About two weeks ago, I had the awesome opportunity to spend a week in community with other Eau Claire InterVarsity folks at Cedar Campus in the UP of Michigan. We were invited into a week of fellowship with hundreds of other students, in a drop-dead gorgeous setting on the Great Lake Huron.
A wise man said at the beginning of the week something along the lines of if you are open to meeting with God, that He will change you in transformative ways. Man, what a promise. And I believe that to be true. A promise both for those in awestruck wonder as well as those in perceived continuous monotony.
I believe that Cedar Campus is an honest place where created beings can bravely seek out and meet with the LORD God. For myself, this week of “Chapter Focus Week,” was not necessarily a week for myself to focus on anything specific, but a week where I can shrug off the heavy baggage of the year, opening my arms to the God who created me, to say “here I am LORD.”
It is on the shores of Lake Huron, nestled among smooth white-washed stones and mossy roots that God has shown and shared with me some pretty awesome things over the years. Not only the majesty of creation that He has so perfectly orchestrated, but also an ongoing look at how He is still creating in me something new, each day and each year. Often it takes a week staring at a clear horizon of water, being in the Word each day, and being around other folks who are desiring God, to slow down enough to receive.
My week at Cedar consisted of an honest look at myself and an honest look at the past year, through times of quiet with God. Throughout the week, I was challenged by problems in my life that I had viewed as large road-blocks; whether they were difficulties in relationships or issues of isolation or busyness- these were things that I had decided that God was not great enough to redeem. But boy have I been wrong. He will always be greater. That is something that I am still struggling through.
That week for me was about the realization of where I have been putting myself in comparison to God. I’ve been convicted of the ways that much of my attitude and behavior has led my thoughts aimed right back at me, instead of God. When things do not go our way, or as planned, that has when things often get hard.
I kept coming back to the same hard question: Have I viewed the LORD as a way to further my own benefit? Where is my hope truly coming from? Myself or Him?
To be honest, Cedar was a week full of tough questions. It was mixed with frustration as well as triumph. It was a week of celebration and a week of fearful farewells. But it was quite the week, one that I am so thankful for. Amidst all of this junk, I hope to soon share with you too the joys that came out of this week. For there are many. However, I think one of the bravest things we can do as humans is to “sit in our hurt”; not out of self-pity, but as a way of kneeling before God and offering it to Him. For He knows us better than we know ourselves. And He truly is Our Hope.
A wise man said at the beginning of the week something along the lines of if you are open to meeting with God, that He will change you in transformative ways. Man, what a promise. And I believe that to be true. A promise both for those in awestruck wonder as well as those in perceived continuous monotony.
I believe that Cedar Campus is an honest place where created beings can bravely seek out and meet with the LORD God. For myself, this week of “Chapter Focus Week,” was not necessarily a week for myself to focus on anything specific, but a week where I can shrug off the heavy baggage of the year, opening my arms to the God who created me, to say “here I am LORD.”
It is on the shores of Lake Huron, nestled among smooth white-washed stones and mossy roots that God has shown and shared with me some pretty awesome things over the years. Not only the majesty of creation that He has so perfectly orchestrated, but also an ongoing look at how He is still creating in me something new, each day and each year. Often it takes a week staring at a clear horizon of water, being in the Word each day, and being around other folks who are desiring God, to slow down enough to receive.
My week at Cedar consisted of an honest look at myself and an honest look at the past year, through times of quiet with God. Throughout the week, I was challenged by problems in my life that I had viewed as large road-blocks; whether they were difficulties in relationships or issues of isolation or busyness- these were things that I had decided that God was not great enough to redeem. But boy have I been wrong. He will always be greater. That is something that I am still struggling through.
That week for me was about the realization of where I have been putting myself in comparison to God. I’ve been convicted of the ways that much of my attitude and behavior has led my thoughts aimed right back at me, instead of God. When things do not go our way, or as planned, that has when things often get hard.
I kept coming back to the same hard question: Have I viewed the LORD as a way to further my own benefit? Where is my hope truly coming from? Myself or Him?
To be honest, Cedar was a week full of tough questions. It was mixed with frustration as well as triumph. It was a week of celebration and a week of fearful farewells. But it was quite the week, one that I am so thankful for. Amidst all of this junk, I hope to soon share with you too the joys that came out of this week. For there are many. However, I think one of the bravest things we can do as humans is to “sit in our hurt”; not out of self-pity, but as a way of kneeling before God and offering it to Him. For He knows us better than we know ourselves. And He truly is Our Hope.