My Last Semester....to the tune of O Holy Night

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while. This semester we were really short staffed at the school, so I've been feeling the consequences of being overworked. Due to this, my communication back home has suffered. My sincerest apologies. To make up for my lack of blogging, I've decided to do this one in a more creative way than my usual posts. So here is my semester....as told by the classic Christmas carol "O Holy Night".

"Oh holy night! The stars are brightly shining. It is the night of our dear Savior's birth"
Jesus wasn't literally born this semester. But typical to the traditional Christmas story, he has shown up amidst the most unlikely circumstances. See back in the day, this happened in Bethlehem. Bethlehem is literally described as "too little to be among the clans of Judah" (Micah 5:2). Although it was the place of the prophecy, it was a place that was unlikely for God to choose to be born. It was a place of little importance. And when Jesus was born, it was announced to some unlikely characters. Being a shepherd wasn't a glamorous job or one of much importance. The magis from the East weren't even part of God's chosen people but lived in a pagan land.  They were not the people we might have suspected that the birth of a Savior would be announced to. But God typically doesn't show up in the ways or places we would expect.

This truth was very true in my semester. There were moments I really thought God would show up like in Bible class where He did last year. He didn't always show up there in the ways I wanted Him to. Where He did show up was the places I wasn't looking though, the places that I ruled Him as out for the count. And it was always the places where I needed that birth of hope, the birth that only a Savior could provide.

"Long lay the world in sin and error pining" 
As a result of my overworked-ness this semester, I went through a really rough time of complete and utter burnout. When I wasn't at work I couldn't help but think about work and I began to feel guilty doing other things, because I was so overwhelmed with what I had to do. My hope of that ever getting better dissipated. I looked for nothing more than mere day to day survival. As this was happening, it also became harder to keep my emotions in check. My relationships with my roommates got rocky because I was so cranky all the time. I would sometimes get short tempered with my students. It was often in those interactions I had where I lost it with my students that I really was reminded of how sinful I can be. How angry. How merciless. How in need of Someone to change me because this was not something I could overcome on my own. It was because of the awareness of sin that I really felt this semester, that I really started to feel that distance from Jesus that I had never meant to get there but somehow crept in. And in that my soul started pining for that restoration to the relationship we once had, and started pining for the change that only He could produce in me.

"Til He appeared and the soul felt it's worth"
In the middle of this, somehow I forgot my soul's worth. I became obsessed with being the best tool I could be for God and forgot that He loves and sees value in me as a person.

Now the turning point in my semester came about a month ago. I got in a fight with my roommate. After walking away until I could collect my emotions and think a little more logically, I came and sat down at our kitchen table with both my roommates. We talked for a few hours about how I had been doing and what we could do to help me. It was also this week that I also first shared with my Bible study group how I'd been doing and asked for their prayers. It was after these events that I all of a sudden started feeling better. Months of hopelessness was flushed away and I felt happy for the first time in a long time. I believe this was God moving in response to the prayers of my roommates and Bible study friends. My situation didn't change so there is no other explanation.

As Jesus showed up, I began to remember how much God valued me as a person. Not for what I could do for Him, but because He loved me. That meant I had to really take care of that person and start living more as a child of God than a slave for Him. My soul really started to feel its worth again.

"A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn."
As much as this semester has made me worn out and weary, I can't help but to fill that excitement of hope again. Although it felt like I was walking through the valley of the shadow of death, if you will, I realized that even there Jesus can show up. And his presence makes a difference. It is the light that chases away the shadow of death, that restores the weary world and gives hope. I'm excited for this new chapter of this school year that has been unlocked by His presence and hope. I'm excited to see what He does and how He works.

"Fall on your knees! Oh hear the angel voices, 'O night, o night divine, o night that Christ was born"
Looking at what God has done this semester, how he has unlocked hope in my life and restored my soul, I can't help but falling on my knees to worship. It truly is a gift divine that Jesus would come to the world and unlock hope for us all. This Christmas, that's what I'm grateful for. The hope that only Jesus can bring.

The Grace to Grow Up

It's now my second year of teaching. I'm basically a professional. Many of my students I've had in class before. With my Geometry class especially, it's been awesome because I already know what they know mathematically so we've been able to pick up where we left off.

