God and Lists

for the longest time i always made fun of my dad for writing long lists of things that he had to get done for each day. He would always keep this list folded in his shirt pocket along with a pen and a couple sticky post-it notes.
but as of about two years ago, lists became one of my most favourite things. sometimes, i even think that my entire life can be categorized and sorted into a whole buncha different lists. some of them consciously made and some of them...well i guess they were made without my knowing. but it wasnt just the lists in and of themselves that i started to like. by making lists i also discovered the joy of checking things off lists - theres really no better feeling (okay, well its definitely top ten) of having a gianourmous list and then slowly as the day drags on and as you do each listed thing, checking each one off...ahh lists!

at around the same time that i started to have a thing for lists, i also discovered that one of my most believed in and held in highest regard list (unconsciously made) was slowly being ripped apart and turned upside down - my 'God' list.

i grew up in a christian family and have been to church all my life. in hong kong when i a baby all the way until i was four. And then to some church in vancouver from when i was four til five. and then here at BAC since i was six. so basically i knew all the sunday school stories and i knew all the right answers and i definitely knew, as i grew up, all the right roles to fill and the right way to act.

i was super active in church, serving ever since i was in grade five or six in the nursery and then as i got older with the children, teaching the toddler sunday school and leading children's worship. then when i went up to gq i was in core since the first year, leading worship and all that other stuff that 'goode christian leaders' do...

and im not reducing all these things that i did to amount to nothing because i know really well that God uses all things, all experiences in our lives to shape up and help us grow in so many ways but i think thorughout all this time what i did, what i was serving in was merely something that i did...granted there were moments, many moments where i definitely felt God working through me but those were just isolated moments with no sustenance.

i realized this...or i guess i slowly realized and am still realizing this two summers back...or maybe more...around the same time as lists. i had just started my internship with pastor ed and at that point my life was kinda messy...messy meaning lots of different things were happening in a whole buncha different areas of my life and because of a culmination of all those things - i had to come face to face with that list which i had made to do with God.

i found out, really really quickly that all my suppositions and limitations and on the line judgments of what following God, who God is, how i am to live life, were really messed up...not only were the things on my list not checked off, those things that were on my list shouldnt have been there in the first place.

i think that i were say exactly at which point did my faith become real to me - real in that way where there is no denying it or going around it or doing a half job of it - it would have to have been the moment that i realized how wrong my list had been. Realizing that made me really change the way i viewed my life and how i wanted to live out the rest of it...and i mean, even know im working, trying every single moment to erase those messed up items i had listed on my list...its not always easy cause that list was there for a while but i think that in the process of erasing and rewriting, Gods actually teaching me a lot more than i think...

theres so much more to say...but i think this would be a goode place to say that its because of my list, or well my half erased half corrected list, that is one of my biggest reasons for working with the youth. i think i get where theyre at in their lives when it comes to God and faith and all that stuff. i get that growing up in church and going to sunday school and fellowship and knowing all the head knowledge and knowing exactly how to act to get by, at our very traditional, very asian church, leads you to grow up with a sorta list for God, probably not unlike the one that i had.
and i think if thats the list that they have and that list never changes and God and faith never becomes real to them, then Christianity is really just one big joke. not worth following at all...
for me, and im superly thankful for this, God placed a whole buncha super meaningful people in my life that kinda guided and nudged me along in the right direction. often asking really crazy questions and sharing views that were soooo contrary to my list that i had no choice but to deal with them...

i really hope that besdies teaching my teens the lesson and the verses and the bible knowledge that more than anything im challegening their list of what God in our lives looks like through the way i live my life out in God.

some lists are great and meant to be kept and checked off one by one, while that feeling of complete satisfaction washes over
and some lists need to be ripped up, turned upsidedown, and re-written all the while being shown some pretty cool stuff and learning some (sometimes hard) life lessons.

thats the end.

helen