What I Learned This Summer

What I Learned This Summer

Remember when you returned from summer break and your first assignment was to write about what you did over the summer?  I remember when my summers disappeared.  My first job out of college was as a management trainee at Moore’s Building Supply in Roanoke, VA.  The spring slipped into summer and I hardly noticed.  Being off the academic year was a jolt and a huge disappointment.  I had to choose carefully how I would spend my two weeks of vacation a year.  If not for my involvement in Young Life I would not have had much of an excursion at all.  So, one week at camp and I can’t remember the other week.

Fast forward…..a few years….this past summer I was involved with an inner city ministry and we offered a five week program for the youth.  This was right up my alley.  I had done youth ministry for years.  I loved kids….of all ages.  And I had been affirmed that I was pretty good with them.  You’d think I would have learned from a previous experience with another group of young people.  But that’s another story.  

The children arrived all ready for what we had prepared for them.  But they also arrived with attitudes, behaviors and histories with which I was not entirely familiar.  Nine year olds who talked back to me.  Eighty pound boys who were not intimidated by my size or authority.  Young girls who did as they pleased without regard for the adult in the room.  And so much more.  We were to instruct them in groups of five to eight.  Fun stuff like building pine wood derby cars and rockets out of two liter bottles.  We were determined not to be boring.

Threats didn’t work.  A firm hand on the shoulder was a mistake.  Any form of coercion failed.  At the end of the day….only 2 1/2 hours…I was exhausted, frustrated and angry at our inability to accomplish our set out goals.  Okay, so now I know that teachers everywhere are laughing at me.  Especially teachers of kids in the inner city.  “Allen, what were you thinking?”  

My epiphany came that evening when I realized that the next day the kids were not going to come to our program remorseful, ashamed of their behavior, with written apologies and contrite looks on their faces.  

I had to change. 

Because they certainly weren’t.  

• I had to adjust my expectations.  
• I had to genuinely love them first before I attempted any kind of instruction.  
• I had to see them as God sees them.  It was Bob Pierce, founder of World vision, who prayed, “Break my heart with the things that break the heart of God.”  
• I had to remember Romans 5:8 “While were were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”  
• I had to see them as God sees me.

That last thought alone is transformative.  God knows everything about me and yet He still loves me.  God is patient with me even when I disobey Him.  God does not get exasperated when I repeatedly misunderstand His intentions for me.

The next day and the rest of the summer was radically different.  Could the kids tell that I was different?  Probably not.  Were they mesmerized by my spiritual demeanor?  Your what?  Did their behavior change at all?  I don’t think so.  We had behavior issues every day.  The difference was that I worked hard to see them as God sees them.  

This gives me hope even as I continue to face difficult people.  And I am so thankful when I meet someone who views me in this way as well, because it’s entirely possible that someone sees me as a difficult person.  A few years back a woman in the church called me a ‘piece of work.’  You can interpret that anyway you want.

Finally, I don’t believe this lesson is only for me.  Consider the situations you face every day.  The people that you believe just ought to change because they are intolerable.  This is the beauty of the Christian faith - we have the Holy Spirit who first convicts us and then repairs us.  The Holy Spirit who lives within each follower of Jesus Christ guides, corrects, comforts and transforms into the likeness of God Himself.  That indeed is a miracle.

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,”made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.  But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.  

2 Corinthians 4:6,7