But one thing I've noticed since returning is this: my kids are growing up. My once awkward and shy freshman are now obnoxiously confident sophomores. My once obnoxiously confident 8th graders are now awkward and nervous little freshman. My old sophomores are transforming into leaders as they join the ranks of the upperclassmen. It's cool to watch this process.

In so many ways, high school is a hugely important time of life as far as development. It's the time of life when students really start to break away from what parents and adults say and start to form their own beliefs about things. It's a time when they discover what they think about things and begin to think about who they want to be. I feel like in many of my students' lives, I am getting a front row seat to that this year whether they realize what's going on or not.

And realistically this process doesn't end in high school. No, it's a long painful drawn-out process that we continue to undergo in our early adulthood. I may be graduated from school and working a real "grown-up" job now, but I am still in this process. And one of the big things with this process is you mostly learn by making a whole bunch of mistakes. At least, that's how I do most of my learning. Yes, I realize this is the third time I forgot to bring that electricity bill along to pay. Right, I understand I shouldn't have given the students that much trust and independence. Etc, etc, etc. Although I am somewhat successfully "adulting", I still make a lot of mistakes. I'm in many ways young and naive. Just like my students are.

I've recently looked around and realized that most of my friends are older than me too. Like 4 or more years at least. And while they maybe don't have it all figured out, they at least have things way more figured out than I do. Now they definitely don't lord that over me, but instead they give me grace. They patiently let me make my mistakes and learn and grow. They give suggestions and support, but ultimately still let me make my choice even if its not always the best one.

I recently have realized how grateful I am for the gentleness, grace and patience they give me. Because I realize as I deal with my students in their growing pains learning experiences, its not always easy to give. Sometimes I just wish they would already be at my level of maturity and it wouldn't be this long drawn out process. But I'm praying this year I would have that gentleness, grace and patience with them to lovingly guide and support them without trying to prevent them from making mistakes by me controlling the situation. We owe it to each other as we grow up to show that kind of love and patience with each other.

One of the biggest reasons we owe this to each other is because this is how the Lord deals with us. He knows that as our faith starts, we don't know much and we make mistakes. But He lovingly guides us to "mature" over time. It's not that we will stop making mistakes, but God has given us the grace to get back up, shake off the dust and keep going for each time we fall down. And today I'm thankful for that because that's exactly what I need. Let us thank God for the grace He gives us in growing up and let us give that grace to each other more fully.

A Better Reward

I'm currently in a 90 day Bible reading challenge with my roommate and some girls she goes to Bible study with. It's been a lot of reading each day but it is cool to read the Bible this fast to see major themes that you otherwise miss. It's been giving me a lot bigger picture look at events and how they fit in the puzzle. 

Today I just finished reading about all the battles in the book of Joshua. In short the story goes: there were 12 tribes in Israel. God leads them out through a guy named Moses. Moses is to lead them into the promised land, which would be super duper awesome. Moses sends spies into this promised land, and although they see how super duper awesome it is, they say 'It might be great, but we could never overtake those people'. Two spies say 'No, with God on our side we can.' (The names of these spies are Caleb and Joshua.) God decides since that generation doesn't have faith that they'll take a walk in the desert for the next 40 years until all but Caleb and Joshua drop dead. Moses dies, Joshua takes over as leader. Joshua then leads the people into the promised land and by the Lord's command in every town they defeat, they burn it to the ground. Nothing is to remain. 

Now I'm not a military specialist, but this seems like an over the top plan to me. Sure, maybe it would be great to not leave any of our enemies living. Then they can't attack us. That makes sense. But burn the entire town to the ground? Isn't this excessive? Those were perfectly good towns Lord! But with every town they burned to the ground, never to be rebuilt again, they were displaying a trust in the Lord. A trust that says "I know that what I see is good, but I know in this act of obedience You will bless me with what is better." The Israelites had to trust that the Lord would provide them with better cities before they chose to burn down the cities they captured of their enemies. We often have to make a similar choice.

