Home Sweet Home

So I have returned to the Chicagoland area once again. Since I left in June, I have slept in two different countries and four different states. Now I am sleeping in the same room where I have slept off and on for the last 22 years of my life. Yet I am not the same person who left that room in June. I do not mean that I have come back an entirely different person but I have come back with an appreciation for people so very different than what we find in suburbia. I have come back with a stronger passion for ministry forged in failure and learned from the lips of children. I have a deeper respect for the Spirit of the Living God who is working in this world.
Perhaps that is what I have learned most. I have said it for years that God works subtly, but I grimace at how uneducated those words were when I spoke them such a short time ago. This summer has taught me how true those words are. The knowledge about how God works was only in my head but it has moved into my heart. Isaiah says that "They will have ears but will not hear, they will have eyes but do not see" (paraphrased). My prayers have begun to include a call in my own life to have eyes to see and ears to hear...what? I want to see God working and hear the Spirit whispering.
This summer I did not dramatically change anyone's life. I did not create a perfect world. Actually in terms of success, I was a complete failure. I am ok with that. New City has a motto including this phrase "planting seeds". That is what I did...and it was not what I did. It is what God did through my actions. God used me to plant seeds.
Here is the point of what I am saying. Have you ever watched a tree grow...it takes a long time to see beautiful tree emerge from a seed. The growth is so slight that to look at it for only a moment is to think nothing is happening but the tree is growing. How true is this for the Spirit working in our lives.
I saw the Spirit of the Living God working in childrens lives, but so subtly that it could easily be overlooked. How often we want dramatic change in our lives, we want the thunderstorms and the fire from heaven. Yet the power of God is also that whisper in the wind which teaches and instructs us gently. The whisper nurtures us, provides what is necessary for growing closer to God, to be filled with his Spirit. Like good soil and rain which causes a tree to grow, God whispering in our lives cause us to grow. I saw it happening with teens and children this summer. May the Lord continue to let me see it, to let all his children see it; and may we praise Him unceasing for it.