5 Tips for Taking Care of Yourself in Ministry

Are you taking care of yourself?

Ministry is about being outwardly focused. But sometimes we get so busy being outwardly focused that we forget to look inward at all. And when we look back into ourselves finally, we often find some distortions of the truth brewing in there. This is a small list of things to keep in mind, in order to keep those sneaky little lies from setting up and doing damage while you're out there doing your thing.

1. Allow yourself to be yourself. Your personality produces your unique brand of ministry, and that's the most valuable thing you can give to your team. Embrace your own unique deep self—God created it, and he called it good! Trying to be someone else just makes us cheap knockoffs of someone else's original design. It's like a quarterback trying to be a linebacker. The enemy wants us to believe that only one type of person is good at ministry, and when we believe this lie, we give ourselves over to becoming cheap imitators of other people. But when we do that, we lose the strength of our deep self, because we deny it access into our life and our ministry. Leaders have to come in all shapes and sizes because that's how the kids come. People of all types desperately need ministries of all types. So, be free to be yourself, because the Body of Christ deeply needs the genuine version of all its parts!


2. Check your compass frequently. Take time frequently to allow God to refocus your idea of your true self and direct you to what He wants to teach you. When we stop looking inward, we start running with our eyes closed. For instance, I'm passionate about others' freedom until I stop keeping my own lust for attention and success in check. Checking in with yourself keeps you goal oriented, on the RIGHT goal. Without a compass, people will inherently walk in circles—just like the Israelites in the desert. Taking time to listen to God and explore your own heart is like checking your compass, making sure you truly are headed in the right direction. And keeping yourself spiritually healthy and free is what allows for meaningful kingdom work.


3. The pressure's off. You don't have to save them. It's not even your job to save them. It's your job to bring them to the feet of Jesus. So don't allow yourself to feel like a complete failure based on how your kids are responding to the gospel. It doesn't matter how good you said it or how bad you butchered it. God can save anyone He wants to any way he wants to. And He does it frequently. I've heard plenty of stories about butchered Gospel presentations leading to tears and repentance. God's the one who actually does the real work, but he LOVES to use us and involve us in His story of redemption of the world, because he made US to love it too! God’s uses us to bring salvation to the people we're ministering to, but if they don’t accept Him, it doesn't mean we've failed God. It’s not our job to save someone; it’s God’s. That should be a load off! (Recommended reading: Ezekiel 2:4-8)


4. The team leader is the team administrator. The team leader doesn't necessarily mean the most important leader or the most valuable leader. Team leader is a position often given to a person whose ministry would be least affected by the extra hassle of administrative duties. And honestly, when you aren't team leader, you often have the opportunity to be an even better leader. I know plenty of team leaders, former and current, that would agree with me. So if you're someone who's felt "less than" by not being chosen to be team leader, don't feel like that anymore. It's not a strike on who you are. Certain gift sets are more negatively affected by the extra responsibilities than others are. The team leader position is a position of servanthood, not extra importance/value, and seeing it as such will keep you from using the wrong scale to measure yourself with—which will in turn preserve your ministry.


5. Be careful with your heart and your habits. In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul says this: "I have the right to do anything," you say--but not everything is beneficial. "I have the right to do anything"--but I will not be mastered by anything." Just remember, ruts are hard to unmake. When we get in habits, it is extremely hard to change them. Our small decisions define our habits, and our habits define who we are, in a sense. You are what you eat. Therefore, make sure your small decisions glorify God. Over time, they're going to have a huge impact on your life.


Let me know if you have any thoughts! What's been the most valuable thing for YOU to keep in mind while you've been in ministry? Let me know either in the comments or an email on the side of the page!

Knowing God, Not Just Knowing About God

I'm charming.

My sophomore year of high school, I learned something about Christianity that changed everything.

I was actually at a church lock-in, of all places. We had just finished playing a gripping game of "Who Can Kick the Basketball Into the Goal From Half-Court," and we were taking a little break. As we sat down in a circle talking, one of the leaders started saying some things about God that I'd never heard before.

"You can know as much as you want ABOUT George Washington, but it doesn't mean you KNOW him."

"You can talk to someone all you want. But if they don't talk back to you, you don't KNOW them."

"You can know facts about God, but if He doesn't talk back to you, you don't KNOW Him."

What?

My mind was blown. I went home and couldn't go to sleep. I started talking to God in a way I never had before. "God... do you want to talk to me?" I started asking questions that required an answer. I started listening. And that's when I finally realized the truth about God. He wants us to know Him, not just know about Him.

