The Big Dipper

Apparently, when you get out of the swing of things, writing is a hard thing to do.  That's apparent, if by no other evidence, simply by the fact that I haven't written anything since I broke what little routine I had going.  Let's catch up a bit, shall we?

I'm working at a Lutheran church camp and having a blast!

That's about it.  For those of you who don't know, when we Lutherans do camp, we do it right.  This also means that those of us that have committed our summer to working as camp counselors have committed most of our lives for the summer.  Seeing as how I have no real life in the outside world to begin with, it's really not such a bad trade.

One of the things we do here is every night we do a devotion with the kids in our cabin.  As most of you know, I'm a firm believer in the idea that God is EVERYWHERE!!!  With that in mind, I took my kids out one night this week to look at the stars.  I had somewhat of an idea of what I was going to say, but I really kinda left it up to them to go wherever they wanted with it.  It continually amazes me what God can come up with when you open up some time to let him work.

I started by asking them to identify the North Star.  Not surprisingly, none of them did so correctly.  I then asked them to identify the Big Dipper.  Again, not surprisingly, almost all of them could.  I then showed them how the two stars furthest away from the handle of the Dipper point directly at the North Star.  After that, they had virtually no trouble finding it.

My original intention was to simply make the North Star into a metaphor for God.  It was really rather poetic.  In the constantly changing sky that is never the same from night to night, the North Star never moves and the entire sky moves around it.  Much in the same way, the world, whether it wants to admit it or not, moves around according to the will of a God that, as Hebrews 13:8 tells us, is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

As I was doing this devotion, however, I realized, with more than a little assistance from my kids, that the metaphor doesn't end there.  In order to find the North Star, they all used the Big Dipper.  The North Star is not the brightest or easiest to find star in the sky, but the Big Dipper is up for a majority of the year and is relatively easy to see.  None of my kids could find the North Star without the Big Dipper.  I can't find the North Star without the Big Dipper.

Our Bible Study here at camp is all about being a witness to the world.  One of our daily themes is "Live".  That day is all about how we can point people to God without actually telling them anything.  It's all about how everything we do can reflect God to the world in either a positive light or a negative light.

Think about the Big Dipper.  It doesn't descend from the sky, grab your head, jerk it toward Polaris, and scream, "THERE'S THE NORTH STAR!!!"  It just is what it is.  It sits there and naturally serves as a simple pointer to the star that for centuries has been a guiding light for lost travellers.  In the same way, if you are living your life for Christ, you will naturally and simply point to the brightest most wonderful guiding light in the cosmos.  You don't have to grab people by the heads and shove the word of God down their throats.  Sometimes, all you have to do is be the Big Dipper.

Sometimes, all you have to do is be.