Since I have returned to DC from Missouri, I have been shivering in my boots (rhetorically speaking; it’s summer, why would I wear boots?). No, not because I walk in from the blazing heat in Noah-inspired levels of perspiration to the Arctic Circle (isn’t that what AC stands for?). It is that blasted DC traffic. In a simple month I’ve lost all capacity to tango these metal rapids. Oh, but I’ve overcome y’er tidalous waves before City, and I’ll do it again!
What I find most helpful is focus.
Surprise.
Simple focus can suppress your flighty arms from flailing and fumbling. The streets are just so filled with distractions, though. It’s really important to watch that robin feed its chicks. Or the kayakers in the Potomac. Or my sandwich. And suddenly I’m swerving. Sometimes I’m on the highway, and what brings me back are those obnoxious CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK strips on the side of the road. Sometimes in the city I get a honk… or a thumbs up (wrong finger, strangely). In any case, these interruptions bring me back from my distraction.
I think this held true in my lifestyle. My focus was torn between the real interests of my life as I stepped into college. Education, relationship, church, campus ministry, jobs, books, creating lists of interests. My life was filled with distraction. Not bad things. Just many things without focus.
One summer I faced my first interruption. More or less on a whim I attended a leadership retreat with our campus ministry. Someone must’ve changed the angle light was entering me, because my image was clearer. In this interruption (from life), I was free to leave behind distraction. I was pleased to have a fixed focal point.
I needed this more than once. As I grew more involved in my campus ministry, taking on leadership, I discovered the picture can always get clearer. Miscommunications. Broken relationships. Missed opportunities. Interruptions. No moment off your path seems right. But without the interruption of campus ministry, I would have been off kilter (do people still use that?). Campus ministry not only provided the interruption to my life, but it was the LASIK machine.
God is an excellent eye surgeon. Over the years on campus, He managed the ministers (in title and otherwise) well. He repaired my eye’s uneven lens. He gave me friends. He gave me focus. He gave me the capacity to walk His path. Without campus ministry I could not define my life now. I was uncertain, floating in mysterious mists. But now I stand with the joy of the Lord, to share His good news with all the purpose and provision He delights to provide.
Don’t go blind. All you college folk go out and find your campus ministry!
