Speed…
The Speed of God
I’m often confused about the seemingly complicated relationship between knowing what it is God wants me to do, and yet following God in terms of making those things happen. Often I’ve had a vision and moved forward on that vision only to find the work difficult and complicated and feeling anything but the presence of God in carrying out whatever that vision might be. This past weekend proved a learning experience for figuring out what that process might look like.
I was in Florida for a speaking event but went down a day early to spend time at a boy’s camp called Gator Wilderness Camp. It’s a camp that takes in boys from the ages of nine-through twelve or so who have already been in trouble with the law. The boys come to the camp and stay for up to two years, living in community, working each day to sustain their community, all the while learning, as a team, how to solve problems, both internal and external. In my day at Gator, we chopped wood, cleaned up around camp, swam in the pond and “circled up” numerous times to solve internal conflicts that happened within the group. The boys lives are truly being transformed there at camp. Some of them who had to be restrained when they arrived, are now clear-thinking leaders and true gentleman. It was an inspirational experience as I processed the methodology of Gator and compared and contrasted it to the work we are doing here in Portland with The Belmont Foundation. And on a three-hour, late-night drive back to Orlando where I would be speaking, I found myself wondering how we could incorporate a camp into our strategy to reach fatherless boys in the Pacific Northwest.
Still, I had to calm myself because I’ve had such visions before and have launched into them only to realize they are full-time jobs that I wouldn’t be able to add to an already over-full schedule. I decided to just give the idea to God, and asked Him to open doors if he wanted it to happen. This was a valuable lesson I learned the previous week through an e-mail correspondence with my friend Bob Goff, the focus of which dealt with what it looks like to let Jesus lead vs. trying to make things happen ourselves.
I spoke in Orlando and ended up connecting with a friend from Portland who offered to get me back to Portland on a special flight. It was on that flight I interacted with a team from here in Oregon who happen to run a large camp. They asked, essentially, what was on my heart and I told them about the camp, about how we could take fatherless boys from Portland and teach them basic skills kids who grow up without fathers often never learn, things like how to tie a tie, how to throw a football, how to talk respectfully to a woman and so on. By the time we landed in Portland, the team on the plane had made plans for me and the Belmont staff to visit the camp and figure out how we might make it happen.
Tonight I met with the Belmont Board here at the house and broached the subject of the camp. You have to know the Belmont Foundation has a national vision to provide mentors for hundreds of thousands of fatherless boys within the next twenty years, and creating a camp had never been a part of that vision. I know the importance of focus, so I offered the board the idea and told them about the possible team that was in place offering their help. But I also knew the Board would be right and just to veto the idea and maintain a strict focus on what it is we have set out to do. But the Board of Directors for the Belmont Foundation are a unique and remarkable group of people. I was floored to hear each member of the board grow more and more excited about the idea of the camp, not only because it would change the lives of kids, but because it was obvious that God was working. We decided to pursue the idea and add it to our focus right then and there. We are going to figure out how to create a week-long camp for boys in the Portland area who are growing up without fathers, based on the fact that it seemed like God was working. And if God wants us to do it, God would continue to provide resources.
And so the process of God planting a seed to start a camp to God providing a possible facility and funding, to a board approving movement on the idea, all happened within seventy-two hours. Anybody who does this sort of thing for a living knows this process often takes years.
I don’t believe this is always the way God works. I know there are times when He intends for us to struggle through our work so we can learn more about Him, more about ourselves, and ultimately the virtues of patience and trust. I don’t mean any of this as a blanket statement about how God works. But the greater lesson I learned throughout all of this is that, in whatever we do, we should be giving God’s vision back to God, and listening carefully to God, obeying Him, surrendering our desires to Him, and ultimately giving Him control and the praise He is due for making things happen. We don’t own our ministries any more than we own our lives.
In my life, I want to give more and more control to God. I know my life may not look anything like I want it to look if I do, but if God is in control, it will be rich and fulfilling and His glory will shine through each adventure. I shutter to think how many months and even years I’ve spent worrying about making something happen, all the while God wanted me to give up control so He could make something happen.
I’ll keep you informed about the camp here in Oregon. To learn more about Gator Wilderness Camp, visit www.gatorwildernesscamp.com. All the best to you as you surrender control to Christ.
