I suppose today would be a good to share.
There’s been so many opportunities to write and potential prompts that I have passed up. There was the snowy walk around the school’s campus that I could have talked about, walking in step with God, making our impression on the world, leaving a legacy. There’s the fixing of my iPad and how it’s symbolic of being healed from brokenness and still having little things that remind you it was once broken. Then there’s my sickness, handling that, but no today I’ll talk about what I learned from speaking to a small crowd of people.
Every Wednesday at our school we have a chapel service where a student, RA, or intern will speak. I have felt the need to speak, we’ll share my story with my school since Winter Break and I didn’t move to New York. I wanted to talk about dreaming with God, holding onto the dreams that he has given us and trusting Him. When I was doing service prep I came across I was directed to John 15 where Jesus tells his followers how He is the vine dresser and we are the vine branches. We are to be attached to the main vine in order to bear fruit. We must abide in Christ and He in us.
In order to pursue life with Christ and to have Him give us he desires of our heart we are to abide in Him, to live every moment, good and bad, with God. It’s so important to live out the moments with God, to dream we him and learn to be content in knowing that God has you where you need to be right now.
I’d like to say I rocked the sermon, and others who heard it might say that, but really it was God. He had been preparing this message for me to share and then He gave me the words to say. It was later this afternoon that I got the most insight on my dreams than I had ever had. This afternoon was so good for me. On one hand, I had a meeting where I was told and directed to delegate more responsibility for the dinner theatre so I wasn’t caring most of the wait. This was such a needed piece of advice. I’ve been trying tondo it on my own for far too long.
Then I had a second meeting. This was one of those conversations that you remember for the rest of your life. There is a gentleman who just joined the staff of our school and his education background is in production. Needlessly to say he has been given authority over arts and worship at the school. We met together to talk about my role at the school, but it became more about me as a person.
I began to tell him more of my dreams (I had already shared a lot in the message earlier). As he sat there listening he nodded a lot and added little words of affirmation. Then when I stopped talking he said,
Greg, it sounds like you have two callings on your life. You feel called to the city, or at least you believe you do. You want to be in this city and you may feel called to live here. Far be it from me to tell you what you’re calling is, but it just doesn’t sit. The second calling, the one I have no question about is you have a calling to a people. You seem to think that you can only reach these people in this city, you are linking these callings. Word of advice don’t limit Gods calling to a place, limit it to a people. You feel called to share the gospel with and share love with the people who are lost, who are trying to find themselves, the artists and if I’m not mistaken in the way you’re talking, but young people at that.
It made so much sense. I do feel called to New York, eventually at some point in time, but more than that I feel called to the weird people the church doesn’t know what to do with, the artists and creative types. And as this many reminded me, these people are not just in New York.
I have been trying to reconcile these two for so long and it never clicked. I think I am afraid to let go of New York in the now because then it won’t happen, but I just need to remind myself that God will fulfil his promises and I am still young. I’ve realised I don’t know where I am going next, but right now I will continue to do what I have feel called to do: reach out to the lost who don’t know who they are, who don’t know what it means to be God’s creation.
God is God, I am not, I can trust that he is good and that he will come through with his promises, no matter the manner in what way, it will come.
Remember, God is fighting for you.