Shh... listen.

I had the wonderful privilege of being a program tech at the DC Metro Region's Committee/Leader Weekend at Rockbridge Alum Springs (what I like to call the DCMRCLW@RAS) last weekend.

As a program tech, I essentially made sure the slideshows were ready, the music was cued and loud, and the lights were on (or off) when needed.

The major bonus here is that I got to sit and listen to each talk the keynote speaker gave. Susan D. Hill was the speaker for the weekend and she spoke primarily about her experiences with hearing God's voice and how she'd learned to listen.

Pause the story for a second... I've been sporadically praying for the past couple months (maybe years) to learn how to hear the voice of God better. Odd, wouldn't you think? No, how about God.

Resume the story... As I sat in the tech booth and listened, I came face to face with the reality that God does speak to people. I'm not sure where I got the idea, but I assumed that nowadays he just didn't want to... or didn't need to... or something. I assumed that maybe God was just tired of talking after yelling at the Israelites for a few hundred years. It's funny how I'm so wrong sometimes.

Susan told story after story after story about how God had spoken to her through circumstances, through dreams, through conversations, through his word. In countless ways, God had reached out to her and captured her attention. He had spoken to her.

I think sometimes it's easy for me to write things off as false, untrue, or impossible when I haven't seen first hand. I'm so bound by my own experience that it's really hard for me to accept things in faith. I've read a lot of the Bible. I've read countless examples of God speaking to people. In fact, Friday before I left for Rockbridge, I read Exodus 34:6-7 in which God is meeting Moses FACE TO FACE and proclaiming truths about who the Lord is and what his character is like.

I read all these things and yet I still can't believe that God speaks to people. I sit in the tech booth at Rockbridge and listen to someone talk about times the Lord has reached out to them and spoken and I doubt. I think how weird this person is. I think of how strange they are... how bizarre this is. Scripture is overflowing with examples of the Lord speaking to people and yet when I have an opportunity to hear a person speak first hand, I don't accept it.

Thanks be to God that I was able to come to this weekend. I left a firm believer that God still speaks to people. I don't think I have it down just yet. I still struggle. I'm still learning how to listen. I don't expect to get it overnight.

Sunday morning as we were eating breakfast. One of the men at my table shared an experience he'd had hearing the voice of God just the day before. During the night session, he was drifting off to sleep during the speaker's message. During his short sleep, he had a dream his friend Mark was serenading him and as he approached him, he yelled, "WAKE UP!" He jolted awake, embarrassed that he'd fallen asleep. As he sat there listening, his favorite number, 1337, popped into his head and for some reason, he decided that he needed to look at the verse Mark 13:37.

(Here comes the crazy part.)

Mark 13:37 reads: "And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake."

Whoa. Now, if that isn't God speaking to him, I don't know what is.

God still speaks to people. I'm convinced he does. I don't think he's ever stopped speaking... I think we've stopped listening. I know I have. I am so distracted by my phone, Facebook, emails, Twitter, my new job, friends, my dog, EVERYTHING! I think the key is learning how to tune your ears, eyes, and heart to seeing, hearing, and perceiving God. He's everywhere--I just need to pay attention.

I just need to stay awake.

P.S. Susan D. Hill has a book called Closer Than Your Skin. I haven't read it yet, but I'm very excited to. If you're interested, check it out.

Welcome back!

No, I didn't sell my computer and become a nomad... I don't know where that rumor came from. I am back though, back from perhaps the best month of my life.

I spent the month of July serving as a volunteer Work Crew Boss at Saranac Lake Younglife Camp in upstate New York. I was working in the kitchen in "the pits". The pits (if you are unfamiliar with Younglife lingo) is the dishwashing area. I had a team of 5 awesome high school kids who gave up an entire month of their summer to serve Christ in some of the dirtiest and nastiest ways.

It was an amazing experience. The thing that struck me most was the fact that roughly 40 high school kids gave up a month of their time to work for no pay to serve Christ. When I was their age, working that hard for that long would have seemed like a joke. I left this month with so much hope in the future. God is hard at work in the lives of high schoolers. He is capturing their hearts and using them for amazing, wonderful things.

Another thing that struck me was how prideful I am. I spent most of my days sweating in the kitchen scrubbing plates, bowls, sheet trays, and all other kinds of kitchenwares. I realized how hard it is for me to work in the background... to work with no recognition... to only be noticed when things are not done correctly. It was hard for me. I like to have attention, I like when I'm noticed. Most campers never knew my name. They probably didn't know what the "pits" was. But, in this, I learned how to surrender my pride and serve in humility.

