It's Like A Brick To My Face

“To the angel of the church in Sardis write:    These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead." ~ Revelation 3:1

What a way to start a conference for the over 5,000 United States staff members of Campus Crusade for Christ!

I sat there in shock as Francis Chan began speaking to the staff gathered in Fort Collins, Colorado.  I made the over 1,000 mile trip really to just be there for three things:

1) Find out the new name of Campus Crusade for Christ.
2) Be there for the GNW Regional Day and hang out with the rest of the staff from the region.
3) Be a part of the 60th Anniversary of Campus Crusade for Christ.

Francis Chan Speaking

I never thought that I the speakers of the conference were going to speak straight to me.  I felt like there wasn't anyone else in the room as Chan started his talk.  With great amounts of gusto and passion he started to explain how he hardly ever writes notes about what he is going to speak on, but in this instance he did, then he felt God calling him to speak on something else.  What followed was close to one of the most convicting times I've felt in a while.

"I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead."

I work for Campus Crusade for Christ.  When people hear that, I think they automatically think I have it all together, but I know the truth.  The vast majority of the time I can fake it and live off of the reputation of  Cru and skate by having people think I have it all together.  But that's when I realized, "Boy Katie, God really knows what's going on, inside."  I started thinking about how God is my job most days, and the last time I had a quite time was....to be honest, I couldn't tell you.

I was dead; spiritually apathetic and tired.  I've lived the Christian life since I was little, not wavering much in following all the rules. But as I listened to Francis Chan speak, what got to me even more than what he was saying was the passion he was saying it with.  It's been a long time since I have seen that kind of passion from a speaker.  His knowledge of God's Word struck me deep, hard and fast; "Why do I not know God's Word like that."  Chan spoke of God as someone who was close to him and someone he had a strong relationship with.  It seemed as though he knew God better than I know Lucas.  How can that be?

One of the things that Francis said was (I'm going to have to paraphrase), "Is God number one in your life, or IS God your life?  When God is just number one you can prioritize him."  It was like, as my friends were saying, a brick was thrown at my face!  I was just joking (and we all know at the root of a joke is a nugget of truth) with them saying how they were tied for third in my life. Lucas was second and God was number one.  Just the day before I was stating the God is just number one and not my whole life.

So what does this mean?  I'm still figuring that out.  I have been praying that the Lord will guide me on what it looks like to have Him be my whole life and not just number one.  For the first time I am feeling excited about diving into God's Word and learning about what he's teaching me.  Even yesterday I read in 2 Peter 1 where it's talking about how through His divine power have great promises that help us overcome the corruption of evil desires.  I read this and thought, "I need to find out what all these promises are the I've been given!" And I'm really excited about learning more what God's got in store for me!

Has God "thrown a brick at your face" recently?
How have you learned from your conviction?
Are you feeling closer to God because of it?