Back to School (A Time of Transition)

 

Back to School time is here again! and an estimated 18.5 billion dollars will be spent this year which is up 19% since last year.  It is estimated that each household with school age children will, on average, spend $620.00 for back to school related products. Here in the United States we will begin to go back to school mid August through early September. 

It is “Back To School Time”, marking for many of us another transition in life!

Our family has spent this summer taking several small vacations to the great outdoors.  As we returned from our last camping trip I realized that school was on the horizon and approaching very quickly. We are transitioning, changing, and a new school year approaches bringing with it a variety of schedule adjustments and stress as our son enters into 1st grade and I continue in the Masters of Divinity program at the King’s Seminary.  

We here at LightHouse World Evangelism are also experiencing some transitions. Due to the state of our economy we have experienced a reduction of financial donations which has led to some our programs being cut back and or eliminated all together.  I am hoping that many will make this yearly transition in the next few weeks, and that my speaking engagements and our financial giving numbers will once again rise as we get back into the swing of things after a restful and well needed summer.  

As we are all transitioning and changing, I want to take a moment and teach you an important issue from John Chapter 6.  The crowd had just been fed by the feeding of the 5,000 and are now “transitioning” and looking for Jesus. There is a transition underway. According to John, they had just had the feeding of the 5,000 and now a crowd followed Jesus, looking for him. Does this sound familiar?  Are we not the same? In the transitions of our lives we are always looking for Jesus. We may not name it that way, or think about it that way but we need something to hold onto. We are hungry for something and we don’t know what it is.

I didn’t realize how much I needed some time away this summer. My needing to get away from our ministry house and the day to day tasks provided me with joy and provided transitional peace for my mind, body and spirit that I desperately needed.   When on vacation, it took me a couple days to get a rhythm going to my day that just did not seem to have one.  Needless to say I found my rhythm out there in the middle of nowhere and coming home was not very easy.  Isn’t it always the transition home that is the hardest?  

In the Exodus story, the Israelites are complaining and the Lord creates another “transitional moment” for them. Manna reins down from heaven and the word, manna, in Hebrew, means “what is it”. In our transitions of life God reins down many blessings and we always seem to ask “what is it?” We don’t often see the blessings of God right in front of us!

When we are empty, broken, in despair, divorced, estranged, feeling left out, left behind, or left for loss. When we transition from old age to older age, from poor to poorer, from pain to loss, from struggle and strife, to pain and rage we need to be refilled and reminded of the true bread from heaven, Jesus Christ.

Jesus takes the crowd, and us today studying John Chapter 6, Back to School. Look at how patient Jesus is as the crowd comes upon him to make yet another request. This tells us that God is patient with us in the same way. Jesus teaches that we are not to try harder, but to try different. The crowd asks more questions:

“What must we do to perform the works of God?”
“What sign are you going to give us so that we may believe?”

Jesus says to them and all of us “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” The work is to “believe” and keep on believing. This word, believe, in the Greek is in the present tense. It means to believe and to keep on believing. It is an ongoing action on our parts to keep on believing in the transitions and changes of life.

The author of Ephesians encourages us to lead a life worthy of the calling. We have been called, realizing there is one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism and one God and Father of all, who reigns down on all of us manna.  This simply means that he reigns down on us gifts that some of us would be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. Today we could translate that and say “God has given gifts to some of us to be ones that are sent out in outreach and evangelism, some of us are gifted to work in the secular work places and present Jesus to the lost, some of us have a gift for ministry in numerous other areas, and we, as Paul suggests today, “grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ, building up the body of Christ in love! In closing as we are transitioning into the fall season of 2008, Please let God work in your life and transition you onto the path that He has created for you from the foundations of the world.