Sunday, July 14, 2013

A glimpse of heaven

It’s that time again where we will be going to a place we have now called “a glimpse of heaven”. I haven’t been to Joni and Friends (JAF) Family Retreat in four years and I feel like a different person than when I went in high school. JAF was always a place of fun and excitement, and I’m sure it will again. Knowing the centrality of the Gospel has made me even more aware of and concern for people’s souls, whether it’s the families’ or even the volunteers’. And maybe I will need to learn much too as I’ve always been humbled by the lives of these families affected by disabilities. I am not sure what to think of JAF coming up this week. Is it a mission field or a retreat for myself or both? But I know God is sovereign and He will work mightily regardless. I’ve posted this quote before but I like it:

"One of my renaissance experiences was to get among kids who were on a different spiritual level than my own, and enjoy fellowship with them. I found a very subtle snare in so doing. I sought their fellowship in order that I might minister to them, 'be a help,' you know, to the 'weaker' ones. What a rebuke came when I sensed my real motive - that might minister. Love hacks right at this, for she refused to parade herself. I learned to recognize no 'spiritual planes,' but simply to love, purely, in every group. Trying to 'be a help' even has a smell of good works in it, for it is not pure. Our motive is only to be - do nothing, know nothing, act nothing - just to be a sinful bit of flesh, born of a Father's love." 
-Shadow of the Almighty

I know it’ll be a special time. But why is it a glimpse of heaven? Is it because the worship time is more alive? Is it because there’s so much laughter, games, free time, cute kids running around?

Maybe it’s because these families affected by disabilities are more in tune to reality, the state of who we are as desperate people before the universe’s Almighty God. I added this verse to the top of this blog as a reminder of what we are to do:

For we are powerless before this great multitude who are coming against us; nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are on You. 
2 Chronicles 20:12

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