“Leap, Live, and Love.”
Our week with 9th and 10th graders was filled with memories that will last a lifetime. We played on the lake, tried out new experiences, listened to Melissa's teachings, and celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas.
We started our week by watching the movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty in the driveway. The movie centers around a man who constantly finds himself stuck in his daydreams. Walter’s life is more interesting in his daydreams and he is the hero of every story, but he never makes the effort to make these dreams his reality. Then one day, thanks to the words of a friend, he finds the courage to take a leap of faith and go on an adventure that rivals those of his daydreams.
The next morning we sat with Melissa and she brought up the point that, much like Walter Mitty and his daydreams, we sometimes wish our life or our past was different. We stuff it down and come up with ways to avoid it.
We learn to recognize that by going over it and not through it is exactly how we get stuck.
This brought us to John chapter 5 where we would spend the rest of the week.
“Afterward Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days. Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches. Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches. One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, ‘Would you like to get well?’
‘I can’t, sir,’ the sick man said, ‘for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.’
Jesus told him, ‘Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!’
Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking!” - John 5:1-9
In this story the paralyzed man finds himself stuck for 38 years, waiting for someone to put him in the water. And yet when Jesus comes to him and asks him if he would like to get well. The man continues to make up excuses as to why he can’t.
This is where we so often find ourselves. Jesus is right there asking us if we want to get well and trust Him with our lives but instead of answering Him we make up excuses. Instead of getting up we…
try to be in control
wait for the “right moment”
hope things will change on their own
blame others for where we are
But Jesus isn’t telling us what we should have been doing all along. He is simply asking us what we want and if we want to get well.
One by one campers stood up as if telling Jesus they wished to get well.
Melissa talked about how often getting up is the hardest part of it all. It can be difficult to see how much better life can be with Christ when all we know is what it's like to be stuck. It feels easier to busy ourselves with things that take up all of our time or to find excuses for the position we’re in. Melissa shared with us a quote by C.S. Lewis.
“... like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
When Jesus tells us to stand up, pick up your mat, and walk it is because He knows that life with Him is far greater than a life we can imagine for ourselves. We were designed to long for God, want a purpose, and be fully known and loved. These are things only a life with Christ can give us.
Unfortunately, our thoughts often cloud this truth. Instead we start to believe lies about what God thinks of us. Melissa asked us to share these thoughts with one another. Campers answered with responses like…
I will never be enough for Him.
He purposefully does me harm.
I will never make Him proud.
He’s not real.
He will constantly be disappointed with me.
We turned to the truth of who God is found in Romans 8.
“And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow- not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.” -Romans 8:38
As we reflected on the love of Christ, Melissa noted that there is only one place where your doubt can be taken away and your faith can be strengthened: at the foot of the cross.
That night we turned all of the lights off and spent the last half hour in prayer. As campers felt called they prayed out loud for the Lord to replace our lies with truth, knowing the overwhelming love that Christ has for us triumphs over all doubt.
On the third day of camp we celebrated Thanksgiving by cooking a meal for everyone to share. Melissa shared with us that Thanksgiving day is also the day of the year when the most walks are taken. To commemorate the holiday, we went on a gratitude walk that night. We had the opportunity to walk around Hopetown and thank the Lord for His goodness and the ways He has shown up in our lives.
The next morning Melissa had us reflect back on John 5 and the story of the paralyzed man.
As we had read earlier Jesus tells the man to “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk.” In the same way God called the man to “stand up,” He calls us to leap up from where we are and follow Him.
To symbolize what it looks like to “leap” out in faith each camper was encouraged to jump into the lake that morning with their clothes on and make the decision to trust in Jesus.
But life with Christ does not stop there. After we leap we are called to live with and for Christ, loving others in return.
As Melissa says, we are to “Leap, Live, and Love.”
To finish out the week we looked at the different ways that we can begin to walk just as the paralyzed man did. Jesus calls us to start walking in…
Faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7)
Humility (Micah 6:8)
Steadiness (Ephesians 4:1-3)
The Spirit (Galatians 5:25)
Hope (Isaiah 40:31)
The newness of life (Romans 6:4)
Love (Ephesians 5:2)
The light (1 John 1:7)
His truth (Psalm 86:11)
One by one each camper had the opportunity to sit in Melissa’s chair and be told how they had been seen walking this week. It was an amazing way to reflect on the goodness of the Lord found in each person.
We do not have to be stuck for 38 years like the paralyzed man. Jesus is here now and longs to take our lives from a stagnant place to a life full of leaping and loving it, but only if you let Him.
What would it look like for you to take that risk and leap out in faith?