Nothing was ever the same again.

This is the story of how I started meeting with God. It's the story of when I realized a relationship was a two way thing, and when I realized God wanted one of those with me. It was the most important thing that's ever happened to me.

There are plenty of high schoolers in the same place as I was. There are more people who don't listen for the Shepherd's voice because they don't know He wants to speak to them.

It's a two way conversation.

Talking and listening.

If you do ministry with young people, many of them probably don't understand that God wants to talk to them. Sadly, few high schoolers know that hearing God's voice is an essential component of a relationship with God.

What can we do to change that? How can we bring them to the feet of the Savior?

In Bible studies, I try really hard to encourage my friends to look for God's voice in scripture (the Word of God). Here are some valuable questions:

"What verse is doing something to your heart?"
"Why do you think that is?"
"If God was trying to tell you something through this verse, what might that message be?"

In my experience, high school kids quickly jump to moralism when confronted with Sin and the Gospel, instead of the idea that God actually wants to meet with them. How can we encourage them to have a REAL encounter with a REAL God? After all, Jesus didn't die so that we would stop doing as much bad stuff. He wants us. Because he knows if the inside is transformed, the outside will soon follow.

Getting to know God is what transforms a person. I know from experience. The facts are great, but God wants to do a lot more than give people a history lesson.

Jeremiah 33:3 - "Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know."

John 17:3 - "And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."

Ministry is Messy

Image by nist6ss under C.C. License

YL Leader Survival Guide, Chapter 11

Ministry isn't always cookie cutter.

And on the bench next to the rock wall, I learned it the hard way.

I found myself on said bench at 3:30 AM, right in the middle of our camp week, talking to one of my high school friends staying in our cabin. I'll spare you the details, but the "you know what" had hit the fan for my friend, and he was in a brutally honest place of evaluating life.


"Why don't you want to follow Jesus?" was my question. Pretty standard, by the book form, right? I was doing great so far.

"You want to know why? Because Christianity just looks like it's all about what I can't do. You say it's life giving, but that doesn't look very life giving to me."

I had no idea what to say. The seconds of silence felt like minutes. I ran through every verse I'd ever read, searching frantically for any kind of answer. But none came. I prayed the shortest prayer you can pray, "Help!" But still, no answer. I was stumped. Was Christianity all about what we couldn't do? Why was I so inadequate for this situation?

It haunted me. I came back from camp with my head low, feeling like a failure. In my mind, I had surely screwed up a kid's chance to know Jesus. And on top of that, the burning question my high school friend harbored had jumped over and ignited my own heart as well. What the heck!

Have you experienced something like this? If so, you'll know you can't get it out of your head until you can find the question for yourself. And that's exactly what happened. After some major wrestling, God finally showed me that the commandments might look and even feel like constriction, but they really lead to real freedom. We were given the guidelines to the most free life possible, but Satan, the Father of Lies, makes it look backwards. I never got to explicitly say this to my friend, but what I did realize is this.

That situation was very much for my growth.

If you've had similar situations, just know you aren't alone. It really is more common than you think. I've had so many times where I either didn't know what to do or say, or I did or said the wrong thing.

And God worked it together for His good.

God carefully crafts these messy moments into our lives. Here are the reasons He's given me for doing such a thing.

1. God wanted to teach ME something. That situation was about me, and all along I thought it was about someone else. Surprise! God already promises He works everything together for His good. Is it too much of a jump to say that He enjoys using our perceived failures to bring about an unforeseen victory? This is the kind of victory that we can't take credit for. We FINALLY have to relent, and give Him all the glory for the work only He is able to do in the first place. Which brings me to my next point...

2. Our failures don't ruin God's plan as much as we think. Only when we fool ourselves into thinking it's our responsibility to save people do we start tallying up all of our failures to do so. Christians in the Middle East are rare. Has that stopped God? Of course not. He's coming to people in dreams. Our God doesn't need us, but he LOVES to use us as his hands and feet. But when we "screw up," God's not sitting there saying, "Oh no... look what you've done!! Now I can't save this person!" Does this mean we don't need to do ministry? Of course not. But when we don't have an answer to a high school friend's question, we don't walk away with someone's blood on our hands. Prayer is the most important ministry there is, because God's the one who does the heavy lifting.

