God in a box

Lord, 

You are the God of this city. You have shown me that many times in this last month. You are moving through so many people in this community to make this place more like how You intended. You have a plan for everyone and everything. You've proven that many times. God, I haven't trusted you the way that I should. I haven't been as faithful following you through those hard times and praising you in those tough times. God, I need to be able to listen to your voice and act upon what I've hear. The level of urgency that you call for your people to have isn't there in me. I've been very relaxed in these last couple weeks. I know that I don't have much time with these students to speak truth into their lives. But I've just been sitting back watching you work. I ask, Heavenly Father, that you use me for the reason that I'm here, and that reason is to speak truth into these students' lives. God, You are in control here. Not me. Please help me realize that and help me do your work humbly as this summer progresses. Please give me the energy that I need to finish what you sent me here to do. Please instill in me a level of urgency that I need to have to get Your will done. You are in charge. You are the reason I'm here.  

Amen.

The trip this last week was a team from Memphis. This team isn't your "normal mission trip team"... Let's just put it this way; they got kicked out of the church we're staying in temporarily because a guy that works here thought they were random kids from the neighborhood. They were 6 African American students from the not so nice parts of Memphis. What I learned from this trip was that God can connect with anyone. He can do something for anyone in this world to help them see him. So often we put God in a box. We say "This is the way that I see God and this is the only way that He is." That couldn't be farther from the truth. 

God is big. People say that all the time. We sing worship songs about the power that He has and how big He is. But do we really see how big He is? Do we see the power that He is? Do we even look? I know I don't very often. I'm guilty of it. I leave God in my little box. I've started seeing God work in ways that I never thought possible. God turning people to Him through community, miracles, relationships, conversations, family troubles, and through praise. The most thought provoking way that God works through is community. 

God created us to be with each other. He didn't create us to be isolated. Not just through our church, not just in our circle of nice little Christian friends, but getting people that don't believe Jesus is Savior. That's the crucial part that most people don't realize. They just look at their church and are comfortable with their relationships that they have there. That's the way that I used to see things. I'm guilty. Comfort is so overrated though. Do you think that Moses was comfortable leading Israel out of Egypt into the Promise Land? No. Do you think that Peter was comfortable being the rock of the Christian church? No. Do you think that Paul was comfortable being called to be one of the most persecuted against Christians of all time? No. All of these people from the Bible took off their skirts and did what they knew God was calling them to do. I'm pretty sure that anyone would agree that any of the above tasks are more difficult than building a community involving everyone. 

When we, as a Christian church, start to love people as who they are and not who the world sees them as, that's when we start to see God in different ways. That's when God reveals Himself to us. How have you seen God today?