Psalm 42:2

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? Psalm 42:2. 


Working at a church is such an amazing job. I get paid to write sermons, read books, meet people and build relationships, take people (or be taken) out for meals, etc. When a friend or my mentor ask me how my spiritual disciplines are going I have to stop and think, "Oh crap! I haven't stopped to pray today or sit at Jesus' feet and listen." 


I get so caught up in the "work" and talking about God and "doing" things for God that I forget to spend time with God. For instance, let's look at today.


9:30 Spend time with my host family as we take my car to the repair shop to get brakes then head over to the farmer's market to pick up blueberries and peaches. My host likes to talk about God and so most of our conversations revolve around God and the church.
10:30 Get to the office. Read a multitude of blogs, mostly by Christian authors, a majority of which revolved around God and the church. 
11:30 Continue to work on my sermon (which I will preach on July 18th). This involved reading scripture (God's Word) and thinking over certain ideas and the message I am feeling God wants me to share.
2:00 Meet with my mentor to discuss what I have of my sermon so far and how to effectively deliver that great content that I have. 
3:00 Continue reading commentaries and other sources on my scripture text for my sermon then switch to writing letters to congress-people about social justice issues I am passionate about. 
4:30 Go home to then ponder my day and rest. 
6:00 Eat dinner with my host family (building that relationship) and then leave with them to go to our small group that just started tonight.
7:00 START>Becoming a Good Samaritan small group in which we discuss social justice issues and how we can do good in our communities. 


Now that just seems like a day packed with God. But I'm not sure I really just quieted myself to listen to what he was trying to teach me throughout the day. Even in my reading of scripture for my sermon, I was really looking at it from an academic perspective today because that was my next step (to learn the context of the story). It was not until 9:45 tonight when I got home from small group that I decided I was going to be quiet and listen to God. 


The verse at the top asks "When can I go and meet with God?" I hear this emotion. I am so thirsting to be filled by his spirit and his love. When will it be time to meet with him? I have said in the past, and have heard others say this as well, that I am too busy to meet with God right now - I will do it later. I am a little sad right now that I waited all day to spend time with him when I could have been with him in the midst of everything else, not just on a mental or intellectual level, but on a spiritual, emotional level. This was the point of the incarnation, right? God making himself available to us always, on our level. We don't have to set up a time to meet with God anymore. He is always present and we can always meet with him. 


This is my goal: Be with God everyday, all day. Lofty goal, I know. I will fail, but I press on because I know that God is worth it. 


I pray that you, who ever you are reading this, whether you work in a church or not, that you may feel God's presence on a personal, spiritual, and emotional level all throughout your days and that you can be aware of his presence meeting with you always. 

the Intern at work

Lately, as I am the summer intern at Central Avenue United Methodist Church, I have been introduced as The Intern. I find this somewhat comforting that I have a title, but also interesting that it has almost become a running joke.

I am in my 5th week of being The Intern at Central Avenue and it never gets old. I am a part of an undergraduate internship program through the Office of Next Generation Leadership of the West Ohio Conference of the United Methodist Church. This internship was created to help young adults discern their call into ministry, specifically ministry as a vocation in the United Methodist Church, alongside an ordained mentor.

As I was pondering the word "intern," I decided to look up the definition on Dictionary.com. These are a couple of the multiple definitions:

• a student or a recent graduate undergoing supervised practical training
• a person who works as an apprentice or trainee in an occupation or profession to gain practical experience, and sometimes also to satisfy legal or other requirements for being licensed or accepted professionally

I realized that neither of these definitions fully (or at all) describe my role as The Intern at Central Avenue as a part of the West Ohio Conference. If I can mesh them together (while deleting some or a majority and adding my own thoughts), then it might just work. Let's try that. Here is my definition for The Intern at Central Avenue UMC:

• a student who works as a trainee in ordained ministry to gain practical experience and discernment for the future of the student's ministry

Another definition from Dictionary.com says, "send to the interior, confine." This would hopefully not be a comfortable definition for an intern who is seeking professional experience, but would rather be used for a prisoner of war or someone who is suspected of being an ally of a foreign enemy during a time of war.

When I saw this definition, though, I immediately thought of Ezekiel 37:1-2. (The hand of the LORD was upon me. and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry.) The LORD led Ezekiel in and among the bones that the LORD was going to bring to life and breathe the breath of life into. The LORD sent Ezekiel to "the interior" of the work that the LORD was going to do.

I am really excited to get "practical experience" and to have time to discern my call, but I am most overjoyed that God calls each and every one of us to be interns - to be at the interior of the work that God is doing and calling us to carry out for and with Him.

Here begins my reflections of being theIntern.