A Walk in Love

Last weekend I was invited to a retreat by a friend that was being run by his rather large church. In retrospect, I had a preconceived notion of what was going to happen because he said, "Greg, I think this would be great for you because you could really use this time to be refreshed and renewed in your ministry." I thought it sounded good because I could be gone a few days and take a couple of books to catch up on and refresh my mind some.

Little did I know that this would be one of the most amazing weekends of feeling the extreme and extravagant love of Jesus Christ through His body that I have ever known. This was amazing. Although, I admit, when we arrived and the guy opened up a notebook to read the intro I wondered what I was in for but I soon learned that, read it or not – this was for real and these people were for real! We had an uproariously great time in parts of the weekend and a challenging soul-searching time for parts of the weekend but the entire weekend except for a few short intervals, was completely designed to walk me through a process of introspection, challenge and soul-searching all under the umbrella of over 30 men committed to showing the love of Christ in real and tangible ways. I made some friends so quickly that it almost broke my heart to leave on Sunday knowing that many of them I may not see again this side of heaven – but they impacted me and helped me grow and change in just a few short hours together.

It was funny (an unbelievable) that the leader would say that "Today is good, tomorrow will be better and the next day will be even better and by Sunday, you will not want to go home." I thought, "No, dude, by Saturday I am pretty sure I am gonna be refreshed enough to want to leave. By Sunday I'll be chomping at the bit."

So – seriously, come Saturday morning, I was thinking, "What is next. How far can this go? What is the next talk going to be? What in the world are these Kleenex for?" Well in the next twelve hours or so I found out the answer to all of those questions and more. And, no, I was certainly not ready to leave yet. What was Sunday going to be?

True enough, I was anxious to see my wife and family on Sunday when I left but I really did not want to leave – He was right.

God challenged me. One BIG thought that I walked away with: "There is NOTHING in this life that compares in any way to living sold out for Jesus."

Ministry may be hard – but my reward is not here, not now. Living in the moment of my mission, doing what I am called by God to do and discharging the duties to which I have been called is hard. I have never, never done anything harder or more frustrating or more discouraging. BUT, I also have never done anything more uplifting (by my brothers and sisters), more simple (keep it that way), or more rewarding and encouraging (living life day in and day out with this body of believers that I love) as we see God glorified together through His work in us.

I will walk in love and remember how I was loved completely and selflessly last weekend and for eternity through Christ.