Refreshed

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Even Though

~Stephen Toon~

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I will worship you

Even though my soul be downcast,

I will lift my head to you

I will worship you

Even though my heart does wander

I will bring it back to you

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You are worthy, O God

In whom else could I trust?

All is foolishness

Compared to you

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I will worship you

Though the world is ever changing

Lord you still remain the same

I will worship you

Enemies surround me always

I will put my trust in you

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You are worthy, O God
In whom else could I trust?
All is foolishness
Compared to you

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What an amazing weekend. It was such a gift to me in so many ways. First of all, it was simply refeshing to be back at Kawkawa: to take in the absolute beauty of the place, to see familiar faces, to be received with love by the friends I have there. Second, taking a whole weekend to play was just what I needed in this busy season. I played games, swam, hiked, and kayaked. I joked and laughed and told silly stories in the company of friends. I played with some very cute kids and got to know some great new friends.

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Most importantly, I learned something new about God and about myself. Or maybe I was just remined of this, I don't know. Either way, it was what I needed to hear. The speaker, Tony Dolfo-Smith, was talking about blessings and about the importance of moving from belief to trust in our faith. I won't go into details here about the specifics of his talks, but I do want to highlight what I feel that God was teaching me. A big part of it was that I need to learn to see his blessings differently. So often I see blessings as only good things that God gives (specifically, good things that *I* want). Since when do I get to tell God how to bless me? I want to learn to see more clearly the blessings I receive, even though they may not be what I want at the time, and even though they may be painful. This weekend showed me, among other things, that I need to (continue to) devellop a "God-perspective" and trust that he has only the best in mind for me. That way, even though things may not be gonig the way I'd hoped they would, I can know without a doubt that it's because God has something better for me. And secondly, I need to be less afrad of being "different." That's what God is calling me to be: radically different that what this culture expects or sees as normal (hee hee, well who says I'm normal, anway? ;)

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I think, though, that the biggest thing that stands out for me, and it's not something new, is that God requires the complete surrender of my whole being, no matter the cost. That includes the plans and dreams that I have for myself. Tony said, "It is impossible to follow God and not be led away from something we love." It's hard for me to even understand what all that means: "complete surrender," "my whole being," etc. What do I need to surrender? How do I do that? And it's scary to wonder what it is that I love so dearly (or that I'm hanging on to too tightly?) that God will lead me away from. Yes, it's easy to believe. Much harder to act on that belief, that is, to trust. But it's not all doom and gloom: giving things up, living a life of surrender: "Whoever finds his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." (Matt 10:39) Again, as Tony said, "The real blessing we will recieve is not the life we think we want/should have, but the real blessing will be God himself." I'm not claiming to understand this all fully, and I'm especially not claiming to be doing this. It's just what I'm going to be mulling over and asking God about for the next while (ha ha, more like for the rest of my LIFE!).

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God, I do believe, help my unbelief.

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