August and September for us campus minister types is akin to November and December for you retail types: you work ridiculous hours and it can sometimes make or break your entire year.
So every year around the beginning of the month, I try to take a day of retreat. I go to a lake or river or forest or Starbucks (all roughly the same thing) and bring a Bible and my journal and all my hopes, dreams, anxieties and fears for the coming year.
In doing this at the outset of my busy season, I'm trying to make a statement: I trust in Jesus more than I trust in my own plans. It's his work, not mine. It's more about what he's done and is doing and will do than anything that I do. All the most important things that I want to see happen are outside of my ability to make happen, it is really up to him.
In the beginning of my time on staff, days of retreat like this felt loaded with pressure: would God show up? Would I know it if he did? What did I need to do or say or feel or think in order to get God to meet me? What I wanted was something spectacular, something to show for my eight hours in the woods, by the river, or sitting on a rock-hard, butt-numbing Starbucks chair.
In some ways what I wanted was for God to be impressed with my willingness to spend a day with him (during the busiest season of the year, mind you) and for him to reward me.
But what I've realized is that it's not really all that spectacular to be desperate. And it's not all that holy to be needy. I just really need Jesus over the next eight weeks. Without him, all my work is just an impotent exercise. Without him, I'll end up around September 30 in a heap of mush, rocking and fetal.
But a new realization has hit me just this week as I've been thinking about my day tomorrow. I no longer demand epiphanies and angels dancing and an audible voice from God. But what I do want is for this one day to somehow carry me through this whole season in terms of my priorities.
What I'm beginning to see is that I've continued to load too much weight on this one day. I need a day of retreat for perspective and to commit this season to the Lord. But I also need to re-make this same decision to commit these days to the Lord each and every day.
Submitting my work to Jesus is a process, not a one-time event. Every day I am tempted to re-pick up what I left at the altar just the day before. Every hour I'm tempted to operate as a functional atheist, thinking it's really all about me and my work, with God as a distant non-actor.
I think the principle of the process of submitting ourselves to the Lord is true in most every area we care deeply about. A one-time offering is good, it starts the ball rolling. But submission is a daily, hourly, moment-by-moment decision that we have to make on a regular basis.
So hopefully tomorrow will be the start of a new season of me in August and September. But if you happen to see me in late-September and I'm in a puddle, fetal and rocking, just pat me on the head and remind me that it'll all be okay...and let my story be a cautionary tale of what happens when you forget that submission is a process, not a one-time event.
7 comments:
Thanks for a great post. That functional atheism thing is all too easy to slip into...
it's weird to think that i won't be there for new student welcome this time around. feeling a little sentimental. oh, the joy that is growing up. ;)
By the way, what happened to Sibboleth? (Sorry to go off topic)
Thanks Alex. I needed to hear this. Partly because I need to try the day of letting go discipline. Partly because before I try that, I need to realize what it is and what it isn't.
I wonder if you might clarify the thought about "it's not really all that spectacular to be desperate. And it's not all that holy to be needy."
On the one hand that's definitely true. Do you think there's any sense that's not true?
Jon D.
hola, all.
grayson, my bro's decision to shut down sibboleth was a hard one but one that he felt was necessary. perhaps i'll leave it at that, since it's more his to talk about than mine! i'm bummed about it, too.
amanda, we'll miss you...hope seattle is treatingyou well.
jon, yeah, i probably over-stated here. i think that knowing our need is key to any spiritual growth. that's a holy place to start...but it doesn't make me a super-hero for recognizing it and running like crazy to jesus. does that make sense?
Yeah, thanks Alex! That makes sense in the context of our holiness being nothing more (and nothing less!) than God's holiness in which we vicariously participate in through Christ. Thus, our neediness is both nothing and yet also the means of our true, perfect, vicarious holiness.
Jon D.
I love your paragraph "I trust in JEsus more..." I printed it out and put it on my church office wall.
Mom
Post a Comment