Turning it All Around

Hey everyone. Sorry it has been so long since my last blogpost, but I have been spending a lot of time with friends and a lot of time outside so I am not really on the computer much. I hope all of your summers are going simply splendid, and I can't wait to hear some of the awesome stories that will result from summer 2011. As some may know, I had the privilege of going on the Chicago Vision Trip with Purdue Christian Campus House at the beginning of this summer. We went and stayed for a week, and some of the things we did and the memories we made are going to be with me forever. More recently, I was asked if I would give a short speech at Purdue Christian Campus House about the trip and some of the things that I learned. As I was thinking back over some of the things that I learned and some of the ways that God showed himself to me, my first realization was that I had a lot more to say than I thought. My second realization was that other people need to a deserve to hear what God had showed me during that week. So that's how we get here. This blogpost may be a bit long, but stay with it. Because in the end, it's definitely worth it.

God can do nothing for me until I realize the limits of what is humanly possible, allowing him to do the impossible.

Oswald Chambers

So in breaking down my trip, I want to touch on three main things that God really moved on in my heart. They are testimony, evangelism, and comparison. We'll start with testimony.

On the second day that we were in Chicago, we were given the opportunity to drive downtown and go to Pacific Garden Mission, which is a homeless shelter centered around the gospel. We were fortunate enough to have a tour guide come and show us around the entire mission, and man was there a lot to see. The way that Christ was working in that building was phenomenal and it was so neat to see others obeying the call of the Lord in actively running this mission. About halfway through the tour, our tour guide, who had been a delight up until then, stops us in an upstairs room and begins to tell us his testimony. He talked about growing up, going to college, and then finding himself getting into some pretty bad stuff. He went on to describe his lifestyle and some of the poor choices that he had made. And then talks about how Jesus pulled him out of all of his sin and all of his despair. You could feel our group's excitement as we stood and took in the story of the true power of Jesus. Then, he said that the Lord rescued him last August. That's really when our jaws started to hit the floor. I don't know if you have ever experienced this before, but you could spiritually feel the power of his testimony as he spoke it. We were all stirred by the man's story, but it wasn't until later that night that I realized that something about it was bothering me, and that God was using this man's story to point out something in my own life. I brought it up to the group at discussion time, and I was to bring it up again now. I speak for myself and for the group when I say that for most of us, our opinion or our view of the tour guide changed or was affected by his testimony. The thing that was bothering me was this nagging question: would my viewpoint have changed the same way if his testimony wouldn't have been so dramatic?

I realized that for me, the answer was no. This was something that I had never even really considered, but in that moment, God used this man's testimony to teach me in an area that I needed to improve. He reached out and He showed me that there is a power in a testimony, no matter what it is, and that power is the redeeming love of Christ. We are all sinners, and we all need God's grace. There is no sin that is worse than the other, so when we compare testimonies, the only thing we should see is the fact that God's grace was enough to overcome the sin that was in each person's life.

This is a good transition into my next point which is comparison. During the week, we had the amazing opportunity to listen to Joel Hammernick (the leader of Sunshine Gospel Ministries) speak on topics like poverty, racism, and peace. One of the things that Joel also talked about that I couldn't shake was the topic of comparison. I don't have the direct quotes from Joel, but I can paraphrase a lot of what he said. I still don't have the answers about how we deal this situation, but I know that it is something that we can only hope to accomplish with God's wisdom and guidance. So here is what Joel had to say about comparison. This shook me, and I hope it does the same to you.

The first fact that we have to realize is that we live in a comparative world. We grow up and become adults under constant comparison. Do you play sports; which college do you go to; how much money do you make; do you drive a nice car? All these questions are comparisons to other people or things. It has become the way of life, the reason for things that we do in life, and the motivation behind our aspirations. The second fact that we have to realize is that there was no place in the creation story for comparison. God intended for us to live in perfect harmony with Him, with ourselves, with others, and with nature. Instead, that plan became altered when sin entered the picture. Soon after, we began comparing with the story of Cain and Able, and we haven't stopped since. But do we ever stop to think about the consequences of comparing. When we compare ourselves or any of our possessions to that of anyone else, we are more than likely to get one of two responses. Either we realize that in what we are comparing, we are "better," and that easily leads to a sense of pride or egotism. Or the other option is that we realize that in what we are comparing, we are "worse," and that can lead to a sense of depression or insatisfaction. God made us IN HIS IMAGE. He made us perfect, what more do we need to compare to? When we stand before God on judgement day, we don't need a list of how we were better or worse than someone else. We don't need a list of our good works either. Philippians three talks about being clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. So let us be clothed. Let us bask in this righteousness and let our hearts move away from a lifestyle of constant comparison.

Imagine the world that God envisioned for us: a world where instead of instantly jumping to compare, we jumped to praise of the gifts that God has given each of us. Instead of complaining about how "Tom" is so much better of a guitar player than we will ever be, why don't praise God for blessing "Tom" with a musical gift? Instead of feeling prideful, do we ever turn to God and thank him for the gifts that he has given each and every one of us? I struggle with this daily, and like I said earlier, there is no easy fix or answer to this. It is a day-by-day battle, and our only hope is to put on the armor of God.

To wrap up, I want to talk a little bit about what God taught me about evangelism while I was in Chicago. On multiple days, our group was able to go into the city and simply talk with people about life. One night, during one of Joel's messages, I remember him saying something very clearly that I rocked me, but it makes perfect sense. He said:

"You will never minister effectively to someone that you think less of."

Being a freshman at Purdue, I was blessed with an amazing group of friends and a fantastic community rooted in Christ. However, one of the things that we constantly struggled with was this idea of what does evangelism look like on a college campus? God calls us to live our lives in a manner worthy of the gospel, but how do we go beyond that? This quote from Joel is a good place to start.

In fact, it's the only place to start. Too often we go into evangelism with this mindset that we the envangelis-er have some wisdom or knowledge to impart on the evangel-ee. Like we are above the person and we having to help or save somebody. Rather, we should realize that every time we evangelize, we are doing so out of Christ's Love. Do we ever stop to think about how much the person we are evangelizing to can teach us? In fact, there are countless stories of people who go to evangelize and come out of the experience being the one who just got "taught a lesson."

If you made it this far, I thank you for your patience. I hope that you can get something out of these things that God put on my heart. Have a great rest of the week.

Buried and Risen in Christ,

Signing off,

JD