2022 Summer Reflection

 

Sunday -- July Thirty-First -- Two-Thousand-Twenty-Two

Dedicated specially to those who have supported me this summer; financially, through prayers, or other. Thank you and God bless you. 

Ah, summer.

What does it mean for you? Maybe it means nothing for you but coming home from work to find that your children have been sleeping in till 11:30 AM only to stay up the same night until 2:00 AM while you work all week, just like any other blasted week out of the year, summer or no. Or, if you’re a college student, maybe it means getting a job at Chick-fil-a or Starbucks for two and a half months or finally getting that internship you’ve put off for the last four semesters. It may just mean doing things that you love, like getting around to listening to that podcast or going on that trip you’ve always wanted to go on. Maybe, if you’re like my homeschooling mother, it means making sure your kids get all of their summer reading done along with their completion of Saxon’s 7/8 Mathematics. Or, maybe you’re a tired parent always dreaming of that one week in the year where you can send your children to church camp. Not long now! you might have thought at the beginning of their summer break.

But if you’re like me, a rising Junior in college, you love summer. Because for me, like for that homeschool momma who hopes for a break, summer means camp. And camp means, if I could sum it up in three words, mass organized chaos (this was the title of an all-camp game played at the end of camp each week). This was my fourth summer working for a summer camp. 

“After two summers in Mississippi and one summer in North Carolina, in this season of the Traveling Counselor, where will Garrett be spending his summer this time?” In May of 2022, I found myself packing my big green duffle bag that was inscribed with the name of my older brother Jacob in black lettering on the side, stuffing as many shirts and shorts as I could into it, struggling to zip it up and still have it weigh under the fifty pound limit of checked bags. I found myself waking up at 4:00 AM to drive to the Asheville airport with dad. I found myself in the souvenir shop after my arrival, picking out the coolest, most unique sticker I could find. Who could do better than choosing a moose sticker?  It had the classic lumberjack flannel pattern, the letters M-O-N-T-A-N-A printed below the red-and-black plaid antlered animal. 

There’s a lot going into the story of why I chose to work out in Montana, but that’s where I was. I worked at Yellowstone Alliance Adventures in Bozeman for the summer. We were understaffed, exhausted as I’ll get out, feeling as though we were the embodiment of those fragile clay jars described by Paul in II Corinthians 4:7. Though it would be an exaggeration to say that the staff were being given over to death, as the apostle writes later in the passage, we held that same treasure that Paul is writing of, and that is the proclamation of Jesus Christ as Lord (see v. 5). Despite our frailty, our foolishness, even our hesitation to be obedient at times, God still chooses to put in us his riches, so to speak. He does this, though, to show that surpassing power belongs not to us, the clay jars, but to God alone. 

One experience from this summer in particular demonstrates the truth of this passage. I had a rather diverse cabin for the week of 5th-6th graders. All ten of them were sinners; four of them were Mormons, one of them was an eleven-year-old postmodern philosopher, and the rest of them but two were not professing believers. For me, a Christ-follower, it was a wild week to say the least.

I remember during our counselors’s meeting on the first full day of camp that week describing the situation. I think I said something to the semblance of, I’m not trying to convert them this week. I’m only trying to plant seeds, to leave an imprint on their memory so that when they are old enough to make a decision for themselves, they might find Jesus. I said this mostly with my Mormon campers in mind. I believed the words were true, that this really was my intent for their week. We paused the meeting that afternoon so we could pray specifically for those campers. I expected big things from the week. Was I wrong in doing so? I think not. Anticpation without reason is folly but when one’s trust is in the great Promise-Keeper of old, one’s faith is sure and well-founded. 

But despite my wise-sounding words, there was a deeper problem. I’ve found that it’s possible to fool yourself into thinking what you say is true by telling others it is so. Whether subconsciously or other, I think I was doing this here, telling people of my not ill-intended goals of leaving Jesus-imprints on my campers’s memories when the reality was, deep down, my intentions for trying to minister to these lost campers put into words would have read something like, challege accepted. 

Four Mormons, possibly some atheists, and a post-modernist? Bring it. 

Never would I have said this aloud, at least with a straight face. Nor, most likely, would you have stood by and received it from me, taking me seriously. I would have scoffed at you if you told me that this was my mentality. Few people are self-aware enough to know how to look deep inside the recesses of the heart and I claim not to be one of the so gifted. And so, rather than placing my faith and intentions in the strong hands of the promise-keeping Ancient of Days, I placed the heavy yoke firmly upon the weak shoulders of my own bloated ego. 

We all know how this goes. If you’ve read the previous summer’s reflection, you would know that this is not the first time I have done this. Last summer, the Lord, in his abundant love and compassion, worked despite myself. This summer, I experienced a different revelation of his grace for the same problem. 

I remind you, we held that meeting on Monday afternoon. It took only until Tuesday evening before I found myself burnt out. In hindsight, there’s a part of me that’s surprised I made it that long. I sat on a bench beneath a young aspen tree, eyes glazed over, probably thinking about some obscure Bible passage or something. Tired and beaten up. Humbled, regardless of my lack of ackowledgment concerning that short-lived state of being. Is not a refusal to acknowledge one’s unwilled humilty a sort of pride in its own right? I digress.

