On Campus with Christ

Too often we try to use God to change our circumstances,
while He is using our circumstances to change us.
-David Osborn

Isn’t that the truth?  How many times have we prayed that God would change our circumstances to make us more comfortable, prosperous, successful and less irritated, less distracted…etc.  Yet God is using those moments in life to shape us into who He wants us to be.  When you begin to understand that we serve a God who is infinitely greater than what we can think or imagine, you don’t ask Him for petty favors.

Our Psalm for today (146) spells out for us just WHO God is.  “He is the Maker of Heaven and earth, the sea and everything in them – He remains faithful forever.”  Read Psalm 146:6-10 and come to your own conclusion on WHO God is. 

I am convinced that once we have a correct perspective of WHO God is, then we won’t be asking Him to do us a favor and make us more ___ or to take away ____.  When we fully comprehend that God has a plan and purpose for our life, we can trust Him at His word, and not beg him to change the things around us. 
We can then utter these words to God (as David did in Psalm 31:3-5): “For you are my rock and my fortress; and for your name’s sake you lead me and guide me; you take me out of the net they have hidden for me, for you are my refuge.  Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O LORD, faithful God.”

Ten months after the storm, the destruction continues.  We are wrapping up our week of service down in Joplin, where the F5 tornado ripped through the town, destroying 7000 homes, 1000 business and schools and devasted lots of lives.  I came down three weeks after the storm and witnessed firsthand the blow that this powerful tornado laid on this city.  Yet, I see a deeper devastation nearly ten months after the storm than when I was here just a few weeks after the storm.  Sure the town is ‘cleaned-up’.  New business are rebuilding.  New houses are popping up in what looks like an empty field.  There are lots of new vehicles on the roads (over 15,000 vehicles were destroyed by the tornado!).  But the devastation continues to eat away at this town.

As I sit in Chick-fil-a, I see the eyes of a mom who is weary, exhausted and ready to give up.  As I talk with a young woman who gets sick every time a thunderstorm approaches, because the reoccurring fear continues to strike her down.  I see the devastation as we try to help a woman who is living in a ravaged trailer, with no running water or electricity.  I see it in the eyes of the three year old little girl, Addison, who lost her family’s house, and now daddy is not coming home.  I hear it in the stories that are shared about the rising divorce rate, the accounts of abuse that are on the rise, and depression from those who cannot escape the mental images of flying debris, dead bodies, bloody hospitals, and war-like scenes.

My heart breaks for these people who are trying to get ‘back to normal’.  The painful reality is: there is no normal.  Life after such a traumatic experience will be very different than what it was before the storm.  Many are exalting Restoration in this community, and rightly so!  But as hard as they may try, those who suffer post-traumatic stress syndrome cannot reset their minds to its original state.

Last Friday, our ministry brought 40 students and staff to Joplin to do what we can to make a difference.  We've been able to help about fourteen families in the community...a drop in the bucket compared to all those who have needs.  But through the hurt and despair, we have seen a shimmer of hope; a warm smile of appreciation; even a friendly hug from a grandmother who was so blessed to have someone care for her fractured home.  Can we fix the town of Joplin....no.  But what a blessing it has been to us, to be a blessing to them.  

My heart breaks for my hometown of Joplin.  But somehow that empathy has drawn me closer to the brokenness of humanity.  It has been a reminder that this world is not our home.  As Hebrews 11 reminds us, there is a better country awaiting us...a heavenly one.  But for now, we have to wait out this pounding storm.

There is a competitiveness between our two boys...they each desperately strive to be first in everything they do!  Whether it is the first one to the dinner table, the first one to finish his peas, or the first one in the tub; they will do whatever it takes to be first.  My wife and I have tried to teach into these moments, often after an argument breaks out or tears are rolling off our four year olds cheek.  So we began teaching this biblical principle of the first is last and the last is first.   The heart of the principle is humility.  But our boys use it to justify their ‘second place’ finish!

In Matthew 20, Jesus gives the parable of the workers in the vineyard.  The story involves a landowner who puts people to work at various times throughout the day.  Then at the end of the day, the master pays his workers all the same, regardless of the number of hours they put in.  The plot thickens as dissention breaks out among the workers who had been there all day.  It’s unfair in their opinion for those who worked only one hour to receive the same pay as those who worked the whole day. 

They have a point.

But the landowner reminds them that they received exactly what he promised at the start of the day.  And it’s solely up to him who he pays what amount.  He says “are you envious because I am generous?”  Ouch. 

I’ve spent my entire life following Jesus.  Certainly there have been times I’ve been more faithful in certain aspects of my walk than others…but I am blessed to have been given a good spiritual foundation early on in life, and God’s grace to keep me on the ‘straight and narrow’ for my thirty four years on this earth.  It’s easy for me to expect my ‘days wages’ for serving the Master of the vineyard.

But what about those ‘deathbed conversions’?  The Jeffery Dahlmer story…where the man killed hundreds of people in the Oklahoma City bombing, but on his final hours before he was executed, accepted Christ as His Lord and Savior.  People have a hard time thinking that a man who did such awful things in this world, could ‘squeak’ into heaven under God’s grace.

Yet if you understand God’s grace, that’s exactly what it’s about.  Even my four year old will tell you that “All have sinned” and “The wages of sin is death”.  We all deserve an eternity away from the presence of the Lord.  Yet Christ died, once for all, as Hebrews points out.  His grace is sufficient, Paul writes.  For the ones who joined the Kingdom forces at the beginning, to the ones who jumped in as the sun was setting.  

Jesus closes the parable by saying “So the last will be first and the first will be last.” – Matthew 20:16.  

Being a Kingdom minded person means you rejoice when someone (anyone) receives the Gospel, and welcome’s Christ into their lives.  Today, my heart is praying for more workers in the vineyard.  The sun is setting, and I know our Master is generous.  Will you join me in welcoming new workers?  Don’t use the principle to justify a second place [bad attitude] finish!  Receive all those who come into the Kingdom with a heart of gratitude, for we serve the same generous Master.