Growing in the Thorny Soil/Abiding

Oh, I miss all you so muchly!!!

I don't know if any others felt this (although I have a vague hunch this was a common feeling), but after Youth Camp and the baptism, although I was elated to go home and share my love for Jesus with everybody, I was also afraid to leave the safe cocoon of camp. I remember driving home from camp after the final staff meeting (where everyone was crying) and praying for sustenance for the staff as they left Qwanoes.

Two months later. I miss you guys (my brothers and sisters) so much! What a beautiful and raw summer of being shaped and grown by God it was! Looking back, I recall the three weeks of C.I.T. (and two weeks of kitchen) as being times when I was pushed to the edge emotionally, physically exhausted, and naked under the scrutiny of the Holy Spirit. But O, what wonderful scrutiny! How good it felt to learn how to grow and be nourished, to dig one's roots into the soil with an (at first grudgingly) open heart and sprout delicately and tenaciously.

Justin is right. The conditions for growing are harsher out here in the real world. But I have never known anything as fulfilling and beautiful as these past two months, going straight from camp into a secular university where I feel "different". For the first time, however, being a Christ follower is a joy here. It is being worn out from constant work and living in utter dependence on Jesus through each late Chem lab and every time a friend asks a difficult question about my faith that I don't quite know how to answer.

There is a verse in Colossians I have been thinking much about, ever since Youth Camp week, when the speaker spoke about how he had studied Colossians. That made me want to study Colossians. So study Colossians I did. And it's this verse that reminded me of being out in the "real world", surrounded by culture:

"So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. See to it that no one takes you captive by hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ." -Colossians 2:6-8

Rooted and built up in Him. Abiding in Him. Sometimes it's hard to wrench my eyes away from a list of "rules"; do this to be a good Christian, don't do this if you want to be in God's good books. Being a person who loves clear guidelines and rules, it's hard to realize that Jesus loves irrationally and unconditionally. And that all He asks is that we seek Him with our whole heart. With our whole heart.

I love Joshua Harris's words:

"That's what Jesus tells us to do this in John 15. If you want to abide in Jesus, listen to his words. Read his Bible. Let his words live in you. Let his words and his gospel shape your thinking. Talk to him. Pray. Seek to love what he loves. Ask him to do the things that he loves. Abide in his love by keeping his commandments. Obey him even when it's costly.

Abiding isn't complicated. The secret to abiding is simply being desperate for Jesus. The secret to abiding is believing that apart from Jesus you can do nothing."

Selah.

Love you guys!!!!

M