Creation Care Team May Focus - Taking Part in the Growth of Something Living

This blog will be taking on a new focus. My friend, Troy Taylor, and I are members of the Memphis Annual Conference's Creation Care Team. So, we are going to be adding material related to our mission of helping our conference better care for God's creation. We will continue to have other material here as well, so check early and often.

Taking Part in the Growth of Something Living

I find few things as fulfilling as helping something living to grow. I realized this first while working at camp. I was involved in the lives of so many young people, and I got to watch them grow up over the years. I’ve been here long enough to see Elementary campers grow up and become staff members in their college years. It is a blessing to watch these young adults work at camp and see how brave they are. I watch them during the summers. They comfort crying children like a parent. They sing with the energy of a brand new Christian. They work until they have no energy left to give. And, I remember when they were just over four feet tall. I remember talking to them as they got out of their cars on the first day. I remember how they shied away, not sure what to make of all these people and all this excitement. I remember a few years down the road when they got out for Junior High and Senior High camp. It was a highlight to their year. I remember how they jumped out of the vehicle and ran to all their favorite people. And now, they are doing the work of this place.

I am so happy that I get to play some part in this growth—that I have had chances to talk to these guests and share their joys and their pain. I have been able to give advice and to offer comfort. I have rejoiced in their successes and continued to enjoying playing with them through all of this. To know that some of my presence in these years might have helped these young people become what they have makes my life seem so much more worth while. This is not always evident to me—it is a thing that is realized when you step back after days, months, or even years and see how something or someone has grown.

I think everyone needs to be involved in helping something grow. It can be a plant or an animal, even a person. Something in it, I feel, brings you closer to God. You are brought closer to the miracle that things are living at all. This helps you look at your life and how you have grown over the years. You see how God can work through so many things, including you.

This month, we ask you to involve yourself in the growth of something. Take on a new project or take more time with those things you already do. Grow a plant. Feed the birds. Take time to involve yourself in the lives or others. You probably already do at least some of this daily. In the upcoming weeks, though, I would like for us all to think more about how God is at work. We are providing verses, devotions, and activities to help you along with this.

Check out our monthly video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSLCutcOtkY