Camp came.
The phrase seems silly. It alludes to the fact that I didn’t know it was coming. I knew it was coming. I sat on the floor of my room for hours on end with my face in books while scribbling notes onto a sketch pad. I said goodbyes to friends and talked through things I would do differently this year with my counselor. I bought snacks and packed duffel bags.
But, then it came and I wasn’t as prepared as I thought I was. It was a very much an expected time that somehow ended up being the completely unexpected. Arrival time was 1:00 for our first day of staff training. The enemy didn’t seem to be on board with that. Getting out the door to make my way to Rome, GA felt like running through a muddy obstacle course. I now know that Satan was doing everything in his power to keep me from getting out the door and for a split second, I thought he might win this round. Often times, we need to remind the enemy how the story plays out – he loses.
With teary eyes, I pulled out of my driveway and blasted truth through my car speakers so it would wash over every inch of me. Staff training was accompanied by raging anxiety and more tears. The phrase “I am working at a summer camp” does not articulate the weight that comes with this job. When you make a choice to partake in Kingdom work and be the mouthpiece for a theme that proclaims that Jesus is the good Shepherd, there is a target on your back. I am, and all of you who are giving up your summer for the sake of students encountering Jesus, are a threat to the enemy and he will not relent without first trying all the tactics that are up his sleeves.
Messages of loneliness and failure were his go-to schemes with me. When the majority of the people you would turn to last summer, in the midst of struggles, hug you one last time and drive away, leaving you standing on your own, the fear of loneliness hovers over you. When you take the stage for the first time with a mind that cannot, as hard as it tries, reach a state of peace, you walk off with the taste of failure in your mouth.
External factors, internal factors, they were cementing my feet into the ground. I had reached a place of stagnancy. To go forward, to step into this summer, it was coming at a price that was a little too high for me. Instead of going forward, I kept looking back. An intense mind battle of what this was versus what this is. The phrase, “last summer,” became a crutch for me. A way for me to deny the arrival of the new summer.
Jesus does not desire for us to be people of stagnant faith. He knows that stagnant faith is really no faith at all. Stagnant faith is saturated with doubt, fear, and lack of trust. He will never force us to take a step we don’t want to take. In His kindness, He lets us have a choice. However, I have come to believe that while all of that is true, He will show us what is being offered. He will show us what He desires for us to receive and then leave us to make the choice whether we want to take it.
When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Matthew 9:36-38
He had compassion on them. He saw how helpless they were. I have to think that maybe He was saying, “I see you and I know everything about you and circumstance but I also need you to know that there is a harvest.” Notice that Jesus did not express His compassion and then just direct them to a fruit stand where they could go get the crops from the harvest. He did, in fact, direct them to the harvest but He also told them it required workers.
We cannot throw ourselves a pity party when the desires we long for are not met when we are standing still. We cannot grow frustrated when we don’t see the benefit of a position, location, or a new season when we have been completely unwilling to step into the field.
The harvest is plentiful but the workers were few.
I am standing in the middle of a harvest field this summer. There are hundreds and hundreds of girls I am going to get to communicate to, but if I never step into this field and become a worker there will be no harvest for me to glean. In humiliation, I confessed my regret and remorse for it taking me so long to see it. Then, I told the Lord I did not want to be a person that was standing in the middle of a harvest field with her arms crossed, missing out on what He intends for me to dig up and enjoy this summer.
It is a shame when we don’t step into the field. It is an even greater shame when we are in the field and refuse to put on our work clothes.
My friends, He cannot give you something that you are not willing to go and get. Maybe the frustration you have for what something is or isn’t right now could be solved not by something Jesus does but by you doing something.
He has given you the field.
He has even given the harvest.
We have to step into the field that He has given us.
We have to go to work.
Yesterday at camp I invited the girls to stand if what I was saying applied to them (saving all the details so campers coming in the next sessions don’t know all the secrets). The sound of them rising from the pews of the auditorium knocked the breath out of me. I stumbled over words to finish the talk. Throughout the rest of the day, that sound was ringing in my ears. I told my supervisor I would never forget the sound. Not just the sight but the sound. It was the sound of freedom.
Here’s the thing though – the sound was made because they stood.
Freedom from your fears of what whatever this new territory could be. Freedom from the doubts. Freedom from the false beliefs. It comes from standing.
This field of yours is exactly where He wants you to be. You cannot pick the crops of the harvest or experience the benefits of the harvest if there are chains around your feet. The chains of stagnant faith fall when we stand up and step in.
Stand up.
Stand up and then step in.
And do it completely free.
Thank you, Jesus, for your grace when we don’t step and for that same grace propelling us forward.
Here’s to this field of mine that He has given me this summer and to already tasting the harvest.