3. God's power is made perfect in our weakness. It's God's good pleasure to put us in situations that are too much for us. In our weakness, His strength finally has room to work how it wants. And in our hearts, we begin to finally realize He was in complete control all along. What a load off our shoulders! So often we forget that God chooses the most unfit to do His greatest works. We forget that Moses said this, "Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue" (- Exodus 4:10). Or that Gideon said this, "Pardon me, my lord, but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family" (Judges 6:15). But God used those guys to do some of the craziest things that have ever happened throughout history. What about you?

God has a plan for the messiness. So don't fret when you feel taken advantage of, or when you've hurt someone's feelings, or when you have to set harsh boundaries with a kid. Ministry is just messy. And the rest of life is just as messy. But messy is beautiful. 

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.

1 Corinthians 1:27-29 "But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being[a] might boast in the presence of God."



P.S. For a special edition of the Young Life Leader Survival Guide, go to the Young Life Leader Blog's post for today! It's called, "Why Do My High School Friends Keep Partying?"

Prepare Excellently, Then Stop Beating Yourself Up

YL Leader Survival Guide, Ch. 10

My team dominated club while I was in college. "The Funnel" was funneling, downtime was methodically eliminated, and club ran smoother than the Sugar Cane Train.

After club we would talk about what we could do to make club run even more smoothly. We would talk about what could be improved on, and we didn't stop until club was a well oiled machine of efficiency. This is how you get a club so rockin' that it would make Jim Rayburn shed a single tear.

Just don't take it too far.

Young Life is about striving for excellence. But sometimes things go wrong. The ipod cord goes bad. Someone forgets something. The CD skips (as if anyone uses those anymore). When that happens, what are you going to do about it?

WAY #1: Stress about the little things and ruthlessly critique unforeseen errors.
"You should have brought an extra CD, Tommy! Now look at us, we have to play the game with NO MUSIC!" Poor Tommy. Who could have known the CD wasn't going to make it in that box of clothespins he had to bring for the game? It's an easily fixable situation for next time, but unfortunately there's no "Bye Bye Bye" to jam out to tonight. Therefore, when we think about club, we can only think about the way Tommy screwed it up tonight. We also stress about it all night and wonder whether anyone will show up to such a poorly run club next week.

WAY #2: Embrace excellence in our preparation, and stop beating ourselves up. 
So we had some downtime between songs because one of the slides was out of order, even though our new leader thought she put them in order. So what? If we prepare as well as we can, we don't have to stress about the little things that slip through the cracks. We can trust God, make adjustments if needed, and move on in faith. Besides, Gordon gave a great talk tonight. He always gives such great talks...

Obviously, my vote is for "Way #2." When things happen outside our control, do we really need to treat them like they're ruining our ministry?

Let's be honest, a high school kid isn't going to go home and say, "Yeah, it was pretty fun until there was that downtime between the skit and the songs. That pretty much ruined it for me." For the most part, they really don't care. Most of the time, high school kids come for you. They come because of your ministry and investment in them.

The little things are definitely important, and fixing little hiccups is going to make club run smoother, but our unforeseen errors aren't going to ruin God's plans. So we don't need to stress about them. We can fix them for next time, and be peaceful about the way God chose to move that night. It's okay to prepare excellently, execute as well as we can, and then surrender the rest to Him. It's really easy to try to control everything, but we just can't always stop things from going wrong. Don't let obsession over "the perfect club" change your joy into weekly anxiety.

Prepare excellently for club, and then don't beat yourself up if something goes wrong!

Remember, God is in control.

Isaiah 55:10-11 - "For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it."

Time

(This is a longer, more philosophical post. You have been warned)

For the past couple months, I have been hearing God's voice a lot more than normal.

The funny thing is, I have been asking for God to speak more loudly and frequently for a long time... for years, really. It's interesting how God waits to answer prayers. And it's interesting how we lose so much trust, faith, and hope when our prayers aren't answered in what we perceive to be a timely manner. I mean, if I was God, I would say,"You want me to speak? Well then let me just speak to you right now, here's a bunch of crazy stuff that I've been wanting you to know. In the sky, in airplane writing. There, that's about 19 of your problems solved, including that one about you doubting whether I exist sometimes."

It's really interesting how He doesn't do that, and how we just don't get it. So often, we just can't understand why He doesn't just speak now, or why he doesn't just heal us now, or why he allows growth to be so slow and often painful. Why can't He just finish us now?

My reason for writing this post is to communicate this: we do a lot of not understanding how God could be outside of time, but I don't think we understand time as well as we think we do. In fact, I think there's a part of us that longs for something besides time, as we know it.