This choice might have to do with sin in our lives. James 1:14-15 says "But each one is tempted when by his own evil desires he is lured away and enticed. Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin when it is fully grown, gives birth to death."  Sin is appealing. It is something we desire. But sin leads to a separation with a Holy God. And He gave us the Law through Moses to show us what holiness is so we can live in better relationship with this Holy God by following the Law. We ultimately couldn't do that so Jesus was sent to cure that eternal separation problem. Yet sin still separates us from the Lord today. Now what God tells us to do with sin is no different than what He told Joshua to do with those enemy towns: "Destroy everything. I don't want any traces left of what will separate me and you." And we, as believers, need to trust that God is better and His plan for us is better than that sin in our lives for us to overcome it.

This similar choice also might have to do with good things in our lives. Yes, God is the giver of good gifts. But He also calls anyone who wants to be a Christian to "deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." We're called into a life of denial. I often hear among the LGBT community in particular, "If I was made with these desires, how can it be wrong?" or "Isn't love a good thing?" But the thing is that it's not just them (although Christians often like to target them), but we all have desires that we are called to deny. I serve as a missionary. Recently I've been thinking about whether that will be a long-term position for me or not. As I think about that it's hard not to think about the ways the Lord has called me to deny myself of good things. Like if I stay on the field long-term, I am most likely giving up a husband and consequently kids. Yes, I would love a family of my own some day, but know that the odds of getting that while working in another country is slim. And to stay here long term, that's a denial I'll need to be okay with. (Whether I am or not is another story that I haven't quite figured out yet.)  I also am denying myself a dependable income from a "real" job, even though that's a good thing. Denial of good things is sometimes necessary to be closer to the Great Thing (that is God). Don't assume that just because something is good that God wouldn't call you to give it up. 

Going into the subject of denial, I want to talk about a group that the Lord seemed to really deny as they went into the promised land. They were called the Levites. The Levites were the people set aside to be the priests of God. Something that Moses continually reminded the Levites before they entered was that they got no land to claim as their own. Instead as all of their brothers and fellow Israelites got land, the Lord just told them "You will have no inheritance in their land, nor will you have any share among them; I am your share an your inheritance among the Israelites." (Numbers 18:20) And this phrase appears over and over. God's constantly reminding them, as people who serve Me, I will give you nothing but Me! I'm sure some of them probably felt ripped off. I mean how could God give them no land? What's the deal? But again they must trust that God is better than the land would be. 

Again as I think about the potential of life long-term in the mission field, being a missionary is much like being a Levite. I rely on a team of supporters; I don't have a way to support myself. I am not building for myself a home, because as a missionary I live pretty simply. And because as someone God has called away, you never know when the call to leave will be. With people coming and going all the time, there seems to be a lack of permanence no matter how long you're there. But in this Levite-like existence, it's somehow easier to see God. There's less distractions on my time and attention. He's more at work as I seek to actively serve Him. And I'm reminded of just how good it is to be with the Lord, closely communing with Him. But the choice is always: Is He better than....? 

The entirety of our lives is made up of choices. You made the choice to read this blog. You chose what to eat to day. You may not think you have much say, but you have some choice in where you live (even if its with your parents, you could have chose the park bench). And what God asks all of us is will you turn to Me in those choices? This will often look like giving things up, but will you decide I'm worth it? And I challenge you to ask yourself what the Lord might be calling you to give up to gain that better reward of His closeness. 

A Wall of Memories

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted last. Life has been very busy with school ending last week. Now that it's over though, my roommates and I have been doing some work around the house. One of the things we decided to do that we've talked about for a while is make a memory wall. It's a combination of pictures and quotes we've collected throughout the year. I've included a picture of the memory wall at the bottom if you want to see my roommate, Claire, and I's awesome home decorating skills. I've also included some of my favorite pictures from the wall here.

With everything we've done to decorate and clean up in the last few days, I think this wall is the most important thing. I think it's such an important thing because the act of remembering is an important one.

Moto ride to right before this guy's bike broke down lol

It's important for me to remember....that life here is filled with good things, fun things, and lots of adventure. You might be thinking, "Well how could you forget that? You went overseas!" And taking a trip overseas is all of those things all of the time (I imagine...I haven't really ever done the whole vacation thing in foreign countries). But living in another country often yields a different reality. For a period of about a month, we had power and water outages every day for several hours a day. That's not fun. Waiting in a line for extraordinary amounts of time at supermarkets isn't fun. Navigating another culture day in and day out can be exhausting. But for all of the times that it's hard, it's important to remember that being a missionary isn't this terrible life of suffering that the Lord has called us to. It's more often a life of blessing, a life of good times and awesome friends, and a life of adventure.

