-the house- wabc youth group 90-95

— 1 Peter 1:22 —

Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart.

 

This is another one of those, loving your brothers even if you can't stand them at times. I find I don't quite grasp the fullness of God's love. Can I even? It's the christian you get along with at church, you decide to work with them on something and you find out what a moron they are or how irresponsible, lazy, or whatever they are. Or they discover that about you. It's all this that makes it hard for me to love my brothers at times. We have deadlines this week, scripts to write, its just time crunch. We just moved our studio last monday, so the whole place is trashed. I like trashed though, I like the challenge of cleaning it up. Sip some coffee, I read and think. I'm reminded of the youth group I was apart of back in the 90's we called ourselves "the house" which carried its name into the 2000's. I recently refered to us as "the bad crop" because alot of crazy stuff happened at "the house". Don't get me wrong, It wasn't us, I blame the society we lived in. It was a big youth group at whitton ave (40 kids, big for us). We were those who left the church shortly after graduating and didn't return. Why? was often the question. This verse hits a big thing, obeying the truth. All my days growing this group, I found myself trying to understand obedience amongst the struggles I had to love everyone. I was at war with myself, with my thoughts of resentment and acceptence of others. I had such a judgemental materialistic view of everyone that I battled. I just couldn't figure it out. I didn't understand until years later. My anger has even come out in my marriage at times. I read and think, the year was 1995 at Midwest camp and our youth group or at least some of us were there. We were doing a skit about prayer to theme of the terminator. It was a very powerful skit, we of all people needed to apply its message more than anyone. We had so much crap going on in our youth group, some really serious issues, we were on our 5th youth pastors in 4 years (typical actually). We had been smacked over the head. Our church was in disarae, they weren't used to "real" problems and did there best to point the finger. I could listen but didn't know how to love. As I look back at our group and how many of us were close and how many never reconciled, felt burned, pissed off at everything. I see the potential and talents we all had back then. Some were overlooked, some were just waisted talent, but we brought friends to this group, we had good prayer times, youth were saved. Hits me, God wants my heart, even if its shattered or bent out of shape, he wants it. I can consider my past a "bad crop"  but God doesn't, He knows what happened back then, He's using everyone of us these days for His own purpose. I can blame and point my finger all I want but when will I learn? We're all married now with families, I look back and see the challenges, I see the laughter, the fights, the restoration and beauty. We've all left and gone our own ways.  I see the hand of God on us because that's how he works. I need to seek to obey His word and not my thoughts, once He owns my heart again, I'll love sincerely and deeply, just has He loves, and that's a daily process.