We are fine with "time" until God tarries in giving us healing. We understand it perfectly until we begin to realize how strange it is that good things have to change. That fleeting moment atop the pedestal at the Olympics for Nastia Liuken when she won the gold for best all-around gymnast... it was awesome, but it's passed. She now has to look back on that moment forever. The moment that encompassed everything she trained for now lives on only in memory. It's not until time becomes our adversary that we begin to question it:

"Why do things have to change?" 
"Why can't I have what I desire now?"
"Why does God take his sweet time to address this area of brokenness in my life?"

God On A Different Schedule

Looking back at my life, It's almost like when I've asked God for something like more faith, or for him to teach me what it means to really love, It seems like He said, "I'm really glad you asked me for that. I'll put you down for a year and a half from now."



I don't know about you, but this doesn't always sit well with me. For whatever reason, the God who made "time" seems to enjoy operating within its constraints (go figure) by growing things instead of making them magically appear.  But I recently had a cool little epiphany: what if it's not supposed to sit well with me? What if part of us is made for another realm, where time is different; the realm He's prepared for us?

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, "He he has set eternity in the human heart, yet no one can understand what God has done from beginning to end."

It sounds like there's a part of us that doesn't get time as well as we originally thought; and maybe there'a a part of us that understands whatever is outside time better than we think. I don't know about you, but I personally had a really hard time swallowing all the "forever" attached to God and Christianity. But now, it's one of my favorite things about God. Imagine a world where when something good happened, when you were in the most glorious part of your life, it could stay for longer than just that fleeting moment.  Imagine if something good never had to change!

I was talking to my cousin Marcus about this last night, and we realized why we've been so confused about God and time for so long. It's because we don't have the right vocabulary to talk about God outside time. WE are in time and space, a realm of constant change and motion. When I used to ask people in Sunday school how long God had been there, they would reply, "Well, Timothy, He's always been there." I went by Timothy until third grade. No big deal.

Always, huh? How does that work? Those were my thoughts growing up. But here's what I've realized about always: it's a "time word."  You can't describe something outside time with a word that infers time. If God's outside time, and we say he's "always" been there, we're just going to get more confused. But in some ways it's the best we can do, isn't it? It's hard to describe something that no one living has ever experienced, like timeless existence.

Often times God uses worldly metaphors, like "streets of gold," to describe things unfathomable to us; because he's putting it in terms we can kind of understand. Here's one such metaphor that helps me understand a God outside of space and time:

God, The Author

Imagine God as the author of a novel that He's made himself a character in. When you read through a novel, you experience time within the story, which is different from real life time. It doesn't matter how fast or slow you read, you still aren't missing anything you don't want to. You can read the same part over 5 times if you want; the rest of the story will wait for you.

Now imagine God, with His rough draft in His hand. He can flip to whatever page He wants whenever He wants, adding Himself in wherever He pleases, because He isn't constrained by the time of the book's storyline. In the same way we can do this with novels, it makes a lot of sense that God could plausibly do this with the story He's created.

This was Tyler Morris's idea, and I don't know where he got it. But if you're reading this... you rule, T-Mo.

Answered Questions

So when I see God as an author, and as I look into scripture, questions like these get less scary and more plausible:

"How can God be paying attention to and speaking to everyone at the same time?"
"If God made everything, who made God?" (Only in time do we need beginnings and ends)
"What do you mean, we will be in heaven forever?"


In Malachi 3:6, God says that he is unchanging. At the start of John, it says "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God." Which is basically saying before God made time, He just was. Or, as He likes to say, He is. "Before Abraham was born, I AM" - John 8:58. And finally, my personal favorite is 2 Peter 3:8 - "With God, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day." That one just throws time out the window... it's almost funny. I'll leave you to sort through those for yourself.

We definitely can't know everything about what time might be like outside this world, but it doesn't mean we can't try to create plausible and noncontradictory ideas about it!

It's easy to be scared of what heaven might be like. I used to be scared that I would be trapped in an unchanging picture frame after I died. But God's description of heaven is pretty awesome, and He made us; I think he knows we'll like it, whatever it is. To me, being anxious about heaven is like being anxious you won't like your Christmas presents when your parents can read your mind. They're sitting there saying, "Uh... we can read your mind. You're going to like it." Don't worry, it's probably not a picture frame.

Well, that concludes my philosophical rant about time. Let me know if you have any thoughts!

