Guest Post by Bonnie Lewis. Bonnie is Dan’s daughter, a junior at the University of Kentucky and a Younglife Leader at Bryan Station High School in Lexington, Kentucky.
The weekend was almost a bombardment of great information that was relevant to my life. One of the people I met there said what he usually tries to do at events like this is to pick out one or two things he is going to take home with him and really try to apply to his life. This was such great advice because often I leave things like this with a sense of desperation because I want to use everything I have just learned in my life, but the reality of this is just not possible. We are, after all, human.
So, from the event, here are my two “take-aways” that I have been trying to incorporate into my life (albeit I have not been perfect):
1. The idea of seeking reconciliation:
On the last day, we got to visit the Capitol and sit in the House of Representatives (which the nerd in me thought was really cool). Former Seattle Seahawks player and politician, Steve Largents, shared a little of his story. He spoke about his rocky relationship with his father and how the Lord challenged him to seek reconciliation with him and how important, as Christians, it is for us to make sure we have personally and genuinely tried to reconcile with those in our lives. Having fragmented relationships because of our sinful natures does absolutely nothing to help strengthen our relationship with Christ and really impedes our doing his will.
This was something that I was surprised and almost ashamed to realize I had been struggling with. My parents, while I was growing up, really instilled in me the idea of not letting the sun set on my anger and I am honestly not the type of person to hold on to grudges…however, I am the type of person to avoid confrontation and conflict, which has led to some broken relationships in my life. I was really challenged to address them because I was really shown how these blemishes in my life were drawing away from the glory of Christ in me.
When you think about it, Christ is all about reconciliation. That is what his whole life and death were about, after all—reconciling the relationship between God and his fallen creation. Why shouldn’t I try to do that as well?
2. Christ as the only priority in my life:
The first morning, Richard Archer of the Overland Partners (a Christ centered architecture firm), talked about incorporating Christ in the workplace. He said a lot of really great things, but the one thing that stuck with me was what he said about priorities. He said that a lot of Christians think that they should have a list of priorities in the order of importance (i.e. God, Family, Job, Friends, ect.). However, he argued that this is wrong. The only priority in our life is Christ. If we seek only him, all other “priorities” will fall into place. So our list should look like this: God. This was so different from what I usually think, but it made a lot of sense. If I am only trying to pursue God, then I will treat my family well, will do a good job at school or work, and will have deep and meaningful relationships with friends.
The only measure of whether or not my day was good should be whether or not I lived it fully for Christ. A little radical, I know, but isn’t Christ a little radical, isn’t being a Christian a little radical?