There's a difference...

...between knowing the path and walking the path.

by Ben

I read Deuteronomy 16-18.

This section, after talking about how to celebrate Passover and how to properly stone someone, addresses the issue of prophets and the idea that someone can speak for God. This got me thinking a lot about God's Will and how we attempt to interpret it. It is an odd experience (no words can describe) to feel God's presence working in your life. I'll try to give you an example:

This past summer, at the camp that I direct, we experienced some very trying circumstances (some of the worst that the camp has ever faced). And although at the time, I was tense and worried about the camp (and my job), thinking that I was a failure, the situation has led to some amazing things. After the summer was over, I began to review the whole way that we approach camp, our theology in practice, and found that there were many areas that could be changed in hopes to bring kids closer to God (and prevent major problems).

This led me to another stumbling block: my own fear. I would have to suggest an idea to the camp committee that basically took the program that we've had for 48 years and turned it on its head.

[Side note - I once heard a description of how to approach change that went something like this: Imagine you have a junk drawer. In cleaning and organizing it, would you rather take the drawer out, set it on the bed, take out the things you don't want, throwing them away, and put the drawer back? Or would you dump the contents of the drawer out onto the bed, put the drawer back in, and pick out the things that you want to keep, putting them back into the drawer?]

Well, I'm apparently the second kind of person. The issue came in telling people who grew up with the camp the way it was that I wanted to make things very different.

But I'll tell you, God led me through it. I got a strong inclination about who to talk to first on an individual basis (just a couple of members from the committee) and as it turned out, they agreed with me! After some careful refining of the idea, we took it to the committee. And they jumped on board! God had turned a simple idea of "what can we do" into a group dream of "this is where we should go."

Since then, the committee has become a ministry and I've never seen such devotion to finding ways to show kids and youth who God is. Where in the past we were having short meetings about fundraising, now we are spending weekends developing program and activities.

God took my fear and a bad situation and turned them into an awesome dream and subsequently, an inspiring reality. Apply this to your life in whatever way you feel God pulling you.



A quote that I keep:
"A live body is not one that never gets hurt, but on that can to some extent repair itself. In the same way a Christian is not a man who never goes wrong, but a man who is enabled to repent and pick himself up and begin again after each stumble - because the Christ-life is inside him, repairing him all the time, enabling him to repeat (in some degree) the kind of voluntary death which Christ Himself carried out."