Performance

Sometimes life and ministry feels a little like this picture. Trying to balance the two precariously on top of one another, hoping the wind won't topple it all over one day

I remember once as a student at ASU our friend Emily showed us this video clip of a man trying to spin plates on poles. He would spin one plate and then go to the next and do the same. However, in order to keep the plates spinning he'd have to keep going back to each plate again and again. Exhausting work, and in the end the plates always end up falling anyway.

From what I remember, the plates represented our tasks and responsibilities. Somewhere along the line we decide that God can't do all this on His own, that He needs our help if He's ever going to get anything done around here. So we began taking on burdens and responsibilities to "help Him out."  Burdens and responsibilities that our not ours and that He's never asked us to carry.

In life I have the tendency to "spin plates." I create busy work for myself to help justify my presence and create for myself some sort of man-made identity. I "spin plates" to try and gain worth and value. It's funny though, because whether I have a roomful of plates or just one plate I still find myself spinning them and becoming completly exhausted in the process. I know that this is not God's way of doing things. He has never asked me to spin these plates. He gives me responsibilities and asks me to be faithful to things He's called me to, no more, no less. Yet, I find myself constantly worrying about all the things I cannot control.

The ministry at SDSU this semester has been so encouraging. Both men and women are growing in their walk with God, their vulnerability with each other, and their perseverance to press on despite set-backs. However, somedays all I see are the ways that I supposedly have failed them. The "what-ifs" and 'if-onlys" sneek in and I begin to doubt whether God is really using me.

The semester is coming to a close quickly. I want to savor these last few weeks, instead of wasting my time worrying about them. I want to learn how to serve these students, not fix them. To love them where they are, and not push them to where I think they should be. To challenge them in what God's leading me to tell them without feeling like I'm failing if they're not ready to listen. I want to stop pretending I have any kind of control and just let the Holy Spirit do His work. Most of all, I want to pray like I've never prayed before. Because I feel only then will I see my plate spinning act as what it really is...an exhausting performance to an empty room.

1 Peter 5:7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

Ps 55:22 Cast your burden upon the LORD and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.

Mat 11:30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
 

A Growing Community

Isaiah 37:31 "The surviving remnant of the house of Judah will again take root downward and bear fruit upward."

"...taking root downward..."

Winter break is officially over and we are now entering into mid-terms! Over the break we had been praying that the Lord would continue to knit our hearts with the students’ hearts and that He would reconnect us with those students in a way that fosters community this semester. We have already begun to see the fruits of those prayers on the campus! We are blessed to see the Lord bring women and men who desire to know Him and His word, and to be engaged in a community with one another on a regular basis. On the men’s side of things, we have seen God put together a men’s Bible study that meets during the week, which is looking to encourage one another to true, Biblical manhood. We are diving deep into our lives in order to “...spur one another on toward love and good deed…”, and to hold one another accountable to studying God’s Word and engaging with our non-Christian friends about Jesus. We are excited about the transformation that the Lord will do through this study!

God has blessed the women in the ministry with a real sense of community with one another. There are 2 women’s bible studies that happen during the week, each one unique in the way that the women relate to each other and to God’s Word. Valerie is helping to train 2 of the women in the studies to lead women of their own toward Christ and on to maturity in Him and His Word. She is also discipling 2 others in a deeper, more intimate way. It has been so encouraging to see the women become friends with each other and to seek to include other women in their lives and in the studies!

The Lord has blessed me with being able to disciple 2 men this year. Each of them are a gift from the Lord and I enjoy every minute that I spend with them. Both of them are at different stages of spiritual maturity and it is a challenge to help both of them to continue to grow in Christ, to deepen their habit of spending time in His word, and to talk to others about Him.



Another encouraging aspect of this growing community of students is that once a week we gather on campus to have lunch with each other. This is a really unique opportunity for the students (and us as staff) to relate to one another and to others around us in a very relaxed, natural way. It has become a huge success, and we are praying that the Lord will use this time to draw others to Himself through this little lunch community.
Isaiah 31:31 "The surviving remnant of the house of Judah will again take root downward and bear fruit upward."


“…bearing fruit upward”


Not only do we have a group of students who are beginning to really enjoy being in a community with one another and who are setting habits of studying and applying God's Word into their life, but we are rejoicing that the Lord is growing His ministry here in natural ways!


