Change Agents

There are people we meet that that irrevocably change our life.

We never know, going in, how long we will know a person. Just as we never know if the friendship will endure the pressures and stress of life. Some people we will know but for a fleeting moment in our lives, whereas others we will know for years. Then there are the select few relationships that we manage to keep throughout our lives.

The people we meet change everything. Whether they know or we acknowledge it or not, change occurs. This change occurs slowly over time or falls into place all at once. No two people have the same effect on our life.  Just as we have potential to grow from people, we have the potential to grow others.  It is what we do with that potential that matters; it is our choice.

There are so many people that we meet and engage with on a daily basis that we may never come into contact with again in the course of our life. I think about the weeks that I spent in Australia and New Zealand during college and of all the people that I met and interacted with that I may not see again during my life. There are people whom I met during those travels that grew me and strengthened me, that caused changed within me because I chose to allow those interactions to change me. It is my hope that through those interactions I was able to bring about change in their lives as well.

I more recent memory stirs within me though, of a group of people that I engaged with this summer. This group of people have irrevocably changed my perspective and through that my life. Through them, I learned that the power that God has put within me to reach into and shape people has not been wasted on me, but rather has been given to me for a purpose. I ache in my heart for this group of people, to be in community with them again, to go through life with them. Regardless of whether or not that I will be able to do that, I press into God that I may not simply know them in this season and then forget about them in the next.  Rather, I hope that the interactions we had would hold weight and the changes God used them to stir up in me would be used for others.  In as much as they have shaped me in such a short time, I have also spoken into them.

We never know where our influence stops or where the impact of our decisions or relationships end.  God will use every single interaction we have if we simply make ourselves available to him. It is amazing that through a simple smile and wave that we can be agents of change in someone else’s life. I think about a day when my path briefly crossed the path of an older lady from my church. To me, it was naught more than a wave and smile to greet, but for her, it held an impact that I did not truly know until weeks later. This lady came to me in a rush, asking if it was me that had waved and smile that day, upon learning it was, she told me that, “God used you to make me see clearly that day. He used you to refocus and center my heart. In that moment, I knew that God had not left me and that I needed to push through my circumstances.” Too often we miss these moments because we have a tunnel vision perspective that what matters most right now in our lives is that which affects us.  This perspective couldn’t be further from the truth, everyone has circumstances in their life that requires their attention and oftentimes these circumstances bring stress to the person. However, God did not create us to live independent of one another or their circumstances. Instead, we were created to do life together in community; this community requires us to be vulnerable to others and dependent upon God.

It is when we strip away that tunnel vision and seek for God to use every circumstance, every step, and every word, that He provides opportunity for us to be changed and to affect change in others. This change only comes when we are first changed by Jesus Christ.

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Romans 12:2

“Our people must learn to devote themselves to doing what is good, in order to provide for urgent needs and not live unproductive lives.” Titus 3:14

Fireflies

   Every time I see fireflies outside at night blinking around the yard, I think of when I was a little girl. As the world outside would settle into dusk, I would play out in the yard with my father. I would say, "Daddy, Daddy, can we catch the fireflies?" Over and over again, I would repeat that phrase as my father looked on smiling.  Finally, he would respond to my request by standing up and going inside. For a moment, I would be alone outside wondering if his return to the house meant it was time to go inside. Then, just at the moment I would move to go inside, the screen door would open and my father would walk to me with a glass jar and metal lid, a random jar headed for recycling. 

   Together, we would go to the shed, take out his hammer and a nail, punch holes into the lid. He'd put the lid back on to the jar and hand it to me saying, "Here you go, Punk. Let's go catch fireflies." I would run around the backyard barefoot catching fireflies and putting them into the jar until it was full of floating, blinking lights. I would sit for what felt like hours and just watching the fireflies fly around with their lights blinking on and off in persistent patterns. The next words my father would speak, always came too soon.  He would smile at me and say, "Alright Punk, it's time to let them go." I would plead with him, asking to just watch them a little bit longer. He would always respond in the same way, "If you watch them even a little longer, they might not get enough air, their lights would fade, and they would die. If they die, their lights are gone forever." Reluctantly, I would let the fireflies go and watch them, in their freedom, take off across the yard. It would always finish with me smiling again hand-in-hand with my dad watching the blinking lights.

   It is with similar feelings tonight that I reflect on three incredible weeks of camp. Each camp was different, in that there were different responsibilities and leadership roles on my part and different age groups. Kids camp. Middle school camp. High school camp. Throughout each of those camps, students' lives have changed because they had the opportunity to encounter Jesus Christ.  Each of those students have different lives they have returned to, with different gifts, hopes, and dreams. Just as, each one encountered Jesus Christ in different ways. Some encountered Him for the first time and now know Him as Savior and others were filled with the knowledge, direction, and calling they are to pursue in their life. Each student who encountered Jesus has been filled with light; a light that shines and blinks and calls others to them that they may encounter Jesus as well. 

   I love camp and there are days when I wish that camp would never end, just as I know there are countless other staff and students that wish the same. Camp is an amazing place where everyone is in community; life is done together. This includes everything from meals, to chapel, to free time, every moment is in community, the community of believers. In that community it becomes easy imagine how people lived during the time of the early church. In our contemporary culture, the goal is to live our lives apart from one another. Separation that occurs based on occupation, beliefs, goals, income, material wealth, and other social constructs.  There needs to be a shift from living in a community or neighborhood to living IN community with one another. As camp ends and students have to adjust from doing life twenty-four hours a day with their cabin-mates and leaders to their life separate from that community, it is difficult to remove the lid. The students become like the fireflies that I caught as a child, filled with light and purpose.

   Then, the lid pops off and these students are released into the world as bearers of light.  These students have the potential to take wing and fly, and by doing so, change the course of a generation. This in turn could change the course of a world, a world in need of God. So as much as my heart aches to return to the camp community with leaders from around the country and those incredible students, I stop because I hear my heavenly father telling me that these lights must be free to go where they were called to go and shine the light that they have been filled with that all may see and be changed as they have.

Fireflies...