opposition as opportunity.

For father’s day, we had a smoke out. We had a lot of games planned and a short service. We were expecting a fair amount of people to come to it. It started at ten, and when it hit 10:45 with no visitors there, the interns were sent into the neighborhoods to do whatever it takes to get people there. I considered using one of the baseball bats to knock people out and drag them over because love hurts, but I wouldn’t actually do that… We had already left flyers on the doors in this neighborhood a couple days earlier, so I personally did not want to go knock on any doors on a Sunday morning. Jenn thought the same thing but mentioned that we should knock on a few doors as the Spirit led. I had a bad attitude about that, so I cut the conversation off. I started to pray as we were walking and began to think that I wanted to do absolutely nothing but pray for the people in the houses that we passed. I wanted to pray and if people came, it would be all because God was working and by nothing that Jenn or I did. I prayed that and kept walking. I told Jenn what I wanted to do (and hopefully it was what God wanted us to do.) She laughed and said that was what she had just prayed. We continued walking and praying with occasional conversation for the next twenty to thirty minutes. We headed back to help with a free car wash… We had one family show up, but it’s not discouraging. It reminds me that we are not in control and that God is. It leaves room for hope. It leaves room to say in a few months, look at what we started with and now look how far God has brought us.

We’ve been trying to find locations for some of the camps. This may not be the case with all the locations we looked at, but because we are a church, some places have turned us down. The city tells us we can use a building, so we go to hand them a check, and they change their mind. YMCA tells us we can use their gym for a basketball camp, and they change their mind. Whatever the reasons are for doors closing, we continue to seek God and His will and pray for the people of this city.

I read Jon Foreman’s essay about Joan of Arc and her heroism. Though she faced opposition, though odds were against her, she pressed on. Just the fact that she was a woman created opposition for her, but she used it as opportunity, and this opportunity led to her courageous death.

I already know that God is victorious, and I want to live like I know that. Although I am far from it, I want my attitude to become like this:

“Yes, I have my dragons to fight. Yes, I have my fears. But I still have breath in my lungs,I still have blood in my veins. I cannot sit idly by. I refuse to just let the village burn. I'd rather side with the illiterate farm girl who hears things than the cynics who hear nothing. I want to see beauty come from the ashes around me. Even if I fail, I will burn at the stake knowing that my fumes supported a good cause. Far better to fail at building a magnificent world than to succeed in monochromatic survival.

So when the voices tell me to quit, to give in, to give up - - I stand my ground. I refuse to be the cynic. It takes one to know one, you see, and I know cynicism far too well. So I raise my voice above the snickering sarcasm within and without and dare to hope.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jon-foreman/the-dark-horse- joan-of-ar_b_558967.html

Whether turn outs are high or low, whether buildings are available or not, whether things work out how I think they should or not, I will still try to listen and obey the Spirit guiding me along the way. I will try to look at opposition as opportunity.