Crossroads Consternation

Our new student retreat, Crossroads, is this weekend. I'm so excited! 130 students are coming, some from our chapter plants at HCC and TSU, nearly 20 from SFA! What! They didn't exist 2 years ago!

But last week, I was full of consternation, preparing the Small Group Bible studies. I wanted to throw what I had across the room. I refrained; some of it was on my laptop and the other stuff was on paper, and Jack occasionally decides to eat paper.

The first passage, Matthew 14:13-21, seems straightforward at first glance. What questions could I ask that would get people discussing? Jesus performs a really cool miracle. Not to sound ungrateful, but so what? It's just that you get to see Jesus care for and provide for a crowd of strangers, when he had just gotten the heartbreaking news of his cousin's murder, and he uses the meager supplies the doubt-filled disciples bring him to do it.

The second passage, Matthew 15:1-20, was even more constern-ating (I know that's not a real word). It's kinda weird and hard to follow. There are quotes within quotes. Jesus brings up seemingly unrelated things in answer to straightforward questions. But you get down into it and sort it all out, and it boils down to this - following rules doesn't always make for a cleaned-up heart. You could find ways to keep sinning in the traditions the religious leaders of his day followed. And even God's laws in the Old Testament about how to stay ceremonially clean outwardly didn't guarantee a holy heart.

I struggled to come up with questions. I worried about how to set up our staff and volunteers well, since some will lead inductive Bible studies for the 1st time. Then it hit me - I could trust God to provide. Striving to make the leader guides easy to understand and full of good content, that was me trying to make things look good. I could depend on God to make things actually good. So I rested and read some commentaries, and it all seemed so much better and easier when I came back to it.

Just goes to show you - God provides. Pray we experience God's provision in unexpected ways at Crossroads, too!

Anyone else experience consternation trying to figure out what God's words mean, or how to help someone else dig into it?