As much as
I am excited for the busy upcoming summer season at Oakridge and everything
that comes with it, I also have a sense of dread concerning its quickly-approaching
arrival. You see, summer camp means long days and short nights of sleep. It means
quickly eating a meal before going off to run the power bouncers in 90-plus
degree weather. It means having to share living space with the summer staff and
having to work out a shower schedule. It means staying late to finish up dinner
dishes and to clean the dining hall. It means having to run snack shack at 11 o’clock
p.m., when I would have rather been in bed two hours earlier. In short, summer camp means death to self—death
to what I want and my desires, so that I can serve God and
others. Certainly every day of the year presents opportunities for one to die
to one self, but the summer season definitely multiplies those opportunities.
With less sleep, the flesh, or the sinful nature, is more likely to act up, and
it is easy to just think about oneself instead of thinking about others. Well, I’m sick and tired of washing dishes,
so I’m just going to take a fifteen-minute bathroom break, and maybe they’ll be
done with washing dishes by the time I’m back. That is the way that the flesh thinks. Unfortunately, that is
how I’ve sometimes thought.
How can one
trade selfish thinking for unselfish thinking? If the natural tendency is to
think only of oneself, how can one succeed in thinking about others? The answer
is to abide in Christ. What does that
mean though? It is easy to throw out “Christian-ese” terms, but not really know
what they mean. Abiding in Christ means spending
intentional time alone with God. It means spending time reading the Bible
and letting its words soak in deeply, so that one has God’s mind on things as
one goes through the day. It means spending time in prayer, both speaking to
God and allowing Him to speak.
I always
used to hate it when people would quote Isaiah 40:30-31, since it just seems to
be overused. Yet, its words ring true: “Even youths grow tired and weary, and
young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their
strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow
weary, they will walk and not be faint” (NIV 1984). The only way to be able to effectively serve at summer camp and die to
self is to find strength by hoping—by abiding—in Jesus. I am preaching to
myself here. It is easy to make excuses and think, “Well, I’m tired, so I won’t
spend time with Jesus tonight,” or “We read the Bible as a staff. Plus, I heard
the message at chapel tonight. I’m good.” But DO NOT be convinced by the
excuses. Those are just lies trying to pull one away from what one really needs
in order to die to oneself and have success in camp ministry—an abiding relationship
with Jesus Christ.
So then,
when one is confronted with the thought of going to the bathroom in order to
duck work, one can pause and pray. One can think about what he or she read in
the Bible that morning and use that to fight against the temptation to indulge
in the flesh.
Yes, the
approaching summer season will mean that I will have die to myself everyday and
instead live to serve God and others, but God has granted me the way to do that
via an abiding relationship with Jesus—a relationship that is built through
time spent in the Bible and in prayer.
“I die every day—I mean that, brothers—just as surely as I
glory over you in Christ Jesus our Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:31).
“But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on
the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with
all of you” (Philippians 2:17).
“Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘If anyone would come
after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever
wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will
find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet
forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?’” (Matthew
16:24-26)
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