It's important to remember....that my work doesn't define me.  Let's be real. We all know teachers work crazy amounts of hours to make things awesome for their students. With lessons to be planned, papers to be graded, and messes to clean up, there's always something more you could do. And when I share with people why I moved over here, it is about my job. I moved here to serve my students and I get to do that through teaching. Even when I have breaks, it's often dedicated to the other part of my job: being a good missionary and updating supporters. Yet I am not just a missionary teacher. I exist instead the way every human does: to love and to be loved. My memories help remind me there's so much more to life than the everyday grind I often get stuck in seeing.

My 3 rocks this year :)

It's important to remember...that as crazy as my friends sometimes make me here, my life without them would drive me more crazy. One thing that's interesting about living overseas is the ex-patriot friends you have to choose from here are very limited. Not that local friends aren't great, I've made a number of those here too, but friends who I don't have to think about cultural expectations with because we have similar backgrounds can be really nice. I've got a pretty tight group of about 3 girls here and we often are reminded that we would never be friends in America where the selection pool is larger. Sometimes they do things like analyze the moral meaning of Tarzan as I'm trying to enjoy a simple childhood classic, or perform gymnastic maneuvers mid-conversations, or not come home from every shopping trip with an ice cream cone for me, and I think, "Man, these guys I'm stuck with are so weird." But it's important to remember that these guys are here when I need to cry things out, they're my exploring companions, and they make my life  a lot more fun. Because sometimes they do things like hammock over night on a beach with me, join random karaoke parties with strangers with me, do really bizarre things like ride escalators backwards when Filipinos are staring so they'll think all Americans do a certain weird thing, or buy me ice cream. It's important to remind myself in those hard moments of these good moments I have with them.

Brenna, the student teacher roomie and I

It's important to remember...that despite the revolving door of hellos and goodbyes that are constant in the overseas life, relationships are worth it. Tomorrow we're dropping of one of my group of 4 at the airport as she moves back to the States. And she's not the first friend who has flown out either for furlough (a year in which a missionary goes back to the States to support raise and rest), for the summer, or for good. And good byes are hard. Earlier this year, my roommate and I had a student teacher live with us for a few months and this student teacher and I became really close. When she left, at the end of some days I would go to her room to tell her something to see that it was empty. I'd want to do something we used to do together but have no one to do it with anymore. It's hard when you're the one staying behind as the people around you leave. And soon, I'll be going back to Michigan where I said some hard good byes a year ago. And for every hello I get to say there, it will always be accompanied by a goodbye. It's hard being the one who constantly leaves. But the answer to this can not be emotional distance and walls or you miss out on the fun memories, the friendships you need and the awesome people around you. Our memory wall reminds me these relationships are worth it as hard as the goodbyes have been or will be.

It's important to remember...that the America I go back to in a few short days will not be the America I remember...but I will also not be the Kacie it remembers and that's okay. Over the last few days, I've been thinking about habits that I've picked up over here that I'll need to be aware that people will look at me like I'm weird for when I go to America in a few short days. Like eating only with a fork and spoon. Like pointing with my whole hand and signaling people over with my hand facing down. Like calling toilet paper "tissue", bathrooms "CR"'s and never using the word napkin for the thing I wipe my face with at the dinner table (napkin refers to feminine hygiene products over here). And it's not just habits, but I've also been a student of the bigger things of culture. Like Filipinos value relationships, where Americans often value time and efficiency and often one has to be sacrificed for the other. Filipinos value the group, where Americans value individualism and uniqueness. And there are more. And it's important to remind myself that America really isn't that great (or that terrible), and the Philippines really isn't that great (or that terrible), but both cultures I live in have good and bad elements. And it's okay to appreciate both and to be a product of both, taking the best I know from each.

