Call It Desire

We just wrapped up the Pacific District retreat that began on Monday. Hello, from Kelowna! After breakfast tomorrow, I will be making my way back to Vancouver to continue my ministry. But tonight, we concluded the three day retreat for many pastors and staff of the district.

First impressions, like the time I went to the Midwest District Conference, I'm pretty sure I'm the youngest worker by FAR. I think the next youngest group, and there's quite a few of them, are at least in the second half of their 20s.

Since this was also a retreat, meaning there wasn't actually much of a program other than the main sessions, I barely even had a chance to meet other people. As expected, everyone kind of shows up in their little groups and they just hang out for the weekend. As a first timer, it's always intimidating because it's just awkward if I try to push my way in. For myself, I hung out with the group my senior pastor was with: all the Chinese pastors. Yeah. Not to put them down or anything, because I actually love them a lot, but it's a lot like hanging out with my parents and their friends, if you know what I mean.

I'm glad that I made it to the last retreat that's going to be held in Kelowna. Next year, we're going to Whistler, and I'm stoked for that too. So, being in Kelowna, I took the chance to have some time to myself and explored the city and walked along the waterfront of Okanagon Lake. Kelowna is a really neat place, I'd say just a little smaller than Red Deer. I took a few not-so-great pictures because it was really cold and windy.

As for the retreat itself, I was really challenged this week by what the speaker was talking about. Through four sessions, he spoke on John 17 from four different perspectives. John 17 is Jesus' prayer in the garden before he was crucified, and we really got to analyze the deepest of his desires. I really liked the approach we took because it helped me look from all angles what Christ went through and how he summed up his life's work in that one prayer. We looked at the passage four different times, but I feel we've still only scratched the surface. It's so thick. This passage is a fatty! There is so much to uncover about Jesus' prayer to his Father.

A few times we were asked to look at what our own biggest desires in our hearts were; so I listed a few of mine out. I then looked back at the passage and how embarrassing for me to compare my desires to those of Christ. Even from the perspective of a pastor, my desires for the Church and for the people of Christ paled so greatly to the way Jesus described it in that passage. As for my personal desires, well, don't even get me started on those.

So the last couple days, I've really been wrestling with how I can align myself to the desires that Christ had for us and for his Church; and there was a lot of tugging and pulling from me trying to get God to give me just a little bit. Just. A little bit. But time and time again, God kept telling me in a stern but loving way that his plan for us is better. So I wanted to give in. But the human desires keep coming back to me, telling me to ask for this or ask for that, and it actually stressed me out quite a bit. The speaker gave a great illustration to what it looks like when we surrender our will to God. It's like we're in handcuffs, and that's exactly how I feel if I want to give up my own desires.

Through the wrestling though, again I'm reminded that God's love for me and for my life is immeasureably more than the shortcomings I have, that Christ's work was enough.

So as I continue to wrestle with these things back in the midst of my work and life in Vancouver, I still leave Kelowna encouraged because I know that this will strengthen my faith in God. The fact that I'm in this wrestling match with God reminds me that I'll never win. I don't need to win. God has already won it for me. I just have to obey. Whatever is on my heart, call it desire or fire or whatever, I need to continue in learning to let it go.