If you have no idea what Gulf Coast is click this
My forth year at Gulf Coast was absolutely amazing! ...And now I have a ton to sort through and think about. Before I begin my reflecting I will preface with, I am about to graduate and I am freaking out! Allow me to explain. I don't like being constrained. Example: My senior year of high school we took surveys on the computer to help us decide on a major. After I went through answering all the bogus questions like, "Do you like reading? Never Sometimes Always?" My result page said, "Laura, your results were so broad we could not narrow down any majors for you." I'm thinking, "Whats that supposed to mean? Out of all those questions there was not one thing that I liked more than another?!." My point is, I like doing so many different things I freak out at the thought of doing only one thing for the rest of my life. Call me flighty if you want, but I prefer, "free spirit" ; )
So, here I am, approaching graduation, feeling all of these doors close down around me (mind you, I slept like a baby with out a care the night before my wedding. If that did not phase me why is this?!) sitting at a campus ministry conference where the theme is HOLOS: re-imagining campus ministry. This really means re-imagining life. Dr. Randy Harris, whom I love and dearly respect is the speaker, and does he ever has some things to say to me.
To not bore you with all the nitty gritty details I will cut to the chase and get to the part that I have not been able to let go of all weekend. It was a breakout class that Dr. Harris gave. It was simple. Five words of advise from Randy Harris.
1. Wonderment- Go the rest of your life asking questions and don't stop a questions short of the answer you are looking for.
2. Imagination- There is no script written for you, STOP ACTING LIKE THERE IS! Take a minute and dream about what you would do for Jesus, with your life, if there were no fears or limitations to hold you back......................................................................................................
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OK, now what are you waiting for?!?! And don't even get Dr. Harris started on the meaning of the word impossible.
3. Discipline- We TRY to hard and TRAIN to little. We have the passion to show Jesus to the world but do we have the discipline to truly make those dreams happen?
4. Disconnect- Technology is not the answer to my spiritual ills and I need to learn how to turn it off because there is a real God who WANTS a relationship with me, and real, lost people that NEED a relationship with me.
5. Covenantal Community- Means being committed to a group of fellow believers giving each other permission to speak the truth of the gospel into each others lives. Basically having unlimited liability for one another. And unconditionally loving them! Wow that is commitment, it is hard enough doing that with my man, much less a group of people (its really not that difficult with him, but you get my point).
"Anything without this is mundane." Those are the words that Randy closed with. Blah, mundane, who wants that?
All of this spoke to me in a huge way, but the word that got to me above all others was IMAGINATION. Being the English education major that I am, I love to read. I get the word imagination, I love the word imagination, I breath the word imagination on my students; which is why I was so appalled that of all these words I was not getting this one in my own life! Just like I told you pause and dream for a minute, so did Dr. Harris with us. I dreamed of two things, neither of which was the main part of my great "plan" for life. This pestered me and weighed on my heart the rest of the weekend and even now. If I know that nothing is impossible with God why am I not living with more imagination?
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