I'm sitting in the Tampa airport waiting for my flight home from my week at Southeastern. I had to fly this time because Tuesday we buried my 93 year old great aunt. What a life! She was born the year WWI began. Imagine that! She remembered more than most people have lived through. She was 15 years old at the stock market crash of the Great Depression. Although she made no significant nation changing contribution and her name will probably not find a home in any historical recording, She loved people just about as much as any human being I've ever known. And that makes her life significant. She was amazing at remembering dates, but mostly dates that related to births and deaths in her family. I think that was because people were important enough to her to create moments of significance when they transitioned in and out of life. Oh yeah, and names... I can't count the time when she used names in conversations and I had no clue who she was talking about. Maybe it lacked integrity for me to not ask, but I almost think it was more important for her to think that I knew exactly who she was talking about. It was just that critical to her.
As I sit here still trying to mentally recover from an extremely trying couple of weeks, the spotlight of my thoughts strikes my experience this week and how it will impact our community of faith (CONVERGE). The professor for the week was Dr. Mike Rakes. Most of you have heard about him, although you will not recognize his name. For those of you who have heard the story of the day that God transformed my life in chapel at Southeastern, Mike was the person God chose to use. I've never told him that that critical turning point of me deciding to serve God for Who He is and not for what I got out of serving happened because he was obedient to follow Christ with absolute abandon. This week I was able to share that story. What struck me was that his teaching and the process I've been through in discerning God's plan for me and my involvement in community is amazingly similar.
I've never studied that much on the transfer of a mantle (empowerment to do something for God) from one to another, but if I ever have any reason to believe that it's a spiritual principle, I will certainly think that's what happened that pivotal day in Bush Chapel. The work God has done in both me and Dr. Rakes is almost too similar to be coincidental.
So, what did God have this week for CONVERGE? Clearly affirmation and strength to pursue the vision that God has put on our hearts. Dr. Rakes references Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his absolute unwavering focus on God's call in his life. Sure, there's others we can point to, but Dr. King was committed to the point of dying for the cause for which God gave him to live.
I believe with all my heart that, just as God looked down to find Noah as his representative to carry his message to the other side of the flood, God is calling the CONVERGE community to carry His message to the other side of culture. I'm still not sure what all that means, but He is speaking too loudly to doubt this assignment.
When I spend time here each month, there is an unexplainable, yay supernatural, quality to the voice of God in my experiences, class time and prayer time. When the "white noise" of the daily grind is removed, the clarity of the voice of God is unquestionable. He is saying, "Kevin, I have called you to live in community with people who are going to make a significant difference in Auburn and Opelika. This borders of this influence will reach out much farther than you could possibly imagine. I have called you and you are mine. Follow with unwavering commitment and faith. It is critical that you know Me and those in your community of faith know Me. I am looking for people like you and the others who are willing to die for the sake of my Kingdom work in Auburn and Opelika." That's what I hear.
God, you will be done, your Kingdom come to Lee County as it is in Heaven!!
Just a thought...
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