uneven ground, it was very hard for us to get the jacks underneath the shed. We had to dig in the dirt in order to give the jack enough clearance to do their job. Lucky for us, the ground was filled with rocks and roots, so at times it seemed virtually impossible to get these jack underneath the shed.

I felt totally incompetent and out of control.

Although the feeling of incompetence is not a fun one to have during work, in our Christian life it is sometimes necessary. While there are many times where we should feel competent and confident in our kingdom work, there are also times where it is good to experience this lack of control.

When we experience this lack of control, we are forced to rely on someone or something else. It is in those times that God is reaching out to us, waiting for us to rely on him so he can carry us through to our next challenge. When we do this, our eyes are opened just a little bit further to God’s power, making our lives more of a living testimony to Him each day. 

What Am I Up to This Summer?

This is a question that is frequently asked of college students. Summer plans are very important and many students stress out about what to do between the four months of freedom we are given between semesters.

I am very glad to inform you that I will be spending all four months at Red Rock Bible Camp.

Now although this may not be the most financially responsible decision for a college student to make, I can't think of a better place to spend the next four months of my life. Red Rock has helped shape me as a person over the last three summers through their Counselor-In-Training program as well as being a staff member, and I love being so much. It has become almost like a second home to me.

What will I be doing over the next two months? Well, for starters, for the first two months my job is working on the maintenance crew. We are made up of five summer staffers and our job is to maintain the camp for two months. This could range anywhere from cleaning up after outdoor ed and retreat groups to getting the camp ready for summer by doing odd jobs that are assigned to us. Our crew is great and we work quite well together.

For the next two months I will be spending most of my weeks in the cabin, working directly with kids as a counselor. This has been one of the most growing experiences I have had at Red Rock. While our job is to teach the kids about the Bible and being a Christian, I have found that so often I am the one who seems to be learning the most. It is incredible to see how much you learn about yourself and the Bible when you are instructed to teach it to others.

That is a short glimpse of what I will be doing this summer. Although I cannot wait to get back to school in the fall (yes, I'm turning into a bit of a nerd), I am quite excited for these next four months and can't wait to see what God has in store for everyone at Red Rock.

You can follow my happenings here at the Red Rock blog: http://66.147.244.106/~redrocl7/about/

Love: More Than An Emotion

To end my mini-series on faith, hope, and love, I am trying to tackle arguably one of the biggest subjects on the face of this planet. People could write books upon books of love and there would still be more to say on the subject. So here, I am going to write just a short thought what I have been learning on the subject of love. So here I will start with a story:

The other day while I was driving I caught myself praying the prayer “Lord, help me to love you more.” I finished this prayer, and I kind of startled myself. “Get God to help me love him more?” I thought to myself. “This is absolutely a ridiculous statement.”

To give a little context on why I think this is a ridiculous statement, let me tell you about something God has been teaching me over the last year. I have recently been learning how love in not an uncontrollable emotion, but rather a choice that we make daily. I can choose to love people by spending time with them and doing things for them even when I don’t want to. Love is far more than gushy feelings.

We like to loosely toss around the word love these days. “I love that movie” or “I loved that book” are common uses of the word love. Do you really love that movie, or did you just enjoy it? I believe there is a difference between love and enjoyment.

Another way we misuse the word love is in describing our passions. “I love hockey” or “I love music” are again common statements that people use. These are not things we love, rather things we are passionate about and again, we feel enjoyment while experiencing.

Love is not solely about enjoyment.

Now I know that I don’t know everything there is to know about love, but I believe that there has to be self sacrifice involved in love. If you really love someone, there will have to be times in your life when you put their needs ahead of your own. I would say this is the case more often than not.

To get back to my prayer, I guess I haven’t always been enjoying God lately (as crazy as that sounds). There have been times over this last year (and throughout my life) where I have felt very dry in my spiritual life. But luckily, me not "enjoying" God doesn't mean that God doesn't love me. It is this love that I receive from God that should make me want to love God back, but that is not always the case. Amidst my busy life, I feel like I have too often given God a backseat in my life.

In that I was reminded about something my good friend Joey Traa once told me. I don’t remember his exact words but it was something along the lines of “God deserves to be first in our lives. When we get busy, often God is the first to go. Then we wonder why everything falls apart. Rather, God needs to be the one thing that we hold onto while everything around us is falling apart.”

So yes, maybe there are times where I don't "enjoy" God. Maybe I’m not loving God enough. But more than likely this stems from my own selfish, busy lifestyle that I live. I have slowly been squeezing God out of my life and filling that space with school, friends, music, sports, etc. Too often I put my selfish, worldly desires ahead of God. It is a work in progress for me to get my priorities straight. Loving God requires a sacrifice. It is not about fulfilling our worldly desires first, and then seeing where we can serve Got. Rather, our commitment to God needs to come before everything else.

While writing these three blog posts on faith, hope, and love, one verse has always been on my mind, so that is the verse I will leave you with. That verse is Luke 9:23, which says "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me."