StuMo

I'm sitting in the Denver Airport, halfway home from a weekend with some amazing people. I was doing a weekend training at the annual staff conference for a ministry called Student Mobilization. Most people there were between 18-35. They have a passion for seeing college students become disciples of Jesus and then turn their faith outward and head overseas. Their primary focus is India, and as I sat in the session last night where they unveiled their 3-year strategic plan, on both walls were project - via Skype - their two long-term teams that are in Delhi and Hyderabad (sp?). So sweet to see people connecting from around the world with a common mission of surrendering their lives to Jesus in the hope that many would come to walk with Him. The phrase they used all night long was "Great visions require great sacrifice." Hmmm...how much am I sacrificing?

The Duty of the Present

I was reading an excerpt from French Jesuit Jean-Pierre de Caussade and came across this quote: "All we need to know is how to recognize God's will in the present moment."

Jean-Pierre speaks in almost all his writings about "the duty of the present." What a concept. To be fully present. Fully engaged with the person in front of us. Fully alive to the moving of God and His Spirit today, right now, in this circumstance, no matter how painful or exhilarating.

Sounds a lot like Jesus...

Kingdom Poem - by Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador

It helps, now and then, to step back
and take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of
the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete,
which is another way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection...
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about:
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
Knowing they hold future promise.
we lay foundations that will need further development.
We cannot do everything
And there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
and to try to do it well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results...
We are prophets of a future not our own.

Thanks to Debbie Hancock for sharing this in your article.

Hope Bringers

"I lost hope a long time ago."

I can't get his words out of my head. Ninety minutes ago I was sitting across the table from Daniel and that's what he said to me. Part of me wanted to cry. Part of me didn't know what to say. Part of me wanted to say, "What are you talking about? You're 14 years old. You don't even have a 'long time ago.'"

The conversation started innocently enough...

"What's your favorite band right now?"
"You wouldn't know it."
"I can look it up."
"You wouldn't like it. It's death metal. You like death metal?"
"No, not really. But I like people. And music is important to people, so I like to hear what they like."
"I like Emmure. And that's a good band." (pointing to his friend's Suicide Silence T-shirt - then continues...) "I'm not really religious."
"Neither am I. I just love Jesus."
Silence...so I continued...
"Jesus made a habit of pissing off religious people."
More silence. (But I think I saw a slight grin in there.)
"Well, I don't really believe in God at all. I lost hope a long time ago. Too much has happened."
"Anything you want to talk about?"
"No. Not really."
"Okay. That's fine."

I can't stop thinking about Daniel. I want to know what happened that made him lose hope. And I don't want to know. I want to forget about him and get back to my comfortable life. And I want to seek him out, hang out with him, look him square in the eye and say, "That God you don't believe in thinks your valuable. You might not. But He does. Not just sort of valuable - but worth-dying-for valuable."

I don't know if I helped Daniel at all. Maybe that's not the point. Maybe God's point tonight was to break my heart a little bit. (He did.) Maybe God wanted to remind me to be fully present when I'm talking to someone. Maybe He wanted to open my eyes a little wider to the truth that many of His children lost hope a long time ago. Maybe part of God's answer to my prayer "Your Kingdom come..." is to make myself available as a bringer of hope - even if it's only through a short conversation about death metal.

Nope - I can't stop thinking about Daniel. And what scares me the most is that I might wake up tomorrow and not be thinking about Daniel. May it not be so...