The best week of my life

On this past Friday (June 24, 2011) at 1pm the best week of my life ended.

This was my second year at WVA. So my expectations were high. But the staff, lectures and students easily  exceeded them. I learned more in these 6 days than I learned in the entirety of last year. And not only did I learn more about the nature of my Lord and Savior, but I also learned a lot about myself as well.

I learned that it's not me doing God's work. Ever. No matter how hard I try, I can never accomplish anything on my own. It's always God. All I can do is follow closely, pushing my bubble mower behind Him as we mow the lawn together.
To me, this is the most comforting thing in the world. One of  the things I struggle with most in life is self consciousness. Wondering whether people are going to accept or reject me. But if it's God doing all the work, I don't have to worry about messing up. His will is going to be accomplished not matter what I do.
This was especially helpful when we went evangelizing on Wednesday. Which was quite an eye-opening experience. Sometimes I think we, as Christians, sort of disregard the fact that there are people out in the world with a different set of beliefs than us. People destined for eternal separation from God if we stand idly by.

I also learned that with my new found attitude of taking the focus off me, it's easy to make friends and develop relationships. I made some friends this past week that I will never forget. And hopefully never lose contact with. The pure fellowship at camp, a fellowship driven by the sole purpose of going deeper into a relationship with God, is something I haven't been able to find anywhere else. It's easy to walk into a church and run into hundreds of people just going through the motions. At WVA, you have the best of the best. Those committed to a Christ-like existence. My favorite part of the week was our coming together at the end of the night to worship through song. When the guitar would pause and every voice cried out to God in unison. Those are the moments I live for.

It's hard to sum up in words all that went down at camp this year. I'm leaving out many lecture topics and many events that took place. But I guess the most important thing I took away from camp is that anyone with influence is a leader. That means that I am a leader. Whether I like it or not. The only choice I have in the matter is what kind of a leader I am going to be. What kind of example am I going to set for those watching?

I wish to be an example of humility. Of servitude. And of grace.
The word grace always brings to mind the words of my favorite hymn, O Come Thou Fount. One of the first lines goes as follows, "Tune my heart to sing they grace."
Now, I have no idea if I am interpreting this correctly, but when I sing this song I imagine God as a great crafter of instruments. He takes my heart, like a violin, and tightens the strings so that they perfectly play this melody of grace. That may sound cheesy, but to me it's an awesome metaphor for God training and changing my heart so that it may extend love and forgiveness to those around me.
I know that I will not always exceed in this goal. But I would rather hold myself to a high standard and fall short than not hold myself to any standard and remain the same, apathetic person my whole life.
And I realize that by saying this I am making myself a target for anyone watching. A target for criticism and doubt.
But with God doing all the work, I cannot fail. So I will relinquish my delusion of control on my own life and see where he takes me. Because every time I let God call the shots, my life ends up way better than it was before.

Even though this week had to come to a close, I know the point of it was to prepare me for something even better. I look forward to the day that I step through the pearly gates and meet again, in perfect fellowship with all those from WVA. When we never have to be separated, never have to go back into the real world where life is full of suffering. And we can once again join together in song to praise the name of the Lord.