what God wants ...

Summer missions interview retreat starts tonight.  And it's the most intense 24 hour period I know of ... but in a wonderfully laid back way!  Time of worship and fellowship seem to balance out the intensity of group interview times ... and if it truly is gonna be 70 degrees tomorrow, then the lakeside view will provide some great thinking/praying/studying places for folks.  I love it.  It's one of the longest weekends of my life, but my favorite weekend of doing what we do.

I MIGHT have fallen asleep on the couch at 8:15 pm last night and only managed to stumble into bed.  This morning as I sipped my diet coke and reread In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day (team Haiti Mexico is reading it together as we prepare for spring break), I was reminded of something I will probably repeat many, many times this weekend:

God wants you to get where God wants you to go more than you want to get where God wants you to go.

Not new, not profound, but a very timely reminder for 200 students who are all seeking God's place for them this summer.

The message says it this way ...
Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish! We don't play the major role. If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing. (Eph 2:7-10)

I am excited to see God work this weekend ... not just in where students will go ... but in seeing the process of how He gets them there.  I love, love being part of the process of becoming.  THAT is the greatest blessing in what we do!

Praying for open hearts, discerning listeners, wise decisions, lives willing to be stretched and God's will to trump man's plans!

Thankful for the gifts of ...
198. a gorgeous, spring-like week that has breathed new life into exhaustion
199. students who are willing to abandon their will to God's
200. being part of the beautiful process of sending .. what a gift to be part of this!
201. hearing stories