Week Two Reflections

Another week has passed in Green Lake.  Our group nearly quadrupled in size this week!  God works in the small things and the big things alike.

One of the days of our week at Quest is dedicated to talking about the lineage of Jesus and how different people in our lives have helped our faith walk.  As she closed the service tonight, Heather, the director of Quest, made the point that being a follower of Christ is not something we do alone.  We are called into this community that God provides for us.

This week, I had the blessing of spending time with people who have been extremely important in my faith walk.

The church group that I used to attend Quest with was here this week.  What I remember most from my years attending with them is not the Bible studies, the challenge course, or the games - it was the time at the end of the day, where we sat around as a group and shared our lives with each other and shared Christ's truth with each other.  They were my community - they are my community.  For a girl who grew up without a youth group of her own, they gave me a place to feel connected, to feel at home.

I was blessed to be able to spend time with co-workers past and present.  God gave me a community of incredible men and women last summer to start this journey with and has brought new men and women into my life to continue that journey with.  The smallest seed of my faith asked God for a community of friends to walk with me on this journey to be nearer to Him, and He grew that seed in a way so unimaginable and so incredible - and He continues to grow it.

My brother was here with me this week.  David and I have been a part of each others' journeys for the last (almost) 17 years.  I know in that time, he has looked up to me as his older sister, but now I look up to him too (not only because he is taller than I am).  I see a wonderful young man who is inclusive and welcoming, who is helping to grow a community around him.

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Here is my reflection on this week: God takes the smallest things and makes them larger than we ever thought possible.  The message that I give on Tuesday nights focuses on God giving David five small stones, and allowing him to conquer a giant with it.  Serving God this week has been a lot like Jesus feeding the five thousand.  We see only a few loaves and fish in our baskets and we struggle to believe that it will be enough.  But it is not a physical abundance that we are in need of.  Through our faith in Him, God will multiply His blessings.  We may be limited, but God is not - and working through us He touch many lives, feed many people, and bring us nearer to Him.

~SP       

Week One Reflections

This past week was the first week of camp for Quest 2013.  We had a wonderful week filled with great campers, great leaders, good food and fun games.  We also got to experience God together in new ways, and to better know that God is inseparable from us.  He was present here with us this week, as He is always, and His Holy Spirit has gone beyond this place, dwelling in the hearts of many youth.

On Thursday we had a service that allows us to walk through Jesus' death on the cross.  I won't illustrate too much about the service in this writing for those who have yet to experience it this summer.  The story of Jesus' death is always a powerful thing to behold.  For many of us - myself included - we only focus on it once a year - during the Lenten season and on Easter.  But we are in need of more than an annual dose of God's grace. 

In the middle of the service, we stood to sing Jesus Paid it All.  The bridge of the songs goes like this:

O praise the one who paid my debt

and raised this life up from the dead.

O praise the one who paid my debt.  My debt.  It is an incredible feeling of awe when someone does something for you that you know you don't deserve.  Something you are really in need of.  It is even more incredible when they don't ask for anything in return.  The debt was ours, but Jesus took our place. 

My sins should have me pinned to a cross - but God said no.  He wanted to take the burden, and beyond that He wanted to be my friend - He wanted a relationship with me.  He wanted me to know His grace.  

Stepping back and looking at this situation there is nowhere that I can find a selfish intention on God's behalf.  He gave His son, allowed His heart to be broken so that ours could be healed.  He wants to take away the guilt and the shame.

It is awesome.  It is incredible.  It is amazing.  God is inseparable.  

Worship at vespers, Tuesday night.

~SP

Jesus as a Bridge

Sometimes when I read scripture from the Old Testament I feel a sense of disconnect.  I can actually visualize a large, physical distance between God and humankind.  I know that God and God's love are both as vast as the seas, but it seems as if there is a distance in the Old Testament between God and His people that is just as vast.

Communicating with God in the Old Testament is often done through prophets.  They are a sort of messenger or middle man that bring God's word to His people.  In the Old Testament, we also find that to speak with God and to be in His presence, people must be physically in His temple.

Then we have David's writings - the Psalms.  These are David's prayers and songs.  They are evidence of his relationship with God.  David goes directly to God in prayer.  We also have the wisdom texts (Proverbs, Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes), where we can see ideas and wrestling with what godly wisdom is, and how it is we are called to live.  We start to see individuals pursuing God directly, and wrestling with what God's character really is.

The Old Testament ends with the prophet Malachi speaking of the coming Messiah, and the Old Testament begins with Matthew, describing Jesus' genealogy.
 

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When I read from the Old Testament, I find this distant God.  A God who sends laws from afar.  Who sends His will through prophets - telling His people to run other people out of their homes and cities, to kill others and take over their land.  I am fearful and confused as I read some of these stories.  I struggle with whether the point of these stories is to take them literally, word for word or to peer in to a deeper, symbolic message.

Then I read the scriptures of the New Testament - and I find this God who has come near.  Who has limited Himself to live among the people that He loves and shows them how to live - how to fulfill the law.

The God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are the same God.  God is constant.  We are limited and He knows that.  We were lost and falling away from Him, so He gave us His son, to be close to us.  To bring us back to Him.

Jesus is a bridge.  He is the fulfillment of the law.  Our sin and our brokenness has put distance between us and the God who loves us.   Jesus takes us by the hand and walks us across the bridge that brings us closer to God.

