NYWC - Thoughts from day 1

“What is it that God is saying to you right now?” Those were my exact words earlier this week as I stood in front of the freshmen class. We had just finished talking about the story of God speaking to Moses at the burning bush, a story that for me has been extremely significant. It’s funny how your words can come back to you.

This morning when while we were getting ready Ben told me about a story that he had been reading in John chapter 9. It’s the story of Jesus healing a blind man. Jesus puts some mud on his eyes and sends him to wash in a pool. Afterwards the blind man goes away and gets caught up in conversation with his neighbors and then with the Pharisees. A little bit later this is what happened…

He [Jesus] found the man and said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?"
The man answered, "Who is he, sir, because I would like to."
"You have seen him," Jesus said, "and he is speaking to you!"
"Yes, Lord," the man said, "I believe!" And he worshiped Jesus.

It’s funny how this man had spoken with Jesus before (Jesus healed him, remember) and when he meets up with Jesus again he doesn’t have any idea who he’s talking to. And I wonder, how often do I do this? How often do I have a blind conversation with God (by blind here I mean not realizing it’s Him – not realizing that the dialog in my head is me speaking with Jesus) and then I turn around and start looking for Him. How often do students that I work with hear the very voice of God and don’t even recognize that it’s been Him talking to them all along, calling them onward in their search for Him?

Last year I sat in this same crowd at this same convention and I listened to God say to me, “Stop trying to change the world.” It was tough to hear and it didn’t make any sense to me. What about all of my ambition, and passion, and vision, and ideas, and desire for impact, and being profound, and my will, and…

I wish I was profound.

I was going through the little cards that my students gave me and I read this verse…
Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope. - Ephes. 3:20
Maybe that’s what’s wrong with ambition – it’s always too small.

And since last year I’ve felt like something has been dying inside of me. It’s been hard to put my finger on it. I’ve spent time evaluating about every area of my life, searching for what was out of place. It just seems like all my ambition and passion has been slipping away from me and every time I see someone leading with ambition I get frustrated because it reminds me of how I used to be, and the way I used to dream.

Earlier today I listened to Phil Vischer (founder of Big Idea, the group that created Veggie Tales, and the voice of Bob the Tomato). He spoke of a similar death inside of him that took place when his company went bankrupt, and he said something that really struck me. He noticed that gradually, his desire for impact was being replaced by a desire for God. Maybe that’s been the problem. God said, “No other God’s before Me” (not even the God of impacting the world for Me). As the deer pants for the water, so my soul pants for….. what does my soul pant for?

It’s like God won’t leave it alone because after listening to Bob the Tomato talk about letting go of vision in order to embrace God himself. I went to dinner and over dinner Ben and I were talking about how the whole theme of the day has been, “Your relationship with God is more important to Him than what you can do for Him.” I think I’ve known that but have kept living as if I had something to prove to God and everybody else. My soul pants for impact.

So then tonight we listened to Donald Miller. He’s so profound. Reading his books is just like listening to him speak; insightful and fun. I was thinking of all of my students and wishing that they could be here with me listening with me. They’d learn a lot from him.

Just in case I hadn’t gotten the point yet, they showed Rob Bell’s newest Nooma video entitled, breathe. Guess what passage Rob uses to kick off his little message… Moses and the burning bush. It’s funny how what you say comes back to you.

Ok God, I’m listening.