My exaustion was confirmed when my friend asked me how I was doing. 

 

Ask any on-duty camp counselor this question at any time in the summer. You will nearly always get the same response.

“I’m tired,” I said, after a moment of thought. “Tired but good.” 

Honestly, I don’t remember much from our conversation. There are some key things, though. Things that she said that I can recall and probably will for a while. 

I believe she asked me about my campers, how it was going with them. I told her. I was honest. It was difficult and trying and I was discouraged. My boys didn’t want to obey. They were mean to eachother, disrespectful to me, irreverent concerning the things of God. In short, they were sinners and I was a sinner and we were all humans doing human things. Enough said. 

But what discouraged me the most was not their argumentative tendencies nor their inability to pay attention nor even the perpetual forgetting of their belongings in random places across camp. It was that their interests in higher things were either absent completely or wholly misguided. I was so disheartened. Burnt out and straining for hope of their redemption.

That’s the thing. I wanted so badly, so deeply and earnestly for them to come to repentance. I wanted them to know Christ, to follow him and seek him. To declare him as Lord and ask him for the forgiveness of their sins. I wanted them to be saved, to be healed from the greatest ailment known to man, that is their own sins. I wanted to offer them that. Hope and peace. Salvation. Eternal, unconditional love.

“Do you remember how you said that you weren’t going to try to convert them?” She inquired. 

I nodded. She was referring to the counselor meeting from the day before. 

“Because it seems like that’s what you are trying to do,” she said, not unkindly but in a tone of compassionate understanding. “It seems like you want to give them what you are incapable of giving.” 

I wanted to offer them what only God could offer. Hope and peace. Salvation. Eternal, unconditional love. The kind of love that depends not on your limited/instinctual understanding of it, nor your actions against it, nor your inability to attain it, nor your doubts and misgivings concercning he who lavishes it unsparingly. In my best attempt to love anyone to the fullest extent I could muster, including my unbelieving campers, it would not be but the faintest echo of the vastness of the steadfast love of God. 

I wanted to save my campers, to provide them with the love that I have experienced since believing in Christ Jesus. 

I remember this distinctly.  She told me, “You can’t save your campers, Garrett. You’re not Jesus. You are a messenger, a tool. In presenting the gospel, you have done your job. The rest is up to God.” 

If you remember my last summer reflection, you know that this is a very similar conclusion to which I came in the summer of ‘21. I think I found an extension to the same lesson God taught me, though, and I feel the responsibility to share it with you. 

Responsibilty. As Christians, this is something we have. Yes, it is God alone who brings people unto himself. Yes, it is God who saves. Yes, it is Jesus Christ who gave his life for ours. It is imperitive, though, that we do not shirk the responsibilty given to us. It is true that Jesus takes our yoke and allows us to rest in the shared load we cannot carry alone (Matthew 11) but it is also true, if you read the text well and understand the metaphor he is employing, that he is carrying the yoke with us. Along side us. Jesus is using a metaphor here that is specific to the times, referring to a yoke carried on the backs of two oxen. Alone, we cannot plow the field, so to speak. Jesus, in Matthew 11, invites us to share the load with him. Not because he needs us, but because it gives him joy to work with us. He delights in laboring at our side. Indeed, we are both laboring for the same thing! If I want my campers to know Jesus, just imagine how much more Jesus wants the same. 

Stop toiling by yourself. Even the small bit of the field that will be plowed will be turned poorly, unevenly, if you attempt it on your own. Your back will break. 

Because, though I had such good intentions and desires, longings for my campers that were pure and good, I was seeking their fulfillments by myself, toiling for the kingdom in my own strength and, like the clay jars, it turns out I am fragile, prone to break under pressure. To believe that you have responsiblity to work for the kingdom is good and true but attempting to do so by yourself is folly and will result in burn out and disheartened failure. 

Come to me, says Jesus. All who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly of heart. Matthew 11:28-29 (ESV).

Again, Jesus is not telling us to stop toiling but to toil with him. While there is a time to stop and rest and be still and not work, Jesus is not speaking of that time here. Jesus promises us that when we work with him, we will find rest amid the work, maybe even in the work. He gives rest to those he works alongside him. 

After my conversation with my friend, the week started to look much different for me. Immediately following our conversation, I felt distinctly that a weight had been lifted. The yoke for two began to actually function properly, as the other half was taken by one much more experienced, one infinitely stronger than myself. 

I took him up on his invitation. 

I took his yoke, letting go of mine in the process. 

And I learned from him. 

As for how the rest of the week went in regards to my campers and their individual salvations, I can say honestly that some good work was done, some good seeds planted. It would also be true that I worked really hard. In the end, though, the work that I did was truly -- make no mistake: I am not being modest, only honest -- only what the Holy Spirit did through me. Speaking through me, acting through me. I came to have a deeper understanding of what it means to be the hands and feet of the body whose head is Christ. Christ compelled me. 

Praise God. 

In Christ, 

G. H. Goins