Our Memory Wall

This memory wall we erected today serves as a reminder for all of these things. And reminders are an important thing. In Old Testament times, when someone met with God they would often build an alter there as a reminder. God gave the people feasts and festivals to celebrate during the year as reminders of what He had done. After Moses got the Law, God told him to talk about the commandments constantly and to "write them on the door frame of your house and on your gates" (Deuteronomy 11:20). The Lord knows we need to set up for ourselves reminders of what He has done and of the blessings we have. When our soul wants to dwell on the bad, we can use these reminders to help us come back to the good. The Psalms are filled with echoes of these thoughts, "Look soul, I get things are tough and you want to be a whiney baby but remember what the Lord has done for you! Keep holding on to your hope and praise Him!" If pictures can serve as a reminder to me that I need to do that, I'll cover the house! What reminders have you set up in your life to remember your blessings and praise the Lord?

Driven by Vision

Currently I'm reading a book on leadership. By currently I mean like I put it down 15 minutes ago because what I was reading was driving me crazy. The chapter was on leaders being driven by vision, who then share that with their followers who are motivated and inspired to share in that vision. This chapter was driving me crazy because this used to be my life. Envisioning. Inspiring. Empowering. And this flame is something that needs to be re-lit in my new stage of life. Redefined. Rediscovered. Maybe writing will help. Maybe it won't.

Currently I reminisce though. I'm a leader in a college ministry. My vision is to make disciples of Christ who make disciples of Christ. My entire life revolves around this statement, which on one hand is so simple and on the other is so profound. Running small groups. Discipling up-and-coming leaders. Setting big picture visions and dreams into play with our leadership team and then delegating those dreams to people who would turn them into realities. Empowering and encouraging others in their God-given talents and helping direct them into how to use that for the Lord. This was my motivation, this was my entire waking and sleeping life, this was everything. Not once did it ever grow old or tiring. Not once did I ever say "I need a break from this". This my passion, my pursuit, my heartbeat. And I still get texts from those younger generations of leaders I mentored telling me about what they're now doing for the Lord. Clearly this was a work with dividends.

Now about a year later, I sit in another country. I teach as a missionary. I've given up my entire life for the Gospel, and yet.....it feels like I'm living less for the Gospel. That my impact is smaller. That my spiritual gifts haven't been as well-utilized as they once were. But I am confident of this: God did call me here. And I don't believe God ever calls us to a place of smaller impact, of less opportunity. I don't believe that God calls us to a place where we can only serve in limited ways that don't fit well with the way He designed. And I don't believe God calls us to a place where we'll be less passionate about what we are doing than what we were doing. The problem therefore must not be where I am. It must be my vision.

You can determine a person's vision by looking at their actions. If I envision myself to be an all-A student, I will spend more time studying. My vision drives me. If I envision myself to be an all-star basketball player, I will spend a lot of timing shooting hoops and working out. My vision is my motivator. When I was in college, I envisioned making disciples who made disciples. So I spent my time investing in others and their growth. Thinking about where I am now, I don't know that my actions are even focused enough to say I have a vision! I spend a lot of time planning lessons to help my students learn about their classes. And it makes my heart glad when a student says something like, "I like polynomials Miss Leneway. They're so cute!" (True quote.) But honestly, I can't picture my vision being as small as making people love math. When will that ever change the world? Likewise I coach basketball. When I see my girls looking for more opportunities to play now that the season is over that makes my heart glad. But my vision can't be as small as producing all-star basketball players. There is no profit in that. My vision needs to be so much bigger than these roles I am defined by.

Thus tonight I want to wrestle with my vision on this blog some, in hopes that by writing it out, it would become clearer to both you and myself what inspires me to do the work I do here. And by casting this vision, I'm praying that my energy would be refocused, rejuvenated and renewed to serve in a more effective way than I've been doing. A verse that has been inspiring me in this is Philippians 1:9-11: And this is my prayer:

that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight
Although we talk about love at first sight, we know that it's not typical to love someone when you first meet them. The truth is we learn to love people more as we get to know them more. The more we get to know someone, the more we begin to understand them. I know my best friend so well if you told me what she did, I could probably tell you why she did it. I could tell you about her hopes and dreams. I could tell you about how she will react to certain news. My love for my best friend is a love that is full of knowledge and insight because I've spent so much time getting to know her. And this knowledge in turn helps me love my best friend better.

