CAMP!!!!!!

Next week we will leave for a new youth camp. For as long as I have been at Meadow Lane we have attended Riverbend, so I know that this may be an anxiety building moment for some of us. To help with that I wanted to share one of my camp experiences from when I was a teenager.

My senior year at camp was at Highland Lakes Baptist Encampment around Lake Travis in Central Texas. On the first night one of the younger campers from another Church thought he would play a prank on me. While I was asleep this young man began to paint my fingernails. Unfortunately for him I awoke part way through the process and instinctively rolled to grab whatever had my hand. Even more unfortunately I was on the top bunk, and fell on top of this young man. If you do not know me this may sound less frightening then it was. A 90+ lbs. Junior High boy was landed on by a 250+ lbs. High School senior. We were both lucky he was not seriously hurt.

But the story does not end there. I was embarrassed and took it out on that young man. I yelled and sent him out to find nail polish remover after I had made a good attempt to remove his dignity. Most of those around me laughed and enjoyed my ridicule of him and it made me feel better, until I noticed the look one of the youth from our Church was giving me. Mark was holding a bottle of rubbing alcohol and looking at me with a mixture of pity and disgust that shocked me into stopping in mid-sentence. I knew that the look was for me. It took a second for me to understand why he was looking at me that way, after all, I was the victim! As Mark walked over and handed me the rubbing alcohol to clean my painted nails he never took his eyes from mine and I knew that I had failed him. The amazing thing was that we were not very close, neither one of us really looked up to the other and we only spent time in the other's presence at Church. There was no reason for him to see my reaction as a personal failure against some ideal he had created for me and there was no reason for me to take that look so personally. Yet, I still had failed him. For the rest of the week I sought out this young man who painted my nails and tried to befriend him and be nice to him. He never really changed. The whole week he was still that annoying little boy that he began the week as, but the way Mark looked at me changed.

The last night of camp our Youth Minister asked us to share about the week. Mark raised his hand. He shared that he was disappointed with how I had handled a prank being played on me. But, he also shared that how I had behaved since then had shown him real growth and he was impressed with how I had changed. I was relieved! I had risen to the standard Mark had for me!

It was not until after camp that the whole situation began to really hit me. I had spent the week trying to live up to a standard that Mark had set for me (a good and right standard). But who was Mark? He was just another teenager. Did I work that hard to live up to the standard that Jesus Christ had set for me? How often did I spend time in prayer asking him to look at me and tell me what he saw? Had I ever looked into my Saviors eyes and seen pity and disgust at the sins I had committed and been compelled to change so that I would win his approval?

Mark helped me to realize that I looked at Jesus as a sort of forgiveness gumball machine, put my prayer in and out comes guilt-free forgiveness. I did not work hard at serving my Lord, I just enjoyed the benefits. I learned that if I was willing to work hard to win the approval of a man I should work even harder to show my Lord and Savior that I desire his approval as well. Mark's lesson was not on the agenda that week. It was not taught in any study or devotional time that I recall, but being at camp allowed me to gain this insight into my relationship with God. That is the amazing thing about getting away from the normal and intentionally seeking God and his wisdom, lessons can come from anywhere.

Have you had an experience like this at camp? Have you had a fun or funny experience at camp? Please share them so that we all can see how God works through camp to bring us closer to each other and to him!!!