My Epic Journey

I receive wisdom and guidance from two places in this world:  regular Bible reading/study and the fortune cookie I get every month when we eat at the Asian Garden Buffet.  Guess what?  Tonight we ate the Asian Garden Buffet.  I always pray for two things when I go into the AGB, 1) the sugar donut thingies are fresh and numerous, and 2) that I get a good fortune cookie . . . wait, I also pray that meat really is chicken.

Tonight, after I anxiously went through my "fortune-cookie-breaking-and-eating" routine, I read this on my fortune cookie:

Your lucky numbers are 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, & 42 (anyone know the significance of those numbers?)–jk, those weren’t really my numbers.

Then I turned over the paper and my fortune was:

Be moderate where pleasure is concerned, avoid fatigue.

I found this message very pertinent to my life right now.  Let me explain.  I love everything I am doing now.  Family, ministry, school, etc, but I am finding that I am also constantly overwhelmed and tired about all of these things at the same time. 

In family life, things are becoming crazy with baseball season for the boys, Anna’s mom is moving to Columbus, keeping up with Emma.  I love it but it is a lot.

In ministry, we are getting ready for the summer months, re-evaluating how student ministry is done at Grace Point, re-organizing leadership, kicking off monthly middle school outreach events, etc.–not to mention what is going on in the bigger picture of the church.  I am passionate about ministry–but it is hectic.

In school, I am being challenged, learning how to be a better counselor, reading interesting books, research studies, and journal articles.  I has been good–but a lot.

What I realized tonight is that even though we may love something and are passionate about, if we don’t take things moderately and in God’s timing, we will eventually burnout and become ineffective.  I immediately think of Jesus, who developed His mission and purpose for 33 years on this earth.  He took his time in picking and developing the disciples, teaching those who followed Him and healing those in need.  And He also took regular sabbaticals, or periods of rest, so that He could re-focus.  Jesus was most certainly passionate and loved what and who He was called to but He also did what He could to moderate himself and avoid fatigue.

For me, I don’t want to be ineffective in ANY of those above categories.  Perhaps you are like me and feel as if you are running a hundred miles an hour doing the things you love–but you are tired.

Take some time to rest.

Refocus your purpose and love.

and then Tackle your passion and purpose moderately.

Oh, and by the way, I really don’t LIVE for fortune cookie prophecies, though it was interesting that Noah’s (our 7 year old) tonight said, "you will soon come into some unexpected money."  Tonight, when we got home, he lost a tooth.

With all of the talk about the recent presidential election, I want to share some of the excitement that is happening right here in Smith house.  We have our very own president living under our roof.  Out of 21 students, Isaac was voted classroom representative (we call that president) for student council!  Only one kid gets voted by his peers and it happened to be our little–big–Isaac.

To celebrate–we are going to Chuck E. Cheese on Saturday.  It is kind of our own inaugural celebration!

At Grace Point, we use the University Class system to take our congregation through key elements in their spiritual walk.  It is a great way to challenge one’s self and to make sure you are continuing the growth process.

My job–teach Class 401.  The topic of Class 401 is Our Mission, which is to obey and complete the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20).  Per Terry’s (our Senior Pastor) suggestion we actually put the lesson into practice by meeting at the local Caribou Coffee and buying a $100.00 gift card to pay for next $100.00 worth of orders at the counter.  Result–opportunities to share the love of Christ.  We didn’t “give a cup of water” (Matthew 10:42) but we did give cups of coffee, and mocha.

As we were sitting there writing and sharing our testimonies with each other, I was struck with my former way of Christian living–Transactional Spirituality.  What is TS?  It is when we do “spiritual” acts to God but with OUR agenda in mind.  We are looking out for OUR best interest instead of God’s.  Our hope is that as we do “good” things, God will see them and in turn do something nice for us.  Our spirituality is reduced to a bank transaction with God as our bank teller.

I remember the moment though that all changed.  I was sitting in my office at my first youth pastorate reading the Gospels.  I realized that the Jesus of the Gospel was different than the Jesus I grew up with.  My Jesus was a judgmental Jesus.  If I did bad He didn’t like me, but if I did good He did.  I wanted Jesus to like me.

The Jesus of the Gospel is a truly loving Jesus.  A Jesus that loves me for who I am.  Yeah–God punishes up, but not because He is mad at us, but because of His love for us.

What Jesus do you serve?  Is your faith transactional based or grace based?