In the same way, our love for Jesus is supposed to grow in knowledge and depth of insight. Having this desire to grow my students' love for the Lord in this way is something that really moves me. In my Bible class, we've been reading the book of Acts. My goal is for my students to be wrapped up in the story, enthralled by the way the Lord was moving in the early church. And it took a while to get there, but I'm starting to see that. Every once in a while, I hear them say "I can't believe he would do that!" or "That is so like the Sadducees to act that way!" or "Miss Leneway, do you think they were really still mad about....? Or were they just jealous because the disciples were starting to get more popular than them?" This story is coming alive in Bible class! But we could have that passion and still have no knowledge or understanding of what's actually going on or how to apply it to our lives. That's not what I want. So I make sure to challenge my students and to give them tools to continue to grow their knowledge and insight of the Bible even when not in Bible class.

But when only 25% of my teaching time is Bible class, this can't be enough! I need to have that passion that all of my students will learn to have a love for Christ that can not be satisfied. That their love for Him would be ever-increasing so that they just want to know and understand him more and more. That's my vision for my students. That's what I want to impart on them. A growing love for the Lord.

so that you may be able to discern what is best
I also am big on not wanting my followers to need me. When I was raising leaders in my college ministry, my motto was to raise leaders who do a better job than I could ever do and who can touch more lives than I ever could. Part of that is growing an independence in those followers and making sure they know how to hear from the Lord themselves. Never can I grow a dependency on me, I can only point to a dependency and reliance on Christ.

With my students likewise, I want to produce an independence in them. I want them to be able to use their knowledge of who God is, who He has designed them and His vision for the world to be a filter for which they learn how to make decisions. I want them not to have to ask me what the Lord would have them do in this situation, but be able to figure it out themselves because they know the Lord so intimately. At first, these questions will be essential for me to address. But this needs to be done with the intention of producing independent Christ-followers who can listen to God for themselves as well as looking for wisdom through the other members of Christ's body.

and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, 
At the same time that my students are learning to discern what's best, I want them to learn how to be pure and blameless. In my years of experience, I've seen how sin never satisfies in the way you think it will. I've seen how it can create slavery and bondage, both in my own life and in the lives of others. And I've seen the wreckage and carnage it leaves in its wake. And man, I don't want my students to learn that the hard way. I just want them to want Jesus so badly that sin doesn't have a chance to hurt them. That they really would be able to stand pure and blameless because of that growing knowledge and love of the Lord that leads to right action.

filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ-
The right action that comes with loving and knowing the Lord is not just one that stays away from sin, but one that pursues good works and righteous acts. And I don't want my students to do this because they think they have to or to improve anyone's perception of them, but because they love Jesus so much that it doesn't make sense not to. Because at the end, Jesus will know the motivation of their hearts. When he gets to my students, I want him to say to them, "Well done good and faithful servant!" I want my students to have done so much good for Christ that their treasures in heaven make my own pile look puny.

Practically, I want to see these students reaching out to non-believers that they know. Or if they don't know any, finding some nonbelievers and building those relationships so they can share Christ! I want to see my students pushing each other to make godly decisions. I want to see students sharing with each other visions of what they'd like to see God doing and encourage each other in how to pursue those. I want to see my students helping other disciples grow in their spiritual maturity. And I want more than anything for them to find life and passion in doing this.

to the glory and praise of God! 
And as all of this happens, I don't want us ever to forget the one to whom the credit is due. I don't want to take any praise for what God's doing in their lives. I don't want them to get credit for what a "good" kid they've become. I want all glory to go to God for an incredible live-changing work that He's done in their lives. I want it to be recognized that before we're living fully for Him, our life is meaningless and He's the only one who can give it meaning. And I don't want either them, myself or those who are watching to ever get that wrong but to constantly come back before the Lord celebrating this.







So I think that's my vision. To produce students that love the Lord so deeply that they would inspire others to do the same. My next step? Figure out how to make this dream a reality. Pray for me as I do.

