Callaway Connection December 2010

Click here to view a larger image or download

October Newsletter - Callaway Connection

>> download a print copy and visit nickcallaway.com for more information

Finding God's Will

My former Chi Alpha Internship director Joe Zickafoose wrote, “Trusting God for the future is a greater gift than knowing the future.”  The future is something college students stress about.  They feel the pressure of demanding decisions like choosing a major, which determines the classes they take and could affect their graduation date, earning potential, geographic living options, and that pressure can feel suffocating. 

God never reveals the full portrait of our lives ahead of time.  While God may give brief glimpses He doesn’t hand out the magnifying glass and invite us to investigate every detail of what it to come 3 or 37 years down the road.  Romans 12:1-2 says, “1Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. 2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”  Paul seems to be much more concerned about us following God today than stressing out about 643 tomorrows from now. 

If we will wholeheartedly follow God today we will be sensitive enough to hear His voice for tomorrow.  If we will submit our bodies to God as a sacrifice, the choices we make being worship unto God and if we are willing to go counter culture and unselfishly choose for the highest good of God and others, finding God’s will won’t be hard it will be natural.  If we truly love God today it is harder to miss His will than it is to find it.    

Box Wine and the Bible

I was having coffee with one of my student leaders today and she told me a story about her roommates bringing home enough boxed wine to build a small structure.  She went on to tell me about how “wasted” everyone was that night and how she really wanted to see her friends connected with Jesus.  She also described how reading the Bible aloud before bed had become a welcomed personal habit.  Well, after a long day, and after her roommates had finished the box of wine, she had forgotten to read the Bible when her post party roommate reminded her, “Hey, you haven’t read the Bible to me yet!”   

So, she picked up the Bible and began reading about how Jesus addresses our tendency to worry.  When, from the other room, another post party friend said, “Hey, can you read that again?”  So there she lay, combining the aftereffects of box wine with the truth of Bible.

In life it’s the small things that make a big difference.  Whether it’s reading the Bible to a friend before bed, being polite, or loving people in a practical way, it’s often the small overlooked and undervalued things the Lord is asking us to do that will make a big difference.  Sometimes, we have to be willing to step down from the soapbox and love people drinking from the box for the reality of God to be seen.

Round and Round...From Fun To Throw Up

I got a little dizzy filming my boys working the daycare spin cycle toy of fun and injury.  In the beginning the boys were laughing, screaming, trying to go faster and faster but it quickly turned into a combination of heads hurting and fouled escape attempts until finally, the ride was over.  

Sometimes in life (leadership, family, business) what once was fun new and exciting turns into head hurting spins around and around and around the spin cycle of discontentment.  We can start with a fun idea, fresh program, a new ride, but if all we end up with is going around and around what started off as fun ends up making us sick.  I don’t want to go around and around I want to go forward.  

God’s plan and vision always takes me forward.  It’s tempting to jump from one ride to another and it can be fun, for a while, but the happiness of the ride never exceeds the joy of moving forward with God.