Ready, Set, Go

By Cheri Cowell –

It seems every advertisement, every commercial, and every store is focused on the second biggest shopping season of the year, second only to Christmas. It’s back-to-school shopping time! Some states even offer tax-free holidays to aid parents in buying clothes and other school supplies. Everyone, everywhere is getting ready, even if you don’t have children. For now is the time to buy office supplies, new sneakers, and clothes because the deals are too good to pass up. It’s time to get ready.

The Bible is big on getting ready.

In our scripture focus, the Kohathites were middle-aged men from the tribe of Levi tasked with moving the furnishings of the tablernacle. Aaron and his family were the only ones who would “see” the holy furnishings before covering them and preparing them for the move. The Kohathites were the movers with very specific instructions: Do not touch the holy things.

What are you doing to “ready” the holy space in your heart today? God is ready to move and He’s given specific instructions to make way for the Holy One. Are you ready to move?

PRAYER: Holy God, please forgive the casualness with which I approach Your presence. Show me the ways in which You want to ready the holy space in my heart for the next move you want to make. And thank You for not only being a God worthy of my reverence, but also a God who welcomes me as a child.

“After Aaron and his sons have finished covering the holy furnishings and all the holy articles, and when the camp is ready to move, only then are the Kohathites to come and do the carrying. But they must not touch the holy things or they will die. The Kohathites are to carry those things that are in the tent of meeting. “Eleazar son of Aaron, the priest, is to have charge of the oil for the light, the fragrant incense, the regular grain offering and the anointing oil. He is to be in charge of the entire tabernacle and everything in it, including its holy furnishings and articles” (Numbers 4:15-16 NIV).

Mountain on Fire

By Peter Lundell –

Colorado mountain on fire. High winds blow it into conflagration. Firefighters come from across the country. Thirty-two thousand residents evacuate. Panicked people drive on the wrong side of the road. Cell phone networks jam. People in safety still feel panicked. Others repeat the word “nightmare.”

The raging power of the flames roars through the forested slopes, eating animals, homes, ranches, anything in the way of its jaws. The sky bloats with white smoke, black smoke, brown smoke, a mile high and as far as one can see. It then descends across the entire city of Colorado Springs and beyond. Like an alien invasion. It is the worst fire in the state’s history.

Life goes on with us in the rest of the city, but unease lines people’s thoughts. The feelings of collective loss and the taunting sense of helplessness lie heavy.

Perhaps at some time your life has been brutally interrupted as well. Natural disasters hit cities. But more often cancer, debilitating illness, divorce, or losing a job hit individuals. These afflictions come like raging flames roaring through our lives, eating bodies, relationships, or the worlds we’ve so carefully built for ourselves.

Despite insurance, diligence, and all the cautions we may take, we are still fragile, still vulnerable. When we’re hit, life still goes on. And we may feel very alone. But we’re not.
And we’re never without hope. We mainly need to see right. My friend Cec lost his home and son-in-law in a fire several years ago. And what he said will forever stay with me: “I’m in God’s hands. I was in God’s hands before the fire. And I’m in God’s hands after the fire.” Think about what that means.

Be ready for anything that may happen to you: Are you in God’s hands?

PRAYER: Lord, no matter what I go through, I am in Your hands. My family is in Your hands. My job is in Your hands. All I have is in Your hands. All my failures and successes, fears and hopes are in your hands. . . .

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging” (Psalm 46:1-3 NIV).

Bible Camp: It’s a Ministry

By Janet Morris Grimes –

You have to be there to understand.

No one from the outside world would get why people would load up 90% of our belongings, pack them into a tiny cabin with bunkbeds and no air-conditioning to inhabit the world that the snakes and the skunks clearly believe belong to them. Why would we bring enough audio/visual equipment to snap the breaker system on what little electricity exists in this tiny corner of the world? Why would we find creative ways to tell to stories, or better yet, help these kids become a part of the story? Why would we hike through waist deep water, only to climb the steepest of cliffs in our soaked clothing? Why would we hike through the dark with only every tenth person carrying a flashlight?

Why would we sing underneath the clouds, loud enough to rattle them? Why would we hold an obstacle course competition, with water, only to make sure that it ends in a massive mud and shaving cream fight? Why would we wake each morning at 7 when the previous night ended way too late? Why would we walk a mile through the last week of the life of Jesus, so that we might focus on what it felt to literally walk a mile in his shoes? Why would we remove ourselves from restaurants and computer screens and sickening daily news bulletins so that we might sit across the table from a teenager and look him in the eyes until he knows how much we care? Why would we make a point to write a note of encouragement to every person at camp during the week? Why would we spend a year planning something that is over so quickly? Why would we stand in line for a shower when only cold water remains? Why would we gather around a campfire to end a day spent in intense heat?

