Reckless Abandon!

Kids get joy!  I just returned from a week long elementary summer camp with 94 kids and they get it.  Kids live in the moment.  When given music and the opportunity to raise their hands and praise God, they do!  With reckless abandon!  It is an unbelievable sight to see 94 kids and their counselors dancing around with joy singing songs to the Lord.  It brought tears to my eyes more than once throughout the week.

Kids have the ability to completely and utterly abandon all their concerns and worries and get caught up in the moment and I envy them for that.  Given the opportunity for joy, kids don't worry about where their next meal is coming from, what clothes they are wearing at the time, what friends are watching them, or what others might think.  In the safe environment of summer camp they let go and let God move.  The example those kids were providing is biblical.  In Matthew 6:25 it says, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.  Is not life more important than food and the body more important than clothes?"  But life is not summer camp.  It is not as safe as we would like it to be.  The presence of our God, however, is safe.  And it is a joyful place.  The more we leave our cares and worries behind and move through life in the presence of our God, the more joy we will exude to those around us.  You have to come home from summer camp, but the experience and the living in the Lord can go with you, we just have to make a conscious decision to walk in joy.  We must make decisions to take the opportunities the Lord provides for us and enter them with joy.

Emma lives in the moment.  Just today I asked her to clean out a couple boxes of school stuff so we could prepare for the coming school year.  While I was taking a little rest, she received a call from a friend to come over for a little while.  She took advantage of that and left what she was doing and took the chance at joy that was presented to her (after Daddy had given permission of course).  Now the mess that was left behind was huge and is still sitting on my floor at this minute.  There are books and cards and binders strew throughout our entire family room and she is off living life joyfully!  While the mess makes my skin crawl,  I have to give it to her for taking the opportunity when presented.  I am not sure I always to that.  If I did I am sure I would live more joyfully than I do.

I remember having 'mountain top' experiences at camps when I was growing up.  I remember truly enjoying them and then being so sad to re-enter the world when the camp was over.  But God wants us to live in the mountain top experience each day.  He wants us to cast our cares on him and to walk in joy,  joy of the knowledge that he has it under control and his plan will be established and completed.  How can we help our kids to walk in a mountain experience?  To walk through life with reckless abandon?  We can begin by giving them the opportunity to worship God wholeheartedly, lifting hands to him and singing from the depths of our soul.  He will provide his protection, his mountain experience, we just need to cast our worries on him and walk through life with reckless abandon.  Matthew 6:34 says "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Life gets overwhelming, but the more joyful moments we have the more joy we have to fall back on when we get overwhelmed.  All 94 kids at that camp were not Christians, but all 94 kids praised the Lord.  That experience will stay with them and potentially at a dark moment in their life their little brains will recall a time when they sang to the Lord from the pit of their stomach.  Maybe that will provide some comfort and direction in the face of a hard time.  Reckless Abandon is a song we sing at camp.  The kids love it, and they run around singing, raising their hands in the air.  It is an amazing sight that I want to share with you.

Reckless Abandon
I want to run through this life with reckless abandon.
You have promised there's more to this life.
I want to carelessly love you and dangerously worship you.
With reckless abandon I'll dance for you here.

I pray that my kids will approach life with the joy to be found in recklessly abandoning their life to the Lord.

By His Grace