"Be thou my vision O Lord of my heart
Nought be all else, save that Thou art
Thou my best thought, by day or by night
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light"
Be Thou My Vision is possibly one of the oldest and most sung hymns by Christians. So old in fact that it has become more ceremonially sung rather than being sung from the heart. I know that I am guilty of simply looking at the words and just saying them in time and pitch to whoever is playing it at that particular time. The words come out and sure they may sound good but they are lies when they are not coming from the heart. How can I truthfully sing "Be thou my vision O Lord of my heart" without having my heart in the equation. It's impossible. It's a paradox of sorts. But this worshiping from the heart rant is not where I am intending to go with this blog.
This past weekend I went with thirteen others from Williams Baptist College on a ministry retreat at Spring Lake Camp in Hot Springs, AR. When I was informed of this retreat, initially, my first thought was, "Sweet!! I get to hang out with my friends again. We are going to have so much fun!" Not that it is bad for me to want to see my friends from school and have fun but my heart was not in the right place to start off this retreat. Most of us met at the school on Friday and then packed up the van and headed off on our three hour journey.
Let me point out something before I go any further with this. The people who were on this ministry team retreat weren't exactly the people that I hang out with all of the time. They were the people that I said a nice courtesy greeting to in passing but never really talked to, much less hung out with. I know, I know, how stuck up of me, but hey I am just being honest. I learned my lesson just keep reading.
Anyway, we made a stop in Little Rock on our way to the camp in order to get some coffee and stretch our legs. I ordered my drink, treating the place just like I would Starbucks. Wrong move. My "regular" Starbucks drink was not the same without the Starbucks name brand behind it. But I didn't waste it. I drank it and I was thankful for the boost of energy even if my taste buds were upset with me. After we had all gotten our caffeine kick we started to load up once more. I ended up riding the rest of the way with one of my fellow singers, Tyler Lee, along with Becca Cato and RJ Platz who had sat with me on the van. We had some really great conversations and good laughs on the ride to camp, which brightened my mood a bit.
Once we arrived at camp, we all came to the same realization. No one had cellular service anywhere on the camp grounds. Now if it were my parents and their generation, they would have been fine and probably would have embraced such a terrible thing. We twenty-somethings though had to take a bit to cope with it. After coming to terms with the fact that I would not have my phone for three days really I simply laid it on my bunk and left it alone.
We opened up our retreat with a session that introduced what we would be talking about for the rest of the weekend and got us started on the planning process for each of our ministries for the coming year. Up to this point my mind had been more focused on the fun that I was going to have on this retreat. After letting my mind wander for a bit I came back in with the discussion on what the school's new mission statement was. How should I know? I never really paid attention in my freshman orientation class. But we finally figured it out and since that mystery was solved I was about to tune out for the remainder of the session. However, our campus minster, Josh, posed a question at the end of that first session that really made me stop and think and refocus. What is your personal mission statement?
We all split off into different corners of the room and were given ten minutes to contemplate what our personal mission statement might contain. First off ten minutes isn't nearly long enough to contemplate the purpose of my life. And secondly, how was this supposed to help me help others? But much to my surprise as soon as I focused on what I was supposed to be doing the ideas and thoughts started to spill out onto my notepad. I realized I knew a little bit more about my purpose than I had previously thought. That gave me a little bit better insight on who I wanted to be and who I was created to be. My flesh continued to get in the way though and the excitement that I had felt at finding a little more of my purpose vanished.
After the session, most of the guys started to cook dinner. I stuck with the girls because I was probably the only male with little to no cooking skill. The girls taught me how to play Brazilian Uno which is probably one of the most stressful card games you could ever play. And after getting my dignity knocked down about five notches I decided that it was time to get some food and relax. Following dinner we were supposed to go down to the campfire and have worship and smores. I was being kind of whiny and didn't want to walk all the way down to the pond and sit by a hot fire in the middle of August, but I decided to buck up and do it anyway. Once we had all settled in and started sweating the worship began. RJ and Tyler led worship for us. We went through the first song which I just hummed through since I didn't know the words at all. Next was "Be Thou My Vision". Woohoo. The same old song that all good Baptist worship services contain. We started singing and for some reason I felt a shift in my entire being. I looked around me and though I couldn't see anyone else's face...I could feel the heartfelt cry of their hearts singing to God. It was like a kick in the chest. I realized how selfish and stupid I had been up to this point. I had been focused on having some fun. I had been complaining that none of my regular friends had come to the retreat and that I was going with a bunch of people that I didn't really know. And I was not meaning a word of the song. I evaluated all of this as the second verse went on and then when the chorus started I silently cried to myself..."O God be my everything, be my delight. Be Jesus my glory, my soul satisfied." Those words rung true throughout my entire being. The devotion that all of the leaders around me were showing had touched me and moved me so much that I allowed God to take hold and help me mean the words that were passing through my lips. As we finished singing the song, I went silent. In that little campfire worship session, I realized why I was there. First of all, God had a job for me to do and he was not going to let me go into it being complacent as I was. Secondly, I was chosen to be a leader on a ministry team with these other leaders not only to reach out to others, but to get to know my fellow leaders' hearts and connect with them as well.
Yeah I was kind of a punk at the start of the weekend. But as the weekend progressed, I started to truly listen and pay attention to what God had for me to do there. I bonded with these other leaders who I had steered clear of before and found out that they had beautiful hearts that burned for the mission ahead of them. And as we all got to know each other better and planned out our work for the year I found myself having a lot of fun just fellowshipping with all of them.
I went into the weekend with only one selfish vision. But when I came home, I had a new vision. And it was not mine, but His.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jEuPIahKSw
