Tag Archives: community

Gift 2 – Nothing and Something

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My new campers would be arriving in just a few hours, so I made my way across a big field towards my cabin to clean when I saw another counselor, Silas, wrestling with what looked like a camper (he was with a group of kids that had arrived earlier in the week). I thought they were just playing around until I got closer and Silas waved me over looking pretty serious. Apparently the camper was giving him some trouble…lots of trouble. Both Silas and the 14-year-old kid were scratched up a bit; the boy was injuring himself and Silas.

Silas asked me to stay with the camper while he went to find our supervisors. So I sat down next to this kid who by now had given up the wrestling match and was just crying on the ground (thank goodness…about the not wrestling part). I tried making small talk but the boy wouldn’t even give me his name. I watched him cry into his own arms and noticed he was pretty dirty: dirt under his finger and toenails and scratches and scabs on his body and face. He had cuts on his wrists as well.

After about ten minutes he began talking through his tears about all sorts of things. His name was Matt. He said he was so angry and sick of being himself. He was tired of feeling the way he did and tired of God ignoring his prayers for help. He said the only way he could think of to get rid of all his feelings was to simply not exist anymore.

My heart dropped and broke and cried and did about ten other things. I started praying like crazy for God to give me something to say. Eventually Silas came back; I walked them to their cabin before going to my own to clean. I kept praying while I swept the place out, asking God to do something, to change the way this kid was feeling. I got a little angry. “Let me get this straight, God, so you say that you love people, but you’re just not willing to do anything about it? Really?”
At this point I really believe the Holy Spirit guided my heart, saying, “What if you gave him your ring?” Hooooollllddddd on just a minute. I had gotten the ring earlier that summer in Israel and had worn it every day since. It says in Hebrew, I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine. It was without a doubt my most precious possession; something I planned on passing on to my son someday as a sacred heirloom of sorts (you know, like Lord of the Rings or something). I was not giving it away to some kid I hardly knew. As I continued sweeping out my cabin I had quite a nice wrestling match with the Holy Spirit. It went something like this:

Me: My ring is a symbol of my commitment to You, God. You wouldn’t want me to give that away, would you?
God: If you keep it against my leading it will instead be, in your eyes, a symbol of your lack of commitment to Me.
Me: But what if I give Matt the ring and he doesn’t understand how much it means to me? He probably won’t care about it half as much as I do and it will be a waste.
God: Yeah, I know what you mean. My Son meant everything to Me, and people still don’t get the half of it. Yet I still gave Him to you.
Me: Touché. But God, seriously…
God: So let me get this straight, you’re saying that you love people, but you’re just not willing to do anything about it?

That last bit sounded vaguely familiar…Finally, I thought about Matt’s wounded wrists and understood that though my gift might not mean anything to him, I had to try. I walked through the woods from my cabin to the one in which Matt was staying. Knocking on the door I said, “Hey Matt, can I talk to you for a minute?” He joined my on the porch probably thinking he was in trouble or something.

I told Matt that I’d been thinking about what he said and how he feels like God doesn’t care about him. I showed him my ring, telling him that I’d gotten it in Israel as a reminder of how much God loves me. I said, “This ring is my most precious possession. And you wanna know something cool? The most precious thing to God was His Son, Jesus, but He still gave Him for you so that you would know for sure that He loves you and He’s with you.” I took the ring off my finger and said, “So I want to give this to you. To remind you that God is with you and He loves you.”
I know, not the most eloquent sermon in the world, but it didn’t seem to matter. Matt froze while his eyes got huge in disbelief. He said, “Wait, are you serious?” I nodded, and without another word he wrapped his arms around me (this was the first of five huge hugs he gave me in just a few minutes). He was inexpressibly happy and grateful. He put it on right away and it fit perfectly. His eyes filled with tears as I did my best to keep mine in. “I didn’t tell you this earlier,” Matt said, “But tomorrow is my birthday.”

“Well this is God’s birthday present to you, then,” I said.

“Yeah, I think so,” he said, smiling. We talked for a few minutes before I walked back to my cabin, thanking God for the cool opportunity.

I kid you not, one year later I was back working at this same camp when a taller, more-alive Matt walked up to me still wearing the same ring I’d given him a year earlier. We sat down by the soccer field while he told me all about how much better his past year had been. “Last year,” said Matt, “Before you gave me your ring, I was planning on, you know, ending things when I got home from camp. But this birthday present from God changed my mind.”

Wow. I was speechless. Was this young man’s life worth losing a ring over? Definitely.

