Aug 11 2008
summit:what life are you waiting for?
I am still recovering from the last couple of weeks. You may have noticed from the lack of blogging that real life has been pretty intense. Last week began intensely with huge writing project, and ended intensely with the Willow Creek Association Leadership Summit. Now I am by no means a sycophant for the WCA, and I arrive at all their events with a healthy bit of skepticism. Despite this however, it was wonderful. Hybels as usual surprised me with his genuine compassion and authenticity and the rest of the line-up was pretty spectacular. There were a few weak ones out of the bunch but I actually found myself appreciating that. It gave me some time to process the powerful implications of all the rest.
For the next several posts I plan to react to some of the key learnings from the summit. This will serve two functions. It will help me process what I encountered, and it may serve to share the value of the summit with other who were not there. I will go back to the beginning with my next post, but for now I want to start at the end.
At the very end of the final talk, I could tell that Bill Hybels was planning a time for people to make a public and formal commitment to respond to his talk. The talk was great, and I needed to hear it and I needed to respond. But since I am naturally rebellious I found myself thinking, “I will not be manipulated. Even though I know this is the right thing, I plan to think about it some more. I will not be swept up in the moment. I will be cautious.”
My hesitations were not about the nature his call. The call (which I will talk about more in a future post) was perfectly biblical and I know that I need to say yes. My resistance was simply that I did not trust my heart. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to lay it all on the line for Jesus.
So I was pretty committed to not doing whatever is was he asked us to do.
Then he said, “Now for those of you who know this is the right thing to do, but just aren’t sure if you are ready, I wonder, ‘What life are you waiting for?’”
In a moment I was struck to the heart. If I know it is the right thing to do. If I know that it must be done. and If I know that this life is my only chance to do it, then what in the world am I waiting for? I do live my life as if I was going to get a second chance. I pass up on the goodness God has for me all the time, always so sure that I will do it next time. But what next time am I imagining?
So that is my motto as I process through the summit. If I believe that I am called to share the gospel and love my kids and serve the poor and work for justice, and all the rest, then I simply must act. To wait and stall and fail to commit is to believe the lie that I have some other life to play with.
So with me you can ask yourself, if you are putting off a commitment to follow God
What life are you waiting for?
on the walk
-Ethan
