For Grace...

It seems I have not made good on my previous promise to post something about church camp 09. That was nearly 3 weeks ago. Hmm...this is going to be difficult, the memories have, to my consternation, already started to fade.

Camp was at Shahzan Inn, Frasers. Looking back, this camp has been...different in many ways to any of the previous camps I attended. For one thing, the best moments of the camp were, for me, not the games or any indeed any of the activities planned by the church. That's not to say I didn't enjoy them, I certainly did. But the highlights of this camp were simply the times spent loitering around, enjoying the fresh, cool air whether in the company of friends or alone, pondering the existential. Hahah. Also, this was where I finished the book now amongst the dearest to me, Pride and Prejudice! The book of which I spoke most highly in previous posts. What I miss most though, was the feeling of complete indifference to my studies! Carefree indeed. So basically the parts of camp I enjoyed the most were the bits between activities, the easy flow of conversation amongst friends of which I had the pleasure of being a participant, or more often than not, given my disposition, simply observing. My only regret is that I missed most the sermons delivered by the speaker our church had invited. Once, because my team had a shortage of participants for the youth games, and the other time because I went with the other youths to listen to the youth speaker. Not that Andrew's sermon wasn't good, it was certainly very much so. Which brings me to the main point of this post...

Dear Grace has imposed on me a certain obligation to write about Andrew's sermon, and my bad memory notwithstanding, I shall do my best to oblige her. I have to opted first to write it on my blog, the employment of which to said end I have grown somewhat accustomed.

Mr. Andrew began with a power point that displayed three pictures, one of Lindsay Lohan, one of Michael Jackson and one of Britney Spears. People who, to put it shortly, are considered by the world to be successful people. An ill conceived notion with which a few of the youth apparently concur, if the excited cries evoked by the images are a thing to be judged by. Andrew lost no time in disabusing the youth of such a notion, deprecating the mess all three have generally managed to make out of their lives. He summed it thus: that in the eyes of the world these people were without a doubt objects worthy of admiration. Not so with the Christian perspective though.

Having made the point, Andrew turned at last to scripture, quoting Jeremiah 29:11-
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
We have the assurance of our future being in the hands of a loving God, attentive to our needs and wanting always what is best for us. Jeremiah continues on in verses 12-13- "Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." God has designs for us that he sometimes chooses to carry out in spite of ourselves, but as the verses above imply, more often that not the initiative has to come from us. We have to humble ourselves and realize that we are not the center of the universe, that there is One above who sees the bigger picture. Andrew gave an illustration with two pictures. In one, the picture showed a maze as viewed from the perspective of a participant standing inside. In the other, the view was from a position of elevation. Life is like that, with ourselves as participants in the maze and God looking down on us, giving directions that we either choose to follow or ignore. The parallelism is obvious enough. Walk your own way in life and you just might find your way out, but chances are you'll just get lost. Walk God's way and you'll reach your destination soon enough with half the trouble.

Still, for some reason or another a lot of people do not choose to ask God for directions. That or they are deliberately oblivious to God speaking to them. Listening and trusting God to do what he says might be compared to standing on a chair, blindfolded with someone asking you to jump, saying that he'll catch you. And to be sure, we would be foolish to jump if the trustworthiness of the person assuring us of a safe landing was in any way questionable. But here, the person assuring us is none other than God himself!

Here Andrew quotes Isaiah 43:2- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze."

Therefore we have no cause for fear when we ask God for advice and listen to Him. He intends to prosper, not harm us, and will see us through this life come water or fire.

But all this talk of listening to God begs the question, how do we listen to God? Obviously, prayer is one way of opening ourselves to suggestion from God and asking him to speak, but there are other ways too. Andrew had a testimony to share regarding the circumstances that brought about his marriage. Andrew had taken upon himself, or been given, the task of ferrying a certain girl who, lacking transport to church, was not in any case of a disposition to refuse such an elegant solution to her problems. To his pleasant surprise, he found that she had been graced with face and figure that showed very much to her advantage. Over time, his feelings grew and with that his attachment to her, as is the nature of things. Then one day, he dreamt of being married with her, and to cut a long story short, it was a vision shared not only by his pastor, but his girl as well. (Go for it, Andrew!!!) But levity aside, he'd succeeded in making the point: God speaks! And he does so on terms of his own choosing, whether directly by visions, or through other people. The fact that God chose to do so in such a dramatic fashion, as in Andrew's case, does not much signify.

For as 1st Kings 19:11-12 says..."The Lord said, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by. " Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.

Sometimes we look for God to speak to us in a big, dramatic fashion, like the wind, the eathquake and the fire, but miss the whisper. God may not speak to everyone as he did to Elijah, or appear as he did to the apostle Paul, but the important thing is not the fashion in which the message is delivered; rather it is that the message is delivered, and received, not to put too fine a point on it. This is something that we need to realize so that we do not dismiss the manner in which the message is given and as a consequence, the message itself.

All points having thus been delivered, Andrew closed the session in prayer.