Three Words

3 Words

As the first month in Colorado has come and gone, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I want this summer to be defined when I reach the end of it. A couple of friends have suggested that I try and think of three words that I could use to guide my actions during the summer and establish my goals going into next school year. Here’s what I came up with.

Brother

A big goal and passion I have for next year’s canvas group is to be one of the top male leaders while also being a guy that younger students can come to if they need someone to talk with about spiritual things. Over the past year (and especially this summer), I’ve learned how important that kind of relationship is and how helpful it can be in a young person’s walk with the Lord.

I want to be a great big brother to all my brothers in Christ, so I need to learn how that is done successfully. This summer has given me a number of great guys that I can go to if I need to talk about anything. Now I know how to show others that I care enough about them to help them with whatever they are going through and always point them towards the Lord.

Personal

This is the main spiritual goal and word I have established for the summer. For the first 20 years of my life, I didn’t really grasp the concept that our God is THE personal God, the one that you can go to with any feeling: joy, sadness, anger, etc. He can handle anything you throw at him, but I never really took advantage of that before this summer.

I am now reading my Bible mostly every day (reading the whole New Testament this summer) and giving myself daily time to talk with God on a personal level. This has helped strengthen my faith, exposed me to more intimate moments with God and has overall given me more joy in situations that probably wouldn’t be joyful without Him.

Purpose

Finally, I want to figure out my purpose in life. Who doesn't want to figure that out? We are going through a book called “Chazown” through the LT program out here, which means “vision” or “purpose” in Hebrew. I can say that I saw God working in my life personally when I heard that we were going to be reading this book.

I’m going to be entering my senior year of college and I don’t really have any idea of what spiritual gifts I have or how I can use my talents to serve the kingdom of God. I love sports journalism, but am I using my gifts to glorify God through that? I don’t really think so.

So this summer has been a time of exploration and learning about what things I am good at (on a spiritual level). I still haven’t figured out a master plan or anything (what things go according to plan anyways?), but I’m getting a clearer picture of what gifts God has given me and what I am passionate about doing.

Going into LT, I really had no expectations on what God was going to do in my life or what I wanted out of the experience, but now that a month has passed by, I see exactly why I am here and these three words help show those reasons in the best way I know how. I am so grateful for this opportunity and I'm doing the best I can to take advantage of it every single day.

What's wrong with me?

I’ve been meaning to blog for each of the past couple of days, but I never could find the right time to get all my thoughts down in an orderly fashion. Finally I have some time this afternoon, so here it is.

Everyone has been talking about how much they are enjoying LT so far. Celebrating how many awesome new friends they have made and how their experience is far surpassing their expectations in the first couple of weeks.

Sadly, I wouldn’t describe my experience in that way at all thus far. I desperately want to have a great time here while growing closer to God and learning how to be a leader in the church, but I just feel really disconnected to the LT program for some reason.

There have been a lot of activities that I have done in the last couple of weeks (three hikes in seven days, four putt-putt outings, an employee roller skating party, card games, etc.) but I somehow still don’t feel completely settled in. I have kept extremely busy and have done a lot of hanging around new people, but I can't escape this feeling of not fitting in.

First of all, I’m the only LT person working at the Rustic Café in the administration building, which has been both good and bad, but I can’t stop focusing on the bad parts of it.

The job requires me to work three nights per week, which has been a little depressing. Yeah, I get to sleep in a little bit and spend some time with God in the morning/afternoons on those days (which has been great for me), but everyone else who is working in housekeeping or food service with a lot of other LT people seem to be bonding a lot quicker with their co-workers and fellow LT’ers than I am. I feel like I'm being left behind and there is not a lot I can do to catch up.

Maybe God is trying to push me out of my comfort zone to make a better effort to bond with new people (something I wouldn’t consider myself good at). Maybe I’m just being lazy in trying to make new friends.I don’t know what it is, but hopefully my attitude will improve over the next couple of days.

I’m sitting here waiting to go to work from 2-10:30 tonight, getting depressed at the thought that I haven’t had a good human interaction with any LT person in the last 48 hours. Why is God doing this to me?

Please don’t think I’ve just been pouting and complaining the whole time I have been here, though. I have been enjoying myself a lot in the last week and a half, growing closer to a couple guys in my project/life group, but there is still this little feeling in the back of my mind that I can’t seem to ignore.

What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I make friends as quickly as others? Why can’t I have a good time when everyone else is? It’s just been so frustrating.

I guess I just need to accept the role I have been given here at LT and try to make the most of it. This summer is gonna be one of great growth, I just need to figure out how that is going to happen.