Internship Update 3/10 "Risk Big"

I'm the type of guy who usually plays it safe. I like to stick to my old patterns and habits, keep to what I know, what I know I can succeed at. Failure is avoided through staying away from risk. I make myself comfortable in mediocrity so that I don't have to worry about being uncomfortable in failure. Most of the time this works okay. But as I've begun to mature a little bit, I find myself increasingly restless in the endless pursuit of comfort. 

I'm a good student. It's always been a source of some level of pride from me. But sometimes being a good student can make you a bad worker. When you get conditioned with a syllabus mindset, you get used to somebody telling you exactly what to do and when to do it. It works well in school to submit to that structure. But when that structure goes away after school, you fall apart. 

What am I supposed to do now? 

The answer: to work with diligence and excellence. To look at the world around you and see where you can bring the love, hope, joy, and restoration that comes when people get to know Jesus. That work comes with a high level of risk. The stakes are big. When you try to disciple people, you become accountable to God for your treatment of his bride, the church. Talk about an intimidating job description! 

Discipleship is absolutely impossible without the Spirit of God taking an active role in carrying it out. A life lived for Christ is a life lived entirely dependent on the power of God to bear fruit in our lives. There's a lot of risk and a lot of trust involved in making the choice to live that way. And yet the risk pales in comparison with the blessings that come along with such a lifestyle. We each have to weigh it out for ourselves and make the jump one way or the other. We all have to trust something. 

I pray that God gives me the courage to have faith.

Internship Update 2/10 "Future Fruit"

This week I've been thinking about dirt. Some of that is because I ride my bike every day through the sweat and smog of the city streets. Some of that is because I've been doing some gardening. This week flew by, leaving me scratching my head after it was over, wondering where all the time went. 

I think there's two ways of thinking about dirt: 

The first is to brush it out of the way, to view it as an obstacle to our goals. We want things to be neat and clean. Dirt is the opposite of that. It gets under your nails, it smells like rotting things, it stains your clothes. We sweep, vacuum, or mop it up. We scrub it away. Even the dirt outside can be viewed as a negative thing. In a garden, after a long winter, the dirt is hard and dry. If the grass has been trampled away, we plant grass. Dirt is an eyesore. This is the way a housekeeper views the dirt. Their job is to maintain and manage. 

The second way is to see the dirt as potential. This is the way gardeners see the dirt. When a gardener sees a bare spot of soil, they see the future fruit. They grab a shovel and go to work. They break up the hard ground, turn it over, replenish the nutrients with rich compost. When the ground is adequately worked, they plant seeds, digging their fingers down into the soil. Watering, weeding, and waiting. The gardener works to create the necessary environment to produce fruit. The sun and the rain do the the rest of the work. 

Every day, we are confronted with the choice to see the dirt as either a Housekeeper or a Gardener. Each moment, we can choose to either leave the ground hard or to get down and dirty up our hands. 

An internship is a chance to make that choice. I pray that God gives me the grit and determination to work the soil. I pray that the Holy Spirit will send fresh rains of spiritual revitalization in this neighborhood, city, and nation. Will you pray alongside me?