Hello y'all!
Woah! He-hey there! Is that you? Is this me? It's weird being back here. Right now I feel like I do whenever I return home from Miami or after I buy a new box of Oreos--its a heart-warning, long-awaited return to familiarity. I have to admit that I kinda dropped the ball on this one. The readership, support, and conversations sparked from this blog meant a whole lot to me, and I feel like I made a small little dent of an impact to like 4 people, which is pretty cool. Not that I feel like I let anybody down, but more so I've felt like I let myself down. I love to write, and while I've still written other things, I've abandoned the medium that brings me back to who I am. So there's that.
Regardless, here's a quick explanation as to why I haven't been on here in multiple months, after writing an entire blog post on how you should write regularly: schoolbusinessworkbusinesssportsbloghardshipsspiritualapathyhavingagirlfriendwhatfamilyvacationsandlackofdirection. That should make you content.
But anyway, here's a quick rundown of where I'm at. Basically, I've finished my sophomore year of college with a fairly decent GPA and have decided to stay in Miami for the summer. This is exciting for a number of reasons, but mainly I'm pumped to continue to spend time and build relationships with the high schoolers that go to my youth group. My friend Sean Foster wrote a nice post on the importance of showing people, especially kids in their tender teenage years, that you care. So any prolonged period of time that I get to do that without the burden of schoolwork is a blessing. And I'm stoked about that.
Speaking of youth group, the youth pastor at Crossbridge and good friend of mine Eric has been gracious enough to let me speak a couple of times on Friday nights. Well, gracious probably doesn't do it justice. But telling Eric of my desire to possibly work in youth ministry one day and him supporting me all the way to allowing me to preach to the students is one of the reasons why I love the guy so much. Interestingly, however, I think I love him the more I screw up (or screw him over).
Have you ever experienced feeling more appreciation and love for a person after that person has shown you grace? For example, I have a girlfriend now (gasps of shock and applause later, please), and whenever we have a disagreement or I do something stupid (like, I dunno, act like myself), her forgiveness always furthers my appreciation of her. Similarly, I love my dad each a tiny bit more every time I break something on the boat.
Obviously, I also experience this with Eric. The reason I bring this up is because in the midst of this preaching opportunity I was scheduled to preach on the subject "What is the Gospel?" two Fridays ago. This is obviously a big and important topic, and understandably, Eric called me Monday to remind me and offer me help. When I hung up the phone, the thought of speaking, youth group, kids, Eric, being a youth pastor, being responsible, nor being intelligent, did not once enter my brain until 3:30 Friday afternoon, about four hours before my scheduled appearance.
I don't think I could type enough words to fully express what happened here. In fact, I don't remember much other than immediately picking up the phone, calling Eric, and laying out a wide and creative variety of unrepeatable expletives followed by: "I got nothin."
Completely screwing up and being ridiculously nervous giving a talk is one thing, and completely understandable. The first time I spoke was about a month ago and it was a wreck. I could barely string a sentence together, my topic was murky, and I don't think I made eye-contact with anything other than my shoe laces once. But that was all fine. Completely forgetting to prepare and give a sermon to an entire youth ministry is not OK. For future reference.
To make a long story short, Eric basically said "you're preaching," "meet me at the church in an hour," "prepare a sermon," "nice job," and "you're speaking again in two weeks." Yes, I was as dumbfounded as you; in fact, it was at that moment for the first time I seriously doubted Eric's ability to be a competent youth pastor. You want me to do what? Preach? Preach again? Still be on this team? Still be a breathing, productive human being? This was madness. Not only did Eric show me enough grace to forgive me, but he spent the next three hours of his night helping me prepare while at all the end of it all requesting that I do it again (with preparation next time, of course).
As foreshadowed, and without sounding redundant, my love for my good friend Eric went through the roof after my universal screw-up. Not only did he pull the whole "yeah I forgive you, I love you, whatever," BS that I would probably pull, but he showed his true grace through his actions: helping me prepare, supporting me, and giving me another chance. More than I would probably do.
The coolest part about this whole thing (and probably the only cool thing, since not much about that night was very cool) was that it was a total God moment, like everything in life. I think this feeling over increased love is parallel to the love we feel from God's grace. If it is true that we are only saved by Jesus' sacrifice and not by what we do, then why do followers of Jesus act differently than the rest? Why would we do anything good, then? Besides for the verses that call us to imitate our creator and our transformation by the Holy Spirit, a lot of the times the Christ-like things that I do, I find, come from mere gratification of my Lord. We are thankful that God has saved us; therefore, we do what he calls us to do: “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." and "love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:36-40). And while most of the time I feel guilty for my sins, by the same token preaching the gospel to myself over and over again just furthers my never-enough love for God. Go ahead--think about all the times you've messed up bad. Now, think about how that has been forgiven and that God loves you despite that. Yeah, makes you want to love Him too, huh?
Grace is something we learn when we first come to Christ, or are saved, or whatever. But it's also something that we hammer down into our little pea brains over and over so we can actually understand what God's doing in our lives. Yeah, my semester has been pretty tough in terms of school work and not feeling very, well, spiritual. But sometimes it's just looking around or going through adversity (like flubbing a sermon) to see God working the gospel in our life. And that gives us hope.
I hope all of you come back and appreciate at least just a sliver of what I have to say. I can't promise that I'll be regular on here, I just can't. But I do want to revive WCWJ. I want to see it grow and foster in my life, and in yours. I want to build a community. I want internet-affirmation.
Go ahead and share this on Facebook or tweet it or email it or memorize it in its entirety to recite to your friends over lunch. Also, please comment and let me know what you think. Definitely comment, email, Facebook or text me any related stories you might have to this, or something that has furthered your love for someone, or God. Oh yeah, and I'm preaching at XB Youth this Friday. Pray that I don't forget.
Love y'all. Go Heat.
