I wish there was an all-encompassing way that I could summarize this past week and all its challenges. To be perfectly honest, it's difficult for me to conjure up the usual mountains overcome, strongholds breeched, or battles won. From a strictly earthly perspective, it probably looked like a lot of disorder, confusion, and lack of communication. I think I probably made more mistakes this week than any other. If there's a Santa Claus of CSM, he's probably put my name on the "Bad Host" list this week.
But as a very wise person once said to me, "We're all human and we all basically suck in one way or another." The truth is, I will mess up. It was inevitable. The specific mistakes I make probably could have been prevented, but the fact remains that whenever I attempt to stand up for Jesus, my unlimited inadequacies will always become all the more visible. It's a learning process. It's part of the journey. It's why you cover more ground when you fall flat on your face than you would if you just took one step.
It's about this point that the unknowable plans of God become so real, for He is a good of the unexpected. He is capable, even when I am not. I may wonder about the hearts of the students in my group and about the lives of the people they interacted with and see nothing but a lot of missed opportunity, but it's still something that needs to be surrendered back to God. Maybe he has done and is doing a lot more than I perceive. He seems to enjoy being glorified through weakness and foolishness.
For now however, I have the joy (and I do mean joy!) of accepting what has happened and doing everything I can to grow from it. To drastically paraphrase St. Paul in Philippians 3:12-14, "Life is a highway, but I wanna drive it all night long!" We still got a lot of ground to cover, but wow, do we have one awesome navigator! Stay laughing and keep your eyes on the horizon!
- Jake, CSM Toronto City Host Summer 2008
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