Mon, Sept. 27
... Grace for a wayward heart
Wow. What a weekend. I'm still trying to process it all, and I'm trying to make it make sense, but it's interesting. It was a good weekend. I went to
re:vive with a group of the young adults from the church, and it kind of threw me for a loop, in more ways than one.
For one thing, I haven't gone to a conference like that since I was in high school, and I think there was a part of me that expected it to be the same way it was when I was 16. And, of course, it wasn't. There was a different feel to the conference itself, and also a different group dynamic in terms of the way we related to each other, and the feeling of the weekend. There wasn't the "these are the chaperones and these are the students" sense; it was just that we were all there together, hanging out.
That wasn't the biggest thing, though. There's something about the whole idea of the "Christian Conference" that doesn't excite me the way it used to. The attempt to create a spiritual high. Or, not so much creating the high, but creating an atmosphere where a spiritual high is more likely to occur. The spiritual version of a pep rally.
I sound so cynical, and that's not my intention at all; I'm just learning to take conferences like that with a grain of salt. There's so much there, and it can be such an overload if you try to take it all in. There are just a few things that I remember from a lot of the conferences I've been to--one or two things from each one that really impacted me and changed my life.
I was talking to Mike about it this morning, and he made an interesting comment: a) the best thing about a conference like that is the encouragement that comes with the realization that there are that many other people going through the same thing, at the same stage of life, and b) it's a good thing to try to come away with one thing that you can change because of what you heard. Don't try to integrate it all, because that'll just be too much, but one thing is feasible.
It's interesting, though--I've talked to a number of people since I got back, and I've realized that I'm not the only one for whom the big "youth conference" style of thing has lost some of the luster.
I feel like I'm complaining needlessly, and I wonder why. I wonder if my discontent this weekend was because I wasn't open to what God had to tell me, or if it was an attack to keep me from getting everything out of the weekend that I could, or if it was a symbol of my growth and the fact that I'm at a different stage, or if it was simply that I was tired and mellow, or if it was something else altogether. I don't want to get stuck in a trap of arrogance, or caught in a place where I can't hear God's voice because it's not what I feel "most comfortable" with.
And please don't get me wrong--it's not that I didn't hear God speak this weekend. I did. I just heard it with a slightly uneasy feeling in my heart and the knowledge that this isn't all there is to my faith. It's more than the high that comes from worshipping with 1300 other people--as amazing as an experience like that is. There has to be more than that, or the conference means nothing. There's nothing to build it on.
No, it was good. There were some really good speakers, and some that made me think because I didn't agree with them completely. The worship was good, the fellowship was great, and the chance to relax for a few days was much needed. I'm glad I went, and I haven't written off "The Conference" as an important part of community and growth...
I just wonder where it fits into this faith that keeps growing, fluctuating, changing in me.
Oh, and by the way, apparently all my 2001 entries make a Word document of 150 pages. Second-hand knowledge here, but I trust the source. I wonder how many pages this entire diary is... probably close to 1000. That's scary. And I thought 50,000 words was daunting. Just goes to show what you can do when you don't realize that you're doing it.
infinite || abyss
posted at 11:18 p.m.