Jesus came so that we would know the God of the Old Testament - to know that He is still with us.  You can know everything about someone, but until you really get to know them - discover the character of their heart - you can't truly have a relationship with them.

Jesus brings us into a relationship with God.

A friend showed me this video a few days ago, and I think it is a great illustration of how Jesus brings us near to God.

~SP            

Truly, Thank God for Jesus

You can never spend enough time thinking about the Holy Trinity and what the relationship between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and how that relates to God's relationship with us.  I have this ring on my right pinky finger that consists of two Celtic Trinity symbols back to back.  I love the symbol because it has three distinct points, but you cannot tell where the lines that lead to the points start or end.

God is the creator, lover, giver of grace.  He limits Himself in the form of a man, His son, Jesus, to come physically near to us - show us how to put His love into practice.  Jesus dies on the cross to wash away the stain of our sins, so that we can be close to God for life eternal.  God pours out His spirit on us to continue to be near to us, to make a home within us.

All parts of the trinity are important because they are expressions of God.  God is not limited.  He can express himself in so many ways in our world.  Limiting Himself in human form is just one of them.  I want to take some time to reflect on Jesus - God's physical nearness to us.

Often, the phrase "Thank God" is flippantly thrown around.  I don't like to say it, because of its casualness.  However, in this instance, I want to say it with sincerity: Thank God for Jesus.  There are so many wonderful things about Him that I want to take time to explore through a series of writing - to explore some aspects of who Jesus is.

Jesus is a bridge - a connection between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament.  He is the same God - steadfast and constant - and Jesus helps us make that transition and connection.

Jesus is the fulfillment.  The law was set forth, and Jesus showed us how to live it.  He took love that was written in a book and showed us how to live it.

Jesus is atonement. He took all our sins and all of our shame up on the cross with Him.  He gave His life, so that we could know God's grace.

Jesus is so many things.  For the next few writings, I am going to take some time to explore Jesus and how He strengthens our relationship with God.

~SP

Stories

A community centered on Christ is what we are built for.  It is what we will be received into when we enter heaven.  It is about being in the presence of the God that we have a relationship with, while others are also present there, desiring the same relationship with Him.  Tonight, our staff sat around a camp fire that we built together and began to share our testimonies.  It was an incredible likeness to the heaven-like community that we one day desire to be a part of.

As we all shared our stories, we made ourselves vulnerable to one another.  Vulnerability is something God calls us to.  It allows us to express love to one another.  God made Himself vulnerable to us, through Jesus on the cross, which allowed Him to show us the greatest love.   Living in a community centered on Christ requires us to become vulnerable so that we can express love to one another.

As we shared our stories, we all painted different pictures of different lives, different triumphs and different struggles.  There were a few commonalities between various stories, but there was one commonality that all of them shared: God had shown grace in each of our lives.  We would not have come together to share our lives if that was not true.

There is something much, much bigger than us.  That was evident tonight through our stories.  It is God.  He is a God who loves and redeems.  Hebrews makes a reference to God as the “author and perfecter of our faith.”  If we allow God to have the pen in hand, and allow Him to write our stories, we are living for something much greater than this world.  We are living for a life and a joy everlasting in the presence of our creator.

One of the beautiful things about life is when God picks up the pen and writes us into each others' stories.  Our communities are groups of people who truly have nothing to tie them together until they allow Christ to be the center and anchor in their midst. 

To continue to live, a community has to be willing to grow.  A Christian community is inclusive and expanding.  There is a simple way to be a part of our community this summer – prayer.  Prayers for this staff; prayers for the students and churches that are making their way to Green Lake, WI; prayer for the leaders of this ministry and the other ministries taking place at Green Lake This summer; prayer that God and His love are evident in this community; and a prayer of thanks for His grace that covers us and fills in the places we least deserve, but are in desperate need of it.

~SP

Faith in His Timing

About a year ago I was working as a camp counselor in Green Lake, WI, just as I am this summer.  During our last week of camp the lady counselors decided one evening to go into the girls dorm and spend some time doing devotions with them that evening.  We sat around, counselors, campers and parent chaperones.  I read an excerpt from an online blog and we shared some scripture.  The conversation eventually drifted to boys and dating - which is what a lot of us are curious about in our middle school and high school years (and on through our college years as well).

Several people shared, and then one of the chaperones said something that completely blew me away.  She got very serious and said "Ladies: pray for your man.  Most likely, he is not the person that God has intended him to be for you yet."

I loved that statement, because I had never thought about that.  I trust God, and know that He has a plan for me.  Someone in mind for me to spend my life with.  Someone He created in His image to share a life with me specifically.  Sometimes I get so curious and I start hunting.  I think, I could meet him at any moment.  Any boy I pass by could be "the one."

But this statement opened my eyes.  What if either of us is not ready.  What if God knows that we need to be changed and transformed in certain ways before we are ready to live a life together, or even meet one another.

This was not only a calling to pray diligently for your future spouse, this was a call to be patient with God and to trust in His timing - in all things.  In his book I Kissed Dating Goodbye, Josh Harris says "the right thing at the wrong time is the wrong thing."

God works outside of time, which is incredible and hard to grasp.  God is writing our stories in the perfect order and perfect detail.  He has scheduled the date of our arrival for every event in life.  He wants to prepare us.  He wants to take the time to strengthen our hearts for what lies ahead.

God will _________.  You can fill in the blank!  He knows the right time, and He will prepare you leading up to that time.

~SP