Bigger

We will see a purpose for our lives that transcends the country and culture we live in, and we will see our desperate need for his presence to fulfill that purpose in us. We will discover that our meaning is found in community and our life is found in giving ourselves for the sake of others in the church, among the lost, and among the poor.”

 - Radical by David Platt

Going into my junior year of high school, I worked as kitchen crew for a summer camp full of soon to be 7^th, 8^th, and 9^th graders. Part of our “job” was to stay in a cabin full of campers to join in with their discussion times and just do life together for a week.

That week was the first time that I ran into the quote that says, “the more you loose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have.”

Over five or six days, we literally learned the names, grades, cabins, and churches of two hundred campers and staff, while we prepped food, served food, washed dishes, ran games, prepped games, sat in cabins that weren't “our own,” supervised free time, joined in on chapel services, loved on kids who were not so much younger than us, and got far far too little sleep.

We lost ourselves in something that was bigger than us, bigger than a group of sixteen-year-olds and bigger than the youth group that we represented. And, it was good. Pictures from that week are still imprinted in my memory, almost six years later, just as clearly as they were that summer, because life works that way.

Life has a purpose and an energy that we only discover when we bury ourselves so deeply in something that it becomes an irremovable part of us.

Life. Happens. When. We. Do. Crazy. Things.

Crazy like trying to learn 200 names...crazy like cutting $20 of off your grocery bill and using that money to buy things for the food bank instead of your table...crazy like setting aside twelve hours to see what God has for you...crazy like setting aside a month to do the same...crazy like reading Radical or Irresistible Revolution or Freeze Frame...crazy like letting what you read change you and change the way you live.

What crazy thing is He asking you to do?