For those of you who don’t know, I’m currently working at maranatha bible camp. I’ve seen God move in awesome ways already. Unfortunately, it’s also very hard to find the time and place to blog, when I’m usually busy, and have no service. So I am sorry it has taken me this long to make a new post.
There are so many things I could say about maranatha bible camp. But for this post, I think I’ll focus more on community. It’s so crazy to me that the idea of true community is a radical idea in today’s society. It’s amazing to have it. Stripped of a lot of the distractions that are regular to the way people live today, my eyes were opened to see that there are real people with real lives, and real problems, and real personalities around. How crazy is that. (Insert sarcasm here.)
I have had the pleasure to have all of my walls and barriers stripped away so that I am actually able to experience the presence of the people around me, and I love it. I couldn’t have asked for better people to walk a long side me, and become my friends. I’ve seen Jesus in their hearts, and, I hope, that they’ve seen how he is working in mine.
Life has been a combination of mini adventures that have made me rely on other people and God. I am losing my American made self preserved she’ll that I’ve sat inside of for so long. Believing the Great American Lie of satisfaction through self sufficiency. I am not self sufficient, and now, I won’t try to be anymore. God is my provider of everything. From him all blessings flow. I’m glad I’ve learned this lesson now, instead of trying to stumble through it at training camp.
Quick fun story to help illustrate my point more.
Maranatha Bible Camp sits right next to a man made lake that is currently flooding really badly. For training week, all of the staff cabin leaders needed to be trained on everything at camp. This includes paintball. There is a slight problem on trying to train people for paintball though, the course is on the other side of the lake, and the road there, is underwater.
What would you do, if you needed to train 10 cabin leaders in something, but the only route is flooded? If you thought load thousands of dollars of paintball equipment into a canoe, and tow it across the lake in kayaks, then you and a guy named Dave have similar minds. Everything went really well, nothing tipped over and we made it to the other side of the lake just fine.
That’s when we found out that the flooding had gotten so bad, that the path to the course itself was also flooded. Did that stop us? No, no it did not. The other guy cabin leaders and I retrieved the canoe filled with paintball stuff, carried it across a part of the road, and set it in the flooded path. I must admit, this was one of the coolest experiences I’ve ever had, canoeing through trees on a flooded path in the middle of nowhere at a bible camp.
At this point you may be asking yourself, Will this story is cool and all, but how does any of this deal with self sufficiency? We are just about there. As we are canoeing down this flooded path we can see a bridge that gas flowing water underneath it. Both ends of it were underneath water, but the middle of it was just above the surface. Some people had decided to walk through the water instead of taking boats, and we’re standing on the bridge waiting for the paintball stuff. Me and my bright brain thought “hmmm that current doesn’t look so strong, I am a man, I will totally overcome this river.” The end of my canoe hits the current, no problem. Theb about have way into the river, my canoe starts to drift off course, and tilt.
Now here I am in my head thinking, I’m either on my way to the north platte river, or I’m going to be responsible, for the destruction of all this paint, and some campers hopes and dreams of shooting people in the face with balls of paint. In the midst of my own pity party, a fellow leader named Brandon manned up, jump in the (leach infested) water and pulled the canoe to where the trail was no longer flooded.
In the end of the story we had an awesome time, played a ton of paintball, learned how to run it and made it back with everything intact.
Looking back at the story, I draw two big points from it.
1. Being on water with things that are not water proof but are still expensive is a great team bonding exercise.
2. Our lives can be closely related to a canoe in a rive .
I created this pride, this self sufficiency inside of my heart that almost led to my literal downfall. I relied on my own ability and by the time I realized I needed help, it was almost to late. Giving things to God shouldn’t be my exception, it should be my expectation. He is sovereign, and is not only my physical provider, but my spiritual provider.
Instilling the fear of God in every aspect of my life is a life long journey, but every journey begins with the knowledge that you are going somewhere. My next destination for this road, is expelling completely my self sufficiency and relying on God, the ultimate provider, even when it gets uncomfortable.
Afterall, Faith and everything about you, grows just outside of your comfort zone.
Just a side note, this was typed on my smartphone because I don’t have my computer, if I missed some auto corrects, or spelling issues, please be gracious of me.
