Wonderings--June 20

VBS at Bethesda begins today. Quietly, and diligently, the preparations have come together. Crafts are being laid out and demonstrations prepared for the children. The food for dinner rests in the kitchen in a neat row. Jennifer and I have talked out the games that she will play with the kids and I know that she is excited to begin working with them. 

For my part, the Bible story is ready. I am pretty sure that I can tell the story of the Red Sea parting from memory, but props always make a story better and more memorable--and so the props are ready too. My decorations are siting in a bag across from my desk on the chair. I still need to place them, but that will not be hard. I am ready. But as I get ready I cannot shake an interesting reflection that continues to return to my mind. 

What will this year's VBS be like? 

This is my first VBS here at Bethesda. I have experience leading the stories at every church I have served. Each story and program requires a bit of an adjustment based on the culture of the church. I am sure this will be no different tonight. And I also know that the numbers tonight may be smaller than Bethesda remembers, but that does not matter.

Instead we are called to give all we have to God. 

Annie Dillard talks about this idea in her book, The Writing Life. Even though she speaks about writing and how to 'do' it, I feel her lessons are applicable to us as VBS begins. She says: 

"Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. . . . [T]he impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes."

Whether you believe that she is speaking about writing a book, or serving at VBS, or sharing God's word with the community, it does not matter. The message is the same. We are not called by God to hide our "light under a bushel basket" anymore than we are called by God to hide the blessings of God with us in a safe where no one can receive them or learn from them. 

We must give it all away. . . All of it. Hold nothing back but faithfully and continually give what God has given to us so that others can learn who God is and how God changes our lives. I wonder who God might be putting in your path that would benefit from you taking what you've learned from God and share it with them in totality? 

Blessings