The other day i was reading The Younglife Leaders blog (read here) and they had this post about Tim Keller's Advice for helping teenagers grow in their faith. And i read it once and its a super sweet post but it didnt really hit me till a few min later this one part really stuck out to me. Tim Keller said:
'Teenagers have more information about God
than they have experience of him. Get them in places where they have to rely on
God."
um seriously? yes. thats all i can say. not only is this applicable to ATON of my friends not only that are teenagers but young adults and older adults but to myself. I think so many times i get caught up in knowing who Jesus is. or going to places that tell me about Him. and i forget so many times that i need to get to a place of knowing him personally. Having to depend on him in situations where i physically, mentally, emotionally, and/or spiritually cannot handle it. This idea that Jesus is static (Lacking in movement, action, or change, esp. in a way viewed as undesirable or uninteresting.) only leaves us empty. well i know it leaves me bored, dead, empty and many other things that i dont like to be. I often forget that our God is a dynamic (aggressive, changing, charismatic, effective, energetic, forceful, influential, lively, potent, powerful, productive, progressive, vigorous, activating) God who has created each and every single one of our lives to be dramatically fuller than what society says our lives should be.
This past month i spent at a Younglife Camp called Malibu in BC Canada. I would like to say i was probably 100+ miles from civilization but it was probably only 50, and i had no communication except by snail mail that took 8+ days to get to where i was. Not only was i disconnected from every social media i have (instagram, facebook, and snapchat are my obsessions) i was disconnected from everything i found familiar. My environment, the people, the ministry itself looks very different on the west coast than it does on the east coast. Not in a bad way life is just very different from coast to coast thus making the ministry mold to the people that are involved. For me this was a little bit scary and way out of my comfort zone but then i found out my job and i was palced in the kitchen. LOL if you know me you would be laughing at this because i can barely even boil water without setting something on fire. unless its brownies.. then were gucci. But on the real i am terrible at cooking. but in these moments where i literally had no idea what the hawk i was doing The Lord provided. I did not go to work crew by myself. I was surrounded by 60+ people on work crew and summer staff that were all in the same boat i was in. And most of us did not know each other from Adam. seriously. only month has gone by and these people are now some of my closest friends. and we became a family that was centered on Christ. Things that were unfirmiliar became second nature because of how the Lord provided. in the kitchen i got to work along side of some of the most incredible people i have ever met. and im not just saying that i really mean it. These people leak Jesus with every pore in their body. i wasnt just learning about growing as a cook. but i was growing as a disciple of the Lord. I learned how to serve people in a ways i never thought was possible. The environment i was living in was obviously very different from Blacksburg. Some people joked around and said we were living on a rock but the funnier thing was we actually were. We were surrounded by water which obvi was nothing close to the blue ridge mountains i live in. oh thats the other thing mountains here literally look like HILLS or mounds of dirt compared to the mountains out west. that literally cracked me up every time i thought about it.
but anyways i think alot of times we get static in our relationship with Christ. we get comfortable where we are and stuck in a routine of doing the same thing over and over again and we forget that our relationship with Him is supposed to be full of adventure, and huge leaps of faith that alot of times we have no idea where we will end up. Katie Davis puts it perfectly in her book Kisses from Katie “We are not called to be safe, we are simply promised that when we are in danger, God is right there with us. And there is no better place to be than in His hands.” And not being safe doesnt always mean life or death, it could mean safe with your heart or with your time or money. I think this goes directly back to what Tim Keller says we need to experience Jesus. I think we can know alot about Jesus but he doesnt become real to us until we put our self in a position to see him.
i think what we read in the bible of Jesus walking on water, and feeding 5 thousand people is so attractive to us because our hearts are wired for adventure. when Jesus says to us YES i did these things back then and i can do them now in your life. we read about people in the missionary field, or making a difference in their communities, or someone doing a random act of kindness, or someone in our own lives that just lives life differently. we see these people and say i want what they have, or i want to live my life the way they do and i think thats because we see Jesus living through them and allowing them to have the greatest adventure life has to offer. and i know that our hearts are created for that, they are created to be in a real living adventurous relationship with Christ. and when we feel fully alive, its because we are fully alive in Christ.
John 10:10 The best life.
