Sabatical Over

I haven't posted in something like a month. I have written a lot in that time, just nothing worth sharing. My thoughts have been so scattered lately partly because I am young and unorganized, and partly because I have a lot going on in many areas of my life. In my opinion the most significant thing going on in my life is that I am learning how to love God not just know him. Throughout the past few months I have learned so many things about the character of God; things like His relentless pursuit of our everything, His power over everything even the minutia of life, His vested interest in the lives of each individual, and His will for His children to see Him clearly. In the practical sense of things my life is being all rearranged around this idea of loving God.

For starters I am now a leader at a new school, Wyoming. Around the end of February the decision to leave Mt. Healthy became final. For a variety of reasons it was one of the most difficult decisions I have ever been a part of, however near the end I felt wholly peaceful about leaving the school in God's hands alone. Learning to surrender ministry to God has been one of the hardest lessons I have ever learned as a Christian, but the freedom in that realization is enormous. I have, for the first time I think, started to view ministry as what God is doing and not what I am doing. If God goes and I don't go with Him, He can still accomplish whatever he wants. If I go and He doesn't I can accomplish nothing I want. If I go with God I am only then privileged to both witness and participate in what God is doing as well as grow my faith by walking with Christ through the different struggles of doing ministry. Philemon 1:6 Possibly the most significant part of this thinking is that ministry does not hinge upon my abilities, kids salvation does not hang on whether or not I effectively communicate the gospel at my next club talk, but on Christ alone. His great strength is in my weakness. God's glory is revealed most when He overcomes a challenge to accomplish the impossible. It's a whole new ministry in Wyoming and I am going into it with a whole new mentality of what ministry is about. That's exciting!

In addition to a new ministry I am taking my most challenging quarter of college yet. Five of my six classes will require in the neighborhood of 100 pages of reading per week including one class that has assigned over 100 pages of reading each day of the class thus far except 1. This might be the quarter I learn to read fast... Despite the higher than usual workload I like all of my classes except one. I am learning about things I like from professors I largely enjoy learning from. Not to mention I am reading some Orwell for one of my classes. In 8 and a half more weeks though, this too shall pass.

All in all I am doing well. I realize now that I can't be expected to have it all together, that it's ok for me to be messed up. Because of that my day to day life is much more dependent on Christ than it has ever been. I am still learning to adjust to being ok with my inadequacies all the time, there always seems to be the temptation to try to be more than I am. I said this a while ago in one of my posts, but I want my life to be about transparency. I want the people around me to see me for who I am, and see Christ, and the powerful work he is doing in me, for who He is. Philippians 1:6