'You Can't Teach an Old Dog New Tricks'

BUT...you can teach an old dog the same tricks over and over and over and over.

The level of how purely simple minded I am blows me away sometimes. One thing I am learning is that by coming back to DC for a second summer as a cityhost, after having hosted last summer as well as during my spring break, it was easy to fool myself into thinking that I had nothing to learn about hosting this summer. Little did I know...

Last summer, I learned so much. Each day I went to sleep thinking that God had taught me a lesson and made me so much stronger. By the end of last summer, I was convinced that I was a wealth of wisdom. Unfortunately, time happened, and as I am slowly discovering, a lot of the lessons I learned have been pushed to the back of my mind. They have not been permanently erased, just temporarily placed to the side of my memory. The reason I know they have only been pushed to the side, rather than erased is because as this summer is beginning, I am beginning to recall some of the lessons that I learned last summer as I painfully learn them again. My new goal is to retain these lessons, so that I don't have to continue to learn the same tricks over and over and over and over.

This weeks lesson: Give up and let go.

Big Daddy Weave has a song with this exact title. To begin hosting this summer, I have a bit of a difficult group to kick off the season. The youth group leader is uncooperative. They don't make decisions, and they seem to thrive on trying to change the schedule on me. The list goes on, but you get the picture. My natural instinct to a group like this is to try and take control of the situation so that they don't run haywire on me. Unfortunately, they have proven to be a group that cannot be controlled or maintained, despite my futile efforts.

As much as this naturally frustrates me, I can't help but thinking that God is teaching me a LARGE lesson through this group. Having tried to take control, and gloriously failed, my only other reaction is to 'Give up and let go.' Over this past year, I have tried as hard as possible to maintain control in my life so that nothing blows up and becomes a disaster. On the other hand, because I have tried to maintain control, God has not had the opportunity to prove that things can turn out better than I would expect...because that can only happen when He is in control.

It's a little sad to me that I would have to come back to DC in order to learn this lesson. But, it's also such a beautiful reminder to me that God will go to extreme lengths to teach me a lesson...even for the second time. He is so committed to me, that He made sure I came back to DC for the entire summer so that He could teach me lessons that I, quite frankly, don't even deserve to learn from Him. I'm pretty confident that this is not the only lesson that He will teach me this summer. However, even if it were the only lesson He was going to teach me, it would be enough. It amazes me that He is so committed to me that He would bring me down here just to show me He loves me.

Just because I have had to give God complete control of this group does not mean that I have completely broken my habits. I'm still very aware that I am a broken human being and my habits take a lot of time to break. On the bright side, God has kick-started this for me. He has made sure that I was placed in such a situation this week that my only choice would be to give up and give the control to Him. At the very least, I'll walk away with a weeks worth of practice and a blaring reminder that my God loves me and will provide for me.

As for now, I am only halfway through the week with this group (they leave Friday morning). So, I will say that despite already having gone through some difficulties with them, I am so grateful that my God shows His commitment to me in the most peculiar ways, because He is a good God. And right now, I can say without a doubt, because of His goodness to me, He is worthy to be praised :)