dependency – Notes of a Lifesong

As I was reading Judges for class last week, I was reminded of a blog post I wrote a couple years ago for our Camp Machaceh blog. I thought it might be fun to repost my thoughts on Gideon’s 300 person army from May 2008. Aaron and I were gearing up for our second summer of Camp Machaceh, and seminary was still over a year away. Staff recruiting had been a difficult journey that year, as it has been most years. But God provided for our every need, though not always in the way we expected.

From May 28, 2008

Lately, Aaron has been calling our summer staff Gideon’s Army and for good reason. Back in the fall when we started planning for this summer, we thought we needed at least 10 counselors. “We can’t possibly run our program with less,” we thought. But here we are three and a half weeks until staff training starts, and we have half the number we thought we needed.

I can just imagine Gideon’s face when God told him “you have too many men for me to deliver Midian into [your] hands” (Judges 7:2). I imagine him thinking something along these lines: “Are you sure God? Have you seen the Midianite army? You want to reduce my army of thousands down to 300?!” (Find the whole story of Gideon in Judges 6-8.)

But God in His infinite love and wisdom had a plan for those 300 men. In Judges 7:2, God goes on to explain why He wants to reduce the army: “in order that Israel may not boast against Me that her own strength has saved her.”

Put another way: “Faith does not operate in the realm of the possible. There is no glory for God in that which is humanly possible. Faith begins where man’s power ends.” –George Muller

If God wants to use 5 counselors and Aaron and me to show His love to campers this summer, who am I to question Him? After all, He often uses a very small number of people to do very big things. (Gideon isn’t the only example. Read Judges. And the rest of the Bible for that matter.) While I still hope and pray that God will provide at least one more counselor, I can rest in the knowledge that His plan is perfect. I have faith that He will provide the staff we need to run three weeks of camp. And in the end, God gets all the glory because the only explanation for Camp Machaceh’s success is His provision.

Camp Machaceh Staff 2008
gideons-army-cm-2008

praying-with-open-hands

Dependency. The word conjures up a range of thoughts and emotions. Dependency on God is always something I was taught to do by my parents and something I have strived for throughout my life. However, my understanding of dependency has taken on a new meaning over the last six or seven years.

Six and half years ago Aaron and I were living in Colorado Springs, Colorado preparing to enter camp ministry. We had gotten married a few months before moving there, and we were looking for a job in the Christian camping world. We were in the process of interviewing for a job at a camp in Durango, CO, when God did the unthinkable. He sent us back to Texas to start Camp Machaceh and work with underprivileged youth in our home state. This was a shock to our mountain loving selves, but we knew we had no choice. To stay in Colorado would be disobedient. Within a few months we found ourselves back in the metroplex figuring out what it meant to start a nonprofit organization. Through my experience with Camp, I am constantly challenged to be dependent on God whether for donations, volunteers, or even weather. We have seen God do amazing things through the ministry, a testament to His power and provision. Through each stage of this ministry, I learn something new about dependency. Thus, I cannot help but wonder what it must have been like for the Israelites during their desert years.

The Israelites were dependent on God for everything, much to their chagrin at times. They relied on God for food and water. They relied on God’s protection from their enemies, and they even relied on His guidance as to when to travel and where to camp. In Numbers 9, we learn that on the day the tabernacle was set up, the LORD descended on it in the form of a cloud. This cloud remained there, appearing as fire by night and cloud by day. However, when the cloud lifted from over the tabernacle, the Israelites knew it was time to move to a new location, and they would set out travelling until the cloud settled in a new location. Verse 23 of Numbers 9 particularly struck me:

“At the command of the LORD they would camp, and at the command of the LORD they would set out. They kept the charge of the LORD, at the command of the LORD by Moses.”

The Israelites had nothing apart from the LORD. If God had not been with them, guiding them, providing for them, they would have been left with nothing and would have most likely perished. This made me rethink dependency a bit. While I still think I have been dependent on God for many things in my life and for most all things regarding Camp Machaceh, I wonder, can I truly understand dependency unless I have relied on God for everything down to food, water, shelter, and clothing? Or is simply realizing that without the generosity of others I would be in a much different place a recognition of dependency?