Wow. I can finally see clearly now that the pain is gone. Do you have a kid or know someone that has a kid that made a mistake? At some time they were told, "No", for something, but it was just one of those things that they had to learn by themselves. I remember the other day when we told Kylie (4) not to jump off of the helicopter at the playground. The helicopter is the tallest toy at Northgate Mall playground. You see, Kylie had jumped off the rest of them and had to jump off this one. We told her no several times. With her cute, "Please Daddy" look she conned me into holding her while she jumped. Within 5 times of jumping she talked me into letting her do it by herself (sly little thing). She is the negotiator in our family. She is four years old and the CEO of the Deweese clan. Well, she jumped, and you guessed it; she hurt her ankle. Through all of the whining and "daddy pleases" she got her way and got hurt.I recently got hurt trying to do church by myself. My prayers were to God and my heart was for God, but I was doing it my way. I have been through a lot of pain the last couple of months. There have been several times that I have been close to saying "I Quit". (That is where the logo from LifeChurch.tv comes into play. nice plug huh?). I had put the pressure of growing people on my shoulders. Thats right, for some reason I thought it was my responsibility to grow people in Christ. I guess when you are so caught up in wanting to jump off of the helicopter, what once seemed clear is now a blur.
I talked with some men in my church and a buddy/pastor Mark "show me some" Love and they were all a huge encouragement to me. They helped me through the pain and see a little clearer. I went through some pain and the main thing that I learned is that I need to quit. Not my job, but quit taking Gods job. This had messed me up so bad that we made sure we put it in our vision statement to make sure we do not go back to it again. At Awaken we have divided the vision into two parts. Awaken: The Organization and Awaken: The People. Awaken Organizations responsibility is to simply lead, aid and equip the Awaken People. Notice I did not say grow. The role and goal of the Awaken People is to grow in Christ, Connect people to Him and live in Community together. I feel free now, but it took having to go through the pain to live in and experience the freedom now.
Well, Kylie's ankle is better now and so is my focus. Hopefully we will both gain some wisdom and avoid our falls next time around.