I still can't get over how great this month was. Don't get me wrong, though, it was hard. I worked hard, physical labor, sometimes 14 hours a day, but in that hard, sometimes frustrating work, I found infinite opportunities to work for the glory of God. I'd read about Brother Lawrence about a week before I left for New York. He was a monk in the 1600s in a French monastery. He was stationed in the kitchen washing dishes and hated it, but by the end of his life, he was known for practicing the presence of God. He did anything and everything for the glory of God. He was so captivated with Christ that the world around him became so insignificant. He spent every second in commune with God. I strived for this during my month and often times fell far short, but it was a fun struggle.

Now that I'm home, I'm still trying to practice the presence of God. It's harder, I must admit. I am not surrounded by an awesome community, I'm not working directly for God's service, but all the chances are still there. I need to give glory to God in everything I say and do... even if it's simply writing this blog post.

Floored...

I'm not a very emotional person by the worlds standards. I've never cried watching a movie. I don't cry at weddings. I didn't even tear up when I read Where the Red Fern Grows. The way I experience emotions is more like getting kicked in the stomach--having the wind knocked out of me.

You may be asking, why is Isaac writing about this? And that is a good question. Because I will tell you. Now.

As many of you know, I lead Wyldlife. For those of you who don't, it is a Christian ministry that seeks to introduce middle schoolers to Jesus Christ and help them grow in their faith. By "leading" Wyldlife, I am in essence a leader at a middle school. I help organize events, hang with kids, but most importantly, share Christ with them.

Anyway, this week is our summer camp trip. I sadly couldn't go this year because of numbers, but, I went down yesterday to catch up with some of the guys who went with our other guy leader, Micah. Yesterday, the camp speaker presents the kids with a problem. A big problem. He lays out the problem of sin. He explains to them what sin is and how it differs from sins. He explains how there is absolutely nothing we can do to fix this problem. We've made our own choice to go astray and do the things we want to do.

It hurts to hear this message, but seeing kids begin to open up... to think about their own lives... to think about how there is something greater than girls, clothes, sports, school... is simply amazing.

After the talk last night, I headed back to the cabin that the guys from my school are staying in for "cabin time". It is essentially a leader-led time where we all sit on the floor and process what was just talked about. If you know anything about middle school kids, boys in particular, they have an attention span of 2 seconds, so cabin time can often be an adventure. However, last night was different. The guys were thinking, sharing about their lives, asking questions.

The thing that really got me was what one kid said. He hadn't spoken the whole 30 minutes we'd been talking, but he raised his hand and said, "We are like a work of art... like the Statue of Libery... when it was first made it was bright and shiny copper, but it quickly became tarnished and turned green. It was still the original creation, but something had changed... it wasn't perfect anymore."

I was floored. The wind was knocked right out of me. If I cried normally, queue up the tear factory. This kid, probably 12 years old, just made a brilliant comparison. I don't know if he's following Christ, I just met him yesterday, but that analogy struck me.

We are still the beautiful creation that God made us to be; however, something has happened. Something that can't be reversed. We've all become tarnished. Imperfect. Sin. The Statue of Liberty itself cannot clean off the tarnish, the imperfection. We are the same way. We cannot clean off our sin. Only our creator can.

Today the kids hear about the cross, about Jesus, that he did what we cannot do. It's the best day of the week. It's the best day of their lives.

One to the next one...

Well I have almost finished reading Jesus For President. Yes, I realize I've been reading it for about 4 months now. That is how I read books. I am a bit of a binge reader. I will go weeks without reading a page, then I will sit down and read 100 pages and not touch the book again for a couple weeks.

Enough about my reading habits... I think my next read is going to be The Diaries of Jim Rayburn. For those of you out there in the blogosphere, I am involved in an organization called YoungLife. The mission of YoungLife is to bring the gospel of Christ to adolescents and help them grown in their faith. Jim Rayburn is the founder of YoungLife. It was his idea, to step outside of the church, and take the gospel where kids are--schools, football games, parks, etc--that began the movement that is now known as YoungLife.

I am really pretty excited about reading his diaries. I feel like getting to peek inside the mind of one of the most godly and awesome men I've learned about is going to be a very encouraging and convicting experience. Sometimes I feel like I get disillusioned with my work as a leader when I lose focus on the goal. It will be interesting to see what ways Jim combated this feeling (if he even felt it at all).

I don't really have any major point in writing this other than cluing you all in on my next reading experience. I have approximately 27 days 'till school starts, so who knows, maybe I will get this book finished by then.