8,640 Minutes

In the busy world of running headless chicken style between messy dorm rooms, crowded cafeteria tables and the necessary classrooms, unexpected lessons manage to jump out of nowhere and make us stop running, and start listening. I believe that this Jack In the Box style of communication is something that God uses to get our attention when we make ourselves too busy to listen.

This afternoon, I was sitting in my graduation preparation class “Senior Seminar”(I never really know what to expect in that class), When Dr. Metts presented a lecture that applied directly to the things that I have been struggling with in Residence Life.

He talked about the fact that we have to realize that people are “created” in stages. Just as God did not create the world in five minutes, he created the world in 8,640 minutes (6 days), people are not brought to completion immediately. In ministry leadership, it is easy for people like me to become frustrated with the people that we are serving because they “are not acting like Christians” or “They just can’t see past the end of their own nose.” This frustration is ridiculous and it serves no purpose but to take away from the joy/enthusiasm of the leader.

To avoid this frustration, we must see people as works in progress that are not going to be created overnight-it is going to be a process. My goal as a leader needs to be on moving my resident a little bit further. Letting them learn a little bit and move a few minutes forward.

This means taking joy in the small steps-loving the resident who makes a small compromise for her roommate instead of wishing that they would be willing to make the big ones!

This means losing the godlike pride of believing that it is my job to fix people all at once, and finding my purpose in encouraging one little bit of growth (creation) at a time!