P.S. Young Life Leader Survival Guide will ramp up next week for just a few... more... posts...

The Underground River, Part II

So, Part One was a description of the "underground river," or the desires, hopes, and dreams that point to pieces of our original design. This post is about misjudging the direction of the underground river, which I personally am a professional at.

As I've embarked on my journey of digging for who I am and what I like and what I'm like, often times I've unearthed a small clue about a bigger unknown part of myself.   When this happens, I get really excited. Who WOULDN'T get excited?

But when I get excited, I have a tendency to make far too many assumptions about that bigger, still very hidden part of myself. I've habitually become so excited about unearthing the start of something huge, that I'd stop digging entirely and begin to plan a course of action around whatever I figured it meant.

My Real Life Example: YL Staff

When I was finishing college, God used some specific solitude times to make me passionate about lifelong ministry. And obviously, "lifelong ministry" could mean a whole freaking ton of things. But I knew that it could only mean one thing: going on Young Life staff.

I applied for Young Life staff, knowing that it was the logical next step. After all, I HAD been a leader for the past four years. I knew how to get kids jacked. I knew how to run a Young Life club.

To make a long story short, I didn't get affirmed to go on staff. And it was extremely hard. My self worth was thrown into question. What made me not good enough? Why am I worse than this other person who got to go on staff? The senior YL staffers who were responsible for making the decision were quick to let me know they were steering me in a different direction, and that it wasn't about worth, but I wasn't ready to hear that message. Because of course they were going to say that, I thought. It's the old classic "It's not you it's me, but it's actually you" routine.

All my eyes saw was a hypothetical Knoxville News Sentinel article, titled "Breaking: Tim Branch, Staff Kid, Doesn't Get Approved to Be on YL Staff."

To be brutally honest, I was embarrassed. All sorts of old self esteem wounds from my childhood and adolescence had opened up all of a sudden. I began to see my problems: I wasn't good enough at leading, I wasn't good enough at being charismatic, I wasn't funny enough, I wasn't good enough at saying the right thing at the right time.

But that wasn't really the problem.

The REAL problem was, God is way too passionate about me being EXACTLY who, what, and how I was designed to be to let me continue in a direction that's even slightly off base.

God is too excited about what He's creating to just let us do what we think we want. He loves us too much to give into our cries for what we think we were made for. Nothing can stand in the way of Him creating His masterpiece... not even the masterpiece itself.

I had plans to answer the call to lifelong ministry by going on YL staff. But I had misjudged the direction of my underground river. God had other plans, and they weren't to destroy my life and my confidence. He brought me somewhere tailored to my specific needs, the needs that HE knew were there but I didn't.

I took a high school internship position with Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church instead. I found out in my first months that God had created an environment to grow me in ways I never imagined. He addressed all sorts of strongholds that I had held onto as a YL volunteer leader, and He revealed to me some of my deepest passions and connection places. God had created this place just for me, from my coworkers to my bible study guys.

Here's What I've Learned

 When things don't play out how you want them to, it doesn't mean you are unimportant, and it doesn't mean you're a second string Christian. It means God sees the path to creating your true self, and you don't. And it's leading off somewhere that doesn't look like the trail.

God has a way of leading people into the desert, and THEN speaking tenderly to them (Hosea 2:14). He also has this habit of bringing about a death in order to bring about new, transformed life (resurrection).

But He doesn't always explain himself before he takes the liberty of blasting our life plans, dreams, and goals to smithereens, does He?

In A Traveler Toward the Dawn, John Eagan sets up an interesting picture. He talks about his metaphorical building of a house, brick by brick (Go Vols), stone by stone, for 25 years. As he finishes his work, God rolls up with a huge cannon and starts blasting away the house he worked so hard to construct, story by story, with a huge grin on his face. It's almost as if He's proud of his destruction. What are you doing, God??

This is how it feels so often, isn't it? Each of his calculated, life-destroying explosions leaves an intense ringing in your ears. But if you are alert enough, you'll be able to make out the exclamation, "I won't let you settle!" from the ringing.

Obviously, YL staff isn't "settling" by any means. But for me, the growth I needed would never have happened unless I took the internship at the church. And that's why the YL staff people steered me away. Because they saw that for me, it would have been slightly different than where my heart (and God) was leading me.