Why would we carve out time to read the Bible, to memorize a part we may not have known before, to ask questions and take the time to find the answers? Why would we spend hours in prayer for each individual, each activity, each moment to make sure that above all, God shows up? Why would we worship under the stars, where it seems that the crickets, the deer, the raccoons, and even the waterfalls worship right along with us?

It’s the relationships. It’s the changed lives. It’s the growth, from one year to the next. It’s the exhaustion and thrill of knowing you left it all out on the field. You held nothing back. It’s the joy of knowing that life is better with each other, and our burdens are much lighter when left behind for a week. It’s the feel of becoming invisible, translucent, so that others can see the love of Christ shining through you. Not because of us, but through us.

The fact that it’s a ministry really hit me this past year when I received an email from a girl who had gone with us for one year back in the 90’s. Now in her 30’s, her life was in shambles. But she had this to say: “I always remember your family being nice to me, and I want to do whatever it takes to get back to the way I felt that one week at camp. I think that was the last time I had any peace.”

Antioch Bible Camp at Fall Creek Falls State Park. That’s where you can find our family over the next week. It’s where we’ve spent just about every year of their lives, but they are no longer campers. They serve as staff, because they remember how much it matters. It’s where all three of our children were baptized.

A true ministry indeed. And worth every sweaty minute of it.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (Hebrews 12:1 NIV)

What Watt Are You?

By Cheri Cowell –

The other day I had to replace a light bulb and did not have the correct wattage on hand. Standing in the light bulb section at the home improvement store, I was lost. There must have been hundreds of choices of 75-watt bulbs. I had no idea it was that complicated. I finally settled on a bulb and headed home to bring light back to my office.

As I drove home I wondered what it would be like if Jesus could label our light-bearing wattage. Would I be a 100-watt, 75 watt, or a 40-watt bulb? Would I be one of those new colored light bulbs that bring out the colors in a room? Would God say I helped to bring out His colors in the world around me? Jesus asked the same questions.

The popular salt and light passage below follows another popular teaching on the beatitudes. Taken in context with the beatitudes this passage is telling the church how they are to take God’s ways as described in the beatitudes and use them to illuminate the path for others to find His way. In modern-day language, we are to be a 100-watt bulb for the world to find its way toward God.

PRAYER: Thank You, God for being full of so much color that You require specially equipped light-bearers to illuminate them. I humbly praise You for choosing me to be one of those light-bearers, and ask You to help me keep an open house and to shine for You in a dark and needy world.

“Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:14-16 MSG).

Resisting Stillness

By Rosemary Flaaten –

I felt the blood draining out of my legs as they dangled over the hard wooden pew. Confined to my limited square footage, I simply wanted to wiggle and squirm in an attempt to find a spot where my bottom could feel some reprieve, but instead my mother’s strong hand rested on my knee as a means of quieting my movement. Sitting still in church was a requirement, but seemingly next to impossible for me as five year old.

Roll forward forty years—I still find it hard to sit quietly. All my kids had flown the coup leaving an empty nest. There were no mounds of dirty laundry to wash and sort. There were no groceries to replenish. There were no slamming doors or buzzing cell phones. The house was quiet. Life was still.

But my soul was not.

The passage “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10 NIV) always makes me squirm. I am a doer. I like to accomplish things and prefer the verse “Faith without works is dead.” (James 2:26 NKV). But how can I reconcile my physical need for action with my spiritual need for stillness? They seem to be at odds with each other.

I am learning that when I discipline myself to sit quietly in the presence of God, He quiets my spirit, allowing my mind, heart and soul to breathe deeply, slowing the frenetic pace of my mental acrobats. I experience the truth of Psalm 131:2 “But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.” (NIV). The gentle hand of my Father rests on my knee, not to chastise me, but to say “Be still. I want to fill you with my love, peace and direction, but its next to impossible to fill a moving vessel. Be still and know Me.”

I am still not good at sitting and doing nothing, but I now relish the quiet moments of each day, when I can soak up the presence of my Heavenly Father. It is from that place of quietness and stillness that I am rejuvenated in spirit and become ready to take on the world.

PRAYER: Father, calm my thoughts and banish my worries. Help me to experience the reality of Your love and approval as I sit and soak up Your presence.

“He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters” (Psalm 23:2 NIV).

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