And I encourage you: Before you go to bed tonight, think about what your vision is. If you don't think you have one, if you can't boil it down to a sentence that you can come back to when the going gets tough or when you're in need of direction, work on that. Ask God to guide you. Because your vision drives you, and living into a God-given vision is the most rewarding thing you could do with your life. If you have a vision, think about what steps you need to be taking to make that vision a greater reality in your life. Embody your vision. Inspire others to join you in your vision. After all, without vision we merely fumble around in the darkness.

Basketball.....And the Restoration of All Things

Recently I've gotten to play a lot of basketball. And coach a lot of basketball. And watch a lot of basketball. Which is awesome because basketball is definitely one of my top 5 loves (after God, family, friends, and coffee of course....) It's just been really awesome because this love has been gone from my life for the last few years while that whole thing called college hit my life. And what's truly amazing to me is not just that God has chosen to give back to me this part of my life, but He's choosing to use it for good and His glory. Which wouldn't necessarily be this awesome, except that sports in a huge way represents a time when I wasn't living for God. Let me give you some background so you can be amazed too. 

Sports was my life growing up. Even as a child, when we weren't in school, I could remember playing touch football in the streets, basketball in our driveway, and teeball in the backyard. This is what consumed our summer days and the evenings after school. It was something I was good at and loved to do. 

In middle school and high school, I began to get to play in a more organized fashion. I played many different sports, but my love was always basketball. But looking back now, who I was when I played is not a person I'm proud of. It's not a person that at all looked to further God's glory. Instead it was all about me: How good can I be? Will people like me more if I play well? What kind of recognition can I get for this? And on top of that, I was a dirty player. I remember a coach telling me early in my high school career that I was the strongest kid in the league and I needed to learn to use that asset. And I did. I learned to push and shove my opponent around. I made a lot of enemies on other teams, and not a whole lot of friends. I often played dirty when the ref wasn't looking and as I got older learned to channel lots of anger and frustration into my play. 

As I went on to college, I joined my school's dodgeball team. Dodgeball was an incredibly fun sport, but also became a terrible influence on my life. My teammates largely weren't Christians and didn't have the same sense of morality I was raised with. Slowly this began to rub off on me. Additionally there is no sport more conducive to hotheadness and anger than dodgeball. While I loved playing, I often found this anger rising up within me as I played. And it was hard to hide. While I played on the team, I don't know that anything I did ever showed my teammates that I was a Christian. In fact, the way I acted with my team was something I hid from my Christian friends. When I first began realizing what it meant to live for Christ, that part of my life became my shame. It was my junior year after I came back from my first summer serving at camp that I quit dodgeball. It was then I began to take my faith seriously and knew I couldn't make those pieces of my life line up. And until this year, I haven't really touched sports since. 

Then this year I was asked to coach the middle school girls team here at the school I work at in the Philippines. Our motto for the season was "Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God." (1st Corinthians 10:31). Whatever you do includes play basketball. And weekly we tried to discover what that meant. I led this girls on the court and in devotions. I looked for ways to build connections, furthering my ministry here at the school and hopefully building those relationships where I can continue to guide them in a positive and meaningful way. Even now that the seasons over, my girls tell me how much they miss basketball so I'm looking into opportunities currently to open up the court for a little open gym for them. 

Not only has my love for basketball lead me to meaningful relationships with my students, but is leading me into ways to build relationships in the community. Whether it's playing with the girls from church or playing with some ladies who don't know Christ, basketball is quickly becoming my common ground with locals and a huge way to connect with people whose background is so different than mine. 

As I've been meditating on this great progress that God has made in my life, this verse really has stood out to me: The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work. (1st John 3:8b). Basketball was never a bad thing. God gave man the idea to create it with such beautiful intentions. But the devil, like he did in the garden, took and distorted what was meant for good. He made something that was inherently good, and made it into something it was never intended to be. But Jesus comes to undo that work. He says, "I'm taking back what's good and once again turning it back into good. Satan doesn't get to distort my work anymore." The book of Colossians tells us "For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through himself reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, which was shed on the cross" (Colossians 1:19-20). Where Satan looked to destroy, Jesus looked to redeem. And Jesus, my friends, has won. So no longer do my shoes need to be hung up, my jerseys put in a closet where no one can see, because Jesus has done the redemptive work of turning what was once a destructive force in my life into a constructive force for His kingdom. Praise God for giving me back this love and such a great second chance!