I should have been thinking about work
shaking off the vacation time I just had
getting back into the game
focusing once again
... but I couldn't help it. My mind was lost on the second floor of Brits, 10:52 pm where I stood in silence. Amidst a dimly lit room buzzing with hundreds of New Years party-goers (perhaps some were dancing & the band still playing), I stood fixated on a wall of windows which overlook the city nightscape of Minnesota. The still twinkling Christmas lights pierced through the fierce black... and the snow... the snow came suddenly, heavily, softly, in large flakes. In that moment, nothing else mattered. God was speaking.
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Four days before some of my best friends flew me up to the Twin Cities to attend their region's Cru Christmas Conference (which they call TCX). I didn't pay for a thing. They drove me, housed me, hugged me, played games with me, prayed with me, & bought me expensive fish dinners. They had no idea how steadily the LORD had been painfully ravishing my heart over the past few weeks. They had no idea how broken and tired I felt arriving to their city... & yet, as threads of grace weaving through a vital time in my spiritual growth, Jesus spoke comfort through them. Surrounding me as a great cloud of witnesses, as Hebrews 12:1 says, I felt the shackles of my humanity loosen. I felt Life in my conversations with them. I felt Life in Minneapolis.
It was there that a new reality set in: You see, I love my job. I know without a shadow of a doubt that God desires to use me at Alabama.... & beyond (Matthew 28:19-20) . I know that He wants to destroy lies I believe in my personal life (1 Corinthians 5:7-8) & that He wants to restore my family (Joel 2:25). I know that this is sometimes deeply painful (Matthew 16:24-26). I know that sometimes God calls us to challenging things for the sake of a greater reward (Revelation 2:10). I know that short vacations with friends are precious (Hebrews 10:25) but fleeting & that a time comes when I must return home to my own ministry (1 Peter 5:2-4) , to get back to business as usual... these are things I have always believed but now...FINALLY, a new sweet flavor has settled into these Truths:
My time in Minneapolis was ministry. It was ministry to me which, I'm coming to find, is some of the most valuable ministry of all . Although driven by a worthwhile, eternal cause, those staffing campuses & churches around the world are, above all else, deeply in need of intimacy with Jesus (Romans 10:14). It is only when Jesus is our 'first love' that we can lead our students. It is only when we recognize our own sin, our own brokenness, our own past, that God is made bigger than our strategies & to-do lists. Although Cru preaches this to staff time & time again... I rarely listen. Or rather... I rarely allow myself to be served.
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So when the snow began to follow on the city night... I couldn't stop staring. After a month of wrestling and a week of occasionally coming up for air... I couldn't stop staring out that window. I wish I had a grandiose metaphor but there is none... I just felt... present. The heart that had been beating rapidly, anxiously for weeks & weeks & the breath I couldn't seem to catch slowly began to relax at the sky's chilling touch. Without structure or logic, condemnation nor brilliant insight, I felt emotionless but full. I felt the LORD in the night & He was good. 
Thanks for the Post Alli!, I had no idea how much God did in your time in the Cities with us and only regret I didn't get more of a chance to hang out with you while you were visiting! Praise God for His good works laid out for you to walk in in 'Bama -- keep up His good work! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Davy! It really was such a pleasure to be with ya'll. See you and the rest of the troops in Miami :)
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