Retreat!

One week. Even though it feels like longer, that is the amount of time that has passed since I returned from the youth staff retreat that I attended last weekend. (This is a further testimony to my irregulatiry as a poster. Oh and apologies for the "post something but really post nothing" entry.)

Being new to youth staff at Corona EV Free Church, I was excited to learn that the entire youth staff takes an entire weekend and goes away (in this case to a rented beachouse in Encinitas) for a whole weekend to be together and disucss how better to be used by God as his instruments to the students. The theme of the weekend was, appropriately- the heart; and more specifically- how to get to the heart through conversation.

Through the experiences in ministry that God has blessed me with, I have heard before that the heart is the object of all true ministry. That our goal as ambassadors for Christ is not to effect superficial, non-lasting change, but that God would occupy His rightful place in people's hearts; and that His presence would transform their lives. The weekend was very beneficial to think about that further and more deeply and the "breakout sessions" were very helpful and practical as to how to achieve the goal of heart conversation through questions. As Proverbs, 20:5 says- "a plan in the heart of a man is like deep water, but a man of understanding draws it out."

However, the thing that struck me the most from the weekend, and the thing that I am continuing to try and draw out in my mind is not how to get to other's hearts- but my own.

Do you ever find that you get into a "rythem" in life? Often it is easy to forget why we do things. We do them simply because we do them and we have done them before and will continue to do them. One of the verses we as a college group have been memorizing is Jeremiah 17:9 which says that the "heart is deceitful above all else, and is desparately sick. Who can understand it?" Our hearts are so deceitful that they can turn actions that we do repeatedly or even attitudes that we have and turn them into nothing.

What do I mean when I say nothing? Two things have really caused me to stop and think about this during the week. The first was a comment by Scott Burns concerning Revelation chapter 2 and the church in Ephesus. The Ephesians were wearing themselves out and enduring patiently for the Lord. However, even in the midst of all that, God had something so formidable against them, that if they didn't repent from it, God said he would "remove their lampstand." What was this thing? Love. God said that they had abandoned the love which they had at first. The reason for their bearing up patiently was gone. They were now simply doing it because they did it.

The second thing that caused me to think was a post by my brother Bobby entilted "If I have not love." Bobby expressed that he was convicted from 1 Corinthians 13 that even if he did great things for the Lord and for His glory, but didn't do it from love, it would profit him nothing.

I then began to think about what Jesus said was the "greatest commandment." He said that this was the thing that he desires of us first and foremost, if we miss the order here, we have missed it all. Matthew 22:37 says that "You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart and all of your soul and all of your muchness" (Scott Burns translation). It is very easy for me to get caught up on the- does this verse support the dichotomy or trichotomy of man? And I miss the whole point- this "everything" of me should characterize my love.

These verses have caused me to think recently, and I have realized that if the driving force behind my actions is not love, what good are those actions? This kind of love is all-encompassing. We are called to love God, but also to love others, but we are called to do it fervently (with vigor). This kind of fervency, loving with all of our "muchness" is not something that a rythem in life or a routine, can produce. I need to re-up every day on a fresh glass of "the why." I need to retreat from the "going-through-the-motions" (even if the motions are good) mentality that my wicked heart too often deceives me to believe is glorifying to God.

I say all of this to hopefully encourage you to think along the same lines as I am currently thinking. Do we really love the Lord? Do we really love people? Is that why we do what we do? Because, if not- what are we doing?

B. Blakey