The Blessing of Investing Your Life
This last weekend a whole crowd of men enjoyed a weekend of fellowship, fun, and encouragement at Black Lake Bible Camp. All told, there were around 75 men who participated in this year’s Men’s Retreat. New relationships were developed, opportunities to talk and pray together were provided, and we even tried our hand at some goofy games. I feel confident in saying that the men who gathered for the weekend were encouraged in their walk with God. It was a good weekend.
For my part, I loved it. I had an extra special blessing, which is that the speaker who joined us, Doug Anderson, is a long-time friend. And my family was triple blessed, because Doug stayed at our house on Thursday night and Sunday night, so we got some good time to enjoy talking with him before and after the retreat. Even my girls loved the chance to get to know him, and it was such a delight to my heart to hear him previewing his messages for weekend, talking about “Walking With God,” and for my girls to hear him share stories and be excited about God’s work in his life.
It was so good for my own heart to hear Doug share. Doug is one of many men who have invested significantly in my life. I first met him in the summer of 1997, when I traveled to north-central British Columbia with my youth group. I was just a teen, and our group had come to run a weeklong VBS-style kids program in the First Nations village of Nadleh. Doug and two other missionaries came to our campsite to give us a crash course on First Nations culture. Who could have known that from that short-term missions opportunity as a 15 year old kid, God would get a hold of my heart and invite me to participate with Him in ministry to First Nations kids, teens, and families on an on-going basis? By following God’s leading to join Him in that ministry, he put men like Doug in my life, who has served as one of many ministry mentors for me, helping me learn to walk with God and serve Him in the world around me. Doug continues to teach me, as he did this weekend.
So why do I share all this? I share to commend to you the most valuable goal of finding ways to give your life away to serve the Lord. The time spent giving my summers to be involved in missions among First Nations people in north-central British Columbia has been costly. It has cost money, of course. And it’s taken away time from jobs where I could have been making money, it has cost vacation time that I could use doing other leisure activities, it has put miles on my vehicles, and it has required energy, at times beyond what I felt I had to give. It’s cost time with friends and family. It’s cost my heart, as it has put my in direct connection with some heartbreaking situations that would be easier to not know about. And I would gladly pay the cost 100 times over for how this ministry connection has transformed my heart, provided me with mentors who have helped develop my walk with the Lord, and for the ways God continues to use the ministry in my life to grow my faith in Him.
Leanne, our girls, and I will be back up north this summer, serving for a week of Bible Camp for First Nations kids in the middle of July. We will be there while a group of EBC teens will also be there serving. It’s another chance to invest the life the Lord has given us into the lives of some kids who need to know Him. And it’s a chance to help our girls see that this is part of what it looks like to Walk with God. To go where He calls us, to use the gifts and resources He has given us to serve Him, and to receive the blessings He provides when we do that.
There are so many great opportunities to serve the Lord. Some happen here in Vancouver. Some happen in various places around the world. Can you imagine investing your life in serving the Lord? What I believe with all my heart is that if you do, it will be incredibly costly. And yet, you will receive back from the Lord blessings beyond what you can measure. Sometimes those blessings will even create a blessing for others, too, just like the blessing the men at the retreat received with the chance to hear Doug share about Walking with God. We serve a kind and generous God!
Pastor Ryan Donovan
PS – The videos from the Men’s Retreat sessions will eventually be available. I will post a link to them on the EBC Attenders Facebook page once those are available.
Categories: Evergreen Connection