As I look back over our time at SDSU, I can see how the Lord has answered so many prayers and petitions so faithfully. Often times it seems as though you can't see the impact the Lord is allowing you to make in people's lives until you sit back and reflect over what He has done over time. We have seen a woman's ministry grow by leaps and bounds, with several different Bible studies happening on the campus with women who are committed to one another as they are committed to Christ and His Word. We have seen the men's ministry grow from nothing to having a solid core group of men who are also committed to knowing Christ and making Him known on the campus!


It is so humbling to be is such close quarters with the work that the Lord is doing in each of these student's lives, and it makes us so grateful for having the privilege of being able to give our lives away for the sake of the Gospel with these students!  

Spring '10 update

by Val

We are in full swing here at SDSU, aka State. We are studying Hebrews in our our Nav Nights, our large group Bible study on Thursday nights on campus. It's been challenging to delve into a book with such rich and complex meanings. However, I've been so encouraged by the depth of the discussions and applications the students have come up with.

Men's and women's studies have started up again. Monday nights the men get together on campus and have been learning about biblical manhood. Coincidentally enough, my friend Jenelle, a recent grad from State, is leading a study for the female students on biblical feminity. She also had the great idea of having both genders get together next Monday night to disucuss what each gender group has been learning. We offered up our house for that night since we now have more sitting space, thanks to the new couches Lee and Deb Maschhoff donated to us, so I am so excited to hear what the students have been learning.

On Tuesdays God has allowed me to coordinate two women's bible studies and we just finished 2nd Timothy today. As Navigators we put such a high calling on discipleship relationships, so for me it was so beautiful to listen in on Paul as he gave his encouragement to Timothy, a man that Paul was training in a discipleship relationship. My prayer is that all these women in our ministry would experience discipleship in some sense while in college. Both as the person being discipled and as the one doing the discipling.

Speaking of disciplship, God has given me two wonderful ladies this semester that have commited to being in a dicipleship relationship with me, and I give thanks for them to God everyday. I love these women and I hope God can use me in their lives to use the Word for "teaching, rebuking, correcting and training [them] in righteousness so that [these woman] of God may thoroughly equipped for every good work."

The Marvelous Grace of God: Brokeness for His people

[Hosea 2:6,7 "Therefore, behold, I will hedge up her way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her so that she cannot find her paths. She will pursue lovers, but not overtake them; and she will seek them, but will not find them. Then she will say, 'I will go back to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now!'"

Lately I have been reading and studying the book of Hosea, and I have been struck by how much of the gospel is presented in this book! I have only gotten through part of the second chapter, yet I have seen the whole of the Gospel shown and exposed in this wonderfully rich and deep book! As you may know, Hosea was a man commanded by God to marry a women who would be a harlot, and who would have children of harlotry. This marriage relationship was to be a visual representation of God and His people; God being the husband, and His people playing the harlot.

In the second chapter, God talks about how He will expose the nakedness of His adulterous wife (Israel), take away all her lovers and idols, and cause her to be thirsty and hungry. Basically, He was going to strip away everything that Israel would run to other than the Lord and would  prevent Israel from going to these other lovers "...I will hedge up her way with thorns...so that she cannot find her paths..." God desired that His people find their satisfaction in Him alone, and to rejoice in His marvelous, perfect provision. He wanted there to be a marriage relationship with His people of mutual delight, but instead His people played the harlot with other nations and strange gods and idols.

Therefore, God took all of that away from His people in order to draw them back to Himself, and to show them that He is all they need or could ever possibly want. And this is what God is faithful to do for us! He desires that He is our Great Desire, and for us to delight ourselves in Him. He is faithful and good to strip away all of those other lovers we seek after who do not love us back, those strange gods whom we willfully and blindly obey who do not communicate to us nor do they provide for us! These things are different to different people, but what is the same is that Christ is the true Bridegroom, who has purchased us with His blood, and who perfectly loves us, provides for us, protects us, and delights in us!

Let us allow Christ to be the One we turn to for our Delight and the satisfaction of our Desires; and let us run to our Husband (Christ) and allow His to strip away all of our false lovers and strange gods who only use us and have mastery without love over us! Praise be to God that now, in Christ, we can call "...Me Ishi [Husband] and will no longer call Me Baali [Master]." (Hosea 2:16)!

Written by: Ryan Buss