Smeagol is Free!
A hermitudinal view of...stuff...


6.03.2007  

Na 2007: Lesson #1

It's been several days since New Attitude 2007 came to a close. Since this past Tuesday, when I bade farewell to Andrew, Sandi, Jim, and Tessa, I've wanted to sit and ponder and write about my experiences while they were here, yet I felt unable to do so. Part of that has been due to my schedule, which has been relentless in its desire to drive me into my pillow and induce a drool-laden state, but a larger and more important reason has to do with the fact that I've felt a little too near to what I learned, a little too...numb.

I told my Family Group that my expectations for the conference were pretty simple: I was excited about seeing my friends, not necessarily being at the conference itself. Don't get me wrong, it's not as though I wasn't looking forward to it, but it's that I'm surrounded by a seminary community that will give me teaching on these topics day in and day out, and I'm immersed in a church that strives to teach and preach and apply the Word of God in a manner I wish with all my heart was more prevalent in this sickened world. The haunting pitfall of this is that a conference like New Attitude, in spite of all its wonderful attributes, has the potential to be redundant rather than refreshing.

That's the reality of a life spent battling indwelling sin, isn't it?

The past few weeks have been pithy, with the conference being doubly so. In trying to process the things we spoke of and meditated upon for those four wonderful days, I would often come away feeling like I was trying to read a message written to me - in braille. There's a great irony in that illustration. Have you ever tried to read braille? I presume that if you're a reader of this blog, you're like me in that you don't really have a need for it. Yet, if the only means of written communication was braille, it would be the blind who would read and write best, would it not? It would be the blind man who would be most excited about a message telling him that he was cured of his blindness and would be made to see, would it not? Oh, the irony there is quite apt. I mean, I know what was said, and I daresay that I can regurgitate the points of the sessions fairly well, but does that mean that I've been affected by God's Word? Does that mean that I'm being transformed by the renewing of my mind? Does that mean that I rejoice in the light of the glory of God that I now behold freely in the face of Christ? No, not necessarily. At least, it's not always easy.

I think that was the first and foremost lesson I'd learned over the duration of New Attitude. It may not be the most profound, yet it was, practically speaking, the one lesson that made the others possible.

posted by Bolo | 12:23 AM
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