I’ve had a new song by Jason Upton on my lips all this week. I don’t even own the album it’s from, called Between the Earth and Sky. The song title is, appropriately, “All Things Are Possible.” As I prayed on Monday night I was singing that song. I was having so much fun that I decided to take a walk downtown and enjoy singing some more before I crashed for bed.
My bones are getting tired these days. Last week I worked a bit over fifty hours, and it was wonderful. I enjoyed it, but I didn’t get much “people time” in the mix. Being able to interact with people really brightens my day. This week has a few less work hours scheduled. On Tuesday I gave a tour in the afternoon (one of my jobs is in the Admissions Office) to one prospective student and his father. Two hours after we had begun, and I was pressed for time to run to my job at City Dock Coffee, I realized how blessed I was to have been able to speak with this prospective. It was serious “people time” with someone almost as excited about the St. John’s Program as I am. Almost. He was inquisitive, intelligent, genuinely interested, and honest. I don’t need to tell you how rare it is to find those four virtues in a prospective student. I really enjoy, also, being able to have a positive impact in one of the most crucial decision-making times of a person’s life. If I don’t work with teens at some point in my post-collegiate career I will be shocked. Blessed, no matter what, but shocked. To counsel someone, to give a view of a world unseen before, to break down the lies and build up the truth, to dispel fears and show some love, to take an anxious heart and offer it peace, to encourage investigation and the pursuit of wisdom, to share in excitement and pain and doubt and hope—these are the things that I enjoy most about my “people time”; and I also enjoy when someone else will do those same things for me.
The best “people time” I could possibly have is with Jesus. We’ve been seeing some exciting things together these past few days. He showed me that I’d been flattering myself to think that my mind didn’t need to be renewed. But the Holy Spirit has reminded me that the words of God are like rain falling heavily on my mind, like snow on my soul, refreshing and replenishing the soil and causing fruit to grow in due season. Even the largest trees will cease to bear fruit, wither, and die if they do not drink of the waters. It doesn’t matter how much knowledge I can obtain or understanding I can gain, all is nothing before the knowledge and understanding of God, and I am never at a place where I have grown so much that I no longer need Him to provide for me. I am like a tree planted beside living waters. I will always depend on the water flowing from the throne of heaven.
Don’t ever give up.
Don’t ever give in.
Don’t settle yourself
On the wisdom of men.
Dispensational lies
Kept us hypnotized,
Compromised,
One-dimensionalized,
So that we will never see the truth!
All things are possible when we realize,
All things are not as though they seem.
All things are possible when we realize,
Truth is not trapped by what it seems.
My bones are getting tired these days. Last week I worked a bit over fifty hours, and it was wonderful. I enjoyed it, but I didn’t get much “people time” in the mix. Being able to interact with people really brightens my day. This week has a few less work hours scheduled. On Tuesday I gave a tour in the afternoon (one of my jobs is in the Admissions Office) to one prospective student and his father. Two hours after we had begun, and I was pressed for time to run to my job at City Dock Coffee, I realized how blessed I was to have been able to speak with this prospective. It was serious “people time” with someone almost as excited about the St. John’s Program as I am. Almost. He was inquisitive, intelligent, genuinely interested, and honest. I don’t need to tell you how rare it is to find those four virtues in a prospective student. I really enjoy, also, being able to have a positive impact in one of the most crucial decision-making times of a person’s life. If I don’t work with teens at some point in my post-collegiate career I will be shocked. Blessed, no matter what, but shocked. To counsel someone, to give a view of a world unseen before, to break down the lies and build up the truth, to dispel fears and show some love, to take an anxious heart and offer it peace, to encourage investigation and the pursuit of wisdom, to share in excitement and pain and doubt and hope—these are the things that I enjoy most about my “people time”; and I also enjoy when someone else will do those same things for me.
The best “people time” I could possibly have is with Jesus. We’ve been seeing some exciting things together these past few days. He showed me that I’d been flattering myself to think that my mind didn’t need to be renewed. But the Holy Spirit has reminded me that the words of God are like rain falling heavily on my mind, like snow on my soul, refreshing and replenishing the soil and causing fruit to grow in due season. Even the largest trees will cease to bear fruit, wither, and die if they do not drink of the waters. It doesn’t matter how much knowledge I can obtain or understanding I can gain, all is nothing before the knowledge and understanding of God, and I am never at a place where I have grown so much that I no longer need Him to provide for me. I am like a tree planted beside living waters. I will always depend on the water flowing from the throne of heaven.
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