1) Judgement
My immediate reaction often when seeing other Christians, especially students, is to judge. I size them up spiritually. I mentally rate their chapters and think about if they look "Christian" or not. I find the need to be the "best Christian" in the room. I get annoyed when others are loud or unruly, and secretly condemn as self-righteous those who are reading their Bibles out in public. Luckily, well more like unluckily, I've dealt this this extensively in the past, and was able to catch myself and fight the temptation to judge others. That said, constantly suppressing unloving thoughts is still a long, tiring, distracting mental battle.
2) Judgement v2
Forgive me for the crappy euphemistic title, but I couldn't think up any other title that would this sound not creepy. Basically, I was experiencing the crippling distraction that a young, single guy who hasn't met anyone potential "suitees" in an entire year experiences when he's all of a sudden surrounded by Christian girls everywhere. Y'all know what I mean, so I'll just leave it at that.
3) Worrying about others
Often times, my desire for others to fully enjoy and experience God spills over into an overly controlling will for others. Because this was the first time my parents were at Urbana, I really paid attention to their reactions to the various speakers, and I got antsy or even upset if I felt like they weren't enjoying their time there. This worry was also present in the more mundane, everyday aspects of Urbana, like having worrying that the walk from the hotel to the convention center would be too far for my parents,worrying that my parents might get lost in the crowd, and wondering when my family was going to arrive at Bible study after I had saved a row of seats for them. This worrying gradually faded, as I learned to trust both God and my family more - that God would speak to to my parents in whatever way He desired, and that my family was going to arrive reasonably on time to most things and not get lost getting there.
The first night I was there, these distractions really bothered me, as I felt like they were keeping me from all the great things that God wanted to teach me. Thinking back on it though, I think that God was specifically teaching me through these distractions. I was reminded of my poisonous pride, my circumstantial contentment, and my controlling tendencies. Like Calisto Odede (the expositor this year) said the next day, I needed to deal with my sin and the hardness of my heart before I could expect God to speak in my life elsewhere. As I'll share a bit more in the posts to come (that I've already started writing), God used Urbana to force me to inspect my heart in ways that I haven't in a while, and these distractions early in the conference are a great example of that.
I'd also like to thank all of you who prayed for me these last few days while I was at Urbana. I can say with certainty that God honored those prayers, and God gave me the eyes to see the darkness of my heart and the strength to rely on Him more, and these distraction faded into the background as the week went on.
Urbana 2012 Posts
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