OCBP:Week 1 into 2

I am currently sitting on the sofa in the living room downstairs.  The entire house of about 45 people or so are asleep. No one knows I'm downstairs.  As I contemplate the silence and the random outbursts of laughter from my tipsy Russian next door neighbors, I feel like I'm like neck deep into the project.  Now that almost weeks or so have gone by, I can really explain to you what the project's about.  There are many aspects of the project but the most important part is what I would describe as finding God through community.

To be completely honest, I've never been with so many people at one time that I vibed so well with.  Even those that are completely different with me...I can just about say that I've bonded with them.  There are 31 of us, including myself, all crammed together in a big/little (it really depends on perspective) white house (called "the Ark") four blocks away from the ocean.  We are all college students ranging from sophomores to seniors and we all are involved with our Christian fellowships in some way, shape, or form back at school.  We all have our own quirks, hobbies, and interests.  One thing we all have in common however is our love and passion for Christ.  We are all seeking God and the thing that I love the most about this project, is that we are all seeking God humbly.  I will explain more of this later.

In order to"find God through community", we have a specific group of things we do together each week:

1. We serve our outer community (ie: people outside the Ark) through work (through employment  just being salt and light). 
2. We serve the local church through weekly prayer partner meetings, helping in praise and worship, participating in the hymnal choir, and overall being available for many people in the church.
3. We serve each other through our cook/clean groups, late-night conversations, bible studies and support.
4. We serve ourselves through meditating on daily devotions, studying about 5 or 6 hardcore spiritual literature, attending lectures taught by pastors and CCO staff, weekly meetings with our disciplers (mentors) who help to guide us and challenge us to expand our faith in Christ, and participating in our Gospel-Centered Life groups (which I would say are the most intense "check yourself before you wreck yourself" sessions I've ever experienced).
5. We serve God through open worship (we are known in the neighborhood for our music and open profession of faith) and denial of ourselves so we may rely on Him more.  

I have seen God seriously at work here these past few weeks. He not only answered my heart-wrenching prayer to just enjoy many long conversations with someone, but he gave me 30 other people to enjoy them with!  One thing I do not suggest you ever do is to pray for God to humble you if you don't really mean it. With full intention, I have prayed it for the past month, and God's answering that prayer too.  Many of you may have seen my facebook statuses mentioning that I have gotten job offers.  I have gotten over 4 job offers and several other rejections.  Unfortunately, as of now, the jobs are no longer hiring and the offers were more like "We'll keep you on file until further notice".  It seems like no place in Ocean City, NJ is willing to hire; particularly those who can only work Mon-Sat mornings and no other times.

I was able to secure a job on Saturday morning cleaning out condos that vacationers rent out for the week.  It pays $10 an hour for 4 hours, which isn't bad, but it gives me just enough to survive financially for the week.  Talk about relying on God there.  In the meantime, I have been praying and asking God to show me the job He wants me to take.  I know He'll come through, but for me especially, I struggle with not working.  I can really feel God chipping away at my idle called "Work".  Today especially, God has been teaching me that my security lies in Him, not a job.  And so, as I (and the rest of the Ark) wait patiently for me to get a job (the people here are amazing at prayer...they haven't stopped praying for me and encouraging me since I got here), God has been faithful and has been providing way more than just money.  He has been providing true treasures that I can forever store in heaven! 

Today, I had an amazing day with my Gospel-Centered Life group.  We talked about the idea of performing for God and pretending to God.  It's kind of like a continuation of what we learned last week about minimizing God's glory to maximize ourselves.  What we found out today is that as Christians today in our culture, we suffer a lot from an ongoing identity crisis: who are we? We often think that we are either too amazing to really need God or too horrible to be able to receive Him.  But the fact is even though we are broken messes that seem impossible to fix, God still loves us.  He more than loves us.  In fact, I learned today that God is "overjoyed" with us.  Really? "Overjoyed"?

I don't know quite how to take that even as I write this.  However, as I wrestled with this, God gave me a beautiful picture in my head to understand his mindset. A toddler who is learning how to walk.  When he falls, I have never witnessed a parent yelling at him because he fell.  Instead, the parent usually applauds the child or rushes to his side to pick him up, brush him off, kiss his boo-boos and tell him to try again.  This is how God is with me.  Patient and always applauding me when I fall.  Go figure.  Sounds awful and wonderful at the same time, because as God's image, all I want to do is be good and get back up again.  But the fact is, that without God, I am nothing but a kid stuck on the ground.  Really humbling? Right?

What I love about the project so far is that it's like everyone here knows that they're screwed up.  No one's trying to hide anything.  A lot of times (especially today) we just sit around and just cry. But the cool thing is...we're crying together.  When we laugh, we laugh together.  When we play games, we play games together.  When we get sick (as I am right now), we get sick together.  We eat together, sleep together, sing and dance together and work together.  As you see, everything's together.  We have a covenant that's based on Romans 12.  It seems like all of us know each other's business (the good and the bad) but we're okay with that.  We can see passed the trials and see the treasure in each one of us.  Already, I'm getting sad about the end of this project.  I wish it would last forever.  Maybe it can... I know I want my campus, home and entire life to be this way.  Open. Vulnerable.  Humble.  Together.