Time to catch up again. Since returning home we hosted the Augusta Christian School Senior High Class trip (May 18-24) and received a family team from our home church, Pinewoods PC in Cantonment, FL (May 27-June 3). Currently, we have been working to get ready for a big "Expo" at the school and then for Graduation on July 6.
In July (14-24) we have a group from 2nd PC, Memphis coming to do a week-long Summer Camp for our Junior High students. Tim Jewett, will be part of the leadership from this group and he will stick around afterwards to drive back to the US with Byron (in case you haven’t heard... we’ll be losing Byron for a while, he’ll be in the US next school year).
In the midst of all this, we received notice from the INS that our daughter, Niki, needs to be in San Antonio July 25 for an interview regarding the citizenship of her daughter, Jessica. Sooo... instead of Noreen & I returning to the US this Fall, we’ll be leaving here around July 21 so that we can pick up Niki in San Antonio to help her get together with her lawyer and make it to this appointment. Rather than go to the States, come back and go again in late August, we have decided to stay in the US during August-September (and maybe part of October) to get together with folks about next summer and to do some fund raising for the school. On this trip we’d also like to visit our daughter, Sara, who just lost her mother-in-law after a long battle with leukemia.
Not being here during the month of August is going to be pretty strange. Normally, while the school is closed from mid-July to mid-August, Noreen & I are scrambling to get maintenance finished in order to be ready to start the next school year. I some ways, I think that doing this allows Noreen & I have a (false) sense that we are more or less in control of what’s happening... this year we will have to delegate this to some of our staff and step back from it. You’d think we’d be happy to do this, but letting this go is kind of like watching your kids grow up; you want them to become independent and to think for themselves... unless they decide to do something that you wouldn’t do or would have done differently.
On a personal level, I’m slowly learning that it’s not irresponsible of me to cede different responsibilities to the folks that the Lord has provided to fill a given position... as long as I not only cede the responsibility but also the authority (which includes the possibility of independent thought) to complete whatever task I’m giving over. This isn’t something that I didn’t know, but it is an area where the Lord has repeatedly needed to grow my faith; knowing and doing are definitely not the same thing... faith grows in the doing. Over the last few years of our involvement at the school, we have had to learn to trust the Lord in just about every responsibility that we have turned over to staff... I wonder if Jesus felt this way when He turned the church over to His disciples.
On the other hand “doing” isn’t always a work of faith. So much of my Christian experience is based on the things that I do rather than my relationship with Jesus. “Doing” is so important and ceding responsibilities means I “do” less. It’s probable that you are familiar with the conversion experience of John Wesley. Through the influence of a group of Moravian believers and the reading of Martin Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Galatians, John Wesley felt his heart “warmed” as he came to rest in a personal relationship with Jesus. Lesser known is the experience of John’s brother Charles. When confronted with the doctrine of salvation by grace by the (German) Moravian Pastor Peter Bohler, Charles found himself at odds with the idea of a relationship with Christ based on His work, rather than our own:
Bohler put himself under Charles Wesley's care, at Oxford, to learn English. The pupil taught his teacher a yet nobler lesson. When he fell ill and seemed on the point of death Bohler asked him, "Do you hope to be saved ?"
Charles answered, "Yes."
"For what reason do you hope it?"
"Because I have used my best endeavors to serve God."
Bohler shook his head and said no more.
"I thought him very uncharitable," wrote Charles at a later day, "saying in my heart, Would he rob me of my endeavors? I have nothing else to trust to."
The sad, silent, significant shake of Peter Bohler's head shattered all Charles Wesley's false foundation of salvation by endeavors.*
To grow in faith, the Lord must continually confront my confidence in my “endeavors”. As I get older and assume responsibilities that are more “supervisory”, I lose some of my cherished “works” and have to learn that my faith must assume a different form of obedience... old dogs are slow to learn new tricks. Please pray for us.
*© Copyright 1999 by the Wesley Center for Applied Theology.
**Peter Bohler to John Wesley. Taken from Wesley’s Journal entry March 4, 1738.
