Since grade 5 I've worn either glasses or contacts. In Elementary school I was definitely the geeky kid with the huge frames. By 7th grade I had the trifecta: glasses were joined by braces and a short haircut that I didn't really know how to style. I also wore sweater vests (they were "in" then, I swear).
By grade 9, the braces were gone and so were the glasses (don't worry - the sweater vests were LONG gone by then). Replaced by fancy new contacts, all of my old clunky frames were banished to the back of the top dresser drawer.
10+ years later, and I'm back to the glasses. Even though I've had them for almost 6 months, I still find myself forgetting they are there. Quite frequently, I try to itch my eye and end up with a nice smudge on the lens. Annoying. I just did it a few minutes ago, hence this post.
So, here comes the analogy (I have a friend writing a book of analogies, maybe this will get a feature in it?) When you go from no glasses to glasses, or glasses to no glasses, you have to retrain your brain so you act differently.
The same is true for us living the Christian life. I remember wearing my glasses the first time in 5th grade, and sitting in the back of the class. Every time I looked up from my textbook, I would squint at the board, and then remember I didn't need to squint.
I don't need to wonder in the back of my mind what people are thinking of me when I'm having a conversation with them. I can focus on the conversation and the needs of the other people, because my identity is secure in Christ. I don't need to do nice things for them just so they like me more; I can serve them out of love.
Maybe this analogy is a stretch, but I think both situations involved a pattern of thinking before we act; retraining our brains to help us understand what's going in.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Monday, January 07, 2013
TCX: A short life- lived well.
There are some things in life we can't explain. We ask, why? We wonder, how can this be? We think, what's the purpose in this?
The death of a young person, a life cut short, nears the top of a list of things that cause me to ask why. This past August, Sean, a student leader involved in Cru at UW-La Crosse, was killed in a car accident.
Sean had just returned home from a summer in North Myrtle Beach on a missions project with Cru. There were 99 other college students with him in NMB. On our US projects, Cru staff leave halfway through the summer and hand over the project to student leaders. Sean was one of the students who took over leadership of the project.
I never met Sean, but the fact that he was put in charge of 99 other college students living missionally on the beach, when they all could have been off doing other things, speaks highly of his character.
Sean's dad Steve spoke the final night of TCX, and shared how he had prayed that his son would become a leader among men, even before Sean began walking with Christ. Even though his life was cut short, Sean had an eternal impact on hundreds of lives in La Crosse and North Myrtle Beach.
Read more about Sean's story here.
The death of a young person, a life cut short, nears the top of a list of things that cause me to ask why. This past August, Sean, a student leader involved in Cru at UW-La Crosse, was killed in a car accident.
Sean had just returned home from a summer in North Myrtle Beach on a missions project with Cru. There were 99 other college students with him in NMB. On our US projects, Cru staff leave halfway through the summer and hand over the project to student leaders. Sean was one of the students who took over leadership of the project.
I never met Sean, but the fact that he was put in charge of 99 other college students living missionally on the beach, when they all could have been off doing other things, speaks highly of his character.
Sean's dad Steve spoke the final night of TCX, and shared how he had prayed that his son would become a leader among men, even before Sean began walking with Christ. Even though his life was cut short, Sean had an eternal impact on hundreds of lives in La Crosse and North Myrtle Beach.
Read more about Sean's story here.
Saturday, January 05, 2013
TCX: Housing Woe - Be Gone!
TCX has come and gone - another 1500 college students packed into the downtown Minneapolis Hilton, hungry to learn more about God and his plan for their lives. We train, challenge, encourage, equip and admonish these students, with the hope that they will become spiritual multipliers for the rest of their lives, not just during their college years.
I'm continually amazed at what God chooses to do in the lives of college students. He works so intricately, so fine-tuned and detailed, so that his plans are orchestrated perfectly. And he does this in the lives of everyone...at the same time. Incredibly mind-blowing!
There are some great stories on the TCX blog (shout-out to my awesome roommate for working so diligently to capture what God's doing during and after the conference!). You can also watch video testimonies of students, and even see some of the main ballroom sessions broadcast over our livestream feed.
If you poke around a little, you'll even see yours truly on the blog, giving a quick explanation of my direct role in TCX. Talk about God orchestrating things perfectly...on Sunday night, in the middle of our conference, we ran out of hotel rooms. The Hilton was 100% booked up. But by the grace of God, we only had a few students show up to register and we could fill up the rooms that had empty spots.
The next day was New Years' Eve - always a popular night for the downtown hotels. I briefly talked through scenarios with a coworkers - what would we do if we still didn't have any rooms today? Could we work out the same contracted rate we have with the Hilton, with another hotel nearby? And what if those specific hotels don't have any vacancies??"
The Hilton did run out of rooms again on December 31 - and we had about 6 students, a mix of male and female, show up that afternoon asking for a room. But, we had a few guests that were scheduled to stay the night of the 31st who were no longer needing their rooms. Our 6 students fit perfectly into those two rooms.
I was pretty anxious about the housing situation all week ("who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" (Matthew 6:27)) - but no need to worry -- especially for a problem that didn't even exist.
[This is the first in a series of posts about TCX, our annual student conference for the Upper Midwest Region of Cru. How many posts in this series, you ask? Time will tell].
I'm continually amazed at what God chooses to do in the lives of college students. He works so intricately, so fine-tuned and detailed, so that his plans are orchestrated perfectly. And he does this in the lives of everyone...at the same time. Incredibly mind-blowing!
There are some great stories on the TCX blog (shout-out to my awesome roommate for working so diligently to capture what God's doing during and after the conference!). You can also watch video testimonies of students, and even see some of the main ballroom sessions broadcast over our livestream feed.
If you poke around a little, you'll even see yours truly on the blog, giving a quick explanation of my direct role in TCX. Talk about God orchestrating things perfectly...on Sunday night, in the middle of our conference, we ran out of hotel rooms. The Hilton was 100% booked up. But by the grace of God, we only had a few students show up to register and we could fill up the rooms that had empty spots.
The next day was New Years' Eve - always a popular night for the downtown hotels. I briefly talked through scenarios with a coworkers - what would we do if we still didn't have any rooms today? Could we work out the same contracted rate we have with the Hilton, with another hotel nearby? And what if those specific hotels don't have any vacancies??"
The Hilton did run out of rooms again on December 31 - and we had about 6 students, a mix of male and female, show up that afternoon asking for a room. But, we had a few guests that were scheduled to stay the night of the 31st who were no longer needing their rooms. Our 6 students fit perfectly into those two rooms.
I was pretty anxious about the housing situation all week ("who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" (Matthew 6:27)) - but no need to worry -- especially for a problem that didn't even exist.
[This is the first in a series of posts about TCX, our annual student conference for the Upper Midwest Region of Cru. How many posts in this series, you ask? Time will tell].