"For all these good things 'man needs the help of Heaven and Destiny.'"
Marcus Aurelius in Meditations
Last week I went recruiting for Camp Willow Run. Thursday night I went with Jeremy to NCSU. Friday night I drove by myself to JMU.
Each time I went prepared to do a 2-3 minute plug for CWR during the announcements of an InterVarsity large group meeting. I had my tri-fold display board in tow.
Thursday night I was rather nervous. Less so on Friday.
As I attempted to sing along to the songs Thursday night, I also made an ineffective attempt to calm myself down. I asked myself why it was that I was so nervous.
Earlier, I was prepped for “going recruiting.” I have a lot of respect for my boss and I tend to find that he has things figured out. So, when he told me to use this phrase, and make sure that this sentence came before that one, and to watch my time, and to be ready to shake such and such’s hand, I took note.
Thursday night during the last song before my 3-minute announcement:
“Luke, why are you so nervous? You have got to calm down. You wouldn’t be this nervous if you were going up there to talk about Scripture.
Yeah, but that’s different. I get nervous for that too, but then I just pray.
So just pray now.
Yeah, it’s not the same. If I were speaking about Scripture I would be trying to convey the words of God. I’m nervous now because I’m trying to speak the words of Robbie. And besides, when I prepare for Bible study I have the Spirit as my tutor. For this I only have Robbie as my tutor.
Well, just make the Spirit your tutor here.
Ohh yeah. I didn’t think of that.”
A couple of comments... one, I’d really rather not have too much psychoanalysis going on as a result of this post. Yes, I have a lot of conversations in my head (I even sometimes get lost in the deeper ones...). And no, Robbie is not higher on my list of persons that I fear than Jesus.
Second, this was an important reminder to me that we are called to live and walk in the Spirit. He is guiding us and He is constantly conforming us more and more into the image of Christ (Romans 8:28-29). While this doesn’t mean that my announcement about camp was Spirit-empowered, it does mean that even that experience is contributing to the process of making me a little more like Jesus.
So, I’m trying to eliminate some of the false divisions I have in my life. There are divisions between the things that I believe the Spirit will work in and the things that I think are just up to me to handle. But really, God wants it all.
“It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory.”
1 Corinthians 15:43
1 Corinthians 15:43
2 comments:
How did the talk go? There is no trick to convince yourself not to be nervous before public speaking except to not think about about being nervous. Somehow there a personalities out there who do not consider the fact that they are nervous - and then there are ours who make circles around it 100 times. God bless the extroverts.
The talk was alright. Not great, but not terrible either. It got better the more I did it.
I think the breakthrough in the whole thing was that in the 99th "lap around it" I realized that I did not need to take the 100th...
It was a reminder that I need to live life (or, walk by the Spirit, or Live the Life...) and not worry about things so much. The same reliance I have on the Spirit when it comes to leading a Bible study is what I need to apply to even the more mundane things like brushing my teeth.
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