So what is the second gift I have for you, son? Nothing. I’m afraid I gave your ring away. On the other hand, I may have gained something even more valuable to pass on. You see I learned that loving people, the way Jesus loved us, almost always costs something. Being dangerous means loving anyway. You might lose time, you might lose money, heck, you might even lose your most valuable possession, but guess what, son? It’s worth it. The value of loving others is immeasurable, incalculable, and life changing. I’m embarrassed and a little ashamed when I think back to how hesitant I had been to give away a thing, and for a person who really needed it. But you’ll soon learn how easy it is to get your priorities mixed up when muddled with the business of everyday life. The gift I want to give you is the reminder that loving people comes first, and that no matter how much you love, no matter how much you give away, it will ever only be a faint echo of the great love Jesus gave to us. Remember that and you will be dangerous.

Gift 1 – A Dangeruss Name

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I remember waiting in the bathhouse with ten or so impatient campers.  We had an hour set aside to wash up before breakfast, but since there were only three working showers, the majority of time was spent standing around.  I had just finished shaving and had a good-sized gob of shaving cream left in my hand, so I decided to put it to good use.  “Line up!” I said; the awkward adolescents made their way over to see what I was going to do.  I went to the first boy, smudged my thumb with cream and began drawing lines on his face in what I hoped would look like some kind of native design.  “You are Wild Wolf,” I said in a deep voice, “Brave and true, a defender of the weak.  You will be a great leader of men…” and on and on.

I went on like this down the line of boys, giving each one a different shaving cream “war paint” design and a new name to go along with it.  I was improvising.  I was playing.  But I quickly discovered that they were not.  The young men hushed and drew close to hear what name I would say, to find out what kind of identity I would see and call out in them.  Each boy lifted his face to meet the “paint” while drinking in my words greedily, some even ran back to the cabin to grab a pen and page so they could remember their new name word for word.

What was happening?  Why had this little time-passing game taken on such meaning to these kids?  I quickly realized something I had been seeing all summer as a camp counselor: young people, boys especially, are desperate to find out just who they really are.  And if there’s no one there to show them the way, to see something good and alive and even daring in them; to call it out and nurture that identity, then surely they will look for a name somewhere else.

So I want to give my son a name.  I want to give him an invitation to be someone who has something real and important to do.  A few hundred years ago our communities needed young men, without whom they couldn’t survive.  Now all we need from them is to sit still until the bell rings.  And they know it.  So they go where they’re needed, even if they know it’s not right or even real.  Everything from gangs to video games—after all, aren’t most video games just a way of temporarily being someone else who has a significant role to play in an important story?

A good name is like a path in all this wandering wilderness—an invitation, a summons, a call to go a certain way.  Granted, a road still has to be walked for it to make any difference, but even so, it’s a start.  Names have been used like this in cultures all around the world for thousands of years, most famously in the biblical Hebrew culture, and I want to carry on the tradition.  That’s why my son’s middle name will be “Danger.”  And yes, I’m serious.  First, because what little boy wouldn’t want to be able to say that Danger is his middle name and actually be telling the truth?  And second, because I want my son’s name to be a constant reminder of God’s call and claim upon his life.  To be a doer.  To be an active participant in Christ’s unfolding Kingdom.  To be filled with the Holy Spirit of Jesus that is always dangerous and destructive to the Enemy’s causes.

Looking around (and I must confess, looking in the mirror), it seems we are under the impression that a Christian man is simply someone who thinks certain things, who believes certain things, who has certain “Christian” opinions.  But no matter how much we’d like to believe it, I don’t think our Enemy shutters at our opinions.  I don’t think he is threatened, dare I say, even by our beliefs.  It is only when the power of Christ’s boundless love takes root in one’s hearts that the fruit of action burst up all over to threaten the dominion of darkness.  This is dangerous.   And sadly, this is rare.

Being dangerous doesn’t always look how you’d think it would.  In a culture that prizes quick fixes and easy-way-out-solutions, it might simply mean being in one place for a while.  It might mean leaving your comfort zone to do the right thing.  It might mean being mocked and laughed at while going out of your way to befriend the friendless.  It might mean having the courage to tell the truth when telling a lie would produce better results.  It might mean being vulnerable so that others can lower their guard and feel safe.  Whatever it looks like, my son’s name will be a constant call to follow The Dangerous One, who relentlessly threatens the seeds of loneliness, despair, isolation, hatred, shame, and sorrow planted by our Enemy.  I want my son to know that being a follower of Jesus means being dangerous.