DINNER PRAYER

We sat at round tables under a blue tarp- 120 bodies smelling of sweat and dirt. Junior High is such an awkward age.
Fruit punch and water were spilled on nearly all of the twenty tables.
The man in front tried desperately to hush the crowd. They were hungry, ready to eat, and realized they needed to quiet down before they would get food.
Teens shooshed one another as Michael, an 8th grader, began to pray,
"Dear Lord, Thank you for the food. Thank you for the camp. Thank you for You. Thank you for us. And thank you for them."

Big Bear Youth Camp

this week i'm speaking at the Anaheim District Nazarene youth camp in Big Bear, CA.
if & when you think about it, pray for me, the campers, leaders, etc. there are about 300 of us up here. i am specifically speaking to the jr. highers on mon, tues, thurs, & fri evenings and i give a small morning devotion for the whole camp on tues, wed, thurs, & fri mornings. thank you so much.

the CPK Gospel

I was recently reminded of God's Love at a California Pizza Kitchen.

It was 9:15 in the evening, the dinner crowd was gone, and I received the WORST service in the history of human dining.
I sat for 15 minutes before a server approached me. My order was mixed up. I was promised parmesan and never received it (this is huge- I am a parmesan freak)! My strawberry lemonade ran out mid-meal and wasn't ever refilled (this made conversation and mastication difficult).

NB: I realize these are all selfish things I'm talking about here.. so in addition to the reminder of God's Love, I was also reminded of my selfishness!

Halfway through the meal I started to think to myself, "What am I going to tip my server?" I was bouncing back and forth between giving her no tip or giving her a penny for a tip. Because a penny would tell her it's intentional, while no tip might lead her to believe I inadvertently forgot to leave a tip & I wouldn't want to make her think it was a mistake that she didn't get a tip (how terrible I am!).
When it came time to pay the bill, the phraseology passed through my head, "If I tipped her according to what she deserved, she would get nothing."

That's when it hit me.

The same is true of God's Love for me. If He loved me according to what I deserved, I would not be a candidate for His Love. Yet God loves me anyhow. I am unconditionally, undeservingly, and overwhelmingly loved. This is the case for every believer in Christ (Romans 5:8; Galatians 4:4-7; Ephesians 1:3-14).

In the end I decided I needed to love this girl as God loves me... and show it through my tip.