Insecurity

It is hard in ministry to not take things personally. God calls us in all different directions, speaks to each of us about our own lives and our communities. But when God speaks to a student, telling them to leave InterVarsity, I feel insecure and it causes me to wonder if a student is really hearing from God, or just fed up with something in the fellowship.

I know there are lots of reasons people move on. And most of them have nothing to do with me. But over the last few weeks I have been asking God to give me the faith to trust that I am still following him, and that what he has planned for us is the best path. As new students begin to arrive, I find myself second guessing the plans I heard from God last Spring. And if they fail, or when students leave, I need to remember that they were not my plans, they were God's.

I keep thinking about the passage in the bible where Jesus calms the storm. We always talk about it as fear versus faith. Fear and faith are opposite when it comes to God. If I feel fear in what I am doing, I no longer have the faith that God is going to work. And so my prayer for this year is that I would have incredible faith to trust in God in the plans he has for me and for the fellowship at Willamette.

Reflections on Genesis

This summer I had a chance to travel to Iowa to get some training on teaching, training, and leading bible studies and manuscript studies. My time there was amazing and I felt so inspired to do so many things with bible study on our campus. One of the places I felt most convicted was in my staff team. Lindsey, the woman leading the training, talked about how when she has worked on campus they had always had a hermeneutical community as a staff team (a fancy way to say that they had a staff team that spent time studying and applying and getting real with the word of God.) Although I lead a team of staff, there are certain things that just don't occur to me. And leading my staff team in regular manuscript studies was one of those things.

Additionally, there were studies that Lindsey referred to as 'the basics.' All of which I had not fully completed. Mark, Amos, Genesis 1-11, Nehemiah, etc. I was beginning to feel that my own experience with scripture was somewhat lacking. So I decided that as a staff team we were going to spend half of our time together studying scripture. Starting in Genesis.

The thing that has struck me most so far in Genesis is the sin and the consequence of it. After much discussion in our staff team we realized that the sin's of Adam and Eve reflect the consequences God gives them. For Eve, she does not listen to her husband's commands, and she acts on her own accord before turning to either Adam or God. She trust's herself to do what is right above God's own guidance for her. And for Adam, he simply sits silently by. This is action in itself, the act of doing nothing.

For Adam, his consequence is to spend his life working to survive. To act because he chose at such crucial moment not to. And for Eve the consequence is all around relationships, because she chose not to trust her husband or God in her actions.

As the school year begins (only three weeks and counting) I am constantly aware of my own actions and God's guidance. The summer is slow enough that I have the time to listen to God, to act on His word. But I know myself when the school year starts. Life gets crazy and I just go. This year I want to remember Eve. I want to remember to heed the word of God, to listen, to seek advice, and to obey God first.