Here's a relevant poem my dad wrote:

Undone 

by Jim Branch

years and years of hard work
diligently putting it all together
piece by piece
thinking all is well
progress is being made

but then you
come and scramble the whole picture
leaving pieces scattered everywhere

you smile lovingly
as I sit in the middle of the mess
knowing that I don't know
knowing that I'm undone
and thinking to yourself
now that's progress


Jeremiah 29:11 - "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Proverbs 19:21 - Many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails.
21 

The Underground River, Part I

I know my last post was about digging. But there's a lot to be said about it, so I'm gonna keep riding the wave. I'm also going to split this one up into two parts, because there's a lot to say...

I've been doing a lot of digging into the mysterious inner wiring of my deep self, the stuff that's buried under layer upon layer of subconscious sediment, the kind of stuff that only hints at its true source through those numerous little "geysers" of wants and desires I feel in my daily life.

Why do I want the things I want? Why do I chase the things I chase so very hard? And what is it really that makes the objects of my desires worth it?

This blind faith that when I reach my goal, I will finally experience real happiness... where does it come from?

With these questions, I'm digging to find a spiritual undercurrent that might lead me to uncovering more of my Original Design. Some of the answers can be scary, but without them, how can I make it to the truth?

I want to lay out a metaphor for you.

The Thirsty Traveller Metaphor

A man was wandering out in the wilderness, looking for any trace of water. His map had led him astray, and it had been a long time since he'd seen another person or any real sustenance. He'd found a puddle on a rock here and there, but not enough to give any real life to his body. But at night, when he laid his head down on the ground to rest, he could swear he heard the sound of rushing water. 

The possibility of an underground river was driving him mad.

Finally, he decided to take his tools and start at the ground. If that sound truly was rushing water, then nothing was more important than getting to it. But it was a gamble. Would he lose time, effort, and sweat looking for something that wasn't there?

It didn't matter; he was sick of living puddle to puddle out in the wilderness. And besides, if he could just figure out the direction the water was rushing to, he would surely find an oasis...

His hands blistered and his tools blunted, the man used all of his waning strength to pull away the thick and sturdy layers of sand, dirt, and rock from the ground. He'd bet too much to stop now. He was all in. He dug for hours and hours, his muscles sore and his head spinning from fatigue and dehydration. And finally, with one of his scoops, his hole began to fill with sandy, gritty liquid. He had finally found the water.

But where was it heading to? 

It was time to keep digging, to get a direction as to where that oasis could be...

Our Original Design's secrets are at the mouth of a subconscious river. 

But which way is the river flowing? In order to get closer to the mouth, you've gotta know where it's headed.

My friend Pua and I were talking earlier this year about clothes (I know a lot about clothes (I don't)), and something interesting came up in the conversation. Pua is passionate about "fair trade" clothes, which, if you don't know, means she only buys clothes from companies who give their overseas employees fair working conditions. No slavery, no sweat shops, no malpractice. This can be more expensive than normal clothing prices, because honest work costs more.

At one point as we were talking, Pua yelled, "Why do I care so much about how clothes are made?!" And that's when it hit us. Pua's passion shows that her heart flows in a certain direction. There's something deeper going on, and her passion for fair trade clothes is that deeper thing rising to the surface. What could it be? That's the exciting part!

So how do I find a "river" to follow?

Your desires will give you a great starting direction. What do you want? What do you like? What do you wish for in your unedited thoughts? Why? Those questions help to uncover what your deep self is truly after. You can make some good guesses about where the oasis is if you can figure out where the river is pointing.

Just to be clear, I want to define the oasis. My oasis is the place in my relationship with God where my deep, unique, intimate needs are met by the parts of His personality that He designed me to uniquely connect with the most. These are the parts of Himself that He was most excited to uniquely share with me when He first thought about making me!

Here's my logic behind all this:

1. We all long for things (many of them unique), and we don't know why.
2. As a Christian, I believe that we were made for God.

If both of these things are true, then this is a logical assumption:


Each unique thing a person longs for is a CLUE to the specific parts of God that that specific person identifies with. And these parts of God are the places where he most wants to connect with each of us, in our special places not shared by just any other person. These are the parts that come alive in that familiar pleasurable/painful way when we watch that specific movie, or read that specific book, or hear that specific song. It's the underground river.

These places in which He's connected to me have been some of the most meaningful connections I've ever experienced. And we are all, of course, alike in many ways in how we were made to connect with God. But I'm convinced that God made us unique because he wanted to connect with us uniquely, too. That's what intimacy really is, right? What's intimacy without having something special between two people?

One of my biggest connection places with God is adventure... What are yours?


Follow the Stream to find out.