The New Beginning

Well here we are. It has now been a little over a week here at Kaleo and I have already seen God's hand at work here in a mighty way. Coming into this year was a new beginning for me in so many ways. The main way that it was a new beginning was that it was my first year of post-secondary education but going deeper than that it was a new beginning spiritually for me. I will be honest this summer was a tough one for me... It was my first real time being out of the Christian "bubble" that I had always grown up in. I was working at a fishing lodge for all of summer and since this wasn't my first time out of the house I didn't think that it would be a big deal at all for me.  However I would soon find that this atmosphere at the lodge would stretch my faith to the limit. By the end of summer I knew that had not grown closer to God at all and in fact I felt ashamed as I really felt that I drafted apart from Him. I still believed in God but there had never been a time in m life that I could recall where I felt so far away from Him. I was afraid… I thought to myself “Josh you need to have it altogether when you go to Kaleo.” Then I got to Kaleo acting as if I had it altogether when in fact I didn’t… then I soon found that I wasn’t alone. Satan had driven it into my head that everyone who was a Christian had it altogether. However my friends this could not be more untrue. The song written by Casting Crowns “Stained Glass Masquerade” comes to mind where it says in the song at the beginning:

 Is there anyone that fails

Is there anyone that falls

Am I the only one in church today feelin' so small

Cause when I take a look around

Everybody seems so strong

I know they'll soon discover

That I don't belong

So I tuck it all away, like everything's okay

If I make them all believe it, maybe I'll believe it too

So with a painted grin, I play the part again

So everyone will see me the way that I see them

The verse that also really spoke to me was 1 Corinthians 10:13 where it says “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” The leaders here at Kaleo are saying that they have felt God telling them that this year will be a year of grace and I couldn’t have agreed more from what I have been experiencing here already.  I want to end with this last thought. From September 20-22 we went on a hiking trip up Mt. Albert-Edwards and there were some easy parts to this hike but also some very difficult and challenging elements. My walk with God has been exactly like this hike. Some easy times when everything is good but it was in the difficult times that I really found out just how close I was to God. Yet when I got through these difficult elements on this trip it was then that I felt the most satisfied with myself just the same with my walk with God. It was in the hard times when God pulled me through that I got the closet to Him.

Josh