Heart Weeds

I predicted that my summer job as a landscaper for the City of Hutchinson would provide no blogging material. I stand corrected. Pulling weeds and planting flowers for the city turns out to be the best jobs in a while. It’s a wonderful, brainless job, a great place to recover from three years at college; the whole first morning I thought of nothing all morning. (At one point, I started to think about something and decided it was too much work.)

City flower beds come in two types: Bed Number One, where the ground is tilled, spread with compost, tilled again, planted, watered, mulched four inches thick, watered, etc. and Bed Number Two, where the hard ground is spread with mulch. Tugging at weed in these beds, I remembered how people compare sin to weeds – the smaller you get them the easier it is to pull them out. But this isn’t necessarily so. Nice, big tall weeds with a tap root slide right out of the soil, while little Bermuda grass’ shallow roots intertwined with the soil and stick to the ground. What makes weeding easy or hard was the soil. Bed Number One don’t get very many weeds. When they do come, they are easy to pull out; the soil is loamy and soft. Bed Number Two is too hard to weed and is hoed by hand. The mulch blows off, leaving the ground exposed to the elements that sap the moisture, strip the top soil, and pack it down.

The Lord reminded me that my heart can be like those two beds. If it is tilled by conviction from the Holy Spirit, watered from the Word of God, and mulched by obedience to God’s will, the sprouting weedscan be pulled easily. If my heart is calloused to the Holy Spirit’s reproof, my Bible sits in the drawer, and I live to please myself, it will hurt badly when the Holy Spirit finally pulls out the weeds.

On Being "Filled"

Staffers at Christian Youth in Action open every evaluation with prayer for the student who is presenting. This year, I've found myself praying often that my students would be filled with the Spirit while they teach. I have to admit, when I started doing this, I felt a bit charismatic(!), but it is Biblical to pray that others might be filled with the Spirit.

Scripture makes it clear that being filled with the Spirit is dependent upon personal submission to the Spirit and does not happen automatically for every believer at all times. Jesus says in John 15:5, "Without me, ye can do nothing." Today, the Holy Spirit's indwelling ministry provides the power to live a life of love and obedience to God. Without this Power, I am left only with the power of the flesh about which Paul writes in Romans 8:8: "They that are in the flesh cannot please God." The following is another prayer from The Valley of Vision. It is titled "Fullness in Christ," and explores the connection between our position in Christ and being filled with the Holy Spirit.

O God,

Thou hast taught me that Christ has all the fullness,

and so all plentitude of the Spirit, that all fullness I lack in myself is in Him,

for His people, not for Himself alone,

He having perfect knowledge, grace, righteousness,

to make me see,

to make me righteous,

to give me fullness;

That it is my duty, out of a sense of emptiness,

to go to Christ, posses, enjoy His fullness as mine, as if I had it in myself,

because it is for me in Him;

That when I do this I am full of the Spirit,

as a fish that has got from the shore to the sea and has all fullness of waters to move in,

for when faith fills me, then I am full;

That this is the way to be filled with the Spirit,

like Stephen, first faith, then fullness,

for this way makes me most empty, and so most fit for the Spirit to fill.

Thou hast taught me that the finding of this treasure of all grace in the field of Christ

begets strength, joy, glory, and renders all graces alive.

Help me to delight more in what I receive from Christ,

more in that fullness which is in Him, the fountain of all His glory.

Let me not think to receive the Spirit from Him as a 'thing'

apart from finding, drinking, being filled with Him.

To this end, O God,

do Thou establish me in Christ,

settle me, give me a being there,

assure me with certainty that all this is mine,

for this only will fill my heart with joy and peace.

"Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God." - Ephesians 5:18-21 (NKJV)

Things I Do at CYIA (not necessarily related to CYIA)

Since many people are curious about what happens at CYIA, here is a look into a life at CYIA of KS.

1. We live, sleep, eat, work, and play at Newton Bible Church. I was raised in this church and calculated the other day that I have lived in this building for nearly 4 months, only counting CYIAs.

2. Grading papers takes a great deal of time, but can be quite entertaining. If this were not the public internet, I could tell you some of the hilarious introductions that come across staff desks, but this is public internet. Our students are good, though, and have good attitudes.

3. Sleeping. Only about 6 hours a day are spent in this most delightful of all pursuits. The day begins at 5:40 a.m.and ends about 11:00 p.m. at the earliest, after tucking in all the girls at 10:30. One night as I was headed upstairs at about 11:45 p.m., a very loud noise started going off in the kitchen. Another staffer and I investigated and it was the weather radio warning us of a thunderstorm warning. It kept making very loud, annoying noises, and we didn't know how to turn it off, so we just turned the volume down and went to bed. It rained very hard that night, and thundered and lightening-ed, which makes a lot of noise when you are the second floor of a metal building. I got only about 3 hours of sleep that night.

5. Eating Starbursts.

6. Practicing a mime song for talent night. I had never mimed anything until yesterday when my cousin taught me how.

7. Listening to the CBI Singers. They gave their last concert here Sunday evening. Bethany spent the evening with me in the dorm, and I enjoyed morning devotions with them before the left for the long trip back to Hot Springs. Bethany texted me around 12:30 a.m. that they got home safely.

8. Re-connecting with friends. Vanessa, Emily, Ellie, Luke & Amber, Gabe & Nola and children, Miss Elfrieda, Michaela, Bekah & Rohn, Chelsey, Cathy, and many others.

9. Having devotions with my dorm girls! This is one of my favorite parts of CYIA. Hearing what God is doing in each others' lives and being taught from God's Word is an important foundation for teaching clubs during the second week.

10. Most important, teaching clubs in the community with the CYIA'ers. Please pray for that the children who heard the gospel would respond to Christ's invitation of eternal life. Pray that those who made a profession of faith would grow in their new relationship with God.