Under the hood currently

I’ve come to discover two things over the past few months, made clear more recently like a giant mental billboard.

I have some amazing opportunities at both jobs to reveal Jesus. I may not have the opportunities to sit down with a Bible, or pray with someone without being asked by a manager to stop chatting and keep working, but I still have opportunities to display what Jesus is about, and to go against the stream of where culture is headed today.

My co-workers see that I don’t go out and get myself wasted on weekends, that I use clean language, etc. They find it odd/different how I’m dating/courting a girl, like how we don’t stay in the same apartment/house as each other when we visit. Some of the other boundaries are crazy to them too. That I will pause my job when human need arises at a very personal level reveals a work that is in me that is far beyond anything I can humanly be intentional about. It’s not campus ministry where I can take someone through scriptures over the course of an hour or two, and provide guidance to someone who is at a stage in their life where they are deciding the course of their life, but I can have a huge impact all the same.

Secondly, I am finally coming to realize how big a need I have to be fathered right now. I’ve known for months that I crave time with father figures in my life. I leap at chances to even cut wood with someone, assemble a sign, or any other activity that puts me in company with older men. I have a dad yes, and he was there for me growing up. He read bed-time stories to me, showed me how to shave, how to drive, change oil etc. But that wasn’t nearly enough time spent together. Living in Wilmington, getting home every two-three months, I realize I miss this even further.

I have a huge void in my life. Working with Glen while I interned with UNCW temporarily filled this void, but now since my internship wrapped up, I’ve only seen him on a few occasions, and never more than ten minutes. I’ve reached a point where I have to let God father me, and rely on him to provide fathering through humans as He sees fit, providing gifts I treasure.

Not an area I expected to discover in my quiet time last night, but a place I want to travel now with God.