Camp Log: March, 2005     Tunnel Vision

I attended a finance committee meeting last night at Nashua Church.  I must confess that these are rarely pleasant, as our need for cash at Windsor Hills is almost always critical.  My expectations weren’t very high for the meeting.

My buddy, Pastor Eddy Frost, was at the meeting.  He had just returned from a difficult London trip, then had to make a lightning business trip to Florida, and just now stepped out of his interview with the credentials board -- five minutes before this meeting.  Eddy was tired, to say the least.

In recent days, I have preached a message that talked about humility and pride.  Using myself as an example, I mentioned that I thought I knew a good deal about camping ministries.  That shouldn’t be surprising, since I have been directing this camp for the past three years, and have been involved in camping ministries for a lot longer than that.  I must confess that I wasn’t expecting any new ideas to immerge from the finance committee.  And there is where I would be wrong.

At the end of the meeting, when we started to discuss what might be done to promote the camp better to our churches, Eddy started to talk.  In about three minutes, he quietly spouted off enough fresh ideas and new concepts (at least new to me!) to keep me busy for months.  And the stuff was really good – stuff that will make a difference.  I was shocked!  I came home from that meeting energized and challenged.  We had asked God to direct us, and it seemed to me that He had. 

After the meeting, I began to wonder about these ideas.  Some of them should have been obvious to me, but they weren’t.  Others I would never have thought of in a million years.  As I processed the stuff, I realized how important it was for all of us to come to the meeting.  It was in the “togetherness” of this meeting that new ideas came to the forefront.  It was in discussion that creativity emerged.

I get too focused on the problems.  I get locked into what I think ought to be done.  I experience tunnel vision, because the current crisis absorbs all of my attention. But others! They are free to see more of the big picture.  They can offer solutions that are beyond my current ability to see. And they can bring the grace of God to me, when I might be missing what God is saying to us.

I am grateful to my brother for liberating me from tunnel vision this time around.  I am wondering whose turn it will be next time.  I’m certain I will need liberating again.