SENT: Mission Trip Journal Day 4 - The Time You Have Left
SENT: Mission Trip Journal Day 4 - The Time You Have Left
Today started with an adopt a highway project. Camp Michiana takes care of a two mile stretch with the camp road right in the middle of it, and it was our job today. We split the group and worked both sides, cleaning our way toward each other until we met in the middle. I’ll be honest, I was a little stunned by what people throw out their windows. Somebody’s entire family sized meal, trash and all, just tossed out into the ditch. And yes, a few students got the honor of picking up a skunk that didn’t make it across the road. Not exactly a highlight of the week for them, but they did it without complaining.
In the afternoon we gathered wood and split a good amount of it for the camp.
Neither job sounds like much on paper. Picking up litter. Stacking firewood. But perspective changes everything. The staff here just came off an incredible but exhausting summer of camps, and every task we knocked out today is one less thing standing between them and being ready for retreat season. Sometimes serving well has nothing to do with how big the job looks and everything to do with who it’s actually for.
Tonight’s devo hit different than the last few nights. We didn’t ease into it. We asked the students straight up how short life actually is. Somebody built a chart once, just dots, one for every month of an average life if you live to ninety. Once you subtract sleep, school, work, driving, eating, chores, getting ready, what’s actually left for a person to choose what to do with is 334 months. That’s it. That’s the whole window for the things that matter most. And the average eighteen year old today is on pace to spend 93 percent of that window looking at a screen. Not 93 percent of the day. 93 percent of the only part of life that was ever really theirs.
We weren’t trying to make anyone feel guilty about their phone. What’s underneath it matters more. We reach for it to fill the quiet, and the quiet is usually where the harder, realer things live, including God. It’s tough to hear from Him when you never give Him five uninterrupted minutes.
Psalm 90 says teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. On our own we don’t number them, we just assume there will always be more. James 4 is a quick reminder though that... Life is a mist, here for a moment and then gone.
So we asked the real question. If that mist vanished tonight, are you certain you’d be with Jesus. We didn’t want anyone in that room walking away without an honest answer to that. Romans reminds us all of us have fallen short, no exceptions, and that death is what sin earns but eternal life is a gift, not something anyone could work for. God didn’t wait for us to clean ourselves up first. While we were still in it, Christ died for us. That’s the whole gospel in one line.
For the ones who already know Jesus, we pushed further. Freedom in Christ was never meant to look identical to everyone else’s life, spent the same way on the same noise, chasing whatever’s loudest with no idea where it’s headed.
We ended by sending them off alone, no phones, just Scripture and quiet, to sit with two questions honestly. If my life ended tonight, would I be with Jesus, or have I just been near Him without ever actually giving Him mine. Second, If I have been saved by Jesus what I am doing with the gift of life He has given me?
(I’ll add more pics soon to this one as the group was split)
Today started with an adopt a highway project. Camp Michiana takes care of a two mile stretch with the camp road right in the middle of it, and it was our job today. We split the group and worked both sides, cleaning our way toward each other until we met in the middle. I’ll be honest, I was a little stunned by what people throw out their windows. Somebody’s entire family sized meal, trash and all, just tossed out into the ditch. And yes, a few students got the honor of picking up a skunk that didn’t make it across the road. Not exactly a highlight of the week for them, but they did it without complaining.
In the afternoon we gathered wood and split a good amount of it for the camp.
Neither job sounds like much on paper. Picking up litter. Stacking firewood. But perspective changes everything. The staff here just came off an incredible but exhausting summer of camps, and every task we knocked out today is one less thing standing between them and being ready for retreat season. Sometimes serving well has nothing to do with how big the job looks and everything to do with who it’s actually for.
Tonight’s devo hit different than the last few nights. We didn’t ease into it. We asked the students straight up how short life actually is. Somebody built a chart once, just dots, one for every month of an average life if you live to ninety. Once you subtract sleep, school, work, driving, eating, chores, getting ready, what’s actually left for a person to choose what to do with is 334 months. That’s it. That’s the whole window for the things that matter most. And the average eighteen year old today is on pace to spend 93 percent of that window looking at a screen. Not 93 percent of the day. 93 percent of the only part of life that was ever really theirs.
We weren’t trying to make anyone feel guilty about their phone. What’s underneath it matters more. We reach for it to fill the quiet, and the quiet is usually where the harder, realer things live, including God. It’s tough to hear from Him when you never give Him five uninterrupted minutes.
Psalm 90 says teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. On our own we don’t number them, we just assume there will always be more. James 4 is a quick reminder though that... Life is a mist, here for a moment and then gone.
So we asked the real question. If that mist vanished tonight, are you certain you’d be with Jesus. We didn’t want anyone in that room walking away without an honest answer to that. Romans reminds us all of us have fallen short, no exceptions, and that death is what sin earns but eternal life is a gift, not something anyone could work for. God didn’t wait for us to clean ourselves up first. While we were still in it, Christ died for us. That’s the whole gospel in one line.
For the ones who already know Jesus, we pushed further. Freedom in Christ was never meant to look identical to everyone else’s life, spent the same way on the same noise, chasing whatever’s loudest with no idea where it’s headed.
We ended by sending them off alone, no phones, just Scripture and quiet, to sit with two questions honestly. If my life ended tonight, would I be with Jesus, or have I just been near Him without ever actually giving Him mine. Second, If I have been saved by Jesus what I am doing with the gift of life He has given me?
(I’ll add more pics soon to this one as the group was split)
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